I hate Jazz.

Yeah, I think that must be it, I really don't like the lazy-ness or lack of direction. I don't like the tonality, and I found that odd, but then I remembered that there are other tonal systems I don't really like, and a lot of it depends on the medium in which it is expressed.
I have a piano piece I played ages ago that i still love, and that uses jazz tonality, but is in a baroque keyboard style and to me that is more palatable.

Thank you everyone for your incoming suggestions. I shall let you know when I strike gold.

Here's a similarly soothing vocal jazz song I'm listening to now:

Did she ever! Such a sad story. :-(

I've enjoyed all the vocal music on this page a lot more than I enjoyed the instrumental. That may be because it's branching into more of a 'popular' genre, and I think the tonality is a bit more subdued for that purpose.
I'm afraid I didn't enjoy John Boutte that much, it seemed almost like a 'fuss about nothing-' a lot of emotion over a boring chord structure.

What was the story?
I like the blues better than I like jazz I think.
I really like nina simone.

I have never heard of her.

I find Jazz soothing and comfortable...very homey - It brings back memories of dancing on my PaPaw's feet or sitting in his lap listening to Jazz and smelling scotch on his breath...I love the smell of scotch because of that as well.

Everyone needs a little Nina in their life.

The Billie Holiday Story in brief: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billie_Holiday

The singular Nina Simone story in brief: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Simone

Try this jazz samba on for size then, it's been called Brazil's greatest piece of music and I wouldn't argue with that.

It is called "Águas de Março" (Waters of March) and was composed by Brazilian ledgend Antonio Carlos Jobim, and when performed by Stan Getz, João Gilberto and Astrud Gilberto it's a work of art. The lyrics were written in both English and Portuguese, and the poetry is beautiful imagery on it's own (if you don't understand Portuguese it's a pity, because the Portuguese verses are richer) and when João Gilberto lent it the silkiest voice of all time and his wife tosses in her fresh amateur voice to the mix with Getz' brilliance it's sublime. One of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard.

Now I may have built it up a bit too much, but here it is to judge for yourself:



Goes so very great with wine glow, I think I'll listen to it myself.

(Nina)

I don't know that I care what any one else likes. Even primo list compilers.
Though what they like is ok with me
(well, usually).

Ha, hinge likes Wes Montgomery.

I suppose I should have saved the Wes Montgomery album with the cigarette butts photo....

it'll turn out to be priceless.

I got very tired of the sound.

I guess I've never fallen into the trap of listening to something to death (not since I was about 17 when my music collection cracked the 200 disc barrier), come to think of it I still like the stuff I used to listen to death anyway (Bowie, Floyd, Zep, Queen - Suzi Quatro!) - my dad used to always used to say that my taste would 'mature' and I wouldn't like any of that kid stuff when I grew up. Boy was he wrong; I didn't grow up and I still like that kid stuff - but my tastes are way broader than they used to be.

I don't actually own any Wes Montgomery albums, he just appears on a few jazz compilations I own, and when he pops up on random he doesn't annoy me or make me reach for 'skip track'. I just checked - I have six Wes tracks. I understand that George Benson was Montgomery's torch bearer. He's best in small doses too.

I thought I'd share the first, and possibly best, Jazz compilation I ever bought.

It's called 'Jazz on a summer's day' (it has nothing to do with the Newport Jazz festival, or the Bert Stern film based on the 1958 episode of same)

track list:
Take five - Dave Brubeck**
Summertime - Sarah Vaughan
Moanin' - Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers*
The man I love - Peggy Lee
I wish I knew - Billy Taylor and the Billy Taylor Trio
The girl from Ipanema - Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz
So what - Miles Davis**
Mercy, mercy, mercy - Cannonball Adderly*
Lullaby of birdland - Sarah Vaughan
Watermelon man - Mongo Santamaria***
Mack the Knife - Louis Armstrong***
Got my mojo workin' - Jimmy Smith
Walkin' shoes - Gerry Mulligan with Chet Baker
Birdland - Weather Report
Hymn to freedom - Oscar Peterson***

I've starred the ones I really like, but there really isn't a dog on there.

