Anybody here play jazz or is in a jazzband?
I'm in a 17 piece bigband and i play Tenor sax (usually get good solo time)

Don't play it though it is fun to listen to.

I love John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme"

Mind scrambler.

I've heard good things about jazz (some of it is said to be as complex as classical music) but I haven't really heard much jazz and wouldn't know where to start.

i hate jazz... (sorry)... i suppose its always come across to me as people like Gershwin trying to take what more talented people like Debussy did to music further and ending up with a faded, pathetic style.

oops didn't see this thread. I used to play in a jazz band and a dixieband on the piano.

I play Keyboards in my 8th grade Jazz Band. With the Keyboards, I play the Bass also; just another thing to add.

i hate jazz... (sorry)... i suppose its always come across to me as people like Gershwin trying to take what more talented people like Debussy did to music further and ending up with a faded, pathetic style.

Gershwin huh? Well have you ever listened to Duke Ellington? Duke was quite innovative with his music writing, look into his Far East Suite.

It's an aquired taste but if you do listen to musicians other than Ira Gershwin you might learn to like the very many forms of jazz.

Jazz is appealing to me because there are no boundaries to it. Well there are musical boundaries and the same can be said about many forms of music. But if you listen to a jazz solo it's never going to be played the same way. The spontaneity of it is quite refreshing. You can take something like the ii/v7/I progression and make a song out of a single lick.

Jazz is also one of the forms of music that can be said was created in America and is a true american art form.

Oh and for you anime fans how can you overlook the stuff Yoko Kanno did with the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack. I'd classify it as Jazz Fusion. That music is jazz and without it the series would not be the same.

Sorry about that rant it's just hard to hear someone say they hate jazz if they havent listened to enough of music itself. Jazz isnt all about swing it has many different faces. If you willing to open your ears to it you might enjoy many of the wonderfull artists that have been playing it.

I was the King of my High School Jazz band. I was also the only one that knew how to improvise :heh: .

Good note to everyone: Jazz Apprecation is a history lesson. Don't take it if you're not into that kind of stuff.

@M - nice. Always helps if you can do that hehe.

@Thorn - most people who don't like jazz find it difficult to play which is probably the reason why they don't like it in the first place.

I kinda like (conventional) Jazz - it's relaxing to listen to (especially the bass and percussion combos), not really a brainscrambler like other genres (both in the good way that it makes you think, and in the bad way that it makes you wish you were deaf :P). More avante garde Jazz is pretty fun to listen to too, especially the likes of Ornette Coleman ;).

Ornette Coleman is a very aquired taste but there was a bit of structure to what he was playing. What about Theloneus Monk? his music to me is insane brilliance.

My favorite type of jazz to listen to is Bigband and i'm not just talking about those swinging bands like Glenn Miller. Bands like the Bob Mintzer Big Band and The Buddy Rich Big Band.

Some of it is really good, but to me Jazz will always sound like 5 musicians playing different songs at the same time =P

I LOVE JAZZ!!! It's the main reason why I learned the saxaphone (Alto and Tenor, they're both basically the same only tuned in different notes or w/e) so one day I'll become a famous saxaphonist, right now me and my friends are starting a jazz group because of my ambition...But it's upsetting me lately because I'm the only one trying to arrange music for them...it's hard.

I LOVE JAZZ!!! It's the main reason why I learned the saxaphone (Alto and Tenor, they're both basically the same only tuned in different notes or w/e) so one day I'll become a famous saxaphonist, right now me and my friends are starting a jazz group because of my ambition...But it's upsetting me lately because I'm the only one trying to arrange music for them...it's hard.

Well there's always Real and Fake books. I use those whenever I'm in a group that i've never played with before.

Anyone hear of Keith Jarret?

GREEEAAAATTTT Jazz pianist. He makes Jazz cool, well other than My Band Teacher and Gershwin of course :sweat:

I'm in a jazz choir at my school right now, and we're singing Gershwin almost all the way. In my treble choir, we're also singing a huge arrangement of the best of Gershwin.
Even if that's not enough we have to analyze 7-chords in my theory class.

Ah, jazz. :)

Anyone hear of Keith Jarret?

GREEEAAAATTTT Jazz pianist. He makes Jazz cool, well other than My Band Teacher and Gershwin of course :sweat:
No

"It is a sound that transcended differences of age, culture, language, and musical history all over the world throughout this century. It is an amalgam of African and European music that could not have taken place, or taken so many enthralling forms, except in the "New World." It has changed the way we hear music, the way we dance, the way we talk. And though it has taken a painfully long time (too painfull for some major artists of the past to bear) for jazz to be accepted as one of the most inventive and inspirational developments of our century, it is increasingly accepted and loved today for it's spirit of change. The work of Charlie Parker or Thelonius Monk, rejected or belittled by many in it's time, is now reinterpreted as classic music by performers as far apart as Prince and the Kronos String Quartet. When the great drummer Art Blakey, in his 70's and in his last years on the road, found listeners young enough to be his grandchildren improvising new dance steps to music he had been playing for 40 years, it bore out a dictum he had repeated most of his life: "From the Creator, to the artist, direct to the audience, split second timing, aint no other music like that." "