Who can describe jazz?

[Garren Jacobsen]

I'm writing a novel set in the far future. A young man is riding an elevator and hears jazz for the first time. It's a quartet. I don't have much experience with jazz. So, just in general how would you describe a jazz song without using the word jazz or jazz specific terminology, preferably a quick paced piece of jazz. I have a good starting point, but it feels flat and jazz needs to have character. How would you describe it?

 

[chrispenycate]

Depends a lot on which era of jazz. New Orleans, Trad jazz, Dixie, the first impression is the rhythm . Clear and straightforward, with the melodic instruments taking turns with the tune (and even rhythmic instruments having a number of eight bar sections given to them for solos. Be Bop, wrong becomes right, chord structures become more complex, and while solos are still common there is more of the studied harmony that arrived in the big-band era, contradictory to the 'improvisation' spirit that is one of the hearts of jazz (from Voudoun territory you don't suppose one heart is enough, do you?)

Free jazz the musicians are apparently not listening to each othe - and quite possibly not to themselves (not that I blame them - I'm not listening to them either, and I'm behind the recording console). The rule seems to be to show off technique, while if you play something that any member of the audience find pleasant you lose a point (Whoopee, Jazz in two paragraphs).

These, and innumerable hybrids with rock, blues, country, classical, folk and each other give very different first impressions. There might even be vocals, with the pianist oozing out easy listening, quite lounge lizard. Jazz has 'adopted' nearly as many styles as the English language words, and, like Kipling's tribal lays, 'every single one of them is right'.

And most have quartet versions.

 

[Svrtnsse]

"A saxophone that spoke of smoke-filled rooms, sweating old men, and that one more whiskey you probably shouldn't have had."

Or maybe that's blues?

 

[CupofJoe]

I feel the word Syncopation would have to appear somewhere...

 

[TheCatholicCrow]

I believe the original descriptions for it were "hot music". [Supposedly it began in brothels and in the early years retained a rather sexy connotation. It works in more than one way since you get hot and sweaty dancing to it (it can be very tiresome) and you can get hot and sweaty from dancing it with someone.]

This feels like an amazing writing exercise and I'm actually wondering why this has never come up sooner. I'll try to describe it in several different ways- feel free to reel off any if they resonate with you.

There are many forms of jazz so it would depend on particular variety you have in mind. As a trumpet player I've always been partial to swing. I'm assuming you're thinking of something like New Orleans style jazz (lots of trumpet) it's all very fun.

In terms of art, Jazz is everything ballet is not. It isn't about perfection and while technique is always a bonus, what jazz really comes down to is emotion and soul. I once saw an interview w Gerard Butler regarding his role as the Phantom (in POTO) and his approach/intimidation to work with a cast that was far more musically trained than him. Butler admitted that his technique was bound to be flawed so rather than worry himself over it, (paraphrasing) he said his goal was to sing everything with as much emotion as possible so that the audience would focus on feeling (rather than hearing) the music. This is basically the philosophy behind Jazz ["Jass"] music. Whether Jazz legends or forgotten performers, jazz musicians were a host of colorful people ranging "Jelly Roll Morton", a former pimp who played his music in New Orleans brothels, to Billie Holiday who couldn't read music. The list could go on and on but I think you get the point. Many of the same songs were performed by white musicians but were slowed down and dressed up (or vice versa -sped up & undressed) but you could get the same song performed by 5 different artists with their own interpretations with a freedom that only Jazz could provide. Then there's improvisations between the bars ... the same band can play a song every day for a week and it'll have a different energy each time. These weren't people relying on autotune, (with the faster stuff) they were playing to a dance hall full of people looking to unwind, hold onto their partner tight, and have some fun.

If you're new(ish) to Jazz I'd like to draw your attention to scat (before a capella soiled the art with crappy pop renditions) it's the use of the voice to imitate an instrument and nobody was better at this than Ella Fitzgerald. Really - she uses more phonemes than any other jazz singer that's been recorded. You're probably already familiar with her voice as (along with Dean Martin) she has become a Chrismas music staple throughout the US.

Back to New Orleans Jazz though ... It's almost like a conversation between 5 or 10 musicians who go back and forth telling jokes at a party. (Unless there's piano) trumpet is usually the highest tone - you might have sax which I've always felt is rather moody, percussion which makes you want to sway your hips, trombone which is like the trumpet's sibling that is well acquainted with the story but interjects every so often to include the details the trumpet has forgotten. Then there's the upright bass ... plucking a flurry of notes each more inviting than the last until before you know it, your whole body is moving. You're laughing along with the band. The music fills your soul and a smile fills your face.

