I grew up playing a lot of jazz in the late 2000s and there was always a strict canon - big band was seen as kind of cutesy and not worth putting much effort into while the Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Coltrane, Davis, Hancock, Shorter and a few others were the "real" musicians. But the internet was in its infancy at the time and YouTube/spotify started showing things that I had never heard of like a bunch of Japanese jazz musicians, so I always wonder what musicians coming up today see as "the canon". Is it still mostly the names I mentioned or does it include a lot more?
On a separate note, I always saw Chet baker and Gerry mulligan as "real" musicians but was taught early on that Brubeck was "staid" and boring. After judging it myself I guess you could say his soloing was a little underwhelming but he was incredibly creative in a way that a lot of the "serious" musicians weren't. Jazz people can be such losers sometimes
I've been playing jazz as a bassist for nearly 50 years, including with several big-band groups. Today my main band is a big-band, though I also play with a number of smaller groups.
Finding repertoire is a perennial challenge. Adding new material takes more effort than just a quick agreement on the bandstand and flipping through the fake books. A lot of material is unpublished, out of print, surreptitiously Xeroxed, etc. But there's a lot of exciting material spanning an entire century.
And the west coast is well represented.
Of course big-band is unique in that it involves improv soloing but is much more about the arrangements, especially the newer stuff. It's like playing chamber music in that way, but of course people still love chamber music. It's never hard to fill an empty seat in our band.
> I grew up playing a lot of jazz in the late 2000s and there was always a strict canon - big band was seen as kind of cutesy and not worth putting much effort into
Rock used to be this way too. It’s hard to believe now, but there was a real wall between punk and metal in the mid 1980s.
In punk circles grudging respect was given to Motörhead and a few thrash acts but everyone else was seen as hair-obsessed posers or dinosaurs. Neither camp would admit to liking anything “mainstream.”
20 years later Chris Cornell is covering Billie Jean (https://youtu.be/R0uWF-37DAM?si=V3Pqtq-3GDHqxJBd) and all kinds of unusual collaborations were kicking off. It was frankly refreshing.
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I think jazz taste has diversified a lot in the last decade and we aren’t seeing a canon outside of cliques. I know myself and other younger folks listen to the artists you listed, I know several who grew up playing in a marching band and enjoy big band, myself I listen to nearly anything.
The core repertoire hasn't really changed but the boundaries get further and further out. It's like "classical" music. Pianists must learn the 2 part inventions, they're an essential part of the tradition.
Big band is hard to learn from. The large ensembles like Basie's and Duke's have persisted in popularity, but classic "big band" are very much of their time.
The bebop guys will always occupy the position in jazz that Bach occupies in "classical". They're foundational musicians in a continuous tradition and one learns a lot about the music by studying them.
By "canon" do you mean respected musicians? Or do you mean that PLUS players whose work is considered essential to learning how to play the music? The answers will be different. Keith Jarrett is great and esteemed but unless you want to sound like Keith Jarrett, he's not essential to study.
For a music built on curiosity and openness, it's surprisingly good at gatekeeping
As I mentioned in an adjacent post, I've been playing jazz for nearly 50 years, and have not experienced gatekeeping, except on rare occasion from mediocre players. I've played with pro's, academics, and amateurs. The overwhelmingly predominant attitude is simply love of music and an interest in a challenge.
Come to the Midwest.
> his soloing was a little underwhelming
I mean, it is true that a lot of his solos get busier and bangier until he's hammering out polyrhythms at the end. I just take it as part of the ride when listening to Brubeck.
But I really don't want to listen to other jazz artists emulate that, especially knowing how little chance there is that they'll have the same creativity and sense of rhythm that Brubeck had. (Edit: based on the experience of hearing the banging without the creativity/rhythm-- it's not fun.)
Brubeck suffered a serious spinal injury swimming in Hawaii which resulted in chronic hand pain, depriving him of some dexterity. He may have been a fluent and swinging improviser before that, I don't know. It all worked out, his quartet had a unique style and Desmond was such a great player and improviser.
Yeah I mean his solos compared to his melodies/song structures or even the other soloists on each song.
But also compared to other prominent pianists of the time like Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, etc
The etymology of the word “Jazz” originates on the west coast and migrates east to meet up with the new music as musicians emigrate north to Chicago and New York audiences. Jazz is truly improvisational and very much American in origin.
Jazz, Rock, Gospel, Blues, Funk, R&B, Disco, Hip Hop, and even House all originated in Black America. Queer spaces in America also were also crucial in the development of House, Disco, and even Hip Hop
Punk, too!
Glad to see Vince Guaraldi prominently mentioned here. Like the author, I got into Guaraldi via the Peanuts music, then found I loved the rest of his stuff as well.
I think Guaraldi is almost like a jazz version of Erik Satie, who’s been discussed here a few times. His music seems very simple, almost simplistic, but his taste and feel are superb. It’s just really good and easy to listen to, which unfortunately means it gets dismissed as “easy listening”.
Using "easy listening" as a pejorative has always baffled me. Why does music need to be difficult?
