# Jazz/Classical Music



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Do you see these as being the two leading intellectual forms of music, and if so, do you have a preference for one over the other? If so, why?

I do see them as the leading intellectual forms of music but much prefer classical music because it is more structured, and I favor that.

You?


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

I don't know if these are the "two leading intellectual forms of music" (my knowledge of other music traditions is quite superficial) but I love both for different reasons. I like classical for the structural developments of the music, and I like the organic feel of a lot of jazz. It's like comparing a marble cathedral with a tree.
Also while both can be extremely sophisticated harmonically, I feel that jazz has made new amazing things with modern harmony that I don't find (unfortunately) in classical music. So both for different reasons.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

norman bates said:


> I don't know if these are the "two leading intellectual forms of music" (my knowledge of other music traditions is quite superficial) but I love both for different reasons. I like classical for the structural developments of the music, and I like the organic feel of a lot of jazz. It's like comparing a marble cathedral with a tree.
> Also while both can be extremely sophisticated harmonically, I feel that jazz has made new amazing things with modern harmony that I don't find (unfortunately) in classical music. So both for different reasons.


That's a great comparison you made there with the church and tree.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Prefer Classical over Jazz for sure. I don't find Jazz nearly as interesting.

This is a good video. Jazz is not fundamentally that different from Classical. They follow the same principles in general. Just different flavour.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Phil loves classical said:


> Prefer Classical over Jazz for sure. I don't find Jazz nearly as interesting.
> 
> This is a good video. Jazz is not fundamentally that different from Classical. They follow the same principles in general. Just different flavour.


I watched a bit of the video, it's quite interesting. It made sense though!


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## golfer72 (Jan 27, 2018)

i think of Classical as a Composers music and jazz more of a performers music. Jazz to me is more free form and improvisational. i love Classical and dont really listen to jazz. i like to learn about the composers lives and how their experiences may be heard in their music. Im fascinated by how composers all have their own styles even though some are similar


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## Axter (Jan 15, 2020)

Jazz is like a naughty rebellious child of classical parents.
One you silently love but still hope and wish to become more “classic-like”.
Thats how I feel.


Having said that, there are moments when I come back from home from work, and totally exhausted, will grab a Chet Baker Album and listen. However as a habit, before sleep I always listen to a classical piece, mostly a piano concerto while eating my cottage cheese before bed.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Do you see these as being the two leading intellectual forms of music, and if so, do you have a preference for one over the other? If so, why?
> 
> I do see them as the leading intellectual forms of music but much prefer classical music because it is more structured, and I favor that.
> 
> You?


What is the difference between Jazz and Classical music?


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## Clairvoyance Enough (Jul 25, 2014)

In its own way Jazz sounds more "structured" to me actually, which is why I struggle with it. Parker, Miles, Monk, Evans, Tatum - whoever it is, wholly distinct melodies and expositions always seem to lose their defining shapes and collapse into the same old patterns. And I feel that the nature of improvisation limits the possibilities of the narrative-style writing that I love in classical. 

I always hear that jazz is about freedom, but ten jazz solos across different albums by the same person sound much, much more similar to me than ten sonatas by classical composers. In premeditated music anything can happen at any time, any tangent the composer wants without having to worry about the boundary the other band members are expecting him to stay within. 

Even weird anything-can-happen type jazz like Bitches Brew seems to settle into a consistent "groove" where the details are strange and spontaneous but the overall narrative a bit repetitive, like an intuition that while there might be a shift, it won't be TOO dramatic of a shift, of the kind that would require premeditation to achieve. Something like Debussy's Jeux sounds way freer and more spontaneous than any jazz I have heard. Parts of the Art of Fugue even do.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Clairvoyance Enough said:


> In its own way Jazz sounds more "structured" to me actually, which is why I struggle with it. Parker, Miles, Monk, Evans, Tatum - whoever it is, wholly distinct melodies and expositions always seem to lose their defining shapes and collapse into the same old patterns. And I feel that the nature of improvisation limits the possibilities of the narrative-style writing that I love in classical.


What you're saying does not mean "more structured". It has to do with the fact that improvisation in classic jazz is based on the repetition of the chords underlying the head of the tune (the chorus), so the improviser knows what scales he has to use and the audience has a guide too. Improvising it's hard so there are limitations. In any case there are also examples of more open kind of improvisation (an extremely well known one is the Koln Concert)



Clairvoyance Enough said:


> I always hear that jazz is about freedom, but ten jazz solos across different albums by the same person sound much, much more similar to me than ten sonatas by classical composers. In premeditated music anything can happen at any time, any tangent the composer wants without having to worry about the boundary the other band members are expecting him to stay within.


