:) I don’t hope to provoke any major argumentation or hard feelings :)
Personally I feel that jazz is such a broad description, it can mean so many different things to so many different people!
When I meet new people and it comes to musical tastes I will say I love jazz, and often they’ll scrunch their noses “oh I hate jazz”
It always reminds me of something my father said many years ago “I don’t like curry”. Which of course was kinda insane, because he loved curry, he just didn’t know it was called curry or had curry elements!
I talk about the above personal experience because I want to set the tone for the discussion here, as not having to decide what is and isn’t jazz, but in the context that it means something different to everybody. And wanting to discuss as a community what it means to each of us without that being “right” or “wrong”
I think for me, the first thing that made me connect to jazz, was it’s absolute defiance. So that’s what jazz is to me: defiance. It doesn’t mean it’s not other things too!
I really believe what made me fall in love with jazz was a song from The Flying Lutenbachers called Fist Through Glass. I could not stop listening to it… It was the first time I heard anything that just said fuck you. Like really just fuck you. And also that underlying the apparent dischordance and chaos, was a meticulously crafted statement. I didn’t know I was listening to jazz though!
To me Jazz is to appreciate timeless music such as those from Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.
Jazz is also my way to appreciate improvisation explosiveness such as those coming from Herbie Hancock ,Chick Corea, Hiromi Uehara, Joey Alexander. they are just blew my mind! Then Miles Davis - the smartest, sexiest, grooviest musician along with Wayne Shorter, they make me learn “ahh this is what a great band leader should do”.
Jazz is my kind of music at any time, whatever mood i have there will be music that goes along with it. Recently, i streamed Laufey, Gregory Porter almost everyday while in the office, it helps me focus and keep me in a good mood.
Jazz is not pretentious, i look at most of my heroes i mentioned before play live and in interview they are always humble even with all those skills. Marcus Miller is probably one of the most skillful and resourceful musician but also the most down to earth musician, unlike typical rockstar or metal musicians mentality that posses “i am the man, with all those pretentiousness” (i have no intention to start a flame war, it is just my own opinion).
Lastly, My controversial opinion is that i think Jazz is America version of classical music, and somehow they are always doing things better when it comes down to music (and cinema).