Scaruffi on jazz
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You are currently reading a thread in /mu/ - Music
You are currently reading a thread in /mu/ - Music
>Personally, I get rather bored listening to the 100th version of a "standard". Therefore I tend to reward original compositions over covers. A well-played album of covers is... a well-played album of covers. An album of great compositions is... a masterpiece by that composer. (Incidentally, most jazz "standards" are not much better than pop songs, and often they actually "are" pop songs, something that, personally, I don't find very interesting).
>Ditto for live albums. Live albums are usually... bad albums. The improvised format rarely yields good music. A studio album has been made (hopefully) by selecting the best takes of a piece. The odds that a live version is as good as a studio version are rather slim. Which is exactly what I keep finding in live albums: bad versions of studio cuts.
>I am not too interested in the instrumental technique. I am more interested in emotion than in technique. Traditionally, jazz has been associated with technique (an odd mis-interpretation of the original spirit of Afro-american music by white intellectuals). I do not enjoy listening to music for the sake of a brilliant solo. That solo has to deliver emotion. If it is technically breathtaking but does not deliver any emotion, that musician is not very interesting to me. There is a difference, in my opinion, between a juggler and an artist. If the playing is barely passable, but it delivers a lot of emotion, that musician is a genius.
Scaruffi on adolescents
>Why are there age limits? Why can't I marry a 12-year-old?
He is 100% correct
I find myself agreeing with this.
well last 2 are mostly correct
>I am not too interested in the instrumental technique. I am more interested in emotion than in technique. Traditionally, jazz has been associated with technique (an odd mis-interpretation of the original spirit of Afro-american music by white intellectuals). I do not enjoy listening to music for the sake of a brilliant solo. That solo has to deliver emotion. If it is technically breathtaking but does not deliver any emotion, that musician is not very interesting to me. There is a difference, in my opinion, between a juggler and an artist. If the playing is barely passable, but it delivers a lot of emotion, that musician is a genius.
> I am more interested in emotion than in technique
What kinda of sick bait is that? He literally gave TMR a fucking 9.5/10 and it sure has a lots of jazz influences.
>>63715903
It's already very well established that Scaruffi knows very little about jazz and approaches the music like a typical rock fan but with the added fun that he's also a pompous egotist who thinks he is the greatest critic in the world.
>>63716024
http://www.scaruffi.com/jazz/best100.html#cri
the quote from the OP is on the right of the page
>>63715903
Interesting stuff. Except I feel that theres a lot of emotion involved with skillful playing. I feel like you can hear the determination and dedication that it took to get to that point.
>>63716037
Scaruffi isn't a "rock fan", he grew up on classical and jazz.
http://www.scaruffi.com/history/cpt0.html
> My history of rock music is not a history of the charts (which i consider an aberration), it is not a national version (i have lived in three continents and have traveled to some 120 countries), and it is not an individual version (i grew up with classical music, literature and science, not with rock music).
>I simply listened to a lot of music, researched the origins of the various styles, and drew my conclusions. Very often, i was unaware of how many records an artist sold (I learned it later, when thousands of fans sent me nasty complaints). Very often, i am unaware of what was popular in Italy or Boston.
>Also, i feel no particular sympathy for any rock musician. My "idols" are Ernst, Shostakovic, Pessoa, Coltrane... not rock musicians.
>>63716024
>He literally gave TMR a fucking 9.5/10 and it sure has a lots of jazz influences.
TMR is more emotion than anything, primitive and raw... what are you bitching about ?
>>63716124
>>63716024
TMR isn't ringing a bell for me; what album are you referencing?
>>63716088
Your quote doesn't mention him growing up on jazz anon.
I'm happy to say concede that rock fan isn't the right term then. Replace that with "musically ignorant outsider" or something akin to that.
>>63716139
Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart, best rock record according to scaruffi.
>>63716148
>>63716088
>My "idols" are Ernst, Shostakovic, Pessoa, Coltrane
>Coltrane
I think this implies that he grew up with jazz, or at least that he was always more of a jazz fan than a rock fan.
>>63716139
...How can you be this new?
>>63716024
I'm not sure which part of this you're seeing a problem with? He never said that jazz influence = no emotion or anything akin to that.
>>63716124
>>63716200
The part where TMR is a deconstruction of blues, rock and jazz all put together really nicely. It's dadaism at its best... and if you really listen to TMR for the emotion, I think you're missunderstanding it.
>>63716187
I don't. He would have said "growing up my idols were" if he'd wanted to imply that or he would have said he grew up with classical AND jazz in the previous statement.
Either way, the fact that the man doesn't think there is any value in interpreting standards and his lack of appreciation for live albums is indication enough that he doesn't get jazz on the terms that most jazz fans do. Independent of how long or how much of it he has listened to.
