In the past there have been several users who have described Jazz as bad music.


The term "Jazz" can be as nebulous as the term "classical music" (which nowadays includes everything from Bach to Schoenberg) so after listening a while to this 24 hour of stream of Jazz music:

http://www.capradio.org/12032

Can someone who feels that Jazz is some how  "evil" or musically inferior to Classical music please elaborate on what specific problems they hear?

Can someone who feels that Jazz is some how  "evil" or musically inferior to Classical music please elaborate on what specific problems they hear?

I can't. Lines have been blurred. For instance, is this classical or jazz?



I like classical music and I started to appreciate it after I ditched rock music on the grounds of evil lyrics; but I will not pretend (all) classical music is edifying in an attempt to defend something I fancy.

Thank you for the responses.

1) "One is significantly more orderly than the other".

I believe that I understand what you mean when you say this, but this common assumption is very problematic when analyzed from a musical perspective.

First of all, what is meant by order? Is it the presence of a time signature and the fact that every beat can be lined up with a metronome? If it is, and if this order is essential for good music, then Gregorian chant would be the worst music of all, since it totally lacks strict rhythm and when sung correctly is not and, arguably, should not be metronomically precise.

Part of what perpetuates the false relation between classical music and dogmatic rigidity is an anachronistic viewpoint on the history of classical music. It's very likely that what you perceive to be "disorder" in Jazz music are the improvisational elements that are essential and synonymous with this genre. However, it bears noting that improvisation was a crucial part of classical music until very recently, and that improvisation does not equate disorder.

 As an example of the former, we have countless examples from the Baroque era of improvisation being an essential part of the musician's art. Contemporary sources describe the written out solos in Handel's organ concertos as mere skeletal outlines of what Handel would improvise in live concert. The unmeasured preludes of the French harpsichord school are nothing more than written out improvisations. The organ toccatas of Buxtehude, all of which were unpublished during his lifetime, were written out examples of what North German organists would play ex tempore, the same goes for John Stanley's voluntaries. The list goes on ad infinitum.

But perhaps it is not the improvisational elements of Jazz that you have a problem with - perhaps it is the manner of improvisational that leads you to think of Jazz as disorderly. I grant that some Jazz may sound cacophonous and disorganized. However, Jazz has very complicated and strict rhythms that an ear used to listening to strictly classical music may not be able to discern initially. Not that complicated rhythms and syncopation are alien to classical music (just try playing a Chopin mazurka if you want evidence of that), but the degree of complexity in Jazz can make the neophyte feel lost. Aside from that, successful improvisation requires the player to adhere to the same harmonic patterns as those the composer works out on paper. In this sense, the ex tempore playing is almost indistinguishable from composing. Improvisation is actually a very organized and methodical art, although the skilled improviser hides this with the natural fluidity of his playing.

2) "Lines have been blurred".

Indeed they have! Two of my favorite piano composers, Poulenc and Rachmaninoff, have jazz elements all over their music. Once in America, Rachmaninoff frequented clubs that had jazz bands to listen to the music.

I too like classical music. However, musically speaking I would much prefer to listen to a live jazz improvisation rather than a nondescript symphony, string quartet, or what have you littered with stereotyped ideas and harmonic progressions from the period, written by a composer who probably just jotted it down on the fly for some cash. There's a sense of urgency and sincerity in the former that appeals to me on a musical and human level.

Yes, I do enjoy weaving through the harmonic complexities of the Well-Tempered Clavier or the Goldberg Variations as a way to help my mind sift through the mess in the Modern church and to give some semblance of order to my highly disordered life, but other times it is much more effective to simply relax, let go, and indulge in the lush, sensuous harmonies of Jazz and forget about the worries of life for a few minutes....strangely, the only thing that has a similar effect is Renaissance music with very simple harmonic progressions that are still tinged with modal harmonies, such as the keyboard works of Sweelinck and Byrd.

3) "Classical music isn't associated with the sex and booze of the 1920's".

But you forgot the 1420's! Perhaps you don't realize that the polyphonic music, such as that of Palestrina's, that Catholicism has come to embrace is of profane origin and was allowed into the Church only very slowly and against great resistance.

I believe that musical merit can outweigh the particular influences or origins of a certain musical style after the passage of time.

