Is free Jazz the best Jazz?

free jazz?

there is a cover charge to just about every show I see
 
The best jazz....is the jazz you listen too.Even if you like that elevator(lift) music jazz,its all good.

Dixieland,Free,Swing.....who cares.If you like it....then the label dosen't matter.:)

Steve B
 
My experience has often been that guys who can't play bebop or swing, play free jazz. It's like any other form of art: you have to be at least competent, if not incredibly proficient, at the fundamental skills of playing jazz music- know the history, know the styles, learn harmony, etc. Once you know all the rules, it's acceptable and often fun to stretch or break them, and I can appreciate great players who do that (i.e. The Fringe, later Coltrane stuff, etc.). But in my opinion, if you can't play the "real" stuff, then "free jazz" is just a way to stroke your ego while masking your inabilities as a jazz musician.
 
I just wish I could play jazz well. I had a drum instructor who was a jazz drummer. I could actually outplay him in rock but I couldn't come close to him in the jazz stuff. Some of it I don't even want to listen to but I wish I could play it.
 
The best music, is the one that's honest, regardless the tag it may have. If you really mean that note, people will feel it and the music will transcend.
 
My experience has often been that guys who can't play bebop or swing, play free jazz. It's like any other form of art: you have to be at least competent, if not incredibly proficient, at the fundamental skills of playing jazz music- know the history, know the styles, learn harmony, etc. Once you know all the rules, it's acceptable and often fun to stretch or break them, and I can appreciate great players who do that (i.e. The Fringe, later Coltrane stuff, etc.). But in my opinion, if you can't play the "real" stuff, then "free jazz" is just a way to stroke your ego while masking your inabilities as a jazz musician.

I partly agree with you here. But I think using the word "jazz" opens a pandoras box in these kinds of discussions. Improvised music or improvised sound etc. seems to alleviate the defensiveness of the "real-jazz" community in these debates. I think when you get into talking about Sun-Ra, or Pharoah Saunders or Coltranes later stuff, you are still talking about "jazz" though.

What I do agree with, and what I am guilty of (not that it was wrong) is having come into jazz as a drummer from the improvised music side of things. I never did learn traditional bop, or swing until a lot later. I don't know that it has hurt me, but what I do think is that I'm way more open to different styles, genres and voices than a lot of the jazz guys I know who came up through the schools being taught how to play jazz correctly. It's all good though. We've chased this discussion around the board for years as I recall, and it's been a while since we had a real "jazz war" here ;)
 
I would think the more you pay for it, the better. Just my opinion.
 
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