I don't remember ever hearing that term before, but you say it like there's no doubt I'll know what it means. I'm curious - in what tradition did you learn to call it that? (Probably I'm very out of touch)
I don't know much about Jazz music, but I think "natural minor" is a well-understood term among classical musicians.
I think in classical music theory, you really "start" from the natural minor and then the harmonic and melodic scales can be explained in terms of leading tones etc.
Of course, the way classical music (at least anything between Baroque and Romanticism) works is rather different from the way Jazz works.
Ah ok thanks. I learnt of it in classical training, and have since read of it in classical books (e.g. classical music theory, or philosophy of music books concerned mainly with classical music), as the melodic minor descending. But seems I never understood "natural minor" so maybe unconsiously ignored that term or something.
Not the person you asked, but I learned the same terms as on wikipedia (natural, melodic, and harmonic minor) in music theory class. I took the class at a public high school in the US. I think my teacher was also the orchestra teacher.
We generally used minor (with no modifiers) to typically mean natural minor, but the teacher also essentially said that minor can mean a lot of things and gets complicated.
I think in classical music theory, you really "start" from the natural minor and then the harmonic and melodic scales can be explained in terms of leading tones etc.
Of course, the way classical music (at least anything between Baroque and Romanticism) works is rather different from the way Jazz works.