Crunk takes five

If you asked Joseph Public what the word jazz meant, they would probably suggest men in hats, stroking beards to music that sounds at best like noise. Or perhaps they’d think a cool saxophone and extremely understated music. Or perhaps the jazz age of the 1920s and 30s, and dixieland. Either way, if you asked them to hum something jazz, they’d probably hum something fairly tuneless, or if asked to identify from a set of videos which one was jazz, they’d figure it out fairly quickly.

These are the commonly accepted forms of jazz.

To the jazz musician, this is a highly contested issue that goes right to the very core of every musician attempting (or succeeding) to play this music. All jazz musicians have their own personal pasts and futures of what jazz is to them, and it’s not always the same as what the other musicians on the bandstand are thinking of jazz. Let’s picture a common jazz quintet:

First, there’s the trumpet player. It’s his band. But why is it a quintet with saxophone and not a quartet where he gets all the glory? Ah, he’s been listening to a load of late-50s Miles quintet. He wants to go for that cool Miles sound, long, legato fluid lines over bebop tunes and old standards. He’s a trumpet player, so of course he’s influenced by Miles. This is what he wants to hear, and what he wants to play. 

The saxophone player knows it’s not his band, but that’s cool, he’s enjoying this band. They play some cool tunes, but he’s coming from a slightly different tradition. Coltrane is great, but really he loves Joe Henderson. That ballsy tone, the rapid-fire flurries of repeated notes and the intricate playing over changes. He wants to play a lot more complicated lines than the laidback lines of the trumpet player, but that’s why they have such different styles and that makes it OK, right?

The piano player comes from a different tradition entirely. He loves old standards that swing, and still feels they’re relevant today. He doesn’t really connect with ‘Juju’ or ‘Impressions’, or most of the trumpet player’s choices of material but that’s OK, he’s just the piano player. He really likes George Shearing, or Red Garland. He likes his music just to sit there and swing and not catch fire. He’d be much more content playing ‘You Stepped Out of a Dream’ – after all, he spends most of his time accompanying singers.

The bass player has no say. He loves the fusion guys like Marcus Miller, early John Patitucci, and of course, his all-time hero, Jaco. What he would really like to play is ‘Three Views of a Secret’, a beautiful ballad. But there are too many chords for the trumpeter, the saxophonist can’t relate to it, and the pianist would rather play ‘But Beautiful’. And so, he has to content himself with playing bebop tunes.

The drummer is more interested in exploring free improvisation. He’d love to start every tune with an extended drum intro, or perhaps a dialogue between the drums and the saxophone. He doesn’t like to be constrained by playing time, and in particular, 4/4. Why can’t we play this one in 7/4, he suggests, to universal disdain. Being a good member of the rhythm section, he keeps his free playing to a minimum.