What's with that constant cymbal tapping in jazz drumming?

I have mixed feelings about those too. I mean this is kind of a central tension in modern jazz since at least the 90s (maybe earlier I just wasn't old enough to know) -- standards formed a lot of the harmonic language of jazz up to a certain point, but the originals are lost on modern audience and the harmonic vocabulary itself is also a bit more obscure today. So do you just abandon them? Try to make "new standards" out of songs that mostly don't lend themselves as well to jazz improv? I like what Mehldau has done with a lot of pop and rock songs, but I don't know that they lend themselves to being "standards" in the sense that lots of different people would record their takes.

what do people think about the attempts to turn "smells like teen spirit" or some Radiohead song into standards? I have mixed feelings

I've heard way more jazz versions of the Beatles' "Blackbird" than I've heard interpretations of Nirvana and Radiohead combined, though I know the latter exist, obviously.

My take on standards is sort of mixed/bifurcated: I don't ever need to hear "What Is This Thing Called Love" or any of the other "standard standards" again. They've lost all their cultural relevance because, to put it crudely, most of the people who knew them as pop songs are dead now, so they exist only as re-interpreted jazz tunes, as discussed above. And players who spent the bulk of their careers just reinterpreting standards (the worst example, to me, is Lee Konitz) do absolutely nothing for me. So, you played the intro phrase to the bridge backwards, the 1001st time you played that song? Woo fucking hoo. Here's a dog biscuit.

The problem is, those tunes are objectively better than the tunes most jazz artists these days are writing themselves. Because they're whole songs, not just heads or a complex little melodic math problem you and your three buddies spent a week figuring out. So until jazz artists can figure out a way to write memorable, crowd-pleasing songs, we're probably gonna be stuck hearing "All The Things You Are" for another eighty years.

xpost with others

Does anyone actually intend those to become standards as such? I thought they were just trying to interpret newer songs. xp

Beatles songs otoh yeah, some are even in the Real Book.

"The people don't come because you grandiose motherfuckers don't play shit that they like."

(i agree)

The only thing that saps the energy worse are bass solos.

I've thought about posting this in 'controversial music opinions' a few times.

I don't see the preservation of standards as that different from the preservation in the repertoire of classical and folk pieces. A Bach mass doesn't mean the same thing to people today that it meant to a Lutheran congregation in 18th century Germany but that doesn't mean it is not still great music worth preserving or that what it means to people now is less valuable. Even "Stairway to Heaven" probably hit people differently in 1971 than it does today. If artists really wanted to be 'relevant' in the nonsense way that music critics use the term, they would make pop records and wouldn't be playing classical or jazz at all.

Bill Dixon on his (and the new music's) development, as musicians moved away from standards:

It's very simple. I no longer felt the need to be playing the standard literature within the vernacular. I felt that you can't improve on that, so there must be something else. Because how many times can you play "'Round Midnight" or any of those beautiful tunes? All the pieces that we liked were already heavily identified with someone else's rendition anyway. What are you going to do? Change a key every eight bars? We tried all of that. We did a lot of crazy things in those days, trying to formulate a way of thinking for yourself. We listened, we analyzed. It didn't just happen with people standing up and blowing their brains out. This is what a lot of people don't understand.

xpost

I would be fine if "no bass solos on uptempo tunes" became Jazz Law. On ballads (which I'm fine with!), sure, go for it. But when the band's slamming along and all of a sudden the drummer has to stop so the bassist can whip his bow out? Fuuuuuck that.

The only bassist allowed to take a solo is Tim Bogert, RIP.

what about mingus

RIP too

Unperson otm. And there was discussion on the 2020 jazz thread (also mostly unperson I believe) about how the culture and marketplace around contemporary jazz is much more about creating your own identity, so even when someone does write a fantastic original, it's relatively rare for that to be recorded by another jazz artist. Although those standout tunes are still probably performed by university ensembles, which after all is where a lot of jazz lives these days.