I'll give one example. The tune that "O Sacred Head Now Wounded" is almost always sung to is of secular origin. To our modern ears, there is absolutely nothing profane about this tune, and when we sing it during Passiontide and Holy Week it is always a very grave and moving addition to the liturgical ceremonies. Yet, imagine what a 14th century layperson would think if he walked into one of our churches on Good Friday and heard this tune being sung in one of Bach's polyphonic arrangements! It would be like us walking into a church on Good Friday and hearing the choir singing the words to "O Sacred Head Now Wounded" to the music of "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", complete with a saxophone soloist! (Oh wait, stuff like that already happens in the Novus Ordo...)

So yes, music can outlast and go beyond the limitations of its origins.




 

The biggest problem with Jazz is not the idiom per se. It is the fact that neither Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins,  etc cannot even play their instruments in tune.

What? Miles Davis!? No. He plays the trumpet beautifully, and in tune.

Thank you for the responses.

1) "One is significantly more orderly than the other".

I believe that I understand what you mean when you say this, but this common assumption is very problematic when analyzed from a musical perspective.

First of all, what is meant by order? Is it the presence of a time signature and the fact that every beat can be lined up with a metronome? If it is, and if this order is essential for good music, then Gregorian chant would be the worst music of all, since it totally lacks strict rhythm and when sung correctly is not and, arguably, should not be metronomically precise.

Part of what perpetuates the false relation between classical music and dogmatic rigidity is an anachronistic viewpoint on the history of classical music. It's very likely that what you perceive to be "disorder" in Jazz music are the improvisational elements that are essential and synonymous with this genre. However, it bears noting that improvisation was a crucial part of classical music until very recently, and that improvisation does not equate disorder.

 As an example of the former, we have countless examples from the Baroque era of improvisation being an essential part of the musician's art. Contemporary sources describe the written out solos in Handel's organ concertos as mere skeletal outlines of what Handel would improvise in live concert. The unmeasured preludes of the French harpsichord school are nothing more than written out improvisations. The organ toccatas of Buxtehude, all of which were unpublished during his lifetime, were written out examples of what North German organists would play ex tempore, the same goes for John Stanley's voluntaries. The list goes on ad infinitum.

But perhaps it is not the improvisational elements of Jazz that you have a problem with - perhaps it is the manner of improvisational that leads you to think of Jazz as disorderly. I grant that some Jazz may sound cacophonous and disorganized. However, Jazz has very complicated and strict rhythms that an ear used to listening to strictly classical music may not be able to discern initially. Not that complicated rhythms and syncopation are alien to classical music (just try playing a Chopin mazurka if you want evidence of that), but the degree of complexity in Jazz can make the neophyte feel lost. Aside from that, successful improvisation requires the player to adhere to the same harmonic patterns as those the composer works out on paper. In this sense, the ex tempore playing is almost indistinguishable from composing. Improvisation is actually a very organized and methodical art, although the skilled improviser hides this with the natural fluidity of his playing.


 

Right.  I wouldn't deny the musical talent and melodiousness of a lot of jazz music and rock n roll, for that matter.  My impression is that jazz and blues,  which are often said to be the roots of rock n roll, are generally accepted by the public, for the reasons you have stated, which I would sum up as:  it often sounds pretty good.  

So, what's the problem?  Well, if I understand it correctly, the problem is that jazz, blues and rock n roll are significantly less orderly than the other musical forms you referred to, like Chant and Classical.  As well as, I would add, lots of band music, which I often enjoy, because it is uplifting and kind of peps me up.  However, the stuff I enjoy I would describe as orderly and the stuff I avoid seems to me, to tend to disorder.  Although, like you have pointed out, it is a matter of degrees, it is not all or nothing.  

Some folks say that is why our cultural elites encouraged it, because it had the elements of "pure" modern music (total and complete disorder or as close as anything can get to that, in an orderly universe), without the obvious awfulness of that.  Hence, it would be widely accepted and that was a success, if that was indeed their purpose.  

In the end, I'd like to be perfect (it's a matter of degrees).  So, I need to keep my "insides" perfect and in order to do that, I need to be careful about what they are exposed to.  

It would be nice and conducive to this ongoing conversation if the member that gave the previous post a "thumbs down" would write a post articulating what exactly he/she found problematic with my post.

With most posts that are down thumbed, I understand the controversy and the 'why', whether I agree or not.
Some "down thumbing" however makes no sense at all.

I cannot take credit for the thumbs down in question  :smile: , but when discussing jazz or rock and roll, I suspect it's the slippery slope factor that prompts people to reject these forms of music.