Whiplash (as reviewed by a jazz musician)

so I know that this is coming like four years too late but until recently I was a jazz musician who had never seen the movie whiplash so in order to rectify this I watched the movie for the very first time in one of the jazia spaces that I know of in New York City Washington Square Park since up until now it's the only portrayal of jazz education and popular culture I get asked all the time if my experience at jazz school mirrors that of the experiences portrayed in whiplash and after watching the movie which is brilliantly acted and shot and directed I can safely say that no the small somewhat insular and idiosyncratic world of jazz and higher education does not look the way that it does in the film although it certainly looks like it could be that way JK Simmons plays Terrence Fletcher the tyrannical band leader at the fictional New York City jazz school the Shaffer conservatory his abuse of a young jazz drummer who is hungry for greatness Andrew Neiman played by miles teller looks real or at least it feels real because of the amazing acting but there are some things which feel slightly off buckle in for an incredibly pedantic review coming from yours truly an academically trained jazz musician let's start with the things that the film got right part-1 what the movie got raped so there's a degree of verisimilitude here because of the people working on this project miles teller in fact is actually a pretty competent drummer [Music] the script is somewhat autobiographical writer director Damien Chazelle played drums and a competitive high school jazz ensemble with a very strict band director so the script gets some oddly specific things right like the lingo that some band directors use this includes the lower tiers band director saying put some sugar on that as he's rehearsing the reads meaning that he wants some more swagger in the articulation or a Fletcher saying two bars for free two bars for free meaning that he'll count off two measures before the band's entrance these sorts of things can only come from playing in a jazz band even little things like the way that Fletcher refers to trombones as bones in a staccato inflection bones that certainly sounds right to me other little things like Fletcher getting really upset at people leaving their folders around if I ever find one of these lying around again I swear to God I will stop being so polite is a very real thing this will send all band directors into a fit of rage because sheet music is expensive and nobody wants to pay for students carelessness the building of the fictional Shaffer conservatory looks old and crummy they certainly nailed the look that's how my alma mater Manhattan School of Music kind of looks the scene where Andrews extended family doesn't really get Andrews obsession for music as well as his accomplishments definitely rings true for a lot of musicians I actually felt that that scene was the most emotionally accurate portrayal of anything in the entire film Fletcher has a certain way of sauntering in front of the band which actually reminds me a lot of my band directors in college the general posture of JK Simmons and miles teller more or less looks right the way they have their shoulders like like there is kind of like a slant you know it's a certain posture in a certain way they kind of sit over the kid I could sit here all day and nitpick all the times that miles teller is moving his hands a certain way and what we're seeing is not what we're hearing but honestly it's not that important and they got it more or less right because the entire band is made up of professional musicians and their miming too but at least they're holding their instruments correctly and more or less fingering what we're hearing that is everybody in the band except for the people with speaking roles and I think I know why that might be because in order to have a speaking role in a Hollywood movie you need to be a member of the Screen Actors Guild and it's going to be the actors not the musicians who actually bother getting a union card so if the people in the movie lines chances are they're not going to look like they're playing their instrument for real that's unfortunate but anyway that's not super important doesn't affect how the world of jazz is portrayed and there's still other really oddly specific details that the movie got right like handwriting in the various subdivisions of 7/4 on the drum chart for the titular piece whiplash whiplash written by Hank levy for the Don Ellis Orchestra is in seven for seven beats per measure but at a certain point it's felt in shifting subdivisions of two and three eighth notes that don't really repeat the feel of 7/4 changes rapidly so the extra markings are important in understanding how to play it fun aside I recently discovered the shorthand that some drummers use for groupings of two and three eighth notes they represent groupings of two eighth notes as a line and three eighth notes as a triangle this has nothing to do with movie whiplash I just thought that was interesting anyway nobody would know this fine detail of musicianship unless you actually had to play the piece of music like writer director Damien Chazelle did when he was in high school some of the pieces of the music in the movie were pieces that I played myself as a drummer whiplash Caravan so those were kind of starting points in a way what starts to take me out of the movie though are the little details that the movie just kind of gets wrong part two but the movie got mildly wrong the whole movie feels like Damien Chazelle is remembering the general gist of jazz culture but only through the haze of the memory of his experiences in high school like for example this guy this guy does not look like a jazz musician he looks like