mindcandy pennies from the overgenerous lunatic

Perfume Review: YSL Live Jazz

YSL is after all, a brand famous for its creativity when it comes to the creation of new perfumes. Even Jean Paul Guerlain, the respected perfumer which gave us classics like Samsara and Heritage has once commented that YSL is one of the few houses that give complete creativity to its perfumers. Jazz, the original came out back in 1989 was heavy, classy and complex and 10 years later, the folks at YSL decided that they needed a fresh flanker for Jazz: Live Jazz.

Jazz, the musical genre is smooth, classy and pretentious. I have never smelled the original Jazz but i do own a bottle of Live Jazz. And it is one of the few fresh fragrances that depend very heavily on the nuances of spices to deliver its freshness rather than using Calone (the aquatic scent). It opens up with a blend of bitter lemon and warm mint, suggesting a very muted form of freshness. This is not the sweet kind of lemon that everyone is used to, but rather the citrus-y nuance one finds in tonic water. The mint in this does not smell like toothpaste mint but rather mint tea. The bitter lemon peel slowly gives way to nuances of coriander, which is quite faint. Right around the mid notes, coriander, mint and rhubarb take centerstage while the citrus nuance fades to the background but still makes its presence felt. Towards the very end, the coriander note dominates the entire fragrance, complimenting the vanilla tinted woody nuance. Guaic Wood is listed as the woody note, but on my nose it makes its appearance nothing more than highly diluted rosewood. The vanilla note is extremely subtle, and appears as a mysterious sweet accord that seems to be present in all YSL fragrances, perhaps as a signature scent of the house.

Perhaps the interesting thing to note about Live Jazz is, the scent remains somewhat linear throughout the progressions. Notes that you can find when you first spray it tends to linger in even in the drydown. While the usage of mint to suggest freshness is quite unusual for a fragrance especially one for guys, Live Jazz fails to capitalize on the wild, green freshness of mint but rather go for its muted tenacity in order to create the illusion of some smoky, 1930s jazz lounge that serves tonic water infused cocktails. There is definitely a measure of class in Live Jazz when it comes to conveying freshness, but it is not exactly a scent that stands out unless the rest of your scent collection consists of woody, opulent scents at one end of the spectrum, and annoyingly fresh aquatics at the other. In Basenotes, many complain of the overdose of the cilantro or coriander note but i find that the note's offensiveness pales in comparison to the coriander in Gucci Pour Homme 1, which smells more like having coriander paste stuffed up your nose.

Overall, the fragrance reminds me a lot of those wet towels that are handed out by Chinese restaurants: fresh and cheap. And that is the impression of Live Jazz that i have at the moment. I seem to get impressed by it at first and soon after that it becomes just another cheap and inoffensive scent to be used at family gatherings.

There is so much that can be done with lemon and mint, namely to suggest cocktails, but in Live Jazz their distinct accents have been muted so much that it just smells so bland. This is an inexpensive alternative to CK and Hugo Boss scents, and has slightly more depth than them but i prefer my fresh scents to be really fresh and not muted. If only Live Jazz had more green notes, it would have been a perfect fresh scent....