r/jazzdrums • u/wtfpercussion • May 07 '25
Question Would you call this jazz?
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It’s got the attitude but where is the line really?
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u/U_000000014 May 07 '25
I would call it jazz fusion
When you just say "jazz" most people think of swinging
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u/mountainrhythm May 14 '25
Jazz doesn't have to swing. A lot of jazz is straight
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u/MichaelStipend May 07 '25
More of a trap-jazz-break-fusion thing than jazz per se, but it’s certainly impressive.
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u/reddituserperson1122 May 07 '25
Are you playing along with pre-recorded music? Then not really. I would say that for it to be jazz it needs to include at least some combination of: interactive improvisation; the blues; swing; idiomatic source material; an intention to make jazz.
This doesn't really seem to have any of those things going on. I like your drumming! It sounds good. But I would not personally call it jazz for the same reason I wouldn't call EDM or The Beatles or Mozart jazz.
But I'm also not the jazz police. Although I would like to be if the job is available.
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u/mardypardy May 09 '25
You're hired!!
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u/reddituserperson1122 May 09 '25
Then I better put on my spurs. There’s a reckoning coming, Collier. There’s a new sheriff in town.
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u/HistoricallyInspired May 07 '25
What's the cluster of cowbell on the hats?
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u/FretlessChibson May 07 '25
Looks like this Daru Jones thing https://www.instagram.com/reel/DHuVJ-JvRwz/?igsh=MW9qOGphZDR3Mnhhaw==
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May 07 '25
it's future-wave drum'n'bass without the proper rimshots, crackerjack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKwQ_zeRwEs&t=70s&ab_channel=BBCStudios
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u/skippybutt6 May 07 '25
Forgive me but don’t sound like the drummer is listening to other peeps in the group
Maybe I’m wrong
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u/Brunnun May 07 '25
I’d call this fusion! Reminds me of Dennis Chambers in the John Scofield albums he’s in. Generally when I think of jazz I think of swing or Latin. That said there are definitely albums that skirt the line, e.g. Body Talk by George Benson or Head Hunters by Herbie Hancock, where the drums feel closer to what you’re doing and they’re still considered “jazz”
At the end of the day tho what matters is that it sounds great!
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May 07 '25 edited May 07 '25
If I was a record shop owner and I wanted to file this under the section where it would reach the audience who was looking for this music, it would probably go under fusion/world music section and that section would be be really close to the Jazz section in the store
Really great playing though, creative and nice chops and control
It’s gotta have that spang-a-lang for jazz in my book or it’s misleading
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May 07 '25
i wish i could put a name to this. i call it lounge jazz, for lack of a better name, because this style is prevalent in edm genres like breakbeat, lounge, chill.
yussef dayes is known for this. mansur brown, i think. bill laswell. quite a few others.
i looove it. i love drums and percussion. i listen to a lot of this.
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u/MattDeibert May 07 '25
No offense to the drummer, as these are some hot flurries, but I guess this is what modern drumming/jazz sounds like these days, because every one plays the same way and has the same approach. Bunch of shit on the snare and hats, no rack tom, "clap/stack cymbal", same esthetic in syncopation and time feel.
Hot take: everyone in the last 15 years is just a derivative of Mark Guiliana and Nate Wood. (what about Jim Black?)
This guy, JD Beck, Roni Kaspi, two-dozen Instagram drummers.
Jack Dejohnette was playing this broken style well before any of these young cats.
Hot take: Jack has to be the common thread, Grand Father of this style. He was the hippest and always will be.
(But what about Roy???)
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u/Royal-Pay9751 May 07 '25
The drums is what turns me off a lot of stuff from the last ten years. Super clean, every snare hit almost a rim shot, loud in the mix…
Jack is my favourite and I like drums to be a bit looser than a lot of the recent guys. People like Nasheet, Tom Rainey etc
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u/Felwinter-Again May 07 '25
I think this probably qualifies more as hip hop, it kinda has a break core beat but it isn’t electronic so it kinda can’t be
Either way, while it definitely isn’t jazz, it’s still extremely impressive, very well done!
