How do I get into jazz Yea Forums ?
I've listened to a bunch of popular records and I like it, but I just don't understand it. It's like the music plays with me having no idea what the fuck is truly going on. It sounds great, but I feel like I'm missing something.
Help me out
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Jazz is something where you just sit back and enjoy the sounds barreling towards you, that's it no need to understand it. All the improv is feel based and so should your listening, if you really want to understand it start with the heads, they're simple changes with nice simple melody to introduce all the chords. Then I would say to study different scales and modes if you want to understand why certain phrases were chosen in a solo.
By the way Thrust is a great album, one of my current favorites rn.
Thanks, I guess you're right, I shouldn't worry so much about getting it but sometimes it feels too much like I'm completely lost in the sound. I've tried studying the theory behind it but damn I just can't seem to hear it when I'm listening.
Also thanks for the recommendation, I love his Headhunters LP, I wish this is just as good
Jazz theory in a nutshell, create a shit ton of tension with 7ths 11ths 13ths, chromatic passing notes into a chord tone to resolve the phrase (this doesn't need to be done with every phrase, but it's good to resolve to a chord tone a lot to keep listeners engaged). Bam there's basic improv theory. If you truly want to dive into jazz in a musical sense I suggest playing along to some jazz records, nothing is better than playing with the best of the best and having them guide you. Check out Herbie Hancock Trio 1977 also, that has some really good stuff in there.
If your problem is you feel like you don't know what's going on, I might be able to help.
Essentially, the basic jazz form is head-solos-head. The head is basically the composed portion of a jazz song, where the recognizable melodies happen, where lyrics are sung if applicable, etc. After you play through the head, members solo over the chord changes (just another word for chord progression) while accompanied by some or all of the other players. Meaning they take improvised solos based on harmonic principles which say licks made up of notes this scale or these chord tones will sound good over the chords (same ones as in the head). Accompaniment (or comping) is usually the role of the rhythm instruments. They play the chords using creative voicings and rhythms and sometimes simple melodies or fills to complement the soloist. In the best jazz music, the connection between the soloists and the comping musicians is so strong that they will play off one another in a way that makes you question if it could truly be improvised. Solos are typically measured in length by the number of 'choruses' the soloist takes, a chorus being a single time through the chords of the head. Then, once everyone who is going to has soloed, usually the band will play the head one more time and end on a nice arpeggio or whatever.
This is very simplified obviously. It was never strictly applied, really, but definitely formed the bedrock structure of jazz through the bebop era. In the late 50s and early 60s, players like MIles and Trane (including in your pic related) started to stretch and eventually break that structure completely. You could probably say the first biggest breakthrough that subverted that structure was "modal jazz," which is sort of a non-genre descriptor because it doesn't really indicate a sound or style, but instead that the band is not soloing over the chord progressions played in the head, but instead over one or two of those chords, changing modes instead of chords to...
provide the harmonic movement. You don't really need to know what modes are to have a basic understanding, but there's tons and tons written on modal harmony that shouldn't be hard to find or THAT hard to understand. Kind of Blue was (to my knowledge) the first "modal" release by an S tier famous/respected jazz musician, which is part of why it enjoys the status it does to this day. Your pic related was also a major one, being sort of provocative by drawing people in with the promise of a cover of a very recognizable showtune only to be met with a 15 minute behemoth with solos that weren't even recognizable as being played over the chords to the song (because they weren't). As time went on, more styles like post-bop, free jazz, and fusion were created in the wake of the discarding of the traditional jazz structure but that's intermediate level stuff sorry bud!!!
This is more or less true. It can be hard to hear the theory if you don't have a really good ear because great musicians will use all kinds of different scales over different chords and changes to form ideas. This site seems kind of dumb but the list of important jazz scales is solid and accurate.
learnjazzstandards.com
woops i forgot the link to jazz scales
tones.wolfram.com
I would go to the charts on RYM. Then look at what you like the most then use those for futher suggestions.
rateyourmusic.com