h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was amazed why there isn't a guide entry which sums up the history or at least what jazz vaguely is. Anyone fancy writing an entry?

I agree; jazz is great and we really good use an entry on it. It's fun to listen to and even better to play. I would offer to write the entry, but with college and work I don't think I have the time!

ugh! Jazz

What is it about classical music stations that makes them think that the last things their listeners would like to hear before dropping off to sleep is some unrecognisable version of The Girl from Ipanema played on some squeaky saxophone? You know, one of those solos where the player goes "I'm going to move as far away from the original key as I possibly can, just to show how clever I can be!"

Similar problem though my knowledge of Jazz is largely based round Mils Davis during about 1955-65.

I've thought quite a lot about writing a jazz entry. I think the problem is the sheer size of the topic, not to mention its inherent variation (if you'll pardon the pun).

For me, what really got me into jazz, was the realization that jazz was about movement. It was music that would, itself, move. Jazz not only inspires dance but it is also inspired BY dance, and eventually by all things in life that move. All things that are alive change, grow, move - this is what jazz music draws from, and is perhaps one of the first attempts of a musical movement to think in terms of linear movement instead of cyclical. It also is perhaps the most broadly-based definition of an artistic movement ever created, let alone a musical one, as a result. Not only is jazz one of the few musical genres that can lay claim to being indigenous to the USA (along with blues and Native American music), but it is one of the few musical forms that has grown along with the history of recorded music (aka popular music) that continues to change and grow (albeit quite a bit more slowly these days than, say, the mid 1950s - but that's an entire socio-political topic all to its own).

So, since we can't very well ignore the subject (it would be wrong to do so, also) ... why can't it be a rather short, overall description of what jazz is and what are some of its main concepts and pioneers? Inevitably there will be people and subgenres left out, but maybe then people can write bits about them. I mean, jazz-fusion fans may hate avant garde jazz and vice versa, so others should tee off the main entry and write about the incredible and varied history of, say, bop jazz, avant garde jazz, jazz fusion, swing jazz, New Orleans Jazz, West Coast "cool" jazz ... the list could go on forever.

I would argue that there are (generally) six innovators that have really made jazz movements that changed the way music was thought of all across the world: Duke Ellington, Dizzie Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, and Miles Davis. But that's just ignoring so many others out there (piano greats like Bill Evans, Thelonius Monk, McCoy Tyner, contemporaries like Horace Silver and Chick Corea ... etc, etc - I haven't even STARTED on the drummers yet!).

There are other genres of jazz I've not even mentioned yet, too. There's Bop and Cool jazz (which I have mentioned), Free jazz which leads to avant garde (in some ways), Latin jazz and jazz fusion with music from around the World, New Orleans/Classic jazz, and of course Big Band jazz. It's pretty overwhelming how much music is out there, and it's a misconception to believe that all jazz is based on hitting "wrong" notes or sounding like a demonic acid-gargling tone-deaf drug abused having a seizure (how a friend of mine used to describe some of the jazz I "enjoyed" ). Some jazz is very challenging, some isn't. Maybe it could be enough to put up a front-end article called "A Wholly Truncated Introduction to Jazz" (yes, the oxymoron was on purpose ).

What does anyone else think?

- JD

I love jazz, but like JD says, there's soooo much stuff! What I HATE and absolutely LOATHE is that wretched smooth jazz where it's a sax player playing the same scale-based run over and over and over. Come on folks! It's not like your average sixth grader can't play the twelve major/minor scales consecutively at 180 beats per minute! Sorry. Back on subject now. If you wrote an entry on it, you'd have to go into the history of the 'founding fathers', the idea of swing and articulations as well as the feel and personality of a piece. It would be gargantuan! Whoever proposes to undertake it will have a ton of helpers I'm sure.

What was the next to bigband jazz supposed to mean?

It wasn't after "big band jazz" as much as it was before "it's overwhelming..."

I sure waxed metaphoric on my last post - I have to agree with you about the dynamics of swing and articulation play crucial roles. I think of jazz as it was finally defined to me as "music that is a combination of improvisation and group interplay." It's a pretty broad definition, of course. Maybe that's a good thing, maybe it's a bad thing - in any event, it seems more like a philosophical approach to making music than an actual genre to me. Hard to write an entry on that, but not impossible.

- JD

Possibly the answer is to leave a bare bones histroy structure of the most common forms (if thats possible). Then it could link to other entries which develop over time to begin to cover the rest of the "genre". After all there are many types of music which is hard to describe (for example The Residents). But it may be possible to offer somewhere to start to explore it.

Someone could do an entry on the HISTORY OF JAZZ. that would be a much smaller and less broad entry. i think an explanation of jazz would be impossible as everyone has their own style and the subject is so broad. one more time...

Jazz.
Very very very big thing that. Loads of space, and a bunch of hard to please fans. Whoever takes this one on is a brave brave person. They must remember to cover the roots in the blues, and field hollers before going into the open worlds of modern jazz.

Still if it helps a music teacher once told me:

"jazz is one of 2 things, the wrong note in the right place, or the right note in the wrong place."

Obviously not a personal opinion!

I agree that a jazz entry would be very difficult and complex. To try to narrow it down would mean leaving out some of the best artists. The real problem with an entry on jazz is that jazz is all about FEELING the music and personal interpretation; this would make it very hard to sum it all up in one entry. Well good luck to anyone who wants to try it; I would love to see one that encompassed it all. . . ok maybe that's not possible, but other people's interpretations are always interesting.

It might be better as a series of interlinked entries eg. Start of Jazz, the Birth of Cool, Time Out for Smooth Jazz, Giant Steps of the Saxophone Collosus, etc, etc.

Possibly as that way it may be more easy for people to take it on. As the main problem here is that it would take a very brave person to take on the whole thing by themselves. This way the workload is shared.

Egg-sackly