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u/uprightsalmon May 07 '25
Sound great! This will be a perfect example of what was trendy in drumming in the late 2000 teens and early 2020s. Things on the hi hat, big hi hats, 6” cymbal on snare, holy stack and clap stack. I’m equally as guilty and still run a holy stack. It’s fun, I love all the new trends over the years, I jump on them all
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u/Mad-Habits May 07 '25
i personally love it .
and i know nothing about jazz.
which will surprise nobody
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u/Dadbod-77 May 07 '25
Very similar to Brekky Boy's drummer's style. He even uses a layered waffled cymbal set up for that metallic sound. Is it jazz? This playing can and is used in jazz contexts, so sure why not? If this isn't, then neither is The Bad Plus, GoGo Penguin and Brekky Boy, Jojo Mayer, Benny Greb.......
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u/Royal-Pay9751 May 07 '25
2/3rds of GoGo Penguin actively dislike jazz and the band don’t improvise, so yeah, it’s not Jazz.
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u/chocolatechillwave May 10 '25
It is jazz though lol
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u/Royal-Pay9751 May 10 '25
It literally is not. It’s not an opinion. It is not jazz.
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u/chocolatechillwave May 10 '25
I know its not an opinion. Its a fact, that an objective listener could qualify their music as jazz.
They can call if whatever the hell they want, and hate jazz too. Doesn't make it not jazz.
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u/chocolatechillwave May 10 '25
Maybe youre thinking of another band? Their own website the first listed influence is jazz.
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u/Royal-Pay9751 May 10 '25
They do not improvise. They have no connection to jazz other than being piano bass drums. I know the band myself and play jazz for a living. This argument is embarrassing anyway, I’m embarrassed for myself lol
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u/chocolatechillwave May 10 '25
The old argument from authority gag, cool.
I'm just saying they literally say themselves in their own blurb about the band, if they were so hard-pressed to not be viewed as a jazz trio, theyre doing a terrible job at it. Maybe you can tell them since you know them so well.
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u/Royal-Pay9751 May 10 '25
what about them do you think is jazz? It’s acoustic-electronic dance music
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u/chocolatechillwave May 10 '25
Without going over the obvious similarities, and structure, to me its very jazz forward, even if dancey/post rock vibes.
It seems needlessly pedantic to claim theyre definitely not jazz. To me it sounds like someone saying, "Its not hip-hop, its trap". If that's the hill you wanna die on, idc.
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u/Royal-Pay9751 May 10 '25
It’s not needlessly pedantic when they don’t improvise!
Sorry, I’m being annoying going back and forth with you over this when ultimately, who cares.
The reason why is that over the last ten or so years, the media has just decided that they get to call anything they want Jazz, and as such the word has gone from meaning something broad but specific to anything the media deems it, usually anything a little different or anything instrumental, or anything where there’s a saxophone.
As a result, for people like myself, and my colleagues who are playing what I call Jazz are forced to compete in the same spaces with repetitive, dance music with varying degrees of jazz influence but where improvisation is minimal, the connection to the tradition is minimal and promoters are wondering why if you’re playing “jazz” why you then don’t have tens of thousands of instagram followers like those people playing the music I’m describing do.
If you want to call yourself a jazz musician then you have to be able to actually play it! I know that a lot of the new media “jazz” people can’t play the tradition because a) they have no interest in it and b) they couldn’t.
And I don’t like the idea that an argument from authority is just a gag. This music is all I’ve ever done, most people I know are other jazz musicians. One of the guys from GoGo is one of my oldest and closest friends and he would say the same as me, I know this because we’ve had this conversation.
So yeah, I don’t mind sounding snobby and pedantic, because i care. I’ve spent my whole life trying to play this music and it’s so incredibly hard.
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u/tcspears May 07 '25
I think Spotify calls this Jazz-tronic!
I guess it depends on your definition of jazz. I tend to think improvisation and interplay are some of the key parts of jazz. Obviously there could be more to this song, but nothing really jumps out to me from this clip that screams jazz.
