The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

Menu

Navigation

You are here: Home / Forum / A question of jazz

A question of jazz

by 155 Comments

If an alien were to land on planet Earth, knock on my door and ask me, “PUNY HUMAN, WHAT IS JAZZ?”, first I would temporarily pass out, then once recovered I’d play him Saxophone Colossus by Sonny Rollins, and more specifically the opening track St. Thomas. For me it’s the very definition of jazz; a recognisable standard with just the right amount of improvisation, nothing too abstract, and with faultless interplay between the four musicians (which of course is the perfect amount). Finger-clickingly cool and swinging as heck too, it does something to me that no other music seems to.

Speaking as a relative jazz newb, I reckon that the average Joe would also want to suggest something similar. I believe that hard bop is the sound that a lot of folks would most associate with the word ‘jazz’, even if they’d never heard the term and thought that hard bop is something you might do at the disco.

So, what piece of music to you is the very definition, the epitome, of jazz? And why?

1

Comments

  4. For me, it’s this. ‘Caravan’ by Errol Garner.

    It’s got the lot. Accessible, melodic, funky, schwingin’ baby!

    He establishes the theme and melody and the from 1:18 on he launches into the improvisational stratosphere. Breathtakingly inventive

  9. I don’t know much about jazz, but I’d probably go for one of the genre’s recognised greats, like Sting before he got even worse, or early The Style Council.

  11. Probably covers most of jazz history in 18 mins – raggedy old gospel start…sublime tuneful soulfulness for a few minutes before going off into a free form racket for a lengthy spell before finding its way back to the tune. Not sure it’d gain many fans mind.

  12. For me, it’s Salsa de Santa Rosa by Quintessence (no, not that one). It has a good tune, which doesn’t hurt, and grooves all the way through. The band play the main theme together, then each gets a turn at soloing, improvising on the tune. And doing it very well. Then they seamlessly come back together to play the main theme again. So, as a one stop illustration of everything I like about jazz, this is it:

  13. Miles did it all, of course (some more detail in the podcast). The first album to play to the alien has to be Kind Of Blue, which is modal.

    John Coltrane was the master of modal jazz. Try Chasin’ The Trane.

  14. Normally, I’d be recommending 70s Miles and the SME….but if the alien had eyes with which to weep, I’d also suggest this as jazz – sophisticated, sensual, melancholy…

  16. Well, Mr Alien – you have journeyed far and you want to listen to Jazz? If you really insist I point you to Kind of Blue and Early Ella which are both brilliant beyond compare. However I have several friends who would insist with a vehemence known only to fanatics that neither is remotely “Jazz”. They will lead you to a small smoky club where four guys will noodle and noodle and noodle for hours and hours and hours. Every so often the audience will applaud when one of the players accidentally remembers the tune. At that point a 2000 Light Years trip back home suddenly seems highly attractive
    Tell you what, howsabout I play you some Country? We’ll have a few beers, maybe fire up the Barbie and put all that Jazz nonsense behind us. Let’s start with some Hank and see where that leads to. You can tell the folks back home they’d better get ready to have some fun….

  17. Be bop…

    Remember the Steely Dan history of the world – “dawn of time, fire discovered, wheel invented, Charlie Parker born. It’s been downhill ever since”.

  18. I think I would have to explain it with vibes, an instrument near unique to jazz (sorry, Poli Palmer) and so less likely to confuse the poor alien with horns and brass, bass, drums and guitars, spread across so many genres. So here, martians and venusians, have some Gary:

    • Love Mr Burton, and vibes is one of my favourite sounds. I’ve a nice still sealed Milt Jackson CD sitting in my to-play pile from Sunday’s booting. Perhaps the little green man will dig it.

      • One of my fave vibes tracks, again noob friendly – I love the turnarounds at the end of each verse eg at 1.44. Given the song title, it’s well jiggy.

        • Nice mellow stuff. Great piano solo too.

          While we’re in a mellow mood:

          (Thad Jones – April In Paris)
          With a brilliant little musical joke as he steps up a bit going into the solo.

  20. The first jazz record I bought was Eric Dolphy’s Out to Lunch. Prog, like it did for so many, opened me up to the idea of listening to all sorts of music. So, I thought I’d try jazz and I think it was Richard Williams in the Melody Maker who said it was one of the best all-time jazz albums. So, I ordered it from Weston Hart in Gosport without any idea at all of what it what it sound like, and it turned up two weeks later. And I’d heard nothing like it and even forty years later it is probably my favourite all time jazz album, even edging out Monk, Mingus and Miles.

    As an introduction to jazz? Well, my friends have been living in South India, and have it on iTunes, and their visitors, Indian or foreign, all seem to like it, and think it’s like nothing they have heard.

    (By the way, when people talk about music critics, I think Richard Williams is often missed out – I can’t think of anything he recommended that wasn’t at least worth hearing.)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln8naZpOJ0o

      • I quite agree.

        This, OTOH, is in a non-standard time signature, but it can’t be prog because it doesn’t rock out and for about 50% of it Jeff doesn’t play his guitar at all, letting the keyboard player do his thing over a George Martin string arrangement, on an exquisite tune by Bernie Holland. S’pose it must be jazz.

        • For me, not jazz. No extended harmony. Good complex rock. Beck used it as a warm up exercise and they thought it was cool so turned it into an instrumental.

