What makes Jazz, jazz

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Gps
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What makes Jazz, jazz

Post by Gps »

Of course I tried you tube, but after 20 min of talking about chord with 4 notes, I fell asleep. The first two vids I found.

Does anybody know a good explanation on what jazz is?

There most be more to it then just hitting 4 keys, on your keyboard or piano. :roll:

Not sure I am a Jazz fan, but I do like Dave Brubeck - Take Five.

I know why I cant count 1,2,3,4 with this track, but just a different time signature does not make something jazz I think.

Rumors have it, it was a problem to find drummers who can drum this track.

( seems I am not the only one having issues counting along with this track :lol: )

But why is this jazz?
Last edited by Gps on Wed Sep 07, 2022 10:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What makes Jazz, jazz

Post by d.healey »

If you hit a wrong note once that's a mistake, if you hit it twice it's jazz ;)
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Re: What makes Jazz, jazz

Post by Michael Willis »

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

Edit: Actually that's not entirely fair. I would say that if you can find some decent jazz musicians to play with, and just start practicing together, you can come to know even though you started with the question.
Last edited by Michael Willis on Wed Sep 07, 2022 10:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What makes Jazz, jazz

Post by sunrat »

Genres are merely an arbitrary construct.
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Re: What makes Jazz, jazz

Post by Gps »

d.healey wrote: Wed Sep 07, 2022 9:59 pm If you hit a wrong note once that's a mistake, if you hit it twice it's jazz ;)
This totally reminds me of a you tube video, of a female music teacher.

She said if you make a mistake, then do it again and people will think you did it on purpose.
:lol:

I will also not forget her hitting a out of scale key on purpose, and asking if the class could hear anything wrong.
When the class said no, she replied nor can I.
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Re: What makes Jazz, jazz

Post by Gps »

sunrat wrote: Wed Sep 07, 2022 10:30 pm Genres are merely an arbitrary construct.
Like this ?

Image

But there must be something we can say about jazz?

It does not seem to have a 4 to the floor for example.

Maybe I need to find some midi files of jazz music. I think I have seen and or downloaded a take 5 midi once.
In LMMS it looked this file had at least the time signature right. (5/4)
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Re: What makes Jazz, jazz

Post by j_e_f_f_g »

The most common aspect of jazz (and where it differed from most music that preceded jazz) is that it is usually improvised. This means that the players don't have the exact notes they're going to play planned and written down on a music score, prior to performing the song. Each player decides what notes he's going to play while he's actually playing the song.

Because each player doesn't know what he's going to play until he actually starts playing, it goes without saying that each player also doesn't know what any of his bandmates are going to be playing until he hears them playing.

As you can probably imagine, the result would likely sound like a chaotic mess of sound if nobody established any restrictive "musical ground rules". This is the second most common aspect of jazz -- before anybody starts playing, everybody needs to agree on some general music guidelines, such as the key signature, time signature, tempo, "style" (for example, "Is this song going to be played as a Bossa Nova, or Waltz, or Big Band swing, or what?"), etc. And with very few exceptions, the players will usually stick to these guidelines throughout the song. This helps prevent the band's performance from descending into chaos. (For example, the drummer is unlikely to change time signature in the middle of the song, unless this is one of the guidelines for that song).

Because of these restrictive guidelines, jazz performances would tend to get boring (moreso than they usually are) if the players didn't use some music theory principles to "increase the musical complexity". Typically a jazz song has simple, repetitive chord progressions (because complex progressions would be too difficult to remember without benefit of composed sheet music to guide you). To give the progressions more "complexity", jazz players often use something known as "chord substitution". I'm not going to get into a detailed discussion of it here. Suffice it to say that the player substitutes a more complex chord in place of a simple chord. For example, replacing a simple major or minor chord with a chord that has a bit of "harmonic tension" such as 11ths or 13ths, or adding the "second" above the root note of the chord, or making the 5th flat or sharp). A player may even play different substitution chords every time he repeats a given chord progression, thus adding more variation/complexity. Of course, the complex substitution chord usually needs to have some notes common to the simple chord being replaced. (See the "circle of fifths" for more info.)

