Chord Comping with a Stride Pianist

[rintincop]

I am auditioning to play in a jazz duo with an excellent stride pianist. He plays the Root on beat one, chord on beat 2 , Root on beat 3, chord on beat 4, etc. all fairly bright and stacatto like.

What are my considerations regarding volume and tone? My assumptions are that since the piano is bright in tone my tone should be very mellow and soft to blend rather than conflict with his tone.

Also, should I usually aim to blend with his quarter notes, like Freddy Green would do?
How much would you deviate from quarter note rhythm and syncopate against his medium swing quarter pulse? That would tend to sound cluttered?
Are there any duo recordings you can think of that demonstrate stride piano in duo with mellow tone electric hollow body jazz guitar comping?

[christianm77]

Avoid the mellow sustaining electric sound and turn down the volume. Play as acoustically as possible, straight 4s and simple three note voicings on strings E D and G.

Think, drums, not harmony. Pitch less important than feel and timbre.

Any pushes or syncopation should be in sympathy with what the pianist does.

[mr. beaumont]

Conversely, play very little, and punctuate...think of a drummer dropping snare bombs. You drop some chord bombs.

But yes, keep 'em small.

Stride's a busy style. I'[d be laying out a lot.

[pingu]

I think i'd study some Freedy Green style

Guys ?
What did Freddy do when Basie played stride ?

Maybe he just layer out ?

[don_oz]

The best thing to do would be to just lay out. If he's playing root and chords, what is there left for you to do?

But if you have to play chords, listen to the Art Tatum Trio recordings with Tiny Grimes on Guitar and Slam Stewart on Bass. You can hardly ever hear the bass, so I guess it's what you're going for.

Oz

[jameslovestal]

At first glance I wouldn't really want to solo over such a static rhythm. How does one make themselves heard over that?

[christianm77]

The best thing to do would be to just lay out. If he's playing root and chords, what is there left for you to do?

But if you have to play chords, listen to the Art Tatum Trio recordings with Tiny Grimes on Guitar and Slam Stewart on Bass. You can hardly ever hear the bass, so I guess it's what you're going for.

Oz

The function of guitar in this environment is to be the drums.

Rhythm guitar not comping. The guitar used to be the natural third element in a piano trio, not drums, right up through the bop era. Early rhythm sections were about a dance beat not interaction in a modern jazz comping sense.

Play with that aesthetic.

Alternatively, why not ask the piano player what he likes?

[christianm77]

At first glance I wouldn't really want to solo over such a static rhythm. How does one make themselves heard over that?

By digging in, swinging hard, playing simple and forgetting what you think of as jazz guitar.

Modern stuff sounds bad in this setting. Embrace the blues, simple melodies and chord tones.

[mr. beaumont]

I think i'd study some Freedy Green style

Guys ?
What did Freddy do when Basie played stride ?

Maybe he just layer out ?

One note chords.

[christianm77]

FG wasn't using one note in the late 30s

[mr. beaumont]

When I can play rhythm as good as freddie, I'll play more than one note.

[neatomic]

But if you have to play chords, listen to the Art Tatum Trio recordings with Tiny Grimes on Guitar and Slam Stewart on Bass. You can hardly ever hear the bass, so I guess it's what you're going for.

thought the very same thing..tatum trio

not the best example, but the only live clip around...check out their actual tunes..great great trio

cheers

[christianm77]

My replies get a bit terse late at night.

My point was that the Freddie Green of the early Basie era is not the FG of Second Testament Basie. But given there are 20 years between the two it would be perverse if his approach hadn’t developed especially when you factor in the changes in drumming and bass playing.

Compare the early Basie feel on cuts like Jumpin at the Woodside to the later legato feel of things like Shiny Stockings to appreciate the development in the the band’s feel.

Furthermore if you check out the Savory collection recordings of the Basie band made in the late 30s, the mic picks up the guitar really well. FG is to my ears, playing in a style that most of us would consider Gypsy Jazz. Bigger 3-5 note chord shapes.

