What is Jazz??? (and how can you tell)

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  • BTW, now has dropped the CD version of The Definitive Bill Evans on Riverside and Fantasy to $15.35, a mere $0.35 above the eMu download price. I took them up on it.
  • Not-to-be-missed new post on Billy Bang at Destination: Out RAINBOW GLADIATOR: Billy Bang, 1947-2011
  • It occurs to me that I view Jazz and jazz much the same way as I view God and god. Whereas capitalized Jazz/God seems to indicate a belief in a specific set of scriptures and rituals in order to achieve a spiritual connection with a higher being/creativity, I think I lean more toward the lowercase jazz/god side of things, which I view as a more holistic interaction with spirituality/creativity, one that has fuzzier boundaries and, thus, perhaps more inclusiveness, and is no less profoundly felt. Ultimately, I don’t think either approach is wrong per se, as long as the goal is a transcendental experience and sublime interaction with beauty and love.

    I post this knowing that I might come to regret it at a later date. But sometimes you just gotta throw those thoughts out there and see what happens. Like balloons, sometimes they float majestically up into the sky for all to view with awe and wonder, and some pop open, lose their steam, and fall back to the earth deflated.

    I posted that second part knowing that I might come to regret it at a later date.
  • @Jonah: I agree with you, although I'd say I worship the Jazz of (social/cultural) practice, not the Jazz of ideology.
  • Both of you

    Listen to me very carefully

    Put the pipes down

    Just say no
  • Interesting - I followed the link and got the Ooops page - what does that mean? As a relative newcomer to jazz for me the boundaries are blurred anyway, as I don't yet know enough about Jazz to know where the boundaries actually lie. And that is part of the joy of exploring a new to me genre.
  • @jUj: Say what you will about my POV, but Jonah is not just debating "what is jazz," he's defining Jazz with his daily downloads at All About Jazz.
  • Yeah, it was funnier at the other end of the bottle, this morning not so much

    But still, people may argue about whether or not there is more than one God

    However, there can be no confusion about there only being one jazz.

    Jazz covers a wide spectrum of music on the number line from negative infinity to positive infinity

    At some point in each direction music ceases to be jazz and becomes something else (noise perhaps) but by definition there is one jazz

    Prove me wrong!
  • Neo-Platonists argued that there was only really a singular, all-powerful "One". It was just a language game.
  • There is a lot of ancestor worship that goes on in Jazz. Not entirely dissimilar to Classical, though not quite so advanced. In both cases, if you just ignore the 'purists' and listen to music that you like, it is irrelevant.

    Actually, maybe it's just me paying attention, but it seems to me that jazz is bumping along quite nicely these last few years. So many young players getting into cool new things. A substantial number of whom I heard about through Jonah, come to think of it.

    At any rate, at least in jazz we don't have anybody like that despotic Pitchfork guy....
  • I have never read Pitchfork so I don't know the dude but still this was one of the funniest threads ever posted on emusers.

    It doesn't have to be by the numbers but playing crap and calling it jazz does not make chicken salad or something

    So do we think this is jazz
  • To arrive at your answer, please refer to Bad Thoughts' definitive statement on this issue:
    Rule of thumb: anything that appears to cross over does so toward the more obscure genre.

    Example: Creed's "With Arms Wide Open", because it has strings, is classical music.
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