The classical bop, Blue Note style & the nature of creativity in the music

[NSJ]

I'd like to hear Grant Green do this:

This was at the very end of the Blue Note period, when they adopted the same strategy and tactics as Creed Taylor and CTI. Wes was recording short pop tunes with orchestras, Hubert Laws was doing a cover of a song by the band called the Pink Floyd ( relatively unknown at the time ), Albert Ayller traded in the free jazz for acid rock, right before he wound up in the East River .

Maybe the only one who stayed with blue note in the 1970s was Horace Silver. It pretty much ceased to exist until the 1980s

[ecj]

No I'm not arguing that. My point is not that fashion validates what is good in music, instead that innovation is validated by changing fashions. But there are plenty of forgotten people in history.

The crazy harmony of Gesualdo is a historical curiosity for example, you can't call him an innovator - apparently crazy harmony was actually quite common in some Renaissance music of that era, but kind of became a dead end. Beethoven was an innovator because everyone started writing big long symphonies after he did it.

I didn't argue that innovation was both necessary and sufficient to genius. It's possible that the folks who were innovative and forgotten were forgotten because their innovations weren't particularly great. Just because something is new or different doesn't mean it's good. When you create something that's new, different, AND good, then you've got something.

There's that word ADVANCED again - what does it mean in this context? I don't necessarily agree because I don't know what it means.

Here is what I think it means: 'advanced' music has more interesting harmonic choices than less 'advanced' music. Or perhaps other elements that are intellectually appealing.

If my statement is not what you mean, I would be interested to know what it is.

I think harmony is one element, especially the ability to balance consonance and dissonance in novel ways. The basic changes of Giant Steps are an interesting expansion of the harmonic elements at play in something like Body and Soul.

Just the pure ability to improvise a melodically pleasing solo (which I'd argue that Coltrane's Giant Steps is) at the tempos Coltrane takes it at is an incredibly advanced skill set which remarkably few humans ever manage to develop.

Jazz has all kinds of incredible advances over the music that came before it, like freedom from rigid time keeping, ability to imply harmonic expansions over relatively simple harmonic progressions, melodic embellishment at its most extreme.

Do you really find the idea that Giant Steps is an "advanced" performance controversial? Can you imagine trying to teach a student how to play like Coltrane does on that track, versus teaching a student to embellish the melody to Body and Soul? The concept of "advanced" in this case seems clearly self-evident to me.

[mrcee]

Wikipedia says "Ulmer plays a Gibson Byrdland guitar."

Ah hah! You're sure right. Thanks for the correction. Amin Ali is the name of his bass player during the time I saw him. The best post straight ahead performance I've seen. Calvin Weston is a great drummer. IMO his recorded output, that I've heard anyway, doesn't do him complete justice.

[christianm77]

I didn't argue that innovation was both necessary and sufficient to genius. It's possible that the folks who were innovative and forgotten were forgotten because their innovations weren't particularly great. Just because something is new or different doesn't mean it's good. When you create something that's new, different, AND good, then you've got something.

And yet as an artist you have literally no way of judging the latter. In fact you can expect to be hated by many. It's not merely developing a personal voice, it's maintaining that voice in the face of a fierce economic and social pressure to conform. The truth is I suspect that many of the innovators simply had no choice. I suspect Trane was simply incapable of not sounding like Trane.

Lots of people HATED Trane's playing at the time. It takes courage to do your own thing, so respect.

I think harmony is one element, especially the ability to balance consonance and dissonance in novel ways. The basic changes of Giant Steps are an interesting expansion of the harmonic elements at play in something like Body and Soul.

What dissonance is there in Giant Steps?

Just the pure ability to improvise a melodically pleasing solo (which I'd argue that Coltrane's Giant Steps is) at the tempos Coltrane takes it at is an incredibly advanced skill set which remarkably few humans ever manage to develop.

On the other hand Coltrane's solo in this tune is largely formulaic to a high degree. I'm not saying it's easy to play like that or that it's not great, but there's a clear logic to it, but that side of it is a matter of practicing something quite specific to a very high level. GS itself is really an etude. Coltrane's music as a whole is much more complex.

Jazz has all kinds of incredible advances over the music that came before it, like freedom from rigid time keeping, ability to imply harmonic expansions over relatively simple harmonic progressions, melodic embellishment at its most extreme.

