That Wonderful Music Genre...Jazz!

[Starr Polish]

Ah, how I love it. One of my favorites. I am currently in jazz choir and listen to jazz bands and choirs on a regular basis.

In fact, I have a jazz choir 'concert/critique' tomorrow, and I'm the only soprano in the group. The other soprano is academically ineligible (sp?). This ought to be interesting, considering I am kind of sick :D Wish me luck!

What is your favorite jazz song?

[Arathorn]

I don't know if this is jazz; but I like Cross My Heart by Everything But The Girl.:confused:

[galadriel88]

OK, well, it's not really true jazz, more like rock/jazz, but I really like the group Chicago. They are very cool and all - original, which I love to see in a group.

[Arathorn]

Er, I just rewrote one of Peter Cetera's songs on this thread:
http://entmoot.tolkientrail.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3647

One of my quirkier sessions with the muse.

[IronParrot]

Jazz = probably the only real music left nowadays, the way things are going. I play piano and clarinet... and do a LOT of jazz improvisation on piano. So much, in fact, that I hardly bother reading music anymore - I just do everything by ear. Playing all the standards and such. I'll upload a recording sometime.

Favourite jazz artists include but are not limited to:

Oscar Peterson
Ella Fitzgerald
Harry Connick, Jr.
Diana Krall
Billie Holliday
Frank Sinatra
Benny Goodman
Artie Shaw
Louis Armstrong
Miles Davis

BEST jazz radio programme on the planet: "After Hours" hosted by Ross Porter, on CBC Radio 2 for the Canucks out there. I have learned almost everything I know about jazz from this show alone... in fact, that's where my love and understanding of this great music came from. You can listen on streaming audio online, too...

http://winnipeg.cbc.ca/afterhours/

[Glorious Glorfindel]

Originally posted by IronParrot

Oscar Peterson
Ella Fitzgerald
Harry Connick, Jr.
Diana Krall
Billie Holliday
Frank Sinatra
Benny Goodman
Artie Shaw
Louis Armstrong
Miles Davis


i love all those, but i also love FRADGILE. they are soooooo good.

[IronParrot]

I was just about to post a thread about how much I love jazz... then I did a search to see if it had been done. Now, just what is this thread doing, sinking all the way to the bottom with only FIVE replies?

Come on, I know there are more jazz fans out there.

[Celebréiel]

I guess I miss all the good threads while im asleep! I love Jazz. I mentioned before I love all types of music, but Jazz ranks up as some of my favorites. :D I also like Jazz/ blues type stuff. I like all the artists above and my sister once made me a mix tape with some beautiful jazz songs.

[Insidious Rex]

Jazz is great. Im surprised theres actually Jazz fans on the moot. And some rather young! I still play Kind of Blue in my car CD player all the time. Now how many of you guys like the Blues?

[IronParrot]

My brother started playing trumpet last year, so I got him "Kind of Blue" for Christmas.

What varieties of jazz do you guys like? I have a particular preference for the older stuff... big band, swing, cabaret, that sort of thing.

I wrote in to a jazz radio show about a year ago. It was a contest to "define jazz". They just contacted me earlier this week and told me I'd be getting a (very) belated prize. :)

[Insidious Rex]

cool. what was your definition? Have you ever been to New Orleans. Geat place if you like Jazz. I love it there.

My preference is the Miles Davis stuff but also beebop and the older stuff like Louis Armstrong. I cant tell you how many times I have listened to St. Louis Blues and tried to figure out how Armstrong did that solo.

[azalea]

I love jazz! I used to listen to Jazz Classics every Sat. night when I lived in Atlanta. It was one of the things I missed the most when I moved. I love the artists IP mentioned in his list, but I would also add George Gershwin.

[IronParrot]

Oh, Gershwin was a marvelous composer. Really the man who brought jazz out of the clubs and into the concert halls.