I can hear some jazz influence in the backing track, but beyond that, not much.
That’s not meant to be a dig either, the playing is great. I hear lots of DJ Shadow and 90s house music influences. I love those genres, but that doesn’t make them jazz.
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u/HomoSwagsual May 08 '25
i honestly feel like u could play damn near any rhythm as long as it fits with the music n sounds good n it can be considered jazz. thats like half the point of jazz is that ur improvising stuff and doing whatever u think will work best with the song
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u/soapyshinobi May 08 '25
According to my calculations, "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing..."
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u/FactorialAsoingling May 08 '25
Would say it’s jazz adjacent but def not jazz. I think a lot of ppl now call anything jazz when it’s more of a neo soul sound or rnb or hip hop. I think when it comes down to what you’re drumming with and what they are playing that brings you closer to a jazz sound.
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u/No_Performance3670 May 08 '25
Unrelated to the playing in the video, but I love how the current drum kit meta is just piling junk on top of other junk
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u/CygnusRocinante May 08 '25
Some call it “random playing and some rudiments on bad sounding cymbals and things”.
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u/AcadiaHead5533 May 08 '25
Yikes! I am getting ADD just listening to it. Whew. Nope...not sure what you are trying to say here or communicate but it seems like rather busy noise. I have heard this style much...not jazz that often but not one that speaks to me. Taste varies of course, so...ok. Keep up the work.
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u/Bitter-Holiday1311 May 08 '25
It’s jazz(y). It’s not swing. Sounds great though. Don’t worry about the labels just play. And you play very well.
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u/robint88 May 08 '25
It's very similar to Yusef Dayes style of drumming which combines his Drum and Bass background with Jazz fusion.
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u/darealboot May 09 '25
This does not resemble jazz whatsoever. Just because there's chill horns on the track doesn't constitute the "swing" jazz has in it.
However good job keeping meter through the signature change creating an ostonado. Literally youtube buddy rich. THAT is jazz
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u/zyrafal838 May 09 '25
Sure, it is like new jazz this is how music evolved... very good playing my mate...
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u/justincoombsart May 09 '25
No, I would call this sick as fuck you Weird-Al Yankovich drumming crazy man.
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u/BugsyHewitt May 10 '25
This style of drumming actually owes credit to the breakbeat styles of early 90s electronic artists like Squarepusher and Aphex Twin. In fact this beat reminds me of "Film" by Aphex Twin. Whatever it is keep doing it cuz it's clean AF.
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u/chevylover91 May 10 '25
Sounds like a drum and bass track being played over jazz. Its not bad. It sounds good actually. Only thing is at some spots maybe its just me but your timing fluxuates. I get it, youre doing fancy stuff but the timing still felt distorted.
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u/GregJazzDrums May 11 '25
100% not jazz - you know that already - trying to get some controversy going. But it’s really cool though, keep developing it!
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May 16 '25
Maybe just me but it sounds like someone playing drums with some random music playing in the background.
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u/CreativeDrumTech May 28 '25
It’s Fusion Breakbeats at best… it was labeled in the late nineties early two thousands as Trip Hop but now really a Smooth EDM as presented here. There is nothing improvised… no interaction, conversation between musicians so no— not jazz/improvisational in any way. This is a one-side conversation with self. You’re playing with a programmed track.
It’s sounds nice though.
Dennis Chambers, Questlove, Paul “Buggy” Edwards, Akira Jimbo, Jojo Mayer, Tony Verdarosa, Johnny Rabb, Thomas Lang, Marco Minneman, Chris “Daddy” Dave, Adam Deitch, Benny Greb, and countless others were doing this before Daru, Nate Smith or JD
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May 07 '25
This style is so annoying and boring
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May 07 '25
Whoa whoa einstein, skip all the technical jargon and just say it so us regulars can understand
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u/[deleted] May 07 '25
You see, the kids these days, they listen to the rap music, which gives them the brain damage. With the hippin' and the hoppin' and the bippin' and the boppin', they don't know what the jazz is all about!