Jazz for aficionados

pryso
Agree with you. Wrong to say "improvisation is the least important element in jazz" when it is the most important aspect of jazz. Your cut by Bill Evans backs up this point.

Swinging amoebas? 😄

Kinda silly comparison/analogy if you ask me and with all due respect. I realize you won’t agree and that you think he says these things because of political pressure (Not!), but your man Wynton himself will tell you that the earliest roots of jazz are the influence of things like the European music tradition and African rhythms; with a dash of things like Irish reels and Middle Eastern chants thrown in. The musical soup; or, more geographically appropriate, the gumbo. Those are the amoebas of jazz; the common origin. Those happened way before Jelly Roll. Homo sapien has been around for about 500, 000 years.....jazz, for about 100. We are still calling homo sapien “man”. Talk to me in half a million years and let’s see where “jazz” is at then; and “man” for that matter.

**** Same with improvising noise makers, and Jazz players. The differences are just too great. They no longer have anything in common. There is no longer any audible connection. ****

I don’t want to believe that you really can’t hear any “audible connection” and that you honestly believe they “don’t have anything in common”. If you really believe that then either you don’t want to hear it or......So, in order to not do what happens in this thread all too often: lack of focus, chest thumping and talking in circles while usually not being really sure what the other person is saying, which “noise makers” exactly are you referring to? Surely, you can’t be referring to ALL the examples of new jazz posted here. Are you saying, by extension, that there is no audible connection between your fave Ludwig and Igor? Same principles apply. Please post a couple of new things that were previously posted that you consider to have no audible connection to classic jazz. Make your case so that it stands (in court) 😊

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The Ellington band having fun.

**** He composed music that was not Jazz, and he did not call it Jazz. ****

Some wonderful footage in this clip sequence. Sounds like jazz to me:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw_MpMTbj7I

You recently mentioned a possible comparison of Duke’s and Basie’s band. Lots and lots to mention re differences in overall vibe as well as the specific details. pryso is a Basiephile and I would love to hear his as well as everyone’s thoughts on this topic. I think it would be very interesting and might expose some to this really important music. To get the ball rolling using this clip here’s an interesting and unusual specific. The sound of Duke’s reed section was very “bottom heavy” (a good thing in this case). The great Harry Carney’s presence in the sound of the section was very prominent with his huge sound and he even sometimes had the written “lead”; very unusual in big band wrtiting. Duke (and Strayhorn) orchestrated very much with each player’s musical personality in mind.