But one note works really well. I find moving between one note and fuller chords is a good way to build dynamics without losing a strong right hand attack.

Pay attention to how long your chords are ringing. Old school swing is pretty staccato and pushed. 50s Basie is legato and relaxed.

The 3 note ‘Freddie Green’ chords, as Jonathan Stout points actually derive from George Van Eps. I like these voicings a lot and use them all the time, but they are not what FG actually used apparently.

Tiny Grimes was playing tenor guitar and electric so his style was a little different, pointing the way towards Jump and R&B music.

One player who never seems to get credit is Al Casey, Fats Wallers guitarist. If you are interested in how to play with stride piano I can’t think of a better reference point.

Dynamically I’d be aiming to keep the volume of the guitar slightly under the piano. With the right feel, this style of playing is also appropriate for modern mainstream and straight ahead styles - listen to Jim Hall with Bill Evans or Tal Farlow with Eddie Costa. Or Russell Malone with Benny Green for that matter.

Pre bop is a different aesthetic of rhythm section playing to modern. It’s all about locking into the dance beat. But it is a lot of fun. Enjoy!

[joe2758]

FG is to my ears, playing in a style that most of us would consider Gypsy Jazz. Bigger 3-5 note chord shapes.

As always I find your posts super interesting, but I will never accept this statement. I can't and I won't. I'd rather bury my head in the sand. Freddie could tell me himself that he was influenced by Gypsy rhythm and I wouldn't believe him lol

[Hep To The Jive]

What a strange pairing! In my experience the last thing a stride piano needs is a rhythm guitar. When I used to sit in with one swing band that had a pianist, whenever he went into that style he would gimme a look to shut up. In fact the whole band would stop and let him do his thing. It was like a stride piano moment or something. Just wait for your solo Id say.

[christianm77]

As always I find your posts super interesting, but I will never accept this statement. I can't and I won't. I'd rather bury my head in the sand. Freddie could tell me himself that he was influenced by Gypsy rhythm and I wouldn't believe him lol

You misunderstand.

It sounds like Gypsy rhythm guitar to modern ears because the general jazz guitar listener is historically out of sequence so to speak, not because FG was influenced by Parisian jazz.

(Listen to Al Casey with Fats and you see what I mean).

The history is more complex.

Django played string band swing music based on American jazz in Paris and happened to be a Gypsy.

Retroactively, this is now thought Gypsy jazz, which more correctly used refers to the later folk tradition that grew out of Django after the war.

It’s not the other way around. The Parisian stuff has a different accent, perhaps a little more Polka, but it’s basically the same thing.
The music of the 30s has a heavy beat and the guitar is strummed hard.

Also plenty of Americans played string band jazz :-) it’s forgotten.

[joe2758]

Thanks, yeah I did misunderstand. I certainly see American rhythm guitar as different than gypsy (I haven'y heard the recording you refer to so maybe he does use those same accents).

Now what's this American string band jazz you speak of? sounds awesome!

[Hep To The Jive]

Yea, American rhythm style is a bit smoother than Gypsy Jazz. If you got a feeling you listening to a horse gallop, you are probably at a GJ gig.

[christianm77]

Thanks, yeah I did misunderstand. I certainly see American rhythm guitar as different than gypsy (I haven'y heard the recording you refer to so maybe he does use those same accents).

Now what's this American string band jazz you speak of? sounds awesome!

I would certainly check out Eddie South and Stuff Smith

Yeah it’s a popular imagination thing, like at school people talk about the Greeks and Romans but never the Hellenic period in history. And big figures and stories.

When we think of American Swing we think of Big Bands and the guitar is really barely audible here anyway. Also by the 40s the music is evolving into a smoother style that would eventually lead to the laid back triplet bounce of the 50s Basie band (quite aside from bebop.) But even though it represents a development from the two feel of earlier jazz, the early Basie with the All American rhythm section is quite a different beast from the later Basie orchestra. The instruments all articulate differently. The feel is different.

