The Ontology of Jazz:

[medjuck]

There's been a few discussions here of who's a jazz singer and who isn't and even some on who's a jazz musician and who isn't. It's been suggested that improvisation is one of the key signifiers of jazz but other genres of music often use improvisation. When I hear Wes Montgomery improvising I know it's jazz, and when I hear Neil Young playing a long improvised solo I know it's not. But I can't really articulate why. Any suggestions? (I was spurred to this queston by hearing a cut from the Al Kooper Super Session disc on a pretty good local jazz show.)

[clifford_thornton]

Hell, I'm still trying to figure out what is music and what isn't.

[bneuman]

Usually, I think of something as 'jazzy' if it has a 'cool' sound and feel...especially if it includes a piano and/or a saxophone. A paradigmatic example would be Billy Joel's 'New York State of Mind'.

[jeffcrom]

It's been years since the question of what is and what is not jazz concerned me very much. But when I as a young man, I thought about it a lot, and here's what I came up with. Jazz is characterized by:

1. Swing, which I'll loosely define as a paradoxical blend of rhythmic relaxation and flowing forward motion.

2. An individual approach to timbre.

3. A heavy reliance on improvisation.

To the extent that a piece of music has these characteristics, it's jazz. If it matters.

Disclaimers and further explanation:

I don't think of swing as limited to traditional walking-bass-driven 4/4. In my book, Cecil Taylor and Albert Ayler swing. Neil Young, and most rock, doesn't. The beat doesn't flow - it's marked; it's up-and down rather than forward-moving.

There is jazz that doesn't have all of these characteristics, but the more they're absent, the less the music will sound like jazz. I can think of pieces by Anthony Braxton that have the last two in spades, but which don't flow rhythmically like jazz, even like the Cecil Taylor kind. I might think that it's still jazz, but wouldn't be particularly inclined to argue with someone who said that it wasn't.

And the aspect of improvisation is not limited to solos - it includes the kind of group interaction as a pianist responding to a drummer while accompanying a horn player.

This may all be BS, but it's what I came up with once upon a time.

[BillF]

Wasn't it Fats Waller who when asked "what Is jazz?" replied "Lady, if you don't know that, you aint got it"?

[Guy Berger]

My experience is that any attempt to construct a definition of jazz will inevitably exclude large swathes of jazz music and include at least some non-jazz music.

[JSngry]

Yeah, the more I tried to pin it down, the dumber I sounded, so I took that as a sign to just chill out and let good be good, period.

Think I like it better that way. I'm having more fun, that's for sure.

[paul secor]

Duke Ellington: "There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind."

[John L]

The problem is that jazz has never stood still long enough to define. It just keeps getting broader, and the boundaries with other musics are fuzzy as well.