View Full Version : Jazz is a horrible noise
I can't understand why anyone would want to listen to this mixed up, tuneless drivel called jazz. The only mildly amusing thing about it is the weird names the muisicians have, like Thelonious Monk. What was his mother thinking of! Or calling a kid Dizzy?
I can't understand why anyone would want to listen to this mixed up, tuneless drivel called jazz. The only mildly amusing thing about it is the weird names the muisicians have, like Thelonious Monk. What was his mother thinking of! Or calling a kid Dizzy?
Agree with the comments about Jazz. Not sure about the names argument though. His Mum probably though Richard and Rich pretty awful or maybe you prefer to be called Dick.
It gets worse. His full name is THELONIUS SPHERE MONK. I guess his mother didn't want him to be a square.
orkneylass
31-Aug-07, 16:27
Like many other musical forms, jazz has many forms. I love jazz-rock and jazzy ballads, but don't like mainstream jazz, cleo laine being my worst nightmare! I would say Sade is a jazz singer and she is worlds away.
It gets worse. His full name is THELONIUS SPHERE MONK. I guess his mother didn't want him to be a square.
But your Mum did want you to be a Dick!!
Bobinovich
31-Aug-07, 16:37
Likewise Jacques Loussier's jazz interpretation of some of Bach's classics are sublime.
Lots of people think Jazz is not something to enjoy. Thats because what people remember is those few tunes that are hard to take in.
I personally can't see what people get out of the stuff they thrash out at Skins each night, far less the attraction people have for country music but I do respect the fact that people are all different.
I do the Jazz show on a wednesday on CFM 10 - 12, - and so many people say exactly as you do, but they like Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell and so many jazzy singers; Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald sang Jazz - I defy anyone to say that is without a tune.
So although I do play the odd track that you may find over complicated most of it I make a particular effort to keep easy to listen to (and thats what I like)....... the other night I started with the old Guinness ad tune from the 90's,; Ad agencies won't use all the Jazz they do without people in general liking it.
So like classical music, some modern, avant garde stuff is hard to enjoy and you need to be a Jazz enthusiast to get it, most of it however is mainstream, enjoyable and the foundation (along with blues) that most of popular music is built on.
So dislike whatever you like thats fine, what is sad is that all of jazz is tarred with the same brush - you probably do like some!
I speak as someone without beard and wooly jumper who only says NICE rarely.
Dave
Likewise Jacques Loussier's jazz interpretation of some of Bach's classics are sublime.
Air on a G string played Wed night!
Quite agree
connieb19
31-Aug-07, 16:53
But your Mum did want you to be a Dick!!
Looks like she got her wish then. :confused
Oh no..I cannot agree with the anti-jazz brigade.:(
I was brought up in a house where lots of jazz was played and appreciated.
I consider it one of life's finest pleasures!
Schmoozy,sexy,soul- stirring, wonderful sounds..IMO!:)
Karia
Cattach you are so cool! Perhaps you could explain jazz to me.
Flyermonkey
31-Aug-07, 17:13
I would agree with both Orkneylass and davem, Jazz can sometimes be difficult to get into or listen to (Sun Rah, seeing as we are on great names) and can sometimes be complete rubbish, or indeed 'easy listening' nonsense. But, like most musical genres, there is some really good wheat in there with the chaff. I defy anyone to listen to Nina Simone (almost anything), John Coltrane's 'Blue Train', Miles Davis' 'Kind Of Blue', Herbie Hancock 'Headhunters' and not get a tingle down the spine...
Its a shame to dismiss the whole genre when there is more than a hundred years worth of Jazz and jazz influenced music to listen to and try. From funk (Stevie Wonder / James Brown / so much 70's and onwards) to soul (Marvin Gaye / AL Green and so on) to pop (Amy Winehouse / Joss Stone etc) to house & dance (St Germain / Faithless / Massive Attack etc) and hip-hop (loads sample from Blue Note's Recordings). A listen to Radio 1 or Radio 2 on any day will give you numerous heavily jazz influenced records....