Again I would suggest listening to Fats and his rhythm section. I’ll attach some links of music from the early 30s. Remember the guitar was popular from the late 20s but the swing era proper didn’t kick off until the late 30s.

Also it’s well worth checking out Bennie Moten, the origin of the all American rhythm section and the evolution of the Kansas City sound inc Freddie Green before Basie took it over.

For anyone really interested get the Savory collection. It’s on iTunes. A precious snapshot of how jazz was played live in the late 30s.

[christianm77]

Here's one, ft: the mighty Teddy Bunn, one of the most swinging of the early jazz guitarists:

Good bit of Al Casey here, love this tune.

It can be a little harder to hear Al on the Fats sides because the level is under the piano (exactly as you should be) except when he solos, but you can really hear he is strumming full chords.

[christianm77]

BTW with Eddie South it's legitimately confusing, cos he was an classically trained African American musician who was influenced by Eastern European gypsy music and played and recorded with Django Reinhardt as well as American musicians like Earl Hines and Milt Hinton.

The separations were not cut and dried.

[christianm77]

BTW IIRC there's some stuff of Django playing with a stride piano, I'll try and dig it out.

[rpjazzguitar]

Here's one, ft: the mighty Teddy Bunn, one of the most swinging of the early jazz guitarists:

Good bit of Al Casey here, love this tune.

It can be a little harder to hear Al on the Fats sides because the level is under the piano (exactly as you should be) except when he solos, but you can really hear he is strumming full chords.

On Lulu, it sounded like the guitarist was playing what I learned as "muted string" chords. It sounded like the chord was hit on 2 and 4 and a bass note or maybe two notes on 1 and 3.

This is pretty much what my first teacher, who was a big band guy in the 30s and 40s, taught me to do.

The voicings are things like 3x343x for an E string root. 3x231x with the low G played as if it was root, I guess, because the chord is C7/G. I think those old archtops, played percussively, managed to obscure the fact that the low note was the 5th. Or, maybe he played x3231x, but my old big band teacher didn't teach that one. My guess is that they really didn't want that low E ringing by accident. I also think that the muted strings (A and high E) add something -- they're not silent. There's a percussive click. Same thing when Wes played octaves. His thumb hit the string in between. Octaves don't sound the same when the strings are individually plucked.

[christianm77]

On Lulu, it sounded like the guitarist was playing what I learned as "muted string" chords. It sounded like the chord was hit on 2 and 4 and a bass note or maybe two notes on 1 and 3.

This is pretty much what my first teacher, who was a big band guy in the 30s and 40s, taught me to do.

The voicings are things like 3x343x for an E string root. 3x231x with the low G played as if it was root, I guess, because the chord is C7/G. I think those old archtops, played percussively, managed to obscure the fact that the low note was the 5th. Or, maybe he played x3231x, but my old big band teacher didn't teach that one. My guess is that they really didn't want that low E ringing by accident. I also think that the muted strings (A and high E) add something -- they're not silent. There's a percussive click. Same thing when Wes played octaves. His thumb hit the string in between. Octaves don't sound the same when the strings are individually plucked.

I often play voicings with a with in the bass such as the ones you identified.

3 x 2 5 x

5 x 3 5 x for a Dm7

For this style of guitar.

Also

3 5 5 4 3 x

But with thumb fretting

The voice leading is not necessarily orderly like with the thee note Van Eps shapes.

[Hep To The Jive]

Al Casey has the iconic solo on Everybody Loves My Baby, when I heard that Dark Eyes quote I knew I had to learn it!

Still, those full band examples make sense for guitar to be featured, but I'm very curious to hear a duo of guitar and piano in this style. It doesn't seem like a good match, but I can't be sure.