Wow, this smooth jazz stuff is really smooth. If by "smooth" you mean "SUCKS"...

I have Sky-FM Smooth Jazz on Winamp Shoutcast, and this dink named Rocco Ventrella is playing a smooth jazz version of "Feel Like Making Love," and I'm thinking he needs to pop a couple of Cialis, if you know what I mean....

Time to pull out some Neil Young & Crazy Horse instead, I think.

:toast:

as for the somnolence- inducing stuff, no thanks...


Although I did really like Al DiMeola once upon a time. And maybe Pat Metheny, who puts some punch and real skill into his compositions...

That's the kind of smooth jazz I can get behind. Some of Ken Navarro's stuff is great, but some of it is straight-out elevator music. The same can be said for Larry Carlton...amazing guitarist, but some of his Fourplay stuff is just too "happy" for me.

:toast:

:puke:

The computer in there isn't hooked up to the network so we can't get online for real music. It got so bad when I was in there for 5 straight hours I decided it was better to talk to myself than listen to that crap. And they started playing christmas music NON STOP the week BEFORE Thanksgiving.

my dad was a jazz drummer

it's actually one of the few styles of music...

I just can not stand
Older Blues.... is another



lost

Those are deep, DEEP tracks...exposed nerve stuff.

I love the blues in its many forms but freely admit that there's a wide range of quality. The good stuff slays me.

:toast:

Audio pablum for the easily threatened.

some Sun Ra, some Ornette, Some Albert Ayler!

I keed, I keed!

:hide:

I agree with your choices, by the way. :hi:

for the last 10 years or so.

That is not "smooth jazz". It's wallpaper music.

Kenny G does not improvise. He noodles. Read the rip Pat Metheny did on Kenny G. You can google for it--it's awesome what kind of deconstruction Metheny does on Kenny G's massive musical deficiencies.

And I don't like the Stray Cats or Harry Connick, Jr. because they recycle stuff that was new 60 years ago.

Some people need to learn the diff between real jazz and that wallpaper music.

I'd call it absolute and utter CRAP.

And yet I was forced to listen to it for months on end. Over and over again. It just wouldn't (*&%ing stop.

There were several years after that when I would actually get sick to my stomach when I heard the sound of a single reed instrument. Which is a problem, because I was in various orchestras at the time. And while we rarely, if ever used saxophones, there were still oboes.

that sounds really interesting...

At least the worst I know of. What a schmuck.

Truly. It really sucks.

Billy Cobham on drums, John McLaughlin serving up some of the tightest, most in-the-pocket playing of his career...

Some of it sucks...not all of it.

:toast:

The blues don't, but jazz sucks. Big time.

...and it's not what you'd expect. It's a 28-minute freight train through your skull.

no, no it doesn't. It's a great American art form.


Or are you just spoilin? :hi:

:thumbsup:

Did you know Herbie Hancock wasn't even supposed to be on the album but happened to drop by at the time of the recording?

...Jarrett supposedly hated McLaughlin's GUTS. The liner notes to the "Cellar Door Sessions" box set are pretty illuminating.

:toast:

Seems like a world-class asshole.

one time I saw him he yelled at the audience for clapping along with something - well, obviously the audience's timing was poor, but....


and that fly- like whining on many of his tunes.... :argh:

:hide:

:P

:P

:cry:

Nice to see you.

:rofl:

I lurves you, but I can't stand jazz. I'll take opera or classical anyday over that stuff.

I'm still disappointed that you don't like jazz. I could not liking shitty jazz - like that smooth shit, and fusion.

But big band jazz? Bebop? Hard bop? Free jazz? what's not to like! That stuff moves and grooves and fills the earth with goodness and beauty and a sense that there's much more than just us and our suffering in the universe.

How can one not like Diana Krall? Sarah Vaughn? Billie Holiday for fuck's sake! Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Don Ellis?

You've probably just heard the shitty shit.

I love swing, actually, but I just never got the hankering for jazz. In the car I listen to classic rock, but at home, I really prefer classical, opera or musical soundtracks. If you really want to flame me, I LOVE John Phillips Sousa. :rofl:

Sousa - :puke:

All that awful band music - :puke:

God, what an abomination it is. Sousa should be spending eternity in hell for what he did to the world.

Hate it hate it hate it hate it.

I can't even stand the Canadian Brass. Especially when they do popular tunes. Yuck.

:puke:

:scared:

:scared:

:shiver:

Awful.

It's outpaced in vulgar artlessness and sinful humanity-denying by rap and hiphop.

In just plain artlessness, it's up there with most musicals. Though at least musicals are pleasurable to listen to, even if they the vast majority are all empty calories and depthless lowest-common-denominator industrial musical product.

Gargh.