I can imagine the apoplexy that would induce in a classical music purist :-)

But perhaps it is reasonable to say Bach is more advanced than Vivaldi. It does make sense for me to say Charlie Parker was more advanced than Sonny Stitt... At least more complex. I think I am more comfortable with the term complex. Vivaldi was very advanced at writing insane amounts of music for instance :-)

Do you really find the idea that Giant Steps is an "advanced" performance controversial? Can you imagine trying to teach a student how to play like Coltrane does on that track, versus teaching a student to embellish the melody to Body and Soul? The concept of "advanced" in this case seems clearly self-evident to me.

Actually yeah. Giant Steps is much more quantifiable. Start with running 1-2-3-5, then you transcribe the solo, then you practice playing the notes until you get them to tempo, then you improvise your own lines based on that logic. It's certainly not the work of an afternoon, but there's a clear road map.

Teach someone to phrase a melody like Coleman Hawkins? More difficult, elusive I think - feel, tone, touch, lots of details. With GS you can play the notes at tempo and that itself is an impressive enough feat.

So, I don't question that GS is 'advanced', I think the other example is advanced too.

But I actually think GS is a bad example of Coltrane's music for our purposes. It's actually kind of too simple, weird though that sounds. A fairer example might be the roughly contemporary Limehouse Blues solo transcribed in the other thread.

Looking at it more widely, I would say for instance, Grant Green for me is a very advanced player - few players can really do what he did. Not really. But you can write down the notes and be like - 'meh.' And I think one can miss what makes him special if you aren't attuned to it. The more I listen to him the more I hear.

In brutal contrast, I was studying a well known 'advanced' modern player's solo and felt it wasn't very advanced at all in terms of phrasing or rhythm. Not a lot going on. Interesting pitches. The more I listened to it the less interesting it seemed, actually...

I wouldn't describe Hank as being boring notes wise BTW - any more than Mozart is. His phrases are beautifully crafted and balanced. You could learn to play changes by studying just him. If one sees line playing from the POV of 'what's going on harmonically' though, you might not see the interest.

He uses conventional note choices, but you don't have to use new words to craft a great novel. Trane is like Joyce perhaps, Mobley more like Hemmingway? I think both are worth of equal respect.

I feel harmony has been elevated as the big deal in the narrative of jazz history. The reasons why are obvious - it's easy to quantify and when you transcribe a solo it's the easiest thing to look at.

[NSJ]

I always love the term "artist". I find it to be rather overused. One of the best things I've got about that was for my teacher who said, "you know who is an artist, Segovia is an artist. The rest of us are just craftsmen ".

I don't view that as a denigration.

He also was also comping and touring with the South African singer named Miriam Makeba in the early 60s. They played this one gig at the Apollo in Harlem with a whole bunch of acts including the Coltrane quartet. I asked him what he thought about that group, and he said, "the guy didn't need to go on soloing for 15 minutes, play the goddamn chorus or two or three and get on with it "

In my understanding, that was also Wes's experience during his brief time with the Trane quartet---the solos went on forever, which wasn't his scene at all.

[goldenwave77]

As technique advances, true "artistry" becomes more difficult to achieve, I would argue.

Rod Laver had heavy topspin shots, from both sides, and a topspin lob, that was just "more game" than other players of his era. Nowadays, most decent 12 yr. old tmt. players (w/ todays "blast" rackets) can hit these shots. Federer actually has no special shots that others don't have, but he continues to evolve his approach to the game, and to change it...really his mind is better than other players in what he thinks about doing, and is able to do.

Lasker, the chess champion from 1895-1921 had a famous double bishop sacrifice against the castled King in his 1886 game against Bauer, that was a wonder. Nowadays, pretty much every A level player (strong, but not master level) knows this motif, and can apply it in their games.

I personally like Albert King's blues guitar playing better than anyone else's...musical...perfectly constructed and delivered blues diction, but with real heart behind it, and a song palette that ranges from standard blues "Laundromat Blues" to '20's ballads (The Very Thought of You), to haunting, clever stuff (Personal Manager; The Hunter; Born Under a Bad Sign; Cross-Cut Saw). I am sure there are tons of younger players who know most, if not all, of his little tricks, and devices. They won't have his artistry, as they are lifting stuff...and most of the time when this happens, the delivery just doesn't come off quite right.