It sounds as if all of the passion is bursting out from one man's heart and finding its way into the ear of another.

This is a subject that requires more thought (and some sleep) so I'll ponder it some more and let you know if I can come up with anything.

 

[TheCatholicCrow]

Sorry for the double post ... but I thought of a song that might be more appropriate if you're looking for something faster. I tried but couldn't find a specific version where she actually begins to laugh in the middle of it. This one's pretty close but sadly it doesn't have quite the same energy as the other.

I'd recommend also looking into Louis Armstrong's music.

 

[skip.knox]

This seems an odd sort of challenge. The OP wants the character to encounter jazz without knowing it's jazz. The author wants the reader to recognize it as jazz, however.

Why? Why not just describe some music and the character's reaction to it? Is it necessary for the reader to think "oh, that's jazz they're talking about."? And if it's necessary, why not just use the word? The character can say "what's that" but no need to dance around the word. And that way you can let the reader hear whatever kind of jazz they wish.

Then there's this: writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

 

[Svrtnsse]

Then there's this: writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

Bustin' some arches down the colonnade?

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

This seems an odd sort of challenge. The OP wants the character to encounter jazz without knowing it's jazz. The author wants the reader to recognize it as jazz, however.

Why? Why not just describe some music and the character's reaction to it? Is it necessary for the reader to think "oh, that's jazz they're talking about."? And if it's necessary, why not just use the word? The character can say "what's that" but no need to dance around the word. And that way you can let the reader hear whatever kind of jazz they wish.

Then there's this: writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

My POV is pretty deep into the character's and he never really experienced jazz before. Jazz to him is as medieval music is to us. So, since it's pretty deep I wouldn't imagine the description out and out saying this is jazz music, since it's his perception. The reason why I have the music playing is because I'm creating an aesthetic for a certain character and hinting that the certain character (the one playing the jazz music) is immortal. He's a regretful immortal, but immortal nonetheless. This jazz piece is meant to be an early and obscure clue to that fact.

 

[Svrtnsse]

I posted something like this in another thread just recently, but it applies here too: Instead of describing the sound of the music, describe the feelings and the images that the music conveys.

Is it music that sits at a little sidewalk cafe, drinking strong coffee from a small cup, and looking at people walking by?
Or is it music that hangs out down by the docks, around dirty old bars, and dreams of a woman in another port?
Or maybe it's music runs that around, explores every nook and cranny, high and low and never ceases to amaze itself with all the fascinating things it finds?
Maybe it's music that sits in a high backed chair in front of the fire place, smoking a pipe and solving all the worlds problems - and then forgets about them again?

Some of the above lines are inspired by music, some are not. They're mainly just there to illustrate the idea.

 

[TheCatholicCrow]

I suspect that this might be what you're thinking when you say "Jazz" ...

This one has less singing and I think might be closer to what you're getting at (this is a pretty tight performance but if you want something with even more stiff Glenn Miller's In the Mood might work too). I've always preferred Armstrong's trumpet to his voice (he smoked 2 packs a day & it showed). Way Down Yonder in New Orleans

I'd agree that a good approach would be to avoid the word Jazz- if you heard a medieval song you probably would say - "that was a nice polyphonic hymn". If you'd never heard Jazz you probably wouldn't know what to call it. Focusing on the sounds in a professional manner (they played a B flat progression then the harmony swapped...) kills the magic of it. Your choices are either to tap into the reader's experiences with Jazz or to listen to some and figure out how it makes you feel. That'd be most fitting with Jazz since it's all about feeling anyway.

In the jazz world, many songs are regarded as a sort of conversation going back and forth between the sections. When trumpets use a (plunger) mute it is usually described as a "laughing" sound. These aren't straight jazz terms but they're part of Jazz repertoire that are still easily understood by those that aren't necessarily fans. Jazz is an intensely personal art so my reaction to it will be different to yours. I hear it and I want to dance the East Coast Swing (b/c the West Coast is friggin' crazy) but you might want to just tap your toes or drum your hands.

Perhaps look around and pick a song that you can keep in mind when writing the scene. Close your eyes & figure out how it makes you feel - do you lose your breathe? Does the trumpet make you dizzy as they dance around in a register above the rest of the band? Are you drawn to the bass? Is it easy going and soothing or exciting? Does it make you want to click your heels or swing your partner? Does it need more cowbell?

