Is this what jazz feels like?

April 18, 2021 6:56 AM

I have questions about the music in this video posted on Reddit.

Question #1: What is it? Some kind of jazz I think? (Please assume I don't know the first thing about jazz.) Do you recognize it?

Question #2: Why does it make me feel super emotional? The joyous dog obviously helps, and the fact that the clip depicts happiness long gone... but still. (I realize there's possibly no way to answer that, but if you have thoughts or facts about the emotional effect of music, I'm all ears.)

Question #3: Is there more music like this? Airy and free, like listening to sunlight in the morning?

posted by muuratsaari to Grab Bag (11 answers total)

I don't, but Shazam does. Agape, Nicholas Britell.
posted by zamboni at 6:59 AM on April 18, 2021 [2 favorites]

Agape is from the soundtrack for If Beale Street Could Talk.

This The Atlantic interview with Nicholas Britell discusses what they were going for - a jazz and classical influenced soundtrack, which (at points) is literally trying to evoke feelings of joy and love.

Britell: I’m from New York, and to me there are certain sounds that feel like mid-20th-century New York. Jenkins and I did talk about the idea of jazz, but, again, as a starting point. There’s Miles Davis, there’s John Coltrane in the film, there’s Nina Simone in the film. [We asked ourselves,] What is the sound of the score gonna be that actually can blend with that, but is also a counterpoint to that?

With Moonlight, early on, Jenkins said he knew he wanted an orchestral sound. We explored the idea of chopped and screwed hip-hop, and then we had this idea of taking the music I was writing, taking my own recordings, and [asking], What if I actually chop and screw my own classical music? I think with Beale Street, though, we’re at a starting point where we know New York in the 1970s, we imagine that world, and Jenkins is feeling brass and horns. When we started incorporating strings, there’s something about the score that is classical as well. It’s very classically written out, but at the same time there are jazz harmonies. I think music is this incredibly fluid space, and sometimes the labels create boundaries that aren’t really there. It was actually very exciting to see the ways that these genres all blur together, and to look at the notes and be like, If I play the same chords with six cellos, all of a sudden I don’t even know what it sounds like.

posted by zamboni at 7:14 AM on April 18, 2021 [5 favorites]

Is there more music like this? Airy and free, like listening to sunlight in the morning?

I think a lot of the "airy and free" feeling is the contrast between the sedate piano chords as background and the fast runs of the flute, itself a "light and airy" sounding instrument.

You might want to take a listen to the work of Jean-Pierre Rampal, who was a great classical flautist, but who also did a lot of "pop" work, especially Claude Bolling's Suite For Flute and Jazz Piano.

Herbie Mann was probably the most well-known jazz flautist, and he was definitely part of the mid-20th century jazz scene, although more "groove" than your example, adding Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, world music, and soul elements to jazz. Memphis Underground is one of his best-known tunes and a good example of his style.

Getting away from the flute, if you like Herbie Mann a lot of jazz artists were doing similar work in the 60's & 70's. This is kind of known as "groove jazz", although that's a bit hard to Google for. Seeding Spotify or Pandora with Herbie Mann should probably lead you to similar things.

For contemporary stuff, a lot of Jon Batiste's music strikes me as joyful (although that may partly be because Jon himself personally seems to be a joyful person and having a blast every time he plays.) Here's an hour-long show of him performing live in 2020.
posted by soundguy99 at 8:06 AM on April 18, 2021 [3 favorites]

If you grew up with the early years of Sesame Street, this might also be hitting those memories for you — it's got the same unscripted real-world quality, low production values, and quiet airy music as a lot of their short segments. Check out Milk or the dreamy beginning and ending of the crayon factory bit and see if those push the same buttons for you.
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:13 AM on April 18, 2021 [3 favorites]

This feels like a lot of European jazz on the ECM label in the 1970s-1990s, like Jan Garbarek and Arild Andersen.
posted by umbú at 8:19 AM on April 18, 2021 [5 favorites]

Agreed. And for #3 it's a long shot, but you might also like Music For Zen Meditation from 1964.
posted by Rash at 9:52 AM on April 18, 2021

I bet you'll like Professor Soap! Many of his songs come with sweet animations too. Start with Spirit Quest Journey but check out his other work too.
posted by SaltySalticid at 11:07 AM on April 18, 2021

Bill Lee’s scores for some of the early films his son Spike made have moments similar to this. She’s Gotta Have It (1986)
posted by theory at 11:30 AM on April 18, 2021

I am a jazz musician. Jazz is such an abused and stretched term you could certainly fit this under the umbrella if you wanted to - but I probably wouldn't describe it as such.

To my ears this leans more classical, of the 'commercial' film-score variety. Which makes sense since it is indeed a film score. Use of closely microphoned strings with soothing piano chords and mostly diatonic harmony. There's definitely some jazz influence here, the piano voicings, but it wouldn't be the genre that I'd peg it with immediately.

Someone mentioned ECM, and while this is kind of similar I don't think you'd find ECM stuff as clean, calm, or rounded as this, but yea, you might like that too.

If this really gets you, maybe some good old Debussy? Listen to 'Claire de Lune'. Like really listen as if its the first time you've heard it. Or Ravel's string quartet! The sadness in the impressionistic classical music evokes similar feelings for me. Though if you prefer a very modern sound they might not do it for you.

Also Julian Shore! Check this out! Beautiful strings with piano in modern harmony and voicing. Julian's music has the same beauty with slight melancholy.
posted by alhadro at 6:48 PM on April 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

I thought of the Westerlies right away, try Saro.
posted by wellifyouinsist at 4:10 AM on April 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

Agape (which is new to me--thank you!) fills roughly the same space in the, uh, musical spectrum of my experience as does Matthew Halsall. Try Fletcher Moss Park for starters. E.g., The Sun in September
posted by bricoleur at 3:56 PM on April 19, 2021