>>63715903
>There is a difference, in my opinion, between a juggler and an artist. If the playing is barely passable, but it delivers a lot of emotion, that musician is a genius.
well said scaruffi. well said. techniqual proficiency is for uncreative, emotionally dead robots
>>63716189
I've been visiting /mu/ regularly since like 2010, dude. I don't compartmentalize every single /mu/-core album into its initials because it takes me 3 extra seconds to just type the full title
the whole reason i like listening to standards (although i love original stuff too) is because i can listen to one melody performed in 1,000 unique ways by the 1,000 best jazz musicians to ever live. each one plays it a little differently and I love that.
>>63716189
>new
Pls. I've been browsing for 2 months and not even I got that
>>63716354
how the fuck can someone be your idol if you didn't grow up with/listening to them? that's like the whole point of idols, to inspire us on our paths to adulthood. if he just started listening to Coltrane in his 20s I doubt he would still call him an idol. learn to read between the lines doldrum.
>X jazz album is bad!
>"oh why?"
>it didn't have emotion lol
>"rofl"
>>63716438
That reminds me of those autists that like playing the same game for 1,000 hours so they can find glitches.
>>63716304
But...what part of that makes it an unemotional album? I don't get how you're getting to that conclusion at all. Jazz, Blues and rock are all pretty heavy on emotion as genres and Dadaism as a movement is usually very viscerally emotional. especially in the sort of way Beefheart does it where he's often using his very surreal poetry to make social commentary. Like, do you think the delivery and lyrics behind songs like Dachau Blues aren't emotional at all or that someone couldn't possibly find them emotional?
>>63716523
idol
noun
a person or thing that is greatly admired, loved, or revered.
No mention of having to have grown up with the person and I very much doubt you'll find any dictionary that mentions that or very many people who use the word to exclusively mean "people I knew about before age 15".
>buy time in recording studio
>set up drum kit
>bring three infants into the studio
>flail about wildly and angrily on drums while the infants scream and cry
>record it for 1 hour
>release it as an album called Pure Emotion
>Scaruffi rates it 10/10 greatest jazz album ever
Don't steal my idea
>>63716577
nah not like that. i just like that jazz is something loose and free enough that the song itself doesn't really matter and the individual performer is the one that becomes the focus of the listener.
>>63716610
>>63716523
Also, that thing you're doing, it isn't reading between the lines. It's indulging in confirmation bias and trying to stretch evidence to support your image of Scaruffi.
>>63715903
>thinking you can accurately express emotion without a grasp of technique
So this is where all the teenagers on /mu/ get their dumb ideas about jazz from
>>63715903
>The improvised format rarely yields good music.
I'm starting to like him more and more lately.
>>63716620
Too late already making it
>>63716836
every jazz thread on /mu/ that isn't /jazz/ is the same bullshit
>>63716620
I'm interested.
>>63716656
I feel like this is the big thing Scaruffi doesn't get about jazz. It's focus is more on the musicians/performer than it is on the composition.
A good standard is just a vehicle for a jazz musician to express themselves which is what matters in this sort of music.
I'm not entirely sure why he's even so caught up in composition. He's got no theory to speak of and one of his favourite songs is just a 17 minute jam in G.
>>63716620
If you and the babies are black it will be a 10/10 masterpiece
If you're white it will just be boring intellectual self-indulgance
>>63717023
The sad thing about this post is that there's more than a few grains of truth to it.
>>63715903
This is a good example of why non-musicians make terrible music critics
pretty embarrassing t b h
Who are some better jazz critics? Like it seems pretty obvious that Scruffy doesn't have a clue what he's talking about. Who's opinions are actually respectable?
>>63717371
Any of the critics for the Penguin Guide to Jazz possess much more respectable opinions that Scaruffi.
>>63717371
Alyn Shippton is very good. He ran a fantastic radio show on BBC called jazz library. You can get it as a podcast on BBC's website.
The guests he has are usually very musically literate and knowledgeable about the subject matter and they come on and talk about famous jazz artists, go through their history and discuss/recommend various recordings.
He even had a few interviews with some pretty big names: Sonny Rollins, Dave Brubeck, Chick Corea, etc.
>>63716620
I know you're trying to make a joke but if the music is good the music is good. You're obviously very close minded.
I think that could produce some interesting results. If someone liked that album you wouldn't have "tricked" them.
>>63717736
But claiming that it's better music because it's more emotional is silly
>>63718169
That's just your opinion dude
>>63715903
Why is he so right
>>63715903
>>63715936
Is this guy ever wrong?
reading his jazz criteria is what made me stop regarding him so highly as a rock critic, something I know a lot more about
