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Comment by csmpltn | Hacker News Reader

I’m classically trained, love all sorts of music, play live, jam and compose. I’ve went to countless jazz concerts and nights, and continue to do so today.

I just don’t get jazz at all. It’s fun to mess around on stage, and play free form. But it also ends up sounding that way to the listener: like some mess that must be fun to play…

I was stuck on a long drive a couple of years back, driver had Swissjazz FM on the whole time. Felt like a form of torture ;)

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You're listening to a conversation in a foreign language. Jazz has a fundamentally different theoretical and idiomatic basis to classical music. If you didn't grow up with blues, gospel and show tunes, you're missing most of the vocabulary and context needed to make sense of jazz. I'd strongly recommend listening to that stuff because it's fantastic, but there is a bit of a shortcut - learn to hear jazz one tune at a time.

Here's the tune Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise, as Sigmund Romberg wrote it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy_L8VVu7-c

And now, as a variety of jazz musicians heard it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSeFc3CP5Mk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlViBYcZpJ0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NG_wZFBM24

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dofsqZrE5sU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaV51BuHfIw

Do you hear how the melodic theme is stated, before the players improvise over the same chord progression? Do you hear how fragments of the main melody are woven into the solos? Do you hear the interplay between the musicians as they rotate between accompaniment and soloing? Do you hear how each ensemble creates a distinct mood from the same basic starting point? If you do, then you're starting to hear the language of jazz.

I don't think there's any profound secret to jazz - except that it used to be a lifestyle and a kind of identity politics. If you played or liked jazz you were A Certain Kind of Person in a way that mattered in the late 50s. Not so much today.

Musically it's a combination of atmosphere and passion with a cerebral edge, with harmonies that are spicy and colourful but not atonally exotic and incomprehensible.

It's improvised moment-by-moment riffs and conversations over a chord chart and some loose linear and structural traditions. It doesn't have the grand architecture of classical music or the cheeky crowd-pleasing crudity and playfulness of pop.

Genres either hit you or they don't. It's fine not to like something.

> I just don’t get jazz at all. It’s fun to mess around on stage, and play free form

IMHO, that's so unusual in a jazz setting that it's almost always expressly declared as such - ie "free jazz" or "experimental". And even that relies primarily on preparation and practice to be done well.

IMHO, performing jazz is a delicate process of painting within the lines - so that you don't tread on the toes of everyone playing with you - lines you are all expected to know if you are going to get on stage and play a specific song together - while creating the illusion that you are all just messing about. And you are doing that while navigating a complex conjugation of harmonic structures, substitutions and alternatives, while seamlessly recombining the songs' melody with jazz idioms, rehearsed licks and runs, and admittedly, some improvisation, all while you try to say something new and original that your audience will be interested to hear.

So, you have to lean a lot on preparation and personal rehearsal (and group rehearsal), because you are listening, reacting and managing so many things at once that if you can't rely on muscle memory to keep up with the chord changes, and haven't sufficiently navigated several ways through them ahead of time (what if one of your bandmates decides to reharmonize some section in a way that precludes the scales you were planning to use to get through it?), you'll fall on your face.

> love all sorts of music, play live, jam and compose...don’t get jazz

But what is your definition of "jam" then? Is it improvised at all?

I have the opposite approach; I like classical music very much and have listened to it a lot, but for many years now I've only been improvising; the idea is to sound in real time as if it were composed and practiced; meanwhile I can play a whole band live myself (e.g. http://rochus-keller.ch/?p=1268). I've always found it a torture to read and learn a piece and always play it back the same (correct) way.

Out of curiosity, even the standards and big-band arrangements, or vocal stuff with Ella, Louis, or Frank?

Take a close look at Bach’s violin sonatas; they seem like jazz to me compared to a lot of his work; they have lots of wild chords with 7ths and 6ths and 2nds, they are wandering and improvisational feeling.

Some jazz gives me the same feeling you’re describing, and I think you’re onto something with it being fun to play… a lot of it is musician’s music. Watching sporting events gives me the same feeling… good for the players, not as good for me, I’d rather be playing, or doing something else.

Interesting, as most jazz is not freeform and typically follows an agreed chord sequence. Certainly, jazz improvisation tends to feature lots of notes, often played at fast tempos, but ‘messing around’ it definitely isn’t. Jazz improv requires years of concerted practice and deep thinking. If you analyse a great jazz solo, it becomes clear that it isn’t random notes, or a ‘mess’. To me it’s astonishing that anyone can create something so intricately structured on the fly. Of course, you’re free not to like it.

> I’m classically trained [...] I just don’t get jazz at all.

Listen to the Brubeck Quartet's "Dave Digs Disney".

If you still "don't get" jazz after that experience, my guess would be that your formal training installed dogmatic opinions.

The jazz/classical split is a false dichotomy. Bill Evans more or less implies that he saw himself as coming out of the classical tradition: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QwXAqIaUahI

This video is an excellent musing on creativity and learning that I think is relevant even for nonmusicians.

have you actually listened to "kind of blue"? or (for e.g.) "sketches of spain"? i can't see how either could be classified as "some mess", though everyone's taste is different.

