Microtonal jazz

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Microtonal music is music using microtones -- intervals of less than a semitone, or as Charles Ives put it, the "notes between the cracks" of the piano. The term is also used to refer to any music whose tuning is not based on semitones, such as western just intonation, Indonesian gamelan music and Indian classical music.

Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 22:05 (eighteen years ago) link

(Or like ARABIC MUSIC.)

Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Wednesday, 20 July 2005 22:05 (eighteen years ago) link

ellis played with mingus, george russell, & on zappa's absolutely free... can anyone recommend one of his own albums that showcases his quartertone horn?

http://www.handofgord.com/donellis/#own

milton parker (Jon L), Friday, 22 July 2005 23:15 (eighteen years ago) link

i picked up Ellis' "Electric Bath" for a buck from a thrift store. i always thought it was pretty vanilla. i think i listened to it once thinking it was a standard big band album? i had no idea that he was so avant. the first paragraph of the liner notes is pretty hillarious:

In less than one hundred years, this album will be obsolete. Reverb amplifiers, clavinets, loop delays and quarter-tone trumpets (not to mention conventional instruments) will all be junked. Time signatures such as 5/4, 7/4, or 17 will be too simple for the latest teen dances. And the hard-driving Rock sound will be supplanted by evenings spent receiving electrical jolts to the frontal lobes

The Amazing Jaxon! (jaxon), Saturday, 23 July 2005 00:11 (eighteen years ago) link

i took off some gentle giant to listen to this Ellis and wish i hadn't. it really does just feel like some happy big band. i'm only in track one. we'll see.

The Amazing Jaxon! (jaxon), Saturday, 23 July 2005 00:21 (eighteen years ago) link

I have "Live" at Monterey!, but the emphasis is definitely on outrageous time signatures* rather than anything he was doing with the quartertone trumpet. Even on "Concerto for Trumpet," I can't hear anything very strange in his solo.

*"33 222 1 222," "27/16," "Beat Me Daddy, 7 to the Bar," etc.

Truckdrivin' Buddha (Rock Hardy), Saturday, 23 July 2005 00:33 (eighteen years ago) link

the first side of Electric Bath was pretty boring. there was one part where i could tell it was pretty microtonal. sounded very "out of tune" and eastern. but overall, still pretty upbeat big band stuff.

second side and the first track is really nice. lots of ambient weirdness. delays. kinda trippy. maybe because i'm on the second beer? it sorta sounds like something carla bley woulda done

The Amazing Jaxon! (jaxon), Saturday, 23 July 2005 00:51 (eighteen years ago) link

Jaxon, is "Turkish Bath" the one that's moving you? Great track even if I don't recall it being particularly microtonal.

doug watson (solid air), Saturday, 23 July 2005 01:31 (eighteen years ago) link

actually, Turkish Bath is pretty microtonal. that's the one i said sounded pretty eastern. listening again. it's pretty funky, almost a latin feel, but with really outta tune horns and a catchy melody.

the song i was refering to as a bit trippier is "Open Beauty".

The Amazing Jaxon! (jaxon), Saturday, 23 July 2005 01:37 (eighteen years ago) link

I've got a Mat Maneri (w/ papa Joe on clarinet) record on Aum Fidelity that is very good, but damned if I know if I'm hearing microtones, sounds like typical jazz to me. When I think of microtones I think of Tony Conrad.

mcd (mcd), Saturday, 23 July 2005 01:44 (eighteen years ago) link

I think of U. Srinivas freaky carnatic mandolin.

Truckdrivin' Buddha (Rock Hardy), Saturday, 23 July 2005 02:02 (eighteen years ago) link

been thinking of this concept of 'microtonal jazz' today... the funny thing about classic jazz is that the intonation is usually so pure, when horn & string players line up behind a vocalist, they're going to nail the pure intervals and fuck a piano player, the good sounds aren't quite what's on the keyboard... nothing like pure intonation to make things leap straight out at you, that's one of the secrets of those early records

& then in the sixties the free players _really_ started in on overtones and playing between the notes... all of the free players who are typically brought up were pushing away from the twelve notes & finding new things that worked

that's not what Julio's talking about with 'microtonality' where someone defines an alternate, fixed set of intervals and composes for it: that's what that New Music Box interviewer linked above meant when asking Eaton 'who else was working with microtones in jazz besides Don Ellis' ... systematic exploration. points to Ellis for designing trumpets with extra valves to nail quarter notes

but put on (one of ten thousand examples) the first two minutes of Coltrane's "Meditations" with Sanders & Coltrane battling it out and the same question seems a little naive, they're playing off the scale and they know what they're doing

I bought Maneri's 'Kalavinka' last night, need to spend some more time with it... definitely a lot of strong precise between-note sustains there

milton parker (Jon L), Saturday, 23 July 2005 23:48 (eighteen years ago) link

fourteen years pass...

that is.. a lot of frets?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9MjtfEQl_c

Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 29 January 2020 00:11 (four years ago) link

That was pretty interesting.

With considerable charm, you still have made a choice (Sund4r), Wednesday, 29 January 2020 01:20 (four years ago) link

Yeah, kinda...idk what I'd be looking for from microtonal rock.

xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 29 January 2020 14:26 (four years ago) link

feels like if Allan Holdsworth grew up listening to Muse

Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 29 January 2020 20:16 (four years ago) link

dunno about how it applies to jazz, but I researched some microtonal theory recently. Our familiar music divides the octave into 12 tones, but you can divide it in other ways too. Some work better than others, e.g. 5 tones gives a pentatonic scale, but harmonic music can also be found in other divisions, e.g. 53-TET is 53 tones, others that work include 19-TET
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVZy9GUeMqY

Dr X O'Skeleton, Thursday, 30 January 2020 16:21 (four years ago) link

xyzzzz do you like Horse Lords?

ogmor, Wednesday, 12 February 2020 10:54 (four years ago) link

two months pass...

posting microtonal riffs until everybody agrees that bad notes are actually good notes pic.twitter.com/OtjaNo4D8k

— Virtual Trobairitz (@bastard__wing) May 5, 2020

xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 5 May 2020 07:48 (three years ago) link

ogmor - just saw this. Would you recommend a particular record?

xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 5 May 2020 07:50 (three years ago) link

one month passes...

This is tearing my head apart, kind of (h/t Drugs A. Money). Not 100% sure what to make of it but it's definitely interesting and I like Fiuczynski's tone a lot: https://giorgimikadze.bandcamp.com/album/georgian-microjamz

Feel a million filaments (Sund4r), Wednesday, 17 June 2020 16:30 (three years ago) link

By ear, I can't tell at all what kind of tuning system they're using tbh.

Feel a million filaments (Sund4r), Wednesday, 17 June 2020 16:36 (three years ago) link

there's a fella in Australia called Kraig Grady who has done microtonal work that I've really enjoyed

I wouldn't call it jazz (possibly jazz adjacent at times - I've seen him play with Chris Abrahams of The Necks for instance)

alongside the music is some loose world-building around the (fictional) island of Anaphoria, kind of fourth world vibes

in a fairly unexpected development, DJ Bonebrake from X plays on one of his records

umsworth (emsworth), Thursday, 18 June 2020 04:31 (three years ago) link


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