Anteater's Muzak 101: Legitimizing Smooth Jazz For The Unwashed Masses

Anteater · 03-31-2013, 09:54 AM

Jean-Luc Ponty - The Gift Of Time (1987)

ARTIST BACKGROUND
Even if you don't know Jean-Luc Ponty and his virtuosic violin abilities to any degree of familiarity, you've more than likely run across him via his numerous contributions to the albums and material of others. He was mainstay on a lot of the classic output of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, toured and did studio work with both Elton John and Frank Zappa, not to mention his innumerable live performances with guys like Stanley Clarke and George Duke. Thus, he's arguably a living legend in the realm of jazz fusion and still one of the best violin players on the planet today (if not of all time).

THE ALBUM
1987's The Gift Of Time was the culmination of a decade in experimentation for the much lauded stringmeister and his 17th studio album overall. Perhaps due to the fact that this record marked a transition from label Atlantic to Columbia, the sound quality production-wise is remarkably good compared to some of his earlier 80's explorations. It went on to sell fairly well, followed by a world tour or two. Notably, Ponty replaced his usual session guitarist Scott Henderson on this record with Gino Vanneli guitar alumni Pat Thomi. Schweeet!

WHY YOU WANT THIS
Well, the thing to realize about Jean-Luc Ponty, particularly in regards to The Gift Of Time, is that he's never dumbed down his music merely to play to contemporary jazz trends of the day. For him, synthesizer overload and attaching all kinds of crazy pedal effects to his violin was a combination of curiosity and ingenuity. The technical playing and tight arrangements he's been known for since the halcyon jazz-fusion era of the mid 70's remains very much intact well into the 80's and 90's. Furthermore, some of the neatest radio-length material he ever wrote is on this album: the title track in particular, with its swirling psychedelic orchestral swelling and hypnotic drum/bass foundation, is probably the single best smooth jazz song of the 1980's period, and the rumbling, tribal 'Faith In You' coupled alongside the spacey, 7-minute cloudscaper 'Introspective Perceptions', certainly give the listener plenty of engaging fusion-lite to chew on.

CLOSING REMARKS
Whilst there is no contemporary jazz record from the 80's that completely escapes the realm of synth-laden cheesiness, The Gift Of Time has such a unique sound that its easy to enjoy it on its own merits. In the same way that Allan Holdsworth turned the synth-axe into an institution all its own during the period, Jean-Luc Ponty's own sonic explorations through treating his violin like a guitar, modifying and layering his sound painstakingly as electronic technology exploded throughout the 80's...its really something special to sink your ears into.

In short, this is not only a really interesting contemporary jazz album...the music is pretty snazzy in general! Not for everyone, mind you, but definitely worth checking out by anyone who desires to experience just how far violin-based jazz got pushed a few decades ago.

FINAL GRADE

Anteater · 02-14-2017, 07:23 PM

It's been a few years, but it's time to revive the smoothest journal this side of Kenny G's piehole and continue our journey into reviews, analyses and aspire to convince even the edgiest edgelord that everyone needs a little elevator muzak sometimes.

So let's break down what's coming up...and feel free to request a review or chime in with snark at any opportunity.

State Of The Smooth Union (2017)

Alive and relevant. Guys like Kamasi Washington and bands like Snarky Puppy walk that fine line between high-octane "fusion" while still touching upon the chillness that makes the best muzak engaging on it's own merits. Stalwarts in the genre such as Jeff Lorber, Paul Hardcastle, guitar god Pat Metheny and keyboard guru Jeff Lorber all continue to record and bring in big audiences. Vaporwave, a genre that started off as a joke nearly seven years ago, continues to bring new younger audiences to the 80's and 90's classic muzak that fuels the genre's underlying ideas and has continued it's steady takeover of certain fringes of popular culture.

What's Coming Up Ant-man?

Vaporwave: The Modern Smooth Jazz (2008 - Present Day)
Classic Reviews: T-Square, Dancing Fantasy, Yellowjackets, etc.
The Best (And Worst) Smooth Jazz Music Videos
Artist / Band Spotlights
Weird stuff about smooth / contemporary jazz that'll blow your mind
....and more!

