personal taste vs. objective judgement: what makes jazz good?

[Eudaimonia]

Hello all!

I was wondering if any of you have any thoughts about what qualities "good jazz" has in common that mediocre and poor jazz lacks. To your mind, what is it that puts certain artists in a class of their own?

I'm asking because the other day, I was thinking how much I like this piece by Shorty Rogers and realised I don't have the foggiest idea whether or not it's "good jazz". Yes, no, or maybe, can you explain it to me? Also, who else would a jazz novice who likes Shorty Rogers be interested in hearing? Thanks!

Shorty Rogers And His Giants 1953 - Morpo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyOEJmzmQKE&feature=player_detailpage

[Simon]

Yes, it's good jazz, Eudy! I can't explain why, so just accept that it is cos I say so and my taste is impeccable.

Even better jazz is the following, which would be on my desert island with me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCdWvCblaW8

You can't go wrong with George Lewis and his pals of the great jazz era. Before our time (well, certainly before mine!) but just wonderful music played with sheer delight and never without smiles...

Best wishes,

Simon

[Ian Thumwood]

Euda

There was similar thread to this on the old Jazz messageboard and I don't think that there is an easy solution. The question you pose could equally apply to Classical music or any other art form.

Jazz is now so diverse it is no longer possible to make these kind of judgements with any degree of certainty as you probably would have been able to up until the 1960's. I think that sometimes "great jazz" takes a while for it's merits to be apparent whereas things that might have seemed to have been jazz , with the passge of time, no longer seem relevent. I think the heated debate about Bing Crosby last year ably demonstrated this - he may have appeared to have been in the middle of the jazz ouevre in the 20's but to many people nowadays even the music he made in his heyday owed little to jazz as we ow know it, However, this is a subjective assessment and no doubt others may feel different.

Unlike Classical music, I think that the ability for a performer to tell a story as opposed to be just technically brilliant is at the crux of the debate. The greatest jazz improvisors have a readily recognised sound or "improvisational language." The example of George lewis is interesting. Personally, I love the early New Orleans jazz pioneers but Lweis always sounds little more than an uneducated clarinetist to my ears. I would much sooner listen to someone like Bechet or even Jimmy Noone. I think that right from the off there were musicians who were technically brilliant and better equipped to exploit all the possibilities of music whilst co-existing with less capable musicians like Lewis. It is fascinatinf to listen to some of Freddie Keppard's records as that music (as fascinating as it is) could be crude. Historically, Keppard is hugely important but in comparison with Armstrong, he was a very basic player. How do you make a judgement as to whether he was playing "good jazz?" (Which I think he was.) SOmeone like Jelly Roll Morton was performing and writing far more sophisticated music at the same time too.

It is a fascinating idea but there is no real solution to your question. You can pretty readily identify poor quality jazz by the use of repeated licks, lack of rhythmic variety, bland use of harmonic substitutions or where the phrasing is pedestrian. (For example, playing 4-bar phrases that match up to the structure of the melody being played so a thirty-two bar theme will consist of 8 phrases. ) This can be extremely monitonous to listen too - a common fault amongst many amateur players like myself and a real challenge to overcome. The capital offence in "bad jazz" could be the inability to swing but this is no longer as crucial as it may have been 50 years ago.

Hope this helps.

ian

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

well Eudaimonia two questions:

If you like that what to try?

Gerry Mulligan Concert Jazz Band [and any of his works with smaller ensembles]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ApjI7sHqac

also the album Shorty Courts The Count - Shorty Rogers tribute to Count Basie is a personal favourite

Art Pepper, playing in that Rogers track as Art Salt, who had a troubled career because of addiction made this classic:



but also made an album called Wintermoon which i find indescribably wonderful, a taste:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgP38dJfquI

Jimmy Giuffre also on that Rogers track [the two were friends and studied harmony, counterpoint and arranging together] is a jazz great, famous for this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5B9f5GEZYA

but also for this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4umL0oa17g

and if you discover another piece that you like please ask the question again, sure the boredees will be only too glad to respond

What makes great Jazz?

Well every cat can cut a bad side eh? Lacking fluency, being utterly derivative, musically uninteresting - artists tend to be judged over their careers and balance of creativity, expression, mastery etc ... i am sure others will have views on this and will disagree just as much as listeners to classical music do about composers and their works! whatever else you have to like it first!

