Why You Should Listen To Jazz

By Connor Ferry on February 1, 2016

Close to one hundred years ago, a new style of music was created in New Orleans. It was fueled by excessive drug use and alcohol consumption and played by citizens of the slums.

Jazz was a new animal. Its lifeblood was improvisation, making a statement in the moment, the ability to be spontaneous. It was functional, people could run to the floor and dance along to it. Some folks got so worried about this music being played that they would call it immoral and depraved, so they banded together with the police and raided until the jazz scene was significantly weakened in New Orleans. But it was far from dead.

From Flickr Creative Commons

Jazz has had an interesting history; it is made up of many genres. So, the question I pose is, why aren’t you listening to it? Most people have some answer or another: it’s too boring, it doesn’t have enough words, it can’t be danced to. But I challenge all of those statements, as jazz is a blanket term for many different styles.

Jazz is far from boring. Jazz can be soothing, it can be intense, it can beautiful, it can be funky, it can sound completely scattered, it can be interpretive. Jazz can be a Weather Report  or it can be Louie. Jazz is the one genre that can go anywhere and be anything. If you don’t like acid jazz, try swing; if you don’t like that, try Bebop, try cool, try fusion, hardbop, third stream. Jazz has so much to offer.

But, why should you listen to jazz? Because some jazz, a lot of jazz, is good for you. Can music be good for you? According to Americana music star Jason Isbell, some music can be bad for you.

Isbell recently said this in an interview with GQ.

“And I don’t believe all music is okay. I don’t believe all music is good. I believe some music is bad for people to listen to. I think it makes their taste worse, I think it makes their lives worse, I think it makes them worse people. Some things you have to refuse, not because of other people’s image of you but because it will gradually erode you until you are making music that’s not good for people and you’re not challenging listeners and you’re not challenging yourself. I believe that, and I will always believe that if I have my way.”

So, why listen to Miles or Monk? Because it is a challenge. It isn’t simple, the music challenges conventional sense of harmony, melody and chord structure. Jazz takes what you know about music, what you are comfortable with and adds dissonance. The melody doesn’t go on for last eight beats then repeats, now it lasts 11. The chords have 9s and 13s. The solos are long and they rise and they fall.

From Flickr Creative Commons

This isn’t to say that sometimes you don’t need to listen to Shake It Off or blare some DMX from time to time, but I think we’re getting so far away from thinking about what jazz is. When people think of jazz they don’t think of a seamless blend of high and low art — they think of Kenny G, and most jazz is not Kenny G.

But why challenge yourself? Because it’s fun. You can listen to a group of talented musicians doing what they do best, you can hear them play great songs and re-imagine the music on the page. You can force yourself to try to hear it all. Have you ever heard someone take a song that is in 5/4 and put it in 4/4? Jazz gives the listener opportunities that can’t be had elsewhere.

But jazz doesn’t just have to just be a listening music, it can be the soundtrack, like in the case of Appalachian sophomore Steven Jennings, who said this about one of his favorite albums.

“I have a lot of good memories associated with that particular album (Lift to the Scaffold); it was something I listened to frequently during a really good time in my life, and listening now takes me back to that.”

So, if you want to listen to something new and challenge yourself or if you want it in the background, don’t be scared of jazz.

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