..well at least Miles Davis Kind Of Blue, i felt sorry for the jazz bit so decided to post in it! Where's the pope?

You're totally correct. Jazz is indeed pretty rad!

hahaha all hail The Pope

The Pope is in Chesterfield for his Birthday celebrations.

Kind Of Blue is lovely, I agree.

I'm into old jazz. Ragtime and such. Scott Joplin. The music from "The Sting" just gets my blood flowin'.

I'm in the middle of a "get into jazz" phase. I started with Miles Davis - On The Corner and other early 70s jazz-funk, and worked my way toward more normal jazz. I've realized that Norah Jones and Weather Channel jazz are the most disgraceful things ever when considering how edgy and forward thinking jazz is supposed to be. I like to think that "jazzy-sounding" music that has absolutely no balls is not actually jazz, but new age or easy listening or something like that.

I really like Norah Jones' first album, but if you're looking for a great forward thinking jazz album then you should pick the album from the band she used to sing with - Wax Poetic. The album is called the Nublu Sessions, it's excellent.

Since jazz is improvised music, I've always found the "jazz singer" to be an odd thing. Is it possible to improvise singing without resorting to scatting? If the singer and band are not improvising, is it still jazz?

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Originally posted by Buck "Sweetie" McGuck:
Since jazz is improvised music, I've always found the "jazz singer" to be an odd thing. Is it possible to improvise singing without resorting to scatting? If the singer and band are not improvising, is it still jazz?

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Boy, that's a great question, Buck.

Improvisation is only one of the elements that defines jazz. I find it interesting that it is the element people think of most when thinking of the music (Homer Simpson: "Jazz?!! they make it up as they go along!"). Improvisation has been key to music for centuries. Bach was reknown for his skills as an improviser and the classical soloist who follows the score to the note is a relatively recent phenomenon.

The meter and rhythmic patterns and distinctive harmonic structure (especially "blue" notes) are at least, if not more, key to jazz as improvisation, which is where the role of the "jazz" singer comes in to play.

Personally, I'm inclined to agree with you that the absence of improvisation puts a lot of singers on shaky ground. I love Joe Williams and Jimmy Rushing, for example. Both recorded extensively with Count Basie, but honestly they feel more indebted to blues than to jazz, to me. Eddie Jefferson really didn't scat per se, but his vocalise, the practice of putting words to well known solos in jazz (i.e. Coleman Hawkins' "Body & Soul") plants him firmly in the jazz camp to my mind.

I, like all of us I expect, like all kinds of music, so at the end of the day, I'm more interested in the singer than the style. Not to the point, however, that I don't like kicking the question around.

Obviously.

quote:

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Originally posted by Buck "Sweetie" McGuck:
Is it possible to improvise singing without resorting to scatting?

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Not a jazz answer, but yes; the Skygreen Leopards do it.

As for the improvisation question, I would say yes, it is still jazz.

Jazz singing has a great deal more to it than the ability to "scat". Arguebly, jazz history shows that scatting in many ways can be considered as being the equivalence to the improvisational element of the instrumentalists, but actually it is much more than just that. Intonation & phrasing as well as interpretation of the lyrical content of the songs in question definetely comes into play as well.

Over the years, the definition of jazz has definetely changed a whole lot, and not nessesarily for the better. It seems to me that today most instrumental music is being labelled as jazz today, be it improvisational or not. The whole wave of so-called "Smooth Jazz" (ie The Rippingtons, Kenny G a.o.) is big on the jazz charts and sell loads of albums, but the emphasis on real soloing seems all gone. It really feels like the improvisational element in most of the smooth jazz stuff is not improvisation at all but written down just like you'd write down a theme or a melody killing off every kind of originality in the process.