What is Jazz

[GilesAnt]

The 7#9 chord is far from common in classical forms, though there are examples in Gaspard De La Nuit by Ravel for example. On the other hand listen to Oscar Peterson and his left hand is never far from a 7#9 chord.

[Sam Spoons]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jqsHA3Houk

[shufflebeat]

What is Jazz? A great little Honda.

Miles Davis - Live in Tokyo (I wish).

[OneWorld]

What is Jazz? A great little Honda.

Miles Davis - Live in Tokyo (I wish).

So does he, well depending on where he is, he might well be in jazz heaven and lovin' it

[Mattsong]

Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory summed it up nicely, “ I am going to listen to some jazz, where they play all the notes at once.”

[OneWorld]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jqsHA3Houk

I like one of the comments made on that vid.....

@maureenc1284
8 days ago (edited)
JAZZ - the new axe throwing for the TikTok crowd.

LOL

[merlyn]

Having a 7#9 in itself is not enough to make music jazz. Purple Haze is based on a 7#9, but it's not jazz. You could say that's partly because it doesn't resolve. A typical jazz progression using a 7#9 is

| Bm7b5 / E7#9 / | Am7 / / / |

You could then think that jazz involves chord progressions, but that's not always the case. Kind Of Blue has tunes like So What where there are long passages of one chord.

[RichardT]

Having a 7#9 in itself is not enough to make music jazz. Purple Haze is based on a 7#9, but it's not jazz. You could say that's partly because it doesn't resolve. A typical jazz progression using a 7#9 is

| Bm7b5 / E7#9 / | Am7 / / / |

You could then think that jazz involves chord progressions, but that's not always the case. Kind Of Blue has tunes like So What where there are long passages of one chord.

That's very true!

[The Elf]

'Jazz means never having to say you're sorry' (a wise man said!)

[GilesAnt]

Having a 7#9 in itself is not enough to make music jazz. Purple Haze is based on a 7#9, but it's not jazz. You could say that's partly because it doesn't resolve. A typical jazz progression using a 7#9 is

| Bm7b5 / E7#9 / | Am7 / / / |

You could then think that jazz involves chord progressions, but that's not always the case. Kind Of Blue has tunes like So What where there are long passages of one chord.

I agree harmony alone can't be the defining characteristic though it is an important one. I would suggest rhythm is a more defining characteristic - especially thinking back to the origins of jazz.

One of the earliest manifestations of jazz was Ragtime. If you remove the syncopations from say Scott Joplin's The Entertainer it sounds not unlike popular music of classical derivation like Sousa's marches.

Conversely, add some syncopation to The Liberty Bell (Monty Python theme music) and you arrive more or less at Ragtime. We still use the phrase "to jazz it up".

As Richard T states above, we know it when we hear it - usually.

[Random Guitarist]

Seems to me Jazz is actually a bunch of genres over times.
Perhaps the thing that links it all together is the approach of the players?

To me it feels like the common thread is a kind of "I will play this because I believe in it, I believe it's worthwhile, I love it and I'm playing it for me, if you like it too that's nice, but I will not dumb it down for you"

[OneWorld]

We get latin jazz, acid jazz, ragtime jazz etc why do we never get country jazz?