Here's a free legal album by Somewhere Off Jazz Street 'Road to somewhere'

http://www.somewhereoffjazzstreet.com/RoadToSomewhere.html

I really kind of like its cinematic qualities - does anyone else like it or care to offer an opinion?

I am so sorry that you cannot understand the passion that jazz musicians have.
Perhaps someday you will come to realize that there is GOOD MUSIC regardless of genre. In order to understand something one must be open. You are so closed off to the world and most importantly yourself. Open your mind....

I think most people would probably disagree with you there. I am trying to 'open my mind', that's why I posted the thread. Are you posting threads in the hope of being able to appreciate something you don't already?
I can understand the passion jazz musicians have for their music, I would imagine it is very similar to the passion that most people have for the music they like. I don't think of genres as boxes, but most jazz does display similar traits which I think I don't like, namely a 'lazy' feel, and jazz tonality... I tend to go for a more dramatic architecture, whether that's Lady Gaga or Shostakovitch.

toot-a-looot-a-leet. . .


HONK!!

I got so disgusted after reading this thread that I joined just to respond here.



Let's deconstruct the above quote:



How exactly can you understand this passion without being a musician who plays jazz?--Some form of empathy?--By "watching" and "listening" to what these players try to do?-- Through music analysis? You have revealed a personal distaste for jazz in general. Still, you can understand the "passion" (and passion is defined by MW as "a strong feeling of enthusiasm or excitement for something or about doing something") without having developed a passion for the music or playing it yourself. Hence, the question really is: What kind of "understanding" are you going to have? Having never immersed yourself in it, your understanding of this passion is going to be particularly superficial. Now had you said that you understand many jazz musicians have a lot of passion for their music, I would have just smiled. You said, "I understand the passion." I highly doubt it.



Then you're confounding what is an understanding with what is a product of your imagination. The passion of people who play or listen to heavy metal, 50s rock and roll, The classical music of Europe, Avant-garde jazz, or rap music, is likely to be very different indeed. If everyone has the same passion motivating them to make music, why would there be so many different forms of musical expression?



A contradiction at best, but maybe you know this on some level. Logically, to say "I hate Jazz" means there's a rubric in your head. You have placed music that has some "lazy" "pretentious" "predictable" (your labels from above) characteristic under the genre of "jazz." This is music you have decided you hate. It doesn't take a cognitive psychologist to know that if you have done this, as soon as something is labelled "jazz" you are very much biased against liking it before you've even heard it. That's the equivalent of placing a genre into a box. Your other posts continually overgeneralize about these apparent traits of the "jazz" genre to the point of absurd. Consider your first post:



Besides the further contradiction here regarding this "passion" you say you can understand, how do you somehow take music that spans development from Benny Goodman, to Louis Prima and Louis Armstrong, to Dizzy Gillespie and Herbie Hancock, to Tito Puente, to Chick Corea and Jaco Pastorius, to the mahavishnu orchestra, to Pat Metheny and George Benson -- or with jazz vocalists from Ella Fitzgerald to someone like Norah Jones, how can you possibly put a label like "banal" (defined commonly as lacking in originality) on all this diversity?

Watch this video of George Benson and analyze for me exactly how his solo work here is "predetermined and predictable" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0KOzrMUt10

And your descriptor of jazz as LIFELESS? Whatever the criteria is for a whole genre of music that is not "lifeless," I would be very suspect of it if fabricated by someone pretending to know something beyond a muddled opinion.

And does the following quote indicate some breadth of musical knowledge that somehow qualifies you to declare what music deserves the label "lifeless" :



In fact, that statement is quite meaningless, as is much of what you said above.

You know why I "hate" jazz? It's because it is one of the most challenging styles of music I have ever tried to play. Improvisation is not exclusive to jazz, but because it has an important place within jazz the musicians who want to play it must learn how to improvise, and like life itself, there is no one correct method for finding your way. The basic guidelines that exist are a joke to be called "predetermined." Only a novice would believe that most jazz players learn licks and then regurgitate these over and over again when approaching a solo. Any note can be played over a piece of music if played the right way, and this in and of itself makes jazz quite beautiful. It's a journey worthwhile despite how challenging it is.