[GrayMouser]

My favorites -the Miles Davis/ John Coltrane/ Thelonius Monk era- !950s-early1960s

[Khamûl]

What? No one has mentioned Wynton Marsalis yet? I'm disappointed. :D I saw him in concert and it was amazing. I also love Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and John Coltrane. *looks back at list* Gee, 4/5 of them are trumpet players. What does that tell you about me? :p As far as my other instrument, the piano, goes, I like Diana Krall and Harry Connick, Jr.

"Jazz is democracy in music." -- Wynton Marsalis

[Hasty Ent]

I love jazz, but mostly older stuff. Really like bebop, especially Dizzy Gillespie and Duke Ellington. Charlie Parker was a genius (BIRD LIVES!). Also love Miles Davis, but only the early recordings (BEFORE he went electric). Kinda Blue was a favorite, but it's been displaced by Birth of the Cool. Keyboards are a passion of mine, and at the top of my list would be the immortal Bill Evans, followed by Thelonius Monk. Oscar Peterson is OK, but sometimes he sounds too lush. Could be the classical training resurfacing.

I also love singers like Anita O'Day, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn and Dinah Washington. For contemporary, Kurt Elling (occasionally). Not a fan of Harry Connick, I'm afraid. If the musician is current, he/she has gotta be experimental for me to be interested. If he/she is covering old ground, I'd rather go to the source...

One of my treasured memories is seeing Ornette Coleman perform live. Any free jazz fans out there? I confess to a weakness for crazy atonal stuff...:o

[gdl96]

Khamul, some of my friends just went to a Wynton Marsalis concert the other day. I've been meaning to listen to some of his stuff.

Why hasn't anyone mentioned the great Maynard Ferguson yet? I saw his perform last year. His version of Take the A Train is probably my favorite jazz piece.

[Khamûl]

If you can, see if you can find "Sunflowers" by Wynton. He wrote it for a French jazz festival. He said that he wrote it in 5/4 because he got tired of hearing the people clap on beats 2 and 4. :D He got all of us to clap on 2, 3, and 5 while they played it. It was cool because I can say that I've played with Wynton Marsalis. :p

[IronParrot]

My high school band director (she played trumpet, obviously) was a huge Marsalis fan.

I got a call from back home today. Supposedly, that radio show I mentioned earlier sent me a CD wallet, about ten compliation albums and a T-shirt.

Whoa.

So Khamûl, you're a fellow pianist, I see. Do you do mostly small ensemble, large ensemble, or solo? I'm primarily a soloist out of practical concerns alone, but my hands aren't big enough to reach even a 10th very comfortably, so I can't get really open-sounding stride accompaniment in the left hand going, but oh well...

[WallRocker]

Yeah! Other painists on the 'Moot! I've been classicaly trained for about four years, but now a gutarist friend of mine is teaching me jazz. I love playing it!

[Starr Polish]

I'm sad I can't play the piano. I can peck at notes, and learn how to play one handed melodies, but that's about it. I do play the alto saxaphone and clarinet though. Both useful in jazz (the later more in dixie land bands though).

I'm going to Cedar Rapids this Friday to perform. Jazz season has finally begun!

[IronParrot]

Woohoo! A fellow clarinetist as well!

Jazz clarinetists are in very short supply nowadays...

[Khamûl]

I don't really play jazz. I suppose you could call me classically trained, but I'd use that term loosely. I like ragtime, gospel, classical, or whatever. I just haven't had a chance to play jazz. I've been playing piano for close to a decade (gah, it's been that long?! :eek: ).

I would like to play trumpet in a Dixieland Combo though. I love that New Orleans dixieland sound.

[Sylvee Estel]

I play clarinet in my school jazz band. I love the music, but playing the clarinet in it kinda stinks, becuase in all the songs we play theres only a few songs with clarinet parts. We usually end up playing trumpet parts, or not playing at all. I've been playing the tenor sax for a year, so I think I'm going to play that in jazz band next year instead of clarinet.

[azalea]

Ask your band director to let you play some Pete Fountain.:)

[IronParrot]

"I've been playing the tenor sax for a year, so I think I'm going to play that in jazz band next year instead of clarinet."
Noooo, another defector!

[Khamûl]

I have just found a wonderful CD. Playboy's Jazz After Dark. I know what you're thinking -- "A Playboy CD? How good can that be?" I thought the same thing. But I was wrong. It's a great 2 CD set with the first CD being nothing but instrumentals from the likes of Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk, John Coltrane, and others. The second CD is filled with vocal songs from Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Tony Bennett, Diana Krall and a bunch of others.

I love this CD. It has re-ignited my love of jazz.

[gollum9630]

My uncles a jazz musician in Montreal. He plays the trumpet. My grandpa is lso as jazz musician. He plays the piano. He once played with Frank Sinatra:)

[Sheeana]

Originally posted by Khamûl
Playboy's Jazz After Dark.

Okay. So we all want to know what our dearly beloved lazy arse admin was doing browsing a playboy catalogue? :p

[IronParrot]

The articles, the articles!

[Insidious Rex]

Originally posted by Sheeana
Okay. So we all want to know what our dearly beloved lazy arse admin was doing browsing a playboy catalogue? :p

actually Playboy has been sponsering great jazz shows and compilations for decades now. it has nothing to do with naked girls. youve never heard of the Playboy Jazz Festival? Its pretty big time. Its been going on for like 25 years now and is one of the premier jazz shows in the country. I still have a tape from like the 1982 Playboy Jazz Festival in Philadelphia with Bill Cosby doing the intros. Its a great collection.

[Sheeana]

Um. Yes, Isidious, I have. *prods brain with a pointy stick*

[Khamûl]

You see, I was looking for the soundtrack to Pirates of the Caribbean in Wal-Mart and the Jazz section was right next to the soundtrack section. Then I saw a CD with a Playboy bunny logo on the front. So just because of the pure shock of seeing a Playboy bunny logo on a CD, I had to pick it up. Then I looked at it and saw that it seemed to be a good CD. So I bought it.

And that's how it happened. Honestly. :p

[gollum9630]

Originally posted by Khamûl
You see, I was looking for the soundtrack to Pirates of the Caribbean in Wal-Mart and the Jazz section was right next to the soundtrack section. Then I saw a CD with a Playboy bunny logo on the front. So just because of the pure shock of seeing a Playboy bunny logo on a CD, I had to pick it up. Then I looked at it and saw that it seemed to be a good CD. So I bought it.

And that's how it happened. Honestly. :p

yah right, you were probably thinking, playboy logo = naked girls. Then you bought it, and that what really happened :p

[IronParrot]

Oh, lay off the guy... it's not like anybody with Internet access pays for nudie pictures anymore.

(On the other hand, not that many people pay for CDs, either...)

[gollum9630]

Originally posted by IronParrot
Oh, lay off the guy... it's not like anybody with Internet access pays for nudie pictures anymore.

what are you hinting at IP ;) :p.

[Nurvingiel]

Anything and everything to do with jazz! I started talking about it in the Classical Music thread, and Elfhelm had the good idea of starting its own thread - probably because I was leading everyone off topic. :D

This was my post about jazz:
I just went to a great jazz concert called "Jazzy Nutcracker", by the Toronto Septet. It was awesome. The feature, a jazzed up Nutcracker, was so good, you would have thought Tcaicovsky wrote it for 4 saxaphones, jazz piano, drums, and upright bass. They also did Ravell. I think the two composers would have enjoyed the concert!I should have mentioned that the saxaphone players also played bass clarinet, clarinet, alto flute, and flute.

Then we started talking about different jazz instruments. Bass clarinet was one, and jazz oboe another! My brother has played his oboe in a jazz performance, but I did not get to hear him.

Jazz is cool. :cool:

[hectorberlioz]

gotta love swing!:D but i'm not into anything else in the jazz area....

[gollum9630]

jazz is petty cool. last feb. i went to Montreal and saw my uncle play. Also my granda plays jazz piano and he pnce played with Sinatra

[Khamûl]

I think I'll merge this with the other jazz thread that I seem to remember being around here... Later edit: merge successful. :)

[Elfhelm]

I'm going with Miles Davis 'Round Midnight as my favorite jazz album. Anyone else?

