This is a piece that I have been longing to write for a very long time. Of all the classic genres of music I have written about, Jazz has been the most enigmatic and difficult to comprehend. Despite the effort it takes to acquire and understand this unique taste for the genre, the rewards are something as indescribable as the genres itself.
Your senses nearly heighten to every instrument in play. Usually a persons’ reaction to the genres goes in the following order -
Reaction 1: (suspicious eyebrow raise) What in the hell is that racket?
Reaction 2: Hold on! Whom do I listen to?
Reaction 3: How can all this make random playing make sense at the same time?
The music starts talking to you after a while itself, saying - Player, I myself don’t get it at times but I let you be you. Can’t you hear it?
Well that’s what it just is. No need to comply with any ethic or pattern others around fit into; Play what you feel in the moment. It’s underneath this near mesmerizingly puzzling sound that you realize, there exists an integration of musical sentiments. Unison of the several souls that are united in that moment to create this music, with no verbal appendage to join each other, just their ears and an instrument, none the greater. It is integration so subtle and individualistic that its meaning is never the clearer.
In times when the word ‘inspiration’ has been bastardized beyond recognition, jazz can be a point of reckoning that can truly inspire musicians everywhere. It’s more of a calling to believe in one’s own musical flight. Getting yourself inspired is one side of the musical coin, which has actually become a blatant excuse to pass off extension ideas as one’s own. A musician must allow his own mind an opportunity to run amok the plains of rhythm and melody and do what it pleases. This is when the true brilliance of an individual musician shines forth. This is what Jazz to me is all about.
From the womb of Mother Africa:
The roots of jazz can be traced right back to the heart of the African civilizations in Congo, Ethiopia etc. What they brought with them whilst being taken away,shackled into slavery, to the Americas, was their rhythm and beat; it used to help them get through their daily drudgery. They used to sing and perform these peculiar and unheard of beats in their time offs and weekends. Another use of this peculiar musical behavior they showed was to create a rhythm, beat or pulse in whatever work they used to engage in. This provided them a flow to whatever they do. This sense of beat and rhythm evolved with their stay in North America and the Caribbean.
Getting more exposed to European harmony, their music evolved there in terms of the instruments they used ; incorporating pianos , violins, cellos drums and bass (a long way from using claps, fiddles and bones to create a percussive sound and beat to add to chant vocals). A majority of events that led to this origination took place in and around New Orleans. What was distinctly different in this early form of jazz and European music was that Jazz used heterophony whilst European music involved a predominant use of homophonic harmony.
What this means is, European music of the time used several tones of voice and instrument to play a particular melody or piece of music in different octaves, voices and sounds of instruments. This created a sonorous orchestra-like music in today’s terms. Whereas the heterophony, that jazz abided by, was on the other extreme of this spectrum. Each voice/ instrument had at times a different beat and most of the time, a different melody going about, with linkages to each appendage of the music played becoming near subconscious and not conspicuous. This kind of playing is also evident in today’s Progressive music scene.
What's ringin' in your ears?
What is a today understood as jazz is a direct descendant of Rag time, Bebop and Big band. It moved in the direction of music, that wouldn't, typically, be danced to but was to be listened to . Charlie Parker, one of the finest Jazz and Late-Bebop performers to have ever played, was a part of this movement. He spoke the following about how this movement took place in his case:
I'd been getting bored with the stereotyped changes that were being used, and I kept thinking there's bound to be something else. I could hear it sometimes. I couldn't play it.... I was working over ‘Cherokee,’ and, as I did, I found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes, I could play the thing I'd been hearing. It came alive
It was that simple. The music created was a phonic rebellion to systemic rules of music, to be coherent with pulse and rhythm, something that exists for everyone to taste and understand. It was a conscious movement away from the walk of conformance to taking a leap of faith towards ones' musical freedom.
