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I agree with a lot of what's been said - there are note choices and harmonic devices for sure, but time feel, touch, tone, how the band is playing, etc, all make a difference in the impression of 'old' vs 'new'
but one addition I wanted to throw in here is that I think as time passes there is more variety in the ways people approach jazz improvisation, and there are a lot of reasons for this...but there are a lot of guys doing a lot of different things in terms of compositions, time feel, harmonic approaches, textural approaches. For example...Matthew Stevens vs Ben Wendel, or Kurt vs Julian Lage, or Jakob Bro vs Jonathan Kreisberg...I feel like these are all comparisons of folks that are still 'jazz' but take very different things from the music to make it their own, and have very different approaches rhythmically, harmonically, texturally, etc.
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11-27-2017 11:16 AM
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True, that also reminds me that my understanding of jazz history is really crystallised around a few individuals who were very individual.
That said - it does make sense to talk about a jazz common practice during the bebop era. It was very consistent in terms of note choices.
I actually think the swing era was a lot more diverse, by contrast, as is the modern era.
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What's funny is that I think there is a quintessential 'modern jazz guitar' sound that I hear a lot of folks out of school playing...reverb/delay, semi hollow or solid body, straight-ish 8ths, chord scale stuff, triad pairs, pentatonics, cute little cells, looking for interesting arrangements of intervals, voicings with close intervals, etc. But that's like, the cookie cutter, cardboard cut out thing, if anything, a phase that a lot of guitar students go through. A lot of the big 'name' modern guitarists do that stuff but often have their own take on it or something that makes them stick out. I think that for my generation (I'm 33) there was a lot of Kurt worship and maybe that led to the above. Now for younger folks it seems to be all about Sharkey and Mark Lettieri, hah!
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Ha, could well be. Isiah Sharkey is coming out of Benson as well as soul, of course. I like that the groove thing is trendy. He's a pretty hip player....
Originally Posted by JakeAcci
But Lettieri? OK then. Snarky are a big platform. Lettieri sounds like a generic fusion player to me, albeit a very good one, but Snarky have always sounded generic to me... My opinions aren't important though lol. He's playing to a crowd that probably doesn't know Jeff Beck, Scott Henderson or Frank Gambale first hand. But he plays great!
I would say a big influence on me is Julian Lage, if only because he showed me that I don't have to follow the (still dominant) paradigm of playing that post-Kurt stuff, although it is an influence that's in my playing. My search for the confidence to put together a voice beyond the disparate styles I play is ongoing though...
BTW I don't actually feel Kurt was ever truly imitated, beyond superficial aspects like pitch choices. I don't know anyone who actually sounds like him.
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I like swinging staff!
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BTW - this is one that keeps coming up. I'm not sure it's the placement of the 8th's so much as the fact that there are only 8ths. Originally Posted by JakeAcci
After all Jimmy Raney played with this placement.
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Thanks for all the comments so far. Lots of amazing stuff. This is something I have been working on a lot lately through listening, analyzing, and transcribing, but it is great to hear your thoughts as well.
Can you elaborate on this please Jake. Originally Posted by JakeAcci
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there's some Raney I've heard that sounds shockingly "modern"! like, could be early Kurt or Adam R, easily. Originally Posted by christianm77
I very much agree that streams of 8ths is part of that kind of "modern" sound. Barry Harris was always lamenting that he never hears people play triplets anymore. I rarely hear that kind of florid, bop ornamentation in anyone's lines.
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Yes, thank you! His sound on the bass strings reminds me of Kurt actually, and his articulation and beat placement (super relaxed and straight) is very similar sometimes. I'm surprised Kurt (to my knowledge) hasn't mentioned an influence! Originally Posted by pcsanwald
Kurt owes very little linguistically to Raney, though, at least to my ears. Maybe there's a recording out there of Kurt playing burning straight up Parker style bebop, but I don't know it (but wouldn't be amazed if one turned up). His straight-ahead stuff doesn't really come from that place, perhaps a bit from Trane, a lot from interesting applications of CST though.... which is probably one reason why he sounded so fresh.
