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Jazz listening: Is it about the music? Or is it about the sound?

The thread title says it all. I can listen to jazz recordings for hours on end but can scarcely name a dozen tunes.  My jazz collection is small but still growing.  Most recordings sound great.  On the other hand, I have a substantial rock, pop and country collection and like most of us, have a near encyclopedic knowledge of it.  Yet sound quality is all over the map to the point that many titles have become nearly unlistenable on my best system.  Which leads me back to my question: Is it the sound or the music?  Maybe it’s both. You’ve just got to have one or the other!
jdmccall56
smrex13
645 posts
 
I only got into jazz once I set up a vinyl system a few years ago.  Now, it's about all I listen to.  I can put on nearly any jazz album and just relax into listening.  It's really the sound that my system produces rather than specific albums/artists/songs, at least at this point, that I'm attracted to.  I can even listen to the same albums frequently and not tire of them.  That's not the case with other genres.
jdmccall56 OP
73 posts
 
I can put on nearly any jazz album and just relax into listening. It's really the sound that my system produces rather than specific albums/artists/songs, at least at this point, that I'm attracted to.
Exactly!  So...the sound is the thing.  Not the melody or anything so much about the musical details.  At least with jazz.  Still, it's not like all jazz is created equal.  There's still jazz I like and jazz I don't, irrespective of sound quality..  Personally, I have a hard time with so-called "free jazz".  And I can't tolerate some artist's tendency to vocalize along with the music.
strateahed
305 posts
 

IMHO, with jazz you get both – good music and good sound. Like @whipsaw mentioned, Rudy Van Gelder (Blue Note) engineered tons of material from the bebop/hard bop/post-bop eras. Several other labels had good production quality as well, like Prestige, Riverside, Columbia, Verve, and Impulse. I don’t know if there was an unspoken standard or a small group traveling within that genre, but most of the stuff they produced was pretty consistently good.

 

Yeah rock, R&B, even blues, can be all over the place. But again, I think that was a function of engineering and where/how they were recorded. Earth, Wind and Fire’s first album sounded like it was recorded in someone’s garage. Their sound improved substantially with the move to Columbia. Chicago (CTA) put out great stuff with Columbia as well.

 

The other day, remembering my high school days, put on “Stand” by Sly & the Family Stone. It was pretty bad. I liked that album playing on the system I had back then. If one’s system is fairly resolving, capable of faithfully reproducing what’s been recorded, then sound quality will necessarily vary based on how well it’s been engineered. It’s the old adage “garbage in garbage out” at work.  

 

One last thing, keeping with the central theme: is it the music or the sound? I had a plumber doing some work and I asked him “… anything or anybody you care to hear while you’re working?” He suggested Vince Gill, Randy Travis, and a couple of other country artists I can’t remember. That day – song after song - I discovered how much high quality sound comes out of Nashville. Those guys really know how to engineer great sounding music! Am I now a country music fan? Well no, all things being equal, music trumps sound. Just saying …      


jjss49's avatar
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jjss49
6,612 posts
 
there are many good sounding, well engineered jazz labels... to me though, manfred eicher's ecm sets the bar as the gold standard over the years and still, today

you must like the selection of music/artists though... 
oregonpapa's avatar
oregonpapa
4,867 posts
 
As a long-time jazz collector, to me, it is about the music first. That's not to say that sound quality isn't important too, but in looking at my collection, it contains a lot of jazz history. Back in time, there were some pretty poor quality recordings that contained fantastic music. Charlie Parker albums readily come to mind. "Bird's" influence on jazz musicians cannot be denied, including current ones. His recordings belong in any serious jazz fan's collection. 

Frank
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