The Nintendo-fication of Jazz 

thank you for your music!!!

Thanks for your wonderful music! It was fantastic that you also dropped into the comments section of The Consouls lovely cover of Birdman. They are still playing live online every month (new material) and every second month also live in person (in Sydney, Australia). Their repertoire of VGM jazz covers is now up to 350 tunes!

@@cooldebt They had an awesome posting with their son playing live. I later sent him backing tracks for Birdman so he could improvise over them. Love the interaction and anything that pushes this scene forward.

Thanks for your work! Pilot wings 64 was a beloved part of my childhood!

Helo fuck your music is actually levendary!!! I love you!!!!

You're like the Tommy Tallarico of video game music

Cool man!

good job mr neels

Ha! I came down here to make a joke like this. 😂

It was only a matter of time.

Crazy how they got so many Grammy winners to participate in one song.

He won a Grammy???

@@isweartofuckinggod yes, and his mother is very proud

Who?

He won an EMMY

You killed it man - it was a pleasure playing with you! 💪 (even though you tried snaking my tune...😉)

@@DavePollack Haha! I still feel bad about that!!! YOU killed it, can't wait to play with you again sometime!!

The only way I can get in an Adam Neely video is by hanging out on the streets of Greenpoint and crossing my fingers.

I’d clap but Eli has that covered 😉 (For those who don’t know he’s also literally the world record holder for fastest clapping)

In a way, that kinda means you won a grammy too!

You guys are INCREDIBLE

Loved y'all at The Town Hall!

Long live the 8-Bit Big Band!

You guys rule

You guys are the best, really

That’s awesome

i just played it in my high school jazz band!

Your dad has a solid taste of music.

I'm playing it right now in middle school, probably one of the best songs we've done

Currently playing it!

same, didnt catch it before.. Kenny Garrett gave an Elden Ring concert i mean COME ON YOU GUYS

also, from my perspective... he is a jazz musician highlighting music and composers I grew up with in my younger years. Which means more to me than the jazz itself.

Couldn't agree more. Living in Roanoke, Virginia, which is a secondary market for country and bluegrass (i.e., we get some good acts) but tertiary for jazz (i.e., we get almost no acts at all, and certainly nothing progressive or current), Adam's channel and a few others are essential for me to keep up and learn myself.

That's so cool man! The band was so killer 🔥

And that's me on keys on that tune as well, ha. That whole band set and jam session was fantastic!

HELL YEAH BIG RED

Straight fire 🔥 if/when the vgm real book becomes a thing I'll play Yoshi's athletic theme in there a lot

How do I get this recording!?

Was that you at 0:24?

@@MochaBlendedFun that most assuredly was Carlos

You and your music are what I think about first with VGM jazz, Sinnohvation was amazing and I think your originals are really cool too. Can't wait for more

Hi carlos

I literally was thinking "If VGM jazz is the future, then Insaneintherain is a prophet." And of course immediately I found this

Funny enough, Batiste won his album of the year Grammy the same show that 8BBB won for Meta Knight’s Revenge. Good night for younger jazz musicians who want VGM to be in the public jazz consciousness more lol.

Jon Batiste also included a cover of Green Hill Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog on his 2018 album Hollywood Africans.

@@bgpiper I was waiting for someone in the video to mention this! It was such a wonderful take on it too!!!

I was in tears with almost every song they played. So many memories, reimagined again.

Relax man 😂

I didn't expect the moment at 17:08 and I couldn't help breaking down in tears :'_)

@@elhehe8476 You know. Nostalgia is felt in a random way. Some times is a gust of charm, sometimes is a full-blown North Korean Leader Funeral weeping.

@@elhehe8476 Fortunately, I'm on the Charm Side. Not the NKLFw one. But just because you see a bunch of people acting in the NKLFw way, doesnt mean you have to abandon any chances of joining the Charm side and go Party Pooper all the way.

it's so cool

There's even Clarinet and Oboe versions of that lick

It’s-a me! Da licc!

Was waiting the whole video for it, and it comes on last minute XD

I agree

Absolutely. Music that's evolving is music that's interesting.

