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You know what ? I think your guy talks too much, have you ever asked him how came anyone could play at his jam ?
Originally Posted by JazzIsGood
When you say you play with big names, it hides something.
I also played with big names myself or kind of, they never push people down and never say what they did, because everyone knows it, they don't have to talk about it.
When you ask about something, they usually say : "You know enough !"
In fact they are more impressed of what you know than what you play.
Your guy is like 99,9% of us, he is a wanker.
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01-11-2023 03:56 PM
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Pfff what a word ! What would be the right word ? Originally Posted by Lionelsax
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Storyteller !
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The account of this jam session pushes a bunch of buttons for me. I'm ok with no books at a session, as a preferred way to do it for more advanced players- but this guy, shaming you on an open mic, is just a jerk.
True, people looking up tunes on a phone or tablet has become common, to the point of being a crutch. But I would rather have someone do that, maybe sound a little stiff, than get lost, play wrong (not just questionable) changes.
Guitar, piano players have more responsibility to hold the tune together. But horn players have more latitude to fake it or play by ear. This is why, in the old days, when fewer players even knew how to read, this tradition took hold.
So many other formats and styles don't have this hangup. Big band, classical music...the Birth of the Cool -they used charts.
Bluegrass jams- no, no charts- but they also won't call tunes to try to exclude or humiliate people. I don't even really like bluegrass, but I've had fun sitting in a circle, watching and listening to the changes, getting to solo on every tune, all fun, no stress.
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Actually the best way to become a better musician is to play w people that are better than you. Originally Posted by Laurence Finston
If you don't you'll spin your wheels much longer than if you did.
And you'll learn more about playing w others on 1 night on the bandstand than if you spent 10 nights alone at home.
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I've seen a bunch of jazz and jammed with a bunch of pros in the last week. This "don't use charts" stuff is just not holding up.
The guy who told me don't use charts had a piano player in his band that was using charts right there at his gig which preceded the jam.
Saw some pros at the #1 jazz venue in my county last week. 5 piece band, all had charts. Actually they had fancy binders with the singers name on it. Sounded great. It helped make their performance nearly flawless.
Sat in with a bunch of pros, one of whom plays gigs with Ron Eschete (legendary jazz guitarist). I used charts for about 25% of the tunes they called, the rest I already knew. They all said YOU SOUND GREAT and people in the audience were also emphatic about how much they liked my playing.
Yesterday I was at a jam where they let me call a tune and a bunch of paid professionals took out their phones and took a quick look at the chart before the count off. One guy knew it already.
Everywhere I go people per up and take notice when I play. Even mister "Never use charts, pull notes out the air" guy seemed to genuinely like my playing. Just because I use charts for a few tunes here and there doesn't mean I am a lousy player. I know the majority of tunes called at any given jam and I can play them without a chart. Then there's the tunes I know the sound of but I don't know every chord. Those are the ones I use charts for. It's rare people call a tune I have no idea about, but it has happened. Charts are great for either of those last 2 scenarios. Someday I won't need them at all, maybe in 5-10 years, who knows.
I think the bottom line is that I got stereotyped as a lousy player because I had iRealPro on a tablet.
Old people love to bag on technology and cell phones, they think a tablet is a cell phone. The Real Book would be maybe not quite as bad, but still it's charts and there's a small segment of the jazz players out there who have take issue with people using charts.
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I’m not a never books on a jam guy but I will say a lot of beginners are a drag to play with when they are hunched over an iPad for the entire tune. Makes you feel like their personal
backing track instead of being alert and interacting. Not saying that is you OP
I also think playing tunes you don’t know on a session without a book is a good skill to develop. If it is a typical standard that you have heard plenty of times but maybe never played you should be able to hear your way through it with a little direction up front from someone in the band (i.e. it’s in Bb, AABA 32 bars, look out the bridge goes to III major)
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Jazz is ear music, not eye music. If you need a chart to play All Blues, IMO, you have no business playing in public.
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I know one well-known player, you'd at least know the names of people he's played with regularly, who likes having a chart in front of him even though he knows hundreds of tunes. He said "it frees me up". I didn't ask him to explain that further.
