Jazz info thread
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You are currently reading a thread in /mu/ - Music
You are currently reading a thread in /mu/ - Music
Hi /mu/
I've been away for a very long time. Thankfully I have some spare time on my hands before I go on tour again and I decided why not have another jazz information thread?
Ask any questions you might have about jazz music and I will answer them the best I can.
Album recs?
Where to go from the current jazz you've heard?
Did Miles Davis really punch John Coltrane in the face?
How do you solo over Giant Steps?
No questions are too basic or "dumb" sounding for lack of a better term, all inquiries will be addressed to the best of my knowledge.
Shall we?
Fuck off old fag this board is for hip hop now
>>55418918
why john's pretending as if he can play drums?
What are the best albums featuring Hank Jones other than Somethin' Else? His own or otherwise.
>>55418918
I gave up trying to talk about jazz on this board
/mu/ is a sad place
>>55418945
hip hop came from jazz, bro
>>55418953
there's no documentation of coltrane playing drums other than this picture but if you get into his music you can tell that drums were the most important part of his music. the last part of his career was literally duo albums with his drummer. not to mention he used Elvin Jones almost exclusively in the previous period of his career. 3 over 2 poly rhythms are a paramount part of his sound.
>>55418918
Since you're touring. This is from 2000.
Wynton Marsalis:
>I think there’s going to be an end to the old style of jamming on the bandstand that was really initiated during Charlie Parker’s time. Historically, that was never a part of jazz music, not in the beginning. The music was always based around melody. Solos didn’t come into fashion until Louis Armstrong and didn’t become ingrained into jazz until the bebop thing came along. So I think that there will be more emphasis put on presentation and composition as opposed to just soloing, which is really a boring and predictable way of presenting music. I think the days of head-solo-solo-solo-head are over. I also think there will be a return to dance-oriented music, which has always been a part of the jazz tradition. We have a lot of bands in New York playing the dance halls now and there’s gonna be more. So I think that you’re going to see a lot of proliferation of the music on that level.
Where should I go from Mary Halvorson projects?
my fav jazz albums are sun ra's "lanquidity" and some pharoah sanders stuff. i don't know much about the genre. any recs based on that?
>>55419066
Just go back to listening to rock
>>55419107
but i don't listen to rock
>>55419026
Hanky Panky. The interplay between him and Ron Carter is amazing.
>>55419033
It used to be fun :(
>>55419047
He's not too far off. Of course there will always be jazz with the standard "formula" but bands like Kneebody do away with it and bridge gaps that touch just about any popular style of music. There are plenty of modern groups who adopt a modern ascetic by doing away with soloing all together and focus more on groove while still remaining a jazz band.
>>55419062
Joe Morris? Kevin O'Neil is another Braxton collaborator. Although I haven't come across anyone who utilizes electronics in the way Halvorson does (and in a similar setting).
>>55418918
how many hours should i practice a day?
what happened to jazzthread guy?
>>55419062
Paul Motian, Steve Coleman and Miles Okazaki are all similar in style.
>>55419066
What do you enjoy about Lanquidity and what Pharoah Sanders stuff are you into? It's a little vague of a style to go on. The Sun Ra record comes from Mingus but Pharoah comes from a more open approach. I suppose a good middle ground between the two is Pithecanthropus Erectus by Mingus and Beyond the Wall by Kenny Garrett (which features Pharoah).
>>55419187
When I did my undergrad at most I was doing 12 hours a day but I was rather neurotic before my early 20s. When I got to grad school I was playing about 5 hours in school, 4 hours in the practice room and usually a gig at night. It really depends on the progress you want to see. It is possible to over practice something to the point where you miss the larger concept behind something but most professionals I've worked with have had similar stints in their life. At this point I only practice about 3 hours a day and it usually just consists of things that I need to learn/maintaining my current technique.
>>55419214
I haven't been around so I don't know but I always enjoyed his threads.
>>55419283
when was it that you practiced 12 hours a day? what do you mean "undergrad"? (not native english speaker)
also what did practie usually and what's your instrument?
>>55418918
What are your favorite jazz albums of this year so far and what did you like or dislike about them?
>>55419337
from the age of 16 to 20 I would sleep about 5 hours a night and after my classes were finished I would stay at school until about 3 AM to practice. Undergrad means my Bachelor's degree which is just a fancy term for a college degree in America. Master's degree is a 2 year program after your Bachelor's to extend your studies into something specific.
I play upright bass so a lot of my practice was focused on technique, I split my practice time in half learning classical music because it was so demanding. I spent a good deal of time transcribing which means learning solos by ear and playing them along with the recordings. I also spent a lot of time memorizing songs from the jazz repertoire as well as ear training.
>>55419415
do you make decent money as a jazz musician or are you on a paycheck to paycheck kind of lifestyle? i briefly considering doing jazz drumming in college but ended up doing computer engineering instead (because i'm a pussy).
