Rolling Jazz Thread 2021

Is that the “Maps” that…? I guess so.

Lots of guys who are far from hidebound moldy figs think that learning standards is important iirc.

Every jazz student should drop acid and listen to Ascension.

Lots of guys who are far from don't think of themselves as hidebound moldy figs think that learning standards is important iirc.

"Learn every Beatles song. Then you can start your little 'death metal band.'"

You know who loves keeping standards around? Record labels and music publishing companies. Fuck standards. Ban 'em all for 20 years, like a controlled burning of a forest, and see what sprouts in their place.

Look man, I appreciate the valuable work you do journalistically, but I am talking about modern players, not some bogeyman of your choosing. Also the subject Sund4r brought up was Jazz Education, not Who Gets To Be The Gatekeeper Of What Music Is Heard, which is a whole different thing.

You know who you sound like? The Big Mother himself.

*cue wacky xylophone solo*

Also the subject Sund4r brought up was Jazz Education, not Who Gets To Be The Gatekeeper Of What Music Is Heard, which is a whole different thing.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

It was the subject Iverson brought up tbf.

Wait, Iverson is posting on this thread?

What’s so funny, what’s your point? You think there is no such thing as Jazz Education because We’re A Garage Band? You think that all the people who teach Jazz at Queens College or UNT or all the multitude of other places or teach privately (Sund4r? But I don’t want to speak for him) are just lackeys of Wynton and the Recording Industry, such as it is)

Interested to hear what Jordan or man alive would say.

Anyway, I would like you to add some nterview questions to every one you conduct going forward, so you can do some real investigate journalism: Do you teach? Are you affiliated with an institution? Do you teach standards?

Or even: have you learned any standards? Did you find it useful?

What’s so funny, what’s your point?

Jazz education is 100% about gatekeeping. Come to Juilliard/Berklee/NEC/The New School and get your master's in...jazz education! So you can teach the next generation how to teach jazz, just like it's been taught for fifty years. Count how many ads in DownBeat (a magazine I write for, btw) are for music schools/programs or instrument manufacturers. Read their annual issue promoting jazz education programs like they're fucking US News & World Report. It's an industry, obsessed with self-preservation and refusing to admit its own impending extinction, just like virtually every other branch of academia. And it's not about advancing music at all; it's about keeping musicians of a certain pedigree employed as professors, and preserving "the tradition."

Anyway, I would like you to add some interview questions to every one you conduct going forward, so you can do some real investigate journalism: Do you teach? Are you affiliated with an institution? Do you teach standards?

I ask about that stuff fairly often already. Back in 1997, in one of the first interviews I ever did, I asked Charlie Haden about teaching at Cal Arts. He told me he didn't teach harmony or theory or anything else, that his students could get that in their other classes. He taught improvisation, and he said, "I teach them to look at the stars."

Typos, sorry, no one proofreads anymore.

Did you ask Charlie a follow-up question about what they improvise over?

Constellations obv

i was in jazz band in high school, it was fun and i learned a lot

Why didn’t you just play in a metal band like you really wanted to and eliminate the middle man?

You know, the mythical "jazz student who only practices standards" and their classmate "jazz student who only practices chordscales" probably have a similar repertoire and sound the same to most listeners.

Also, freaking out and making your own "Ascension" is, 56 years later, possibly as well-travelled and corny an option as playing "Caravan" with a drum solo.

I made a related point to what unperson is saying (from the point-of-view of a listener/reader) in my first post on this board:

"I also wonder why some jazz fans/historians/critics feel that if you like one strand of this music, you ought to enjoy listening to old records that have nothing in common with your taste. Is it because this one hundred years of music is all still called 'jazz'? I mean, how would extreme metal fans respond to someone shoving Chuck Berry or Yardbirds records at them, because it's all 'rock'?"

I usually like your posts but that is…not such a great point.

It's just that the "canon" seems to weigh so much heavier in jazz discourse.

For one thing, I would bet on Only Standards guy over Only CST guy. For another, I think people in general should try to listen to older styles if they can. For a third I like how everything depends on the Metal Straw Iron Man logical turn.

It's just that the "canon" seems to weigh so much heavier in jazz discourse.

freaking out and making your own "Ascension"

you mean the "Ascension" recorded by the formally educated theory nerd John Coltrane along with a cast of many other formally educated jazz musicians?

I mean, feel free to put the question to the Rolling Metal Thread. As an extreme metal listener, I appreciate having at least some familiarity with Chuck Berry and the Yardbirds.xps

Lol James Redd

Check out the academic and performance background of Daniel Mongrain (current guitarist of Voivod, former member of Gorguts and Cryptopsy, founding member of Martyr, also a jazz/pop guitar prof and session player with blues, folk, and country experience): https://danmongrain.com/en/about

I am asking another friend who is a metal drummer who where he stands on this.

His response?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Sorry, don't mean to misquote, his actual response was
Hahahahahahahahah

cool, helpful addition.

I don't think it's a binary. On the one hand, I don't think you'll find a worthwhile jazz musician who hasn't deeply immersed themselves in the history of the form. On the other, I think that there's a spectrum between jazz being totally academized & institutionalized, versus being a living form linked to local and/or popular culture.

Obviously the long trend for decades has been to the institutionalized end of the spectrum, but there are still some promising elements on the other end (the way hip-hop/beat music, gospel music, etc have changed the feel & vocabulary, also New Orleans has always been it's own thing, etc).

