Gypsy Jazz

You are wrong for two reasons; the first of which is a little bit disingenuous by itself and is because you're misusing the word "melody" a little bit and the other is just because I'd imagine you don't know very much about jazz.

The term "melody" merely refers to an instrument voice that distinguishes itself from the harmony voice(s) rhythmically and dynamically. In that sense, jazz music almost always contains a melody. Only in certain subsets of free jazz or in intros is there no melody, but that is true of basically every mainstream genre of music ever. There is not much music composed today that does not have a distinguishable melody; the music that does is generally typecast as avant-garde because music without melody is very out there and it is traditionally very difficult to develop a piece of music without any melody. An improvised melody is still a melody as long as the player can distinguish themselves from the harmony/rhythm section, which brings me to my next point.

The structure of 90% of jazz performances look like this: (Intro) Head Solo*x Head (Outro/Tag). The intro and outro are self-explanitory and totally obvious, so I won't explain them. The head is a prepared melody, as in the kind of thing that you would need sheet music for. It's a little bit different than your usual composition because jazz music, when written down, rarely contains any notation for dynamics and articulation; this is generally improvised by the band collectively as it's generally pretty easy to feel out where the dynamics should be based on the groove and time of the band (example: A slow tempo sixteenth note feel balad would involve a lot of legato playing with some staccatissimo on emphasized notes). The head is also shorter than one would expect a composition to be: A head is almost always 12, 16, 32, or 48 bars long. The rest of the song is improvised solos given the same chords and dynamic feel that was used in the head. In this sense, one can interpret the practice of soloing as inventing a new melody for an old song. The soloist is tasked with using the framework that the composer came up with to make up their own, unique melody for the song. The reason why jazz has a tendency to sound like nails on a chalkboard is because improvising inevitably leads to a lot of exploration, and if your ear isn't trained to hear how that exploration relates to the original material, it's going to sound like random notes. But that doesn't make it any less melodious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opwZVX7ZZ28
Here's a song I've studied inside and out and absolutely love.


I didn't include any extensions except for the #9 on E7 because that's written into the song, but 6/9 are heavily implied on the Ami7 and the Cmi7 that occupy most of the first eight bars of the song, and the extensions for the series of ii-V-Is are all normal for ii-V-Is although the tendency is to keep things tonic because of how much motion there is already.

This song was written in an era where jazz composers had been writing music with the intent of making spontaneous melody writing (improvising) intrinsically conducive; as such, by the time this song was written, they'd naturally gotten very good at it. You can see by looking at the changes (which I've posed above, for your reference) that the song was built for soloing. It is constantly moving -- there are four ii-V-Is and five key centers in sixteen bars of music -- which means that the soloist has to create an agile melody that moves with it. No one would come up with changes like these if the intent not were to produce an environment suitable for improvising; it is intentionally prohibitively modular in the first eight bars and then intentionally prohibtively narrow in the last eight bars, meaning all melodies created over these changes will be -- like the head, the non-improvised melody -- modular in the first eight bars and tonicizing and agile in the last eight.

It is melody writing, whether you like how it sounds or not.

EDIT: It is also worth noting that there are some jazz songs, such as a few by Herbie Handcock, where an improvsed melody has become so iconic that it has been incorporated as the head (non-improvsed melody); the difference between the two is not large.

This post was edited by Me2NiK on Jul 28 2011 05:13am

Melody = it sounds right in my head. if it fits, it works. My issue with Jazz is they may have a set of chords to work with - but they add anything and everything into the gaps between the key notes which for me, totally ruins it.

Lets take BB King for example.

The man is a master of melody, each note compliments each other.
Eric Clapton - once again, master of melody, more complimentary notes after complimentary note.

Now lets take Jazz. While at an INCREDIBLY high techincal skill level, the melody is totally drowned out by what i consider UNNECESSARY and excessive extra notes totally destroys any feelings the songs might be trying to create.

I am a bluesman - I am not a Jazzman. Regardless of understanding the music and why it's important, if it does not sound good on the ears then why would you subject yourself to it?

Blues = Feeling/Emotion - thats what I'm about.
Jazz = Techincal shite for the sake of techincal shite, and that is the opposite of what I am about.

You definately have studied music, and for that I applaud you - but Jazz will never ever be for me, and nothing will change that.

You think there's no feeling and emotion in jazz? I don't even know how to refute that without being dismissive because it's so ridiculous.

Just so you know, one of the first things they teach you about jazz is that you should attempt to accomplish an idea with as few notes as possible. Some ideas require a lot of notes. And really that's the problem; you're trying to contrast complexity with a lack of emotion and those two things aren't mutually inclusive. Some thoughts cannot be expressed within the blues form, and some people choose to express those thoughts through jazz, or rock, or soul, or metal, or bluegrass, or tapdancing, or whatever. I'm curious: How fast do you have to play for it to be emotionless? At what tempo does the emotion stop? If you play blues quickly, does it have emotion? If a tree falls in a forest, do jazz musicians get emotional about it?
This opinion is especially ludicrous because blues and jazz are so fundamentally related that for you to decry one of them as being devoid of emotion but not the other is to base the foundation of all emotion on one tiny detail. All things considered if I gave you a recording of blues musicians playing jazz and jazz musicians playing blues, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.