I personally cannot relate to what you're saying, as I'm sure you'd feel about people saying they don't like classical. One thing that we probably can agree on though is that there is jazz out there which is definitely written to showcase the player's skill rather than to create beautiful music, which I also don't care much for.

I like some of it, but I agree with you on most of jazz. Kind of Blue is great though. It really is something special.

But as I say, I agree with you on most other Jazz though. And I'm convinced that about 80% of the people that go around saying they love jazz are just pretending to.

Also, along with Bluegrass, jazz is SO closed off to people who'd like to join in and play with a group. It's filled with gatekeepers and judgemental jerks. For instance, criticizing you for bringing a guita they don't agree with, "you can't play jazz with that, go home and get another something else there, Eddie Van Halen". Seriously, it can be that bad.

> It's filled with gatekeepers and judgemental jerks.

That's not been my experience playing jazz around my local area. I've never played jazz in New York but I have heard that all manner of ungentlemanly behaviour goes on in jams there and I suspect I'd be on the receiving end of it if I dared to try. Presumably acceptance of the newcomer is determined by the size of the existing pool of talent. Rural England is not well supplied with jazz musicians of any skill level (or discerning audiences) so we can't really afford to treat them rudely. I'm not really a guitarist, but the last time I played one at a jam it was one of these: https://www.andertons.co.uk/brands/gl-guitars/asat-guitars/g...

It could be the location, for sure. My experiences have been around the Chicago area. Blues jams though were all very welcoming, as were folk and just rock&roll. But jazz was just bad. Hopefully it's changed since then, because this was around 20 years ago.

I think that's all genres. A classic rock group I played with once told me that I had to have a maple fretboard instead of rosewood

You don't have to get it. Some people don't get classical. Others don't get country and so on. I feel like sometimes treat music taste as if it was a science while it should be treated more like food. You don't all have to like or dislike the same things :)

Also, "classically trained" is irrelevant. Having a background on a specific kind of music doesn't grant you authority or insight into a different kind of music

There are so many different kinds of jazz. I guess you have not listened to Kind of Blue.

I come at improvised music more from the blues and rock end of the world than the jazz end, though I am a casual fan of Charles Mingus.

Some of that can be a mess, for sure. If you gave me one word to describe Phish, it would be "amorphous", and I wouldn't mean it as a compliment.

On the other hand, The Allman Brothers Band made a lot of magic before Duane Allman and Berry Oakley died, much of it recorded officially or bootleg. Mountain Jam grew out of Donovan's First There is a Mountain. Which is worth listening to to understand where some of the phrases come from.

Mountain Jam (and their other longer songs) has distinct movements and part of the pleasure of listening to the various recordings is to hear the variations between them. The form remains pretty constant, but the details vary.

For my money, I think the July 5th recording at the Atlanta International Pop Festival surpasses the more definitive Eat a Peach version. The Ludlow Garage version runs to 44 minutes and isn't as focused. And the July 3rd recording at Atlanta is a treat because it was interrupted by a rainstorm. The second part picks up in the middle of the song after the rain. It feels a little more experimental. Those are all comparatively easily found on official albums.

Another treat is Medeski, Martin, and Wood. I'm not hugely familiar with their catalog, but Friday Afternoon in the Universe is an example of just how close the music can sit to the brink of disaster without going over. Like, if they weren't so damn good, it would end in a dumpster fire rhythmically, but they keep it together. It's a truly impressive listen.

I just turned on Swissjazz FM, as I've never heard of it, and man yeah, if this playlist on here is what you think of as what jazz is then I agree, I don't like it either! I'd have asked them to turn it off too. The songs on this playlist are what happens when you take a traditionally Black art form, ignore all of those roots, wash it through a university, and make something that is likely going to be consumed by a white audience.

There's so much going on in 'jazz' music, but for me personally I'm always listening to it (and all music, really) rhythmically first, and all the harmonic and melodic components, everything else, comes out of the rhythm. That tends to be the opposite approach of European classical music (which of course I like too).

I don't know what your taste in music is, but there's a ton of great music out there that falls under the label jazz. Since you're in the classical world, here's some recordings that might speak to you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VlOigfm-ww

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMTHsK3MlzA

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0O9L7KXkC0&list=OLAK5uy_l61...

And some live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_BE_gi4YkA (my friend's group)

https://youtu.be/lhgaJ_kDLPg?feature=shared&t=23 (particularly Afro Blue)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuEVN3BTFHM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DGY9HvChXk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA9GhIyP_zI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM5Cj8yFkOQ

I don't know, the rabbit hole is deep I could go on forever.

KCSM is an all jazz station worthy of a listen

honestly, Fusion is about the only thing worth listening to, and even then, it's mostly wank too

suggestions: Tony Williams Lifetime, Miles Davis 1969 - 1975, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Jaco, Weather Report

Davis's music is pretty much about as pure rhythm as you can get outside of electronic music. it's so far beyond jazz that you can hear so many modern genres in something like On The Corner, it's crazy. and it was hated originally, too. jazz rejected evolution, so now it's stuck as some dead academic genre

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