Progressive Metal and "Jazz Influences"

for me jazz is defined by improv most "jazz metal" does not have this very prominant but niether does a lot of fusion nu jazz or smooth jazz. To me these genres are as much about aping the more superficaial elements of jazz (certain chords and scales, swing feel) as it is about actually playing jazz. That does not make the music bad or mean they are not influenced by jazz. influenced is a really really vague term anyway.

it is some jazz crossed metal with soem sax solos on some Soundgarden songs






Edited by aginor - June 19 2011 at 14:45

Just sick of the exclusionist attitudes re: genres, though it is a nice change of pace from the more common "prog metal isn't prog" threads. The fallacious language and constant appeals to authority re: music theory certainly encouraged some facetiousness. I suppose I shouldn't just be a -jerk-, but I admit, it can be difficult when the language reeks of a closed mind. The tone was set; I stepped in to fill a role. Now that I have more than five sleep-deprived minutes to contribute to posting, I'll elaborate on my own brusquely presented views.

Edited by Man Overboard - June 19 2011 at 23:01

rogerthat wrote: You are really talking about a specific era of DT here and not ALL their work.  Though I'd argue that even at their best, they were really a bunch of enthusiastic fans of the bands QR, Rush, Metallica and DiMeola/Dixie Dregs.  They don't set a scene or paint a picture that is their own, it is instead hijacked from all the great rock music made up to that point. With that said, I'd hardly be able to single out DT for this save that they are among the most obvious and easy targets. Most metal bands from the 90s onwards I have heard are after a sound, and a sound that's usually not their own. It's the metal way. \m/

Not to derail the thread even further, but doesn't this seem even more common in  prog rock? Anything that's got a sax on it seems to be automatically slapped with the "jazz" label. 

Man Overboard wrote: Just sick of the exclusionist attitudes re: genres, though it is a nice change of pace from the more common "prog metal isn't prog" threads. The fallacious language and constant appeals to authority re: music theory certainly encouraged some facetiousness. I suppose I shouldn't just be a -jerk-, but I admit, it can be difficult when the language reeks of a closed mind. The tone was set; I stepped in to fill a role. Now that I have more than five sleep-deprived minutes to contribute to posting, I'll elaborate on my own brusquely presented views. The premise of the thread is offensive. Only two metal bands with any jazz influence? Seriously? I'm sure that with his well-educated ear, OP is aware that "7th chords with a little dissonance" is the least of many of these bands' qualifiers, especially in the case of Death and Gorguts (mentioned in the OP). With all the hyperbole being flung around in this thread, myself included, I'm surprised the OP didn't pick up on HH's use of such in his "Death -are- jazz" comment. I'll admit, there's a certain era of Death that plays well between listenings of If Summer Had Its Ghosts, Maiden Voyage, Kind Of Blue, Shamal, and other jazz and jazz-influenced classics. Chuck's modes, scales, syncopations, and choices of voicings certainly weren't the ones that characterize -metal-, though I understand many metal bands adapted some of them afterward because they were that awesome. Yeah, I get that "jazz influenced" is bandied about quite a bit where it may not be appropriate, but the original examples given are pretty poorly picked at best and intentionally inflammatory at worst.   I think it's a fair assessment to state that Dream Theater don't "get" songwriting, for all their technical knowhow. They can write and play parts in many different modes and styles, though they seem to mostly prefer aping riffs and melodies from their heroes past and present and plugging it all in together. Any given Dream Theater album listening eventually devolves into a game of "where did they appropriate that part from and how shameless is it". This isn't conjecture, any number of their interviews, features, and DVD commentaries have members speaking at length about which bands/songs they mold their individual sections after. Live Scenes New York was amazing for this, they give many section-by-section breakdowns. Live, sometimes they'll just start playing the riff their 'original' song was 'inspired' by. If you've ever seen any of their songcharts in the rehearsal/recording studio, they often just name the sections after the band, album, or song they're gentrifying. Their supporters call this "tribute", but when it makes up the majority of their output, it sounds to me...like they don't 'get' songwriting. It's opinion. Have at it!   PS and OT: could you folks possibly stop referring to me in the masculine? Not to be human in this thread or anything, but I'm finally transitioning (the true meaning of Man Overboard revealed ). My name and gender are in my profile.

Now this is a response I can actually answer in a civilised manner, thankyou

I didn't mean to stir up an exlusionist attitude, but I am aware that I may have given off that vibe... jazz influence is clearly all around us (it's a huge and very important genre of music) but to put the "jazz influenced" label on a band would have to be a strong statement, otherwise you could quite literally put that title on all popular music from the 50s-60s onwards. The point I'm making is that the label is given out way too much, and it's started to obscure a band's true identity, especially that of those which genuinely bring in jazz elements to their music.

