Metal Reviews

I recently got an assignment about jazz in my aesthetic lesson.

I have to make a presentation around two jazz song who come from a different ?art period?. The presentation has to be build around the contradictions of the two songs.
(those can be: amusement -art, white-black, America - Europe, melodic - freejazz, city - countryside, vocal - instrumental, wind instrument - other instruments, fast - slow, short - long, early - modern, pure jazz - fusion, .... )

Then I need to give some small details about the artist and situating them in the time and more importantly i need to give the characteristics of the song in function of the chosen contradiction. go deeper in on the ritme, structure and composition. Also why are the songs called Jazz, what does it differs from pop, rock or classic music.

Then finally i got to say why i have chosen those fragments, what do i like in it, what do i don't like.

(the presentation has to be around 15 minutes, so I can't take 20 minutes fragments.)

Because I don't know a single thing about Jazz, I was hoping somebody here could help me, do you have any ideas for 2 songs or any tips? thank you

some more info we got.
a few styles:
1 1900-1930: ?early jazz? :
-Scott joplin, jelly roll morton, bessie smith, louis armstrong, sidney bechet, ethel waters, bix beiderbecke, duke ellington, earl Hines ...

2 1930- 1940: years 30: Rising of the swingbands.
-Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, Art Tatum, Lester Young, Count Basie, COleman Hawkins, Django Reinhardt, Artie Shaw ...

3 1940-1949: years 40: bebop makes furore.
-Charlie Parker, Lionel Hampton, Dizzie Gillespie, Max Roach, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Stan Getz ...

4 1950-1959: years 50:Birth of the cool: cooljazz, hardbop, souljazz
-Lenny Tristano, Chet Baker, Horace Silver, Ella Fitzgerald, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Ornette Coleman, Art Blakey, ...

5 1960-1969: years 60: freejazz, modale jazz, fusion
-John Coltrane, Yusef Lateef, Herbie Hancock, Cannonbal Adderley, Pharoah Sanders, Cecil Taylor, Chick Chorea ...

6 1970 - 1990: funkjazz, electric jazz, nu-jazz, hiphop jazz
-Wayne Shorter, Wynton Marsakis, Courtney Pine, Don Cherry, Joe Henderson, Cassandra Wilson, Keith Jarett, Toots Thielemans, Joe Lovano, US3, Abdullah Ibrahim.

Ok, maybe you want to impress your teach with something that is not on the list. Grab some contradiction like computer generated vs not computer generated. Then grab some genre that is not on the list: drill'n'bass, and pick a song from it that is 100% jazz. I suggest listening to Cliffort Gilberto - Giant Jumps. Then pick some really modern shit: Masada - Ziphim.

Computer generated vs not is an interesting idea although I'd go for more normal stuff like Amon Tobin/Jaga Jazzist/St Germain

You could play some classic big-band music like Count Basie, then compare and contrast it with something like Paul Whiteman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Whiteman)

Whiteman was around at the same time as people like Basie and Ellington, and adapted "Jazz music" for respectable white society. As such, there's less improvisation, and lots of cheesy string backing. However, despite having little to do with jazz, Whiteman was crowned "the king of jazz".

It's interesting because it shows how a music that is very organic and evolving, with a lot of raw energy, can be translated into something quite sanitised and soulless for a mainstream audience. This is also something that we talk about a lot in metal today, of course.

EDIT: probably was a bit harsh on him above, but the principle is still the same

what about jazz in metal (or are the people who call a metal band "jazzy" just talking out of their asses)?

Depends. Ephel Duath vs Sun Ra, give 'em something to think about!

Yes, that's a good one!

Often, I think they are.

Thanks for the tips, i will try to get my hands on some fragments from the artist you all mentioned.