Weird Jazz
“Krzysztof “Komeda” Trzciński with his wife Zofia, Zakopane, 1958, photo: Wojciech Plewiński / Forum”On July 29thin 2009, the National Public Radio published an article called “What the Heck Is That?” In this piece, they played examples of six different instruments used in jazz that truly make you say… “What the Heck Is That?!” The reason isn’t just because the sounds are unusual. They play a variety of sounds that mix and match cultures pretty intensely. This article, as interesting as it was, felt like it was part of something bigger. Jazz has the same roots in every culture. It defies the status quo and is inherently political. So, it is appropriate to begin exploring just how much of a melting pot jazz can be with a few key artists.
Scott Robinson, a jazz musician mostly interested in the woodwind family, among my personal favorites, plays one of his nine types of saxophones. The “Basso Profundo” sound dominates the music, in pretty direct defiance toward freeform jazz. He takes conch shells and other natural instruments from Polynesia, Australia, and the Caribbean to play his tribute songs. When doing so, he specifically explores the culture and ritual songs that were done by these people, which makes his music interesting to dissect.
Meeting Robinson’s match, Rufus Harley challenges cultural and compositional norms in his freeform jazz played with bagpipes. As a black man playing in a Scottish kilt, he blends New Orleans and Philadelphia styles seamlessly. He proves that even though cultural identity is complex, it doesn’t mean it can’t be beautiful like using bagpipes to play jazz.
There is no denying the roots of jazz, however these musicians are artists. They use and create instruments and blend ideas to make incredible things. Hans Reichel is certainly an example of this. As a solo artist tinkering with a dax, he manages to create eerily human expressive works that mesmerize. His music sounds story like, almost something you could hear in a video game, but with extraordinary composure.
In the 1960’s, psychedelic jazz made its debut as “soul vibrations”. Dorothy Ashby was famous for the use of the harp in jazz. Although I must say this is one of my least favorite varieties of jazz, it still amazes me that people take trends and blend them into what is important to them. Because America did this so well, other countries fighting for independence with struggling artists adopted jazz into their own culture. There is no French jazz or Japanese jazz, however jazz is played all over the world in creative ways, which has given way to several cool externalities.
One of the most ridiculous examples of the global externalities of jazz is a Polish wives’ tale. In this story it is said that people from Africa went to the Polish highlands to learn jazz from Poles. However, when they went back to Africa, their instruments from Poland were washed away. Without the fiddles and other instruments from Poland, the Africans had to improvise, and it is said that this is how jazz came about.
Of course, this story is more of a joke and a wives’ tale than anything else, but it illustrates the understanding that people have from all around the world that jazz has and will continue to evolve and keep its roots.