Honestly I think more styles of music should embrace this “quoting as a way to pay homage” We see millions being wasted in copyright lawsuits when the truth is any music being written in 2023 is a mashup of the songs and styles the composer has in their mind filtered by their… interpretation? Excellent example, in their last album, Haken started writing a song by trying to do a Gojira song and the final result is nothing like Gojira but you can perfectly hear where they come from, it’s an obvious tip of the hat to the original

As a jazz afficionado, I cam to vgm via The Consouls 8 years ago - and I'm still listening! (Found 8BBB and J-Music Ensemble after The Consouls too - great listening also)

If you'd like to hear some video game soundtracks that're styles you like, I'd love to recommend you some.

definitely not underrated..... people love VGM

​@@the__void__spaghetti__girl I think it's been underrated in the way that cartoons have been underrated. Yes, a lot of people love them and have loved them for years, but a lot of other people see cartoons as a less serious or valuable form of storytelling than more traditional live action productions. The same can be said for music that shows up in "kid's games" (or whatever is perceived to be games for children)

@@SeymourDisapproves ah I see

Honestly, most of my skill in ear training and playing by ear came from playing dope VGM Melodies and harmonies I would hear.

Video game music is fascinating because of how limited the hardware was. I don’t think they’re really perfect melodies, strictly. Taking advantage of and operating within the limitations of the hardware was an art form in itself. The NES audio chip wasn’t 8 bits. 8 bit audio would sound hi fi in comparison. It was 4, with only a small number of channels triggering basic waveforms and maybe playing short samples. It had a nonlinear mixer. Getting that to sound good is its own art form, truly. Over time this hardware limitation was reduced, but the tradition of putting effort into the music, especially in Japan, continued and continues today.

His mother is so proud.

His mother is very proud

I love that both of the above comments are making the same inside joke. Personally, I can't believe that Adam Neely has 27 Guinness World Records. (his mother is very proud)

my mother is very proud of him

@@zachywacky1 oof

Banjo kazooie jazz interpretations are something i never knew i craved. Grant kirkhope's music is unlike anyone else's.

Hows it going?

@@LevantWasTaken Not good but maybe good. A lot has happened since then, like moving to a new place. I decided I want to do music as a VTuber and I have a studio now. I’m using video game sounds as source material for audio synthesis. The main problem I’m having is that I don’t quite know what I want to do while streaming. I want to perform music, and I don’t want to play only covers, but I also don’t want to be self-indulgent. I would really like to do improvisation but I don’t really know how to make that interesting for a whole stream. Thanks for the reminder. VGM would be a great part of it. I wanted to start a music group to play VGM but my friends don’t seem too interested and I don’t have the resume to interest strangers. I don’t want to try and start a project with strangers who have a similar resume because 50/50 gonna fail if I’m being generous. Vtubing would be great because I could perform remixes and maybe DJ them. I want the main content to be improv performances but I know I shouldn’t bank on just that. It would be a great way to build a portfolio and maybe score some collabs. Also I like EDM but I’m not really an “EDM guy” so it’s cool to have another option (jazz/jazz theory) that has a long history and methods that make it more likely to sound good consistently while improvising, and that would go well with the covers/arrangements/remixes. I have more than enough money rn to buy a model but I might want to draw one myself. I’m not an artist though so it could be a while. In the meantime I’m going to work on my performance skills. As a side note, I just finished playing OOT again and then downloaded all the sounds from it. I’m currently making wavetables and clipping single cycles from them. I want those and my own field samples to be the main source for waveforms when I use synthesizers. I want to capture some of the feelings I got from the OSTs I grew up listening to while making sounds that are more “organic” and modern.

@@anthonymetcalf660 sounds really cool!

I was like, is that Dave? Good to see you there because the best teachers are active performers.

@@txsphere Thanks so much! I think it's crucial for teachers to actually be out there playing/recording in some capacity...day-to-day academia can create a pretty rough feedback loop.

These groups defined Video Game Music *as a Whole* . It's beyond the modern renditions (jazz or otherwise)

Casiopea is one of my FAVS 🥺💗💗 Absolutely

So funny that certain strains of jazz fusion are finally getting some respect after decades of being derided, ignored and sneered at. I knew it would happen eventually, but not via video games. It has come back from other angles as well, probably because regular music got so generic and boring that people finally wanted something more complex, interesting, different.

Yeah, I made a similar comment. Piper and Imada Masaru particularly show their influence.

Kondo even admitted that some of his compositions from the late 80's and early 90's have a resemblance to some Casiopea and T-Square songs, and the very much do.

@@maximilianocarrion1599 see: the tsquare song Sister Marian at a bit over a minute in. Sounds nearly identical to the first Mario theme.

Sega and Konami had their own in-house fusion bands in the 90s who arranged songs from their games.