I think that's because jazz improvisers tend to prefer to develop their own sound. That is reflected also in a greater originality and expressivity of tone compared to classical music. You don't have a Sydney Bechet or a Pee Russell or a Thelonious Monk or a Albert Ayler in classical music.



Clairvoyance Enough said:


> Even weird anything-can-happen type jazz like Bitches Brew seems to settle into a consistent "groove" where the details are strange and spontaneous but the overall narrative a bit repetitive, like an intuition that while there might be a shift, it won't be TOO dramatic of a shift, of the kind that would require premeditation to achieve. Something like Debussy's Jeux sounds way freer and more spontaneous than any jazz I have heard. Parts of the Art of Fugue even do.


I can hardly think of a less spontaneous music of the Art of the fugue, and I like it.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Before this thread gets too intellectual and goes over my head, could I just say that I enjoy both? And that I'm not sure where the boundary between them lies.

Thank you.


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## juliante (Jun 7, 2013)

If i had to choose it would be classical, due to the variety of the form; the depth of the repertoire and that it ultimately gives me a deeper and more profound experience. But i love jazz for the fact that i can enter a sublime listening experience within minutes of playing certain tracks - whereas in general there is a greater time commitment needed for me to get to that place when listening to a classical piece.


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## Mark Dee (Feb 16, 2021)

What happens if you're not intellectual? Asking for a friend ...:lol:


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Mark Dee said:


> What happens if you're not intellectual? Asking for a friend ...:lol:


Nothing wrong with that. There is lots of music that isn't intellectual and none the worse. My unsnobby side is a big fan of some Blues, Rock and old school Rap.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

I am not sure what is meant in the OP by, " leading intellectual forms of music".

But, with that caveat, from my view, they both have the things I look for in music in common with each other, and therefore, I am a fan of both. 

I am currently listening to more classical than jazz, but overall, I think I like them pretty much equally.

Also, let it be known, that I do not look at either form of music as a 'museum piece', so I am not comparing 18th, 19th and early 20th century classical, to early and mid 20th century jazz. I am always searching out new artists among both forms.

And let me also add, that a 3rd form of music that I put at, or close to to the same level of both classical and jazz, is avant-prog. Which has many things in common with both classical and jazz. It has the high level of musicianship, complexity, improvisation, dissonance, etc.


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## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

Captainnumber36 said:


> That's a great comparison you made there with the church and tree.


One can turn over a new leaf with either. :lol:


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## cybernaut (Feb 6, 2021)

It's like ice cream and pizza. Extremely different, but I love both.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

I started with classical music as a teenager in the early 1980s, but became very interested in jazz during my college years, and the late 1980s was a good time for a young person to be interested in jazz because I was able to catch some of the last of the great old jazz giants in concert such as Lionel Hampton, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Dizzy Gillespie, and Sun Ra:




























By that time they were elderly, but it was still something to see them in concert and they were all still on-point and Lionel Hampton had the young people up and dancing at the 1987 Newport Jazz Festival.

My own five minute thesis on how classical music and jazz are different would look to the religious and political foundations of these genres. While Classical is rooted in the Europe, Catholic Church and Gregorian Chant; Jazz is rooted in America, the Baptist and Pentecostal Churches, and in Gospel music. While Classical music is hierarchal with the power flowing from the composer and conductor just as if the composer were the divine liturgy and the conductor were some crown head of Europe. Jazz, on the other hand, is congregational with the power coming from the musicians who can bend the music and improvise on the spot just like a Pentecostal service where people might testify, speak in tongues, shout, and engage in various other forms of holy-rolling. And even long after the religious and political underpinnings have been forgotten and the music becomes wholly secular, the roots remain as part of the culture of the music.

Having said all that, a fair portion of cultural diffusion exists between Classical music and Jazz. Many great jazz artists have incorporated classical elements into their music. The Modern Jazz Quartet employed polyphony into their music, specifically citing Bach as their inspiration. The jazz drummer and big band leader, Gene Krupa, was interested in the musical shadings and orchestral colors of composers such as Debussy, Ravel, and Rimsky-Korsakov. Conversely, many great classical composers such as Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Bernstein, Debussy, Ravel, and many others have adopted some jazz elements into their music. And I read somewhere that when Herbert Von Karajan came to visit America he heard Louis Armstrong and his jazz men play and he said something like: "I never heard classical musicians play with excellent timing."

Around the age of 30 I started to listen to less and jazz and also pretty much declared my Jazz collection to be complete, but for a long time, Jazz remained the only genre to rival my interest in classical music.

