Jazzcore
|
Jazzcore
|
|
| Development phase: | late 1980s |
| Place of origin: | United States |
| Stylistic precursors | |
| Progressive Rock · Hardcore Punk | |
| Instruments typical of the genre | |
| Electric guitar · electric bass · drums | |
| Stylistic successor | |
| Mathcore | |
| Important influences | |
| Avant-garde Jazz · Zeuhl · Grindcore · New Music | |
Jazzcore , also known as jazz metal, is a subgenre of metal or hardcore punk with differently weighted influences from the areas of avant-garde jazz , noise , hardcore and jazz fusion . The style is considered to be groundbreaking for math or chaoscore and is generally considered to be a further development of what is sometimes referred to as zappaesque progressive rock spectrum . Due to the extreme of the music, the representatives of the jazz core are often assigned to the avant-garde or the term experimental music.
precursor
The London punk band Cardiacs , founded in 1977, can generally be cited as the most important forerunner. They combined ska , punk and progressive rock early on . Only the extreme interplay of the clock scheme and the variety of styles of later bands could not be shown by the Cardiacs. Furthermore, the later jazzcore bands generated the high proportions of free jazz and noise themselves. But under the influence of the Cardiacs, No Means No , Victims Family and Mr. Bungle began to develop their own style.
development
In the mid-eighties, bands that combined punk rock with funk , noise and jazz-heavy progressive rock appeared for the first time . The early main representatives Minutemen , No Means No and Victims Family received the title Jazzcore from the music press, although these representatives did not incorporate jazz into their music as an end in itself. Instead, they rearranged hardcore and punk and expanded the spectrum of punk.
In 1988, jazz musician John Zorn, who was enthusiastic about thrash metal , grind and hardcore, founded the avant-garde band project Naked City to try out music writing in a classic rock , metal and punk setting, and with this project he released music that was far more radical than the one before No Means No. Zorn picked up the attitude and the tempo of the grind and hardcore and let them flow into his sound collage of several musical styles to such an extent that the elements of hardcore dominated the sound of the band. Thus, Zorn, which was introduced in 1986 with Spy vs. Spy tried something similar, via the band, to attract attention from an audience that was up to then rather untypical for him, because since Naked City the name John Zorn has also been internationally known in metal and punk circles and since then new records have also been released by various parts of the music press that otherwise none Related to the fields of new music or jazz.
Relatively soon, other interpreters from the fields of avant-garde jazz and new music hardcore also incorporated into their sound. The Japanese Otomo Yoshihide , who is popular in the field of new music , founded the band Ground-0 in 1990 . The Swiss project Alboth! Debuted in 1991 with similar arrangements and the jazz musicians of Der Blaue Hirsch also oriented themselves towards rock and hardcore structures towards jazz core.
Zorn's ideas in particular influenced some musicians and bands, which were primarily recruited from extreme metal, hardcore and funk metal . Bands like Fantômas , Botch or The Dillinger Escape Plan emulated the new style. Due to mainly technically oriented bands like Botch or Rorschach , a split quickly developed that is known as Chaos or Mathcore . The bands that are more firmly rooted in metal such as B. Fantômas also established the term jazz metal, whereby the musical difference between jazzcore and jazz metal appears rather marginal.
Stylistic classification and effect
Common for jazzcore is the use of instruments atypical for metal and hardcore, in particular the saxophone , as well as the constant recurrence of collage and montage as well as frequent abrupt changes in style, tempo and dynamics. In jazzcore, facets from other musical genres are often quoted, mixed up and constructed into something new. In addition to the popular pop, rock and metal styles, folkloric music styles are also woven here. Due to this fullness of style, as well as the changes in tempo and dynamics, the music looks chaotic and dissonant on the surface. Due to the constant and unpredictable change, the listener is not able to directly consume the music and the overall course of the pieces is therefore not predictable and remains surprising. The style of music is often referred to as playful and complex. The song scheme of bridge , chorus and verse that is common for pop and rock music rarely occurs in jazz core , and a basic melodic theme or sustained rhythmic structure, as is common in jazz, is rather unusual.
Some extreme exponents like Fantômas try their hand at symphonic poetry instead . Despite the technical finesse and the claim to always create reproducible music, ie improvisation is almost completely dispensed with, the musicians always proceed with a degree of self-irony.
The singing is not fixed; while some bands like No Means No, Victims Family and Mr. Bungle used a lot of clear vocals, other representatives of the genre tend towards guttural singing . The extreme of this vocal form can go up to onomatopoeia , so some bands like Alboth come up! or The Moonchild Trio , another John Zorn project, without text and using the singer's voice as a pure instrument.
“Our singer Lieder prepares a reservoir of words and syllables for each piece, a language of its own, if you will, which is rhythmically interwoven with the music. For us, the voice is an instrument that shouldn't be loaded with words so that it doesn't get any other meaning. "
The complex way of playing and the tendency to exaggerated gore in many visual designs also defines jazzcore as a subgenre of extreme metal . Bands like Voivod , which use similar song structures and which corresponded to the ideas of the genre, are border crossers, but are commonly assigned to metal and its numerous subgenres.
influence
The style not only directly influenced mathcore, but also opened up new ways of expression for other rock, metal and hardcore musicians. The music anticipated some of the extremes of the crossover boom of the early 1990s. Funk metal performers and later nu metal bands in particular were able to build on jazz core in a reduced form. So are z. B. the early Red Hot Chili Peppers , Primus , Living Color as well as System of a Down and Korn were clearly audibly influenced by Jazzcore.
