Jazzholes
I will not bow down to Jazz.
Jazz is four virtuosic musicians, all technically proficient in their respective instruments, each playing a different song, and laughing about it to himself.
Jazz apologists cite the freedom of expression the genre upholds.
I say: What about the blues? Blues soloists may not improvise as much as jazz musicians do, but they certainly transliterate what’s in their heart – and their emoting is usually placed in a framework that makes the result, what’s the word, comprehensible.
Jazz musicians do it for themselves. Blues musicians do it for themselves, and for others.
Jazz to me is tuneless, formless, unmelodic noise that is only classified as something other than “din” by those who play it and the elitist listeners who are more interested in their own intellectual superiority than in the emotion involved in the music. Blues operates on the cerebral and physiological levels – one can appreciate it, as well as feel it – and yet is frowned upon as being an inferior form, seemingly simply because there is an underlying structure.
Robert Frost of course said that writing free-verse poetry is like playing tennis without a net. So it goes with Jazz.
Jazz has never consoled me when I’m sad, or empathized with me when I’m excited, or hell, even turned me on in the slightest. Jazz just makes me want to turn off, tune out, and destroy whatever’s creating all that petty noodling.
4 Comments »
August 13th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
I’m no jazz expert, but I do like Miles Davis and Chet Baker. A lot of their music does have actual melodies and steady rhythms, even if there are no vocals, or no traditional 12-bar blues structures. The kind of jazz you seem to hate sounds like the “Free Jazz” popularized by Ornette Coleman- formless noise for the sake of formless noise. I don’t like it much myself, either.
But when I listen to Miles or Chet I can hear plenty of different moods and emotions, some of which can be comforting or exciting. I’d never dream of trying to convert an outright jazz hater, but I do think you’re describing a very small subgenre of it here.
August 13th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Good points all. The devil’s always in the details, many of which I didn’t know or research because I was too busy channeling the angry young man I once was.
I suppose what I’m truly angry about is that the small subgenre we’ve delineated here seems in my mind to have supplanted what “JAZZ,” the singular word, is or at least used to be. That word summons to mind the very niche music I so despise, and its adherents – while other, more relatable music accumulates dust in the attics of our minds. The mention of going to a jazz club now evokes less “Harlem Nocturne” than the deposed “Smooth Jazz CD 101.9.” This subgenre of jazz to me has perverted what Jazz is supposed to be about – and for that matter, what music and also art in general is supposed to be about, but that’s a big black kettle of fish to fry in a pan. Pot.
So, what is that rub? It goes back to relatability. Communication, from one individual to each individual in an audience. Clarity of expression. In a way, meaning. I don’t hate all of jazz, truly – I played in jazz bands all through school – but these were also known as “Stage bands,” that mostly played music from the 30s and 40s, the jazz I like to think still counts as Jazz, swing songs, be they slow and somber or joyous, big brassy or saxophony tunes that all had distinct melody, rhythm, and an internal logic that made them pleasurable, such that one could be stimulated by them.
So – I don’t disagree with what you’re saying here. Thanks for the specifics. Mea culpa.
August 13th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
I feel you…we can discuss further at the pub in a couple hours…
August 17th, 2008 at 1:22 am
Your blog is interesting!
Keep up the good work!