Jazz? What pops into your mind?

Miles. He’s a hero for me, and people think I sound like him when I play with my harmon mute.

Scat.
I really like jazz.

Technical musical brilliance of American masters, they are too many to name. An acquired taste to be sure, but when you really get it, you have gone to musical heaven. And if you hate it, that’s okay to admit it too.

Jazz? What pops into my mind? So much that my head might explode. As @dannyc too many masters to mention. So many instruments and so many masters of each, soloists, trios, quartets, etc, so many great jazz vocalists too, masters of that instrument, the voice, so many kinds of jazz, so many jazz musicians capable of so many moods.

Heh, I live in Utah so the first thing that popped into my mind was basketball.

I like jazz music. I have to be in the mood for improv.

Immediately, this.

Edit: But secondly, this.

90s movies with soft sax music in the background.

Ah, the details, always the details…

1. Love it.
2. I could not begin to tell you why I love it. No one in my family listened to jazz when I was growing up. Hilariously, I think my first clues about which jazz artists were interesting came from episodes of The Cosby Show.
3. I like both, but for different moods. I could never study to Coltrane’s Ascension, for example.
4. I am somewhat musical, but I would never try jazz – I just don’t think I could produce the sounds I like in it.
5. Bad jazz music is not jazz music, in my opinion. Like that awful easy listening stuff that you sometimes hear in office buildings. Also, I loathe Diana Krall.

Coltrane.

love it!!! and crazy jazz musicians. I know some of the best. The last of the old school,

I first learned to play saxophone in the 5th grade, and I still play. I always liked jazz both as a player and listener, and spent most of my life playing in one swing band or another. My all-time favorite genre of recordings is hit big bands of the late 1930s (Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, etc)—long before I was born. From a jazz standpoint some of these have the purity of form that Bach or Mozart does in classical music.

Any recording of Louis Armstrong is good to hear and never wrong. Louie invented scat singing and arguably invented modern jazz as well in the 1920s. Then there’s be-bop with important early artists of the 40s and 50s like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis. And west-coast “cool” jazz of the 50s and 60s typified by the Dave Brubeck Quartet.

Some of the newer stuff (last 20 years?) is “bad jazz.” Kenny G & David Sanborn, both high-register saxophonists, sound whiny and syrupy to me, even if technically excellent. I don’t like fusion of jazz with rock, reggae, or most other genres, though admittedly musical styles will inevitably overlap and co-evolve. The heart and soul of jazz is that ineffable feeling of “swing” that just seems lacking in some newer jazz I hear on the radio or internet. Good jazz should never sound like elevator music.

Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, Cyrus Chestnut, Duke Ellington, and many more.
I don’t care for the fast frantic jazz, but, otherwise, I like it very much.

The first thing that pops into my mind is turning it off… and turning the Bluegrass back on.

I for some reason haven’t been able to latch on to it completely. I have my Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis flashes, but nothing as soul ripping as old rock and roll. Symphony can also generate great release. My main love is pure untainted music away from the influences of western culture, and it happens to be Thai pop and some Brazilian and Latin music
For Jazz, I have to have a great female presence along, otherwise I become quickly annoyed by it. It is definitely something we can call American and culture.

What pops into mind? The music itself. While my dad championed famous rock and pop groups from the sixties and seventies, he was also a big fan of Jazz. Heard a lot of it as a kid and teen.
Not my style much, but I certainly don’t mind it, either. It’s good music.

John Coltrane was the first thing I thought of.
I really like jazz.. I need to listen to it more.

The best and worst of it, Louis Armstrong as far as best goes, Kenny G as far as worst goes.

Personally, I find jazz depressing.

I like it and I’m listening to this right now. I came across jazz by accident and liked it from the start. I prefer smooth jazz, it is very mellow and relaxing.

It is the one genre of music I can’t appreciate. I’ve tried. I like Ragtime, but don’t listen to it often.

Thelonius Monk, Miles, Coltrane, ...all ear candy.
My dad had a lot of dixieland jazz and I soaked up a lot of the improvisational spirit from that.
To my ear bad jazz is played when folks mistake rambling around for the loose structure allowed, but ya gotta have some focus and direction y’know?

When I think of jazz, I think of someone playing a saxophone.
I don’t like it or hate it, I listen to it sometimes.
No, I’m not musical.

