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jazz saved my life?


mizanation

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  • 3 months later...
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jazz players in here feel free to comment on this:

been reading Barthes' Camera Lucida, and what he says about photography being divided into studium and punctum - studied, cultured, intentional setting on the one hand and the punctuating detail that reaches out and elevates the photograph - seems to have some relevance in relation to improvisation as well?

take Kind of Blue for example: the studium is the structure, the modal foundation, the setting of the piece, in essence. but what lifts it into greatness is the punctum, the improvisation that rises out of each musician, playing notes that hit the listener perfectly.

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That's true. However, although I don't know Barthes enough to have a relevant point of view, I suspect that he was talking about photography from the spectator's point of view and not as an intentional feature created by the artist, nor a cultural framework. Whereas in jazz it's the actual construct of the bop genre -- taking an often trivial popular theme, playing it once and then improvising for the rest of the track -- that establishes this curious dichotomy, making it at once intimate, personal and universal, timeless. It can seem hard to believe that My Favorite Things wasn't written by Coltrane but is an old Broadway song, the equivalent of a Beyoncé hit or something like that. Miles played a Cindy Lauper song. Yusef Lateef took a theme from a cheesy Hollywood movie and made it into a jazz classic. All this through re-appropriation and deconstruction and improvisation. This analogy with Barthes reminds me that jazz was the living inspiration that spawned post-modernism in visual art (of which photography played a huge part), which was probably never fully recognised by either parties.

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haha you crazy kids. i don't think you need to come up with some crazy french philosophy jargon to substitute for more relevant concepts like "composition" and "improvisation." on the downside, they don't make jazz listeners feel smarter.

also bebop was not the first subgenre of jazz that used pop standards as source material - it was common during the swing era (when jazz was actually popular)

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^ you don't, and it doesn't make you smarter/a better musician, but i just like extending concepts beyond their usual medium or scope to see how it holds together. i have a sneaking suspicion concepts in different fields all come from the same set of perspectives(?), only applied across different media, and so that's how i approach my various interests...

again i agree it doesn't make you any better a musician, and i really don't care how smart jazz listeners/players feel when they have all these concepts sitting inside their arse, as long as they play good. but i like working with musicians who have a hold of concepts as well as tunes.

Gabriel, good thoughts, will go through it more carefully after dinner

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  • 4 months later...
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Just noticed this thread.

fjAL-SfTr_8

Hard bop/free bop/stuff like this is the shit. Seriously. Nothing better as far as music goes in my opinion. So much rhythm...

Been getting into a lot of fusion and souly jazz stuff as of late though.

H_cTFxvvvAc

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  • 2 months later...

ewABV.jpg

some of my most recent purchases.

doug carn: infant eyes

janko nilovic: soul impressions

david axelrod: songs of innocence

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djconcarne this one is for you. - you still do that TTFM at all? (amkhz = me)

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Dasidi Komolafe = Horace Tapscott, for those who care.

whatttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt had no idea you were on here..

funny thing, I actually stumbled across that tune. Was part of madlib's medicine show jazz mix too...that whole mix is really a lesson in jazz.

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people should jump on this.

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paul desmond's unmistakeable alto somehow means this album never elevates itself above time out/time further out sound... a laudable attempt to take jazz eastwards in the 60s but it falls prey to cliche to me.

still, enjoyable.

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oh yes, also, SUN RA ARKESTRA.

I have a copy of that brubeck album. it's really great...

I feel like I have been listening to my copy of cannonball and nat adderly "live at the lighthouse" on riverside just about every other day. Highly recommended session!

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