A Thought On Jazz.

[bullet08]

I'm new to Jazz. I do have a limited, but in depth experience with some musics. Scottish small music being one of them since I competed in it for over 20 years. And their big music from listening and appreciating them.

The classic rock has been my most listened genre for most of my life, all 57 years of it. Jazz has been something I think of as an elevator music, along with whole catalog of Billy Joel's career. Don't get me wrong. Billy Joel's my favorite musician. His skill, when comes to piano is second to none. He does create classical composition.

But jazz never bit me before, until recently. Hard Bop was very easy for me to understand. Virtuosity of the individual instrumentalists was very easy to understand. Their execution and expression was very obvious.

As I'm enjoying my Jack and Coke, I'm very grateful that some of these old recordings are still available for me and others to enjoy, mostly in Japan.

 

[OzPiper]

I love certain genres of jazz.
Others not so much so.
I prefer musicality over virtuosity.

Much of what we get on the radio here is elevator music.
A series of farts strung together is not music.
My individual opinion, of course

 

[BingBong]

I enjoy quite a lot of jazz and fusion. It's always fun to pick out a musical tip of the hat to an older composition.

As for whisky, Straight No Chaser for me.

 

[JOHN72]

My wife is terrified when I start dancing to jazz music.

 

[bassbug]

Much of what we get on the radio here is elevator music.

We are lucky here in Toronto to have one of the very few full time jazz radio stations on the continent. It's listener supported and an actual registered charity so the bonus is there is a maximum of 4 minutes of commercials per hour. Give it a listen.

JAZZ.FM91 - Discover Music

Discover Music with JAZZ.FM91 Playlist Listen Streaming Discover even more music with our 24/7 specialty playlists More Nicole Sinclair-Anderson performs in a Live to Air concert on August 29…

jazz.fm

 

[HawkeyeLinus]

Slowly but surely I've been exploring jazz the last few years and definitely some I like and some I can't stand, like other genres. Never had a jazz radio station to listen to in my younger days, so it was a gamble buying an album. Now, it's so much easier to search out and even sample music. Although the good jazz channel on XM isn't perfect, I'll occasionally hear something that I really like and will snap a pic of the screen with my phone so I remember to check it out. I tend to find musicians I enjoy and explore their stuff or groups they were/are in. In general, I'll take instrumental (not "invention" or "experimental") over almost all vocals - the jazz vocals I enjoy are more pop/blues songs, IMO, even when called jazz, no scattin' around, sorry Mel.

 

[GardenStateoftheArtBriar]

Jazz is so broad
I say this seeing that Q Jones passed - he was a jazzman though the tail end of it
I feel like jazz was more of an era than a style - sure theres 'jazz' but its not the same as that dixie stuff or charlie parker or monk - you know that cocaine and smack fueled anxiety ridden be-bop

 

[The Libertine]

I thoroughly love jazz. My favorite is John Coltrane.

 

[HeavyLeadBelly]

I’ve been easing into Jazz a lot over the past few years. I became interested in it decades ago though when I used to listen to electronic music and went to raves. A genre called Acid Jazz was up my alley but I never explored actual jazz until a few years ago. Some of it is def not my cup of tea like big band stuff as well as “free jazz.” What I like are stuff by:

Coltrane, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Chet Baker, Diana Krall and others. I also like hip hop jazz as well like stuff from Madlib and Phonics.

Jazz has so many facets that you just have to keep exploring. It’s why YouTube, Bandcamp, and other sites are great. You can sample stuff from an Artist you’re curious about without spending any money in case they just aren’t your thing.

 

[GardenStateoftheArtBriar]

I thoroughly love jazz. My favorite is John Coltrane.

I like him too

 

[agnosticpipe]

Yeah there's so much to choose from it may seem daunting. Other than the above mentioned jazz musicians, if you are more of a rock person one group you might want to check out is Brand-X, which Phil Collins helped form in the mid 1970s. It's a jazz/rock/funk fusion sound that quite interesting. See what you think.

 

[Sigmund]

A great intro to classic jazz and John Coltrane is Coltrane's Ballads. Not a wall of sound but it bends and shapes some great tunes.
Sonny Rollins is not hard to absorb
Dexter
....so many....

 

[orlandofurioso]

Miles, Coltrane, Monk, Bill Evans etc. etc.
Is Chet Baker by rights jazz ?

 

[bassbug]

Is Chet Baker by rights jazz ?

Not only Jazz, but an absolute jazz legend.

 

[anotherbob]

I'm new to Jazz. I do have a limited, but in depth experience with some musics. Scottish small music being one of them since I competed in it for over 20 years. And their big music from listening and appreciating them.

The classic rock has been my most listened genre for most of my life, all 57 years of it. Jazz has been something I think of as an elevator music, along with whole catalog of Billy Joel's career. Don't get me wrong. Billy Joel's my favorite musician. His skill, when comes to piano is second to none. He does create classical composition.

