[10mfan]

I had put up a post the other day and it made me think of something, so I thought I'd start another post and get your reactions.

Let me start off by saying that our opinions are just that, so please behave yourselves and understand upfront that there are no right or wrong answers here which apply to everyone......so please be respectful of one another.
That's one thing that seems to have gotten lost here at SOTW for quite some time.

So the topic at hand, is how do you feel about the current state of jazz compared with older jazz, and the younger players today, compared to the players of yesteryear.

For me, I'm an old-school guy. Always have been, and always will be.
I am also aware that there are so many tremendous players out there today and such super talent everywhere you turn. My heart just gets drawn more to the older guys for different reasons. I really have always enjoyed how different everybody can sound and I like the older stuff a lot because of how much those guys could say, without playing so much. I have also always been drawn to their phrasing, etc. I get drawn to those guys the most. I love the older guys for the sounds, and for what they said, and HOW they said it.
More often than not, I can hear a younger player play today, and think how fantastic their technique is, but I'm not be moved by their playing. I see a lot of this, but it certainly doesn't apply to everybody. Lots of technique, lots of control and lots of vocabulary, but at the same time, not saying enough to move me

It doesn't mean that I don't enjoy today's younger players, they just dont move me as much, (and I am generalizing here), as the older players do. My heart is moved quicker when I'm listening to Ben Webster play My Romance or Stan Getz playing Lush Life, Mobley on Soul Station, Sonny on Almost Like Being In Love, etc...
When I hear Gene Ammons just blurt out one big fat note and let it just sit there for people to think about, it just kills me. Listen to Lockjaws sound--holy smokes!!! When I hear Dexter phrasing, and I hear him articulating almost every note, I love that. You get where I am coming from, in terms of what I dig. The 1950s and 60s players would be my favorites, typically.
Articulation today seems to have gotten away from that stronger tonguing, and most younger players I hear, seem play more legato today. That doesn't mean that I don't appreciate the players who play more smooth like Scott Hamilton. I happen to love his playing for so many reasons!

I don't want to imply that the older guys said more than the current guys do.....they just said it differently, and it appeals to me more.
Many of today's younger players seem to have such an incredible fluidity, when they play. Because of the way many youngsters approach jazz these days, the focus isn't so much on making all the chord changes and worrying about hitting a bad note. Today's players move stuff in half steps all over the place, and they play with a lot of patterns and motifs that intertwine throughout many keys, compared to many of the old guys. Nothing wrong with that, just a different approach.

It is exciting for me to watch where jazz has come and to get a glimpse of where it's going. A few of the guys I love to listen to today include Dave Pollack, Joel Frahm, Chris Potter, David Mann, James Carter, Tucker Antell, Dave O'Higgins, Robert Anchipolovsky, Ken Gioffre, etc...
I just hope that today's younger players who are coming up, don't spend all their time listening to just today's players. I hope they go back and listen to the guys from yesteryear, because I think that's really important. I hope that leaving a lot of space, isn't something that goes by the wayside.

There are so many modern players that I think play amazing, but I am hoping that the things that I was taught and learned, and are important to me when I listen to jazz, will not disappear with the youth growing up and playing jazz today. Maybe they will, and maybe that's just part of life, but I hope not.

If I can relate this to golf, I love watching the senior tour guys play because they play with such finesse, and they have so many shots in the bag that they can use for all the different scenarios, that the younger guys on the PGA tour don't really use because they play such a different game. They hit it long and their approach is different.
If a PGA tour youngster is 100 yards away and there is no trouble in front of the green, they will all use a lob wedge or sand wedge. For the senior tour players, they may bump an eight iron onto the green or something like that, where the younger guys today wouldn't even think of using that shot.

Same type of thing where it doesn't really matter which you like more, it's just acknowledging some of the differences. I hope the finesse game doesn't disappear with these younger golfers, and I hope the same for the younger jazz players.

Listen to Johnny Hodges play a ballad melody and it will fill your arms with goosebumps. So much heart and soul and nuance. I just hope the younger players today listen to these older players so they can incorporate a lot of what they did along with the new stuff.

Just understand that I am making a generalization and not specifically saying that ALL the older players played one way and ALL the newer players play another.
I think you all know what I am saying, and it seems like a good topic to discuss.
It's exciting to see where jazz has come and I'm excited to see where it's going. For me as a player, the roots are very very important.

This is not a post declaring that old jazz and older jazz players are better than what's going on today, by any means--It is simply pointing out some differences I see, and hopefully everyone will join in amicably, with their own opinions.

