What are your favorite sub-genres?

[Yield]

Alright, I tried to put in the best known ones, but if you put other, then say what it is.

My two favorites are fusion and hard bop.

[TheClap]

Fusion and Big Band.

[Yield]

Dammit, meant to make the poll multiple choice :upset:

[Rams]

Free & Avant-Garde are two different things.

[myron]

And what genre is 'swing'. I thought that was just a musical term

I like modal and hard bop

[Yield]

Free & Avant-Garde are two different things.

...****

[Pete Down I Go]

Surely it depends on who's playing.

The minute Lee Ritenour and Weather Report were judged to occupy the same genre, I jacked the whole sorry lot in.

[Ando!]

Fusion and Latin

[Yield]

I'm thinking about getting into some Latin jazz, but I'd need some recommendations first.

[Ando!]

Charlie Byrd is a good place to start

[Yield]

Cool, I'll check him out.

[masada]

free

[Rams]

I'm thinking about getting into some Latin jazz, but I'd need some recommendations first.

Gonzalo Rubalacaba - Discovery - Live At Montreux
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ER6G3AC0

[Yield]

Rams, you are my lord and savior, the patron saint of awesome

[masada]

thank you

[Rams]

I saw him play on Tuesday along side other Dizzy members (Faddis, Berroa, Washington, Hidalgo, and Moody). Gonzalo's style is really fresh and his use of the bass notes is exceptional. It's really interesting to read his story because he came from Cuba which resulted in him being foreign to most musical styles (jazz included). He incorporates his background into jazz really well.

[Yield]

Well, it sounds awesome, thanks man.

[Not_bajs]

i always thought bebop was the same as modal jazz :(

[Yield]

Bebop: John Coltrane - Giant Steps
Modal: Miles Davis - Kind Of Blue

You could compare those two, or you could compare John Coltrane with Coltrane.

[Pete Down I Go]

Bebop: John Coltrane - Giant Steps
Modal: Miles Davis - Kind Of Blue

You could compare those two, or you could compare John Coltrane with Coltrane.

I never thought I'd be one to be a perpetrator of pedantry, but Giant Steps probably isn't a great example of architypal bebop.

I'd check out a range of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon and Lucky Thompson with a special emphasis on the Charli eParker Memorial Series.

Yeild was right to point out Kind of Blue as a bastion of modal innovation though, it's incredible. See also Milestones (especially the Miles solos) and Birth of the Cool.

Obviously no offence to anyone named int his post. You probably all know much more about what you're on about than I do...

[myron]

.... what would you call Giant Steps then?

The most famous modal song? Take Five, of course!

[Yield]

I never thought I'd be one to be a perpetrator of pedantry, but Giant Steps probably isn't a great example of architypal bebop.

I'd check out a range of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon and Lucky Thompson with a special emphasis on the CharlieParker Memorial Series.

Yield was right to point out Kind of Blue as a bastion of modal innovation though, it's incredible. See also Milestones (especially the Miles solos) and Birth of the Cool.

Obviously no offence to anyone named int his post. You probably all know much more about what you're on about than I do...

No it's cool. I named those two albums though because they are pretty well known albums and came out within the same five years (I think...)

I agree though, Bird and Dizzy are definitely better examples of Bebop.

[myron]

Came out within one year of each other. What a recording freak Coltrane was. Props to Mr PC as well!

A lot of fusion fans here... i've never been able to like fusion. Maybe its my eternal hatred for guitars, but even weather reports stuff with Jaco i find boring.

[Rams]

.... what would you call Giant Steps then?

It was just short little heads so that Coltrane could noodle around chord changes. It's closer to hard bop than bebop, but I don't see a major difference between the two.

[TheClap]

But it is Bebop. -_-

[myron]

I dont like genres. To me, its either slow or fast swing, or a ballad

[Pete Down I Go]

It was just short little heads so that Coltrane could noodle around chord changes. It's closer to hard bop than bebop, but I don't see a major difference between the two.

From a musicolgist point of view, the difference lies mainly in harmonic/rhythmic approach, era, and just general 'sound'; while both take Head/Solo/Head forms, there's just a general difference in the approaches and sound in the music.

As someone said, it has more of a closeness to what people might call 'hard bop' but as someone else said, it's fairly academic.

[thickasabrick]

I'm a big fan of swing, not so much big-band swing but more like gypsy swing and western bluegrassy swing.

I also like bebop and hard bop, when I'm listening to bop I generally prefer the stuff that's harder and more out there, as opposed to the stuff that's closer to swing.

Soul jazz is great, and so is modal jazz when done right. And when blues is mixed in I'll pretty much love anything.

[mutt]

what is hard bop?

[Interstate]

Bebop mainly.

