“basketball is like jazz” – ancient That Guy proverb
Talk about a headline you’re tripping over yourself to click on, huh?
There’s something longer planned, but it required a bit more time and deep dive energy than I had before we packed up and left town.
Most of the best food—cheeseburgers, tacos—comes from short-order, so we’re gonna make the most of a list gimmick.
No one’s gonna tally up the hours, but I feel like I spent equal time learning jazz and punk in high school. I’d get to school an hour early for jazz band, I played guitar in the marching band pit (our shows when I was in high school were Kool & The Gang, Tower of Power, Chicago, and Earth Wind & Fire), and I ended every day in the bandroom, bullshitting with my friends about ii-V-Is (okay that last clause is a lie, but not by much).
Then one day, just before senior year, we had a band practice. Bass player/singer in our band and current Pinch Hitter bandleader, Spencer Blake, had written a new song. The first chord was an E major 7—a jazz chord—but he was playing it with distortion. The second chord was a C major 7—a decidedly non-diatonic chord, played with too much intention to be a punk rock mistake. My life changed that day. Here’s Pinch Hitter, check them out:
Jazz does not have to mean big band, jazz does not have to mean guys in suits, jazz does not have to mean “only that one drumbeat, with the ride,” jazz does not have to mean walking bass, jazz does not have to mean no distortion.
Like punk and blues and hip-hop, jazz is more of a set of values you bring to playing an instrument or writing a song.
I’m calling these two albums Lazy & Entitled has coming out soon “jazzpunk” because they’re not really either of those things. So, as a way to maybe de-mystify my songwriting thought process, here are some things I like and don’t like.
LIKE: ORCHESTRATION
What I mean is, you need to go listen to Charlie Mingus’s Black Saint and the Sinner Lady. Or Mingus Ah Um.
Charlie Mingus knew how write some parts. He also knew when to tell his horn players to let rip. He cared about orchestration and had a specific vision for what the song was, while giving melodic freedom to his bandmates—man really sit with that one a while. Be grateful for your bandmates.
DON’T LIKE: SOLOS
There’s this idea in jazz, especially modal jazz, that the solo is the songwriting. The band plays the “head,” or “intro” or “main riff,” then everyone gets a turn soloing. Miles Davis’s “So What” is probably the most famous example. A really fun example is Skatune Network’s cover of the Animal Crossing theme.
While I love those two songs, I reject this idea. Mostly bc it’s boring. Too many solos and everything starts to sound the same after a while. Solos have their place, for sure—I can think of more than a few that are life-changing. They just can’t be the backbone.
LIKE: EVERYTHING HAPPENING UNDER THE SOLO
Maybe a biased opinion coming from a guitarist/bassist. Genuinely, though: the weird piano comps, the changes in basslines, the drummer locking into a rhythm with the soloist like two expert pick-and-roll players connecting for a lob? Rhythm sections are the best. They make or break absolutely everything. Pick your favorite jazz record and just listen to the rhythm section. Ryo Fukui’s got a great one on “Early Summer:”
DON’T LIKE: BIG BAND
Glenn Miller just doesn’t do it for me. Nor even Count Basie. I’m sorry. Not only does the rhythm section get swallowed up, but the amount of horns demands classical-music levels of precision. While precision is worthwhile, too much of it takes all the fun out. That said, I love the 8-Bit Big Band and think big band is perfect for video game music.
LIKE: UNLIMITED CREATIVE FREEDOM
I’m going to repeat three rumors that I have no idea if they’re true but I chose to believe them so hard I will reject any correction:
Miles Davis (and John Coltrane after him) would write songs by writing a chord progression on a white board and making his bandmates solo over it. They usually had like three days to make a record.
Miles (or was it Charles Mingus?) would make his band record their parts with no backing tracks. Nothing but a click. You had freedom to play how you wanted, according to the score. But then everything had to line up. So if you hear horns slightly “off” from each other, someone playing a touch more staccato than someone else or whatever, that’s intentional.
The opening minutes of A Tribute To Jack Johnson is the band jamming to get levels. Miles showed up late, demanded they keep it in, and jumped right for his parts.
These sorts of magic moments happen all the time in band practice. You improv a whole song and it sounds so sick, dude we shoulda been recording, I messed up a couple times and you went a different place for a second but that ruled, man, that was so good, we shoulda been recording.
Jazz codifies that feeling as a matter of practice, and I think that’s cool.
DON’T LIKE: EVERY SONG BEING LONGER THAN FOUR MINUTES
This was a blessing from DOMi & JD BECK. Or if you consider Chon jazz, and I consider them at least fusion. Songs written like pop songs, but they’re unmistakably jazz. I like that, as a thing for the genre.
LIKE: THE CULTURE OF LOVING WEIRD OSCURE RECORDS
Some gatekeeping comes with this—oh, you don’t know the 18-minute solo Bill Evans played on “Love For Sale” in some basement in Paris in 1963 that the guy at Blue Note’s son had on cassette in his desk until 2003? Do you know ANYTHING?—but I love when an old jazz head is casually like “look for the live version of [insert Herbie Hancock track]. Type [very specific YouTube search term] in. Trust me, dude.” It usually works out. My personal one is sorta cheating because it’s a backing band, but it’s “kendrick lamar untitled 2 jimmy fallon.” Listen under Kendrick’s vocals, to only the band, it’s ascension.
DON’T LIKE: JAZZ BECOMING CURRENCY OF THE RICH
All those dudes making those weird, obscure records? They weren’t exactly selling out Carnegie Hall and dying rich. Jazz should have an underground spirit. It’s fundamentally music that goes against the conventional wisdom of standard music theory, it’s music that represents the fringe. Should we just go out on some New Jazz Underground for the sake of the word underground?
Sorry you got an email,
Chris