@Kumquat Lord You will also find the origins of Guile's Theme in the song Travelers from that same album.

It’s also built to be exceptionally empty and partial, because it’s one part of a large ensemble of sensations. Its big empty spots are there to be filled by the rest of the game’s sensory input, and allow the player to concentrate. The soundtrack of Jet Set Radio Future, for example, is energetic bordering on chaotic when experienced in-game; listened to by itself it feels like the composer just left half of the song’s elements out. That’s common in anime music too, and again for good reason. It *really* sets video game music apart from what takes place in good jazz.

Thanks Micha! It was by far the trickiest edit I’ve done so far

@@AdamNeely This is truly top level, man. I watched your "how to document shows" class, and this video is like the pinnacle to aspire to.

@@AdamNeely I think you can take pride in this being one of your best videos then!

@@AdamNeely I particularly appreciate the lack of meaninglessly generic illustrative b-roll style stock footage and even more so that you agree that black bars matter. 👍 (And to think that before this persistent, insane blur filler fad the common thing was to simply stretch 4:3 video to 16:9! - So the madness of humankind seems to be a constant. It will always find a way when allowed.)

Well now you can add "director of cinematography" to your resume.

Do you know where I could get q copy of the video game song book

I’m also looking for a copy of Video Game Jazz songbook

@@Threeducksisperfect it's been uploaded! check the pinned comment

@@ThePenelope04 it's been uploaded! check the pinned comment

This will be a big step towards getting video games recognized as a high art medium

What a LEGEND!

Game Night over there sounds like a blast - looking forward to Consouls Cafe over here!

@@cooldebt My band's set was a blast before the jam! I'll be reposting more performances from my end soon!

put a big smile on my face to see your face in this vid Dom :D you and robbie benson are kings of vgm in my book

loved the TI-84+ SE cover of bad apple you should look it up

@@cycy8699 oh yeah that’s a good one. I’m fucking obsessed with touhou covers in general. Tokyo Active NEETs have some excellent covers, my favorite is the cover that they did of Catastrophe in Bhava Agra ~ Wonderful Heaven, which they actually made for an official touhou game.

@@dr34mf0x Love Tokyo Active NEETs! I also recommend Unlucky Morpheus, especially their albums "Hypothetical Box Act 3" and 並行時空の音楽会 (Heikou Jikuu no Ongakukai in Roman letters). Their early discography is almost all Touhou.

can't get enough of soundholic and chocofan!

@@LuisLupina oooooooh these guys kick ass. Thanks for the rec!

You'd be surprised at how damn good Sonic soundtracks are in general, even today... Give it a go, if you haven't already

@@LePeppino yea I played a fair bit when I was younger and always found it pretty groovy. Best have another listen through

I was hoping he'd mention how important Japanese jazz fusion was on the development of video game music, and he just barely touches on how important Japanese jazz musicians still are in the genre, with the Dolphin Shoals sax solo shown but not really explained. I feel like this video erases or leaves out all the Japanese jazz greats that have had a major impact on current video game jazz, and is quite a bit poorer for it. This is not something invented by New York hipsters and sprung out there fully formed.

@@Thirdeariespace He has a limited amount of time to cover the topic on RU-vid, and can't do a comprehensive analysis. I know he is aware of the Japanese musicians that the VGM scene draws influence from, because he's spoken about them before. He did a video a few years back with Patrick Bartley all about Japanese music, and I think that may have been why it got overlooked/omitted from this video. watch?v=gFXcwv9XISc&t=23s

Jarrod - your document on j-fusion is of interest- huge fan of j-fusion here!

Hi Jarrod! I'm a music and media studies student and I'm doing a term paper on the transnational movements of Jazz to and within Japan and the subsequent influences on videogame music, from both an ethnomusicology and ludomusicology perspective. Your dissertation sounds exactly like what I've been missing in my research so far! I haven't been able to find it myself, so I wanted to ask if it is available somewhere? The analysis of Casiopea especially would be a godsend! It is 'just' for a term paper so please don't feel obliged, but I would be eternally grateful!

I would also love to read your analysis of Japanese jazz fusion just as a fan of music and casiopea in general. If there's somewhere I could go to see that I'd greatly appreciate it. Cheers!

I'm a gen-z who almost entirely stopped playing 'kids' video games around the time in which most of these songs were being produced (I moved on to more mature PC games during the late '90s) but I stilled teared up during the music in this video. Although I didn't recognize the tunes, my love of jazz and video games melding together created new synaptic channels within my brain. I'm pretty sure my IQ went up about 6 points.