[Serial_Apologist]

As calum says, it's a very subjective matter, Euda. I think you and I would be able to agree on what consititutes interesting, if not good, jazz, because we both appear to appreciate "the sound of surprise", which the American writer Whitney Balliett dwcribed as the definition of jazz, though it can also apply to other musics, including wholly written ones, heard for the first time. But for me the "best" jazz is defined by a lot of mutual listening and support between the different members of the band playing it, and it can be out of the intermeshing of the different personalities that originality can arise as much as the idiosyncratic single "voice".

Jazz too imv shouldn't be overdependent on the written note: in jazz, improvisation is the equivalent of interpretation in classical music and has in general terms been the main agency for change and advance in the music by the improviser discovering ideal partners for his/her endeavour; some of the "worst" jazz for me has been that in which a sense of mere "going through the motions" renders the "head" or arrangement more interesting than what is done with it.

S-A

[sigolene euphemia]

O! lordy lordy lovie Euda.....

You would present such a question !

I love it and will follow the thread as it twines...

I am wordless for the "what is consciousness" conversation. That is - my inability to formulate my thoughts in an erstwhile endeavor that one can understand.

Sure love these FoR3 boards, Thanks french frank, THANK YOU

sigolene

[Ian Thumwood]

S-A

Take your point and agree to some extent but I think you can still create great jazz with a minimal amount of improvisation if the quality of the writing is strong enough. Examples of this abound in history from Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, Charlie Mingus and Mike Gibbs. As I would often argue on the old board, good writing does make the music more interesting. Whilst the old notion of musicians blowing on changes in a jam session may have produced so great jazz in the past, I feel it seldom does these days and , by the lack of CD's being issued in the manner of the old JATP sessions, I would suggest that most punters don't want to listen to it these days either if performed by contemporary musicians. The rot probably set in during the 1980's by which time this idea (although romantic) had run it's course.

I do agree about mutual listening. Another bore is to have a soloist blowing over a rhythm section without any degree of interaction. This just is no longer acceptable in the 21st century and the best bands of today play with a degree of reaction to each other's playing that , I would argue, is proportionally greater than during the 40's, 50's and 60's. The music had nowadays become so much more sophisticated that the opportunities for a more even dialogue between all the players in a combo is possible. A really great example of this is the double CD "Live at the jazz standard" by Dave Douglas' quintet. There is so much variety in the music and the musicians engage in duos, unaccompanied solos, reading writted parts, etc, etc so that the listener isn't tired or bored after 2 and a half hours of music. For me, this is like a model recording of what "great jazz" should be.

Cheers

Ian

[PatrickOD]

S_A

You have put it in a nutshell. The 'best' Jazz comes from players listening to each other. I believe that string quartets need this quality too. The improvisation of course is what distinguishes the great band from the great quartet, and the support that you refer to is essential to the overall shape and sound. Fats Waller was reputed to spoil the efforts of many of his instrumentalists by his repeated interruptions during solos. On the other hand, Jelly Roll Morton knew when to hold back and let the improvised solo emerge from the arrangement. Without inspired solos I think the best you can have is 'interesting' Jazz.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

er yes and well ....

here is great jazz, all playing the song and swinging but i think you might have difficulty asserting that Hawkins is 'listening' just taking a great section for granted, and taking no prisoners, after that other ego takes a stunning bass solo ..... [Eddie Heywood on piano is listening]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BEx6DK3MUs

compare this to an ensemble that has spent years playing together, as someone once said of the MJQ, they could not speak for a week, come on the stand and start playing, and it would be the same piece in the same key and tempo for all four of them .... listening or practised? [eg Jarrett Peacock de Johnette on Inside Out or Up For It ...]

[PatrickOD]

I'm not sure what 'er yes and well' means,CDJ.

But, to turn your implication around, I think it would be nearly impossible to claim that Hawkins was NOT listening as that piece was set up - and it was set up for his amazing solo. We were all listening and we all knew that Hawkins had this song in his blood - but what was he going to do with it THIS time? That was the surprise element. Of course he took no prisoners, and though I just can't put my finger on it without a few dozen more listens, I know that he was cueing the other three, and they him, for chorus after chorus, and they all could have gone on even further if time had allowed.
As for the MJQ, years of playing together means years of listening to every nuance of each player. They might be practised to a very high standard, and the MJQ certainly was, but all their technique could fail, or at least falter, if they missed a variation. I think it is a compliment to their art to wonder if practise alone made them great.