A separate position in this network of influence and counter-influence must be assigned to the crossover band Faith No More , and in particular their singer Mike Patton . Patton was brought into the band in 1989 by Jim Martin ; he had seen the previously unknown Mr. Bungle live shortly before. Patton then brought his own style into the band and increased the popularity of his other projects such as B. Noise experiments with Maldoror , avant-garde solo albums and the Fantômas founded in 1999. In the work of Faith No More, elements of jazz core flowed significantly in the following period. Patton in turn worked several times with John Zorn during his time at Faith No More and in 2002 with The Dillinger Escape Plan .
Delimitation and overlap
Occasionally, performers of technical death metal are also referred to as jazz metal. The music of Death , Cynic and Atheist only combines Death Metal with elements from Progressive Rock and Jazz Fusion. Compared to jazz core, tech death metal changes the clock schemes less intensively and basically does not change the predominant music style; elements from noise and avant-garde jazz have no influence in tech death metal.
Mathcore, on the other hand, follows a similar approach to jazzcore. Many of the popular representatives commute between the two musical styles. In Mathcore, free jazz and especially noise are often reduced in favor of a higher measure and riff complexity. The transitions between the styles are fluid.
The band Diablo Swing Orchestra is sometimes referred to as jazz metal, but plays its own crossover of more traditional jazz and metal. Elements of free jazz or new music are completely absent and even abrupt changes in rhythm and style are not part of the band's sound.
criticism
In his book If the Kids Are United, which was first published in 1997, Martin Büsser criticized jazz core as a vague genre designation that arises from the fundamental categorization of every music consumer. The use of the term for many bands would devalue both hardcore punk and jazz, because bands that only use non-punk instruments would receive the label “jazzcore” far too uncritically. On the other hand, he describes the music as extreme minority music, which under the adoption of the avant-garde can lose the roots of hardcore and degenerate into a virtuoso end in itself.
“If one follows this line of argument, then what is traded under the term jazzcore (...) is exposed to the danger of dissolving into complete artistic sensibility, of becoming an intellectualized waste product of the unbroken wildness that punk once was. The line is very fine (...) between bands who manage to keep punk energy on a high musical level and those who confuse the stiff construction of weird riffs and breaks with further development or even radicalization. "
Important representatives
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c Roger Behrens : Pop culture criticism and society. In: Gerhard Schweppenhäuser : Journal for Critical Theory: HEFT 10. Klampen Verlag, Lüneburg 2000, p. 60.
- ^ Review of the Moonchild Trio debut on Progarchives (accessed October 13, 2010).
- ^ Band history of the Cardiacs (accessed April 28, 2010).
- ↑ a b c Christina Dittmer: Music and Aggression, Grin Verlag Munich, 2008; P. 106.
- ^ Victim's Family Band History (accessed December 31, 2010).
- ↑ Interview with the Victims Family on Intro.de ( Memento from May 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed on April 28, 2010).
- ↑ a b c d e Martin Büsser : If the kids are united. From punk to hardcore and back . 8th and extended edition. Ventil Verlag, Mainz 2010, ISBN 978-3-930559-48-0 , p. 105 ff .
- ↑ a b Volume description for Naked City (accessed April 28, 2010).
- ^ Record review of Naked City (accessed April 28, 2010).
- ↑ Record review of John Zorn ( Memento of May 28, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed April 28, 2010).
- ↑ Alboth! Ox fanzine , accessed May 13, 2010 .
- ↑ Werner Lüdi in an interview (accessed on May 13, 2010).
- ↑ Alboth in an interview (accessed on May 13, 2010).
- ↑ John Zorn on Sonic.net ( Memento of 19 October 2010 at the Internet Archive ) (Accessed on April 30, 2010).
- ↑ Record review for the Dillinger Escape Plan (accessed April 28, 2010).
- ↑ a b c d e style description on Metalstile.de ( Memento from April 26, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed on April 30, 2010).
- ^ Fantômas on Spiegel.de (accessed on April 28, 2010).
- ^ Naked City on HJS Jazz (accessed April 28, 2010).
- ^ Naked City on Arte.tv ( Memento from September 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed April 28, 2010).
- ^ Record review of Victims Family (accessed April 28, 2010; PDF; 217 kB).
- ↑ z. B. Fantômas - Fantômas (Fantômascomic pages 1–30), Fantômas - Suspended Animation (animation adaptation).
- ^ Record review for Fantômas (accessed April 28, 2010).
- ↑ plate criticism Moonchild (Accessed on April 28, 2010).
- ↑ Interview in the OX Fanzine .
- ↑ in particular Naked City
- ↑ Mike Patton on Music Itself (Retrieved April 28, 2010).
- ↑ Jazz Metal on Urban Direction (accessed April 28, 2010).
- ↑ Death on Dead Inside ( Memento March 3, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (Retrieved April 28, 2010).
- ^ Mathcore on Laut.de (accessed on April 28, 2010).
- ^ Homepage of the Diablo Swing Orchestra ( Memento from June 30, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed on May 8, 2010).
- ↑ Büsser 1997, p. 105f.