If this is just standard jazz pet peeves, i'm going to open myself to the firing squad and say 'death to all saxophones'. I'll take an entire album of nothing but tippy-tappy ride cymbals over a single bleat from a saxophone.

The problem is, those tunes are objectively better than the tunes most jazz artists these days are writing themselves. Because they're whole songs, not just heads or a complex little melodic math problem you and your three buddies spent a week figuring out.

this is painfully otm. only thing worse than a contemporary jazz album thats all hoary old standards is one that is all hoary old standards plus one lone original, extra demerits if the title includes the name of a band member, "danny's riff" or w/e. sends a chill up my spine when i see a tracklisting like that.

I love this album full of ballads and bass solos:

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71ssWfclzfL._SL1400_.jpg

this is painfully otm. only thing worse than a contemporary jazz album thats all hoary old standards is one that is all hoary old standards plus one lone original, extra demerits if the title includes the name of a band member, "danny's riff" or w/e. sends a chill up my spine when i see a tracklisting like that.

― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Friday, January 15, 2021 2:15 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol, jazz sucks doesn't it

Song for Jeremy [the bass player]

It does seem like there was a brief era, from roughly bebop through maybe mid 60s, where there was a focus on writing *new standards* and a bunch of those are in the real book and get played on gigs. All the main Charlie Parker tunes come to mind, Herbie tunes like Cantaloupe Island, various Coltrane compositions, Footprints, etc. There are even a few from later, like Chick Corea's Spain. I wonder if there are any original jazz tunes from, like, the 80s onward that get played with any regularity by others.

I think I said this on the other thread, but there definitely are. When I was in college in the early '00s, it was stuff like Kenny Garrett's 'Sing a Song of Song', Mo' Betta Blues, and a bunch more that maybe you couldn't call at a jam session, but young groups would play at school and on gigs (thinking tunes by Joshua Redman, John Scofield, Leon Parker, etc).

I don't know to what degree that's happening now exactly, but you do see it a fair amount on youtube with people doing drum covers, breaking down licks, etc.

Is there an updated version of the real book that has more recent tunes in it? Would be really curious to see what's in it.

Prob also bears noting that the 60s was a time when jazz composers were very deliberately trying to create a repertoire outside of standards, in part for reasons that I guess you would call black empowerment or something along those lines.

I would be fine if "no bass solos on uptempo tunes" became Jazz Law. On ballads (which I'm fine with!), sure, go for it. But when the band's slamming along and all of a sudden the drummer has to stop so the bassist can whip his bow out? Fuuuuuck that.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Friday, January 15, 2021 1:25 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

The only kind of uptempo bass solo I like is one based around walking with the drummer still comping. I guess that's a little more like a rhythm section break than a solo, but I enjoy those.

what do people think about the attempts to turn "smells like teen spirit" or some Radiohead song into standards? I have mixed feelings

I think it generally smells like novelty, but the likes of Brad Mehldau or Bad Plus and Bill Frisell before them have done some incredible stuff in this vein.

I've been more annoyed when jazz groups have recorded versions of Aphex Twin pieces, but that's at least partly because I hate his stuff to begin with.

what do people think about the attempts to turn "smells like teen spirit" or some Radiohead song into standards? I have mixed feelings

all for this tbh

I would be fine if "no bass solos on uptempo tunes" became Jazz Law. On ballads (which I'm fine with!), sure, go for it. But when the band's slamming along and all of a sudden the drummer has to stop so the bassist can whip his bow out? Fuuuuuck that.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Friday, January 15, 2021 1:25 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

The only kind of uptempo bass solo I like is one based around walking with the drummer still comping. I guess that's a little more like a rhythm section break than a solo, but I enjoy those.

what do people think about the attempts to turn "smells like teen spirit" or some Radiohead song into standards? I have mixed feelings

There have been so many jazz recordings of "Black Hole Sun," and I know I've seen several jazz groups perform it live, that it seems as if it has become a "contemporary" jazz standard. I wonder what it is about that song that draws the attention of jazzers. Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme recorded it back in 1997!

brotherlovesdub at 12:52 15 Jan 21

If this is just standard jazz pet peeves, i'm going to open myself to the firing squad and say 'death to all saxophones'. I'll take an entire album of nothing but tippy-tappy ride cymbals over a single bleat from a saxophone.

there are a number of the most demented opinions on this thread

That opinion was clearly coming from a jazz lover trying to work out a genre convention that puzzles them in their regular listening, though.