All the best, Mark

 

[rhythmisking]

What I notice most in terms of newer players is there often seems to be great attention to virtuosity that has what (to me) has taken more of an academic sort of journey to playing improvised music that has polished away most of their idiosyncrasies, as if they have assimilated a sort of 'whole cloth' homogenized approach to jazz improv. In other words the desire to sound 'legit' is realized through virtuoso execution of learned patterns first, and expression or communication of feeling and emotion gets developed later. It seems to me the "old guys" as you've put it possibly went through a process that was the opposite of that. In other words, the expression of themselves through their instrument pre-dated their technical skills, which were acquired in a much slower and less pre-digested way.

60 years ago, there was no such thing as jazz academia and the only way to acquire improv skills was by listening to records, taking lessons from a local player who was better than you and playing with others, usually starting with simpler forms (blues, boogie woogie etc) and only getting to more complex forms after quite some time. This meant you learned expression and communication with listeners first while playing fairly simple music, and your technical (improv) proficiency increased gradually, usually over many years. It also meant that your own personal idiosyncrasies were less likely to get polished away, and instead had a chance to expand into individual character that became your style, along with things you picked up from mentors and teacher who were also idiosyncratic individuals rather than a homogenized academic distillation of 20th Century jazz greats.

Now you can study online with a huge variety of teachers and study jazz improv academically, starting a program unable to improvise at all and coming out the other side in a few years with learned patterns and lines and a mental understanding of 'what goes where' for harmonically very complex music that are an amalgam all the greats of yesteryear and sound super legit and amazing...for 10 minutes. It's a valid question to ask whether this sort of improv is closer to skill at compiling learned 'tricks' than it is to telling a story, or communicating emotions musically.

What impresses me these days as far as younger players are the ones who don't play all 1/16 and 1/32 notes, but the ones who play whole notes and double whole notes with feeling and intensity and feel their way through their solos instead of playing all the right notes fast and proficiently.

 

[Eulipion2]

I find many of the younger players less interesting. I wonder if it has something to do, as stated above, with the academic approach versus paying your dues in a touring band, learning to entertain as well as play. I can remember back when I started college 20 years ago, it was all bebop, finger patterns, speed. I realize that teaching nuance is more difficult, and technique is relatively easy, but some of the newer players could use a remedial course in subtlety.

Then there are the compositions. The older players played from a huge library of standards (The Great American Songbook) and wrote their own, usually accessible, originals; and while the music would get extremely stale if all anyone played was 80-year-old standards, the new compositions just aren't that interesting or memorable. No "hook." Some of them sound like calculus put to music, and not in a good way. And I haven't found a modern vocalist whose original compositions or lyrics really did anything for me.

I realize that a lot of the music I listen to doesn't have a hook, or may sound mathematical, and I probably couldn't sing along to the solos, but there's just something different about the approach in such tunes that gives the older guys the upper hand. Even the avant garde/"free" stuff tends to be more relatable in the hands of the older guys.

All that being said, there are some younger players I like. Some I've been listening to lately (some of whom aren't so young anymore...): Melissa Aldana (tenor, love her!); Shirantha Beddage (bari); Aurora Nealand (soprano, clarinet); Greg Ward (alto); the new Mareike Wiening (drums) album is interesting; Mopo (sax-bass-drum trio from Finland); JD Allen (tenor); Ben Wendel (tenor); Rudy Royston (drums).

 

[Eulipion2]

Also, and I just thought of this, mouthpiece/horn demo videos. If I'm trying to hear what a piece of equipment sounds like, I want the player to play something slower to really showcase the tone. Most of the (usually but not always younger) players wiggle their fingers as fast as they can. I assume that most boutique mouthpiece makers put efficient facings on their pieces, making speed and response super easy, but finger wiggling doesn't really tell me about the tone of the piece. I get nothing out of those vids.

 

[jolind]

Mark,

I consider myself as one of the younger generation players and I guess I understand what you are talking about. My generation grew up musically rather with berklee improvisation concepts of the mid/late 90s than with original transcriptions, so you're observations are not a surprise.
Most of the contemporary guys I know try to emulate the learning process of the say 60s/70s though and I think youtube is a big factor, just like buying LPs back these days and learning to play along with or transcribing the masters by heart.

As far as I see it the process of conceptualization in teaching improvisation started with what Trane practiced like permutation of patterns, harmonical superimpositions etc. The post traners just continued that in other dimensions. It got hip doing it so. I remember guys disrespecting others for "just playing licks" when the latters followed a traditional approach (late 80s/ 90s in Europe when I started playing) Luckily I had very different teachers so I could learn about the benefits of different approaches.