I also think "artistry" can be a by-product of technical gaps or shortcomings....I think Wes M. developed the slide-y, chord-sy approach of his because his picking technique was not like Chuck Wayne or Johnny Smith. This turned out to be a good thing, but in a way he is limited...just like Boots Randolph on sax, always sounds like Boots Randolph, whereas I think Joe Pass or Herb Ellis, or Johnny Smith, or other guitar players are more versatile than Wes. M.

[destinytot]

This was at the very end of the Blue Note period, when they adopted the same strategy and tactics as Creed Taylor and CTI. Wes was recording short pop tunes with orchestras, Hubert Laws was doing a cover of a song by the band called the Pink Floyd ( relatively unknown at the time ), Albert Ayller traded in the free jazz for acid rock, right before he wound up in the East River .

Maybe the only one who stayed with blue note in the 1970s was Horace Silver. It pretty much ceased to exist until the 1980s

I've been reading the argumentation supporting diverse opinion, which I think is a Good Thing because of opportunities and insight which might otherwise be missed.

When there's conflict as well as diversity, the principle of supporting the latter sometimes takes precedence over the actual ideas within those opinions.

I think that's where absolute values give way to political correctness - a power struggle, which is polite (to a point).

Well... I bought loads of CTI albums in my teens. Many were overpriced, all were paid for out of earnings from my part-time job. l think of myself as having two part-time jobs now (in addition to my main job) which pay for little luxuries, and I still love those albums - which I remember choosing very carefully. I used to spend lunchtime in the listening booth at F L Moore's in Luton. Wonderful memories... nostalgia:

Here are a couple of fave tracks on CTI while I'm in the mood. (Unlike the English lyrics of Sarah Vaughan's version,) the first one remains - for me - a dignified reading of Milton Nascimento's noble anthem for the working man:

I loved Maria Mulduar's original of this one. I remember being terrified when I read what I thought was a cruel review of one of her London concerts in the '80s (though I've read crueller ones since) because I'd started gigging, and I was afraid of what might be said about me. Anyway, I love this - and, for me, Benson's guitar is a cherry on top:

My outlook - and listening - evolved in 1979, when I read Bird Lives and On the Road. By the late '90s, associating Blue Note with Acid Jazz, I'd thrown that particular baby out with the bathwater. Although I was beginning to develop some criteria, I didn't know it back then.

'Necessity makes strange bedfellows'; 'youth is wasted on the young'.

If I'd known, I'd have 'reclaimed' the best of Blue Note - and sought salvation through wrestling it back from what Adorno (accurately and appropriately', I think) called 'the culture industry'.

Because I agree with much of what Roger Scruton has to say about music. And I'm not a relativist.

We're focusing on the good in this discussion, and I'm OVERJOYED to have 'discovered' Grant Green (deserves all caps).

But it would be remiss of me not to express the opinion that some output - of both CTI & Blue Note - is/was cynical trash.

What now gives me pause is the thought that I might unwittingly contribute to its proliferation by playing music for today's drugged and drunken prancing fools.

[destinytot]

i see that you've made contact with joe. what an amazing yt channel he has. do you mind if i send you a mail, mike?

I'd be honoured.

[ecj]

And yet as an artist you have literally no way of judging the latter. In fact you can expect to be hated by many. It's not merely developing a personal voice, it's maintaining that voice in the face of a fierce economic and social pressure to conform. The truth is I suspect that many of the innovators simply had no choice. I suspect Trane was simply incapable of not sounding like Trane.

Lots of people HATED Trane's playing at the time. It takes courage to do your own thing, so respect.

For sure. History is the judge of who innovated in a way that influenced, and who just got off on a branch that led nowhere.

What dissonance is there in Giant Steps?

On the other hand Coltrane's solo in this tune is largely formulaic to a high degree. I'm not saying it's easy to play like that or that it's not great, but there's a clear logic to it, but that side of it is a matter of practicing something quite specific to a very high level. GS itself is really an etude. Coltrane's music as a whole is much more complex.