I can see why Radiohead and Sting/Police songs work in a jazz context but "Smells Like Teen Spirit" doesn't really seem like it offers that much to work with, although I love it (and like the Bad Plus version)? Maybe "Lithium"?

Man, y'all would be furious about the acoustic / folkie scene, in which the standards are currently "Wagon Wheel," "City of New Orleans," and "Hallelujah."

There's a (or, you know, there was) a bluegrass circle at the farmer's market every Saturday, with like 20 people or so with everything from fiddle to upright bass and then a few other more exotic things. I asked my guitar teacher if he's ever felt like sitting in, and he rolled his eyes and complained that it's basically just 30 minutes of "Wagon Wheel."

Yep, I have spent many an open mic night placing bets with my drunken friends on whether the next song would be "Country Roads," "Hurt," or, alas, "Wagon Wheel."

That said, I miss those nights. And every once in a while you'd get an unexpected gem. I once heard a 14-year-old kid play an exquisite fingerstyle version of "Desafinado" and my heart grew three sizes.

Flabbergasted unperson doesn’t like Lee Konitz. I have some calzino-like thoughts going through my head for that one.

I remember a 20something student wanted to learn "Don't Dream It's Over" so I pulled up the Crowded House video and started demonstrating the sus chords in the intro. She stopped me and said she preferred the 'other version', which, apparently, consists of strumming open-position triads with the campfire rhythm.

(It's the version she was familiar with from open mics.)

Why do u hate fun, sund4r?

The Bad Plus version of Lithium is also fantastic.

the funny thing is whenever I see this thread title I think of the beginning of “pharoah’s dance”

I just hate that the bad plus or whoever it was chose “flim” as the afx song to cover because that song sucks and he has way more songs with more “jazzy” chords to play with

So many wild opinions in this thread!

A whole lot of pop music now does not really have that much harmonic information to really use it for something to improvise over. Some stuff is just a 4 bar beat loop, a sustained pad sound (maybe not even a chord) and then multi tracked vocal melody and a sample sound of some sort. Chord progression...eh, maybe kinda. Bassline...sometimes not even used. Vocal melody...lots are pretty childrens song like, which is often catchy, but not exactly some great leaps in intervals and the music juice that jazz musicians like, which is often a bit more obscure than the usual listener (at least now).

There have been so many jazz recordings of "Black Hole Sun," and I know I've seen several jazz groups perform it live, that it seems as if it has become a "contemporary" jazz standard. I wonder what it is about that song that draws the attention of jazzers.

I didn't know that but going over it rn, it makes sense. The harmony and melody are filled with modal mixture, with a lot of bIII and bVI, and both major and minor versions of the 3rd and 7th scale degrees in the melody, and that weird bII at the ends of cadences in the verse, while the chorus ends with a good proper V chord. The melody is also syncopated and lends itself well to jazz rhythm.

no one ever said jazz has to have constant cymbals - and have I not been constant?

If a steady yet subtly syncopated ride cymbal (with a good balance of ping and wash) is wrong, I don't wanna be right.

Jazz ride cymbal is one of the most satisfying of all sounds, imo

Saw some interesting social media post yesterday in my feed about Stewart Copeland discussing the Jazz influence on Charlie Watts and how he could perceive it in a general sense even if Charlie never ever did the cymbal tapping thing.

now yarn mallets on a cybal bringin a creshendo is a thing to be cherished - like in THE OCEAN by Lou Reed

Lol