[Babble]

i like the idea of modal music but haven't heard it in a sense that I really love.

it seems very close to the idea of free jazz with just enough structure to keep it really musical

[Pete Down I Go]

i like the idea of modal music but haven't heard it in a sense that I really love.

it seems very close to the idea of free jazz with just enough structure to keep it really musical

Have you listened to 'Kind of Blue'?

It's rigourously structured, especially in the sense that Miles commits to the modes almost entirely in most cases, as with loads of modal stuff.

What were you thinking of particularly in relation to free music?

[Babble]

i was referring to big band style structure where there are arrangements for the entire band

modal jazz drifts in and out and meanders and like in free jazz listening is quintessential.

[Claypool22]

Bebop or fusion; it's all about improv. Probably bebop then.

[GhostNote]

what is hard bop?

Check out Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers, to start, anything.

I chose Bebop, but i like all types/periods of jazz. The reason for the Bebop choice is because I've been getting into it alot lately and it's been an interest of late. If i were to have a second and third, i'd say it would be modal, then fusion.


-GN

[myron]

What is be-bop. Is it just fast swing? i mean everyone plays bop lines these days. so theoretically modal could be bop.

hard/post bop is the natural progression of jazz i believe... influenced by be bop, blues, free, avant garde, modal etc. Its a genre that cant be put into any other. My favourite albums of that period being Miles Smiles and Herbies Takin' Off. Those two albums are quite different, you can see the wide range of music the hard/post bop title encompasses.

[GhostNote]

What is be-bop. Is it just fast swing? i mean everyone plays bop lines these days. so theoretically modal could be bop.
.

Yeah, but if you're talking in a past tense as opposed to your present, Bebop is nothing like modal. Fast swing can be in any genre. But Bebop was a definitive period in jazz music, you can't argue that it's theoretically the same as modal, because it would have to apply to the beginnings of the genre too, to be valid, as you didn't specify.


-GN

[Yield]

Miles Smiles is awesome, myron

[Ando!]

orbits is siiiiicckk

[myron]

so bebop refers to a time in music, not a sound.

[GhostNote]

Both really, when it started as a style or sub-genre, the sound and the way people played the music, using the various scales etc, it was characterized as Bebop.


-GN

[TheClap]

what is hard bop?

A musical answer to cool jazz, which takes Bebop back to the trad roots, and speeds that **** up, its pretty intense.

[Yield]

Hard bop is insane :cool:

[Ando!]

while the only real difference is historical, right?

(between bebop and hard bop)

[myron]

No... hard bop incorporates other styles into their soloing, esp blues. Bebop was exploring with #4s, b9s, b13s, all those lovely colour notes, and the new scales. I think bebop is technically harder to play, but hard bop is much easier to listen to

[rooster2112]

I love a blend of classic rock and blues. (like Cream/Clapton work in general)

[Pete Down I Go]

No... hard bop incorporates other styles into their soloing, esp blues. Bebop was exploring with #4s, b9s, b13s, all those lovely colour notes, and the new scales. I think bebop is technically harder to play, but hard bop is much easier to listen to

Do you really see the distinction as definitive in terms of the notes played???

We're talking about musicians who move in both circles here (Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, Lucky Thompson, Red Rodney etc...).

I'd say if any distictions had to be drawn (which is a debate in itself) then it'd be more to do with rhythmic drive, speed, articulation and just genral ERA than harmony for sure; it's hard to say that when Wayne Shorter was MDing Art Blakey's band (the seminal hardbop band of ANY era) that he wasn't exploring all the harmonic intricacies of bebop and beyond?

[myron]

MDing?

I guess speed is a factor. Bebop was a lot faster. Rhythmic drive... that depends what band is playing.

But surely you must agree there is a lot more blues stuff in hard bop than there is in bebop?

[Pete Down I Go]

MDing?

I guess speed is a factor. Bebop was a lot faster. Rhythmic drive... that depends what band is playing.

But surely you must agree there is a lot more blues stuff in hard bop than there is in bebop?
Musical Directing.

I suppose generally speaking, perhaps, but it's a difficult and sort of unneccessary 'line' to draw in my mind; a lot of players exhibeted a lot of blues form both 'eras' (Lucky Thompson, Al Haig, Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Lee Morgan, etc...) where a lot of players from both 'sides' were more well known for playing in what some might describe as a more 'cerebral' (horrible term) or 'harmonically extensive' manner (Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonius Monk, Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, Sonny Rollins, etc...) But to say that either lacked the blues, or that either lacked a harmonically extensive style would be crazy and inaccurate: Charlie Parker Played a ton of blues over traditional 'bop'; Wayne Shorter played a load of Harmonically unheard stuff over 'Hard Bop'.

To my mind, there aren't really lines to be drawn: both have blues, speed, harmonic intesity, diverse ranges of approach just like any other style: Each band has to be judged on its own merits and approaches, cause the generic tags are far from adequate for what they seek to explain...