Now that I'm in my 50s, I've become more and more heavily interested in Country/Western music which may seem strange for a city boy like me, native New New England, with politically liberal leanings; but I just think that Country music has a lot of heart-and-soul to it, and each song tells a story, almost like every symphony tells a story.

Then again, the human condition brings it all together anyway. I read that the great Jazz player, Charlie Parker, would go into bars and restaurants with his jazz buddies like Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Max Roach, and Charles Mingus; and he would go the juke box and play songs bu Hank Williams and other Country music artists of the day, and his friends would say to him: "Charlie, why are you playing this awful music?"

Parker would say: "It's in their heart."

And Parker also collaborated with classical musicians as he made an album called _Charlie Parker and Strings_. It's too bad that Parker was disabled by mental health problems, drug addiction, and died young. His musical genius and universal approach was a loss to the all genres.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Although Parker had initially envisioned a much more classically infused recording, his album with strings is more pop than classical, with Nelson Riddle styled arrangements of popular standards. Of course his soloing is excellent.

My own view is that jazz and classical have little to do with each other. While there are superficial similarities in harmonic sophistication, the basics of jazz, i.e. swing, improvisation, blues, are alien to classical music. And please don't talk about how Bach and other classical composers improvised ... while that is true the nature of the improvising of church organists and a jazz group are very different.

While in classical music improvisation was marginal, for jazz it is a central and defining stylistic attribute. The same is true for composed jazz. While it exists, I do not consider it a defining or important aspect of the music.

Jazz was originally a vernacular music and much later did notated music become part of the scene, mostly because of big bands. I also think that the quality of the musicians has suffered to the extent that the oral transmission has been replaced with university courses and a conservatory-like pedagogical process.

I worked as a professional jazz bassist for 20 years and also have a masters in music theory and composition, so I speak from experience about this issue. I am old enough to have learned how to play in the original fashion, i.e. playing with experienced jazz musicians and learning by doing. Years later I went to university but did not study jazz since I already knew how to play. I did meet and play with the products of that system, and could tell the difference.


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## gregorx (Jan 25, 2020)

Coach G said:


> Having said all that, a fair portion of cultural diffusion exists between Classical music and Jazz. Many great jazz artists have incorporated classical elements into their music. The Modern Jazz Quartet employed polyphony into their music, specifically citing Bach as their inspiration. The jazz drummer and big band leader, Gene Krupa, was interested in the musical shadings and orchestral colors of composers such as Debussy, Ravel, and Rimsky-Korsakov. Conversely, many great classical composers such as Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Bernstein, Debussy, Ravel, and many others have adopted some jazz elements into their music. And I read somewhere that when Herbert Von Karajan came to visit America he heard Louis Armstrong and his jazz men play and he said something like: "I never heard classical musicians play with excellent timing."


I think jazz and classical are close, kind of cousins. The instruments used by jazz players are the same instruments developed in Europe, the music came out of churches and dance halls, went through periods of development just like Classical ( New Orleans, Swing, Bop, Modal), and despite its improvisational nature, it really does follow the structure of classical composition: theme, variations (solos), restate theme.

Jazz is Europe meets Africa in the Americas, and it filtered back to Europe pretty quickly. There was a lot of interaction between Classical composers and American jazz musicians; classical composers were spending time in jazz clubs and musicians like Miles Davis and Bill Evans were listening to Debussy and Bartok and Coltrane was studying tone rows. Davis' _Sketches of Spain_, Brubeck's _Dialogues for Jazz Combo and Orchestra_, Shorter's _Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5_, Don Cherry's _Symphony for Improvisors_ are just a few examples of how the lines can be blurred.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

SanAntone said:


> Although Parker had initially envisioned a much more classically infused recording, his album with strings is more pop than classical, with Nelson Riddle styled arrangements of popular standards. Of course his soloing is excellent.
> 
> My own view is that jazz and classical have little to do with each other. While there are superficial similarities in harmonic sophistication, the basics of jazz, i.e. swing, improvisation, blues, are alien to classical music. And please don't talk about how Bach and other classical composers improvised ... while that is true the nature of the improvising of church organists and a jazz group are very different.
> 
> ...


Tend to agree, I do think the level of improvisation of Jazz compared to Classical is not close. And swing and blues are not in the blood of Classical. Classical is more conceptualized than Jazz, which limits the level of improvisation.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> ... And please don't talk about how Bach and other classical composers improvised ... while that is true the nature of the improvising of church organists and a jazz group are very different. ...


In what ways, specifically? Improvisation is what it is. The main difference I see is a structural one; in earlier eras it would probably be less "anything goes". Also I don't think improvisation was a "marginal" skill at all in the Baroque era. It was a required part of being a skilled musician.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

consuono said:


> In what ways, specifically? Improvisation is what it is. The main difference I see is a structural one; in earlier eras it would probably be less "anything goes". Also I don't think improvisation was a "marginal" skill at all in the Baroque era. It was a required part of being a skilled musician.


