Jazz and Metal

[The Black Prince]

I had an interesting experience a couple of weeks ago. My wife and I had a moment to relax - fairly rare of late - so I decided to put some music on. The first thing I slipped into the disc changer was Ornette Coleman's The Shape of Jazz to Come. By the time we'd hit the 45 second mark of "Eventually" (in the middle of a solo that sounds like every Kerry King lead played simultaneously on an alto sax), my wife looked at me: "I'm sorry babe, but this is too much right now, can we listen to something a little more relaxing?"

It was an excellent reminder of just how violent this music really was and is. While metal has certainly borrowed some from jazz idiom, it has always seemed to me that there is a much more important point of intersection between metal and modal and free jazz, a certain shared honesty and a fearless conceptual selflessness that allows the engagement with reality to lead the music (and musicians) in violent, unsettling or (on the surface) unpleasant directions. It's not just the willingness to live dangerously though, it's that it's done with authentic sincerity, rather than the self-consciously ironic 'subversion' that is the two-belts-and-a-ballad currency of the hipster audition.

 

[skeptik]

I don't really have anything to say other than I agree with the general observation. I was actually reading a short story the other day that had me thinking of this subject, which is an odd coincidence.

 

[Jimm O)))]

The Shape of Jazz to Come is an insanely good album. Although, I don't own it (yet), I've heard it a number of times and it only gets better with each listen. Really creative stuff, even by the standards of today.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Another good post...I like.

 

[Addo_Of_Nex]

I've always seen jazz's influence on metal along the same lines. When listening to earlier free jazz artists, the level of immense unpredictability and spastic nature of the music has a vibe much similar to that of nearly every sub genre of metal.

I would have been just as well off posting "I agree", but fuck it. Good post, by the way.

 

[MasterOLightning]

You can find plenty of dark and chaotic elements before free jazz comes around. Benny Goodman's "Sing Sing Sing" becomes increasingly dark as it progresses, reflecting growing unrest before WWII, and a lot of Duke Ellington's work speaks to stormy racial conditions. Ellington used a lot of dissonance and minor key in his compositions.

 

[Catastrophic]

I keep on thinking about jazz's connection with metal every time I listen to Black Sabbath's War Pig.

 

[challenge_everything]

The OP sounds like Scourge of God come back from the dead

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Only with a personal aspect which was lacking from SOG.

 

[Cythraul]

It very clearly is SoG (the same guy as Falconsbane/Planetary Eulogy).

 

[ShredHeadJHJ]

Good to see some love for Jazz here. I've been listening to Hiromi Uehara like crazy lately. I need to check out this Ornette Coleman album.

 

[SouthernTrendkill]

I'm no big fan of jazz but I agree with people who say that metal is like a new jazz. I mean when you look at stuff like Cryptopsy, there can be no argument. Metal has a musical focus that nothing in the rock era can even touch, except maybe post-rock. There's a lot of complex music out there, but metal is musical on a different level. It's musical like jazz. Not ALL metal of course, mainly death and black.

 

[challenge_everything]

Are you comparing black metal to jazz? Hardly

 

[panzerfaust666]

Metal and jazz could be compared, but only certain aspects.

I myself am a large fan of Jazz as well.

 

[SouthernTrendkill]

Are you comparing black metal to jazz? Hardly

Good argument. :Smug:

They both buck the verse-chorus structure and are more focused on music, instrumentation, and style than on lyrics. Not all forms of jazz and black metal, of course, but the ones I'm talking about.

 

[panzerfaust666]

yeah I was thinking the same actually

 

[Jimm O)))]

Good to see some love for Jazz here. I've been listening to Hiromi Uehara like crazy lately. I need to check out this Ornette Coleman album.

Hiromi is awesome. I picked up Time Control late last year and I still listen to it quite a bit. She's going to be playing the Playboy Jazz Festival this year. Difinitely going to have to try and make that.

 

[BlackMetalWhiteGuy]

I don't listen to a lot of jazz and don't have any on my playlist either, although I do appreciate certain forms. Overall, I definitely see the relationship between some of the more structured types of jazz with some of the more progressive, technical styles of metal. I appreciate both for their focus on musical integrity, rather than on their appeal to an uneducated populace. Unfortunately, I still feel a bit out of the loop when listening to a lot of jazz, especially free jazz, because it seems a bit too random for my taste. I'm really not a fan of the "jam" style, or of "letting go," as I'm one of those who strives for organization and architecture in my own pieces.

Trying to write jazz frustrates the crap out of me though, because I'm not a fan of chromatics and I really have no concept of how to use a lot of those weird chords

 

[challenge_everything]

Good argument. :Smug:

They both buck the verse-chorus structure and are more focused on music, instrumentation, and style than on lyrics. Not all forms of jazz and black metal, of course, but the ones I'm talking about.

Simply because it's not a verse/chorus structure and composition-focussed, it's like jazz? I would accept a comparison between classical and black metal but the jazz structures, particularly the odd time signatures, are far more predominant in death metal than BM.

 

[mutantllama]

Is it me, or does Testament seem to have a few jazzy riffs?