Modern jazz?

[Olie]

Today i listened to jazz properly for the first time (mainly miles davis). Ended up listening for hours without realising, feels like i've found an old friend. I'm curious does anyone know any modern type jazz with a smooth electronic sound? There's this sound of modern jazz i can imagine that would be my favourite genre if i found it but i'm not sure if it exists... weird request but there you go.

I imagine it would sound something like this Kool & The Gang song:


Tried searching through some Nu/Electronic Jazz but can't find anything like i'm imagining. Need some artists to search through...

 

[DjPolair]

Grandiose song. Love it. This 4 sure is gonna be one of my summer soundtracks.

You might like this one as well based on your taste.

 

[Olie]

Grandiose song. Love it. This 4 sure is gonna be one of my summer soundtracks.

You might like this one as well based on your taste.

That's what i'm looking for instrumentation wise and it sounds good but it hasn't got that jazz feel, feels repetitive and predictable. Still good to listen to though.

 

[Pumpthrust]

Though I'm mostly a bebop/hardbop/swing head, here are some artists/bands worth checking out

Ronnie Jordan
Jaco Pastorius
Weather Report
Charlie Hunter
The Drumheadz
Modern Jazz Quartet
Mahavishnu Orchestra
Victor Wooten
Bela Fleck

 

[bandcoach]

which miles davis albums/songs? knowing that I can then set you on the right path

in the meantime check out ronnie laws, dave grusin, spyro gyra, earth wind and fire

 

[Olie]

which miles davis albums/songs? knowing that I can then set you on the right path

in the meantime check out ronnie laws, dave grusin, spyro gyra, earth wind and fire

I listened to "Kind Of Blue" strait through along with a load of random tracks i found. Earth wind and fire are good in the right mood but their tracks almost feel disco to me. Checked out the rest of those artists briefly and Ronnie Laws was my favourite out of what i heard.

Found this in related videos to Ronnie Jordan and it was pretty good:



but still not scratching the itch lol.

Listening through this Ronnie Laws album while i write:

 

[bandcoach]

maybe look at wynton marsalis hothouse flowers and j mood albums; what you describe in terms of Kind of blue is known as cool jazz

 

[Olie]

maybe look at wynton marsalis hothouse flowers and j mood albums; what you describe in terms of Kind of blue is known as cool jazz

I can't find J Mood anywhere to listen to, got Hothouse flowers downloading to see what that's like. *Edit: i looked it up and it was Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov who wrote flight of the bumblebee. Sounds like a pretty intense song to try and play.

 

[Olie]

Jazz seems to be dead, can't find any big artists of this decade...

This track is kind of cool:


Could be a interesting idea to try and infuse the kind of jazz i'm imagining into my instrumentals.

 

[Pumpthrust]

Jazz seems to be dead, can't find any big artists of this decade...

Just because you're not being spoonfed a genre doesn't mean its "dead". It means you got to put a bit more effort in finding the good stuff.
As far as new relevant jazz, there's:
The Alex Skolnik Trio
The Drumheadz
Norah Jones
Scott Bradlee
Will Downing
Regina Carter
Robert Glasper (who won a Grammy a year or so ago for best RnB Album...dude is a classically trained jazz pianist)
Esperanza Spalding (baaaad multi-instrumentalist who beat out fuccin Justin Bieber for the Best New Artist Grammy a couple years ago)

 

[Olie]

maybe look at wynton marsalis hothouse flowers and j mood albums; what you describe in terms of Kind of blue is known as cool jazz

Listened to all of Hothouse flowers today and it was good but sounds so dated. I know it shouldn't matter but it takes something out of the listening for me. The other album in comparison (pressure sensitive) is "dated" but doesn't feel dated to me, if you know what i mean.

Just because you're not being spoonfed a genre doesn't mean its "dead". It means you got to put a bit more effort in finding the good stuff.
As far as new relevant jazz, there's:
The Alex Skolnik Trio
The Drumheadz
Norah Jones
Scott Bradlee
Will Downing
Regina Carter
Robert Glasper (who won a Grammy a year or so ago for best RnB Album...dude is a classically trained jazz pianist)
Esperanza Spalding (baaaad multi-instrumentalist who beat out fuccin Justin Bieber for the Best New Artist Grammy a couple years ago)

Thanks for the list, will check them out.

 

[Pumpthrust]

Listened to all of Hothouse flowers today and it was good but sounds so dated. I know it shouldn't matter but it takes something out of the listening for me. The other album in comparison (pressure sensitive) is "dated" but doesn't feel dated to me, if you know what i mean.

If you're gonna listen to jazz, get used to things sounding "dated". Don't expect to hear any synth leads and gratuitous effects, just pure musicality. Thats the beauty of the genre--not any scrub with a two year old laptop and a pirated copy of FL-Studio can do it.

 

[Olie]

If you're gonna listen to jazz, get used to things sounding "dated". Don't expect to hear any synth leads and gratuitous effects, just pure musicality. Thats the beauty of the genre--not any scrub with a two year old laptop and a pirated copy of FL-Studio can do it.

Um, so... why can't you have both "synth leads and gratuitous effects" and "pure musicality" do the synths somehow taint the musicality... I'm confused.

Thats the beauty of the genre--not any scrub with a two year old laptop and a pirated copy of FL-Studio can do it.

That seems nothing to brag about, i think the wider the availability and ease of a genre to make the more creative individuals will get a chance to make it. I think your attitudes a bit off. To be fair also, any scrub with a 2 year old laptop can research jazz music theory online for free and learn it that way...

 

[bandcoach]

I think you miss the point, Ollie.

Jazz requires a lot of thought, practice and dedication before you can begin to make new material - some say that jazz is a journey not a job and if you are looking for quick answers with jazz you just may be looking in the wrong place.

sure ii-V-I is something you can find on-line and maybe snaffle and turn into something that generates a few sniffs from others who are looking for something new, but

jazz structure is very different to what we hear in the pop charts.

ever wonder why those tunes tend to be 8 or 9 minutes long? it is because the solo (the improvised bit in the middle) is an evolved journey that takes time to start and even more time to achieve flight.

most jazz tunes follow this structure:

statement of theme
soloist 1
soloist 2
soloist 3
soloist 4
soloist 5
restatement of theme

note that there may be more or less of the soloists: it depends on the leaders vision of the track

it is also possible that between soloists there is a small restatement of the theme by the soloist or the ensemble as a signal that the current solo is finished

----

based on your desire to hear electronic stuff happening, you may want to view Miles Davis's B!tches Brew instead

​

which then leads you to following through the careers of most notably Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea, John McLaughlin, Larry Young through their various efforts in the 70's and 80's

add the brecker brothers, steely dan, return forever, weather report, Dean Parks, Rick Derringer, Elliott Randall, Michael Omartian, Larry Carlton, Lee Ritenour, Tom Scott and you have a wide range of the jazz-pop crossover musicians of that period

you may also be interested in the following

​

and the 2nd part which is linked at youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTVbb6w5Gd0

 

[Olie]

"most jazz tunes follow this structure:

statement of theme
soloist 1
soloist 2
soloist 3
soloist 4
soloist 5
restatement of theme"

And why can't a more accessible structure to help people understand jazz be the verses as soloists and have a chorus which is the theme statement at the beginning and end. I'm not saying i'll be able to fully reproduce a jazz track and somehow infuse it with hip hop perfectly while maintaining "everything jazz". I just think i would love the jazz "vibe" over a track, the way it moves and feels. I'm willing to put in whatever time it would take to learn the theory and practise around it because overall it would just make me a better musician, even if the track sounds simple to you or "not jazz" because i haven't gone on some epic journey i'm not going to be concerned as long as i recreate how i feel when i'm listening to jazz.

The fact is Hip Hop isn't in itself a genre of music, it borrows from everything else. So i'm just trying to find a sound i like that can influence my music and if i by some miracle brought a form of jazz (however contorted) to a large listening audience, would you complain?

I feel like i've gone off topic...

I think my over arching point was that i'm looking for influence for my music not strict dictatorship of what i should do. If i happen to try and make Hip Hop influenced by jazz and fall in love with it and find something that works then i'll probably spend my life devoted to it, if that answers your preaching. Maybe i'm still misunderstanding...

Thank you for the links, i like what i've heard of that album.

An analogy to music evolving might be appropriate here:

It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. . .
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.

- Charles Darwin

 

[bandcoach]

I wasn't dictating, more explaining

how you want to interpret the structural conception is down to you

the tunes that deviate from the expected are the ones that are more interesting but not necessarily more successful - if you deny your audiences expectations, they find it hard to follow what you are doing - just ask Bob Dylan or Miles every time he changed his stylistic direction -both alienated their existing audiences but generated new audiences at the same time - for you, you need to decide if the new direction/interpretation is going to work for you and your audience (real or intended)

 

[DigitalKillaz]

broken beat scene... 98 - 2008... fused everything that came before and updated...




the scene is over now but the sound is still being progressed if you know where to look...

 

[DigitalKillaz]

2 improvisers that emerged from the scene...