Jazz for listening--do you like bop?

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What kind of jazz do you like, for listening to?

Mostly classic or swing-era type jazz
5
18%
Most types of jazz but not much bop
7
25%
Most types of jazz, including bop
10
36%
Virtually all types of jazz
6
21%
 
Total votes: 28

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Ron
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Jazz for listening--do you like bop?

#1 Post by Ron » Wed Sep 03, 2003 1:16 pm

I went out recently in NYC at a couple of different places and saw two jazz acts. A jazz trio with a singer playing standards which I liked (at Garage), and a modern jazz group playing some atonal bop stuff that I didn't like (at 55 Bar). So I was inspired to do this poll because I once again determined that I'm not into a lot of modern jazz, but I'm wondering how many of you are.

My apologies in advance for the over-simplified categories. And the assumption that the answers build on one another, which is a gross simplification, too. And treat "bop" as a very broad term.

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Ron
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#2 Post by Ron » Wed Sep 03, 2003 1:20 pm

I can't help it, I really like melodies, and improvisation based on melodies. Through listening to all this swinging and danceable music, my tastes have broadened so much from five years ago, but they still don't encompass bop.

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Jake
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#3 Post by Jake » Wed Sep 03, 2003 6:59 pm

I voted on the assumption that "Most Types of Jazz" doesn't include "smooth."

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#4 Post by Yakov » Thu Sep 04, 2003 7:28 am

my favorite non-dance jazz music to listen to is CHARLIE MINGUS. it's amazing. i see it as being like the X-treme version of Duke Ellington. You should hear his "C Jam Blues." and his compositions -- holy s*** they're awesome.

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#5 Post by Soupbone » Thu Sep 04, 2003 7:52 am

I like some bop. But, you may be more closely connecting "atonal" with "bop" than I do. I think that the lines between bop/hard-bop/cool and so on get blurry, though. So, maybe we're talking different styles or different aspects of the same style.

But, I like a lot of Monk, Bud Powell, and Bird, as well as Miles, Gerry Mulligan, MJQ and so forth.
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#6 Post by julius » Thu Sep 04, 2003 11:55 am

Bop does have melodies, but they're not the standard diatonic major/minor melodies people are accustomed to. I actually caught myself humming "Confirmation" (badly) recently. It's actually kind of catchy, and not that different from melodies like "Bernie's Tune" or "Cottontail", which are boppish.

I think bop does take a bit more knowledge of the underlying music to appreciate, though. Knowing what changed rhythmically and melodically between swing and bop makes bop much more interesting for me. I listen to bop and identify techniques and motifs as opposed to simply enjoying it viscerally (well, I do both, simultaneously). That's probably why it's not so accessible.

I think you just need to go more slowly up the sliding scale from swing to bop, Ron. It sounds like you went from Ellington to Ornette Coleman all at once. That's too much for anybody to digest, as the 50s and early 60s proved.

I recommend Ken Burns' Charlie Parker _Jazz_ CD if you are interested in "gateway bop".

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#7 Post by Lawrence » Thu Sep 04, 2003 1:57 pm

Interesting question because we were discussing it last night over breakfast. :-)

Before I learned how to dance, I always liked some jazz, and knew that I "should" like and appreciate other Jazz. But listening to Charlie Parker and Coltrane, most particularly, left me confused and uninspired.

After I learned to dance, I obsessively listened to and collected Swing music--mostly Original Swing Era music--for two or three years. I bought virtually NO Rock or Blues, just Swing Era jazz.

After only two or three years, I felt somewhat like jazzmen did at the end of the Swing Era: really burnt out on Swing. I started craving for something more. Then I listened to Charlie Parker and I suddenly understood what all the fanfare was about: not in musical terms, but from a listener's standpoint. In a loose manner of speaking, it finally made sense to me. I then re-examined all the jazz giants from the 50s and 60s--Coltrane, Rollins, Davis, Dex--and fell in love with it: especially Sonny Rollins.

I have also since realized that lots of modern jazz musicians do not have even that sort of appreciation of where bop, hard bop, cool, and mainstream jazz came from: they just pick up these random squeaks and jitters and try to reproduce them. Perhaps because they are trying to copy instead of reproduce or rediscover it for themselves--and perhaps because I'm comparing ordinary jazz players of today to the giants of yesterday--I sometimes still feel that alienation when listening to modern jazz.

So, yes, all kinds of Jazz, but it was definitely an acquired taste.
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Re: Jazz for listening--do you like bop?

#8 Post by Lawrence » Thu Sep 04, 2003 2:00 pm

Ron wrote:I went out recently in NYC at a couple of different places and saw two jazz acts. A jazz trio with a singer playing standards which I liked (at Garage), and a modern jazz group playing some atonal bop stuff that I didn't like (at 55 Bar). So I was inspired to do this poll because I once again determined that I'm not into a lot of modern jazz, but I'm wondering how many of you are.