>>55419354
To be honest I haven't been very good about keeping up with stuff that has come out this year. I have a couple records that stick out though, I'm sure I'm missing some good stuff but I don't have a lot of time to check out new jazz (I'm trying to catch up from 2014)
Jack DeJohnette: Made in Chicago is amazing mostly because I'm a huge Henry Threadgill fan. Him and Jack are an incredible combo together.
Ben Williams: Coming of Age is a fresh take on splitting tradition and popular music.
Vijay Iyer: Break Stuff is an extension of what he was already doing and it's just that much better. You can't go wrong with that trip.
What's the best jazz with female vocals
>>55419415
That's real nice. I also play upright bass but I just started like few months ago.
Did you use to have some pains from it? That's my biggest concern right now. I can't play more than two hours without feeling some pains in my joints. And i'm just scared that it'll get worse to the point of it being unplayable because of the pain. Also when i'm playing with other people, after around ten minutes of straightforward playing I just get exhuasted and start to drag the rhythm too much. Did you experience any of those things? got any advice?
>>55419473
When I was young I lived frugally. Now that I'm older I make a decent living. It's nothing special, I'll never be rich but I don't mind that. I feel there's a large period of time if you make the decision to be a professional musician where you will suffer financially. My whole undergrad was hell but by the time I got to grad school I received a stipend from the university I was attending which covered my living expenses. Since then it's gotten easier due to me being more recognized and being picked up by different band leaders.
>>55419500
Sara Gazarek, Inga Swearingen and Gretchen Parlato are my favorite modern vocalists. Of course there's always the classic singers like Ella Fitzgerald and Billy Holiday. Also Becca Stevens is incredible.
>>55419528
You're working too hard. Use your weight. If you experience pain while you're playing other than callouses on your fingers you aren't properly utilizing your body. The biggest thing you need to remember is to relax at all times. Your arm's weight is more than sufficient to create a good sound out of the instrument so you're putting more into it than you need to and you're actually getting a worse tone. Upright bass is a very physical instrument and you have to be very conscious of that while you're learning it otherwise you will not be able to play years down the road. I never had a problem with pains because I always had great bass teachers and that's the best thing you can do for yourself. Finding a teacher with good technique is a huge part of that instrument, it's very difficult to teach yourself because of how specific your body needs to move to not injure yourself.
>>55419632
>Your arm's weight is more than sufficient to create a good sound out of the instrument
Which part of the arm do you mean? The joints? If so, then how do I know if I put too much weight on the strings?
Btw "relaxing" is basically my moto with when I practice. I always try to be as relaxed and calm as possible.
And as for teacher, mine is an incredible bassist and an incredible teacher too. I can't even explain how much better I got since I started going to him a year and a half ago. It's like I became twice as good since I started with him. He's a great person and he always says interesting stuff that helps me a lot. But what he told me about the pains is that I should just play less, so what do you think?
Is learning my scales in two octaves (this means major, minor, and some of the important modes) a good thing to practice? I get my horn out every day, but I always have no idea where to start. I'm trying to learn all of my major scales at the moment chromatically- starting on low E, then low F, then low F#, etc- and experimenting with the altissimo range so that I can play them in two full octaves. Is this a good goal?
bu
Would you mind critiquing my jazz compositions?
https://soundcloud.com/jluvial/karmine-theme
https://soundcloud.com/jluvial/pomegranate-valse-theme
How do I figure out the chords to a song that I'm transcribing? Should I stick to transcribing easy to find standards until I can (somehow) figure out the chords? Is there a resource that has the changes for basically every jazz song ever composed? I'm in the dark on this one.
I'm asking because I'm gonna try to transcribe a lot of Dexter Gordon's stuff for ideas and I can't really find a lot of the tunes he plays on his records.
>>55419040
>Elvin Jones
You reminded me that I have this album
What should I check out if I think it's amazing?
>>55420391
FORGOT PIC
>>55419496
>>55419354
My 2015 AOTY is Bullhorn by Verneri Pohjola, amazing tunes.
>>55420368
first figure out the bass note. 9 times out of 10 it will be the note the bass player hits on the downbeat. Then figure out the highest note you can hear in the piano or guitar or whoever is playing the chord. Then try and figure out if it's major or minor- use your common sense also a lot of times the bass line will tell you if it's major or minor. Then you can do trial and error to figure out any other notes happening in the chord if you want too.
A slow downer will help you when you're starting out.
>>55419632
Just wanted to say thank you based guru for enlightening us with your boundless knowledge.
>>55418953
He played a lot of instruments, just not on the same level as his saxophones. Most serious jazz musicians play, apart from their main instrument, the piano and the drums.
