30-12-2010, 22:01
Hey everyone!
I'm going to come right out and say that I Googled for a music discussion board because I have a very specific question that I didn't know how else I could get answered.
I'm a bit of a music fanatic and I'm constantly scouring any and every source available for new music to listen to. My taste is evolving constantly and recently I've started getting into jazz. That tradition is, however, of course immense, and so it's hard to know where to start. I've been enjoying a few artists almost randomly (Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Curtis Fuller), trying to get an intellectual foot in to make sense of it all.
There's one specific type of jazz sound, though, that I've been hearing here and there but I'm having trouble connecting it to a specific genre or even artist. One thing that opened my eyes to jazz in general was Andrew Bird, whose first two albums Thrills ('98) and Oh! The Grandeur ('99) have this kind of unhinged, uninhibited sound to them (notably "Minor Stab", "Candy Shop", "Beware"). I really loved that sound (as a blues fan I come from a place of liking a certain kind of rawness and grittiness), but I've been having trouble finding it in other types of music. One place I found it was in the song "Ev'rybody Wants to be a Cat" from the movie Aristocats - especially the end part is this crazy unleashing of sound. I've heard some similarities to it in some gypsy jazz, and also in some New Orleans jazz, but it's all a little too neat.
I have a suspicion that what I'm looking for is a bit of a modern phenomenon, a specific type of emotional expression that wasn't very prevalent in the earlier parts of the 20th century, but I was hoping somebody would know of a genre or artist or movement that had this type of sound. The best way I can describe it is to give you the examples above, and say that it's unhinged, almost reckless, often fast-paced and simultaneously joyous and kind of desperate.
It's not much to go on but I would be so grateful for any kind of pointers. Thank you very much!
I'm going to come right out and say that I Googled for a music discussion board because I have a very specific question that I didn't know how else I could get answered.
I'm a bit of a music fanatic and I'm constantly scouring any and every source available for new music to listen to. My taste is evolving constantly and recently I've started getting into jazz. That tradition is, however, of course immense, and so it's hard to know where to start. I've been enjoying a few artists almost randomly (Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Curtis Fuller), trying to get an intellectual foot in to make sense of it all.
There's one specific type of jazz sound, though, that I've been hearing here and there but I'm having trouble connecting it to a specific genre or even artist. One thing that opened my eyes to jazz in general was Andrew Bird, whose first two albums Thrills ('98) and Oh! The Grandeur ('99) have this kind of unhinged, uninhibited sound to them (notably "Minor Stab", "Candy Shop", "Beware"). I really loved that sound (as a blues fan I come from a place of liking a certain kind of rawness and grittiness), but I've been having trouble finding it in other types of music. One place I found it was in the song "Ev'rybody Wants to be a Cat" from the movie Aristocats - especially the end part is this crazy unleashing of sound. I've heard some similarities to it in some gypsy jazz, and also in some New Orleans jazz, but it's all a little too neat.
I have a suspicion that what I'm looking for is a bit of a modern phenomenon, a specific type of emotional expression that wasn't very prevalent in the earlier parts of the 20th century, but I was hoping somebody would know of a genre or artist or movement that had this type of sound. The best way I can describe it is to give you the examples above, and say that it's unhinged, almost reckless, often fast-paced and simultaneously joyous and kind of desperate.
It's not much to go on but I would be so grateful for any kind of pointers. Thank you very much!
