A  little jazz inspired also in the Whiskey Bar ... !! but that one is more Kurt Weill and Bertold Brecht'ian than anything else.

 

I'm thinking something ... hang in there for a sec!

 

The Doors, musically, are not "conventional". Take away a song or two ... it's about breaking most conventions on anything! I seriously doubt that Jim Morrison cared if it was called this or that or this or that ... he just wanted this or that for the backing and the guys were good enough to do it and add to it.  I did not think, and I will listen to it again with a different ear now, that there is "jazz" in there ... albeit, it was pretty obvious that places like San Francisco and Los Angeles (specially the haut-class at UCLA where they were from and met), were not exactly immune to the jazz scene and some of the monster big names already by that time.

 

But I kinda thought a little different ... people have this idea that just because the music changed or ... we went sour for 23 seconds ... that it is jazz ... or this or that ... and it doesn't have to be. Sometimes it is simple de-tuning of a chord or note ... or something different ... and at times, just letting it all go crazy and haywire, is a way of being different. And it might be a jazz lick or chord, but more often than not, the intuitive side of the work ... might be ... I just took my hand, turned it left ways and rubbed them this way, and the sound and effect it gave us was ... this ... for so many seconds ... and when we look at it musically, we can't define it ... but it sure sounds like a jazz something or other?

 

I think, and this comes from my writing and how I see things inside myself as I am writing --- I do not do this "later" or "after" ... it's all spontaneous or not done! ... that I would not think in terms of ... I wanna do this jazz part here ... or this mumbo part here ... your mind just says ... I wanna do this that feels like this and your hand turns and you go with it and then add this to it ... and you have something different ... which of course, musically, MIGHT sound a bit jazz like ... but in reality? ... we can't say ... ! We didn't create it.

 

It is likely ... but not one of the main influences in almost ALL the music that came out of the Los Angeles area ... with the exception of Frank Zappa. 

 

In my book, San Francisco had a lot more jazz than Los Angeles ... and it was more visible and respected. Los Angeles was always about the star and the studio and this and that ... and it really was never considered a music mecca ... so SF had the Fillmore, but LA ended up with the Whiskey A GoGo, and then The Roxy, and of course ... the Cinerama Dome and the Aquarius Theater. 2 of these were film/studio power places. One of them was owned by someone that became a major name in music as a producer. The other was owned by a small time man that didn't care for the whole thing, but he liked the music ... and both of these last two only did rock music! ... jazz? ... that ain't music.

 

At that time, some jazz DID start making a name for itself in LA. Willie Davis (Green Bay Packers) and even Kareem Abdul Jabbar (UCLA and Lakers) ---another UCLA connection!!!!! --- ended up in radio doing doing very well known, respected and appreciated radio shows. I think that Willie was also the owner of one radio station that did all jazz ... instead of the usual ... one hour per week bullsh*t! We're talking about 1971/72/73 and 74 or so ...

 

But I am not sure that any of us, for example, can name major jazz folks that were from LA proper and made it in LA with their music ... most of them left and went to Europe ... because LA only likes stars and perfume and smog!

Chicago, was much more blues influenced, or at least ... acknowledged than otherwise.

 

But I think they took their cue more from big band and then experimental composers (they even have a piece about Varese! ... and it wasn't to thank Zappa!) ... and extended pieces, that included their own jams in the middle ... however, on a compositional level I would give them a lot of credit, because they took those improvisational pieces and made the pieces come off a lot better, more "classical", and obviously with a much more interesting musical connection and creativity ... something that was not always associated with rock musicians at all!

 

But it's not hard to find a slight link/connection and say ... ohhh ... there's a little Chuck Mangione right there, or a little Herb Alpert ... or similar ... but it was done with a much educated and studied musical knowledge than most pop/rock bands ... the way the horns were used in Chicago, were as an orchestral arrangement ... NOT used within a pop/rock music context at all! This is important! Most rock bands only used standard hooks and bridges and chord changes by comparison without any music connection or knowledge. Chicago's work in their first 4 or 5 albums is excellent in showing what a well rehearsed and intelligent group of musicians could do ... and do well!

