(My usual keyboard is acting up, so I'm on another computer and bored without my usual files and setup, therefore this thread.)

Does anybody here like jazz? If so, why, which genres do you like, which songs, and why? Does anybody hate jazz? If so, why? (Maybe we can find some jazz you like in this thread.)

Let me start it off by seeing what you think about this song:

Soul-Leo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2C2ylodUwU

I like this one. Surprisingly, it's played by a lady on a flute. It has a lively pace, a cheerful, clean sound, nice instrument (flute), and a rockish piano bass riff. I think the genre would be considered bebop.

Post some jazz song that you like or dislike.

Thanks for the contribution!

I think it's somewhat like jazz because of the horn (trumpet?), and it's mellow like smooth jazz, but I wouldn't quite label it jazz. That song reminds me of this other song, also not quite jazz, that is soft with a saxophone, which my ex-girlfriend liked. She thought it was sexy. (Hmm. I know when to put that one on!) I thought it was reasonably good but it didn't really grab me as great:

Love Theme (From "Blade Runner")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0COq9xufZc

The following is one song to which I was listening quite a bit a few months ago in the 2Q1C days when I was hanging out on this site. I didn't listen to it while playing chess (I don't listen to *any* music while playing chess) but I listened to it a lot while studying chess. It's lively and clever, so it reminds me how one must think fast in chess and nimbly keep sidestepping traps while at the same time finding clever continuations.

Deep Fry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpzyDJ0jT44

I think this would be considered jazz because Howard Roberts is a jazz guitarist, but technically the structure is blues with a pop-rock feel. I tend to like livelier songs, but I pretty much like anything tasteful and well-written.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD1Np9DpjY0

Take the A Train

played by Oscar Peterson Trio

Thanks for your contribution!

With "Take the A Train" we're on the topic of jazz standards now, which I've recently been starting to get into. That's an interesting topic in itself. That version you posted is an unusual version of that song I haven't heard before, I first heard that song most commonly at one Starbucks that played selections from their own Starbucks jazz CDs. They used to play that song, "The Work Song," and "Comin' Home Baby" a lot. The version of "Take the A Train" you posted is almost not even recognizable to me since the Starbucks version I heard was something more like this Duke Ellington version, which I've heard elsewhere, too:

Take The A Train
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MENQyu4D7Ig

However, the version you posted has a nice jazz sound, especially when it speeds up in the middle (also an unusual touch).

Thanks for mentioning Oscar Peterson, too. The following is my favorite song with him, in this case one on which he collaborated with the vibes player Milt Jackson. There is everything good about this song, in my opinion: fast pace, pretty vibes, simple (blues) structure, and very cool bass intro:

Reunion Blues (Remastered)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DtA-aEvVgs

OF COURSE IT CAN BE CONSIDERED AS JAZZ WHAT ELSE WOULD YOU CALL IT?

Me?

Yes, but it took me years to get into it. I guess the biggest reason I got more into jazz recently is I began to get tired of all the years of repetitious pop and rock from the radio, which had limited musical interest due to too simple chords and too simple scales. Also, such popular music became dated quickly, mostly because of the vocals. Vocal styles give away the decade of a recording pretty readily. Jazz is more timeless since it's usually instrumental, no vocals and no subject matter, so it's often hard to figure out how old it is. Also, whereas I disliked a high percentage of pop-rock radio songs, the vast majority of jazz songs were very listenable, even if seldom reaching the exciting highs of the best pop-rock songs, so I could put on a jazz station and not get irritated at poor songwriting, lyrics about topics of no interest to me, or some screaming singer trying to get everybody's attention.

The following is an example of what I mean by avoiding "too simple scales": when this sax player (Paul Desmond) starts improvising in the middle, he's using some exotic middle eastern scale with interesting notes that you rarely hear in any radio song, which gives the song a lot more interest, in my opinion, and makes it stand out:

Paul Desmond - Take Ten
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI7hArFCiR8

jazz doesn't float my boat in the slightest, to me it just sounds like some dweeb letting the air of a balloon.

