Dark jazz

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Dark jazz

Development phase: Early 1990s
Place of origin: Germany
Stylistic precursors
Extreme metal , film music
Pioneers
Drill & the Club of Gore
Instruments typical of the genre
Double bass , vibraphone , drums
Pioneer
Angelo Badalamenti , Jarboe

Dark jazz , horror jazz , jazz noir or doom jazz are names for a music genre that is often discussed in popular culture as a form of jazz . The names are mostly assigned to instrumental pieces of music that combine elements from lounge music , jazz and ambient , with a pronounced tendency towards film music with a dark and surreal - psychedelic atmosphere, and the jazz element tends to play a cautious role. The style emerged in the 1990s in the context of Extreme Metal .

Musical classification

What the interpreters of dark jazz have in common is the mixture of “ambient and jazz, noir and slowdown, doom and melancholy tones.” Many representatives of the genre also have cinematic references. There are frequent reminiscences of trash , BDSM and horror films and their iconography . These references are often taken up in reviews. The music is described as “head music influenced by jazz” and “music for films that have never been made”.

Dark jazz is always played slowly and mostly with real or digitally reproduced jazz instruments. In addition to the cinematic atmosphere and the slow play, an atmospherically gloomy and expansive soundscape that is close to Doom Metal is typical . The transition to adjacent and similar musical styles such as ambient, dark ambient and post-rock runs smoothly. Sometimes dark jazz is classified as a form of post-rock.

There are only a few clearly assignable instruments that are common to the performers of dark jazz. Most use drums that are played as slowly as possible with a broom . A double bass and a vibraphone are also often used. Other instruments such as the mellotron , Rhodes piano , trumpet , viola , cello or saxophone are incorporated into the sound by some representatives. Singing, however, is rarely used. Some performers like The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation increasingly use synthesizers and sequencers to create an atmospheric sound, and only sporadically analog instruments. Likewise, no uniform statement can be made regarding the compositional approach. While many projects tend to use a full composition , others resort to situational improvisation . Dark jazz differs from jazz by neglecting characteristic jazz elements. In particular, solo improvisations are usually avoided. Even the improvising performers usually forego solos and instead concentrate on creating an overall atmosphere. Gert Keunen even calls the style "Jazz for those who don't like jazz."

history

Christoph Clöser from the pioneer band Bohren & the Club of Gore

Bohren & the Club of Gore are generally considered to be the first dark jazz project. Nevertheless, Angelo Badalamenti and his film music, especially his work for David Lynch's series Twin Peaks , at the beginning of the 1990s, and Jarboe , in their cooperation with the no-wave band Swans from the mid-1980s, are said to be pioneers in the genre. Apart from reviews that link Jarboe, Badalamenti and Lynch, some of the performers also refer to such inspiration. This is how the Dale Cooper Quartet & the Dictaphones named themselves after the lead role in the TV series Twin Peaks .

However, it was only through the Mülheim band Bohren & Club of Gore that the music "grew into a veritable style". The group, which comes from extreme metal and hardcore punk , was looking for an alternative means of expression and in 1992 “turned away from the harsh, metallic sounds […] and combined typical jazz sounds of piano, bass, saxophone and drums with the heaviness of the guitar of Doom Metal . In addition, they impregnated their sound with atmospheric ambient sounds. "

After the first publications and great successes by Bohren & the Club of Gore, other projects followed that presented a similar, often cinematic, musical mixture of jazz instruments and a gloomy atmosphere. The musical approach is often interpreted as an antithesis to the music styles of Death Metal , Grindcore or Hardcore Punk that the musicians previously strived for . Bohren - & - der Club of Gore founding member Morten Gass confirms the desire to emancipate oneself from such style specifications and still maintain the basic attitude of a metal band. Accordingly, he refers, among other things, to performers of Extreme Metal as influencing factors. He describes bands like Hellhammer , Repulsion , Autopsy and Gore as important sources of inspiration alongside Cocteau Twins , Sade , Martin Böttcher and Helge Schneider .

With the success of the fourth Bohren album Black Earth from 2002, which was published internationally via Ipecac Recordings , and the emergence of other similarly structured music projects such as Dale Cooper Quartet & the Dictaphones, The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble and Heroin and Your Veins , different names increasingly spread, under which the performers were subsumed. Most of these style names were originally used to describe the music of Bohren & the Club of Gore.

