Jazz composers?

[douxtigress]

Anyone have any favorite jazz composers or artists? Anyone gotten the chance to meet and/or play with them??

[prometheus]

Jazz composer is an oxymoron. Composer to me means sculpting every detail.

Jazz means improvisation.

There are jazz standards that are being written but this is just a skeleton for improvisation existing out of a melody and a chord progression, nothing more.

As for jazz musicians. I prefer Charlie Parker and John Coltrane. There are many more great musicians. Art Tatum seems to appeal to many pianists here. There are guitarists like Pat Metheny, Jim Hall and Pat Martino. More modern jazz pianists like Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock, both of them play electronic or rock jazz too. But generally I think you should move away from piano if you are going to submerge yourself into jazz. The superior instrument in jazz is the saxophone by far. Check Sunny Rollins, Micheal Brecker, Cannonball Adderley, Dexter Gordon.

Maybe the easiest way to get into jazz is through pianists. The best most jazz-like pianists are probably Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell.

[douxtigress]

Jazz composer is an oxymoron. Composer to me means sculpting every detail.

Jazz means improvisation.

There are jazz standards that are being written but this is just a skeleton for improvisation existing out of a melody and a chord progression, nothing more.

I apologize for confusing the words... but nonetheless do you have any favorite jazz musicians?

[prometheus]

Ah, yes. I already modified my post because I forgot to add them. Of course you don't have to apologise.

But it is a bit confusing if you mean modern composers influenced by the delopment of jazz, like Kapustin or something.


But I do think that it is important to know for someone comming from the classical world how 'jazz works'. I mean, have you ever looked at a real book or fake book? Those books have everything a jazz performer needs to know to perform a 'tune'. Of course there are many different kinds of jazz that all have different rules buy when I kind of jazz I think of the more bebop like music. A trio of a rhythm section, drums and bass, and a solist. Sometimes a pianist can be added but he is unnecessary, at least for the very good solists.

What happens is that they play through the chord progression once in a normal way. Of course the original chord progression can be modified and the melody can be changed. Often there is not one 'original' but many. The bass player makes sure he hits the roots of the chords on the right beat, then he plays those notes needed to support the solist even further. The drum player makes sure the piece gets a swing drive. The solist needs to do most of the work. The first time through he often plays the original melody, often  changed,augmented, ornamented, etc.

Jazz pieces are often many ii-V7-I progressions in different keys linked to each other. The solist plays endless flurries of notes, his solo, the second time through. The key here is that he has to imply the chords, the chord progression and the modulations, or changes(, the places where he changes to a different scale). He has to do this very fluedly. He will use all 12 notes but he will put the chord notes on the important beats.

This is why a good player should not need a pianist. The solist can imply all the chords and thus imply the harmony through his 'flurry of notes'.

I guess this will be a bit hard to understand.

[raskolnikov]

As for jazz musicians. I prefer Charlie Parker and John Coltrane. There are many more great musicians. Art Tatum seems to appeal to many pianists here. There are guitarists like Pat Metheny, Jim Hall and Pat Martino. More modern jazz pianists like Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock, both of them play electronic or rock jazz too. But generally I think you should move away from piano if you are going to submerge yourself into jazz. The superior instrument in jazz is the saxophone by far. Check Sunny Rollins, Micheal Brecker, Cannonball Adderley, Dexter Gordon.

Maybe the easiest way to get into jazz is through pianists. The best most jazz-like pianists are probably Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell.

I would like to add (all pianists):
Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, Ahmad Jamal, Jelly Roll Morton and McCoy Tyner.

[alwaystheangel]

Scott Joplin (more rag-time , though) Oscar Peterson!!!!!!! Best ever!!!! (for piano)

[gilad]

i love all the jazz pianists up there. also Dave Brubeck, he's fun.

[nanabush]

Oscar petersons, Dave Brubek, but I also like Kapustin Jazz Preludes

[raskolnikov]

As for jazz musicians. I prefer Charlie Parker and John Coltrane. There are many more great musicians. Art Tatum seems to appeal to many pianists here. There are guitarists like Pat Metheny, Jim Hall and Pat Martino. More modern jazz pianists like Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock, both of them play electronic or rock jazz too. But generally I think you should move away from piano if you are going to submerge yourself into jazz. The superior instrument in jazz is the saxophone by far. Check Sunny Rollins, Micheal Brecker, Cannonball Adderley, Dexter Gordon.

While the saxaphone may be the most popular instrument in jazz, trumpet players have been far more significant and influential.  The first known player of jazz was, Buddy Bolden, a trumpet player.  Louis Armstrong was jazz's most popular figure for the longest time, and was even an ambassador of the US after World War II. 

Miles Davis has played with and has made more of an impact in the jazz world than anyone else ever.  Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams, Ron Carter have all been influenced by Davis's leadership.  The only other Jazz musician to impact more young musicians is Art Blakey.  But Miles Davis also has essential albums in cool jazz, modal jazz, and in fusion.

Freddie Hubbard has to be one of the most recorded trumpeters and is most known for "Red Clay."  And finally, Wynton Marsalis is mostly responsible in the resurgance of instrumental jazz.

Many of Jazz's pianists are popular, but most of them aren't as influental as the horn players.     

[bach-liszt]

Although Art Tatum is not known as a "composer,"  he reharmonized and adorned popular tunes to such an extent that it is composing to my ear.  Differing versions of some of his arrangements exist demonstrating that he was always "sculpting"  --- thing is, he was so prodigious he could sculpt the details and resculpt as he improvised!   

Talent is doing easily what others find difficult.  Genius is doing easily what talent finds difficult - Tatum was a genius!

Also, Thomas "Fats" Waller was a good composer, a phenomenal pianist and a real personality!

[raskolnikov]

Didn't Waller take lessons from Godowsky?

[bach-liszt]

Didn't Waller take lessons from Godowsky?

I do not know but it would not suprise me if he did.  He was coached by the great stride master,  James P. Johnson.  He had some of the biggest, thickest hands/fingers of any great pianist.  I have played his "Handful of Keys" and it is a great test to play the on beat tenths in the left hand!

By the way, Waller's favorite composer was Bach and (few people know about this), he loved playing Bach on a classical organ.  He stated that his musical highlight was when he played the great organ at the Notre Dame cathedral.   Interesting dude.

[raskolnikov]

According to these webites, there is some evidence to support that he did take lessons from Godowsky:

https://www.pbs.org/jazz/biography/artist_id_waller_fats.htm
https://www.stridepiano.com/bios/gen1/fats.html
https://www.encyclopedia.com/html/W/Waller-F.asp

I don't know how reliable they are, but (according to google) there are too many sites for it to be a lie, IMO.

[pianote]

Bolcom has some cool stuff...check out his Eden's Garden Suite (especially III. The Serpent's Kiss.)

[musik_man]

I think anyone into Classical music needs to check out Charles Mingus.  He was the greatest of all Jazz bassists.  But the real reason you should look into him, is his talent for combining written music and improvisation.  His works tend to have improv sections sometimes in between written out sections or often over written out parts.