Do you think the quality of Jazz has gone down?

herbieflowers

Natural ability is what distinguishes great form average players. You can only learn and practise so much, you see it all the time with guitarists - Malmsteen etc. Replicas. Indistinguishable from the next, it's the natural ability that gives the player that bit extra that no one else has.

Back to the topic: of course it's decreased. It's no coincidence that Parker, Monk, Miles, Herbie, Jarrett, Shorter et al all emerged roughly around the same time. What has there been since the end of the 70s? A load of experimental tosh.

And it doesn't take an age to even appreciate music. you can appreciate at the time as well. Monk was appreciated by his peers and still is appreciated. Appreciation via the "posthumous/50 years later" method only serves as a comparison with the rubbish that followed that particular artist's music.

shatners basoon

We're not talking about being appreciated by peers, there are loads of great musicians now who are appreciated by their peers thats not answering my point. Im talking about the musicians we recognise as the "greats" or as the legends, they werent consided that by all the jazz listeners or critics etc. then.

Well Malsteem is awful because hes so cheesy, and the singing is awful and he uses power chords *shudder* as are most of those guitarists. What i was saying was that there are plenty of musicians who'd better natural ability than Parker but due to Parker mastering his instrument with all that time effort, making it as you said "his oxygen" that he became so bloody fantastic. Malsteem is an awful composer, but hes got bloody good technique, i dont dig that genre at all though, i like Al DiMeola though... anyway:p

To make my point clear, of course i agree with you that you can appreciate music when its made, naturally lots of people loved monk but that doesnt respond to my point that the music emerges to a wider audience later. What is considered quality must stand the test of time before be properly ascertained, you cant compare music with it now as a whole as you havent seen all of it. How do you know that its been all experimental tosh?
Hmmm.. a large list of artists is hard to make but ill make a few examples

Pat Metheny, John Scofield and Allan holdsworth are all incredibly original and fantastic musicians, as I said before i dont own that much new stuff but i have heard quite alot on the radio and online (names escape me) and to judge it all as rubbish is ridiculous and probably what all the purists did back in the day to Parker and Monk, experience what we have today, properly before judging. There wont be any artist who are as big as
miles, Coltrane etc. but thats because you need time to make a name for yourself, to be renowned. Theres a difference between being renowned as a great and just being great!

herbieflowers

The point is tohugh that we'll never see artists as astounding as Miles etc. Scofield etc. are good, I agree but nowhere near the ridiculous ability of Joe Pass or Wes or Christian or Django. The point is that musi has come so far, it can't progress without taking from what's gone before - sure Parker did it but he created a totally new type of music. I haven't seen that occur in jazz over the past 30 years. Yes Metyheny is great but new jazz will always be surpassed by the golden era. It will not get any better than that. Everything since then has been, imo, exhausted musically. There have been fads and that's as far as it goes.

There is nothing new out there, otherwise it would've been done already (whatever's gonig to be created as been created).

herbieflowers

shatners basoon wrote:

experience what we have today, properly before judging

But it's not a musical point I'm making, it's a philosophical one that applies to everything - the postmodernist condition

herbieflowers

How can one say the quality hasn't deteriorated? Miles to Marsalis? No contest. Wes to Metheny? No contest. Is there a reason for this? Yes, postmodernism. That's all I'm going to say on the matter. End of.

shatners basoon

I wouldnt compare Scofield or Metheny to any of the oldies becuase they're entirely different musicians. Wes vs Metheny heh! how can you possibly compare the two?! Seriously? Its not postmodernism, its purism you're on about, that one genre is better than the other. You cancompare two hard bob guitarists, say Wes and Jim Hall, both brilliant but different but to compare Wes to Metheny is the funniest thing i've heard in a long time. Actually Metheny has probably had a bigger impact on jazz than Wes. Is still prefer Wes to Metheny but would still feel that way.