a high school jock there is this guy however he does look like a jazz musician he's decked out in jazz normcore attire but he's wearing a bass backpack case and New York City nobody wears those everybody uses wheels because they're a lot easier to navigate the New York City subway as well as the tight quarters of buildings and there's also the odd use of lingo which feels off somehow like it's been translated in Google like one too many times for example when Fletcher invites Andrew to play at JVC Fletcher assures him that they'll be playing songs that Andrew knows from the quote studio band playlist making the studio any musician would call this the studio band setlist playlists are for Spotify when the drum folder gets misplaced Tanner says I don't know the charts by heart don't know the charts by heart he wouldn't say that he would say I don't have the charts memorized during Fletcher's first abusive tirade towards Andrew Hugh demands that Andrew count me a 215 as an count at 215 beats per minute call me a 215 my pet doesn't really happen or make sense steady timekeeping is much more valued as in the ability to follow a count off and keep the tempo steady throughout an entire piece of music and funnily enough when Andrew counts it's actually fairly close to 215 beats per minute tell me at 2:15 Fletcher then says am I to understand that you cannot read tempo any trained musician who's asked to do that count off a specific BPM marking without a reference or that account off will just ballpark it because honestly it's just not that important of a skill to have Fletcher then talks a little bit too literally about quarter note equals 330 and says that is a double-time swing that I don't know technically makes sense because double-time swings sometimes is used as a shorthand for fast swing feel although technically that's not really what it means double-time swing it's JK Simmons delivery of the line whose double-time swing as well as the insistent use of that phrase throughout the entire movie which feels kind of off then when Fletcher is menacing the band he keeps referencing a quote out of tune player but out of tune player here the phrase would be probably somebody is playing out of tune then of course there's this chestnut and then the kid doesn't play the rudiment of a paradiddle of course that is also because kids are kind of stupid but you know there is that but personally the most jarring of all these little minor grievances is when Fletcher reminds the brass to quote sharp the ninth brass do not forget we sharp that ninth which makes no sense you would say that to a chord player like a guitarist or a pianist who consistently forgets to voice the nine as a sharp 9 I didn't say in dominant seventh chord you wouldn't say that to an entire section if you want to remind one person to change the note from say ad natural concert on a c7 to AD sharp you'd single out that particular player and for character like Terrence Fletcher's singling out a particular player for humiliation seems like it's part of his character so why they didn't do that and just said brass sharp the ninth anyway all of these moments have the cumulative effect of say an American actor speaking in kind of a bad British accent all from my heart that burns they're all kind of unintentionally funny it's made more frustrating by the fact that the movie got a lot of things almost right art three what the movie got like almost right okay so there are little things which are technically true but a little strange especially considering that I think they were added just to make it feel more realistic like for example Tanner telling Andrew to tune the drum set to b-flat this is a super old-school technique that was only really used when bands were playing and very horn friendly keys like b-flat but for the more modern repertoire like batoon whiplashed for example the practical effect of tuning the resonant elements of a drumset to a particular key is minimal if not useless pleasure then claps in fast tempos on beats one in three double-time swing is actually not quite as cringy as it might seem even though it's fairly crunchy to clap on one and three because jazz big band conductors will conduct fast tempos on beats one and three as in one two one two three four except when you're counting off something you're going to snap on beats two and four as in up to one two three four it also pronounced the word one as unn fun fact and then it's not really wrong but there's the issue of how Fletcher counts off the tune whiplash five six man even if Damien Chazelle thinks this is right this sounds kind of wrong to me admittedly for some fairly subtle reasons you see dancers think in eight counts so choreographers starting routines will start on five as in five six seven eight where as musicians starting in four four will always start in 1 1 2 3 4 so any musician who has ever worked with a dancer hearing a 5 at the beginning of a count off will immediately cringe but whiplash is not in 4/4 it's in 7/4 there are seven beats to the measure so if you're going to start the count off on beat one it would take forever to get to the point where you're actually supposed to start playing so Fletcher starts counting on five and counts the final three beats of a measure of 7/4 as the count off ghazal probably remembered his old band director doing it this way so he had Fletcher start the count off on five the thing that makes my my skin kind of crawl the thing is is that's a fairly old school way of counting off odd time signatures and it's not really used that much anymore the problem is is that this method sometimes leads to some confusion thank you especially on a chart like whiplash where the 7/4 is subdivided in different places in the chart so with some exceptions modern practice suggests