[Nurvingiel]

(Was this thread merged with another because I accidentally started a double? Sorry, I can only see about half the links on Entmoot right now. This computer is weird.)

[Khamûl]

Yeah, I merged it about a week ago.

[Hasty Ent]

Originally posted by Elfhelm
I'm going with Miles Davis 'Round Midnight as my favorite jazz album. Anyone else?

not bad.... but my fave would have to be Birth of the Cool :D

[Nurvingiel]

I love the musical "Hair" which is heavily jazz influenced.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally posted by Elfhelm
I'm going with Miles Davis 'Round Midnight as my favorite jazz album. Anyone else?

Originally posted by Hasty Ent
not bad.... but my fave would have to be Birth of the Cool :D

Kind of Blue :cool:

[Starr Polish]

IR, you rock.

[katya]

Originally posted by IronParrot
[B]Jazz = probably the only real music left nowadays, the way things are going. I play piano and clarinet... and do a LOT of jazz improvisation on piano. So much, in fact, that I hardly bother reading music anymore - I just do everything by ear. Playing all the standards and such. I'll upload a recording sometime.

I like jazz more and more these days. I dis play clarinet in our school band (which is actually quite sucessful and was invited to Australia this year) but I ended up quitting. It wasn't fun anymore. That aside, what I really like to play is piano. I am very much classically trained though. My teacher, bless her heart, is actually pretty useless so I didn't learn that much from her. Anyway, I would really like to learn to play more jazz, you know? Do you have any advice/tips (don't be afraid of being too technical if that's what it comes to)?

[Starr Polish]

Most of jazz piano (as I have heard from my friends who play it) is basically "here are the chords that are in this song, play them where they sound right to you". I cannot remember for the life of me what it's called.

[Khamûl]

You wouldn't happen to be reaching for "improvisation", would you Starr? Or maybe there is some other term... If it's not improv, I'll probably smack myself in the head when you remember it. :p

[Mercutio]

Why don't we wake this up?

Who's your favorite Jazz musician?

I like Arturo Sandoval (he was trumpet, and piano, and drums, and sax, and (well) everything) and Herbie Hancock is the best of the best of jazz pianists.

[Khamûl]

I think his last name is spelled Sandoval. Yeah, he rocks. I was surprised to see him at the Grammys this year with Justin Timberlake.

[Mercutio]

Really? Wow.

We saw both those guys at the Clifford Brown (amazing jazz trumpetist, killed in a car accident in his twenties) Jazz Festival in Wilm., DE last year. That was so much fun! All jazz for 5 days or so.

[s H m E i K s]

Oscar Peterson
Ella Fitzgerald
Harry Connick, Jr.
Diana Krall
Billie Holliday
Frank Sinatra
Benny Goodman
Artie Shaw
Louis Armstrong
Miles Davis

Harry Connick, Jr. = God

And, coincidentally, my favorite jazz album would be Blue Light, Red Light by Harry Connick, Jr.

[HOBBIT]

Hmm - I'll resurect this.

I don't think that I posted in this :D

Recently, I have been liking jazz more and more. I have played the trombone in my school jazz band for the past two years.

My favorite jazz artists/bands:
Maynard Ferguson
Stan Kenton + His Orchestra
Mingus Big Band (charles mingus is dead though)
Arturo Sandoval
Louis Armstrong
J.J Johnson
Kai Winding

Anyone know those names?

And recently, I've been enjoying the Mike Vax Big Band - featuring Stan Kenton Alumni.

[Starr Polish]

You wouldn't happen to be reaching for "improvisation", would you Starr? Or maybe there is some other term... If it's not improv, I'll probably smack myself in the head when you remember it. :p

No, it's not improv. It's vamping, or something. I can't remember.

[Khamûl]

Maynard FergusonMy band (The Troy State University Sound of the South (http://tsumusic.troyst.edu/ensembles/instrumental/sots.html)) played "Conquistador" in one of our halftime shows last year.