I think discounting standards and tradition is dumb, there are only positives to studying them. But there are probably ways to teach them that are overly didactic and not constructive. In Richard Davis's classes, he would never point to a specific jazz recording of a standard -- he would always have us find an original non-jazz vocal recording when possible. I think he was trying to create the same environment that made those songs become standards in the first place -- learn the lyrics, learn what the song is saying emotionally, then create an arrangement and improvise on it. And once you do that, of course you'll be curious what master musicians did with it too.

And I also think that "learning the tradition" can be taken too far or used as a cudgel, it shouldn't be "you need to learn all of this before you can think about having your own voice", because that's stifling. Even if it does take many years to absorb everything and come out with something interesting, encouraging people to learn and to exercise their own creativity should go hand in hand imo.

cool, helpful addition.

Sorry, guess I can't seem to muster the condescension you've whipped up today.

I was enjoying reading the back and forth and was genuinely curious to hear what your metal drumming friend had to say, but I guess it's more fun to obliquely dunk on someone.

So you think I started that?
HAHAHAHAHAH
oh forget it

He had more to say, quite a bit, but I feel kind of weird cut and pasting his texts, maybe I will summarize but have to go out of signal for a while.

Great post, Jordan! It took every ounce of Iron Man Willpower not to post before you arrived "Jordan studied with Richard Davis and sang scales into his answering machine, do you think Richard Davis is an academic hack?"

Whatever, another potentially interesting ILM conversation derailed by oblique swipes and dismissiveness.

I only suggested dropping acid and listening to Ascension cause it sounds like a good time.

Is it actuallly derailed? I'd like to think I contributed some positive content earlier to this thread, but maybe you didn't read, and others have contineued to do so. If you noticed, I tried to be polite to unperson but it offended his Bad Boy Persona so it was a waste of time.

Btw just personally I think that going to school for jazz in 2021 is a probably a poor life decision, unless 1) you want to be a professor, or 2) you're already good enough to be a professional musician and want to study with a master who teaches at one of these programs.

Among today's top working jazz musicians, I'd be curious what the mix is of those who went to music school vs those who didn't. Also would be interesting to compare with the UK/London.

I didn't mean to attack anyone who liked Armstrong, Coltrane, Yardbirds or whatever, merely the idea that a "tru jazz fan" has to immerse themselves in an historical curriculum that may not be to their taste. Not every listener has to be an historian.

We're talking about people who are training to be musicians at a professional level, though, not people who are collecting records.

Right, I was just reminded of my old post by unperson's Beatles/death metal comment.

I tried to be polite to unperson but it offended his Bad Boy Persona so it was a waste of time

Who was offended? I laughed at your idea that jazz education isn't about gatekeeping, because...it is to laugh. I'll re-post what I said above:

>>Jazz education is 100% about gatekeeping. Come to Juilliard/Berklee/NEC/The New School and get your master's in...jazz education! So you can teach the next generation how to teach jazz, just like it's been taught for fifty years. Count how many ads in DownBeat (a magazine I write for, btw) are for music schools/programs or instrument manufacturers. Read their annual issue promoting jazz education programs like they're fucking US News & World Report. It's an industry, obsessed with self-preservation and refusing to admit its own impending extinction, just like virtually every other branch of academia. And it's not about advancing music at all; it's about keeping musicians of a certain pedigree employed as professors, and preserving "the tradition."

My position re standards is more or less this: Get rid of 'em. Stop playing them, stop recording them, or accept that doing so marks you as a fundamentally uncreative musician who should be playing in hotel lobbies or restaurants. (Before you bring it up, yes, I like Anthony Braxton's new box set of standards. But Braxton has battled jazz's gatekeepers long enough and hard enough that he can play any fucking thing he wants. Similarly, Matt Shipp has probably recorded "Autumn Leaves" a half dozen times, but he's earned the right to plug it into a set of his own music.)

On the question of "learn chords and scales" or "learn old songs that use particular combinations of chords and scales" I am 100% in the former camp. When teaching said chords and scales, I am perfectly OK with professors saying, "Here are three examples of composers using these chords and scales in songs," and playing recordings of, I don't know, "All the Things You Are," "Stella By Starlight," and "The Very Thought of You." Pick other examples if you like. But the very next thing the professor should say is, "Now take those chords and scales and write your own piece of music. Have it ready for the next class."

There are a whole bunch of social and business reasons why and how standards became standards, but they're never taken into account anymore. They're just "the repertoire," and it's ridiculous.

Unperson, I don't think that binary is what you think it is. It's not "originals vs standards".

I'm a theory baby, but I think Iverson is saying that learning which scales go over which chords is an oversimplification, and that learning from recordings reveals relationships between the two that are deeper and more creative. James or someone please elaborate or correct me if I'm wrong.

I don't think anyone is against learning chords and scales - learning chordscales, which is what Iverson is commenting on, is a particular way of using them - the idea that you should think of playing over F# m7b5 - B7b5 - Em7 in terms of playing a Locrian #2 scale over the first chord, a Phrygian dominant scale over the second, and the Aeolian mode over the third, as opposed to e.g. thinking about the whole thing in terms of an E minor key area with emphasis on chord members and focusing more on melodic motion driven by tendency tones (and maybe just playing E blues material on the repeat). xp

Last two posts OTM.

Another Iron Sraw Man: that *these musicians* only play standards and don't write their own, more modern, stuff.