how to feel jazzy

this post was inspired by a question Loup des Abeilles asked me. essentially, how to like jazz.

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when Brad Kelly had me on his podcast one of the first things he asked me was, What’s the deal with jazz. this is actually a question i’ve encountered before. being into jazz is not the same as being into this or that genre of pop music, even niche forms like say, heavy metal, or punk. it’s more like being into folk or world music (love the stupidity of these terms). except jazz, which of course like all music began as ‘folk world music’, lacks the charm and simplicity that those other types of music have.

i think normal people would, after a few minutes, politely ask someone to turn off the earsplitting bagpipes of scotland or the soporific sitars of india, but i can name two handfuls of jazz standards that would repel the common ear with the first chord alone (probably).

another reason why jazz is not perceived in the same way as folk music is because it’s very technical, requiring a lot of specialized training, both theoretical and practical. and so it’s not very fun, it’s almost academic. like classical music. except it doesn’t have the prestige of classical music either, jazz musicians never ever wore wigs even once. jazz is classical music’s poor and retarded cousin. or so it is perceived in broad terms by the general public, as far as i can tell.

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Brad described jazz as a secret society, and i probably mumbled something less than eloquent in response, but it struck me as true then and the idea stayed with me until now, because i knew exactly what he was talking about and it was something i’d felt before. but it is very hard to explain, so a story is probably better.

some ten, fifteen years ago or so i was dragged to a very small party at a friend’s apartment. mostly it was film and tv people there and i was very bored. one of the people i didn’t know was this one guy, who turned out to be a drummer. so i of course asked him what kind of music he played. and when he said jazz (technically it was jazz fusion) there was an instant unexplainable bond, and from then on i wasn’t bored anymore. we both knew about this secret world, and outside of talking about religion (another kind of secret club altogether; he was fascinated by the fact that i was religious and also into jazz), we mostly showed each other cool music we liked (or else music we’d made. this is yet another indication of the initiatory nature of the thing. there are very few people i know in the flesh that are into jazz, but are not, or at least were not at some point, musicians of some kind themselves. and as far as i know this doesn’t happen as often with other types of music).

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so jazz is a bit like a secret society, except much better, because it’s about music and beauty and freedom, not occult nerdery. (another thing that distinguishes the jazz secret society from all others is that it has no homoerotic undertones). but it is something you have to be initiated into, whether by yourself through serendipity and mystical resonance, or by someone who knows, followed by mystical resonance. it has to mystically resonate, like all music really. that’s the key.

in other words you have to feel what it’s all about. it’s not an intellectual exercise. but it is possible to learn. and after that magical moment when it finally clicks (and i shouldn’t be telling you this because you’re only supposed to know after you’ve been initiated), there will be from then on an intrusive voice whenever you hear any other kind of music other than jazz, and it will say, Hmm… this song would be much better with some… JAAAAZZZZZ CHOOOOORDS.

(much like say, someone who had never tasted salt, would afterward desire no food without it, since the right amount makes anything taste better)

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what is meant by jazz is important. it is a question of sonic vocabulary. there are many different kinds of jazz, but the basic definition is that it has to swing. if it doesn’t swing, it’s not really jazz. it can be jazz inspired. it can be jazz derived. but it isn’t really jazz. but besides swing i would add three other components.

for one, it has to have the blues in there somewhere, no matter how hidden. and it has to allow for improvisation, and extensive soloing, so that melodies can be stretched, and in unexpected ways, since the expansion is provided by the individuality of the player in the moment and in response to the other players, rather than the composer’s fixed vision, as in a symphony.

still, i don’t think swing, the blues or even soloing is what offends the ears of normal people. it’s the last component, which grew in importance as jazz developed from dance music to a larger artistic pursuit through the first half of the twentieth century, and reached its highest heights in the first decade of the second half.

this last component is harder to define, but it has no doubt to do with dissonance. i have called it extended harmony before, but that is a very vague term. it’s probably best to say that jazz is a continuation of the harmonic language of early twentieth century classical music (which was the last kind of classical music; or else the first kind of another type of music altogether that just happened to use the same means as classical music).

although bebop is where jazz became quote unquote art music (another meaningless term), to my ears the definitive sounds of jazz are those that followed it in the fifties and sixties. the serenity and fragility of cool, the color and mood of modal, the frenetic abstract blues of hard bop, the orchestral expansiveness of third stream, and the impressionism and fluidity and dissonance of post bop, all these in their own way stretched jazz to its limits (but unlike free jazz, they played with the limits rather than discard them). [side note: ‘free jazz’ is not really jazz, or even music]. eventually post bop broke into jazz fusion, which kept the same vast harmonic language and improvisational ethos of post bop, but the other parts could be anything, and have little to do with the blues or with swing. [another side note: yes all those examples are from Miles Davis’ records; the man was at the vanguard of every form of jazz. here’s another great piece of Miles Davis fusion i found recently, this one live, just because why not. it was the first time i really got the genius of Keith Jarrett that people kept telling me about all the time].

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anyway, i think what throws people off about jazz is not the swing or the blues, but the expanded harmonies, the dissonance, which make the extensive soloing impossible to swallow. so maybe getting acquainted with early twentieth century music is the key to unlock jazz. (though starting with jazz ballads, even very impressionistic ones, is a close second; the jazz ballad extended harmony appreciation course).

i think the color of this piece is accessible but stretchy. you start following a simple melody and are quickly thrown into ambiguous tonal territory. and then what. can you follow the voices, can you put together the sonic puzzle. this is something that can be trained, but it all starts with that mystical click. i find closing my eyes helps to listen better, deeper. maybe this is the one that makes it click for you. it has influenced a lot of jazz and jazz derived music, that’s for sure.

also, i have become quite obsessed with it of late, and maybe this whole post is just an excuse to recommend it again.