Another common aspect of jazz is referred to as "taking a solo". This means that a particular player is granted a number of measures (typically a factor of eight) in which he improvises a "melody" (or in the case of percussionists, a "rhythm") that blends well with the chord progression. To help achieve this, players rely upon "tonal modes" to help them choose their "melody notes" in order to create a more complex/interesting melody. (Again, I'm not going into details here. Do a search for the names of these modes such as Phrygian, Ionian, Lydian, Dorian, etc. I'll just note that my BackupBand program greatly relies upon these modes to do what it does).

So in a very general sense, jazz is mostly improvised music created with strict general guidelines (such as a basic, repetitive chord progression), and then embellished with chord substitutions and "solos" that employ various tonal modes.
Last edited by j_e_f_f_g on Wed Sep 07, 2022 11:19 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: What makes Jazz, jazz

Post by Gps »

Michael Willis wrote: Wed Sep 07, 2022 10:26 pm "If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know." - Louis Armstrong

Edit: Actually that's not entirely fair. I would say that if you can find some decent jazz musicians to play with, and just start practicing together, you can come to know even though you started with the question.
Well I found out I already knew some jazz , before I knew it was jazz.

Samples in Hip Hop.

You can find great ( Sould, Funk, Jazz) music, from the samples they use in Hip Hop.
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Re: What makes Jazz, jazz

Post by Gps »

j_e_f_f_g wrote: Wed Sep 07, 2022 11:15 pm The most common aspect of jazz (and where it differed from most music that preceded jazz) is that it is usually improvised. This means that the players don't have the exact notes they're going to play planned and written down on a music score, prior to performing the song. Each player decides what notes he's going to play while he's actually playing the song.

Because each player doesn't know what he's going to play until he actually starts playing, it goes without saying that each player also doesn't know what any of his bandmates are going to be playing until he hears them playing.

As you can probably imagine, the result would likely sound like a chaotic mess of sound if nobody established any restrictive "musical ground rules". This is the second most common aspect of jazz -- before anybody starts playing, everybody needs to agree on some general music guidelines, such as the key signature, time signature, tempo, "style" (for example, "Is this song going to be played as a Bossa Nova, or Waltz, or Big Band swing, or what?"), etc. And with very few exceptions, the players will usually stick to these guidelines throughout the song. This helps prevent the band's performance from descending into chaos. (For example, the drummer is unlikely to change time signature in the middle of the song, unless this is one of the guidelines for that song).

Because of these restrictive guidelines, jazz performances would tend to get boring (moreso than they usually are) if the players didn't use some music theory principles to "increase the musical complexity". Typically a jazz song has simple, repetitive chord progressions (because complex progressions would be too difficult to remember without benefit of composed sheet music to guide you). To give the progressions more "complexity", jazz players often use something known as "chord substitution". I'm not going to get into a detailed discussion of it here. Suffice it to say that the player substitutes a more complex chord in place of a simple chord. For example, replacing a simple major or minor chord with a chord that has a bit of "harmonic tension" such as 11ths or 13ths, or adding the "second" above the root note of the chord, or making the 5th flat or sharp). A player may even play different substitution chords every time he repeats a given chord progression, thus adding more variation/complexity. Of course, the complex substitution chord usually needs to have some notes common to the simple chord being replaced. (See the "circle of fifths" for more info.)

Another common aspect of jazz is referred to as "taking a solo". This means that a particular player is granted a number of measures (typically a factor of 8) in which he improvises a "melody" (or in the case of percussionists, a "rhythm") that blends well with the chord progression. To help achieve this, players rely upon "tonal modes" to help them choose their "melody notes" in order to create a more complex/interesting melody. (Again, I'm not going into details here. Do a search for the names of these modes such as Phrygian, Ionian, Lydian, Dorian, etc. I'll just note that my BackupBand program greatly relies upon these modes to do what it does).

So in a very general sense, jazz is mostly improvised music created with strict general guidelines (such as a basic, repetitive chord progression), and then embellished with chord substitutions and "solos" that employ various tonal modes.
Thank you, now it starts to make sense. :)

Also why those vids went on and on about 11th and 13th chords, but I can' t recall them once explaining, why.

