A friend of mine when invited to my home would always say, I’ll come, but please don’t play that music. He meant Jazz. He hated it!
Jazz is peculiar. No one can be indifferent to jazz. You love it or you hate it.
Jazz 'involves'. Its engaging and engrossing
Jazz 'involves'. Its engaging and engrossing
Jazz is different from normal pop music! It is a music that involves! Like classical music - Western Classical, Hindustani or Carnatic Classical music, Jazz needs to be listened to! It is not conversation music, or shopping mall music, or elevator music. Jazz is engaging and engrossing! It requires listening to with concentration and empathy. And that, perhaps is why it is compared with Classical music and that’s why Jazz is not a popular music and has a limited following.
Also, Jazz is not popular, because it is not simple, it employs in its compositions, complex chord structures, tricky harmonies, often syncopated-yet-swinging-rhythms and intricate orchestral arrangements; and some jazz goes into a modal mode, that is, chord patterns and structures are abandoned for the pure melody of scales as in Ragas in Indian Classical music.
Musicians of all genres acknowledge a grudging respect for jazz even though they do not necessarily like the music.
Blue Notes. Dissonances. Swing. Improvisation. Emotion – That’s Jazz
What separates Jazz from other genres of involving music, and so defines Jazz, is:
One. It swings.
Two. It has those peculiarly bent and bluesy notes (blue notes) and flattened, dissonant notes placed within a musical phrase.
Three. There are sections within the composition that are left for the jazz musician to ad-lib and improvise, so the music is partly planned and partly spontaneous.
Four. The last element of Jazz is the emotions it evokes. When one really listens to Jazz, it engages and stirs up our emotions.
Swing is where it’s at
If Jazz doesn’t have those peculiarly flattened and dissonant notes, or ‘obvious’ improvisation, or, even if the music does not evoke emotion; Jazz has to swing! As the famous Duke Ellington composition goes, “It Don’t Mean a Thing, if it Ain't got that Swing”. So, if nothing else, Jazz has to swing.
Swing is not that constant pounding beat; it is not a groove. It is a rhythm that is constantly shifting, swaying, lilting, rocking and rolling forward, back, sideways and around.
Jazz on song
We know from our own experiences that music that is sung is easier to listen to than music without words, what we call instrumental music, because we relate to, and connect more with the words of a tune.
Yet Jazz singing too, is not popular, because, one needs to listen to Jazz, just as one needs to listen to classical music, whether it is, what is called Western Classical music, or Hindustani Classical, or Carnatic Classical (There are many other involving music in the world, but these are the types of music that I am familiar with, and, which I listen to and like).
The Jazz Singer
Most jazz singers prefer not to be classified as jazz singers, but, if a singer has to be called a Jazz singer, or a singer who sings Jazz tunes, it is this singer who loves the sound and feel of Jazz, and whose first love in music is Jazz, and this singer is one who likes to take risks musically, improvising with the swing, the timing, the phrasing and using those famous blue notes with good effect.
A singer, a ‘jazz singer’ improvises during the song, scatting spontaneous passages like a horn solo, or imitating an instrument of their preference or ‘dabba dabba doing’ or ‘doobee doobie dooing’ in some great improvisations. Some ‘Jazz singers’, interpret songs without scatting, they interpret the songs with unusual phrasing, but is within the rigid structure of the song, or, by taking liberties with the timing without changing the timing or missing a beat… playing with spaces.
The nuances of Jazz singing
A good singer internalises and understands the lyrics of the song, empathises with it and sings from the heart, imbuing the songs and the melody with shades of meaning which evoke feelings that the listener could not imagine till they hear it.
And as the Jazz artiste journeys along the road of interpretation they begin to improvise by going off, or on, or behind the beat. They swoop and swirl around the melody, changing the melody without distorting it, giving it a sweet or sour or bitter melancholy, charging it with the deepest emotion, or with the joy of being alive; and with just a change of inflection in the voice they make a song dreamy or giddy, nuancing and reinterpreting established classics and new songs according to their sensibilities and their understanding of the song and the rapport they share with the accompanists, together making the song sound like it has never sounded before.
Interpreting a song is more than singing it the way the original singer sang it. It is more than improvising vocal solos; it is much, much more. But it still depends on the words and the tune which have to be worthy of interpretation.
A Jazz singer, or a singer who sings Jazz tunes, has to love the sound and feel of Jazz, the swing, the timing, the phrasing, the blue notes, and must be willing to take risks musically.
And that’s all that’s jazz!
No comments:
Post a Comment