that you count off everything in four-four no matter the time signature just to avoid that kind of confusion that confusion actually exists in the movie during the abusive rushing dragging scene andrew gets confused and is counting in seven briefly but fletcher then insists that he counts in four start counting him five six in four damn it look at me anyway none of this so far none of it really affects anything it doesn't affect the plot in any sort of meaningful way it's all just kind of been you know like astrophysicists complaining about interstellar or whatever most of us really just don't care we just want to enjoy the movie on its own storytelling merit I apologize for what has effectively been the Jazz equivalent of Neil deGrasse Tyson complaining about every science fiction movie ever so let's move beyond the surface level let's talk about the character of Terrence Fletcher are the tough love elements and Terence Fletcher's teaching really there in modern jazz conservatories part for parents Fletcher Terence Fletcher is a professor who teaches at a prestigious New York City jazz school so I talked to a professor who teaches at a prestigious New York City Jazz School and my good friend Josh Bailey who teaches at NYU Steinhardt and asked him what would happen if somebody like Terrence Fletcher actually taught young students today so I would be like well I'm gonna do this is my major it just switched to poly SCI because I can I've sort of learned that at least with this generation or maybe the last two or three years of students to have like a tough-love mentality but from a removed perspective and I don't actually implement it upon them I like I'll tell them my tough love stories that I had so that way they can avoid it parents Fletcher is a useful storytelling trope the abusive mentor who will stop at absolutely nothing from drawing greatness from his students and I will never apologize for how I Drive it Fletcher's justification of his negative reinforcement comes from a story that he likes to tell of an incident that happened at the Reno Club in Kansas City when Charlie Parker sat in on a jam session and played quite poorly house drummer Joe Jones was not impressed with Charlie Parker's playing and so he threw a cymbal according to the movie at Charlie Parker nearly decapitating him which inspired Charlie Parker to go home and practice and become one the grades now this story as its told by the movie is very much embellished Joe Jones just kind of dropped the symbol on the ground is kind of like a gong vibing Charlie Parker telling him that he was no good for the session and he should come back later when he was ready I told you that story about how Charlie Parker became Charlie Parker and Jo Jones threw a cymbal at his head this miss characterization of the incident is kind of like the character of Fletcher himself may be based on a real thing but amped up to this grotesque level for the purpose of storytelling it's a tough world and there are a lot of guys out there that are not I'd like turns what professors who do some of the things that Fletcher does do exist I mean maybe not the level of abuse but things like the casual misogyny well you're in the first chair let's see if it's just because you're cute the homophobic insults this is not a Bette Midler concert we will not be serving cosmopolitan - Baked Alaska so just play faster than you give hand jobs will you please singling out players for unnecessary levels of humiliation yeah those things do unfortunately happen especially from professors cut from the cloth of the quote old school Fletcher's obsession with the story of Charlie Parker does also kind of ring true because older professors ensconced in the ivory tower often don't know of any jazz past 1960 chances are Damien Chazelle isn't hip to these musicians either but the characterization of the older musician who doesn't know anything about anything new is accurate so there's that she'll probably has no idea who young musicians might idolize yeah Charlie Parker is deeply respected but there is kind of the elephant in the room when it comes to talking about the movie whiplash and young musicians fixations on particular musicians and that elephant is part five Buddy Rich the movies choice to have Andrew obsess over Buddy Rich is guess narrative Lee a good one Buddy Rich was a jazz big band drummer that to this day as a household name because of his flashy chops he also was a band leader cut from a very similar cloth as Terence Fletcher great buddy rich buddy demanded perfection from his band and we get angry and abusive if he felt like the band was not stepping up there are an infamous series of recordings known as the bust tapes of Buddy Rich excoriating his band that sound quite similar to Terence Fletcher's tirade when I was at Berkeley in Boston I studied jazz composition underneath the great Greg Hopkins who played trumpet and arranged for Buddy Rich his band for several years this is great Hopkins I'm a recent appearance on the cross Craig had a ton of respect for Buddy Rich but admitted that he could be a bit of a monster sometimes somebody to be feared on the bandstand as much as respected so for Andrew to obsess over Buddy Rich that just makes perfect movie sense by seeking to emulate Buddy Rich Andrew seeks to curry favor with the other tyrannical band leader Terrence Fletcher that just kind of makes sense from a storytelling perspective but from the perspective of a young jazz musician studying jazz in New York City in the modern era the idealization of Buddy Rich just makes absolutely no sense Buddy Rich became a household name largely because of his association with show business he was a frequent guest on Johnny Carson so the general public is likely to know who he is but as far as musicians