alt Hacker NewsThere is a level of melodious incoherence with Jazz that I can't get onboard with. I think that's the entire point of it but parts of it start to sound like a Sam Ash music store.
Replies
dgently7 • yesterday at 8:28 PM
there is a huge amount of jazz now that is using videogame music as the source material.
like early jazz used popular but older songs and reinterpreted them, knowing the source tune really makes it much easier to get into the overall genre I think. no links handy to help you find it but pick a game you like and search for a jazz cover.
anthonypasq • yesterday at 6:01 PM
idk why this idea is so prevalent. sure theres weird avant-garde jazz, but the vast majority is usually relatively simple "standard" with improv over it.
There is definitely some free-jazz that is too much for me as well. But, some of the incoherence is just chromaticism that purposely approaches or plays with our expectations for tension and release.
An incredible player is someone like Chris Potter on the sax ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fvsz8KuD-g ), who has a truly virtuosic control on tension and release. In the video I linked, he (and everyone in the band too) plays with the ballad form over and over, never seeming to resolve perfectly, until they transform into a wild funk sound that is an ecstatic release that is also just wildly dance-able. The incoherence, even some of the screeching, that emerges is like the cows that are finally let out of the barn after a long winter and jumping for joy in the sun.