Surfing around the web I have found that hating jazz is OK. Here's how one guy describes a dinner party ruined by jazz (on the fatmammycat blog):
"Jazz scares the pants of me normally, but that night it was the headless horseman and I was Ichabod Crane. I could not flee I was rooted to the spot in horror, I could only watch and weave as the black waves rolled over me in toot-tootles, barbalas and strange didlde-eepeeps.
'Hey is this the same song as the last one? Where's the chorus? How does anyone know where to end it? When will it end? It will end won't it? My ears are bleeding. Is that tapioca? I think I am about to stab you in the heart with my fish knife.'
I got very very drunk that night-so drunk I lost my voice for two days. And even as drunk as I got I still couldn't make head nor tails of Jazz- and I can talk Esperanto like a native when drunk.
Jazz, I against it!
Oh I so have to agree, Jazz IS tuneless drivel, anytime jazz is mentioned to me I think of that comedy program (the name eludes me) where the guy turns side on to the camera and says 'nice'!
The worst sort of jazz bore is the learned idiot who says "you have never listened to REAL jazz" - then he disappears into the basement and emerges clutching some album with coffee rings on the cover, and waves this thing around in triumph and then I am stuck with this cacophany as some 80 year old toothless denizen of New Orleans plays the stovepipe and then mumbles some incomprehensible dreck. Or worse it turns out to be some flautist or baritone sax player playing broadway songs like they were never intended to be played. It sounds like an animal in distress.
I once shared a flat in Dundee with some characters who were into John Coaltrain and they would play this crap all night, driving away some very attractive women let me say - I used to tell my flatmates there is more music in one bar of Jimmy Shand than there is in the whole collected works of Charles Mingus or Coletrain.
I really think that we Caithness folk are not as easilly fooled as people who live in Edinburgh and London and New York. What do they know?
The Pepsi Challenge
31-Aug-07, 17:55
Likewise Jacques Loussier's jazz interpretation of some of Bach's classics are sublime.
Prefer jazz mags myself, but you're right - Loussier was amazing.
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/features.cfm?id=1200852007
If you don't believe me just listen to this awful sound of a man who clearly does not know how to play the Piano. Yes, it is the spherical Mr. Monk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmhP1RgbrrY
i love jazz. anykind o jazz. specially if its got a bit o funk til it. an i think van morrison is one o e greatest musicians til ever walk e earth. i saw him in edinburgh last november an he wis brilliant.
by the way dave, iv herd yer jazz program on a wednesday an hev til say wis mighty impressed :D
Bobinovich
31-Aug-07, 18:23
I'm delighted to hear there's other Loussier fans out there - here's one of my favourites:- Choral - Jesus, Joy of Man's Desiring (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhZlol0TRz8).
I must say that is the type of thing I wouldn't mind listening to - in an ELEVATOR!
About the most you can say in its favor is that it is probably not eroding anybody's moral values.
Unlike....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVtWXtSKJ9I
And to think that I used to consider you an intelligent intellectual who was worthy of envy and respect. Ah, Ritchie, where did you go wrong?
Hi Rich,
Stan Getz just e-mailed me and suggested that you are an awful fibber!
please don't make me publish the evidence!;)
Karia
To be honest I haven't really listened to a lot of Jazz, but what I have - some I like, some I don't..........bit like everything really..........Miles Davis is pretty cool though.
Must say I liked Kenny Ball and Acker Bilk and those of that era, but the George Mellys of the world of Jazz leave me cold
Must say I liked Kenny Ball and Acker Bilk and those of that era, but the George Mellys of the world of Jazz leave me cold
George melly is sadly that now Golach...cold and dead!
But he was a man whose heart fair 'thundered' with the joy of it all and who 'really lived' his extraordinary life.
an amazing man...much missed!!;)
karia
George melly is sadly that now Golach...cold and dead!
But he was a man whose heart fair 'thundered' with the joy of it all and who 'really lived' his extraordinary life.
an amazing man...much missed
karia
I know he is gone, but not missed by me, I would not call him an amazing man, his personal way of life was not mine.
