What do people that actually listen to jazz think of this album

What do people that actually listen to jazz think of this album

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It's good

i think you already know the answer

jazzthreadguy gave it a 2, and that's pretty low for him

jazzthreadguy can't always be right, I suppose.

it's a below average jazz album that probably could have been at least average if it had been edited down to just an hour of the best material

from someone who has a masters in jazz performance. I have to say that he is quite shit. especially the trombone player. The guy they had playing trombone couldn't fucking solo to save his life. As a trombone player, I am offended at how terrible some of the brass performances are.

anybody want to redpill me on jazzthreadguy? who is he and why do people care?

Essential 'why would I listen to this when I could be listening to actually good jazz albums'

He knows his shit from what I can tell, certainly knows more bout jazz than someone like melon or p4k
here's his review of The Epic
1/2
Shows potential, but is bloated, inconsistent, and poorly mixed
It’s a very ambitious album that has some good ideas and concepts but sometimes falls a little short on execution. The inclusion of a string section and choir adds depth and a somewhat unique texture to the music but often comes at the expense of spontaneity and limits the music in certain ways. This is always a challenge on albums that utilize large ensembles and definitely presents a challenge for the composer/arranger and here the music sometimes suffers from the structure and predictability of the string/choir lines behind the solos. None of this is helped by the production. The album seems to be mixed to emphasize the hip hop aspects, rather than aiming for the aural clarity to be able to hear the individual players.

2/2
My other major complaint with the album is with Washington’s improvisation. He often seems to rely on a few tricks with his playing. His fast runs seldom deviate from the pentatonic and pentatonic blues scales, and he seems to resort to this rather than playing melodically and developing his melodic ideas. His phrasing also tends toward the unimaginative and predictable. There were several times on the album I heard him using the same exact lick- ti do (8va) re-do, and sometimes it seemed like he relied on layering in the background textures to build to the apex of his solo. Don’t get me wrong, he had some good moments in his solos, but that should really be the star of the show here and I found them to be inconsistent overall. Generally my favorite soloists were the piano player and the trombone player, both of whom seemed to want to push the band, though it seemed that the rest of the rhythm section was often reluctant to leave their written grooves and really let the soloists lead.

The other soloists also weren’t always given enough time to develop their ideas whereas Washington often seemed to have more time than he did ideas. The tracks that featured vocals were also a weak point in my opinion. There were a lot of good things happening in this album (Miss Understanding is a standout track) but I don’t think there was enough to warrant its length. I think the album could have easily been cut down to a 100 minute run-time- still a pretty “epic” length but without the weak spots.

Side note- Did anybody else notice that the opening horn line in "Seven Prayers" (about 40 seconds in) is the exact melody from John Williams' "Marion's Theme" from the Indiana Jones movies?

he's right.

Tripfag that used to post in all the jazz threads. I don't think his taste is all that great personally, but I will say that at least he has his own taste. And he seems to have listened to a lot of jazz.

I agree with everything except the trombone player bit. passing off mistakes as soloing is not soloing. It sounds as if none of the players know what to do with their solos. They just kind of happen. No goal in mind, no destination.

It was way overhyped so it also became over criticized. I really thought it was pretty good when I first listened but up to that point the latest jazz album I had heard was from 1978. After listening to more modern jazz it brought my opinion of The Epic down by a lot. I guess it at least got me to listen to more modern jazz.

I don't really care about the music itself, I find it fairly average. I probably wouldn't really listen to it again. The thing I find interesting is how this release became suddenly popular because of reviewers for whatever reason. This fact alone could either be scary or a good thing if you're into jazz, because it shows that there is a controlling force which could popularize jazz to general music fans online if the certain releases are promoted enough. Likely the main reason while most music fans don't care about jazz, is because it is seen as incredibly old and passe, and on top of that there isn't a mainstream normie site that cares about modern bebop, etc, releases, because mainstream review sites are centrally aimed at rock/pop. There are jazz review sites, like AAJ (who gave this album 5 stars, likely for easy band-wagon view purposes), but general music fans seem to be completely unconscious towards jazz review sites, because jazz is so different from the music they normally listen to. In short, I don't really blame people for liking this album, but the potential it has to be mainstream is a far more interesting topic.

i personally feel its very sterile, over produced, lacks compositional chops, the arrangments are kind of lame, many of the harmonies both in the chord changes and in the horn parts lack color, kamasi is not a very riveting or original soloist, idk what the fuck his bass player is up to but its not good, and it lacks sensitivity, humility, power, and breath. its really just a very bad record in my opinion. kamasi is basically a pop star, he has good marketing and is a good face for brainfeeder to push because hipsters and sjws will think they are very hip and with it. its also derivative, this record is a cut a paste of what was going on with a lot of jazz music in the 70s, usually called soul jazz, but again, much more sterile. JTG knows what hes talking about for sure btw, hes a smart guy, listens to a lot of records with a wide range and good taste. listen to it for yourself and draw your own opinions but compared to someone like trane, ornette, henry threadgill, or monk, kamasi isnt even in the same universe and not in a good way.