go his influence on modern jazz is quite minimal where some drummers that a lot of students are checking out old guys who are living right now how Buddy Rich developed the sort of popular cult of personality is quite interesting and Ethan Iverson goes into great detail on the subject and a really illuminating blog post on whiplash you should definitely check it out if you have the time I ever send notes that on Rolling Stones list of the hundred greatest drummers of all time white jazz big band drummers Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich play significantly higher on the list than black small jazz ensemble drummers Tony Williams and Elvin Jones despite the fact that Tony Williams and Elvin Jones are indisputably better drummers with more of an influence on jazz and are far more respected as artists among jazz musicians especially in jazz conservatories not the drumming of Buddy Rich especially in a city like New York was like state school not in New York City so like when you're talking about big band like every semester someone references Buddy Rich I don't hear that at all anymore like I don't hear Buddy Rich being reference which is maybe a good thing in my opinion but you know yeah everyone's living who these kids like because I start every class I'll ask them like what bees are you checking out and most of it is like hip-hop fusion with jazz there is a healthy study of bebop and hard bop but really it's hip-hop and to a lesser cultural extent electronic music which are driving the taste of young jazz musicians studying jazz in New York City today granted Andrew Neiman busting out the Dilla beats and Terence Fletcher's big band probably wouldn't make any sort of sense so I understand the need for some stylistic cohesion here which brings me to the issue of the movies soundtrack part six the soundtrack okay so the jazz big band on this recording that plays charts like whiplash sounds okay kind of sloppy at times but I do know that this was a film with a limited budget so they couldn't hire like save the Metropole Orchestra to record it and it's supposed to be a student man anyway so I guess it actually kind of works if this is the movie that gets people exposed to modern jazz big band music I'm okay with it especially with the dramatic use of the chart Caravan in the final scene what doesn't work for me is the rest of the soundtrack composed by Justin Hurwitz it's supposed to be jazz but honestly it fails on every single account especially in the scene where Andrew happens upon Fletcher playing piano and a supposed jazz club in New York City the music that Fletcher plays is easily the most milquetoast boring and flat jazz you could possibly imagine Jamey Aebersold backing tracks have much more life and energy to them than what we hear in the movie it is mediocrity defined if Jo Jones was there he definitely would have dropped the cymbal it is a parody of the Starbucks jazz that Fletcher supposedly dislikes every Starbucks jazz album just proves my point really put it simply this is not what you would hear in a New York City jazz club in the movie it looks like the fictional club that Andrew walks into is somewhere in the West Village this is closer to what you would hear in the West Village I recorded this I Robert Glasper presidency at the Blue Note back in October it includes all of the tropes of modern New York City jazz including fast fusion noodling followed by a cheeky quote in this case the source keys pictures at an Exhibition and then yep diligence in fact played by the progenitor of the entire style himself Chris daddy Dave the hip hop infused jazz is everywhere as a big part of the culture in New York City right now and that's not what we got in the movie we got the Little Tikes version of jazz this scene made me more annoyed than I thought I would be going into the movie at least in the show like Mozart in the jungle which shows the life of contemporary classical musicians they have relevant modern composers like Thomas Addis featured in musical scenes that at least have some relevance to modern classical music so why couldn't they do the same thing for jazz I've read an interview with the composer Justin Hurwitz to try and figure out why he did what he did Hurwitz plays the piano yet his education was mostly classical without much of a jazz background yet Hurwitz has gotten an intensive jazz program working on Chas ELLs last two films Damien put me on a steady diet of jazz both American and French music scores he says even Iverson's blog post replies to this suitably incredulous li this is where I get jealous of hip hop hip hop has guarded its black sovereignty so well imagine if for a movie about hip hop the composer said he was new to this style so he studied Eminem and Azealia not to mention the founding father of French spoken word and sexy style Serge Gainsbourg it's at this point in the club that we see that the movie is not about music the movie has very little love for the art of jazz instead it's all about competition and perfectionism and sweat and blood and overcoming the obstacles this is a sports movie part 7 this is a sports movie there is a hierarchy in Terrence Fletcher studio band Andrew Neiman starts as an alternate drummer and then rises to the rank of core drummer this kind of is somewhat reminiscent of the idea of first and second string quarterbacks the concepts of alternates and cores does not exist in collegiate and professional jazz ensembles only the total number of people necessary to play the music will be there you certainly would not have a backup sitting there on stage in a performance ready to take over at a moment's notice like somebody waiting their turn on the bench there's a similar hierarchy hinted at when Fletcher talks about things like first second or third