But jazz never bit me before, until recently. Hard Bop was very easy for me to understand. Virtuosity of the individual instrumentalists was very easy to understand. Their execution and expression was very obvious.

As I'm enjoying my Jack and Coke, I'm very grateful that some of these old recordings are still available for me and others to enjoy, mostly in Japan.

jazz is amazing. Though it can take the right thing to see it. That right song or album to cut through and make a person just stop and really listen and feel. So much of the time people will say they don't have the technical know how to really listen to Jazz. Which is like you don't need that unless you're playing it.
All that said the best concert I ever saw was Sonny Rollins at Eisenhower Auditorium at Penn State. Honestly it really felt more like four guys getting together to play music who then shrugged and said sure people can pay to watch. Only show I saw with zero banter. They'd play a song people would cheer Sonny would make this calm down hand signal people would slowly stop cheering and he'd say we played x song now we are playing this one... They'd play the song jump right into the next song and rinse and repeat. The thing was people had to fight themselves to not scream and cheer. And that's with four guys on stage with instruments. Side note brought one of my punk friends to the show and it broke the jazz seal for them.

 

[anotherbob]

Miles, Coltrane, Monk, Bill Evans etc. etc.
Is Chet Baker by rights jazz ?

Evans is my favorite. His music is like a gorgeous woman who happens to also be the most interesting person in the room.

 

[anotherbob]

I’ve been easing into Jazz a lot over the past few years. I became interested in it decades ago though when I used to listen to electronic music and went to raves. A genre called Acid Jazz was up my alley but I never explored actual jazz until a few years ago. Some of it is def not my cup of tea like big band stuff as well as “free jazz.” What I like are stuff by:

Coltrane, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Chet Baker, Diana Krall and others. I also like hip hop jazz as well like stuff from Madlib and Phonics.

Jazz has so many facets that you just have to keep exploring. It’s why YouTube, Bandcamp, and other sites are great. You can sample stuff from an Artist you’re curious about without spending any money in case they just aren’t your thing.

Shout out to Madlib!!! A.K.A. Lord Quas

 

[sardonicus87]

I wouldn't personally say I am a fan of jazz music, though that's not to say I dislike it. I really like some jazz. It's like rock... I don't care for rock for the most part, but I absolutely love Billy Joel, David Bowie, The Doors, King Crimson and a handful of others. I would say I hate nu-metal, with the exception being that I like System of a Down and older Linkin Park, but beyond those two, I absolutely despise that genre.

Jazz though is different, and my relation to jazz is like with "classical" music... I'm picky. There's stuff I like about the genres and about specific subgenres within, and I don't hate most of the stuff in either, just am indifferent to some of it and like some of it, and dislike certain styles within.

Bebop is probably my favorite form of jazz... your Charlie Parkers and Dizzy Gillespies. I also kind of like swing jazz, but I couldn't even tell you any names there other than Duke Ellington.

I can say I don't like the smooth jazz, Kenny G. type "The Weather Channel"/"elevator" types of jazz.

But probably my most favorite jazz musician ever has to be Tom Waits, though he wasn't exclusively jazz (experimental, blues, folk...), though much jazzier on his earlier records like "Small Change" and "Nighthawks at the Diner".

 

[BingBong]

Jazz-funk and swing are big for me, along with the more esoteric stuff. Something that swings..

 

[occidentalist]

I have a love/hate affair with jazz. I was a percussionist through my 20s (guitar proved difficult to learn but I hit some drums with sticks and it sounded like something so I became a percussionist). Jazz band weeded out the kids who were serious about music from the kids whose parents insisted they played an instrument but never wanted to go past big band standards to play in the biannual concerts in front of their parents.

But it frustrated the hell out of me. It's when I realized I was an average drummer and it would only ever be a hobby for me.

So with jazz, sometimes I love it and am intoxicated with it. Other times I can't stand it and it sounds like an epileptic was let loose in a music store.

I remember a Sunday earlier this year, on a warmer mid-spring weekend day after all errands were run. Wifey was watching a movie and the kids were pursuing their own arcane interests, when I decided to have a pipe on the deck. I have a Sonos system connected to my digital music library with an outdoor sound system (DT speakers under the eaves and a subwoofer under the deck) and decided to play Kind of Blue. The mood was right, the weather was perfect, and I listened to the album in its entirety without getting up. It was bliss.

Tried to recreate that magic later in the summer and the second I heard Davis and that harmon mute, it was like nails on a chalkboard. It sounded like dying cats. I lasted less than a minute. Put on Creedence and some southern rock and had just as good a day as I did earlier that spring.

Guess what type of music I'm listening to is based on mood. Just like I can't force myself to smile upon stepping into a pile of dogshit on my property when I don't own any dogs, I can't listen to jazz all the time because sometimes it just doesn't feel right.