Its easy to say i prefer Wes more than Metheny, you cant say that one is the more better guitarist though as they're too different. Miles is probably better than Marsalis though, simply cause he's just trying to be miles to recreate the 60s buzz.

One has masters of their own field, the musicians you mentioned are playing a very different type of music than the innovators of today, otherwise they'd be pretendors not original musicians.

herbieflowers

Thepoint Im making is that both Metheny and Scofield take loads from Wes and those who've gone before them as has Marsalis with Miles. But the innovator reigns supreme

herbieflowers

and it's not purism either. The fact that there hasn't been any great up there with say, Monk, since he 70s is alarming - and is down to postmodernism. Metheny more of an influence than Wes? Please, if it wasn't for Wes ther'd be no Metheny

herbieflowers

shatners basoon wrote:

One has masters of their own field, the musicians you mentioned are playing a very different type of music than the innovators of today, otherwise they'd be pretendors not original musicians.

The type of music is irrelevant. It's the quality, the feeling even. It's deteriorated.

herbieflowers

Daddio wrote:

It's definitely a tough call, there probably isn't as much groundbreaking recordings as there was back then - most things have been done already so it's hard to be unique and stand out, so in that way it's probably not as good. There are great young players about I guess we'll just have to wait and see what they can come up with.

This is what I think. I'd be sceptical about the future judging form the last few years though.

herbieflowers

Daddio wrote:

Are all the good innovations taken?! Jazz has been taken so far out maybe it's time to kind of go back to the way it was originally, and look for innovations there.

And I'd definitely agree with that! I'm just gonna stop posting in this thread, we've had a one-on-one argument going nowhere for ages. I stick by what I've said though, jazz won't get any better or original that what's been done.

shatners basoon

Wouldnt call it an arguement, man take it easy. (You're must be a Bastard for not sharing my point of view!:p)

Wes inspired Pat Metheny therefore the innovator reins supreme? Wait a second!
Charlie Christian was the sole influence of Wes and Charlie was influenced by some one else etc. etc. etc. Music will always be influenced from somewhere, you might as well credit mother nature with everything if you're gonna carry on tlike that. Pat Metheny is completely different to Wes, which one is better is subjective. I guess thats why this makes this pointless but surely you must accept how different they are?

And yes id say that Metheny is more influential, id say there are no better hard bop guitarist than Wes but Wes plays music of a genre that many played at the time, the genre Metheny plays is competely original, its some sort of "mood music, new age crazy jazz!)

I dont see how the feeling has degenerated. If you go out there and listen to as many live acts as you can find you'll find the feeling, it still exists in the music today, existed back then and will continue to do so, if not... so help us god whats the point in playing anymore?

herbieflowers

Exactly, that's the depressing bit, we won't create something pure in our lifetimes!

herbieflowers

and an argument isn't necessarily intertwined with violence or heatedness, it's just another word for debate

shatners basoon

i prefer the word heated discussion

herbieflowers

not even heated, discussion...I'm not heated, I have my view you have yours

shatners basoon

was taking the piss:p

Abby D Cody

Uh, guys. Can somebody else get a word in?

If a dead music form can generate this much determined discourse then there's hope for a Frank Ifield retrospective yet.

I think jazz has always looked dead and only years later does anyone realise it's still around and, hey!, there were great players a decade ago, where are they now? In another decade people will be saying exactly the same things and wondering if jazz is on its way out.

Jazz, as far as I can tell, is a player's medium, first and foremost. Then come the musical afficionadi, the appreciators. Once they die out, jazz will just go underground again until it gets a new audience again. The music will never die. People will always come back to the greats of their favourite era. The influences will skip a generation or not as the innovations are recognised. And people will still be arguing over what made this musician great or that one an innovator till the sun goes black and time reverses its arrow.

This interlude has been brought to you by The Voice of Reason Ltd, purveyors of wisdom to the disenfranchised for over fifty years.

Seconds out, round two...