Thanks for tuning in...watch this space!

Anteater · 04-09-2017, 03:51 PM

Vaporwave: Smoov Jazz For Memeboys and Memegurls

Before we dive into a beautiful sea of Fiji Water, let's lay some definitions on the table:

Quote:

Vaporwave is an electronic music microgenre from the early 2010s. Its stylistic influences include chillwave, smooth jazz, chopped and screwed, new-age, and pop.

The subculture associated with vaporwave sets out to satirize consumer capitalism and popular culture and tends to be characterized by a nostalgic or surrealist engagement with the popular entertainment, technology and advertising of the 1980s and 1990s. It also incorporates early Internet imagery, late 1990s web design, glitch art, and cyberpunk tropes.

To explain it in words kind of ruins the point. Vaporwave is the muzak that plays in an elevator in a mall in a futuristic Japanese cyberpunk dystopia.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Vaporwave is that while it is very easy to define it, the genre has split and morphed and been contributed to by so many people over the last five years that the above description is really just a small river that empties out into a much bigger Windows 95 colored sea.

There are two or three key albums that served as a starting point to the world's first genre birthed entirely by the World Wide Web (in the metal world, djent would come into its own a year or two later). Those three albums are:

Chuck Person - Eccojams Vol. 1
James Ferraro - Far Side Virtual
Macintosh Plus - Floral Shoppe

In these three albums you see all the hallmarks that filthy casuals associate with this genre: slowed down, chopped/screwed samples of smooth jazz or R&B you probably saw featured earlier in my Smooth Jazz journal here, plus other techniques you normally see in plunderphonics or experimental ambient.

Of the three, Floral Shoppe is considered to be the first "real" vaporwave record while Chuck Person and James Ferraro are considered to be proto-vaporwave. Kind of like how The Beatles and Beach Boys have have some influence on progressive rock, but In The Court Of The Crimson King by King Crimson is considered to be the prog's real beginning.

Floral Shoppe is interesting in particular. Look how many millions of views it has. Trying to seriously analyze something that sounds like it was crafted as a living meme might seem ridiculous, but you could write thesis papers just on the song 'リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュー ', with how it took a random mid 80's Diana Ross sample and turned it into the anti-capitalist elevator soundtrack to hell.

Starting from late 2011 and beyond though, what started off as an elaborate joke started to splinter off into multiple subgenres (future funk and hardvapor, among others) and diversity took over. Blank Banshee, for instance, fused vaporwave-styled sampling with Trap and became instant hits with early vaporwave audiences seemingly overnight. Or take electronic musician Ryan DeRobertis, who in late 2012 started a vaporwave / Future Funk project called Saint Pepsi and eventually entered the mainstream as Skylar Spence. His hallmarks involved heavy sampling of Japanese City Pop, Funk and R&B to often entertaining results.

For those looking for the "diamonds" in the rough in a vast genre sea that is technically already "dead" (or is it?), the online label Dream Catalogue features dozens of amazing albums from artists all over the world who create the dreamy soundtracks to your cybernetic nightmares, such as the mysterious 2814. The label's output on Bandcamp can be found here.

In conclusion, I've merely touched the surface on both vaporwave's nascent history and how it continues to interact with pop culture and beyond, but the main thing to take away here is that there are a lot of people who enjoy this music unironically and sometimes seek deeper meaning from it. Which means, in essence, they are enjoying smooth jazz as well...albeit in a more cynical post-modern fashion.

**Frownland** · 04-09-2017, 03:59 PM

Meh, smooth jazz is one of many influences on part of the very diverse genre, but that doesn't exactly make vaporwave smooth jazz.

Also never understood how Eccojams gets more credibility than OPN. That's when Lopatin started to really make the genre interesting.

04-09-2017, 03:59 PM	#4 (permalink)
Frownland SOPHIE FOREVER Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: East of the Southern North American West Posts: 35,541	Meh, smooth jazz is one of many influences on part of the very diverse genre, but that doesn't exactly make vaporwave smooth jazz. Also never understood how Eccojams gets more credibility than OPN. That's when Lopatin started to really make the genre interesting. __________________ Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth. d e a f b o x

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes
Switch to Linear Mode Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode