Is improvisational jazz to impressionism art as smooth jazz is to realism art?

@marklings:

 I studied jazz piano 3 years and came to the conclusion that I just don't like it. I like order and structure and purpose and overall sense of a composition. I don't judge those who dig jazz and I understand those who dig it, I just don't.

I don't know where you studied but they seem to have managed to avoid conveying to you the whole point of Jazz improvisation, which is to SPONTANEOUSLY create something that does display "order and structure and purpose and an overall sense of composition" !  

Classical musicians do have lee-way in interpreting the pieces they play, but they are performing someone else's composition. Jazz masters operate on a whole 'nother level. 

I'm not saying what you "ought" to like or not like-- I'll leave such behavior to the resident music fascists who've posted on this thread.

But it seems a terrible shame that you've castigated Jazz for purportedly lacking what in fact lies at its very heart. 

@marklings:

I'd go further and assert that what I've said about the nature of Jazz improv holds true for improv in any genre.

Aimless noodling doesn't tend to be very satisfying for players or listeners.

For example, the "theme and variation" approach can be recognized in the playing of Indian classical flautists, Bluegrass banjo pickers, and Chicago Blues harmonica blowers, to name but a few. They all attempt to create "order, structure, purpose and an overall sense of composition". 

They may not all succeed every time but this is an exceedingly challenging  activity we're talking about. 

So, it seems it might be more accurate to suggest you simply don't care for improvisation, period.

Cl;assical and Jazz are viewed as the most "advanced" of all musics. It takes years of study, training, and practice to become proficient enough on an instrument (or voice) to perform it well.

I find those two musics very different in major ways. As others have noted, Classical is for the most part (excluding lots of 20th Century compositions) written, the performers "merely" providing their interpretation of the notes in the score. In Jazz, the composition is often just a basic outline, the players taking the song structure and doing with it as they wish. It is what the musicians add to the basic song that Jazz fans are listening for, often more so than the song itself. It seems to me.

At the far left on the dial of my car radio are two stations, one Jazz the other Classical. I’ve been listening to them as I drive a lot, and switching between them has made the differences between the two musics stark. A Jazz song can have a complex chordal structure and progression, or just a single chord played for an extended period of time, the musicians improvising "over" that one chord. Being first and foremost a song lover, I don’t find that interesting.

Though Rock ’n Roll, Blues, and Country & Western/Hillbilly/Bluegrass are viewed as "primitive" musics, some songs in those genres are fairly sophisticated in terms of composition/chordal and harmonic structures and development, more so that many Jazz songs. Listen to Brian Wilson’s "God Only Knows" (found on The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds album) for a prime example. Very sophisticated chord structure, harmonic development, and use of counterpoint. Paul McCartney has characterized it as the "best" song he has ever heard.

I find well-written "Pop" (non-Classical and Jazz) songs to have more in common with "traditional" Classical compositions than do many Jazz "songs". Heresy? ;-) On the other hand, what a superior Jazz musician plays on his instrument can transcend the notion of "the song", taking music to a different, higher plane.  Such music is often of the abstract variety, asking much of the listener. One must "let go" of the objective, rational view of consciousness, letting the music take you where it wants. The Shape Of Jazz To Come by Ornette Coleman is such an album; hearing it was a transformational experience. It made Jimi Hendrix sound downright pedestrian. ;-)

@stuartk

" @facten:
I’m curious: which John McLaughlin recordings qualify as Smooth Jazz????? "

Read my post closer I didn’t say he plays smoothjazz - I noted a few artists that I said fall "in between the two" , meaning between smooth and classic - jazz fusion. Clearer for you now ?????????????????????

@facten;

Actually, no.

I'd appreciate some examples, if you don't mind.