Most musicians will tell you they are the same. (However, the
difference between blues and gospel is that gospel is about God and
blues is about women (or the lack thereof).
But the 'record store' definition would be (in general):
Blues: basically 3 chord tunes with solos on a minor pentatonic
scale. Blues club = Really drunk, loud, rowdy, fun, crowd
(think 'party')
(Early blues: imagine some guy in the deep south with a guitar
singing a tune that starts with "I woke up in the morning and my
woman was gone..." (melody in 2 notes: the minor third and tonic))
that's blues.
Jazz: complex chord changes with solos that non-Jazz people can't
follow. Jazz club = Really quiet, serious, crowd... (think 'museum',
or art gallery)
(Early Jazz: think of dixieland jazz (not necessarily the earliest
but...)
Having said that, music is all just hearing it. If you have doubts
about the difference between jazz and blues, just go to amazon.com
and listen to B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy etc... That's
BLUES. Listen to Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Miles Davis etc...
That's Jazz. (but be careful with this categorization because jazz
guys 'play the blues', but blues guys usually don't 'play the jazz')
If they all sound the same to you, good for you because it's all just
really, really great music.
Who cares what its called....(as long as you know where to find it at
Tower!)
We should be especially careful now about categorization because of
all the new stuff going on. What I consider jazz, some guys will
say 'that ain't jazz' (Wynton says that alot about a lot of people,
and its his way of putting people down, but this is really silly
too. No one woke up and 'created' jazz. It just happened... and it
is happening now, so no one can really say it is or it ain't jazz.)
Anyway, that't another topic altogether that I would rather not get
into (unless someone REALLY wants to! ;))
Ken
I am new to Jazz & Blue music and I want to understand the basic
concepts of
them. Could anyone tell me the differences between the Jazz &
Blues music ?
Thanks in advance.
Regards,
VDT