Edit: In case you don't know where to begin in picking out a song, you could try browsing through my spotify playlists Oldies (ignore the 70's) and Jazz.
I'd say pick a song or sound and it might help the rest of be more precise. If you're looking for white jazz you might want to focus on Martin, Sinatra, and the Andrew Sisters.

 

[stephenspower]

It's kind of blue.

 

[Butterfly]

Well, as you have mentioned medieval music compared to jazz, the instruments used differ greatly, and so do the sounds made by the instruments. That's before even looking at the advancements technology has made to them. Without delving too deeply if you look at a medieval trumpet (which could play a total of 5 notes, hence the term pentatonic scale), compared with a modern trumpet (which can play a full scale due to the addition of valves and different length tubes that have been curved to make the instrument smaller which alters the pitch by however many tones or semi tones) - which are needed to play jazz music and jazz scales - might give you some idea of how music and the instrumaetns have changed over the years. That's before making mention of rhythms, chords, beats, speed, dynamic range (volume), and tonal scales that have evolved from such. Makes me wonder how instruments will change in the future...

Anyway, have a listen to some of Gershwin's pieces.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IsQ29EL6tA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIDOEsQL7lA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vR0-LeL11lQ

 

[chrispenycate]

I think any definition of jazz has to include the word 'improvisation', and even then some big-bands play everything, even solos, from scores (college bands, usually. I don't file them under 'jazz' in my head, at all).

I've worked with several hundred jazz musicians, many of them great, live concerts, festivals, recording (my personal opinion is that jazz ought to be recorded live, or at the very least with all the musicians playing together, but they don't tend to ask me), and every instrument from the classic or traditional selection can be integrated (yeah, even mediaeval instruments, human voice, electric, electronic… and I can't tell you how you march into a gloomy dungeon and within two bars know that it's not a folk club, nor C&W, nor a piano bar - though lots of jazz pianists are doing their tome in motels across the planet - but a jazz club. It's not the only music that originated in brothels, though Tango you can give some rhythmic clues, and even instrument selection. It's like specifying the difference between science fiction or fantasy; unless the book's heavily hybridised a regular reader of either genre will recognise it within a couple of paragraphs.

Similarly with the music (including the hybridisation - you might get fooled with latino jazz or something) you don't analyse, you just know, and somebody hearing jazz for the first time might get confused trying to fit it into other folders, recognising the coherence but not the confluence of influences - things were easier when it was Dixieland. But not as pleasurable.

 

[Mectojic]

Despite being a jazz musician, I found trouble putting music in words until seeing these posts.

I just think this is an awesome topic.

Jazz ain't about notes - if you think jazz is about notes, you probably think Shakespeare is about words.
See, Jazz is about emotion, passion, as is a lot of music.
To feel the music in writing, establish the bare essentials to help them identify - a bit about rhythm, what instrumentation, the tempo, etc... but focus on the character's reaction to it. Absolutely focus on that.

Because this sounds like a fantastic scene, I recommend you are careful with all the word choices. Deliberately look out to include metaphors, personifications of sound, that kind of thing.
Good luck

 

[Nobby]

You don't equate Jazz.

Jazz is.

 

[Nobby]

[note] I can't believe I typed that with a straight face.

 

[MineOwnKing]

I'm writing a novel set in the far future. A young man is riding an elevator and hears jazz for the first time. It's a quartet. I don't have much experience with jazz. So, just in general how would you describe a jazz song without using the word jazz or jazz specific terminology, preferably a quick paced piece of jazz. I have a good starting point, but it feels flat and jazz needs to have character. How would you describe it?

He knew the elevator had to be moving but due to the out of tune melody, which refused to cascade upon the air as intended, and instead stagnated like an army of trumpeting elephants that had lost their cadence, marching thus with individual percussion, to swell an all encompassing flatness; a seeming improbability among thinking beings, yet not unheard of, as mental disorders were known to run amok, and yet the steady barrage of incessant notes--or just plane noise--continued to bark at him like too many generals and not enough soldiers, till the ride in the elevator became a purgatory: gray, stifling, unyielding, timeless; a deep well which led to neither freedom nor death; yet it granted power to his rising insanity and he dubbed himself impresario of infliction and dropped dead from lack of taste.