The whole Coltrane progression takes you through minor third leaps that create an augmented triad and should be dissonant but end up sounding pretty great.

I'd also argue that calling the Giant Steps solo formulaic is overly dismissive. There are lots of people that play Giant Steps and sound like they are running boring scale patterns. Coltrane breaks out into really beautiful, dramatic melodic passages that punctuate the insanely intricate technical passages.

But perhaps it is reasonable to say Bach is more advanced than Vivaldi. It does make sense for me to say Charlie Parker was more advanced than Sonny Stitt... At least more complex. I think I am more comfortable with the term complex. Vivaldi was very advanced at writing insane amounts of music for instance :-)

I'm fine with using "complex" instead of "advanced". Complexity isn't always better, but it is different and carries different demands. It's harder to develop the skills to cover a Cecil Taylor composition than a Bob Marley cover, but I'd almost always rather listen to a good Bob Marley cover than Cecil's weird stuff.

Actually yeah. Giant Steps is much more quantifiable. Start with running 1-2-3-5, then you transcribe the solo, then you practice playing the notes until you get them to tempo, then you improvise your own lines based on that logic. It's certainly not the work of an afternoon, but there's a clear road map.

Teach someone to phrase a melody like Coleman Hawkins? More difficult, elusive I think - feel, tone, touch, lots of details. With GS you can play the notes at tempo and that itself is an impressive enough feat.

So, I don't question that GS is 'advanced', I think the other example is advanced too.

Again, I think this is too dismissive of the Giant Steps solo. Hawkins is great, don't get me wrong, and very innovative for his time. But a student can learn to execute his solo far easier than developing the physical capacity to emulate Coltrane's. It won't be exactly the same, and it won't be as "good" for the reasons you cite, but some of that is classical post-hoc fallacy.

It's hard to perfectly recreate anything. Like imagine trying to learn to do a Bob Dylan tune exactly like Bob Dylan and having to learn how to sing kind of off key and screw up your guitar parts every once in a while in exactly that way. It would take forever to nail it, but that doesn't mean that whatever Bob Dylan tune you spent all that time on was more advanced, complex, whatever than Giant Steps.

In brutal contrast, I was studying a well known 'advanced' modern player's solo and felt it wasn't very advanced at all in terms of phrasing or rhythm. Not a lot going on. Interesting pitches. The more I listened to it the less interesting it seemed, actually...

But that's just saying that you think it lacks the kinds of rhythmic complexity that you desire. Right? It's less advanced rhythmically than Hawkins or something. I agree, and find a lot of modern jazz boring because the rhythmic elements seem to have devolved pretty drastically over the last 12 years. Playing endless 8th note lines over a 12/8 time signature isn't as cool to me as the weird rhythmic shit Parker was doing over simple blues progressions.

He uses conventional note choices, but you don't have to use new words to craft a great novel. Trane is like Joyce perhaps, Mobley more like Hemmingway? I think both are worth of equal respect.

I feel harmony has been elevated as the big deal in the narrative of jazz history. The reasons why are obvious - it's easy to quantify and when you transcribe a solo it's the easiest thing to look at.

I agree completely. Way too much overstatement of harmony as the defining element, especially when you consider that much of early jazz harmony was just stolen from Tin Pan Alley composers who were in turn stealing it from Romantic and Impressionist classical composers.

I think the tough thing about arguing about complexity or advancement in jazz is that most jazz is very advanced and complex music. If you compare Coltrane, Mobley, Coleman Hawkins, and Cecil Taylor the arguments get very confused, because everyone is pretty advanced and mostly just doing different advanced things.

It's when you back up and compare any of that stuff to a Katy Perry track that it's pretty easy to see that there's something to the idea of greater complexity or sophistication in music.

I'd argue that the kind of innovation that is really prized is when you come up with a new sophisticated way to do something that still honors the basic compositional elements of music that make it beautiful. Again, I think most Coltrane emulators fail to capture why he was really great because the focus on the complexity of certain passages and forget how god damn pretty a lot of the heads to his tunes and a lot of his solos really were. He was a master of contrasting insane, weird, dissonant technical shit with beautiful arcing melodic figures.

Interesting convo. Doesn't seem like we really disagree much.

[christianm77]

Harmonic complexity aside, who can play the minor pentatonic like him?