My apologies in advance for the over-simplified categories. And the assumption that the answers build on one another, which is a gross simplification, too. And treat "bop" as a very broad term.
I understand you were stabbing at terms, but I think you mischaracterized or over-generalized what "bop" is. You probably heard something more like Ornette Coleman's "Free jazz" that does not follow form. I agree with Julius' assessment.
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#9 Post by julius » Thu Sep 04, 2003 2:15 pm

Oh, another good starting point for going from swing to bop is West Coast Jazz, with Stan Getz, Shelley Manne, Conte Candoli, and a bunch of other dudes. The whole "cool jazz" phenomenon was really just bop without the fire and heat. The album contains a couple of very hummable standards (like East of the Sun, Summertime, and Love Is Here To Stay). Try humming the melody along with a soloing musician sometime -- you may be surprised at how closely bop solos actually do follow the melody, albeit in a very foreign manner.

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#10 Post by Roy » Thu Sep 04, 2003 7:22 pm

I dislike Free style and smooth, the rest is good. Bop isn't too bad depends on how hard it is.

I was at Green Mill in Chicago a couple of weeks ago and happened in on a famous bop guitarist that played with Charlie Parker by the name of George Freeman. Only about half the music he played was bop. It was really cool because he had such a unique guitar style, he told stories of him and Charlie Parker. He played some T-bone walker inspired blues, he called a singer up and they did some jazz standards, it was overall a 1st class show.

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#11 Post by CafeSavoy » Fri Sep 05, 2003 2:42 am

I voted for most types of jazz since i'm not partial to smooth jazz and i'm not really into the free jazz that's way out there beyond Ornette Coleman. my exposure to jazz was initially mostly bebop, Coltrane, Miles, Bird & Diz. for example, i first encountered Roy Eldridge on a Mingus cd and went 'whoah who is this'. I think learning to dance has changed my taste in jazz by changing my rhythmic tastes.

I'd agree with Julius idea of gradual immersion and think that the earlier recordings are better places to start. The musicians still had a strong sense of swing since they had mostly been recently playing in swing bands, and there was still the restrictions on length of songs.

Apparently the initial stage of the creation of bop was not well documented because it happened during the record ban. Although you can get glimpses of it in things like the live Minton's Playhouse recordings in '41 with Charlie Christian, Dizzy, Monk, etc. Supposedly the first bebop recording was of Dizzy's "Woody'N You" on Coleman Hawkins' Rainbow Mist (1944). It also had the first recording of Salt Peanuts in a session with Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, George Auld, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charlie Shavers. You can compare it to the version a year later Dizzy's Groovin' High (1945 & 1946) that has the vocals.

If you are looking for some really accessible bebop you could try Dizzy's The Champ [Savoy] and School Days [Savoy] from 1951 which includes some songs that are currently played for dancing.

A cd that brings all the early giants together is Jazz at Massey Hall (1953); a live recording with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, Bud Powell, and Max Roach.

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#12 Post by Ron » Fri Sep 05, 2003 11:24 am

I like some Bop, like Dizzy's The Champ. So I'm probably not as negative on it as I sounded at first. And yes, the band I saw in NYC was probably more Free Jazz. But I don't like a lot of Monk. I'm not engaged by the songs. I like more melody and structure. I'm not sure that listening to more bop is going to change my views, I've had a long time already. Its just a preference. I kind of envy those that have a broader appreciation of jazz.

Anyway, from the poll results, it looks like my tastes are shared by many on here.

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#13 Post by julius » Fri Sep 05, 2003 12:51 pm

It's too bad we can't all get together at some point and just share music with each other, like a DJ/music appreciation festival of some sort.

I guess we could do it digitally but it's not the same.

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#14 Post by CafeSavoy » Fri Sep 05, 2003 9:30 pm

Ron wrote:I like some Bop, like Dizzy's The Champ. So I'm probably not as negative on it as I sounded at first. And yes, the band I saw in NYC was probably more Free Jazz. But I don't like a lot of Monk. I'm not engaged by the songs. I like more melody and structure.


I'm not sure that listening to more bop is going to change my views, I've had a long time already. Its just a preference. I kind of envy those that have a broader appreciation of jazz.

Anyway, from the poll results, it looks like my tastes are shared by many on here.
I think that the question of whether more listening will change your views really depends on what you have already heard and also on what you mean by bop, structure, and melody. Early bop was more evolutionary rather than a radical change, but later it became more experimental. In addition the various experimental schools jazz also went in several different directions. You had the chamber jazz of MJQ; the Cool school that was infuenced by Miles Davis; the West Coast School which seems like a type of Cool school too, and Hard Bop which was a call for the return to rhythm. Oh, and there was all the latin influenced jazz too, for example, afro cubop. And I forgot the singers too, Sarah Vaughan, Babs Gonsalves, Joe Carroll, Ella Fitzgerald, King Pleasure, and more. And this is only up to the 60's. Although i think the names changed as the styles changed, so not all of those styles would be considered bop.

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#15 Post by funkyfreak » Sat Sep 06, 2003 12:28 pm

Afro-Cuban Bop is excellent, excellent work,and people who may want a more familiar structure in their bop songs can find a great percentage.

-FF

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