Is Modern Jazz an Oxymoron?
modern jazz is alive and well one needs an open mind to hear what the younger artists are expressing - often it is worth the patience and journey i have sat on the board of one of the most successful big city presenters of jazz (still support it through charitable contributions) now with its own lovely performance hall... we have cultivated local young artists through the educational programs and try to bring new talent to the attention of the loyal fans base... |
I saw Miles at a concert when I was going to a company school in Chicago for the entire Summer of 68 (that was incredible, Chicago was the place to be) and I hooked up with three other guys who were going to the same school. They were from Bed Stuy New York, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh; what a foursome we made: Bed Stuy in his "Dashiki" and sandals, Pittsburgh in a 3 piece suit, me and Cleveland just wore shirt and slacks. This was a diverse group, but I never had so much fun in my life. The school was in Des Plaines, which is a suburb of Chicago, so we had to rent a car, and when we toured Chicago, everyone was expected to take his turn at the wheel. That's when we discovered Bed Stuy couldn't drive. We could not believe a grown man couldn't drive; put that in Ripley's "Believe it or not". Bed Stuy couldn't drive but he had other talents, he was a connoisseur of bongs and hash pipes, the first place he wanted to go was the "head shop". I liked the fragrances of all the different incense, so many of them were burning at one time. (those were the best of times for Chicago, we had fun all over Chicago, except for the West Side, the South side was cool at that time, and of course the rich North Side was just that, for the rich) Someone discovered there was a concert with Miles, Nina Simone, and Herby Mann all on the same ticket; you know we couldn't miss that. I forgot who bought the tickets, but we had seats that were up higher than some planes I had flown on; I knew the prices on those tickets were too reasonable. Miles was first out; I was wondering when did Miles start playing with guys wearing buckskin vests with long fringes. (like I said, we were really high up and I couldn't tell that it was Miles himself wearing the buckskin vest with long fringes) Fortunately for us, one of those monster Chicago Storms came up and a lot of people who had good seats on the ground floor didn't show. We looked at the empty seats for a little while and came down out of the sky. You could see what the artists looked like without binoculars. Miles came on strong with his new music, and I looked at Bed Stuy (guys from New York always know everything about jazz) "That's Miles new music", he responded. I still think it's got a few kinks in it, I think he should take it back to the drawing board and work the kinks out. Bed Stuy was too into the music to hear me. Herby Mann looked good and sounded good; he had on a tan suit, and highly polished light brown boots; the same as on one of his album covers. Out of the three, Nina Simone stole the show, she was a fantastic performer. The Summer of 68 was the best of times, as well as the worst of times for Chicago. |
It is hard to put jazz into neat categories. The jazz I like has melody or rhythm or something that I can recognize, maybe described as a song. The musicians can depart from the melody or rhythm and become discordant or whatever, but remain connected to the song or composition or whatever they are playing. Jazz musicians today increasingly seem to want to be less connected to a song. They don’t seem to want any structure. They want to be able to just blow and skronk and maybe connect with one another a couple of times in a piece of music. There is no rhythm section that keeps the group anchored. Drums are now a lead instrument and the drummer is back there bashing away with no connection to what anyone else is doing. That’s the way it sounds to me anyway. I’m not a musician. That said, I do find quite a bit of jazz that does have structure, sounds nice and has musicians playing together. It’s not as common as during the classic Blue Note years, but there’s still a lot of jazz musicians doing this. That leads me to a question I’ve long wondered about. Can anyone explain to me why jazz musicians like to blow and skronk and bash so much? Is that hard to do? It seems to me that improvising in some kind of structure would require greater artistry than everyone just making noises on their instruments. Does it? |
It's like any other age and genre. There's some great music out there and a lot of crap. Check out this clip of Jeff "Tain" Watts' group playing very modern composition in 2011. It's a very difficult piece of music with changing tempos in every section, but these guys make it sound very listenable, even to someone who thinks the 50's-60's were jazz's high point. You need to look. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPpciCh4i0Q |
Long-time Jazz listener. I love the old Blue Note (and similar-era) albums but my need to discover and listen to those has peaked. Same with 70’s fusion. Always searching and manage to find something, even post-80’s. But I’ll bet if I stratified my Jazz collection by decade the bulk of it would be from the 50’s to the 70’s. It’s easier to identify the things that have stood the test of time, as hindsight is 20/20. Some of the guys mentioned above - Scofield, Corea and Coltrane - have all done some things that are “out there” that would qualify as the dreaded “modern jazz.” The younger guys that play with Lloyd - and one day McBride & Redman (and Tom Harrell) - they will carry the torch and will be the ones to listen too. The point about sounding like classical players who switched to Jazz - applies to a lot of ECM stuff. Just some random thoughts I guess. |
Billy Child’s latest. He co leads Ravinia’s RMSI Master Class so he knows his way around ALL jazz. Grammy winner, Monterrey Jazz, Lincoln Center etc. Besides, Scofield and MSW keep moving forward. Often together. Among many others. If you only like vinyl you are stuck listening to a finite conglomeration of "old" stuff. Over and over. |
3_E_P, All those artist you list I also like. I was trying to make a point and may have been to strict limiting myself to the 70's because there are a number of latter artist I like but they do all play that early style of improvisational jazz. Ray Brown Trio; Gene Harris Trio; and the ones you listed. Some more modern jazz singers are timeless if they are good so I don't limit them to a period like Carmen McRae, Karrin Allyson and Kurt Elling. But todays (post 80's) jazz instrumentalists sound to me to be all about precision and accuracy with a few exceptions, not about improvisation and emotion. Today's jazz musicians sound like classical music players who switched to jazz. |
I think I'm pretty much in the same boat as you. The newer jazz I like tends to be done by the older guys in jazz like Chick Corea and Charles Lloyd. I do like much of the material that Joshua Redman and Christian McBride put out. Occasionally I will stumble on something new to me like Daniel Carter but he's actually an old guy too. I like the new material that Bill Frissel and John Scofield put out but they are now old too. But like you, the vast majority of the time i'm listening to 50s-70s jazz as well. There is plenty for to still explore in that era that stirs my soul. |
