All of us know what jazz is when we hear it, but
trying to define it is a different matter. With so
many variant styles, coming up with an accurate
definition of jazz is difficult if not impossible.
But I suppose that an article on jazz really ought to
attempt to define the term “jazz.” My
Thorndike-Barnhart Dictionary defines jazz like this:
*jazz (jaz), noun. 1. American music with the accents
falling at unusual places; syncopated music. 2. Slang,
liveliness – adj. of or like jazz: a jazz band.
Besides not telling us very much, it is also obviously
false. I think immediately of ballads played by jazz
musicians, such as Thelonious Monk’s ‘Round Midnight
and Bill Evan’s Peace Piece, and countless other
examples. They are based on neither syncopation nor
liveliness; they are slow, extremely thoughtful, and
the antithesis of “jazzy.” Yet they are considered by
both jazz musicians and jazz critics alike to be well
within the mainstream of jazz.
Let’s try A New Dictionary of Music and see if we can
get closer to the essence of jazz:
*jazz, a term used at least from 1914 for a type of
American popular music originating among blacks of New
Orleans and taken over also by whites; also used
generally for various types of dance music indebted to
this (though purists reserve the term for such music
as retains the original flavor and the original basis
of improvisation.) The jazz idiom, characterized by
certain syncopations over strongly reiterated rhythms,
has influenced e.g. Lambert, Stravinsky, and Milhaud,
as well as many American composers.
That’s better than the Thorndike-Barnhart definition,
but it still leans heavily toward defining jazz in
terms of rhythm alone: “characterized by certain
syncopations over strongly reiterated rhythms.” I
think again of ballads, but also of much contemporary
jazz which is not characterized by “certain
syncopations,: such as the work of pianists Keith
Jarrett and Chick Corea.
What then is jazz? If the general dictionaries and
musical dictionaries can’t satisfactorily answer the
question, what hope is there for us?
Ask a hundred jazz musicians what jazz is, and you’ll
get a hundred different answers (I know – I’ve asked
at least a dozen and gotten as many different
responses.)
I would like to suggest that the answer may lie, not
in music, but in semantics.
I think it is entirely possible that we are lumping
together widely disparate types of music, and labeling
them all with the term “jazz,” then wondering why we
can’t come up with a lexical definition of the term.
Maybe we should abandon the word “jazz,” and use terms
such as “improvised fast syncopated music,” or
“improvised slow non-syncopated music.” Maybe we
should, but we won’t. So we are stuck with the
non-definable term “jazz.”
So let’s not define jazz.
We all know what it is, more or less. We would
disagree mainly in the “grey” areas, such as ballads,
some contemporary works, and so forth. But let’s agree
not to disagree, and just enjoy it.
The following articles in this series will deal with
the various styles we find in jazz, from ragtime to
fusion.
So stay tuned.