The Place of Blues in Modern Jazz

[Jazz]

Okay. I had this friend a while back - a pretty talented jazz drummer - who told me that he didn't think that blues had anything left to offer jazz. I think the way he put it was something like "what else can you really do with the blues that hasn't been done?" I disagreed with him at the time, and I still do, but I was wondering what some of the people here thought. I should add that I don't know if he still feels this way or not, because I haven't talked to him in quite a while and also that he had heavily studied composition.

Do the blues still have a place in the development of modern jazz, or should musicians, as my friend put it "start moving away from the blues"?

[Michael Fitzgerald]

We had this very discussion fairly recently - was it on the BNBB? Braxton was brought in as I recall. Anyone have that thread saved?

Mike

[Simon Weil]

We had this very discussion fairly recently - was it on the BNBB? Braxton was brought in as I recall. Anyone have that thread saved?

Mike

Maybe this one, based around a Stephon Harris quote.

Certainly has Braxton in it.

Simon Weil

[Dan Gould]

Jazz may move away from the blues but I feel that if it goes too far away it will stop being jazz. Jazz comes from the blues.

But in the end, modern jazz has little allure for me, so where it "goes" is not really of that much concern, frankly. That may mark me as living in the past, but for me, there's lots and lots of good music back there!

[John L]

As the 20th century has shown us, the blues offers endless possibilities for interpretation and creativity. For the future, I understand the burden of the above question to be WHO is going to do it? It is hard to create anything of lasting value while using something other than one's own native language.

Edited August 28, 2003 by John L

[Harold_Z]

What and how a musician plays is entirely up to him and it's entirely up to you what you like or dislike. You can't make a committee decision that says the blues are played out just as you can't decree that rhythm changes are passe and you can't dictate a requisite blues content in or out of a given musician's playing. This is jazz...it's about individual expression.

[John Tapscott]

Jazz may move away from the blues but I feel that if it goes too far away it will stop being jazz.  Jazz comes from the blues.

I agree totally. The swinging blues has to be at the heart of jazz, modern or otherwise. Obviously everything that a jazz musician plays doesn't have to be blues based, but if you leave the blues and blues-feeling behind completely, you drift into the area of purely improvised music (and for me there is a difference between jazz and improvised music - the latter I'm not very interested in, while jazz I love). Is it fair to say that most of the great jazz musicians have had a great feeling for the blues - Parker, Coltrane, Young, Miles, Monk, etc. etc. Yes, there may have been some exceptions - Hawkins and Tatum come to mind, but they didn't drift away from the blues altogether. It's reported that even Bill Evans could play great blues piano in the Milt Buckner style when he wanted.

If I were a jazz musician, I would include at least one blues-based tune in every set. At most jazz performances I've attended, I've noticed that the audience really welcomes and responds well to the tunes based on the blues.

[Jazz]

Thanks for the thread link Simon!

I think I most agree with what Harold said:

What and how a musician plays is entirely up to him and it's entirely up to you what you like or dislike. You can't make a committee decision that says the blues are played out just as you can't decree that rhythm changes are passe and you can't dictate a requisite blues content in or out of a given musician's playing. This is jazz...it's about individual expression.

Amazingly, it's a viewpoint I never considered! I guess musicians should take their music where their instincts tell them to, whether it develops and extends on the blues, or whether it moves away from the blues.

[kenny weir]

Like others outside, I tend to get a bit testy about claims of the blues' primacy in jazz as it sometimes tends to devalue the work of our own jazzers.

OTH, I see and hear scores of brilliant jazz players - who play everything from AG to trad and everything inbetween, often at the same time! - and their playing is almost always heavily imbued with blues spirit.

In an international sense, I also do not believe blues ever has or ever will travel as well as jazz. Australian jazz? Incredible. Oz blues? Blech!

Perhaps jazz travels a whole lot better 'coz it's always had "foreign" influences - Latin, European, Carribbean etc

Blues, by contrast, seems to lose integrity the further it gets from its geographic roots, especially when you're talking about the real downhome stuff.

Latter day "Oz blues" can be some fine music but I often feel blues it ain't.

I also hear enough contemporary blues from elsewhere to believe that that style is moribund. Jazz - everywhere - seem pretty healthy by comparison.

I'm sure there are artists of much merit, but the blues scene - in Australia, the US and elsewhere - just seems a sad morass of boogie cliches.

Part of this I think has to do with the mentoring being less a part of that scene than is the case in jazz. Sure, we all know about relationships such as Bonnie Raitt had with Fred McDowell. But by and large I think that as the older blues guys fade away, the blues just lose a whole lot that isn't being handed on.

Or maybe blues is just from another age, and doesn't travel as well in TIME as jazz.

Edited August 31, 2003 by kenny weir