Me too I enjoy both worlds but theese days the guys I dig the most are the ones in between, the post Trane generation who was confronted with traditional approaches in their youth and started to conceptualize in order to sound different. You can hear both approaches in their playing: Brecker, Grossman, Mintzer, Gonz, Joe Farrell, Berg, Lieb, many of those players.

I still think it's extremely important that younger players have their own contemporary and individual approach, that's what causes development in music. In music history it's been often the case that critics of the younger generation just didn't get the point or the dimension of newness in the new style. When you look around what's going on in the world concerning digital revolution and climate change etc. we're probably living in a time that changes a lot or everything for the biggest part of mankind. Why shouldn't this show up in music and music perception as well? So maybe we just don't get it yet.

 

[soybean]

To me, the guys you mention are the "classic guys". The true old school jazz guys are the players from the 1920s and 30s.

quote: "Articulation today seems to have gotten away from that stronger tonguing, and most younger players I hear, seem play more legato today."

This is definitely true. Some of the older players were so amazing at tonguing. I'll just mention three whose articulations are hard to beat: Cannonball Adderley, Rudy Weidoeft and James Moody.

 

[10mfan]

Hi bro,
You can categorize them however you would like. I was referring more to the guys from the 1950s and 60s, as that’s who I am drawn most to.

 

[10mfan]

I love reading what I have read and I thank everyone who has contributed so far.

It’s a welcomed moment to have a conversation here where people share different views, and don’t resort to name calling and going crazy on one another. Nice to see some decency here

I thank you for that!!!

 

[Eulipion2]

quote: "Articulation today seems to have gotten away from that stronger tonguing, and most younger players I hear, seem play more legato today."

This is definitely true. Some of the older players were so amazing at tonguing. I'll just mention three whose articulations are hard to beat: Cannonball Adderley, Rudy Weidoeft and James Moody.[/SIZE]

One more: Dexter Gordon!

 

[lesacks]

To me, the guys you mention are not the "old school" guys. They are the "classic guys". The true old school jazz guys are the players from the 1920s and 30s.

quote: "Articulation today seems to have gotten away from that stronger tonguing, and most younger players I hear, seem play more legato today."

This is definitely true. Some of the older players were so amazing at tonguing. I'll just mention three whose articulations are hard to beat: Cannonball Adderley, Rudy Weidoeft and James Moody.

An interesting observation, given the discussion here
https://forum.saxontheweb.net/showthread.php?367194-How-to-stop-tonguing-so-dang-much

Something to think about / listen out for

 

[10mfan]

Dexter, Jug, Red Prysock, Earl Bostic, Sil Austin, Sam Butera, Jacquet, Lockjaw, and so many of the players I love, tongued hard so much of the time. It helps define their playing. Everybody can pick and choose how they want to do things. You also don’t need to do it one way all the time. Incorporate many ways of doing it, if you’d like. No rights or wrongs.

When I studied with Jimmy Giuffre for a couple of years, he liked the stomach to be used to emphasize the attack on a note, rather than the tongue.
I incorporate that, but also like to tongue hard. There are guys like Scott Hamilton who play extremely legato and it sounds great. If you want to sound smoother, keep the tongue out of there.
As a player, I just happen to prefer using the tongue more.

Do it how you want..... that’s what helps make you sound like you.

 

[andre251]

The music is continuously evolving and the more notes, different phrasing, and more complex melodies is how it sounds now. I am certain people were saying the same thing in the late 1970s and the 1980s with players like Brecker and Sanborn coming out.
So I don’t think you are really saying, “kids these days” because it is more like “kids this past three decades...”. :-D
It sounds like 10mfan is a jazz purist which is completely fine, many of us love 1950 through the mid 60s the most. But acting like players right now are the only different ones ignores the previous 20-30 years before them.

 

[10mfan]

Hi,
It wasn't a question about 20 or 30 years ago, it was just an observation about todays youngsters, in particular.
I fully understand what you are saying, and Im not in disagreement, at all about that. Fully agree about the Sanborn/Brecker thing.

Time evolves, and things change.
Yes, I am a 50-60's kind of guy---fo sho!

