What is swing, groove or feel in jazz

[ninette]

I am currently trying to define swing or feel. Has anyone come to any conclusions on this yet? How can you define something that is a feeling or a groove? Can you teach someone how to swing? Please someone help me on this one because I am going around in circles.

[Jazz]

Ninette,

The swing feel is defined as playing eighth notes unequally. The first eighth note of a beat is played longer than the second. To an inexperienced ear this will sound like a triplet shuffle or a sixteenth-note shuffle, but a swung eighth note is actually placed in the rhythmic gray area between those two shuffles. Unless I'm mistaken, Louis Armstrong was the father of this rhythmic device.
The swing feel also has alot to do with the dynamic phrasing (which notes are played louder or softer) in a melodic phrase, and rhythmic "motives" or rhythmic ideas that fit in smoothly with everything else that is happening in the song.

I, personally, would define a "groove" as a repeating rhythmic hemiola over the regular meter (if that sounds too pretentious, I guess I would call it instead a rhythmic pattern that is syncopated, and repeats at the same spot every couple of measures or so). A good example of a groove would be a bossanova, where a rhythmic instrument would be implying a different meter over the 4/4 every 2 measures.

If I didn't explain it well, or if you want examples just let me know!
:D

[ninette]

I understand the technicalities behind swing. I am currently writing an assignment under the title "If you have to ask, I can't tell you" - discuss the idea of swing in jazz. I think that because jazz is predominantly learnt through recordings, or was, the feel was learnt accordingly. If jazz becomes predominantly taught through notational methods, which would more than likely require a very high standard of sight reading and technical proficiency, will it become a mechanical reproduction of a music that had, once at its core, an indescribable feel?

Another thing is does every musician in a jazz group need to swing? If the rhythm section are maintaining the swing feel, are the other musicians free to go beyond swinging? Did Monk swing do you think? And if the rhythm section is the main element in creating that groove, how does that correlate with the changes in style in the rhythm section - did Carter and Williams swing as much as the straight bebop drummers or the earlier drummers?

[Jazz]

Well, I think that whether or not jazz becomes a mechanical reproduction depends on the specific musician. If you know the technicalities of swing, then you know that there are an infinite amount of places to place a swung eighth note. Everybody swings a tiny bit differently. Also, if every jazz musician strives to improvise things different than what he or she has played before, they can hardly be mechanically reproducing anything even if they are not pioneering unexplored territory.

EVERY musician doesn't need to be swinging in a straight ahead context, swinging is just a tool to make things interesting. Alot of soloists will play straight eighths (especially if the band is swinging really hard) for a while, then swing a few notes, then take off on 16th's or 32nd's. Monk is a hard example for me to talk about because I don't really understand half of what he did. But, Monk definitely swung, no question. Just listen the head on Straight No Chaser. Those are all eighth notes, try singing them as straight eighths and you'll see what I mean. But beyond just swinging eighth notes Monk did alot of crazy rhythmic placement stuff that freaks me the heck out.

um, did that help?

[ninette]

Helped a lot thank you.

It's a matter of opinion I suppose. I was trained classically on the piano and cannot play jazz properly on the ivories, although I can sing it with swing, feel, whatever you call it. When I play jazz on piano it's a mechanical reprodcution of what I can sing in a swinging style - straight 8ths and the rest!

I'm just fascinated as to how jazz is defined as jazz when each style can be vastly different from the next.

Thanks

[DWBass]

A good example of Swing is 'Beyond The Sea' either done by George Benson or Bobby Caldwell. Or 'The Way You Look Tonight' by Frank Sinatra.