You don't like Diana Krall? Interesting. I think she has a fantastic, gorgeous, amazing voice. Is it the style of music, or her voice you don't like? She does definitely have that old-style jazz voice, so I imagine it's entirely possibly you don't like her voice.


I'm listening to Don Ellis' version of "Hey Jude" from Live at the Fillmore right now. You'd hate. You would totally, totally fucking hate it! :rofl:

or Billie Holiday?

or Ella?

or Carmen McRae, Betty Carter?


the marvels of the voice mimicking the tone of the horns..


or Geri Allen and all the stellar women jazz pianists?


I like Krall's voice, but she's no virtuoso of voice or piano.... not like the women I've listed above...

Ann has a great voice, but I find Diana to be annoying because there's too much of a "jazz-diva-slash-chanteuse" thing going on.

I think you might like Peggy Lee or Rosemary Clooney. These women produced many great recordings of the same material covered by Diana Krall. Ann Hampton Callaway has a great voice but she is not an interesting artist and the whole DIVA thing, her "joke" is hardly funny when you consider it isn't a joke -- onstage she is so self-indulgent and her own biggest fan. And she talks to the audience DURING a song -- pure cheese. I felt like I was at a Bar Mitzvah. I was forced to attend a few of her shows in 2005 and I couldn't take it, and I see EVERYBODY. Madeleine Peyroux is pleasant as well.

Jazz, real jazz, not smooth jazz pop pablum crap, is some of the smartest, most inventive, most catchy, and most intelligent music ever created. It covers a vast time span and stylistic range, from ragtime to Dixieland to big band to bop to cool to straight ahead to free form to Latin to fusion to ....

The only reason rock exists is because jazz went cool, and teenagers need dance music. Rock is not new, the only difference to the music that preceded it is that it is played on electrically amplified instruments. It is usually much dumber than the average jazz tune, way dumber.

Jazz is now practically dead, but it was a far greater artistic achievement than rock will ever be. Rock is just stupid next to it.

It doesn't make Midlo ignorant just because she doesn't like jazz.
That kind of response definitely contributes to the idea that jazz fans are elitist snobs.

To say it all sucks, she must've heard it all, which is quite a lot of listening. :D

15 year old. :eyes:

You ought to be chided as much as anyone else for basing an opinion on something as little as "all jazz sucks." Really? To know that all jazz sucks, you must have heard it all, or else you've just a bad case of generalization. There's something redeeming about every genre and subgenre, even such commonly attacked ones as rap and hip-hop.

some are based on knowledge, others are not

if that makes me elitist to expect knowledge in support of an opinion, then call me elitist. I'll wear the title with pride.

In a stupid way. I'll match my knowledge of music against yours any day of the week, dude.

This is the most bizarre conversation...

Some people like jazz and some people don't. It's ludicrous to say that you HAVE to like jazz if you're informed. That's just ridiculous. And condescending. And rude.

Think Midlo can't defend herself? I think she is quite capable of doing so. What is this to you?

Saying "All jazz sucks" is an ignorant statement, or one spoken in jest as an ignorant statement. Why? Because jazz covers a huge variety of music styles taking place over a hundred years that has enormous variety and differences. Much of it is very smart, interesting music, and very different from other jazz styles.

Saying "all jazz sucks" demonstrates a lack of knowledge about what jazz is. It is like saying "all classical music sucks". Neither is an intelligent informed opinion.

Midlo did say she likes swing. Guess what? Swing is a style of jazz. Therefore, Midlo likes a style of jazz, and her statement that "all jazz sucks" is, of course, contradicted.

And what do you know about jazz, by the way?

to think that people chastising other people for not liking jazz is detrimental to jazz. It leads people to the false impression that a degree in music is required to like jazz. Jazz will never again enjoy widespread popularity because it has been co-opted by the psuedo-intellectual elite who enjoy using their appreciation of jazz as a way to make themselves feel superior.

favorite tenor saxophonist: Dexter Gordon
favorite alto saxophonist: Johnny Hodges
favorite Jazz Messenger lineup: Bobby Timmons, Benny Golson, Jymie Merritt, Lee Morgan
favorite Ellington band: Blanton-Webster band
favorite Ellington vocalist: Ivie Anderson and Betty Roche (it's a tie)
favorite Basie band: New Testament band of 1955-56
favorite sweet band: Jan Savitt and His Top Hatters (featuring Bon Bon)
favorite historical jazz club - Mintons Playhouse

Are my credentials up to snuff?

"I know enough about jazz to think that people chastising other people for not liking jazz is detrimental to jazz. It leads people to the false impression that a degree in music is required to like jazz. Jazz will never again enjoy widespread popularity because it has been co-opted by the pseudo-intellectual elite who enjoy using their appreciation of jazz as a way to make themselves feel superior."

Of course, I completely disagree with you.