Lolabelle
31-Aug-07, 21:11
Its a shame to dismiss the whole genre when there is more than a hundred years worth of Jazz and jazz influenced music to listen to and try. From funk (Stevie Wonder / James Brown / so much 70's and onwards) to soul (Marvin Gaye / AL Green and so on) to pop (Amy Winehouse / Joss Stone etc) to house & dance (St Germain / Faithless / Massive Attack etc) and hip-hop (loads sample from Blue Note's Recordings). A listen to Radio 1 or Radio 2 on any day will give you numerous heavily jazz influenced records....
I don't like traditional (or what I think of as traditional), or sammy davis, jazz.
But I like the use of the idea in rythmn and blues and just blues. But as for the lack of rythmn and any sense at all, I'm with you on this one Rich.
I know he is gone, but not missed by me, I would not call him an amazing man, his personal way of life was not mine.
I totally agree golach..not mine either..but I can admire someone who takes life by the heels and lives it 150% by whatever tenet they find fitting...so many of us will simply 'pass along' life's highway..without so much as a tyre mark!;)
karia
Lolabelle
31-Aug-07, 21:24
I'm delighted to hear there's other Loussier fans out there - here's one of my favourites:- Choral - Jesus, Joy of Man's Desiring (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhZlol0TRz8).
I don't like traditional (or what I think of as traditional), or sammy davis, jazz.
But I like the use of the idea in rythmn and blues and just blues. But as for the lack of rythmn and any sense at all, I'm with you on this one Rich.
Adding to my comment above;
This peice that you have directed us to Bobinovich is lovely, but it has a melody! There isn't any melody in some of the stuff, and they are just "jazzing up" someone elses already written music.
But I really like the way Roger Miller used it and the doop, doop diddly thingo's in his County/Pop music in the 60's. His roots were in jazz, but he did something good with it! [lol]
If you don't believe me just listen to this awful sound of a man who clearly does not know how to play the Piano. Yes, it is the spherical Mr. Monk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmhP1RgbrrY
He aint so bad for a jazz pianist.
Prefer a decent barrelhouser any day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMTG_dPFe7w&mode=related&search=
Jeemag_USA
31-Aug-07, 22:21
Jazz is a very broad genre, there is a lot of it that is just plain showing off too me to the point where music is lost and big heads take over. But I like a lot of Jazz from Glen Miller to Pat Metheny and also Billie Holiday and one of my favourite performers is Dave Brubeck, absolutely class!!
Turns up The Basie, throws in some Ellington and Ella,adds a quick burst from Satchmo whey hey the house is rocking.
Naw, cant say im to stuck on jazz or blues for that matter.
But different strokes for different folks i suppose. :cool:
I've never considered any particular type of music as being either good or bad from the enjoyment perspective. I've always found that there are bits of music I ilke and parts that I can't stand in all the different sorts.
Heck, I even managed to find parts of "Punk" that I liked and believe me, most of that, certainly at the beginning, deliberately set out to be an horrific racket. Certain Record Producers seemed to be of the opinion that the more incompetent a musician you were the better it was, and whatever you did don’t ever sing in tune. That idea, fortunately, soon wore off.
No, no. There are lots of different styles of jazz out there and they do differ. Personally I like New Orleans jazz and Trad jazz. Some of the others leave me cold.
each to there own...to you its a horrible noise...to me ....great!..if we were all the same ..the world would be a boring place!
