Why do humans like jazz?

[Anton S]

If it has saxophones then it is jazz music. If it doesn't have saxophones then it's probably not very jazzy.

I think I can see the entire Modern Jazz Quartet rolling in their graves in response to that allegation. For most of its history the MJQ consisted of John Lewis (piano), Milt Jackson (vibraphone), Percy Heath (double bass), and Connie Kay (drums). No sax; all jazz.

 

[DMill]

Didn’t Springsteen play with a guy who was pretty good on the sax? Would never call the boss jazzy.

 

[Brian Hall]

If it has saxophones then it is jazz music. If it doesn't have saxophones then it's probably not very jazzy.

 

[vert]

I had a music professor in college who once said that, since improvisation was core precept of jazz, it ceased to be jazz as soon as it was recorded.

My reply was that the improvisation was part of the performance and that it was still there baked into the recording, even though the recording never changed again, regardless of how many times I played it back.

With which of us do you tend to agree?

I would definitely agree with you. That professor's remark sounds like he was just trying to be clever honestly, enjoying a little mind game of paradox. A learner might learn a record note for note as an apprenticeship. But regurgitating it note for note in a performance later on would get him kicked off the stage. He would need to transform what he learned and make it his own. So every jazz recording is a living book in that way - plus the fact that as you say, the improvisation is baked into the recording.

Jazz recordings give an incomplete picture. There are miracles and IMO many disappointments. Hundreds of performances were never recorded that probably should have been. Some boring ones were. Some people weren't recorded enough or didn't get the opportunity. Take Sinatra, he was recorded a lot, but I wish there were more recordings of the At the Sands period because the level of those guys - Sinatra, Count Basie and orchestra and Quincy Jones as arranger/conductor - on that album is so incredible. That's just one example.

 

[pablolie]

The title of the topic ("why do humans like jazz?") doesn't work given the fact no one in here (or anywhere else, by the way) seems to be able to provide a consensus-based definition of what jazz even is. It's kind of funny to see the flawed guesses and assumptions (and prejudice). Might as well ask "What makes people happy?". :-D

 

[DMill]

I would definitely agree with you. That professor's remark sounds like he was just trying to be clever honestly, enjoying a little mind game of paradox. A learner might learn a record note for note as an apprenticeship. But regurgitating it note for note in a performance later on would get him kicked off the stage. He would need to transform what he learned and make it his own. So every jazz recording is a living book in that way - plus the fact that as you say, the improvisation is baked into the recording.

Really love this statement. It has to be so hard for any established musician to know when to change it up a bit in a live performance. Sometimes I just want to hear Don’t Stop Believin as God intended it. But personally, I love when an artist expands on the song or gives an entirely new interpretation altogether live. Otherwise, I might as well be home listening rather than sitting next to the drunk guy screaming Freebird at a Yes concert. I suppose it’s one thing I love about getting into jazz. By nature some of the improv.

 

[Ralph_Cramden]

"If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know."
Louis Armstrong

 

[Anton D]

I've been thinkin this over, but I'm likely still wrong.

Why we like jazz is kinda like why we like humor.

Both set us up with a framework that we start to grasp, and then, as we think we know where things are going, we get a surprise twist that makes sense from the original framework, but isn't the exact thing we expected. So, we get a little dopamine reward when we 'get it.'

Laughter for comedy, and engagement from jazz.

I think both can also lead us down the path of enjoyment further with how the subsequent lines play out with further rewards.

There is a great word for an aspect of humor that I think relates to jazz, as well: Paraprosdokian.

A paraprosdokian statement is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence, phrase, or larger discourse is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part.

Some stolen linguistic examples....

• "If I could just say a few words … I'd be a better public speaker." —Homer Simpson
• "If I am reading this graph correctly—I'd be very surprised." —Stephen Colbert
• "If all the girls attending the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised." —Dorothy Parker
• "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it." —Groucho Marx
• "I like going to the park and watching the children run around because they don't know I'm using blanks." —Emo Philips
• "I haven't slept for ten days, because that would be too long." —Mitch Hedberg
• "I don't belong to an organized political party. I'm a Democrat." —Will Rogers
• "On the other hand, you have different fingers." —Steven Wright

To me, those are jazz like humorous statements.

 

[Eulipian]

I like Leslie, she kind of completes Hammond B3

Back in the 1960s there was a company that built an effects pedal intended to emulate the Leslie rotating speaker. The name of the pedal? Wait for it.....................................................Morely. Morely's history is fun. It evolved from an very ingenious electro-mechanical oil-filled echo device highly sought after by gear heads of a certain age.