I don't think that the disappearance of jazz has anything at all to do with pseudo-intellectual elites. I think it has to do with jazz going cool in the '50s, which may have limited the appeal to a more intellectual crowd, as the basic functions of popular jazz such as dance music disappeared. Popular music works as part the dating rituals of youth; disconnect that function from it, and it loses mass appeal, in my opinion. Hence the rise of rock 'n roll, which filled in the gap for lively dance music. I think this ultimately killed jazz as a vital art form.

I don't have a degree in jazz, or in music, and it is clearly unnecessary in the process of enjoying music.

"jazz died in 1961" people?

:D

I SO want to kick Ken Burns in the balls.

Not at all.

I want to kick Ken Burns in the balls too. :D
I think there's all kinds of great jazz going on right now. Here's some recommendations from the last couple of years:

Robert Glasper: In My Element
Esperanza Spalding: Junjo
Ron Blake: Sonic Tonic
Christian McBride: Live at Tonic

just the same, I think jazz has lost it's populism and been shoved into the elitist category, because some of it is quite challenging to listen to (scares off some folks) and a more narrow group of people pay attention to it, than in the past. I think there is also a lack of stations that play it, and that certainly doesn't help.

But that being said, there is plenty of jazz that is accessible to a wide- range audience, not just folks who read The Village Voice.



I'm just always surprised when people don't like it, because it has so much to offer.



ps I think your credentials are quite good! :hi:

We're protesting someone saying "All jazz sucks. Truly" and leaving it at that, as if that were all anyone needed to know about jazz. Not recognizing any of its relative merits, not admitting that other people enjoy it, just saying that it sucks, as if that were the final word on the matter.

Some jazz, sure. Smooth "jazz," definitely, since that's just pure commercialized crap. But all jazz? Boogie-woogie, swing (both hot and cooler), all big-band formats, bebop, cooler jazz, modal jazz, fusion, not to mention all the compounds (Brazilian-influenced jazz/bossa, Afro-Cuban jumpin', Latin jazz in general, all the stuff done in Europe)--it's all sucky? Every last bit?

Takes a truckload of dumb to seriously believe that.

just being Midlo

:D

She's explained her distaste for jazz on several separate occasions, I think, so it's a pretty good gag to keep running if it is one.

Miles will hunt you down for your non-jazz ways! :P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__OSyznVDOY

Listen to that, and say, honestly, that it 'sucks'.

Or this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwNrmYRiX_o

Or this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8QhjwVy7Ng

Or this:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W88q6LHnoPA

There's a lot of bad jazz, but all you need to do is listen to some Thelonius Monk or Miles. Some truly phenomenal music by dudes like that. And then there are singers like Ella, Billie Holiday and Nina Simone. Fantastic.

And anyone performing it should be ashamed of themselves.

:shrug:

Why you hatin' on the Quiet Storm?

By "crap" I mean smooth jazz.

Classical musicians who get bored playing classical become jazz musicians.
Example: Jean Luc Ponty, winner of the Grand Prix as outstanding student at the Paris Conservatory (Where everybody who was anybody in French classical music went, like Saint-Saens). He jammed with George Duke and Frank Zappa in his early days. Then he went into fusion to make money. Which isn't all that interesting, but anyway....

That's because classical and jazz are the only two forms of music that are complex and that you can improvise. Classical organists who are good play improvisations on Bach.

Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, Pat Metheny (but not his white noise stuff of late), Wes Montgomery, Howard Roberts, Gary Burton, Lionel Hampton, Dave Brubeck....there are lots of great jazz artists out there.

I have decades of training in classical music and orchestra on two instruments and voice (including choral singing, choral directing and singing opera). I grew up on classical and Sixties rock. And eventually it hit me that the acid rock that Cream and The Who and The Stones were playing was just electrified blues, stolen from old black guys. I wondered why they were all named "Sonny" or "Boy" and it dawned on me they were songs written by black men, who were called "Sonny" and "Boy" as an insult. I figured this out when I heard "Summertime Blues" by The Who (by Sonny Boy Williamson).

of a bit that Norm MacDonald did on SNL when he was doing the "Fake News" as he used to call it:

"Kenny G just came out with a Christmas album. Happy birthday, Jesus. Hope you like CRAP!"

I just consider it to be another type of ambient music

Makes me puke

a lot of smooth jazz "artists" and has headlined smooth jazz festivals. He fancies himself a legit jazzer and gets pissed if someone refers to any of the smooth jazz acts he's performed with as "smooth jazz."

You'd just never know it by what they record and perform.

This guy just hated being associated with the genre where he made his money.

I'd bet that most people do things they don't want to do in order to make a living.

However, I've never led a cheesey gig, nor would I release anything under my name that wasn't exactly what I wanted it to be.

If he was a bandleader headlining a smooth jazz festival, then he's a Smooth Jazz Artist™ regardless of how he'd like to think of himself.