trumpet and when he graduated Marsalis made him third trumpet at Lincoln Center a year later he was first yeah this isn't right at all the roles of all the foreign players are specialized so a first trumpet player will specialize in high notes and a fourth trumpet player might specialize in playing the flugelhorn and a second trumpet player might specialize in soloing this is how it works in the real world but the concept of chairs is used by the movie whiplash to emphasize the theme of competition Jackson congratulations you're fourth chair mats why are you still sitting there get the beat out and there's a lot of competition happening not only among the students but it also seems like the Jazz Band is entering a lot of competitions Fletcher says everybody remember Lincoln Center and its ilk use these competitions to decide who they're interested in and who they're not it's like their athletic talent scouts searching the collegiate circuit for new blood like for the NCAA or whatever [Music] that's not how it works New York City collegiate jazz ensembles don't enter competitions all the time they gig they play concerts in fact they sometimes play concerts as featured artists at Lincoln Center may me truly think that this movie is a sports movie in kind of a mean-spirited one at that are the ridiculous practice scenes not only the ones where Andrew is playing I guess so much and so fast his hands start to bleed and he punches through his snare drum but also the round-robin scene where Fletcher verbally abuses his three drummers into playing faster I guess is that what people think practicing is is this what people think jazz school is I know the point in these scenes is to show the physical nature of music I did want this movie to kind of flirt with the ideas of physical violence and the sort of physical toll but if you're hurting yourself while you're practicing you're not gonna get any better bottom line practice in itself is a slow and deliberate thing it can be meditative but it can also be super boring to watch just watch my five hour practice routine video that's a lot closer to what actual practice at an actual conservatory actually is no violence no physical abuse just a lot of work how long I was going for five hours yeah this gets me to my final point which matters the most for me personally and I think the thing that the movie whiplash gets the most wrong about young people studying music today part eight music is like fun the great jazz drummer Peter Erskine wrote a review of the movie whiplash that includes a quote that I think is most relevant to what I want to say on this matter I'm disappointed that any viewer of the film will not see the joy of music making that's almost always a part of large ensemble rehearsals and performances musicians make music because they love music none of that is really apparent in the film in my opinion I hear so many great young musicians I'm playing this and they play the music because they love the music I can see the joy of music happening a little bit in the scene where Andrew is watching Buddy Rich play on his phone while Andrews on the bus this sort of thing happens a lot young jazz musicians will excitedly check out musicians that they like on YouTube or wherever I cannot tell you how many times I've been in this situation dude you got to check out this video it's British man Papa playing with Vijay I are at the jazz standard that's so killing dude after this we gotta check out Steve layman blow your mind do that how long that he did with Damien Reed oh my god oh so good that scene doesn't happen in the movie whiplash because in the movie whiplash nobody really seems to care about music no student turns to another student says have you checked out this drummer or hey man were you at the session at smalls last night how was it nobody even quotes the lick at one another which you know personally I'm deeply offended by all of it is just fear and anger and posturing on the part of Andrew and the student body with none of the motivation behind it a genuine love of music there is no community of young jazz musicians who love music and want to share it support for taking a risk there like supporting each other as like fellow members of the trenches you know they're in the dishes together camaraderie and love of music are not apparent at all in the movie whiplash which is fine because it wants to tell a different story just know that jazz culture as it appears in the movie whiplash is off a little bit this is not a meticulously researched period piece like say Downton Abbey is the Jazz culture and the setting of New York City are merely ancillary to the plots and the characters of the story it's decoration it's all kind of detritus from the memory of a young director that's been reappropriation for telling a specific sort of story you know a memory that's always been very present in my mind and it just occurred to me you know a few years ago that maybe could actually make a movie a jazz for game II and Giselle seems to be almost an emotional reaction to his experiences from high school rather than something that he genuinely enjoys doing and narrative Lee yeah I get it i under stand why certain choices were made but remember whiplash is the only portrayal of jazz education and popular culture it's the only one at least Neil deGrasse Tyson has thousands and thousands of sci-fi movies to pick apart so I think that it's important to pick out fact from fiction and a piece of media like this when it's dealing with a specific culture to be fair I very much enjoyed the movie on its own merits I just wanted to share my two cents on the matter for whatever they're worth whiplash for me was a great movie with excellent direction just tight exciting amazing but it got jazz kind of fun [Music]