[Serial_Apologist]

Great for its time, calum - no way I'd want to devalue that, in its time. When I first approached jazz in the early 60s it was the soloist who drew my attention; the backing was taken for granted; and I think that was what a lot of jazz was about, pre-Ornette. The rhythm section was there to boost the soloist. There are of course moments pre-Ornette where the soloist responds to what is going on around, mostly to one person. And even Ornette tends to lead in the trio/quartet context, the "equalisation" consisting in the freedom of the bass (Haden par excellence) to pick up on where OC is taking the melody and key. Coltrane/high energy seems on the surface to be about soloist going (usually) his own way with support, but moving beyond the formal constraints this kind of music is dependent on a kind of collective spirit being created and sustained that's effectively mutual or at best polyvalent like a boiling kind of magic brew in which who started it becomes irrelevant, so ter speak. I think the formal constraints have to be abandoned for that to happen.

S-A

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i'm with you on the listening in the moment and the responsiveness; there certainly is a great responsiveness in the Man I Love record but that is on the one hand rather ordinary, ie not distinguishing, typical of good artists in flow; the thought that Hawk has to follow that belting, and for its time path-finding, solo by Pettiford and may have been stimulated by rivalry occurs is all .... after all many a night was spent at the session mercilessly honing the artist's edge at the expense of the pedestrian or journeyman, that cymbal still rides eh [Bird] ... and this is not the insensitive over riding of a scene stealer like Fats but just like a display of wit or sudden startling profundity in the salon, the mark of the person, the mark of the artist ..... jazz is an individual's art too, is all i want to assert, although an impossibility without the conversation ... a conversation which i think Coltrane deserted/abandoned/relinquished - i am not at all sure what is going on when he and Elvin get off on each other and after in the later ramblings .... and as we have observed afore now S_A the spirituality sits ill with the ears and minds of listeners like us ...

one of the great joys of my life was to be at the Blue Note to hear the MJQ in person, having only seen them from the distance of the Festival Hall, or Hammersmith Odeon .... up close they are [were, but for me are] four very distinct individuals, i am not at all convinced by the word practised but can find no other for their complete ease with each other, to stand or recede, to mesh or to pull away .... although famous for their 'arrangements' this was a club gig on their own NY turf and they played for all they were worth .... at odd periods in life i have worked with a stable group of colleagues with some of that integration and individuality and the memories still light my face with a beam .... love might be a much better word, great jazz needs love and acceptance of the family kind, that does not mean there is no needle of envy or competition though ... if you listen to Evans and LaFaro on the VV live dates and the two studio albums [always underestimated imv] you can hear something between them that makes Evans's catastrophic reaction to LaFaro's tragic loss transparent ...

as an addition i would like to point out that the Shorty Rogers Jimmy Giuffre friendship was strong and central, both were intrigued by the possibilities of counterpoint and implied rhythmic pulse [JG always happy to dispense with the drummer!] and you can hear their conversation in the arrangements both made for ensembles ....

[Serial_Apologist]

Hi calum

I guess it comes down to what one expects or hopes for from the music. The story about Teo Macero's blazing row with Miles triggering "Bitches Brew" may have some bearing here, as too the interactive sparks between Clapton, Bruce and Baker when the latter two deliberately tried to unseat where the other was going: some of the best sex follows a good row, so who's not to say something analogous can happen in music, given the open situation... taking as read the limitations of idiom in the case of Cream. What it is in me that gets off on the free energy stuff might find its bearings in the Consciousness discussions underway here and on the R4 boards; I'd hazard an inspired guess that the conversation we're talking about as constitutive of great jazz carries on there at a "higher", best described as quantum level, and in that the spirituality consists according to those that have experienced it. It was the same thing that had me getting off on the Cecil Taylor at the Cafe Montmartre LP, really digging what was going on beyond note-for-note justifiability in my case, while thinking "this is ridiculous - this rubbish is really great", and ever so grateful to find it going for 2 Swiss Fr outside Jelmoli in Zurich back in '68. Chance was indeed a fine thing that day of many doors opening!

Hey - here I am speaking of the spiritual, and I'm supposed to be the materialist!

S-A

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

ah the material is truly wondrous if paid attention ....[see that prog on Vermeer last night on BBC4 followed by the Girl with the Pearl Earring movie ....?]

Hawkins was not so much a fighter, just projected himself, after all he created the solo artist role for jazz as well as moving on with the bop thing .... and rivalry matters in creativity, not fighting so much, just competition; but i like the thought i got to last night about familiarity and intimacy built over years [on the road etc] as a platform for great jazz ... on the other hand no one could accuse Mingus of personal pacifism eh ....