What can also be taken as a deeper message from this musical enigma, is that unity can exist in the most strangest of diversities. And yet it can make perfect sense to everyone. The fact that, every instrument plays its part depending on the rhythm and lead of another, is something that can come about only when there lies under a deeper bond between every soul that speaks the same tongue, a bond that cannot be leashed by language, race or status.
Masters of Heterophony:
Here are a few masters and their works that one can slowly savor to fall in love with what jazz is. Give it a buffer, torrent, p2p, what have you and allow the music to embrace your mind as it relaxes. Typically setting for ideal jazz listening are: driving back home anytime in the evening, great for traffic listens, dim light drawing room while alone, nights which are too warm to let you sleep.
Miles Davis:
By far one of the most known and brilliant jazz practitioners to have ever trod the earth, Davis leaves a legacy behind that likens to what the Beatles did for rock music. His discography, especially the records Bitches Brew, Kind of Blue and Sketches of Spain have inspired musicians for the past 50 years. He is definitively everyone’s start point to listening to jazz music.
John Coltrane:
His music was actually my first Jazz listen. A Love Supreme was the name of the album. It had a near psychedelic effect on me. I closed my eyes and actually could picture a club where this could’ve been played in the mid 60’s in a Jazz bar. Albums like ALS and Blue train are landmarks in Jazz history. They have literally spurned sub-genres of Jazz such as free and modal Jazz from them. The Trane man is a ‘cannot miss’ in this genres for someone who starts of listening to Jazz
Thelonious Monk :
One of the 5 jazz musicians to have ever been on the cover of Time magazine, Monk created some of the most melodic jazz piano tunes since the days of rag time. His music received due appreciation in his time and served as a pioneering influence to the slow jazz movement, in terms of providing a single player to go about his jazz driven melody while others give him accompaniment in background harmony (almost blues like but with a severely subtle harmony accompaniment). Essential listens include the albums Monks Dream and Straight, No Chaser.
Charles Mingus:
Jazz’ master most perfectionist, Mingus was a pioneer in developing the use of the double bass in Jazz music. His musical style was as temperamental and eccentric as his personality. His album Blank Saint and the Sinner Lady is a master piece where Jazz has been given an orchestral effect. The album is often cited as the best Jazz album ever made. It involves a lot of dynamic interplays between the saxophone and trumpet, each going into harmony with other instruments in periodic spurs. The result is truly the work of a perfectionist and a brilliant band leader.
These are just some of the more prominent players, leaders and composers that got me started and hooked to Jazz. There are tons of others that have played an equal if not a more important role in the evolution and shaping of jazz as we know it. (Listen: Charlie Parker, Chick Correa, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Wayne Shorter, Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancock)
Whats my point?
In the new millennium, Jazz has been confined to a few handfuls of progressive artists, bands and practitioners of instruments that play shows and clubs of quite a small audience and cater to an ageing and niche listeners market. Inclinations to the music have to move under the guise of progressive and metal music to a large extent.
In a world where sampling and electronically created music is so prevalent, we can take a note or two or even a whole melody section (!) out of the book of one of these masters and their crafts worth. We are truly at the point of musical saturation, when it comes to sounds that are popular. The clone-like line up of today’s famous musicians is a sad irony of times we live in. As a generation, we need to have pride in ourselves and muster the guts to quest ahead and beyond, what we know as musical sense and rule. It doesn't have to be exactly jazz, even though it may sound like that as you read this.
What I mean to say here is, allow yourself to give your mind a chance to do what it is capable of doing and would independently wish to do. If you observe closely, that is exactly when all the music that we know of ,today, came to evolve. It is from that depth itself that the beloved shades of Hip hop, R&B or even Rock music today came about. One wouldn't think that the first rap/rock & roll/metal group kept a reference of all that was famous, when it came out with what would define a generation’s music. Its only when these everyday artists went out of their way, to do what they felt was musically genuine to who they were, that they achieved immortality. Think about it.
And one more thing, don't let anyone get you down saying the music is too hard or complex to play or even listen to. As the great Louis Armstrong said-
Man, all music is folk music. You ain’t never heard no horse sing a song, have you?
