All that jazz

[AFK]

I like jazz because it is music that is open to exploring many different paths, often in the same song.

[Dildo Argentino]

Submission of evidence: period testimony about the Gillespie-Parker gang.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxELzu-OtEQ

[LMNO]

In the late 40s, a bunch of players more or less gave the finger to the bebop guys, and went back to the roots.  There was a "Dixieland Revival" that lasted through the 50s and 60s, selling more records than the other developing styles, though it wasn't critically recognized.  Why not?  Well, I'll tell you...

This started happening.  The young hep cats who came up in bebop wanted to go further.  And what happens when you want to further than Thelonius Monk?  You get this.  The bop players were getting pretty far out, almost giving up on conventional songwriting, melody, harmony, and everything else.  So how far could you push it?

Until the breaking point, apparently.  This guy put two quartets in a room, and pretty much told them to go for it.  Half the band is in the left channel, half is in the right, and no one is on the same page.  At all.  There's no theme, no melody, no chord progression.  It's eight guys playing eight different things in the same room at the same time.  But wait!  There is a tempo, a beat, the walking bass and some of the drums are trying to lend coherence.  Oops, there it goes.  Now even the beat has gone missing.  How to justify this?  Well, one way is to claim that you're from Saturn.  Others went in a more spiritual route, calling free jazz a holy experience, while some got all Black Power on people's asses.  More to the point, these guys were feeling something beyond music.  They were trying to play pure emotion, not wanting to be restrained by anything.  They were attempting to reach a transcendental moment, when it becomes more than music, more than itself.

I should say at this point that when I was a kid, I fucking loved this stuff.  The more out, the more freaky, the more jarringly incoherent, the better.  I'd put on some weird shit, lay back, and let all that harshness wash over me.  In fact, just researching this post took me back, and I kind of fell in love with it all over again.  But if any point in jazz was in a "your mileage may vary" moment, this was it.

[hooplala]

This is officially my favorite thread.

[LMNO]

Aw.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

It's helped me make sense of it. FINALLY.

I've had a lifetime of jazz being a big smear of stuff I liked, stuff that gave me a headache, and too-quiet stuff that made me feel like I was in a waiting room. Maybe I can start liking the second two a little, now that I know the reasons for it. Thanks. 

[Kai]

In the late 40s, a bunch of players more or less gave the finger to the bebop guys, and went back to the roots.  There was a "Dixieland Revival" that lasted through the 50s and 60s, selling more records than the other developing styles, though it wasn't critically recognized.  Why not?  Well, I'll tell you...

This started happening.  The young hep cats who came up in bebop wanted to go further.  And what happens when you want to further than Thelonius Monk?  You get this.  The bop players were getting pretty far out, almost giving up on conventional songwriting, melody, harmony, and everything else.  So how far could you push it?

Until the breaking point, apparently.  This guy put two quartets in a room, and pretty much told them to go for it.  Half the band is in the left channel, half is in the right, and no one is on the same page.  At all.  There's no theme, no melody, no chord progression.  It's eight guys playing eight different things in the same room at the same time.  But wait!  There is a tempo, a beat, the walking bass and some of the drums are trying to lend coherence.  Oops, there it goes.  Now even the beat has gone missing.  How to justify this?  Well, one way is to claim that you're from Saturn.  Others went in a more spiritual route, calling free jazz a holy experience, while some got all Black Power on people's asses.  More to the point, these guys were feeling something beyond music.  They were trying to play pure emotion, not wanting to be restrained by anything.  They were attempting to reach a transcendental moment, when it becomes more than music, more than itself.

I should say at this point that when I was a kid, I fucking loved this stuff.  The more out, the more freaky, the more jarringly incoherent, the better.  I'd put on some weird shit, lay back, and let all that harshness wash over me.  In fact, just researching this post took me back, and I kind of fell in love with it all over again.  But if any point in jazz was in a "your mileage may vary" moment, this was it.

Wow, that last one was utterly lost on me, LMNO. Where does modal jazz come in to all of this?

[LMNO]

Oh, that's another story. At this point, jazz really splinters. Modal is joined at the hip with Cool, so I'll probably go there next.