 

[krabapple]

"If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know."
Louis Armstrong

But Louis wasn't sure bebop was jazz. He called it 'Chinese music'.

 

[pderousse]

Jazz has so many subgenres that I am unsure how to compare. Is big band music jazz? Free form jazz is certainly not my cup of tea, but big band music from its heyday and modern compositions for big bands are great. I had quite a few Sonny Rollins and Grover Washington Jr. LPs back in the 80s that included both more traditional jazz and covers of pop tunes. I absolutely love Cal Tjader...

Have you heard Catch the Groove? - the first reissue in two decades…

 

[Anton S]

The title of the topic ("why do humans like jazz?") doesn't work given the fact no one in here (or anywhere else, by the way) seems to be able to provide a consensus-based definition of what jazz even is. It's kind of funny to see the flawed guesses and assumptions (and prejudice). Might as well ask "What makes people happy?". :-D

It's difficult for anyone to define exactly what jazz is due to the incredibly broad spectrum of music that is classified as Jazz.

By its nature, jazz is continually spinning off new subgenres, but everyone agrees that central to each is the improvisational aspect. Its unpredictability. Some add other characteristics - polyrhythms, complex chords, blue notes, etc - to their definitions. (The list HERE is reasonably comprehensive.) But its improvisational nature is the thread that runs through all jazz and ties it all together.

 

[pablolie]

... But its improvisational nature is the thread that runs through all jazz and ties it all together.

Many music genres have improvisations in them. It's not at all a unique jazz trait.

 

[Anton S]

Many music genres have improvisations in them. It's not at all a unique jazz trait.

I never said that improvisation was exclusive to jazz, only that it is the thread that ties all forms of jazz together. There's a difference.

 

[Timcognito]

I'm going to quote my earlier post and elaborate. "Jazz is like bitter beer, once one likes getting high the bitterness takes on subtlety that you come to appreciate. In Jazz there are shared conversations, crowded and open spaces, with musicians manipulating the melody, timing and chromatics but staying aligned with each other. Once one can share that alignment as a listener the bitterness can go away and the pleasure is enhanced. Sometimes it is easy to get lost if one is not playing. Not everyone's cup of tea."

The key element that makes it jazz is that in each piece is a shared conversation or theme among the musicians and no two performances are exactly alike because the improvisation wanders depending on how each musician is improvising, inspiring or even competing with another, even if some small parts of the piece are scripted or it's based on conventional piece of music. The audience is allowed to share and listen to the conversation and sometimes it easy to understand, say Brubeck's "Take Five" and sometimes not in free jazz works by Ornette Coleman or Anthony Braxton.

 

[pablolie]

We have clearly established there are many different styles of whatever falls under the "jazz" umbrella. Hence, people like the different sub-categories for different reasons. It may be the melodic fluidity of smooth jazz, the intellectual engagement of experimental jazz etc etc.

Trying to find a single reason at to why people like jazz (as well as a universally valid definition of jazz) is an exercise destined for failure.

 

[Emlin]

We have clearly established there are many different styles of whatever falls under the "jazz" umbrella. Hence, people like the different sub-categories for different reasons. It may be the melodic fluidity of smooth jazz, the intellectual engagement of experimental jazz etc etc.

Trying to find a single reason at to why people like jazz (as well as a universally valid definition of jazz) is an exercise destined for failure.

Perhaps we should be asking why people like music at all before we narrow down the question to jazz.

 

[Timcognito]

Trying to find a single reason at to why people like jazz (as well as a universally valid definition of jazz) is an exercise destined for failure.

Yes but that applies to almost any genre of music.

https://everynoise.com/

The topic is if it's jazz why do people like it.

 

[pablolie]

Yes but that applies to almost any genre of music.

https://everynoise.com/

The topic is if it's jazz why do people like it.

Do people that like rock like each and every rock artist? Do people that like classical like each and every composer?
Sorry but the original question makes zero sense, since jazz has many sub genres. I'd say I like jazz, but I most certainly don't like every jazz track ever recorded. These generalizations never worked and never shall.

 

[Anton D]

Many music genres have improvisations in them. It's not at all a unique jazz trait.

Interesting point.

When I think about many of the 'standard/normal' music listeners I know...improvisation is anathema to them. Even at a concert, they want the song played like they hear it on the radio...

You can get a vibe for this when you mention Phish, The Dead, The String Cheese incident, etc. Many people want the same experience every time.

I'd put many of the jam bands into a similar category as jazz. Maybe I should have mentioned that more specifically. Same kind of experience!