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#1
04-28-2010, 06:59 PM
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 THE BLUES: What Separates Good Musicians from the Great Jazz has its origins in many styles, but the feeling in the music comes most distinctively from the blues. A player of any instrument must have that feeling apparent in their playing to be playing any style of jazz. While many do, there are still many who do not and many jazz teachers that do not teach students about this aspect (though feeling is not just something that can be easily taught). I have a rhythm guitarist that was taught to avoid the blues because everyone plays it and to learn jazz, latin, etc. but now regrets this advice. He is a great player, but feels he is now catching up to add more feeling to his soloing. I also hear many modern players that play technically awesome, but completely lack feeling. I am self taught through listening to music, but when I jam with other young players that go to universities for music, they have some great ideas but they lack passion or insight to the feeling in jazz. It is like they are taught modern concepts, like Bill Evans chord voicing’s and Jim Hall style motivic patterns and phrasing, but do not learn the blues or the roots of jazz playing (Jim and Bill are both great blues players as well, just saying there modern ideas are what is taught). The blues is a springboard to improvisation. This was just a little rant to give a periodic shout out to the blues and to make sure players are aware of this. Some may be still searching for what has been missing in there playing. The Blues: feel it, play it, live it! "Above all, the humanness of a performer should be apparent...the essence of a living being is greater than the music. The music is only an expression of that essence." — Barney Kessel 10 reasons to know and feel the blues: Joe Pass http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tnnG9O3KG0&feature=related Barney, Kenny, and Grant http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKW40qCeql8 Billie Holiday http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtgUbJN8oPE Art Tatum and All Stars http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAyVTyKkO6s Django Reinhardt http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js1EKOhv4LE Wes Montgomery http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MNNox5HeN4 Charles Mingus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAH-3His8Cg Thelonious Monk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP5rfAMJGcE Miles Davis Quintet http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9SLa4ysito&feature=related Louis Armstrong http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GuDExkBmnU When you hear these player play you feel that impact that hits you right down in your soul!     |
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#3
04-28-2010, 10:44 PM
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 Goofsus4, I know exactly what you mean. During that Lester Young solo, it is nearly impossble for me not to tear up. Some of the most beautiful playing and singing in that video of all time. It hits you hard. |
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#4
04-29-2010, 12:22 AM
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| They'll run you out of New Orleans if your jazz doesn't pay tribute to the blues. |
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#6
04-30-2010, 06:38 AM
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Can a Blues get any less bluesy than this? And yet it is still fantastic. |
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#8
04-30-2010, 02:04 PM
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| ES125er, I feel you miss the point of post if you feel Django's St. Louis Blues is a counter example. The feeling in which he is hitting his notes and the vibrato, the bending, etc., gives it that very much distinctive blues feeling and you feel his soul coming out. Sure he does dress it up in parts with his technique, but Django had more blues in one of his 2 fingers than almost any guitarist around past or present. It is why he had an influence on every major jazz guitarist to come after, especially bluesy ones, from Charlie Christian to Kenny Burrell to Wes, whom all acknoweledge his influence (Mary Osbourne heard Charlie Christian play this St Louis Blues solo by Django note for note!). We are all entitled to an opinion though and I respect you for yours. |
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#9
04-30-2010, 02:59 PM
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| A QUOTE FROM BB KING: Django was one of my idols. He had a touch that made him Django Reinhardt and nobody else and as far as I'm concerned, one of the greatest in the guitar business. He'd identify himself on his instrument. Today we've got a lot of great guitarists, but most of them don't identify themselves. But with Django, you knew without a doubt who he was the minute he'd start to play. And to me, it was sweet music; his guitar seemed to talk, in other words, I heard it. He played music that was sophisticated to me, but a layman like myself could still understand it. I've got more albums on him than on anybody; when I was in France I must have bought fifty records of the Hot Club Of France. I would never have the speed or the technique that Django had, but I love him so much that I'm sure if you listened carefully you could hear a little bit of him in my playing. I just wish everybody could hear him. |
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#10
05-01-2010, 03:53 AM
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| I'm afraid that it will take more than quoting BB King to convince me that Django was a bluesy jazz guitar player. He was one of the most inluential guitar players ever, so by similar standards, he was also heavy metal (Tommy Iommi is a fan), or Classical (Julian Bream), or latino (Santana), or shred metal (Michael Angelo Batio), or country (Chet Atkins), etc. But let's leave it at that and agree to disagree on whether he was a bluesy player or not. As long as we agree that he was unique and a genius musician and guitar player, we're on the same team.  Last edited by ES125er : 05-01-2010 at 04:43 AM. |
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#11
05-01-2010, 07:48 AM
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| Django's got the blues feel, don't worry about it. I can definitely hear it. You might need to work on the ears or something. |
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#12
05-01-2010, 07:50 AM
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| He was not a "bluesy player" in general, but he could play the blues... |
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#13
05-01-2010, 09:43 AM
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| Yeah, I have no trouble hearing the blues in that Django piece. I mean, just the first few bars is enough. But he does tend to obscure it a bit when he gets really cooking in that distinctive gypsy style of his. But tonally speaking you can still hear the blues build up. Actually, I'd possibly even take the argument that says Django doesn't sound like jazz in the way that the lay person would think of jazz. |
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#15
05-01-2010, 10:00 AM
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| Quote:
Quote:
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#16
05-01-2010, 10:05 AM
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| The same tune, by musicians deeply rooted in the Blues:
The difference is quite striking to me. | |||
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#17
05-01-2010, 11:04 PM
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| ES125er, I agree with you that Django was a genius. Our conceptions of what the blues is, we can respectfully disagree . I love that Louis doin' the ol' St. Louis Blues, classic.
__________________ "Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art..." -Charlie Parker http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JmmUlUZgUM |
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#19
05-03-2010, 02:34 PM
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| Es125er, you summed up this post perfectly. Blues= Soul and Feeling! That was what this post was discussing. As you know, all the videos were jazz musicians. This was a rant of a post discussing the feeling of the blues in jazz music; the touch, the bends, the vibrato, the soul of the musicians coming through and how many musicians today and even in the past did not have this or even understand what this is. The blues can be summed up in musical terms, but its impact is in its soul and feeling. Though we had a disagreement on this feeling with one guitarist, I am sure there are much more things we agree upon  . Cheers.
__________________ "Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art..." -Charlie Parker http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JmmUlUZgUM |
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#20
05-03-2010, 03:13 PM
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| "blues is the truth, happy or sad"-- bb king "anybody can play a pentatonic scale and bend some strings, but few can really play the blues well"--me |
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#21
05-03-2010, 03:20 PM
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| "blues is the devil's music" - common knowlege |
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#22
05-04-2010, 12:24 AM
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| Quote:
We did not have any disagreement on the quality and feeling of any of the artists you posted. Only a misunderstanding on how to define The Blues. I was using the musical definition, you were using a looser one. I hear Django's soul in his music, but not much Blues. Just like I can't hear much Blues in Flamenco, Gyspsy music from the Balkans, Fado, Indian Classical music, Qawwali, etc... and yet they're such soulful musics! Systematically associating soulful music with the Blues is a very US-centric thing to do.  |
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