Music most compatible to Jazz

[santenr]

What music do you listen to other than Jazz? What music do you find most compatible with Jazz, or do you prefer to listen to music that has no similarity to Jazz - because it is different?

For example - I love Bach solo instrumental pieces - partic piano and cello, also baroque - Vivaldi, Boccherini. Also almost any African music - Salif Keita, Ali Farka Toure and Toumani Diabate. African women singers - Oumou Sangare, Cesare Evora, Aster Aweke. I find that if I mix CDs of any of the above with my Jazz CDs on my CD player with random track selection I find no conflict or jarring. The other night I mixed selections of Glenn Gould playing the Goldberg Variations of Bach with one of Thelonius Monk's solo albums - and they felt right together.

OTOH I really dont like mixing rock, traditional blues or symphonies (Beethoven, Mozart) with Jazz - they dont feel right to me.


Ron

[Coypu]

I listen to :

Death Metal
Black Metal
Fusion
Progressive rock/metal
Technical metal
Classical, I'm a huge fan of Glenn Gould too so I listen to basically anything he has recorded that I can get hold of.

I listen to alot more genres but theese are my favorites.

I think that Death Metal is very compatible with jazz since they both stray away from tyhe standard stuff and both are pushing the extremes in different ways. Combining them is always good since both genres have alot to learn from each other.

[Old Pa]

Well, let's see. Such music would have to have wide dynamic range and acoustic sensitivity of sounds. It would have recognizable songs with performances differentiated by musician interpretation and improvisation. Probably talking about solo musicians and small groups. Within these parameters, I find myself listening to solo piano, string chamber music, and what might be considered "world music". Recently, these have included Artur Rubinstein's last recordings of Chopin nocturnes as remastered by RCA Red Seal, Bartok's String Quartets as performed by the Takacs Quartet, and some early 90s recordings by Anouar Brahem.

[markvi]

i enjoy serious music from all periods but if i had to name one composer whose music is compatable to jazz--charles ives. his music sounds very original even though some of it is a century old, and he played with sounds much like a jazz musician. in one piece he instructs the trumpets to play "columbia the gem of the ocean" in any key at any tempo in the middle of orchestral accompaniment. in others he also allowed an improvisatory section. he would write music and go to a broadway play and after the play go up to the orchestra and pay the musicians to play sections of his compositions so he could hear them. he was largely ingored by his contemporaries (actually he had almost no contemporaries if you think about it) . you got to love him.

[joesilver]

The musical genre which has the most in common with jazz, is - of course - death metal. :)

[ma³goœka]

everything from Chopin to Radiohead, everything except death metal ;) Especially I enjoy traditional Irish and African music, even though sometimes I don't know what exactly I'm listening to.

[jazzypaul]

This could prove to be a really fun thread...

"OTOH I really dont like mixing rock, traditional blues or symphonies (Beethoven, Mozart) with Jazz - they dont feel right to me."

I think it all depends on how the musics are mixed. MJQ and Jaques Loussier both did wonders with symphonic material. Jazz and Blues are like brother and sister, and there are plenty of traditional blues tunes that have crept into the jazz repetoire. Not to mention, what do you even call Etta James, Joe Williams or Dinah Washington? They've blurred the lines so much that to call them jazz is a misnomer, as it would be to call them blues. When it comes to mixing jazz and rock, I think it all depends on how it's done. When Paul Bollenback does entire albums featuring modern rock tunes from the likes of The Red Hot Chili Peppers, it's still certainly jazz and certainly sounds good. Hell, even the new Alex Skolnick record, featuring straight up be-bop renditions of tunes by KISS, The Who and Black Sabbath sounds pretty cool and swings pretty hard. And when rock steals eloquently from jazz, it sounds good as well (the defense brings Steely Dan and Stevie Wonder to the stand...). Before making a blanket statement, check out what's out there. You might be surprised. And more than likely, pleasantly so.

My "extra-curricular" listening these days has been made up of Thievery Corporation, Zuco 103, Eminem, and Weezer, who use rhythm changes on a tune called Island in the Sun. Those and the old standby's of The Dan, Chicago, Radiohead, BS&T, Stevie Wonder, P-Funk, James Brown, Bootsy's Rubber Band, The Supremes, Michael Jackson (well, Thriller and back anyway), as well as modern composers like Adams, Reich and Glass. There's probably much to make fun of in there, so have at it...