Coltrane was playing literally all the time, but when he was on tour or had a gig he couldn't play the sax all day long as he needed to save his lips for the actual gig, so instead he'd play piano or something else during the day to work on things.
Playing a harmonic instrument is especially important if your main instrument isn't a harmonic one, and the piano is probably a better tool to get a better harmonic sense than a guitar is (it's a little more straightforward, at least at first)
Is learning my scales in two octaves (this means major, minor, and some of the important modes) a good thing to practice? I get my horn out every day, but I always have no idea where to start. I'm trying to learn all of my major scales at the moment chromatically- starting on low E, then low F, then low F#, etc- and experimenting with the altissimo range so that I can play them in two full octaves. Is this a good goal?
>>55420368
You do need to start with something very simple, and eventually some of the chords will become obvious to you. When you hear a chord, can you instantly tell whether it's major or minor, or a dominant ? (assuming the voicing isn't too weird). That's the kind of thing you want to be able to do at first, taking your time with it and being able to recognize a harmonic "color". You might even want to sit down in front a piano and play the chords for yourself, letting them ring and trying to hear the notes inside that chord.
Focusing on the root first, then focusing on the 3rd until you can hear it, then the fifth, etc. It's a good exercise which eventually helps give you a really precise mental representation of the chord, and what sounds it's made of.
It's all an on-going process though, there's isn't a point where you'll go from not hearing anything to being able to hear everything instantly : little by little you'll get a better grasp of single chords, then common jazz progressions (ii-V-I, rhythm changes, etc). It's really important to sing the chord tones as you hear them too, as well as the bassline (if only just the bass note going from one chord to the next).
>>55420994
Scales are pretty much technique 101, that'll always be a good thing.
Another really good thing to do is get some 1-2 measure jazz licks and play each one over every chord change in a song. Like figure out how it functions and then adapt it to each change
Licks are good
>>55420994
It's a basic skill... So yes, it's a good goal but it isn't exactly a long term plan or anything.
If you practice 5 hours a week you should be able to learn all your major, minor, blues, and Dorian scales in less than a month. You're a horn player right, so it's not even like piano where you have to learn them two-handed or anything...
It's a good goal in that it's something you should already feel very comfortable with before you even really attempt to play jazz.
>>55420994
What's your goal with that exercise though ? Are you trying to have a clear idea of what notes are in each scale so you can use them to improvise more confidently, or is it more to practice your range on the instrument ?
I'm not a horn player, but if it's the former, I'd spend some time on each scale separately : if you start on C major, first try to recite the notes in your head, with the alterations, and see if you're spot on or if you're unsure of what's in the scale. Then I would sing it slowly, thinking of each note as I sing it (not thinking about just "E" if there's really an "Eb" in that scale for instance).
Then I'd try to record a simple chord progression, maybe a vamp or even some sort of drone bass note, and start manipulating the scale until I felt comfortable with it. Using only the notes from that scale at first, possibly adding some chromatic/outside notes later on. Trying to make music with it is really important I think, just running through scale probably isn't very helpful, at least it never worked for me.
You can run through all the scales if you like, but you can start with the most useful ones in jazz in general, meaning mostly "flat" keys (F, Bb, Eb, Ab, sometimes Db and Gb but not even that often), and then some of the "sharp" keys, C, G, D, maybe A and E but I mostly say that because I'm a guitar player.
If not, you can prioritize what scales youre working on as you encounter new tunes you'd like to be able to play/play over.
What's some ethereal stuff like Sketches of Spain? It's still jazz, right?
Can anybody here find me the chords for 'I Was Doing Alright'?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xywv58JWnFo
>>55419415
https://youtu.be/Lwt2KPNZzvk?t=1m40s
This is you right now
>>55421447
fucking hell that's hilarious
>>55420822
best multi instrumentalist jazz musicians? besides the obvious woodwind doublers...
I know Mingus was a decent piano player
>>55421603
Chris Potter
Yeah he does all the woodwind doubles better than most but he's also a fantastic pianist. I've heard stories that he's a very good drummer too and I saw him play guitar last year on Pat Metheny's tour
>>55418918
what's your opinion on Peter Brötzmann?
>>55422882
>he's also a fantastic pianist
are there recordings of him playing piano?
>>55421603
Mingus solo piano was pretty nice, didn't know he could do that.
Just how bad was Coltrane's drug addiction? It doesn't seem to be very well documented compared to Miles' or even Charlie's addictions. All I know was that he was a heavy drinker and heroin user and got kicked out of Miles Davis' band for it
>>55423379
Check him out on Marian McPartland's piano jazz. He switches out on sax and piano and they do a good mixture of stuff.
He also playe piano occasionally when he toured with Red Rodney inthe early 90's but I don't know of any recordings.
Where should I start with Sun Ra's music ?
>>55423920
Jazz In Silhouette is a perfect start and it's in the archive in 320.