          • The one you’re thinking of that started off as a warm up exercise, to get his fingers moving fast, is Scatterbrain. Max Middleton heard him playing the exercise before a session started and joined in on it. Then George Martin suggested that they use it.

  27. I’m going to quit replying to each comment now, lest I be accused of hamper-fixing, but I’m enjoying all of your suggestions for “the very definition of jazz”. Except for Jeff bleedin’ Beck of course.

  28. Aside from the Coltrane, Miles and Charlie Parker recomemndations above, a couple that come to mind…..

    Bill Evans / Waltz for Debby

    or for something a little more modern, can’t beat Snarky Puppy / Lingus. This is a fabulous video – musicians at the top of their game, complimenting each other perfectly.

    Oh – almost forgot – can’t go wrong with Go Go Penguin for more modern stuff

  30. Attention Mods:
    Is there a way to pin the following notice to the start of this thread please?

    WARNING! Do not read this thread unless you have recently either won, stolen, found or inherited a WAD OF CASH.

        • Point of order: isn’t this exactly what doesn’t need talking about? Yeah, we all know by now that it’s rather good. Like when the telly talks about FC Barcelona, they can’t shut up about Messi. Well he’s exactly the one we all (?) don’t want to hear about, again and again and again. Enough already. Tell us something else.

          Is the jazzcast still worth listening to?

          Pet peeve, not really being grumpy, just counter-intuitive. 😉

  36. Jamie Cullum? Jane McDonald? Kenny G? Candy Dulfer?

    All available for bargain prices in your local chazza.

    In fact, I have four – yes, count ’em, four! – Kenny G albums you can have for nowt.

  37. The Alien has just left my place, a little worse for wear I have to say. He really tried to read this thread, he really did, but all he could manage was “Yeah but where’s the choon?” He’s going home with some Hank and some Emmylou and, bit of a surprise I must admit, a whole heap of Gene Vincent.

  40. Funny, my feelings ’bout Jazz. There are some bits of music on here that are absolutely peerless, magnificent. There are whole drifts of self-indulgent dross that you couldn’t pay me to listen to. But then again, if Mr Alien asked “What is Rock?” I would obviously reply “Bruce” but then somebody else would say “Abba” and yet another fool would cite some prog nonsense like Caravan.
    So my new answer to our interstellar visitor would be “I don’t know what Jazz is and neither does anybody else , you weird fucking Alien you”

  42. Given that rock music is universal (probably more so than Jazz) perhaps our little green friend (at the risk of being ‘Alienist’), may be swayed by a piece of jazz with a more contemporary feel. Little green people, I suggest a remedy courtesy of Dr John.

  44. Another of my faves – a Barney Kessell album I picked up in a chazza when chazzas were all I could afford. The opening track, a take on “Laura” is fabbo. Barney does the solo jazz guitar thing as an intro and at 2′ the rhythm section kicks in and it’s just glorious.

    https://youtu.be/sOoI7v3Zcc4

  45. Not only for aliens but anybody interested in Great Black Music: it’s the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

    Good in the studio – Dreaming Of The Master, well in the tradition

    But you also need to see the band in action, a bit challenging (but then, Jazz is)

    • Ah, Declan Declan, why did you leave it so late? All we needed was the word “challenging” and Mr Alien would have understood immediately. Still, he got to see Mini with her top off and she got to see his spaceship.
      ps if I showed that last clip to Mrs W it would confirm her sane, reasoned and unbiased view on jazz. She would start of with the words “unlistenable tosh” before things got really ugly. She’d have calmed down by next Tuesday…

        • She’s a Brighton girl with a fearsome left hook. You have just been placed on a very long list. Mind you, whisper it when she’s having a shower, her favourite record is Rumours so perhaps I’ll give Chicago Nice Guys another listen. Who am I kidding, I like my life down here so why endanger it or my fragile body, no fury like the wrath of a slighted woman or a woman who knows tosh when she hears it

          • You’re a very playful man, Loads, some genuinely LOL moments on this thread alone. Challenging was actually only having the nerve to click on a 37 minute piece (which you clearly didn’t) and establish something like, oh this “Jazz” stuff is not chaotic/noisy/squally/shrieky/skronky at all, but calm/peaceful/intense, so my “unlistenable tosh” stereotype is (often, I’ll grant you) just that, a stereotype. And saying the missus wouldn’t countenance it is no excuse! Try her! 😉

            Do give Nice Guys another listen, though, and People In Sorrow, that’s a very quiet intense one, and afterwards, if your brain is smokin’, there’s always those lovely Cowboy Junkies to balance things out again. Music, eh? Fab.

            That’s what the Alien is getting to hear too. Let’s hope he doesn’t start in with, ah y’know, Mrs Alien might not like..blah blah etc. Wonder if she’s even, y’know, got a top. Never mind to take off. 😉

  49. To take your mind off the pan pipes, @minibreakfast, here’s some old. This popped up on the shuffle today, and the resultant finger-poppin’ could have caused a nasty accident, being as how I was driving to Sainsbury’s at the time. It’s the ineffably hip and effortlessly cool Mr Slim Gaillard being quite brilliantly inventive on Blue Skies. Now you has jazz…

  53. One of my favourite jazz albums is by the Clark Tracy Quintet, from the 80s. He’s son of Stan in case you’re wondering. They’re all young punchy Brits. This is the eponymous title track and features a young Guy Barker.

Leave a Reply