>Side note- Did anybody else notice that the opening horn line in "Seven Prayers" (about 40 seconds in) is the exact melody from John Williams' "Marion's Theme" from the Indiana Jones movies?
top kek

i agree that by far the most interesting part of everything surrounding the epic was that a record label was able to have a big commercial success with a record that almost all of the serious jazz community either ignored or listened to once and never thought of it again. theres some guys at my jazz school that still defend it but they also arent the most serious jazz fans, one guy who loves its favorite artist hands down is michael jackson. the powers that be can decide whenever they want to make jazz something that the common man is interested in and listens to. hell they could probably even make money on it but i just dont know how any of that works or why, or why they chose kamasi to be their figure head as opposed to any of the very talented cats recording on serious jazz labels right now. but yeah, the record isnt very good and its kind of messed up now that the dust has settled that kamasi and brainfeeder capitalized and sold out an american cultural trandition thats over 100 years old, it feels similar to ken burns jazz, someone just wanted to make money with no context on what they were doing.

nobody on here "actually" listens to jazz, or music for that matter. same way nobody on lit "actually" reads

I don't think there's any big conspiracy to it or anything. I think Kamasi had connections to the California hip hop scene through his father and family, so when some of those guys got big and wanted a sax player on their album he was the guy. He got enough attention from being on hip hop albums that all the mainstream sites and reviewers decided to listen to his album and make jazz "cool" again.

>It was way overhyped so it also became over criticized
this 100%

no of course theres no conspiracy or something. you nailed it. a well connected guy (whos his father? this is news to me) cut a record for a popular label that was willing to sign the checks they would for pretty much any of their other aritsts. im more confused as to why p4k and the melon and aaj acted like this record was gods gift to jazz? thats the part where i think theres a lot of bullshit, i mean aaj and p4k have given very fair reviews to albums that i thought were both good and bad, why get their dicks hard on this shit? i mean the melon is just kind of dumb and doesnt listen to much other then rock, metal, and indie but why tf did aaj give it such high marks? was there money to be made?

>why tf did aaj give it such high marks?
Contributors to aaj choose what they want to review, which is why almost everything that gets reviewed gets high marks. As for p4k I think they were always going to love it just because he played on the Flying Lotus album and then on Kendrick's album, which both had some jazz influence so they figured it was time to make jazz "cool" and that he was the one to do it.

ah, thanks for filling me in. ive always stayed away from reading reviews or looking at websites like those. it just doesnt seem conducive and everyones told me something i dont like about every reviewer or site.

no one on Sup Forums listens to music, we just pick one or two hit songs from an album and have that be a representation of the whole thing

I listen to a lot of jazz.

It's a good album, but I don't listen to it like I listen to traditional jazz albums.

It seems like it's just a jazz album for people who can't dig most jazz instruments. Lots of keys, vibes, reverb. Very spacey album though I like listening to it a lot.

So rec me some modern jazz that is better

It's up there with Badbadnotgood as the greatest free jazz of our generation.

It's commercial jazz. Not terrible,not good. Just inoffensive. This style of r&b/hip hop/jazz crossover stuff is this generation's version of Smooth Jazz.

It's not commercial Jazz at all though. You don't know what that term means.

pilgrimage

72083369 search this post number in the archive. good thread a few days ago about good jazz releases from this year. also jtgs rymrateyourmusic.com/~jazzthreadguy
you could also stop being an idiot and keep up with and listen to jazz releases from record companies you think put out good stuff.

It literally is. Watered down jazz tailored for easy consumption/sales.

It's just one of those albums Sup Forums hates because it's popular. It's the only jazz album that's gotten any attention over the last decade so everyone has to act like it's the worst thing ever created despite not even being able to name 5 other jazz albums from this decade.

I don't know what I did but I got onto this account instead
rateyourmusic.com/~WonkeyDude98

it's a little bloated but it's good