Channel: Adam Neely

Views: 4,441,711

Keywords: adam, neely, jazz, fusion, bass, guitar, lesson, theory, music

Id: SFYBVGdB7MU

Length: 28min 53sec (1733 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 20 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Whiplash is the Rocky of Jazz. Inaccurate but often using its inaccuracy to form an enjoyable narrative. I understand his perspective though.

[u/IIGaticaII]

From a person who loves this movie to death and puts it on the top 5 list of my favorite movies, it’s pretty cool to see it from a different perspective and see how the differs aspect of the film doesn’t make sense, whereas I wouldn’t have known any of this if it weren’t for this video.

[u/Judgement_Time]

Adam Neely! Phenomenal bassist and an excellent and entertaining teacher. Glad to see him pop up here.

[u/MrFalconGarcia]

Whiplash isn't an accurate portrayal of the world of jazz because it's not about jazz. Jazz is just the vehicle that they're using to tell the story. The movie is really about the cost of greatness. It could have been about being a great anything. Jazz was just more fun.

[u/naaarff]

It’s whiplash the movie, not whiplash the song.

:(

[u/[deleted]]

Wow, I enjoy Jazz but I didn't know it is harder then Rocket science !!

[u/[deleted]]

Honestly if your moaning about the choice of bag your nitpicking. Obviously a film isn't going to nail every element of learning jazz because to 99.9% of people it sounds fine and you understand the point the films making

[u/masteryod]

Great review!