What makes you a jazz player?

[DIAMOND DUST]

Is it the ability to improvise over changes? Is it someone that has a large number of standards under their belt, and can transpose them to any key? Is it someone with a deep understanding of theory, and can play any chart on the spot? I can play over changes. I know a shitload of chords, and can play them in atleast 4 positions. I can play Autumn Leaves & Phase Dance, but no way would i ever call myself a Jazz musician. All I know is that real Jazz is very hard to learn and understand. Just wondering what you guys think it takes to call yourself a jazz Guitarist.

 

Not trying to start a bitch fest.

[Blue Strat]

All I know is that I'm not a jazz guitarist. If anything, I'd label myself a rock guitarist. Rock covers a lot of territory.

 

I heard some guys playing in Sam Ash once, and I'd catagorize them as jazz musicians, and they really could play. It was the type of music they were playing that made them jazzers in my mind, not ability. I've heard lots of blues cats and metal-heads that could play just as technical as those guys. I don't know if what they were playing was a jazz standard or not, but it was in that style. Treble-less guitar chords, fast meandering lines, and very smooth, no jagged edges.

[Jazz Guitar]

Originally posted by DIAMOND DUST:

Is it the ability to improvise over changes? Is it someone that has a large number of standards under their belt, and can transpose them to any key? Is it someone with a deep understanding of theory, and can play any chart on the spot? I can play over changes. I know a shitload of chords, and can play them in atleast 4 positions. I can play Autumn Leaves & Phase Dance, but no way would i ever call myself a Jazz musician. All I know is that real Jazz is very hard to learn and understand. Just wondering what you guys think it takes to call yourself a jazz Guitarist.

 

Not trying to start a bitch fest.

Good question. Perhaps it's the ability to make just about any chord progression "sound jazzy"?

 

Some people think that to become a jazz musician, you have to get a BS degree in music, then for the next 2 to 4 years all you do is memorize Real Book tunes. No joke! I've known people who've boasted they had 500 songs memorized. I guess I'll never become a "jazz" musician by those standards.

 

Essentials of being a jazz musician are the concepts of "swing" and lagging (sometimes leading) the beat. Playing jazz standards helps. Taking as much music theory as you can stand helps. Having a great teacher helps.

 

What makes a "jazz" musician is hard to describe. Some people refer to Grant Green as a "blues player". BB King has said George Benson was the world's greatest blues player.

 

I'm not sure what to call Scott Henderson.

 

I'm not sure what I'd call Bill Frissell, John Scofield or Charlie Hunter (not my favorites!). "Fusion" would be a better term I suppose.

[Pretzel logic]

ROCK sure does cover a whole lot of territory. From Steve Howe, to JIMI, to The EDGE. JAZZ covers just as much. Calling yourself a jazzer in my mind, means you better be an above average musician. The hallmark of jazz musicianship is skill, and adaptability. But also a true love of the music. Steve Vai is an absolute master of guitar, but i don't think he would call himself jazz in anyway. Improvising makes you a skilled musician, but not a jazz musician. You should really love the music, and spend many hours playing it to be called a JAZZ MUSICIAN!!

[NMcGuitar]

Not to sound like a jerk, but what makes you a "jazz player" is playing jazz.

 

I'm not talking about being able to play a song or two that's considered "jazz", but rather about being able to consistently play in a particular style (obviously I mean one of the "jazz styles"; whether it's bebop, swing, dixieland, whatever).

 

I guess it's kind of like saying "What makes you a blues player?" It's about being able to convey & communicate the music, not about knowing particular scales or songs.

 

Am I making any sense?

[Blue Strat]

Originally posted by NMcGuitar:

Not to sound like a jerk, but what makes you a "jazz player" is playing jazz.

 

I'm not talking about being able to play a song or two that's considered "jazz", but rather about being able to consistently play in a particular style (obviously I mean one of the "jazz styles"; whether it's bebop, swing, dixieland, whatever).

 

I guess it's kind of like saying "What makes you a blues player?" It's about being able to convey & communicate the music, not about knowing particular scales or songs.

 

Am I making any sense?

Exactly. You have to live that type of music as well as play it.