Improvisation in classical music is limited both in application and period. Improvisation is an integral defining aspect of jazz, without improvisation, jazz would not be jazz, whereas Baroque music has other stylistic defining aspects with or without improvisation.

Also, other than Classical period concerto cadenzas (which have since become written out), improvisation has not played any meaningful role in later styles of classical music. The closest comparison would be in the 20th century with chance music which involves improvisatory procedures - but, again, jazz has a specific rhythmic pulse, swing, and blues influences missing from classical music except as quotation.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> Improvisation in classical music is limited both in application and period. Improvisation is an integral defining aspect of jazz, without improvisation, jazz would not be jazz, whereas Baroque music has other stylistic defining aspects with or without improvisation.
> 
> Also, other than Classical period concerto cadenzas (which have since become written out), improvisation has not played any meaningful role in later styles of classical music. The closest comparison would be in the 20th century with chance music which involves improvisatory procedures - but, again, jazz has a specific rhythmic pulse, swing, and blues influences missing from classical music except as quotation.


Well improvisation in jazz would likewise be even more limited, seeing as how it very rarely takes into itself a kind of classical rigor and logic. Improvisation is essentially creating something from next to nothing, and earlier non-jazz musicians could probably do that with even more skill than we know today. It's true though that that skill died out with the rise of conservatories and recordings.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

consuono said:


> Well improvisation in jazz would likewise be even more limited, seeing as how it very rarely takes into itself a kind of classical rigor and logic. *Improvisation is essentially creating something from next to nothing*, and earlier non-jazz musicians could probably do that with even more skill than we know today. It's true though that that skill died out with the rise of conservatories and recordings.


The part I bolded is not relevant to jazz except in the total free style, which is a small sub-set.

Jazz improvisation is usually based on the "head" tune, traditionally this was a popular song but in later decades could be a original composition. The chord progression and melody were both used as springboards for improvisation. Some soloists were known more for improvising on the melodic content, more traditional stylists, while in later styles, bebop and beyond, were based more on improvising over the changes. There has been some group improvising referred to as "time, no changes," which is free style but with a definite pulse/swing.

Needless to say there is not one kind of jazz improvisation.

I will not address your comment about "rigor and logic" other than to say it exposes a lack of experience and knowledge of jazz improvisation.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> The part I bolded is not relevant to jazz except in the total free style, which is a small sub-set.
> 
> Jazz improvisation is usually based on the "head" tune, traditionally this was a popular song but in later decades could be a original composition. The chord progression and melody were both used as springboards for improvisation. Some soloists were known more for improvising on the melodic content, more traditional stylists, while in later styles, bebop and beyond, were based more on improvising over the changes. There has been some group improvising referred to as "time, no changes," which is free style but with a definite pulse/swing.
> 
> Needless to say there is not one kind of jazz improvisation.


And Bach et al did pretty much the same thing with chorale melodies a la the Orgelbüchlein. At other times even into the 19th century players would improvise all on the spot. It's still creating something from a relatively bare-bones beginning. Bach improvised a fugue for Frederick the Great, after all...which was an improvisation requiring rigor and logic and judged using something other than strictly individual criteria.


> I will not address your comment about "rigor and logic" other than to say it exposes a lack of experience and knowledge of jazz improvisation.


 OK.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I love a wide variety of music. Classical is my main music but there are many jazz greats who I listen to often and really love. I wouldn't know how to compare jazz and classical music. They appeal to different parts of me, perhaps, but with both the appeal is purely musical. The same might be true of folk music to some extent. I also enjoy a fair bit of rock and rap and even pop and even revere some of it. But, except where it comes close to jazz, I am not sure the appeal is purely musical. There is something about the attitude that is important to me and the importance of the beat is somehow extra-musical. I loathe rock music with classical pretentions or even jazz pretensions.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

consuono said:


> Well improvisation in jazz would likewise be even more limited, seeing as how it very rarely takes into itself a kind of classical rigor and logic. Improvisation is essentially creating something from next to nothing, and earlier non-jazz musicians could probably do that with even more skill than we know today. It's true though that that skill died out with the rise of conservatories and recordings.


Have you explored Anthony Braxton's music?


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I'd like to see more discussion about this. I really prefer Classical these days.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I'm bumping this thread because I'm interested in if folks really think Classical in particular is "sophisticated" and if so why?


I love it because it appeals to my mind on a higher level, and I'm not exactly sure why. I think the melodies are more sophisticated and refined.


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