He's what my bebop nazi friends would call a 'no-language player' haha (the Gary Burton school of jazz, again... Metheny can be a bit like that, but you hear the Wes come out... Julian Lage too, but you hear the country and the swing licks. In Kurt I hear a Trane-like use of pentatonic melodies.)
I dunno, Barry must HATE Dexter then lol (maybe he does, never heard his opinions on Dexter, he does criticise Sonny Stitt, and recorded with him as well...)I very much agree that streams of 8ths is part of that kind of "modern" sound. Barry Harris was always lamenting that he never hears people play triplets anymore. I rarely hear that kind of florid, bop ornamentation in anyone's lines.
But Dexter's slightly detached articulation is very different from that modern legato 8th note articulation.
Here's what Brad Mehldau has to say on the matter - he went to some of BH's classes back in the 90s I think.
Carnegie 05 — Brad Mehldau
Carnegie 06 — Brad Mehldau
Anyway, I like a good triplet myself... Again, listen to Adam Rogers and compare to Charlie Parker on Dexterity... He plays the embellishments on the head (differently to Bird) - but I think basically no triplets, so even though he is playing bop lines a lot of the time, it feels a lot different. (Actually listening now I hear a lot of Dexter in the note choices!)
Needless to say Raney played those embellishments in his lines... and BH remains a fan of Raney's playing.Last edited by christianm77; 11-27-2017 at 04:38 PM.
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you have heard "Intuit", right? Bar none my favorite Kurt record! Originally Posted by christianm77
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Yup. He's not playing Bebop on that record, but he is playing bebop if that makes any sense. (Not criticising BTW - it sounds great, really distinctive.) Originally Posted by pcsanwald
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yeah I hear you. but, I think that's the closest we're ever gonna get from Kurt. Listening to that record, it's easy to hear how he caught Gary Burton's ear. really plays some amazingly melodic material through very tricky changes. Originally Posted by christianm77
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OTOH, check out Lage Lund on the Steinar Nickelson's album 'Mis en Bouteille a New York' (or Mis en Bouteille a New Yotk as iTunes likes to call it.)
I reckon that's pretty obscure, but Lage Lund plays some stellar straight up bop on that (albeit with a slight Boston accent, so to speak) - some of my favourite playing of that kind.
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To me it's time feel...
old style sounds more like play from inner time, very personal time feel...
modern is often like the time is outside the player, more abstract time feel...
It's not always connected with generation... at least during that transitional period of 70s-80s
Sco and Frisell are in the first group for me.. Metheny and MacLaughlin are more in the secind one...
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Not sure if I agree. I think Metheny's sense of time is very personal. Also MacLaughin was known as a feel player. Early MacLaughlin not a million miles away from Grant Green.... Originally Posted by Jonah
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I did not mean that they lack personality))) or feel))) Originally Posted by christianm77
I think just in general the concept of personality in arts and culture changed through last century...
It became more like a person in a world than the world in the person...
oversimplification of course... just a general idea.
and to me PM and JM are closer to that modern conception than Sco or Frisell...
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Who encapsulates the modern conception then? Originally Posted by Jonah
But your general point I think is a really interesting one even if I disagree in the specifics.
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For me the change from bop/swing to the current thing
whatever we should call it ...
(I'm not including any distortion sound /rock/fusion thing here just the clean thing)
Happened on Jim halls watch
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I think it's time in general sense.. Originally Posted by christianm77
Music is time... we all feel how time goes each in his own.. and music gauges and embodies the time... better than any watches...
So it's how the performer feels the time of the piece and controls his means to express it...
And I believe that all the musical means are subject to express this time feel.. everything: phrasing, rythm, harmony, even tone...
In old days it seems they cared much less about tone as it is..
they probably thought of different expressive possibilities of tone rather than of abstract beauty of it...
Harmony was much more subject to classical tension-release... it made phrasing more direct maybe in expressive sense...
Time seems more flexible... more controlable maybe... being created
Today time feel is less obligatory... time feels like it goes more or less on its own... and performer just jums into the flow then jumps out...
Note that it's bit more subtle thing what I am talking about... it's not tat they were expressive and now not...
very expressive Jonathan Kreisberg or so versatile Lage Lund and even so seemingly old-stylish Julian Lage - they all seem to have this more or less this modern time feel - each in his own way with his own approach...
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