Why is jazz so pretentious?

why is jazz so pretentious?

jazz is good

It, along with Classical, aged horribly by the time the Beatles and the Rolling Stones came into fruition.

>bunch of ego-maniacs showing off
>good

Because you're a dumb dumb that can't follow complex music structures.

When you don't understand something, people who take that thing seriously almost always seem pretentious.

I used to think jazz was extremely pretentious until someone challenged me to try to play jazz.

Jazz is not pretentious
Some of the fans are

>bunch of ego-maniacs showing off
All music can accurately be described this way

>a bunch of random gibberish
>challenging

A foreign language sounds like gibberish until you take time to study and understand it

>call jazz musicians show-offy ego-maniacs
>call jazz random gibberish
>call anyone who claims or tries to prove otherwise "pretentious"

it's less of showing off and more on actually trying to sound melodious while pouring everything they know into their improvisation

I mean, look at Django, for instance. obviously two fingers and a thumb can be very limiting to one's technique, and after my finger got bent last week, I can truly understand why he plays the way he does

Why have you not taken the time to educate yourself and understand jazz?

It uses the same theory as anyother song. Plus a lot of jazz doesn't even have lyrics to be pretentious what's pretentious about it? The precise improvization from every member of the group constantly one not away from fucking up the entire song if they lose focus.

Reposting this:

I've been playing jazz for 12 years at this point. I play alto & bari sax, flute, clarinet and I'm teaching myself upright bass at the moment. There are two groups of people who think jazz is "intellectual" as far as I can tell. Fedora-tippers who will come up to you after a show and try to impress you with their knowledge of jazz theory and people who dislike jazz music.

The former is just trying to have some sort of social standing and is honestly just embarrasing. They don't seem to get that I might not want to talk jazz right now or that I don't need another friend who knows about jazz. They normally try this angle because outside of this they're boring as fuck and have nothing interesting to say which is just sad.

The folks who dislike jazz generally seem to equate intellectual with snobbish, but are too pussy to call it snobbish. They'll talk about how you can just play whatever in the solos and it's left up to interpretation or how people who like jazz are only concerned with the intricacies of the music, not if there's any soul to the piece ect.

Personally, I don't think that jazz as a cultural group is particularly intellectual or snobbish. People tend to presume that only clever people listen to jazz, but you know what else clever people do? Watch football, play video games, become alcoholics, marry the wrong person, end up in prison, or sit on Sup Forums shitposting about bjork for the better part of 4 years (haven't been back here in a while). I've definitely played for intellectuals, but I've also played in working class pubs where most people finished education when they were 14.

Certainly, there are complex jazz pieces. Definitely there were jazz musician who wanted to achieve "intellectually stimulating" pieces. But does a room full of drunks singing along to "New York, New York" seem intellectual to you? Or a bunch of middle aged folk trying to dance to one-note-samba while their kids look on in shame? To me it sure doesn't.

i like jazz

It's literally the music of plebeians, it's the modern fans that are pretentious but modern fans are nothing like the original audience

when jazz stopped being mainstream it retreaded into being a niche enjoyed by elitists who have studied it, listened to every album, and developed a fine taste for a genre that is probably over 100 years old by now

>bunch of ego-maniacs showing off

see: hip-hop, progressive rock, neoclassical...

See:

Just what did a blues rock band do those genres in your opinion?

You are trying to reason with someone who lazily baited responses and left.

because niggers had to compensate for being niggers