Fond memorys of Kenny Ball an Acker Bilk playing in Aylesbury in the 60's..fabulous:lol:
I've pretty much always liked Jazz, in its various forms. For the past few years I've gravitated more towards Smooth Jazz and Urban Jazz. Some of my favourite performers are Spyro Gyra, The Rippingtons, Paul Hardcastle, Acoustic Alchemy and Hiroshima, to name just a few. My husband and I were lucky enough to have front row seats at a Spyro Gyra concert last December. In our opinion, they're even better live than on CD! :)
My fave saxophonists include Kenny G, Boney James, Dave Koz, Marion Meadows and Paul Taylor. Guitarists - Marc Antoine, George Benson, Earl Klugh and Peter White. Trumpeters - Chris Botti and Rick Braun. Vocalists - Bobby Caldwell, Harry Connick Jr., Astrud Gilberto, Diana Krall, Jane Monheit and Sade.
helenwyler
03-Sep-07, 09:41
Fond memorys of Kenny Ball an Acker Bilk playing in Aylesbury in the 60's..fabulous:lol:
Ah Horseman...I was at Grammar School in Aylesbury from 1965!!
Dad used to play Acker Bilk.....but my favourite jazz is from the 1920s era King Oliver, Jabbo Smith etc.
As a musician I started life into the hard rock/progressive rock end of the stick (Rush, Genesis, ELP, Motorhead, Black Sabbath etc . . ) On first being introduced to jazz I did not like it at all, but as I opened my head up to new sounds and textures jazz grow on me (slowly).
Like anything that's difficult or unusual it takes effort from the listener to see what its all about. Most punters just don't want to take the time or have the emotional interest to develop into this area of music. I for one, when I was younger, thought it was cool to be seen liking music that was way off the norm and so I persevered.
Jazz really came alive for me when I started to actually play it. As a drummer it was so much more liberating than any other music form that I'd tried (and I've tried most genres over the years). The main pulse of the music was moved from the drummer to the bass player, leaving the drummer to be far more creative in his playing and interaction with the main solo instruments. Rock or pop etc. by comparison reduces the drummer to little more than a glorified metronome. (Though as a youth I did like the power of this simplicity – especially played loud).
I would highly recommend anyone with the slightest desire to crack this genre to start with Miles Davis - A kind of blue. Very gentle, relaxing music that will not tax or offend the ear too much!! Also Bill Evens if you prefer a piano trio sound. Next move onto John Coltrane – Blue Train, and take it as far as you want to go.
Like any genre there are some truly scary sounds to be had from the hard-core brigade (John Coltrane's latter period or Antony Braxton etc), but to make a sweeping statement like this, that all jazz is horrible, just conveys an immature outlook (and I assume an element of infantile, deliberate, cage rattling). Don't worry you may one day grow out of it and your certainly not alone on this type of idea on this very forum!!
I fully understand that few ever see any of this or care. Their take on music is to reduce it to little more than audio wallpaper as a backing for a sing along or a dance pulse (also as a main social stimulus to meet a partner).
Like good food or fine wine, one’s tastes can mature with age and develop into a more developed state (if your prepared to make the effort).
Jazz music for me is just such an entity.:Razz
Jeemag_USA
03-Sep-07, 15:21
As a musician I started life into the hard rock/progressive rock end of the stick (Rush, Genesis, ELP, Motorhead, Black Sabbath etc . . ) On first being introduced to jazz I did not like it at all, but as I opened my head up to new sounds and textures jazz grow on me (slowly).
Like anything that's difficult or unusual it takes effort from the listener to see what its all about. Most punters just don't want to take the time or have the emotional interest to develop into this area of music. I for one, when I was younger, thought it was cool to be seen liking music that was way off the norm and so I persevered.
Jazz really came alive for me when I started to actually play it. As a drummer it was so much more liberating than any other music form that I'd tried (and I've tried most genres over the years). The main pulse of the music was moved from the drummer to the bass player, leaving the drummer to be far more creative in his playing and interaction with the main solo instruments. Rock or pop etc. by comparison reduces the drummer to little more than a glorified metronome. (Though as a youth I did like the power of this simplicity – especially played loud).
I would highly recommend anyone with the slightest desire to crack this genre to start with Miles Davis - A kind of blue. Very gentle, relaxing music that will not tax or offend the ear too much!! Also Bill Evens if you prefer a piano trio sound. Next move onto John Coltrane – Blue Train, and take it as far as you want to go.
