Jazz Music Lounge - Ska, and a Generalization on Jazz

Ska, and a Generalization on Jazz

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URL: http://www.JazzMusicArchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2473
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Topic: Ska, and a Generalization on Jazz

Posted By: CoolJimmi
Subject: Ska, and a Generalization on Jazz
Date Posted: 12 Feb 2013 at 6:54pm

I've been a big fan of jazz for quite a while; been a jazz drummer in jazz bands for 5 years now. I'm curious as to the derivatives of jazz, and how they fit into the jazz spectrum. I'll likely add a few more genres to my list of inquiries in the future, but for now, let's discuss ska.

First of all, one of my chief interests in jazz comes from the level of academic, experimental, and artful qualities it posses. I am an avid fan of progressive bands (experimental, avant-garde, art, post-nonsense, math), and generally, I tend to rank anything jazz up there with these 'superior' genres (they are not actually superior, I just happen to enjoy them on a level above simply liking how they sound).

So, my question is twofold:

1.) What do you think of the 'superiority' of jazz as I have described it? Agree? Disagree? Mixed? and

2.) What place does ska have as a direct link from jazz, and does it share the 'superior' status I grant jazz? Personally, I believe its status as an amalgamation of jazz and Caribbean music gives it an advantage over jazz in the area of experimentation, and most bands I listen to from ska take advantage of this: utilizing large bands to create a varied, progressive, artful experience that takes a lot from jazz. But what do you think?

Artists I recommend as proponents of my argument and important bands in general are RX Bandits, Streetlight Manifesto, The Specials, Eastern Standard Time, St. Petersburg Ska-Jazz Review, JazzBo, and Jazz Jamaica All Stars.

Replies:

Posted By: js
Date Posted: 12 Feb 2013 at 7:49pm

Hey there and welcome to the site.

The roots of ska come from Jamaican jazz musicians. The Skatalites were basically a jazz/RnB band playing to ska rhythms. We have the Skatalites in our Dub Fusion section, as well as a few more bands like them.

As far as later ska bands that used more pop elements (Specials, English Beat etc) I'm a fan of those bands and we may add them later, but we have so many full jazz artists to add right now, I can't see giving them priority until we have covered more pure jazz acts.

If you know of one or two very jazzy ska bands that you would like to suggest for the site, just check out the suggest new bands thread, but please, don't drop off a big long list, we are still adding lots of jazz bands every day.

Posted By: CoolJimmi
Date Posted: 12 Feb 2013 at 11:17pm

Thank you very much.

And yes, I do know of a number of very jazzy ska bands that are essentially jazz bands that utilize the rhythms and occasional stylings of ska. Perhaps I shall suggest a few of them soon.

Posted By: davidrydelnik
Date Posted: 09 Jul 2013 at 2:23am

I used to be really big into ska as a teen. In fact i was obsessed with it for a few years. There are a lot of good bands out there, and i love seeing a good ska show every now and then. Recently I saw one about 5 months ago. But only one band had improvisation as a part of the show (Reel Big Fish). The other bands didn't have improvisors. So I suppose if you want to put it in jazz terms, most if not all jazz has at least some improvisation, even in the big bands where everything is mostly arranged.

But I am kind of a jazz snob so to answer the jazz "superiority" question, my only response (to not sound arrogant) is that in my opinion, if you can learn to master jazz, you can pretty much master the music of any genre since jazz has so many elements in it, from simple to very exotic.

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Jazz Trumpeter, Vocalist, Trombonist, Guitarist...internet marketer and fitness geek. <a href="http://davidrydelnik.com" _fcksavedurl="http://davidrydelnik.com">