Maybe it was somebody who can play Jazz, but totally sucks at explaining it. :)
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Re: What makes Jazz, jazz

Post by tavasti »

What I've been told is: Jazz is complicated but crap

Matches pretty much my experience, but I understand it is matter of taste :-)

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Re: What makes Jazz, jazz

Post by merlyn »

If we look at Take Five:
  • Rhythm
The drums sound jazzy. The rhythm is swung, and that is more important to this track sounding like jazz than the 5/4 time signature. Not many jazz songs are in 5/4, but a lot have a swing rhythm. Eighth notes are swung, meaning there is a long note followed by a short note. It's most like triplets, but not always exactly. This pattern can be heard on the ride cymbal, and that ride cymbal pattern is an important part of jazz. In rock and pop the bass and snare keep the rhythm going, with cymbals providing emphasis. In jazz the hi-hat pedal and ride cymbal keep the rhythm going, and the bass and snare play around.

The piano part uses syncopation, which is a big part of a jazz sound. This means playing on off-beats.
  • Harmony
Yes, it's those four note chords. That's four different notes. The chords of the first section are
||Ebm7 / / Bbm7 / ||
  • Melody
The melody uses notes from Ebm blues scale, which includes a b5, sometimes called a blue note. Jazz does use notes from outside the scale, but they're not wrong. It's tension and release, or outside and inside. Going outside the scale then resolving it.
  • Form
The overall structure is a well used jazz form. The melody or 'head' as jazz musicians call it, is played as written, then the musicians improvise on the chords of the head. In Take Five there is a sax solo and a drum solo. In more detail the form of Take Five is unusual. There is the first section, then a second section, then the first section again or ABA. Most jazz songs use a 32 bar AABA form. The solos in Take Five are over the A section only, which is unusual, and it is unusual for the piano and bass to keep playing in a drum solo.

Take Five was a hit single, and sold a million copies, so they must have been doing something right. :D
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Re: What makes Jazz, jazz

Post by GMaq »

On a semi-related note to guitar players wanting a good visual and sonic explanation of moving from straight blues to jazz with some of the outside notes and chords like @merlyn was discussing I found this old instructional Video with the legendary jazz guitarist Joe Pass to be an incredibly clear explanation of musical theory take you from the usual pentatonic base of blues and rock into jazz. Even if you're like me and don't read music or know theory you can see and hear the note changes he is making. As a bonus you get introduced to a jazz genius and get to hear him play even if it's only a dumbed down lesson

Tune in at 5:38 to go straight to the lesson part where he breaks down a 12 bar blues..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5wOdikpRu8
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Re: What makes Jazz, jazz

Post by Michael Willis »

GMaq wrote: Thu Sep 08, 2022 12:28 pm I found this old instructional Video with the legendary jazz guitarist Joe Pass
34:10: "Easy things. Never play anything that's hard. If it's hard don't play it! The object of ... making music I think is to be able to have motion and freedom and play ... what you feel and have some kind of flow and movement and not to show that wow I can do this really hard chord ..."

Wow, those are some great words of musical wisdom.
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Re: What makes Jazz, jazz

Post by Gps »

merlyn wrote: Thu Sep 08, 2022 11:14 am If we look at Take Five:
  • Rhythm
The drums sound jazzy. The rhythm is swung, and that is more important to this track sounding like jazz than the 5/4 time signature. Not many jazz songs are in 5/4, but a lot have a swing rhythm. Eighth notes are swung, meaning there is a long note followed by a short note. It's most like triplets, but not always exactly. This pattern can be heard on the ride cymbal, and that ride cymbal pattern is an important part of jazz. In rock and pop the bass and snare keep the rhythm going, with cymbals providing emphasis. In jazz the hi-hat pedal and ride cymbal keep the rhythm going, and the bass and snare play around.

The piano part uses syncopation, which is a big part of a jazz sound. This means playing on off-beats.
  • Harmony
Yes, it's those four note chords. That's four different notes. The chords of the first section are
||Ebm7 / / Bbm7 / ||
  • Melody
The melody uses notes from Ebm blues scale, which includes a b5, sometimes called a blue note. Jazz does use notes from outside the scale, but they're not wrong. It's tension and release, or outside and inside. Going outside the scale then resolving it.
  • Form
The overall structure is a well used jazz form. The melody or 'head' as jazz musicians call it, is played as written, then the musicians improvise on the chords of the head. In Take Five there is a sax solo and a drum solo. In more detail the form of Take Five is unusual. There is the first section, then a second section, then the first section again or ABA. Most jazz songs use a 32 bar AABA form. The solos in Take Five are over the A section only, which is unusual, and it is unusual for the piano and bass to keep playing in a drum solo.

