Re: (idm) Jazz (was Re:d'n'b)

From thatcat
Sent Sat, Apr 11th 1998, 01:03

On 04/10/98 17:32:37 you wrote:
oops, apparently i repsonded to a reply to this post before i responded to the post itself...
>I really am not feeling this comment at all...  Maybe it's just my flawed
> outlook, but programmed jazz isn't jazz at all.  The way I see it,
> jazz=improvisation.  

so freeform and recent autechre count as jazz. if squarepusher makes up his basslines as he plays them instead of writing them first, is he jazz then? i think people some don't understand how electronic music is made. these artists aren't sitting in front of their computers typing in lines of code, they're recording themselves playing keyboards (and occasional other instruments) did coltrane cease to be a jazz musician the first time he recorded himself onto multitrack...

>Sometimes this improv is within a strict form (bebop,
> etc.), sometimes it's "free jazz."  But programming jazz strips it of its
> essential nature.  I'm going to make an ass out of myself with this comment,
> but a lot of people on this list seem to have a skewed conception of what jazz
> is.  People like limp 70's fusion, the programmed noodling of various newer
> musicians, elevator lite jazz Bukem style, etc. 

are coltrane and davis jazz enough for you?

>        Anyway, I guess that leaves me questioning the limits of IDM, and electronic
> music in general.  I think programming can go a really long way... 

(see my other post for the reply to this...)

>        In some ways, I would think that DJs are further along than the teeming
> hoards of white boys with sequencers.  At least they can almost instantly
> choose any record, and any sound ever recorded... 

so? i could record any sound onto my hard disk or sampler, and fire off as many different sounds as my housemate (a dj) can fire off different records...does this make either of us acoustic musicians? (well, other than the fact that both of us play guitar...) if a synthesizer player isn't a "real" musician, then is a pianist a "real" musician?

>        So what's my point?  Just that I don't mean to flame or insult anyone, but
> there's still a fundamental difference between electronic and
> electric/acoustic/physical music.  And paying lip service to being "jazzy" or
> anything else isn't going to change that.

well, i certainly agree with your point here; the reason i listen to electronic music is that it's different from all the other music that i'd heard for the first two decades of my life...
i'm not really trying to say that squarepusher et al. really are jazz, as there are many elements of the jazz genre that he doesn't follow...i'm just saying that electronic music isn't at all inferior to acoustic music.

np: autechre "doctrine"

"a dream is worth a thousand pictures,
 the mouths of lampreys a thousand more..."