Like any genre there are some truly scary sounds to be had from the hard-core brigade (John Coltrane's latter period or Antony Braxton etc), but to make a sweeping statement like this, that all jazz is horrible, just conveys an immature outlook (and I assume an element of infantile, deliberate, cage rattling). Don't worry you may one day grow out of it and your certainly not alone on this type of idea on this very forum!!
I fully understand that few ever see any of this or care. Their take on music is to reduce it to little more than audio wallpaper as a backing for a sing along or a dance pulse (also as a main social stimulus to meet a partner).
Like good food or fine wine, one’s tastes can mature with age and develop into a more developed state (if your prepared to make the effort).
Jazz music for me is just such an entity.:Razz
Very well put Dmac!! I am off to find some Miles Davis :Razz
HI All
More Horrible noise for your enjoyment 10 till midnight tonight.
CFM 102.5
Cheers
Dave
HI All
More Horrible noise for your enjoyment 10 till midnight tonight.
CFM 102.5
Cheers
Dave
Dave,
Is it a chart, county or Scottish based show then?:Razz
Jazz of course! But I must confess I strayed once or twice into pop and blues tonight, sometimes do for the sake of tunes I really like that no one else will play. I think sometimes if there are a few interesting chords or rythmns it is jazz-like enough to play. And Sax players here need to hear King Curtis!
I do hope it is wide enough to appeal to listeners and doesn't stray so far that jazz afficianados are put off.
I know you can't please everyone, I just try to play a slice of tunes from all styles and avoid cheesiness if at all poss.
I will go back thru suggestions here, any more please put them down.
Thanks
D
I can't understand why anyone would want to listen to this mixed up, tuneless drivel called jazz. The only mildly amusing thing about it is the weird names the muisicians have, like Thelonious Monk. What was his mother thinking of! Or calling a kid Dizzy?
rich, I had to read your words twice. Are you sure it was "jazz" you were refering to as drivel? That is so just not you!
I had a fabulous night of jazz this week. While one of our fellow orgers rocked to the metalic sounds of some "Sad" band here in this beautiful city, I enjoyed the music of a delightful group in our local establishment for evening gathering.
On an entirely different musical front, I was part of Edinburgh's welcome to Abba Mania yesterday. It was fine, but I might be converting toward the jazz side of things.
fingalmacool
08-Sep-07, 16:47
This thread started by one brave chap lambasting the meanderings of Jazz, it's now the jazz appreciation club, what a highjack. It's hard to get a handle on the thing, but I think this sums it up.
Whats the difference between a blue's guitarist, and a jazz guitarist,,,,well a blue's guitarist plays three cords to three hundred people, and-------------
The Pepsi Challenge
09-Sep-07, 07:28
On another note, of sorts, has anyone had much experience listening to Zydeco music? It's not a Brazilian footballer; it's one of the most boring, repetitive forms of music I've ever heard. Went to hear a gadge called CJ Chenier (his dad was the King of Zydeco) at the Edinburgh jazz festival this year and EVERY song was a variant of the same 12-bar-blues formula.
Back to the jazz... I advise checking out some of the more interesting contemporary young jazz performers today, who hail from Sweden. A lot of them came over to Scotland a few months ago to join up with our own jazzers, and I was very impressed by all of them, in particular female drummer, Martina Almgren. Check her out on myspace, if you can.
This thread started by one brave chap lambasting the meanderings of Jazz, it's now the jazz appreciation club, what a highjack. It's hard to get a handle on the thing, but I think this sums it up.
Whats the difference between a blue's guitarist, and a jazz guitarist,,,,well a blue's guitarist plays three cords to three hundred people, and-------------
So if too many people disagree its a hijack! not the first poster being in the minority? I usually do keep my thoughts to myself unless pushed, statements like "jazz is ....." need answering simply because so many people think jazz is just the off the wall stuff they don't like, when in reality lots of jazz is very accessible, they do like jazz already and will like more.
i personally love jazz.
patricia barber is fantasmigorical.
yeah one more time....fantasmigorical.
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