I don't think many players would care to admit that. But, based upon casuals I've played in recent years, he can't be the only one. Usually, there's a book and even experienced players put the chart up.
There are tunes I know backwards and forwards. But there are more that I sort of know, which means that I might miss some chords here and there. That could be a dead-wrong change or it could be a harmony that would have worked if the piano played had layed out. I'm a good reader. I can read and think at the same time, although I do agree with the idea that getting your nose out of the chart is likely to improve group interaction, which is the core of jazz.
Still, having the chart open in front of me takes all the anxiety out of it and I like doing that. So, according to one school of thought I shouldn't show up at a jam session.
OTOH, I play in two big bands, an octet and my own group -- playing arrangements. It's all reading, all the time. I know a lot of my group's tunes, but we try to avoid repeating ourselves and we have a couple of hundred tunes in the band book; memorizing all of them is beyond me.
My point is, different settings require different skill sets. The guy who can prevail at a jam session because he has big ears and knows all the tunes won't look so good in a big band if he can't read. Or if somebody hands out a chart at a jam and it's an original. That happens too, sometimes.
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Who bought the fake books, back in the day? Were none of them jazz musicians?
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Oh you can be sure they all had copies. It was like a card of membership. Step one: You have your records, your instrument and your fake book. Originally Posted by Litterick
But implicit with that book was some understanding that the purpose of that book was its role in learning tunes, i.e. the internalization of tunes in your ear and in your fingers. That's why "back in the day" it was so important to attend live music (listening at jams, going to gigs and concerts, etc.), this was also part of your membership dues. They even had a term: Paying your dues. Learning tunes was part of that.
Now just because you walked in the door of a venue on open jam night didn't necessarily mean you could get up there and play. If you wanted to sit in on the drum throne but you had only played air drums in your bedroom...the jam is not the place to pick up the sticks for the first time. It wasn't written on the "rules list" on the wall, but it was understood that yes, you are here to learn but too, you need to be able to keep up. You need to know your tunes. For most jams of a certain threshold of musical competence, that means somebody calls "Autumn Leaves!" you have an understanding of what key centre is, and you have some idea of turnarounds that work within. If you know that, I dare say, you've GOT Autumn Leaves.
Maybe we can put it like this: When I was growing up, the neighborhood kids loved playing baseball. We'd play in the street, we had a ball and a bat and we knew the bases were the tree, the curb and the man hole cover. You could come and play, but if you came with a book about base ball, and had to ask when you should run, what direction to run in, the understanding that you swing three times and you have to sit down, the idea of hitting a ball with a bat and you couldn't hold the bat because you were referencing the book of baseball under your arm, well you're welcome to play, but let's say it's not the same league of players if you can't understand what everyone else assumes are the basics.
Players who play by ear aren't geniuses, but they HAVE put in the time to guide their fingers with their ears. It's like knowing where first base is.
It's been pointed out that there are different levels of jams. This is true. Playing catch and swinging a bat in your driveway isn't baseball, but it gets you to where you can be chosen for a team the next time the kids gather for a game. Once you know the rules, and you see and hear how it's done, and you can play a guitar is some way not dissimilar to how a singer might pick out a tune, then get in there and PLAY.
Frankly, I don't know why it's come to the point where people can play without hearing, players can move their fingers without listening, but in a jam, it's not only respected that you can, but for many, it's expected that you do.
It may seem rude that someone points this out, but yes, playing music using your ear is expected if you want to be a member.
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I'll bet it's not to compensate for the fact that he can't hear. Here in my town, every Monday night a sax player Jerry Bergonzi has a weekly gig. He plays out of a huge book. All his own tunes. Contrafacts and originals. And sure they read down the charts but when it comes to the double bar of the head, it's the ear that plays the music; the fingers take their cue from the music not the page. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
Yeah sometimes on a tough chart that's being read down the first time, somebody will check the form and the changes, but once the playing/soloing begins, the page's job is done.
An ear player 'uses' a chart differently. It cues and provides an overview, like a topographic map or a google space graphic. It's not a GPS ground level set of disparate list of scales. This ability to see the whole and to play the form is a practice in perception. Everyone can do it. It starts with being aware that it needs to be learned.Last edited by Jimmy blue note; 01-21-2023 at 05:29 AM.