Elements of dark jazz were occasionally taken up by metal groups, especially by representatives of drone doom such as Earth , Sunn O))) and Aidan Baker alias Nadja , as well as by artists of post-metal such as Walk Through Fire and Callisto . The doom metal band Messa also names the style and especially its main initiator as a significant influence on their own style.

The genre, however, remained largely an underground phenomenon. Only the genre initiators from Bohren & the Club of Gore reached the German charts in 2014 , along with the popular feature pages. Likewise, no uniform audience of the genre could develop. Some groups are valued more by jazz and avant-garde audiences, while others are more popular with punk , dark wave or metal fans. The latest in the 2010s years did Denovali Records with the releases of this genre and artist who approached the genre, like Dale Cooper Quartet & The Dictaphones, Les Fragments de la Nuit , The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation , The Kilimanjaro Dark Jazz Ensemble and Povarovo as significant label.

Well-known artists

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c parravanodiego: Dark Jazz To The Rock Kids. (No longer available online.) Musicblob, archived from the original on March 1, 2017 ; accessed on February 28, 2017 .
  2. ↑ a b c Dietmar Elflein: Slow it Down . Notes on an aesthetic of slowing down not only in heavy metal. In: Jan Röhnert (Ed.): Technical Acceleration - Aesthetic Deceleration? Mobile staging in literature, film, music, everyday life and politics. Böhlau Verlag, Berlin / Braunschweig, ISBN 978-3-412-50150-1 , p. 37 to 48, here p. 39 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Mario Karl: The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble: Film noir for listening. Music itself, accessed March 1, 2017 .
  4. ↑ a b Peter: Journey into the heart of darkness. Sound limits, accessed March 1, 2017 .
  5. ↑ a b c Ina Plodroch: The slowest music in the world. Deutschlandradio Kultur, accessed on February 28, 2017 .
  6. ↑ a b Gert Keunen: Een eeuw popmuziek . Lannoo, Tielt 2015, p. 231 f .
  7. ^ The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble and The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation speak to SonicAbuse. SonicAbuse, accessed March 1, 2017 .
  8. ↑ Marius Mutz: Interview with Jason Köhnen from The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation. Metal1, accessed March 1, 2017 .
  9. ↑ N .: The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation: Егор. Black Magazine, accessed March 1, 2017 .
  10. ↑ a b Admin: VA: Midnight Radio Noir Jazz. African Paper, accessed February 28, 2017 .
  11. ↑ Kalle Stille: Dale Cooper Quartet & the Dictaphones: Metamanoir. Ox fanzine, accessed March 1, 2017 .
  12. ↑ Thorsten Zahn, Petra Schurer: Emotions in slow motion. Rolling Stone , June 2003, archived from the original ; accessed on February 28, 2017 .
  13. ↑ Editor: Drilling and the Club of Gore. Article magazine, accessed on February 28, 2017 .
  14. ↑ a b Alain Mower: That Metal but it's not Metal: Darkjazz. No Clean Singing, accessed February 28, 2017 .
  15. ↑ Ulrich Steinmetzger: The dark in super slow motion. Berner Zeitung ThunderTagblatt, accessed on February 28, 2017 .
  16. ↑ Barry Lee Dejasu: Tavern Doom: A Conversation with Drilling & The Club of Gore. (No longer available online.) Shock Totem, archived from the original on March 3, 2017 ; accessed on February 28, 2017 .
  17. ↑ Andreas Schnell: the axis of the slow. taz, accessed on February 28, 2017 .
  18. ↑ Tom Bombadeal: Interview with Walk Through Fire. (No longer available online.) Tzertzelos, archived from the original on March 2, 2017 ; accessed on February 28, 2017 .
  19. ↑ AIDAN BAKER: STILL LIFE. The Post Rock, accessed February 28, 2017 .
  20. ↑ N: Sunn O))) & Ulver: Terrestrials. Black Magazine, accessed March 1, 2017 .
  21. ↑ Arne: Callisto. Music scan, accessed March 1, 2017 .
  22. ^ Foo Free: Interview: Messa. Visual Music, accessed July 12, 2019 .
  23. Jump up ↑ Drilling & the Club of Gore. official charts, accessed February 28, 2017 .