New Jazz

brianlux

lexicondevil said:

brianlux said:

lexicondevil said:

Just stumbled across this guy. Really digging the funky jazz vibe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mUymaxWmMw

Very cool.  Thanks for sharing it!

Absolutely. I'm exploring his catalog and finally bought some vinyl for the first time in a while. 
Also, this is from 1970, so not new, but really good Japanese funky fusion from Jiro Inagaki.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inY4r9xtacY

I'll check it out, thanks!

Croos1226

The Messthetics. Fugazi meets jazz! https://youtu.be/QMsT4KoWWHs

brianlux

Messthetics is an excellent band but I don't understand why they are referred to as jazz or even "new jazz" (not to be taken personally-- I don't mean just by you, Croos).  Most of what I've heard by these guys is more funk/rock.  I could see maybe calling it "new fusion", but jazz?  Not that it matters much, but I wouldn't call it jazz.

But then, what is jazz anyway?  In his excellent book, Notes and Tones: Musician to Musician Interviews, the great "jazz" drummer Arthur Taylor asks several musicians various questions related to music.  Of some of the people Taylor interviewed, the following "jazz" musicians stated the following regarding the term jazz:

Charles Tolliver: "It's a word which was given to the music we're playing by the people who control the music we're playing. It's just a nomenclature.  I rarely us it."

Max Roach: "It came from the French j-a-s-s. [be-bop is] another one of those nick names like boy, nigger, and jazz."

Dizzy Gillespie:  If we want to call it jazz, we'll make them call it that.  It's our music, whatever we want to call it.  I don't know who made up the word jazz. 

Tony Williams:  "Sometimes I hate it, sometimes I love it.  It depends on who I'm talking to."

Sonny Rollins:  I've been talking to Yusef Lateef, and he's really death on this word jazz."

Don Cherry: "...that's canning it if you put a label on it like jazz."

Hampton Hawes:  "I don't even think about the word jazz. If somebody asks me what I do, I say I play the piano."

Freddie Hubbard:  "Jazz is a label white people gave to the music."

Richard Davis:  "They say some guy heard the music and labeled it jazz.  I don't like to label nothing!"

Elvin Jones:  "It's misleading in a lot of ways, and it's an inadequate expression..."

lexicondevil

I never knew the origin of the word. Thanks. I guess somewhat similar to how many artists feel about the labels put on music, but this one has racist origins.