Obviously I didn't presume there were only two bands with jazz influence (I did say that I could only think of two bands at the time, now a couple more have arisen, like Behold The Arctopus and Textures in the song "Touching the Absolute" etc...). And even if it were an intended hyperbole, the statement was still ridiculous, I almost spat out my orange juice when I read it, mainly because there was still a massive deal of carelessness involved in it. Yes, Chuck did use modes in his soloing, but the syncopation thing really doesn't point to jazz, I'm sorry to say it. Syncopation as a whole is not only present in jazz, it's present in almost every form of music and so I highly doubt Chuck was thinking of jazz when writing riffs in songs like Vacant Planets. Also his voicings are just creative, they don't necessarily derive from jazz. In fact, jazz guitar voicing rarely includes anything more than the third and seventh of a chord and as a result are very sparse.

I don't know what you mean with Gorguts being jazz influenced. In fact I don't really get what anyone means with that. I certainly can't hear it, so if anyone would like to point out a passage off Obscura which is jazz-influenced I'd be welcomly enlightened.

Now that the DT assumption is backed up by in depth points I can understand where you are coming from, although you can't help but question what "songwriting" actually is. As a composer myself (I wouldn't call my music "songs" exactly), I find it very difficult to write something entirely original or that hasn't been inspired by another piece of music, and I've spoke to others about this too and they agree. Virtually all music nowadays is coming up with innovative combinations of things we've already heard before, and that's exactly how Gentle Giant and other innovative progressive bands composed (I can definitely hear this). It's more the way you use these motifs and ideas that really counts, so overall I'd still disagree with you. DT may (in some cases very obviously) almost copy other riffs, but I think it's how they put them in context and play around with them a bit that counts for their compositional merit. I think they are fantastic songwriters, despite the fact I find them almost unbearable to listen to

Apologies, I assumed you were writing from under the sea

Man Overboard wrote: Just sick of the exclusionist attitudes re: genres, though it is a nice change of pace from the more common "prog metal isn't prog" threads. The fallacious language and constant appeals to authority re: music theory certainly encouraged some facetiousness. I suppose I shouldn't just be a -jerk-, but I admit, it can be difficult when the language reeks of a closed mind. The tone was set; I stepped in to fill a role. Now that I have more than five sleep-deprived minutes to contribute to posting, I'll elaborate on my own brusquely presented views. The premise of the thread is offensive. Only two metal bands with any jazz influence? Seriously? I'm sure that with his well-educated ear, OP is aware that "7th chords with a little dissonance" is the least of many of these bands' qualifiers, especially in the case of Death and Gorguts (mentioned in the OP). With all the hyperbole being flung around in this thread, myself included, I'm surprised the OP didn't pick up on HH's use of such in his "Death -are- jazz" comment. I'll admit, there's a certain era of Death that plays well between listenings of If Summer Had Its Ghosts, Maiden Voyage, Kind Of Blue, Shamal, and other jazz and jazz-influenced classics. Chuck's modes, scales, syncopations, and choices of voicings certainly weren't the ones that characterize -metal-, though I understand many metal bands adapted some of them afterward because they were that awesome. Yeah, I get that "jazz influenced" is bandied about quite a bit where it may not be appropriate, but the original examples given are pretty poorly picked at best and intentionally inflammatory at worst.   I think it's a fair assessment to state that Dream Theater don't "get" songwriting, for all their technical knowhow. They can write and play parts in many different modes and styles, though they seem to mostly prefer aping riffs and melodies from their heroes past and present and plugging it all in together. Any given Dream Theater album listening eventually devolves into a game of "where did they appropriate that part from and how shameless is it". This isn't conjecture, any number of their interviews, features, and DVD commentaries have members speaking at length about which bands/songs they mold their individual sections after. Live Scenes New York was amazing for this, they give many section-by-section breakdowns. Live, sometimes they'll just start playing the riff their 'original' song was 'inspired' by. If you've ever seen any of their songcharts in the rehearsal/recording studio, they often just name the sections after the band, album, or song they're gentrifying. Their supporters call this "tribute", but when it makes up the majority of their output, it sounds to me...like they don't 'get' songwriting. It's opinion. Have at it!   PS and OT: could you folks possibly stop referring to me in the masculine? Not to be human in this thread or anything, but I'm finally transitioning (the true meaning of Man Overboard revealed ). My name and gender are in my profile.

Great well thought out post!

Hey man, where is the middle picture that you have showing the guy on fire?

After reading through the often intense discussions on this thread, I never read mention of the German band Panzerballett. These guys sure blend metal with fusion really well and are pure joy to listen to.....sometimes the tech showboating makes me laugh, but I can dig it.