Jack Grassel

m78w · #1 01-22-2009, 10:02 PM

Hey Everyone,
I just did an interview with Jack Grassel, rated by Guitar Player magazine as one of the 10 best guitarists you've never heard of. Jack's a great player and teacher living in Milwaukee. Check out the video's on his homepage, pretty amazing! Instruction, Books, CDs, From Jack Grassel Jazz Guitarist

Anyway, if you're interested in reading about Jack's approach to teaching jazz guitar and his performing career you can find it here.

Interview with Guitar Virtuoso Jack Grassel | Guitar, Have, Jack, One, His

MW

pierre richard · #2 01-23-2009, 06:31 AM

hey m78w...

Jack is top shelf in my list of good guys...

Have a few of his books....goood....stuuufff....man....

The time you spend playing your guitar is time well spent....pierre...

m78w · #3 01-23-2009, 07:40 AM

Yeah not only is he an amazing player, his ability to walk bass lines and solo is incredible, but he's got some great educational books out there.

Thanks for checking it out, I think Jack's definitely a player deserving more recognition.

MW

pierre richard · #4 01-23-2009, 07:59 AM

yes I agree he deserves recognition....

and like I said I have some of his educational material....goood stuuuf

time on the instrument is all the time you need....pierre....

m78w · #5 10-27-2009, 07:45 AM

I just did another interview with Jack talking about his amazing new CD El Refugio. Check it out, there's some great info in the interview about his approach to learning and playing, very cool.

Interview With Jack Grassel

MW

dubyeh · #6 11-04-2009, 10:50 PM

I met jack at an open counseling session at my school, and yes indeed he is AMAZING. The way he would play quick bebop lines entirely with artificial harmonics was impressive to say the least. I've got a few books of his, among them a lesser known one called 'Power Practicing' that has some cool insight on how to stay motivated and practice efficiently.

I told him that I'd learned some transcriptions from his books, and asked him how I could better assimilate the knowledge from them into my playing. He said that when he wanted to play bebop all he did was listen to a tape of Bird on repeat in his car for quite awhile... though I'm sure there was a bit more to it than that!

jack grassel · #7 02-25-2011, 10:20 PM

There was a bit more to it than that. What my answer to dubyeh in person was to learn to play bop in a period of time when bop is seldom heard in the media, one has to artificially create the time of Charlie Parker. Everywhere we go, daily, we passively hear music that is not jazz. We are the products of our environments. So to learn the feeling of bop, I recorded just the solos of Parker from 35 of his albums onto a 90 minute tape and listened to it almost non-stop for a year. That's what it took for me to play bop authentically in an era of rap, rock, and country music without playing Charlie Parker's cliches.

mr. beaumont · #8 02-25-2011, 10:35 PM

Now that's some "rosetta stone" style immersion.

Good to have you aboard jack, this place needs more of us hofner players

While I'm a big fan of hip hop and some other modern music, the point your experience with that parker tape makes is pretty important--too many folks expect to learn jazz from a scale or a book and they don't realize that the first thing they need to do is completely surround themselves in the music.

jack grassel · #9 02-26-2011, 08:32 AM

You are absolutely right. Charlie Parker, Tal Farlow, Thelonius Monk, Roy Haynes, etc. didn't learn from a book, they learned by listening to the music and playing the music. The books and DVDs we have now are shortcuts and can help us reach our goals quickly, but we must remember, that music is in the air, and in our heads as well as in books and on recordings.

markerhodes · #10 02-26-2011, 09:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jack grassel

Charlie Parker, Tal Farlow, Thelonius Monk, Roy Haynes, etc. didn't learn from a book, they learned by listening to the music and playing the music.

There's a lot of truth in this, Jack, but there is irony too: when Parker was learning to play bebop, he wasn't hearing it on the radio because it wasn't on the radio yet. A lot of jazz players of his day thought the most popular music of *their* day was less than stellar (-or should that be spelled "stella" here?)

Also, Parker told Paul Desmond "it was all done with books." He and Diz kept practice books with them while working with Earl Hines and used to spend set breaks figuring out ways to use lines from their music books in the songs of the set. (Paul Desmond asked Parker about this because he heard a line in one of Charlie's solos that came straight from a once-famous-and-common book of saxophone exercises.) Parker found space in music for the things he did best.

I agree you that it is important to listen to jazz in order to play it well, but anything innovative you do is by definition something you aren't hearing many (if any) other people do. And let's be honest---those of us who like to play bebop *now* are the furthest thing possible from innovative: we're like Civil War re-enactors, taking ourselves back to a time long gone because it seems more vital to us than What's Happening Now. Our approach must be the *opposite* of Bird's, because we're learning to do--for sheer love of the thing--something that was figured out before many of us were born. We just love that thing. (And for some who prefer swing or Dixieland, the going back is even further. For my own case, I would feel better about myself if I could play Bird solos all day long--man, that's impressive stuff!--but I would have a better time playing Charlie Christian solos because he swung like the devil and always makes me smile when I hear him.)

By the way, Jack, I have your rhythm guitar book and like it a lot. Have one of your books / CDs with jazz solos (-the one with CC's "Savoy") and think that was a great idea. I've learned a lot from that. Love your playing.

wizard3739 · #11 02-26-2011, 10:10 AM

Welcome aboard Jack! love your playing!
"You are absolutely right. Charlie Parker, Tal Farlow, Thelonius Monk, Roy Haynes, etc. didn't learn from a book, they learned by listening to the music and playing the music"
You can add Jimmy Raney to your list, he spent a lot of time listening to and transcribing transcribing Charlie Parker records.

wiz

jack grassel · #12 02-26-2011, 10:16 AM

Yes, you are correct. Charlie and Diz did play books. Thanks for making that clear. They practiced classical technique books since jazz books weren't written yet. Coltrane practiced classical harp books and Sigurd Racher's 158 Exercises for Saxophone, as well as the Nicholas Slonimsky book of melodic concepts which is a classical book.

markerhodes · #13 02-26-2011, 12:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jack grassel

Yes, you are correct. Charlie and Diz did play books. Thanks for making that clear. They practiced classical technique books since jazz books weren't written yet. Coltrane practiced classical harp books and Sigurd Racher's 158 Exercises for Saxophone, as well as the Nicholas Slonimsky book of melodic concepts which is a classical book.

Btw, Jack, I just ordered the "Jack Grassel Holy Bullet" surf pick. Hope you get a royalty! (I'm a writer and think "royalty" one of the sweetest words in the language.)