 

[JayeLID]

IMHO, I think straight-ahead has been static for almost a generation now actually. So when I read descriptors such as 'constantly evolving' and such...I cannot hear this. In the 80's, when Fusion segued from exciting and revolutionary to a watered-down, consumable commodity....a school of players turned back to straight ahead, which was cool. BUT, unfortunately, it was also highly deferential. Also, unfortunately, some of those who egoistically placed the mantle of 'saving jazz' upon themselves turned out to have very specific carreer goals and employed a self-marketing mechanism which has altered things immensely yes, at the expense of the genre, methinks).

I don't think straight-ahead has ever left that deferential state, actually. I don't think straight-ahead has 'evolved ' much, if at all....

This isn't to say there aren't great practitioners, nor is it to say that there are not players with very signature styles....but what I hear in jazz nowadays is not particularly fresh, challenging, paradigm-shifting, or anything like that. Not in the way Fusion was when it started appearing back in the day. This is why IMHO the genre has been static for quite a while. I also suspect this is due to the academicization of the genre.

Again this isn't to say there aren't really good, young players...because there are, and I get enjoyment out of listening to them at times.

I just continue to gravitate towards the generation of the masters, however, simply because their quality was more evocative ; I feel and hear more depth, joy, sadness, humor, anger, and overall emotion there.

 

[zonepeter]

Perhaps what is different is the life experiences of the different generations of players being discussed.

 

[10mfan]

FOR SURE.
The guys I love from yesteryear LIVED this lifestyle. Todays youth goes to school and learns it through academia.
Both can be successful, but they are different in so many ways. The older players were making up the vocabulary we learn and study today through their recordings.... the turnarounds, the patterns, the riffs, etc...
I find many of the young players I hear, really soak up this stuff so quickly and they take it to another place. Theres a fluidity and an openness to todays playing. A freedom that many possess, and while it moves me differently, its still exciting for me to hear. They just don't seem to get caught up with the changes as the 1/2 step stuff they play allows for them to make everything seem to work. I just hope it doesn't get too cerebral, with too much mathematics, opposed to the older stuff.

 

[JL]

Perhaps what is different is the life experiences of the different generations of players being discussed.

+1. And that goes for the listener as much as the players. A lot may depend on when you grew up and what you were exposed to.

I'm with you Mark. Old school all the way, if you define "old school" as jazz/blues of the '50s, '60s, even into the '70s (and to some extent the '40s as well). A lot of it comes down to what I grew up listening to on countless nights in small jazz clubs that were still around in the Bay Area during the '70s, when most of the players from that era were still alive; to list a few, Gene Ammons, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins (who's still with us), Sonny Stitt, Art Pepper, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Roland Kirk, Monk, Horace Silver, Mose Allison, the Heath Brothers, Turrentine, Freddie Hubbard, Mingus, and so many others that I was lucky enough to hear more than once in live performance, which is VERY different than on YouTube or even on good recordings. So all of that colors my preference.

I definitely appreciate and enjoy many of the current jazz musicians, but there was something really special about that era when I was growing up, and somewhat before that (post WW2, I guess). All the players were highly original and played with "nothin' but soul." Part of it may be the fact that the blues was so ingrained in all of them, and I sense that has been lost somewhat in some (certainly not all) of the modern players. I still think there are many fantastic jazz musicians coming up and I can appreciate what they play. I'm not in the "jazz is dead" camp.

 

[Bloo Dog]

The state of jazz in my neck of the woods:

Metro population : ~ 1 million and growing due to burgeoning employment. There are three universities in the city, and three colleges in the exurbs.

Mean age (as of 2010): 37 years--- probably lower now given the ubiquity of the man buns, skate boards, knit hats, and tattoo parlors.

Number of jazz stations: Zero. The one radio station in the city that had a "jazz" segment (really Kenny G and New Age music) switched to all-talk 24/7 over ten years ago. The nearby city that had a jazz segment switched to news and increased its classical music output. It's a college music station.

That's the state of jazz in the southern mid-Atlantic city that I refer to as home.

 

[10mfan]

That does not sound good.

 

[malteof]

The state of jazz in my neck of the woods:

Metro population : ~ 1 million and growing due to burgeoning employment. There are three universities in the city, and three colleges in the exurbs.

Mean age (as of 2010): 37 years--- probably lower now given the ubiquity of the man buns, skate boards, knit hats, and tattoo parlors.

Number of jazz stations: Zero. The one radio station in the city that had a "jazz" segment (really Kenny G and New Age music) switched to all-talk 24/7 over ten years ago. The nearby city that had a jazz segment switched to news and increased its classical music output. It's a college music station.

That's the state of jazz in the southern mid-Atlantic city that I refer to as home.

Spotify to the rescue