Why is Jazz put on the same level as Classical music?

Post Reply New Topic

I'm into clarinet, flute, piano, and violin for about 45 years ... my parents were musicians ... I taught the church organist a few things about music theory that even she didn't know at the time.

Being a musician in southern Cali is tough unless you have a day job, and mine is electrical engineering. The maths involved have many similarities to the maths behind music.

I play mostly for my own entertainment, and for that of my family and friends.

Jazz is one of the most pretentious forms of music. Most jazz musicians can't even fathom what theory is.
RIP Bach.

This is an uneducated statement.

*Some* jazz musicians in the past and present do not know theory and rely only on their ears. I think this would be considered more true in the genre of blues, which is not jazz. It is a forerunner of jazz, but remains a folk genre.

Do you know that Scott Joplin (ragtime, not jazz I know, but proves my point), Duke Ellington, and Charles Mingus all studied composition formally? Scott Joplin wrote an opera (Trepac.) Duke Ellington was considered one of the best composers of his time. Charles Mingus, also, was considered an amazing composer. Miles Davis also spent some time studying at Julliard, but dropped out. This is just a small sampling, there are more. One also does not need to attend music school to learn theory. It can be passed on from individual to individual.

Considering that a large number of music schools have a jazz department now, it is reasonable to expect that current jazz musicians who are coming out of these schools know their theory!

And, alas, many classically-trained musicians often do not know jazz theory and can't even build chords like BbMaj7, +11, 13, b9.

Because it is just as complex if not more...that is my guess.

But what pretense captures every jazz musician? Bach did some religious music. The idea of music capturing the concepts of a complex religion could be considered pretentious.

Each art work in any medium is just an example of a voice--of what can be expressed, and how that expression manifests in a specific variation. Think of them as characters in a play, each with their own personality. "The Well-Tempered Clavier" is one example of what can be expressed by humans, just as On the Corner by Miles Davis is another, or Bob Dylan's John Wesley Harding another. Each must be taken on their own terms, because it isn't a competition. A lot of jazz allows us to explore a formless sensory experience and way of thinking which is one part of life. Country music is much more concrete and story-based, which allows us to explore a different part of consciousness. You can even play country music as if its jazz, which the Grateful Dead did, but that only reinforces that these two sides of consciousness exists and are valid in their own ways.

I personally think Bach would love jazz. First off, jazz can be played with whomever you've got, whatever instrumentation you've got. Bach wrote for whomever/whatever he had at the churches where he worked. Second, jazz is so much about improvisation and personal expression. Bach loved improvisation (think Toccatas.)

Most jazz musicians that I know personally have had formal training in music, both practice and theory. You can't just pick up a horn, blow through it, and call it "Jazz". You have to know how to work it, what a key signature is, what a chord progression is, and what notes to play after the note you just played.

And so what if a musician doesn't know theory? So what if he or she can't sight-read? As long as one musician can harmonize with the others and stay on tempo, those are the minimum requirements.

If you're looking for pretense and arrogance, go check out the "Rap" performers - they don't have to know anything about playing an instrument, harmony, chord structure, or key signatures. All they need is a live microphone and a violent attitude, and suddenly they're celebrities.

Jazz players can get away with having less technique and theory than classical players can. But this doesn't make jazz a "lesser" form of music. Sometimes the rawness and lack of refinement adds to the emotion found in jazz, which is unique to jazz.

Classical music also is very emotive, but the techniques used in bringing that about are so vastly different.

Totally in agreement with everything you've said, Fnord...just adding to it.

And diminished57, what is up with your user name?

This is unfair. Rapping is about lyrical delivery. Complaining about a rapper's lack of interest in chord structure or key signatures is like saying Bob Dylan's music is worthless because he doesn't play like Yngwie Malmsteen.

It's eminently fair; at least Bob Dylan can carry a tune. Rap performers seem only capable of shouting into a microphone about "b*****s 'n Hos", bling, drugs, hookin' up in da club, rappin', sex, spendin' money, swag, violence, wh***y, and other shady or offensive topics.

I love how you blast someone for having an uninformed, generalized opinion of a genre of music, then turn around and voice an uninformed, generalized opinion of a genre of music.

Lots of hip-hop, in addition to usually featuring a full band, are structured around melody, harmony and chord progressions. There's an established crossover genre of jazz rap, alternative hip-hop and new jack swing draws primarily from jazz, soul and funk influences or samples, freestyle is 100% vocally and musically improvised, and not to mention both Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock experimented with hip-hop beats and rapping in the early 1990s. And - surprise! - most of those lyrics were centered on non-violence and social and political consciousness meant to directly counter the rising tide of gangsta rap. It's almost like stereotyping black people is a bad thing!

Yeah, ain't truth great?Hip-Hop and "House" music, along with Disco, Jazz and Blues, are feel-good styles to me (Rap isn't). They came up and out of African-American communities. James Brown, B.B. King, Donna Summer, and other greats made them mainstream, and other artists took off with them.

Motown is another genre that doesn't get enough recognition these days. I remember laying awake at night in the mid-1960's, quietly listening to a Detroit station on an AM pocket radio because my dad did not want us kids listening to "that nee-grah crap" (his words, not mine), and wishing that I could make music like Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, and the other greats.

Maybe if the only time I heard Rap anymore was when it wasn't blasting out of someone's car, or if it wasn't being performed at a karaoke joint by some drunken white boy with an attitude. Maybe then I might have greater appreciation for it; but the only Rap performance I enjoy is Debra Harry's "Rapture / Man from Mars" piece. Otherwise, Rap is to real music what rambling emo freeverse is to real poetry.

I'm not sure what most of that has to do with deriding the whole of rap and hip-hop as toneless anti-white violence, but if your primary impressions of a genre are gathered entirely from what you hear blasting out of other peoples' cars, then doesn't that earn the same merit as me saying all jazz is soulless, simplistic and boring based on the Kenny G I hear playing in elevators and my dentist's waiting room?

Motown is a record label, not a genre.



So if I go to the local college to hear performances of Bach, and the students do a lousy job, then classical music is just an atonal mess that should be ignored? You're judging a genre based on a venue and on the capabilities of amateur performers. What is ignorant about De La Soul or Grandmaster Flash?

I never said that. What I said was "If you're looking for pretense and arrogance, go check out the "Rap" performers - they don't have to know anything about playing an instrument, harmony, chord structure, or key signatures. All they need is a live microphone and a violent attitude, and suddenly they're celebrities." I'll stand by this claim, no matter what, because it is true.

I also said, I like Hip-Hop and House music, so don't go hatin' and lyin' on me!

Basement Jazz, blues, whatever. All it is what whoever said before me wrote, that jazz is a mish-mash of tune, and sure enough not everyone will listen to it, especially if they spend all their time analysing the notes.

I can listen to it, but not all the time. I mean Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Louis Armstrong, all have real gospel rhythm and so does Elvis Presley. Note how he changed from Gospel to Rock and Roll but the root foundation for his voice happened in a very unique representation of the man he was destined to be..

When you mix rhythm and blues, what do you get? You get basement jazz. If you think cabaret clubs and bars, there is something smooth about it.. and sometimes, I get romanticised by the sax.

Classical in my humble opinion is reserved for the operatic society but I can listen to it and be admired by the high notes.
Don't ask me to name operas though but I'd like to think I can see Bocelli or a Rachmaninov piece. I was moved by the film Shine. Musicians have an enrapture over their audience.

http://psychcentral.com/news/2015/07/23 ... 87227.html