Easy listening implies that there’s not much of anything there. Nothing surprising or unique about the song or the performance. No insightful message and nothing worth reflecting on after.
I don’t think the alternative is “difficult” for its own sake. Rather, those who would use the term as a pejorative are likely seeking new experiences and viewpoints in their music and get bored by same old diatonic melodies over plain inoffensive grooves. Novelty is a source of dopamine for some.
A lot of jazz music is difficult to the untrained ear, and I have distinct memories of hearing albums that I now feel are too conservative but in my youth thought they were too chaotic. I now understand that it was never difficult from the performer’s perspective - just high level musicians playing the music they hear. I wish everyone could hear jazz just once through the ears of a jazz musician.
If it's not painful it's not good. If you're enjoying it you're doing it wrong.
I think that playing any kind of live music requires a bit of a two-way accommodation between the needs of the audience and of the musicians. I don't think it needs to be difficult per se, but there needs to be something in it for the musicians.
This might sound self centered, which is a frequent stereotype leveled against jazz musicians, but on the other hand, why bother? There are other things we could be doing with our time. And I don't think that playing "difficult" music is incompatible with delivering a high quality performance, which is always my mission.
I think it’s worth distinguishing “difficult to perform” and “difficult to listen to”. Something like hard rock or metal with lots of flashy solos can be technically impressive, but it’s not difficult to “get” -- when done properly it just gets you in the gut.
The accusation usually levelled at cutting-edge jazz (fairly or unfairly) is that it’s so niche that it is difficult to get; that it’s left behind any pretence at being popular music. Many listeners would even go further and sneer “they’re just playing notes at random!” or “you’re just pretending to like it!”
I do wonder whether good-sounding, easy-to-get music is purely a matter of fashion (being just different enough to be interesting, but conventional enough to be accessible), or if to some degree there’s another axis of skill/difficulty in great pop music, of making it catchy and universal.
IME it's basically synonymous with "muzak" and "smooth jazz", the kind of bland and mediocre background atmosphere inflicted on mall shoppers (often substituted with the same handful of mindless holiday tunes this time of year).
>Using "easy listening" as a pejorative has always baffled me. Why does music need to be difficult?
Yes, I agree with you, it shouldn't and doesn't need to be.
But some things like music be it Jazz or something else isn't always just matter of listening but way of self establishment, way of life living or pursuing life, way how they seeing themselves and communicate themselves to others. I'm not in to this or studying this or anything else, but it's known behaviour model and you find studies if you like to read about it more.
Right, some Jazz aficionados tend to be like hipsters. Who despise and keep unorthodox anything but their likes would grok. A way of self establishment and having reason to keep themselves different. At least a bit better than others. I'm not claiming everybody are, but I certainly have met few of those quick to classify someone things they like.
I find my self like more West Coast Jazz bands and artists performances older I get. And if I'm not completely wrong it might be a more common trend their share has increased over the past ten or so years playing in radio stations too at least where I live.
The idea that Chet Baker and some of the others named are not “serious jazz” is too ludicrous to take.
Jazz has always been bigger than one aesthetic or one coast, no matter how much some people want to police it
Baker has one of the best movie adaptations, has been documented and reissued at nauseum and has worldwide acclaim and recognition. Sounds like mostly an inner-circle type of perspective.
Unknown nobodies like Dave Brubeck.
What's sad is how much of that judgment hardened into history
It's not just west coast jazz. Music journalists snub their nose at anything that doesn't have the "right pedigree". If it doesn't fit their narrative for what jazz should be, it might as well not exist.
That included decades of Japanese jazz musicians, conservatory-trained session wizards without a hard-luck backstory like Michael Brecker, etc.
As much as modern music sharing/streaming has its downsides, the best thing it ever did was make everything discoverable and make the opinions of gatekeeping assholes irrelevant.
You don't need respect. Respect doesn't even pay the bills. You just need listeners and a way to sell to them.
When I think of west coast jazz, I think of Tom Scott and I was surprised to not see him in this article.
"The Latin Side of Vince Guaraldi" is my favorite jazz album cover.
The article doesn't even gesture at the reason why West Coast is disfavored by some: it's the white flavor. A lot of people feel that the White clique of West Coast jazz capitalized on the popularity of the genre without really contributing much to it. It was the safe, commercial style at the time.
Note that this isn't my personal take. I love Art Pepper. I can tolerate some Brubeck. But I admit there was plenty of slop in the record stores, too.
Gioia even touches on this in some of his writing. One factor that's often forgotten is that Black musicians often couldn't fully capitalize on their own music, or compete effectively, because of Jim Crow. There was a lot of resentment as a result.
This happens pretty frequently in music.
It's not always just white people now, at least. Rich kids of all races can take over a genre
Betteridge's law of headlines.
Agreed there has always been good jazz on the West coast, good article. Seattle has had great jazz scene for a long time.
https://www.kuow.org/stories/jazz-has-a-storied-past-in-seat...
Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, Kenny G all honed skills on the West coast.
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