That's not what the word "melody" means. What sounds right in your head is mostly just taste, whereas what is melody is a matter of fact. It's abstract, but it's not subjective.

They might be related as far as reading the music and understanding the notes goes, but as far as listening and PLAYING them - they are entirely different. Give a shit what your education says, there is not feeling or emotion, certainly not displayed in Jazz as there is in blues.

Btw - Every time you shoot down what I fundamentally believe you are just talking to a brick wall. No-one, not even the late great Les Paul himself will ever convince me that Jazz is great. I get WHY people love it - but it's not for me, end of.

This post was edited by bob(Cs2) on Jul 28 2011 07:37am

I don't care if you like jazz or not, I care if you continue to make such ridiculous and uninformed statements in public spaces. It's more an affront that you pretend to know things than it is that you hold an opinion that's in accurate; jazz is as capable of being full of emotion as blues is capable of being devoid of emotion.

The summative years of jazz and the formative years of blues overlap so extensively that the difference is only in the label that you're choosing to call them. Genres aren't hard and fast and there's heavy overlap between early jazz and blues. How do you define which of these musicians is expressing emotion or not with such heavy overlap? It's ridiculous, and if you don't know it my hope is to empart to everyone else reading that it is.

What you believe is that you don't like jazz, and that's fine

However, every time you try to explain why, you come off as ignorant. Just leave it at the fact that you don't like it; your arbitrary reasons are based on misinformation

You sir need this spin:

Miles Davis - Kind of Blue.

Run that a few times through. Jazz isn't necessarily technically challenging, although it's rythms would be considered advance since most of it is heavily syncopated, but the jazz you're talking about is the stuff I dislike as well. I call it "contest" jazz, furthermore, all "contest" music I find displeasing. Although I marvel at it's skill level, as an art form I'm quite offened. A lot of these metal bands going for 32nd note triplet bassdrum runs at 210bpm for long lengthy tunes. That's impressive yes but lacks musical artistic merit if all you're trying to do is play the fastest. Or like those jazzers, play the most absurd co-related intervals that the cohesive message is long lost.

Jazz is supposed to be the ultimate of improvised expression. The music is about the moment of music and it's expression at that time, not it's beautiful motifs or smart chordal arrangements but like all music, the good stuff is good and the bad stuff is bad. Kind of Blue held my first epiphany into the jazz realm. After forcing my way through this album a few times, I found my self whislting entire solos and humming some of the moments in the tunes.

But this is exactly what makes jazz so beautiful. Harmonic depth allows musicians to explore new ideas and to keep the listener on its toes. It is not just for the enrichment of the listener's ear (although that is a primary component of why jazz musicians tend to listen to jazz); it's also for the enrichment of emotional development within music. It can be harder to see why some of the more technical aspects of jazz are used for the purposes of emotional development, so I'll try and give you a simplified example of what I'm talking about.

Let's say you have a picture of a happy face; it's artistic but not of any particular quality. It is art in that it represents an emotion, although it is not all that provocative by itself. Let's call that the major chord.
If you play a maj7, that happy face becomes a little more pensive and a little more insecure.
If you play a 6/9, that happy face becomes exuberant and satisfied.
If you play a 7, that happy face becomes excited.
If you play a sus, it becomes a thinking face.
If you play a minor chord, it becomes a sad face.
If you play a mi7 chord, it becomes a face that's difficult to read and beyond reproach.
If you play a miMa7 chord, it becomes a face of terror.
If you play a split chord, it becomes a tense face.
If you play a dim7 chord, it becomes the face of uncertainty.
If you play an aug chord, the smile begins to remind you of a serial killer.
If you play a 7#5 chord, the smile becomes uneasy.
If you play a 7#9 chord, it's the smile of the guy who just punched you in the face.
If you play a 7b9 chord, it's the smile of defeat.
IF you play a 7alt chord, the smile begins to become obfuscated: There's a face, you just can't tell what it's doing.
If you play a maj7#11 chord, the face no longer notices you and begins to look at the clouds.
And with all the context that you've created with the jazz you've just played, you're not really sure if the major chord really represents a smile at all, and with so many emotions in the air, it's difficult to take any one sound at face value. Don't give me this "jazz isn't emotional" BS; it's there.

Chordal extensions/substitutions are not arrangements. I'm not really sure why you're talking to me though. I've pretty much stated in my answer, jazz has emotional development and is intended for limitless expression. Who said jazz isn't emotional?