[bombastic]

It could be Puccini, maybe The Band,Dylan, Beatles, Ives, Stravinsky,Muddy Waters, Howlin'Wolf,Verdi, some gospel group like the Staples singing "The Weight" with The Band,E.L.O.,Bob Marley once in a while, not too much,Beethovens Glorious 9th, Gene Kellys "Singin' in the Rain" Barbers Adagio for Strings, Madame Butterfly, Rachmananov,Chopin,Wagner,Hindemith,Bernard Herrmann Film Music, Japanese Koto Music,African Music,Indian Ragas.Native American Music....Like Bird Said, There's Only 2 Kinds of Music, Good and Bad".:cool: What happened to the Good Music? Those Pinheads, or Show Business Weasels, as Letterman calls them,in the music industry certainly don't have a clue anymore! they're now catering to the tin eared generation:confused: i think the reasons behind todays bad music are a combination of listeners lack of musical literacy, the punk rock thing in the seventies(which required no knowledge or skill of musical instruments or theory), the rap and hip-hop thing, which is simply bad poetry set to bad music(usually) and the corporate takeover of the music industry.(their only interest is profit made from the ignorant listener,purchaser).and performers like madonna and michael jackson, who gained success in the early 80's with shallow, sugar-coated pop music and bad short video films. that's my humble opinion anyway.:o I'd like to know what you think. feel free to disagree.:cool: H.L. Mencken said it best, "Never underestimate the bad taste of the American Public". Christ, all you have to do is take a drive to your local shopping mall! observe!

[Jazz]

I think Rachmaninov would fit really well on a cd mixed with jazz ballads, or west coast jazz.

[jazzypaul]

Please bombastic, please don't make blanket statements...we already have one idiotic swede on the boards...

1) Don't knock all hip-hop. There are certainly a TON of horrible rappers out there, I fully admit this. But there are also some very talented rappers who have gone out of their way to let the hip hop community know about jazz and its greatness. We would be remiss not to return the favor in the cases where they're making great music. And, take their subject matter however you will, but on a rhythmic level, Bone Thugs, Eminem and Jay-Z are all revolutionizing that music, with polyrhtyhms, triplets, all sorts of stuff that breaks away from the normal 8th note flow that made so much rap sound stale.

2) Michael Jackson, especially Thriller and Off The Wall, and to a lesser extent, Bad, were all phenomenal albums. Even today, not too much of that music sounds dated, and all things considered, especially given the times and the people involved, that's a huge thing. Of course, those 3 albums were just as much Quincy Jones albums as they were Michael Jackson records, but still, if you are that anti-Michael pre-nosejob, you should go back and hear those records again. Chances are you might find yourself appreciating something you didnt before.

[bombastic]

just the sound of it seems very morbid....jazzypaul....i know all rap doesn't suck, just 95% of it...i can't stand that michael jackson, sorry....but i love him compared to that no talent madonna. just my personal taste. also, these popular so called"stars" seem to get this enormous media coverage that their minimal talent doesn't warrant. you know what i mean? something educational could be shown on television and all this time is spent on these useless celebrities and this useless information about them. what's the point?:o :confused:

[PiousBionicus]

"I think Rachmaninov would fit really well on a cd mixed with jazz ballads"

I absolutely agree! I love his work, and others like Brahms, Prokofiev, late Beethoven, Ravel.

Other than that, I like a lot of music: Blues, Soul, Rock 'n' Roll, Post Rock, Trip Hop, some Hip Hop (Jurassic 5!!), Reggae (dub/roots, not white-boy-reggae!), and Cuban music (Buena Vista Social Club). At the moment I'm listening more to Jools Holland and the Blues Brothers.

[Jazz]

WOW Prokofiev!! I was acquainted with a classical pianist who really dug him.

I REALLY like Rachmaninov but alot of the people I knew who studied alot of classical/orchestrated/composed didn't like him too much, and I could never figure out why...

[BariMusix]

Music most compatible to Jazz

Hmm, I would have to say groups like Blood, Sweat, and Tears, and Chicago *well at least their 70's stuff.) Man any group who can go from rock to a trasitory groove to a straight ahead swing and back gets high marks in my book!