Muddy Waters and his black cat bones.
On the 7th hour, on the 7th day, on the 7th month
The 7 doctors say
He was born for good luck and that you’ll see
I got 7 hundred dollars
Don’t you mess with me

As a jazz enthusiast it’s hard to meet (in the real world I mean, not online) many people who share the joys of jazz. Not very many co-workers, for instance, or my extended family listen to jazz. Kids surely aren’t aware of it.

Pre-WWII swing bands were a hot cultural phenomenon for about 15 years, capturing what today would be all the key demographics for teens & young adults. Then swing slowly faded away to just a niche genre today, its demise speeded in large part by the rise of baby-boomer rock & roll. Ironically rock descended from r&b, whose roots are in jazz.

I’m sure jazz will never die away completely in live clubs or recordings. But in 2011 jazz is no longer popular among the masses, judging by the proportion of radio station formats, cd sales, and publications pertaining to jazz. Jazz musicians and their fans will, sadly, always find themselves in a minority within pop music. Probably the same is true of classical music. Perhaps future generations will rediscover jazz and create a revival of “neo-classical jazz.”

My parents listened mostly to music on the radio (all AM back then). A typical format was a mix of sappy ballads and peppy swing tunes, mostly by popular artists of the time. Most of this music wouldn’t have been labeled “jazz” at the time, but might be today looking back.

Take Five. Love. But not always in the mood for it (same goes for all genres). It’s not as predictable as pop music. There are some pretty catchy tunes. Good musicians play with passion that is lacking in a lot of mainstream music these days. You really have to know something about music to play good jazz and I respect the talent, skill, and dedication to perfecting a craft not to mention the creativity involved. I don’t like improv as much as some people, but I appreciate it. I really have to be in the mood for improv to really enjoy it. I’ve played a couple instruments in my time. I probably know more than the average layperson about music but I also know a lot of people that know way more than I do. Hope that helps!

My favorite kind of jazz is the light dinner jazz such as the Italians do so well at the Olive Garden restaurants and of course the Latino jazz is magical along with some good jammin’ sessions. I have a better appreciation of how music gets in the bones in such a unique way in the insatiably jazzy folks. I am thinking here of Cuban jazz-....Say Callo54….

I like the more modern jazzy renditions of taking the old classic crooner stuff to a new place. Michael Buble and Diana Krall come to mind, for examples.

Billie Holiday.

Q: Jazz? What pops into your mind?

Answer: A tortuous experience in a stalled elevator.

@Mantralantis Yuck – elevator is most decidedly not jazz. ok, as decided by me, but still.

@dappled_leaves – Yes, in most cases it’s not “elevator”, Dappled One. But, believe it or not, I have heard Jazz in an elevator before. And it was torture for me. And, artistically, I feel it has no direction and is too free like some Liberal Extremists out there.

@Anyone – Name me three things that you can still enjoy doing while listening to Jazz. And it better not be during dinner!

Reading.
Doing the dishes.
Playing with model trains.
Lots more.

Of course you can still enjoy just about anything. It’s the act of listening to jazz itself that is enjoyable.
Dissing an entire music genre. Not cool.

@Mantralantis I have no problem with you not liking jazz… I just don’t like to hear people say “I don’t like jazz”, and then refer to elevator music as an example. I had no idea that you had experienced a damaging elevator + jazz incident.

There are certainly some things I can’t do while listening to jazz. I can’t study or read anything intently. Maybe a magazine. As @sneezedisease mentioned, I can wash dishes or do things that require the attention of my hands, but not my brain. My brain needs to be paying attention to the music.

@sneezedisease -

“Dissing an entire music genre. Not cool.”

Yeah, I’m sure everbody likes Jazz. Go sneeze a disease for someone who cares.

@dappled_leaves – Ha! Actually, to me, normal elevator music is better than Jazz. Well, some of it.

Apparently, only Jazz lovers come here to jazzercise themselves.

@Mantralantis You don’t like jazz because it lacks direction and is too free? That speaks volumes about you. You and I would probably feel an urge to kill each other on sight. I’m really sorry you feel that way and it scares me to death just thinking about how you might have ended up that way. I feel like saying you have my sincere condolences, but I’m sure that makes no sense to you whatsoever.

@wundayatta – :^p !!!!!!

Your absolute lack of sense is humorous only to those that are like yourself.

@Mantralantis Sense is overrated. You should try what I did once. Take a leap out of an airplane without a parachute. What a rush! Literally.

The landing kind of stings, though ;-)

@wundayatta – Well, at least that explains what really happened to you. Geez louise.

Get a room already.