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Some of the greatest jazz music of all time was made by people who had a chart in front of them and didn't know the tune too well, and had not internalized the tune...... such as.... "Giant Steps" and "Kind of Blue."
I was reading about those two records and people say the bandleaders wanted the musicians to be a bit iffy on the changes to keep it spontaneous.... or something to that effect. Maybe some of the historians here can explain further.
I'm ready to stand up to any of the anti chart nazis at jams from now on! They are oversimplifying the entire issue into "if you use charts then you suck and you can't keep up."
Just because someone has a chart, doesn't mean they are a beginner who can't keep up. I know a good amount of tunes but not all of them. I think the main reason I'm using charts right now is because I want to play the songs correctly, even the songs I know fairly well can be enhanced by having a chart to glance at once in a while. There's something to be said for playing the songs correctly.
I agree with the guy who said "it frees me up."
Another thing I noticed is that people have different levels of memorization ability. Some people can memorize hundreds of tunes and other people struggle with memorizing but they might have other good skills. The people who don't memorize as well can still make a great musical contribution.
A very skilled drummer recently told me something insightful, he said "everyone is at different levels." If ya think about it that's true of every musical situation but it doesn't have to ruin the music.
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I think people are doing the usual internet things and assuming people are making an argument in absolutes. Originally Posted by JazzIsGood
If you are playing original music you usually do it from a chart. Otoh professional jazz musicians also learn a repertoire of standards.
learn some songs and learn to read charts
and that’s about it really. There’s not much to argue with. that’s just what people do.
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The middle way, the middle way. Not no charts ever or always a chart but somewhere in between as befits common sense.
Well, that's the end of that discussion!
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Years ago, I day Billy Harper play with Gary Bartz's "freebop" band. Late in the second set they played one of Gary's tunes, a post bop knotty head with heavy changes. Billy read the melody off a paper on his music stand, and when Gary nodded to him for a solo, he politely declined.
Thats a pro.
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Years ago I was at a jam when Samba Novo was called. It's played fast, but the changes are simple and it's in Cmajor. There were charts for everybody.
A musician I admired, a great soloist, declined to solo. Later, when I asked him why he said, "because I haven't worked on the changes".
In fact, the charts came out of his book -- he knew the tune, but he hadn't worked on it to his satisfaction.
I learned something about the way great players prepare.
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I agree about laying out if you can't make a musical contribution. I'd guess this principle is relative to the quality level of the music being played. Billy, for example, might decline if the band is truly killing and he only knows the tune like 90%. OTOH a guy like Billy might go ahead and solo if he were at a lower quality jam with below average players because in this scenario his 90% effort might make a huge musical contribution. What do you think Mr Beaumont?
My point about Kinda Blue and Giant Steps is that the presence or absence of charts does not matter to the listener. It's something musicians are using to get rid of beginners. Instead of having a "no charts" rule, why not have a "no beginners" rule? Why not just say "we don't want beginners at this jam." Or make it part of the ad or post or however people find out about the jam. Would that would be against the spirit of jazz? Nobody wants to admit that they're hostile to beginners. After all everyone was a beginner once.
I've been to various jams and gigs lately, probably seen 50+ musicians this month. I've seen some advanced players using charts. I've seen a few people with no charts who lay out. I've seen people who didn't bring charts decide to look at someone else's chart. What I see A LOT is pro level advanced players who are a bit fuzzy on a tune and will glance at a chart on their phone for 20 seconds before they play. These are people who gig a lot and sound really amazing.
I've also noticed that this phenomenon of beginners hunched over a chart playing a bunch of garbage and not even listening is out there. But it's not that common. I've seen it twice this month and yeah it's a drag. But it's nowhere near as common as people are making it sound. A few months ago I saw a session where everyone was doing that and it sounded pretty bad, which makes me think the beginners are clustering together.
Why not just let people know that certain jams are not for beginners? Why run them off stage with Giant Steps and Cherokee, or with some rule about charts that nobody even follows?
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