[Mark Zeger]

For me, it's the vocabulary you speak with your instrument. There's a blues vocabulary, a bluegrass vocabulary, a jazz vocabulary, etc.

 

If you speak "jazz", your language includes chord extensions, tri-tone substitutions, modes, etc.

 

Put John Jorgenson, Russell Malone, and Robert Cray in the same room, each with the same guitar, and have them play a few choruses each of blues changes or "I Got Rhythm". Each would probably play a very different but equally strong solo, but you be able to tell the country player from the jazz player from the blues player by the melodic and harmonic choices they made in their solos.

[revolead]

I've never believed you've needed to be able to play in C# major to call yourself a "jazz" musician or anything of the sort. Nor because you can play a Locrian modal scale does it make you a jazz musician. I agree with everyone when they say if you play jazz then you're a jazz musician. I'd consider myself a progressive metal/rock guitarist, a classical trumpeter, and a guy who happens to bang around on the piano from time to time. I know theory, I know my chords, but I play metal, and yes I can play a Locrian scale.

[Funk Jazz]

it's an age old debate on what exactly jazz "is". some say "swing" some say "the sound of surprise". mark levine says there are as many jazz theories as there are jazz musicians.

 

however, i can try to sum it up with the following skills {believe me, just trying to skim the surface}:

 

1) be able to improvise over non-diatonic chord changes and altered chords

 

2) have a knowledge of swing, bop, modal, latin, free etc. jazz styles

 

3) have a working recall of standard jazz tunes (probably 100 or so, with maybe 50 memorized)

 

4) have a working knowledge of blues

 

5) this results in the language of jazz that is shared with other jazz musicians and passed down through the generations and...

 

6) above all play some damn music

 

hope that helps! i'm no expert, but i've been playing jazz for 10 years or so.

 

Diamond Dust, if you want to check out my gypsy group, we're playing at the Bayou on Saturday night the 24th. we play 1930's style swing jazz on acoustic instruments ala Django (though pale in comparison). we could discuss over a tasty malted beverage

[DanG]

Its about making mistakes and not saying sorry..

 

And believe it or not sharing, laughing.....

 

The real cats and I've played with a few, will get medieval on you on the bandstand, but thats the point. They also don't give out the musio looks (you've all seen them 'look how bad I am shit').

[Gato]

Originally posted by DIAMOND DUST:

What makes you a jazz player?

A hollow body guitar, like a Gibson L-5 CES or something similar.

[henryrobinett]

Having a vocabulary that acknowledges the history of this music. By this I mean the lineage formed by the various greats, from Miles to Billl Evans, Coltrane, Ornette. Has a working knowledge of the tools that make up the subject like ii -Vs, scales, modes, chords. Those are the basic, basic fundumentals though. Knowing the MUSIC goes so far beyond the technical. So many folks get tied up with jazz being technical, because at it's basic most fundumental it seems to be so. But after the technical is mastered or at least grasped well it's not technical in the least.

 

To be able to play standards is crucial because it acknowledges the history and application of the music.

 

Jazz is not a stagnant entity. It grows and changes shape. That's why I DO think Scofield is a jazz musician. All any doubters have to do is listen to Joe Henderson's tribute to Miles Davis's CD "So Near, So Far".

 

I'm a jazz musician because I play jazz music. All the musicians I play with are jazz musicians. The gigs are either standards, bebop or original music me and my compatriots put together in various aggregations. I play small combos, duets, lately a big band of original compositions by a TV composer by the name of Jerry Grant. Larger small ensembles. Studio jobs where I record and play, or simply play or simple record.

 

Sometimes I'm given music I've never seen or heard before and am expected to read and play on sight as though I've played this tune all my life. And more often than not I can. Why? Because it's a language that jazz musicians understand. Same with being a blues musician. Someone can say "Blues in A!" You've never heard the tune before but you know how to play blues. Look, listen and follow and no nobdy knows the difference. Jazz is a language. It's just a little harder in some ways because there's a lot more history behind it. A lot of detail. So much so that it's closest equivalent is classical music. It's not a popular music, but it shares a lot more in common with pop music than classical, I think. The form and structure for most jazz comes from pop music of a different era. Cole Porter and Gershwin wrote POP music. It had a different quality than most pop music today.