 

The same can be said for Morrison Hotel, with blues tunes like "Roadhouse Blues", "You Make Me Real", "The Spy" and Maggie M'Gill".

 

Great track by the way!

Brian Auger and the Trinity

Brigitte Fontaine (listen to the album 'comme à la radio')

Frank Zappa

Colosseum

Graham Bond

Booker T & the MG's

Manfred Mann Chapter Three

Soft Machine

The Vampires of Dartmoore

Wolfgang Dauner

Dave Pike

 

While i agree that LA Woman has some jazz or jazz-rock, and that the brass arrangement of Soft Parade are jazzy.... i don't think their first two albums hold much jazz-rock

 

Music's Over is mostly bluesy to my ears, and The End is more Indian-raga influenced.

 

 

----------------------

 

as for drummer using jazz-inspired playing, Ginger Baker and Bill Ward (Sabbath), Ed Cassidy (Spirit) did that too.... yet Sabs are never considered anywhere close to jazzy, Spirit neither....

 

Cream is a tad different though: Baker & Bruce hated each other but the only point they agreed upon is that Cream was a Jazz group, they just never told Clapton.  

 

No, seriously. U Know ny Name (look up the Number).

 

Only preceded by Zappa's Invocation and Ritual Dance of the Young Pumpkin and some early Soft Machine.

 

Other jazz inspired bands include Pink Floyd (Pow R. Toc H.) H.P. Lovecraft (That's how much I love you), Traffic (Giving to you; No Time to Live), Fifty Foot Hose (Fantasy), East Of Eden (Stable of the Sphinx), Touch (Down at Circe's Place; Seventy-Five), Jethro Tull, Nirvana (Requiem to John Coltrane), Jimi Hendrix (Moon Turn the Tides), The Nice but most notably Spirit.

 

 

 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark_Plug_%28album" rel="nofollow - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark_Plug_(album )

 

Conjunction Mars reminds me of the doors. But this was made when the Doors were hot already.

And... btw, with regard to The Doors covering the Alabama Song (it's not called "Whisky Bar" - as one of the few, if only, songs that Brecht wrote in English and since it was named after an American state, it should, out of courtesy alone, be afforded its correct title). It is very clear from their butchery and subsequent murdering of Kurt Weill's music that they only chose this song for Bertolt Brecht's lyric, albeit that one little gender change¹ in the lyric altered the entire meaning of the song so what Morrison sings bears no relation to what Brecht wrote. What began life as a louche jazz parody of popular music drinking songs, sung in the original opera by prostitutes moving from bar to bar looking for the next [pretty boy] client is now stripped of any musical parody and is reduced to being the very thing Brecht and Weill set out to parody. The Doors version simply isn't Jazz, man.

/edit: ¹After refreshing my memory by listening to the Doors version again, not that I needed reminding of just how wretchedly horrible it is, I forgot that as well as changing "next pretty boy" to "next little girl", Morrison omits the "next little dollar" verse so the song's meaning is completely inverted and not just the gender of its singer.

I don't think the cabaret aspect can be stated enough as that is where the jazz element comes from and that is a million miles away from the Jazz that infuses Jazz Fusion. While cabaret is a wide catchall term that refers to the venue it was performed in more than identifying the kind of music performed, as Brian put it on the previous page (and six years hence) the Doors played lounge music, born out of swing era jazz but slowed down, stripped down and made portable - to be performed in nightclubs as patrons dined out on veal ('don't forget to tip your server') - a far cry from the cool jazz of Dave Brubeck that initially influenced Manzarek. And that is reflected in Manzarek's instrument of choice: the Vox Continental, a stripped down and portable rival to the ubiquitous Hammond but with a brighter, thinner sound that is so characteristic of many of their songs.

Atavachron wrote: Fun band though.

Mostly . 

Wishful Sinful was one of the first singles I ever bought - I loved the orchestration and use of English horn on that song - From memory, this was the only Doors song that touched on Baroque Pop though others have orchestral arrangements, but it's certainly fun.

An interesting article even if it's Wiki...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_fusion