Nu jazz and the future of jazz

Fair enough. I have always respected musicians like Bill Bruford, Herbie Hancock, Dave Samuels and Pat Metheny who are able to tightrope that fine line between the popular and the avant-garde. Beethoven wrote his late string quartets but also wrote very popular piano concertos, folk songs and of course that Sixth Symphony.

For me there is a distinction between pop and the popular. Verdi and Bernstein are popular but not pop. There is a distinction between a great songwriter, Bacharach or Joni Mitchell and Nelly, Kenny G or Brittany Spears. I think, as you noted, that a financially successful musician does need to have one ear to the greats that have come before and one ear to the people who are mucking up the radio dial. But it reminds me of a line in The American President (I think I've quoted this to you before) where Michael J Fox, the assistant says that the president needs to speak on these issues because if they don't the next nimrod will, he says, " If people do not have water, they are going to try to drink sand".and The Prez (Michael Douglas) says "People don't drink the sand because they don't have water. They drink it because they don't know the difference."

The musicians who I most admire: Steve Reich, Ralph Towner, Charles Lloyd, Dave Brubeck, Keith Jarrett are able to do what they want, well they're geniuses, and they get people to listen. It's the rest of us who have to worry. :)

When people get old and retire, they think of what they can do with their time, and often they want to read the great writers and hear the great musicians of their time, the ones they have missed because they've been concerned with doing other things.
 
Who knows what the future of Jazz will be? Who knows? The Shadow Knows!
Im not that impressed with the so called NU JAZZ. I have listened to it many times on the satellite radio station. I always switched back to Real Jazz and Smooth Jazz, Depending on my mood. I find that it lacks feeling from Trad Jazz, and Smooth Jazz. It contains a lot of tech-no crap that I don't care for. But what do I know? I never liked Michael Jackson! I never liked 80s Hair Bands! I hated Disco! I like Diana Kraul and Kenny G! Im a musical listening anomaly! I even like Contemporary Country! I like some of the Jazz Hip Hop!
Im just plain messed up!
DON'T GO BY ME!
 
Diana I can see Bob but Kenny G?..........please say it isn't so buddy......:}
Hey, I told you that I was messed up! I think that the umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck during birth! Kenny has a pop jazz style to me that I like! (I don't listen to him for hours on end) Just now and then. He is a pop star for smooth Jazz!
I also like Monk and Pat M.
 
Hey, I told you that I was messed up! I think that the umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck during birth! Kenny has a pop jazz style to me that I like! (I don't listen to him for hours on end) Just now and then. He is a pop star for smooth Jazz!

Well we all have our individual 'quirks" my friend......:}
 
Maybe so but ALL the previous {jazz} branches along the way had elements attributed to a relationship and its extensions that could be sourced back in way or another to the firm roots of the mother {jazz} tree.

you could say that improvisation and freedom of expression is a part of the roots of jazz. Nu jazz may have that. it does'nt always have to be about time signatures and the form of the music, does it?
 
you could say that improvisation and freedom of expression is a part of the roots of jazz. Nu jazz may have that. it does'nt always have to be about time signatures and the form of the music, does it?


Neither does lots of total improv based free jazz but it's a branch that evolved off the previous roots of the jazz tree which came before it. Even in rebellion from tradition you can still find and trace back in it the critical elements in the jazz expression of choice at any given moment time even too today with those essential elements found in the music known as jazz.
 
Neither does lots of total improv based free jazz but it's a branch that evolved off the previous roots of the jazz tree which came before it. Even in rebellion from tradition you can still find and trace back in it the critical elements in the jazz expression of choice at any given moment time even too today with those essential elements found in the music known as jazz.

so nu jazz could be the next form of jazz. it just need time to expand or evolve. But then again, it could be the new type of techno of house music, it has roots from that aswell. I think it's called new jazz because the composers liked the roots of jazz, the whole idea of exploration, so then it could be the new jazz, but it will never have the values and musicianship of previous genres. unless it has a few tweeks of course. Could you call "black satin" by miles davis jazz?.......there has been quite a debate about his later works! but it was all expression that he took from jazz
 
so nu jazz could be the next form of jazz. it just need time to expand or evolve. But then again, it could be the new type of techno of house music, it has roots from that aswell. I think it's called new jazz because the composers liked the roots of jazz, the whole idea of exploration, so then it could be the new jazz, but it will never have the values and musicianship of previous genres. unless it has a few tweeks of course. Could you call "black satin" by miles davis jazz?.......there has been quite a debate about his later works! but it was all expression that he took from jazz

I agree. Only time will show how it evolves to the next level.
 
The interesting thing about jazz is that it has made it way into the artistic elite. I don't think that is a bad thing. As Matt's Dad said, guys who do jazz seriously do it for the sake of the music. You travel a precarious road when you start to do things for the sake of their marketability. Do this to make it more marketable; or don't do this.

There has been a blending of jazz with more neo-classical ideas, as Ellington did with his symphonic works, Ornette did with Skies of America, Brubeck did with his jazz oratorios, McLaughlin's Mediterranean Concerto, and Metheny and Chick Corea have done recently with the large scale musical works The Way Up and The Ultimate Adventure. I would really ask why people would not be more interested in works like that for the future of jazz, and why they would not be interested in listening to people with a sense of compositional virtuosity. If you want to do nu-jazz to make an artistic statement that is one thing. But if you are doing it to make money that is a different perspective.
 
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i had to start this again, i just heard this guy called nujabes ( an asian dj).....his music is incredable, nu jazz mixed with my favourite things by john coltrane,or even afro blue in my opinion.....if you listen to the whole thing you will start to believe that it's the saxaphone sampled from coltrane

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDpZCMTmzO4&feature=related

Whoever did it was certainly influenced by Coltrane's "My Favorite Things". It's very interesting. Thanks for posting it.
 
Yes, the choice of soprano sax over a minor waltz says it all. Nice find, Bos, I'd not heard of him. Wikipedia says:

He most typically uses samples from artists such as Miles Davis, Pat Metheny, and Yusef Lateef and adds live instrumentation, such as flutes, acoustic guitar, piano, and saxophone to create warm, mellow tracks.​
 
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