Take Five was a hit single, and sold a million copies, so they must have been doing something right. :D
Thank you and I learn a lot from this. I did not know it was a hit, but now I understand why a friend of mine, not into music as we, did know this track.

Part of me is also surprised about me understanding all you said. There might be hope for me yet.

I think I have heard a longer version of take 5 too.
At some parts you wonder, are they still playing take 5 ? :lol: but sooner or later the famous loop returns.

Edit: Found it. 7m24 sec. :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT9Eh8wNMkw
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Re: What makes Jazz, jazz

Post by j_e_f_f_g »

I find Merlin's definition to be a bit off. He de-emphasizes improvisation, which is not only a huge aspect of jazz, but was in fact the characteristic that caused jazz to become its own genre. Up to that point, improvisation was rarely done in public performances, and if it was done, it was done by a solo performer (Bach would sometimes improvise during solo organ performances) -- not a group of musicians. When groups of musicians started playing improvised music, the resulting derivation from the norm needed to be given a name; jazz.

And this switch from classical music's score-based performance to jazz's improvised performances happened when musicians had been studying "music theory" long enough that some of them said:

You know, before we play a song, if we all agree on a simple set of "rules" (based upon western music theory), we could all improvise our parts, and the result wouldn't be unlistenable noise. In fact, it could sound pleasing enough that audiences would enjoy hearing it. Of course, those rules would need to be simpler and more restrictive than a classical musician may use when writing a score. But maybe we could add some new elements to the music to make it more interesting and complex. For example, how about we use more of those 11th and 13th chords, and maybe flat or sharp the 9th and/or 5th? You know, those harmonies that are too "dissonant" to all but the most adventurous classical folks (ie, Stravinsky, Bartok, Debussy, etc). And we can add "solos" where we play around with those tonal modes that most classical music also uses sparingly. We'll actually emphasize these things to give our music a distinct new, hopefully interesting but not too unpleasant, sound. This will be our "jazz music".

So that's how we got jazz.

Jazz is generally regarded as a emerging new genre in the early 1920's. Now, the folks in the 1920's liked their live music at clubs and dance halls. But they were bored with the old dance forms such as the waltz. They were trying new, more physically fast-paced and "jumpy" dances such as the Charleston, Lindberg, and Foxtrot. The jazz musicians discovered that making the eighth notes "uneven" (rather than use classical music's strict note/time divisions) gave the music a more "jumpy" syncopated sound, which worked well with the new dance steps. So, the "swing rhythm" (that Merlin alluded to) became the norm for jazz.

This swing rhythm was employed throughout the 20s and 30s. After awhile, this rhythm became familiar/acceptable to most listeners' ears such that it also began to be used in pop music circa the mid 1930's and became very common in the 40s. It peaked in the early 1950's when just about every pop song used a swing rhythm, from Elvis' "Blue Suede Shoes" to Paul Anka's "Ain't that a shame". Of course, these were pop songs, not jazz. So a "swing rhythm" no longer could be considered an indication of a jazz performance, much less exclusive to jazz. In fact, jazz musicians tried to get away from sounding "pop" by starting to ditch the swing rhythm in the mid 40s. They branched out in a multitude of directions. For example, some a jazz musicians turned to latin rhythms, particularly the Bossa Nova ("Girl from Ipanema") and Samba. Other jazz musicians went back to straight 8th timing, pioneering the way for new offshoots of jazz such as "funk" (Miles Davis' "Bitches Brew"). So, I disagree with Merlin's citing of a swing rhythm as an indication/hallmark of jazz. That's true of only the early history of jazz.

Likewise, I find his citation of "syncopation" as a indication/hallmark of jazz to be questionable. Lots of pop music has syncopation. Virtually everything from the mid 40's onward. This is not something that distinguishes jazz from any other genre.

I have no idea what that reference to "4 note chords" means, but I'm sure it has no signifcance to jazz, because I've never heard any jazz "definition/theory" refer to any such thing.

I stand by my "general definition" of jazz as:

jazz is mostly improvised music created with strict general guidelines (such as a basic, repetitive chord progression), and then embellished with chord substitutions and "solos" that employ various tonal modes.

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