VGSt even reach that part of music, what can I tell you?

¿Is this how the Sound of the Future looks like? Good grief, ¡The future seems weird!

Yeah but, if it didn’t originate on a Nintendo console then no one cares apparently.

Thank you for mentioning that group, I enjoy a lot of touhou music (especially ULiL mamizou’s theme). So I instantly subscribed to that channel and am checking out some of their songs.

@@evilded2 I think you're being a bit pessimistic here. This video opened with a _Sonic_ song, Snake Eater was a big feature in this video and it's from the PS2, Persona 5 is huge and it took six years for it to hit the Switch after originally releasing only on the PS3 and PS4 in 2016. Yes, the Mario and Zelda songs are hugely influential, but to say those are the only songs people care about requires ignoring everything else just so you can be angry.

I heard Bad Apple first (While jumping around the Artcore genre) that has vocals by nomico and then I'm in that rabbit hole. Actually made me happier in life in general

I have never played Undertale yet there are lots of tracks from it that I was familiar with without even realising that was where it's from.

Splatoon is the peak of Nintendo OST

@@internetguy7319 As much as I love Splatoon, nope. Not even close

earthbound can go to a weird wtf music to the hardest metal music in the snes

The list can keep going: - Splatoon with it's fun and frantic battles - F-Zero with it's fast paced racing - Star Fox with it's somewhat adventurous space dogfight feel (whether it be something more orchestral like 64 and Assault or more electronic and rock like SNES) - Xenoblade Chronicles with it's beautiful, adventurous story moments and epic, hype battles - Kirby, also with a whimsical, adventurous feeling - Pokémon with it's adventurous and exciting feeling of catching, training and fighting with Pokémon. And the list can go even further

Metroid- from horror to sci-fi to even a few adventure songs.

Also MAGFest Chanting "holy shit" after the end of a big band concert is top tier amazing

hey i'm in this band! what the heck

Is there a scene for VGM jams in Boston? This is totally something I want to get into

@@big_red1121 wow me too! that’s crazy!!

🤙🤙🤙

I love this genre so much!! Also check out the record labels Ubiktune & Infloresce Records! They have a ton of DigiFu artists in their rosters!

@@NickOleksiakMusic YES IT IS

The music of the Mario Galaxy games replicate more of a classic, orchestral, John Williams like sound. Yes, Mario Galaxy 2 has some more jazzy tracks like Spin Dig Galaxy, Puzzle Plank Galaxy and the Bob-Bomb Battlefield remix but generally they're much more orchestral. A proper modern example to use would be the music of Super Mario 3D World or some of the music of Super Mario Odyssey

Their studio version is even better. One of the best songs of their third album!

I agree with this 100%

I really don't get his comment about them at all. He basically dismissed them and all but accused them of thinking they're better than their music and are looking down on it, which is a really deep, bitter insult to a group who honestly seem to love what they're doing. Like, them not having staying power or changing the trajectory of jazz? Yeah, absolutely. But accusing them of viewing themselves as above the music, as the whole "they're too ironic and steeped in jokey cynicism" comment seems to imply. It's... a really out of character mean insult to a group who just... make music they seem to like and have fun with?

Didn't he say something about a VG real book? That would be lead sheets no?

He mentioned 2 VG real books, both of which stemmed from the NYC jam scene, but not VGLeadSheets itself which has been around for rather a while as a free online repository of VGM lead sheets produced by numerous members of the community

@@covertcharisma oh cool, thanks for mentioning it! I'm gonna check it out

Hey thanks for mentioning this. Is VG Lead Sheets the same sheets from the VGM Real Book? If not, any idea where to get a copy of the books?

@@t3tratube There is some crossover between the two, but VGLeadSheets and the VGM Real Books mentioned in the video are two different entities! Definitely recommend looking at both, as they both are intended to serve slightly different purposes. The links to the real books are in Adam's pinned comment I believe.

It was glorious! The energy was unreal.

Not Persona 5?

these are all great ! professor layton is also mega jazzy, but diff flavour :)

I SWEAR, IF ACE ATTORNEY GETS PLAYED AT ONE OF THESE CONCERTS, I WILL ACTUALLY CRY. SCRATCH THAT. I'M ALREADY CRYING. I'LL CRY MORE.

Do you need any shoulder to weep on? Can I help you?