You mean because horns are used? That's a good point. Actually I don't really like the sound of horns much, especially sax, although if the melody's good then I don't much care what instrument is being used, which is why I still like the sax songs above. The instruments whose sound I like the most in jazz are electric guitar, vibes, synthesizer, flute, and clarinet. For example, the following is a great jazz fusion (= jazz + rock) song, in my opinion. Note the cool bass intro, the fast pace, the guitar and synthesizer playing the lead parts, the exotic scales on the synthesizer, and the hand percussion (congas and cowbell).

Al Di Meola - Flight Over Rio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qmIXVOEUKo

 "Take A Train" is such a standard, everybody has done a version of it. 

So true. The only thing I don't personally like about "Take the A Train" is not that so many people have covered it, but that the song is a little too simple for my taste. Other jazz standards that strike me that way are "Satin Doll," "The Work Song," "Caravan," and "Freedom Jazz Dance." It's just a matter of personal taste, though. There are some jazz standards or near jazz standards that I love, almost no matter who does them, and those are simple too, but they have a much more pop-rock sound that I happen to like. Such songs include "Mercy Mercy Mercy," "Listen Here," and "Watermelon Man."

For example, here's an old guy with glasses with just a nylon string guitar who puts out a very respectable version of "Mercy Mercy Mercy" even when singing it:

Cover of "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" by the Buckinghams
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDG4RtGBwS0

...and here's another guy alone with only an electric guitar who plays a great little funky jazz version of it...

Mercy, Mercy, Mercy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qRU5jWDUJA

...and here's the original jazz version, from 1966, if you haven't heard it...

Cannonball Adderley Quintet Live 1966 Mercy, Mercy, Mercy !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQprFhWYr0s

...which became a pop hit one year later in 1967 when The Buckinghams put lyrics to it, which is the version most people know, at least if they like '60s oldies...

The Buckinghams - "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkslGrRExcQ

A few more made-at-home versions that are very good:

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Mercy Mercy Mercy Rubens Mariano e Diogo Pinheiro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubf-E1qj24M
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Mercy Mercy Mercy - Joe Zawinul - Piano - Pianist - Peter Hoehn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FJ_SLLzWX4

It's hard to go wrong with this song. For me, something about the structure or chords of this song makes it inherently appealing, so much so that almost any cover of it turns out well.

("Ahunk Ahunk")

Good to hear your contribution, Mr. Cote! I haven't heard that one before. (That would qualify as a funky blues.) Any blues-structured song like that comes across as quite decent since you can't go wrong with the blues chord progression. I'm not that much into funk, but otherwise I think it's quite decent.

I'll bet it's from the late '70s since it has that characteristic electric piano sound of that era. It reminds me of this one from the '70s with the same kind of electric piano parts:

Mahavishnu Orchestra - Miles Beyond
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8Fboivna0o

This one is quite dissonant in parts, and the rhythm is tricky, too, so this is definitely one that would take a long time to start to like. Very challenging, and I think you'd have to get to know it well first. However, I did eventually get to like it quite a bit for various reasons: the mysterious intro drone, the rockish low chords, the syncopated electric piano fills, the very appealing and interesting pizzicato violin lead, and the passionate guitar lead. This is another good example of what I mean by exotic notes, though in this case maybe gone overboard in dissonant note choices. Even my jazz guitar playing friend didn't like the melody on this one, which involves a #4 note, possibly the ugliest note that exists of the 12 possible note choices.

Keep 'em coming, folks.

The only musical genre of which I'm aware that doesn't have (much) improv is classical. I don't have much of an opinion on the matter: of course if everything is planned in advance then it can be made more complicated, more technically challenging, more interesting, and with low risk of mistakes, but it won't be as much fun for the musicians to play.

By the way, back on the topic of jazz standards, here is a list of the top 1,000 jazz standards, in descending order of popularity, spread across ten pages:

http://www.jazzstandards.com/compositions/index.htm

I'm not an expert in jazz, but since right off the top of my head I can name several jazz songs that are commonly covered that aren't on this list ("Cast Your Fate to the Wind," "Listen Here," "Coral," "Smooth Operator," "Peanuts Theme," "Mas Que Nada," "Ballin' the Jack," "This Masquerade," "Breezin'," "Soul-Leo"), that suggests that the list of commonly covered jazz songs must be about double that size, or 2,000 songs, maybe more. As for Dixieland jazz songs, which are included in this online list, those are much fewer in number, so that the number of Dixieland jazz standards is surprisingly short. I got to know most of those songs after listening to only a few Dixieland albums, because each Dixieland album almost invariably had at least a few of those standards on it. ("Tiger Rag," "When the Saints Go Marching In," "St. James Infirmary," "Bugle Call Rag," etc.)

Unsure if I should me ashamed that my tastes are more commercial in this case ...

Pretty song. This is just a casual thread so no need to worry about such things. I would definitely categorize that one as pop genre.

By the way, back to the topic of horns in jazz...

I read that the reason jazz uses horns so much is purely historical: after the U.S. Civil War there were a lot of band instruments around from marching bands during the war, so such instruments were very inexpensive, so the poor black musicians frequently bought and used those to play their native African music, which evidently had a lot of syncopation and tricky rhythms. Musical recordings did not exist back then so by the time recording technology arrived, the original African songs had been lost, and only the horn versions were left, which was basically jazz.

One sax player I contacted online had a web page saying how he loved the sound of the sax ever since he was a kid. For the most part I never cared for the sound of the sax, though. I didn't grow up in a household where the father played jazz record albums, unlike a lot of other kids my age, and I associated the saxophone with jazz and considered it just one of those "other" instruments that didn't interest me because they usually weren't used in the pop-rock songs I heard and liked. I did notice that one local rock band had a sax player, though, which meant they could play a lot of songs that most rock bands could not since an appreciable number of pop-rock songs used sax, which I hadn't realized before, so I began to appreciate that instrument more.

Some songs really need the sustain and expressiveness of sax, though. Here's one sax song I really liked for a while like that: I can't imagine any other instrument playing the melody anywhere near as well. This is not a jazz song, though it is a sax instrumental:

Bloomfield, Kooper, Stills - Super Session - 09 - Harvey's Tune
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUT_NQ4tbTI

This book is chuck full of info on song structure and the history of the songs.                                                          

  I'll find it tomorrow but, I have a tune called "Take 5,6,7" Yes, the 1st verse IS "Take 5". The 2nd verse, they s-t-r-e-c-h the melody to 6/8. The 3rd verse, they stretch it to 7/4.

Interesting. I gotta hear that one.

Jazz is known for pushing the boundaries of what we are used to hearing in commercial pop-rock. I mentioned earlier how exotic notes are much more common in jazz, but so are unusual time signatures like those you mention. For those unfamiliar with the jazz song "Take 5", that is a jazz standard that is in 5/4 time, which is where it got its name. I estimate that 99% of all songs you hear on any pop or rock station are in 4/4 time (by far the most common) or 3/4 time (pretty uncommon), or some derivative of those (e.g., 6/8, 2/4), so when you encounter a song that is something like 5/4 or 7/4, that is pretty unique, enough to take notice of the song just because of that.

Here's the original version of "Take 5" for those who haven't heard it:

Dave Brubeck - Take Five
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmDDOFXSgAs

I definitely like this one. It's lively, has nice chords, a unique understated sax style, and a slightly mysterious sound. Once I was trying to jam with a jazz guitarist (I used to play guitar) and he asked me if I knew "Take 5", and started to play it. To my astonishment, I recognized it immediately, even though I'd never heard the name before! Apparently it had been played in so many places in the background while I was growing up, such as in shopping malls and probably TV ads, that I learned it even without realizing it. In later years I was to discover I had subconsciously learned other songs the same way, especially "Summer Samba" and "Lollipops and Roses," whose names I had never known before.

Jazz also pushes the boundaries of chords. Whereas most pop-rock songs you hear use 3-note chords (especially majors and minors), jazz normally uses 4-note chords (especially major 7ths and minor 7ths) or higher. Jazz also likes to push the boundaries of instruments, though not as obviously as notes, chords, and time signatures.

An interesting exercise is to try to think of pop-rock songs that have 5/4 time signature. They're rare, and I have an advantage because I've collected names of such songs over the years, but the most common ones off the top of my head are the following. If you try to count along with these songs with your usual "1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4..." you'll find that the chords and lyrics aren't landing where you expect them to land, which means you're using the wrong cycle length (4 instead of 5).

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Living In The Past-Jethro Tull
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YymGJKhGgY
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Everything's Alright - Jesus Christ Superstar (1970 Version)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Vx8KpqTVCk
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Emerson, Lake and Palmer - ERUPTION (Tarkus)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqajTLTYvlU