What not to do on a gig

[Bop Head]

That can get expensive in the long run -- ask The Who.

On the other hand, once I was touring as lighting guy with German pop band Sportfreunde Stiller and at the Bizarre Festival (must have been 2001 according to Wiki) Green Day where smashing all of their equipment and I was told that they had several truckloads of the same equipment in multiple duplicates. Helps probably to have endorsements.

BTW 20 years ago some friends of mine, among them Jose, the guitarist I posted above, were organising hip-hop parties in the same basement club in Munich's Leopoldstraße that used to be called Big Apple when Jimi Hendrix played there in 1966 and smashed a guitar for the first time.

[Peter C]

A well placed tube sock goes a long way.

I was thinking more along the lines of a nice chakra necklace?

[Peter C]

I thought so too, till I started learning his version of Let the Good Times Roll.
- The mechanical technique and fingering is completely different than a typical jazz approach. It's a lot more difficult than you might think it is. If you are scoffing, just learn the opening solo from his version of LTGTR. It'll take longer than you think, unless you already have Chicago blues chops.

Hi, so my comment was intended as maybe more than "an opinion" I have posted the odd blues rock clip here but I'm loathe to repeat it, this being a jazz forum.

I'm not scoffing, just came to a personal conclusion many moons ago that this is instant gratification music lacking any real depth. As I said, it's ok for a quick blast, then you're (well, I'm) yearning for the likes of people like Nels Cline and Wayne Krantz, who could but don't and take it elsewhere. Very elsewhere.

Lastly, it's hard for a blues rocker to learn jazz, but it's a mission impossible for a schooled jazzer to play blues rock convincingly; you'll never be able to unlearn enough and will end up playing the right notes but still sound a hundred miles away. I would love you to prove me wrong - post a clip!

[DawgBone]

Hi, so my comment was intended as maybe more than "an opinion" I have posted the odd blues rock clip here but I'm loathe to repeat it, this being a jazz forum.

I'm not scoffing, just came to a personal conclusion many moons ago that this is instant gratification music lacking any real depth. As I said, it's ok for a quick blast, then you're (well, I'm) yearning for the likes of people like Nels Cline and Wayne Krantz, who could but don't and take it elsewhere. Very elsewhere.

Lastly, it's hard for a blues rocker to learn jazz, but it's a mission impossible for a schooled jazzer to play blues rock convincingly; you'll never be able to unlearn enough and will end up playing the right notes but still sound a hundred miles away. I would love you to prove me wrong - post a clip!

I checked out some of your stuff i.e "lockdown jam", very nice man. You're really kind of a badass. Where is your band?

What I have found with run of the mill blues-rock dudes (not talking about JB) is unlike a blues or jazz player, they don't make any attempt to really play the changes, it's all licks based and most of the tunes are riff based, like rock music. You will also rarely hear anything pentatonic major from a blues rocker. Blues and jazz do not generally share those stylistic similarities with blues rock. I see it more as rock than I do blues. Rock riffs with minor pentatonic blasting..But truthfully, like any quality music, well done blues rock is very tough to pull off.

[Bobby Timmons]

That can get expensive in the long run -- ask The Who.

On the other hand, once I was touring as lighting guy with German pop band Sportfreunde Stiller and at the Bizarre Festival (must have been 2001 according to Wiki) Green Day where smashing all of their equipment and I was told that they had several truckloads of the same equipment in multiple duplicates. Helps probably to have endorsements.

BTW 20 years ago some friends of mine, among them Jose, the guitarist I posted above, were organising hip-hop parties in the same basement club in Munich's Leopoldstraße that used to be called Big Apple when Jimi Hendrix played there in 1966 and smashed a guitar for the first time.

Green Day was breaking stuff? Sounds fun. I guess you need a bunch of Squiers or Mexi strats for that.

[RJVB]

- And he's blastin' that out not for 5 minutes but for hours on end, night after night, on long tours. Not easy.
- Speaking of chops, he's got 'em. No two ways about that. No way to get there but through a dedicated labor of love.

You mean something like this?

Green Day was breaking stuff? Sounds fun.

For the actors, yeah, probably. Or gratifying. Reminds me of a story about 2 unmarried aunts from my family.
No good word for the audience that digs this kind of thing though.

(For the aunts in question it was just cheap plates, so, yeah, acceptably funny as a story too .)

[DawgBone]

You mean something like this?

For the actors, yeah, probably. Or gratifying. Reminds me of a story about 2 unmarried aunts from my family.
No good word for the audience that digs this kind of thing though.

(For the aunts in question it was just cheap plates, so, yeah, acceptably funny as a story too .)

That is some seriously clean technique though this is more up my alley.

[Alter]

A thing I dislike about the current state of music is how it has become a show, and so many things are important besides, you know,.. the music. At least in Jazz you can still see people just going in a stage and just playing music..

[RJVB]

though this is more up my alley.

Sure, this is more up my alley too, actual blues.

But sometimes you just gotta listen to something else for a while.

At least in Jazz you can still see people just going in a stage and just playing music..

Sure, but only after dressing the part

[starjasmine]

... came to a personal conclusion many moons ago that this is instant gratification music lacking any real depth.

Key word being "personal" - to each his own. After decades of playing jazz, I'm finding myself attracted to certain kinds of authentic Chicago blues style. Not all Chi blues, and not "blues rock." I wouldn't say that this music lacks depth. And I'm also not saying that we have to agree or that one of us is right and the other is wrong.

.
Lastly, it's hard for a blues rocker to learn jazz, but it's a mission impossible for a schooled jazzer to play blues rock convincingly; you'll never be able to unlearn enough and will end up playing the right notes but still sound a hundred miles away. I would love you to prove me wrong - post a clip!

Difficult, yes; impossible, no. There are many counterexamples; consider Robben Ford to name just one. He's widely acknowledged as a master bluesman ... who also played with Miles.

The "unlearning" of certain mechanical technique is, in fact, a key part of the journey, as is the learning of a new vocabulary. I've said many times that Mozart and EVH use the same twelve notes; they just use them differently :-) But you don't forget how to speak English just because you learn French. As for posting a clip, maybe in a year. My original point is that as simplistic as this music may sound, it has its own set of idioms and techniques that are not trivial to learn if you've never played that way. I don't think I'll never learn to play authentically in this style; I'm just being realistic about what it takes to master a new idiom. At least, about what I perceive as what it will take.

[AllanAllen]

Here's my hot take... no genre is lesser to another. If someone puts any genre down as simple, it only highlights how little they know.

[Bop Head]

Key word being "personal" - to each his own. After decades of playing jazz, I'm finding myself attracted to certain kinds of authentic Chicago blues style. Not all Chi blues, and not "blues rock." I wouldn't say that this music lacks depth. And I'm also not saying that we have to agree or that one of us is right and the other is wrong.



Difficult, yes; impossible, no. There are many counterexamples; consider Robben Ford to name just one. He's widely acknowledged as a master bluesman ... who also played with Miles.

The "unlearning" of certain mechanical technique is, in fact, a key part of the journey, as is the learning of a new vocabulary. I've said many times that Mozart and EVH use the same twelve notes; they just use them differently :-) But you don't forget how to speak English just because you learn French. As for posting a clip, maybe in a year. My original point is that as simplistic as this music may sound, it has its own set of idioms and techniques that are not trivial to learn if you've never played that way. I don't think I'll never learn to play authentically in this style; I'm just being realistic about what it takes to master a new idiom. At least, about what I perceive as what it will take.

Not only Robben Ford but also Mike Stern and John Scofield played with Miles and came from Rock and Blues originally. That is why Miles hired him. IIRC Mike Stern described in an interview (imitating Miles' raspy voice like almost everyone quoting Miles LOL) that Miles always wanted him to "do the Hendrix thing" instead of doing "that old bebop shit".

Some jazz guitarists like Kenny Burrell and Barney Kessel played an anonymous but important role in the development of rock music as they paid their rents by working in the studios and recording lots of rock'n'roll and pop tracks.

Here is a track on Barney Kessel's own record Blue Soul from 1975 on Black Lion Records where he plays very bluesy.

BTW you can accelerate your authentic blues playing by not only listening to blues guitarists but also to a lot of singers and harmonica players and by going way back to the source of work songs and field hollers. A blues guitar has to be singing. Listen to old school gospel a lot also.

And what makes a lot of blues rock rather boring is that it is not very interesting rhythmically. I posted the following video already in another thread today. Listen to how freely Aretha phrases above band and choir. Another sing is that Aretha is really feeling every note she is singing from deep in her heart. Every jazzer can benefit from listening to that as well.

[AllanAllen]

Here’s Barney playing on a T Bone Walker track. What more do you need?

[Peter C]

@starjasmine, first off, I wish you good luck in your venture!

I'm not going to "tell my whole story" here, suffice to say that I learned by myself from scratch by woodshedding "blues" on a no-name Japanese solid body by trial and error for about 3 years, and at around age 15 I was ready to play solos, which I promptly did with local bands. I had access to a lot of records and a big part of the learning was playing along to people like Peter Green, BB King, Champion Jack Dupree, The Bluesbreakers, Hendrix (needed a wah-wah for that) and many more... and a lot of the old guys like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Son House, but whose names didn't stick with me until later on in life.

The difference between one type of blues and another for me back then was maybe determined by whether or not you had the Fuzz Face switched on, and how brisk the pace was. It was all about making your instrument sing with those 5 notes, and meaning it. I could not read a dot of music by the way; no teacher, just determination.

No, at that time I would not have taken kindly to the assertion that this music was somehow superficial... which it actually isn't, per se. The problem was the showbiz element which Alter alluded to in his above post when it became a mass consumer product. My posts aren't usually long enough to go into much detail, so I suppose could be misconstrued.

Yeah, I'm aware of Robben Ford and Sco and I'm guessing they jammed a LOT of blues (rock) before they seriously learned jazz. Living in England in the early 70s I was exposed not to jazz, but to prog.

Go ahead and post wherever you are right now in your journey if you wish, not that I'm very good at explaining technique

[Bop Head]

I was lucky to find this book at the music department of Munich's central public library which taught me bending basics around 1990. I had a flexidisc inside with BB showing things.

[AllanAllen]

@starjasmine, first off, I wish you good luck in your venture!

I'm not going to "tell my whole story" here, suffice to say that I learned by myself from scratch by woodshedding "blues" on a no-name Japanese solid body by trial and error for about 3 years, and at around age 15 I was ready to play solos, which I promptly did with local bands. I had access to a lot of records and a big part of the learning was playing along to people like Peter Green, BB King, Champion Jack Dupree, The Bluesbreakers, Hendrix (needed a wah-wah for that) and many more... and a lot of the old guys like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Son House, but whose names didn't stick with me until later on in life.

The difference between one type of blues and another for me back then was maybe determined by whether or not you had the Fuzz Face switched on, and how brisk the pace was. It was all about making your instrument sing with those 5 notes, and meaning it. I could not read a dot of music by the way; no teacher, just determination.

No, at that time I would not have taken kindly to the assertion that this music was somehow superficial... which it actually isn't, per se. The problem was the showbiz element which Alter alluded to in his above post when it became a mass consumer product. My posts aren't usually long enough to go into much detail, so I suppose could be misconstrued.

Yeah, I'm aware of Robben Ford and Sco and I'm guessing they jammed a LOT of blues (rock) before they seriously learned jazz. Living in England in the early 70s I was exposed not to jazz, but to prog.

Go ahead and post wherever you are right now in your journey if you wish, not that I'm very good at explaining technique

The showbiz element is as old as the music.

[pamosmusic]

Here's my hot take... no genre is lesser to another. If someone puts any genre down as simple, it only highlights how little they know.

You better preach

[Stevebol]

Here's my hot take... no genre is lesser to another. If someone puts any genre down as simple, it only highlights how little they know.

I make fun of rap and Norteno sometimes.

[Bop Head]

@starjasmine, first off, I wish you good luck in your venture!

I'm not going to "tell my whole story" here, suffice to say that I learned by myself from scratch by woodshedding "blues" on a no-name Japanese solid body by trial and error for about 3 years, and at around age 15 I was ready to play solos, which I promptly did with local bands. I had access to a lot of records and a big part of the learning was playing along to people like Peter Green, BB King, Champion Jack Dupree, The Bluesbreakers, Hendrix (needed a wah-wah for that) and many more... and a lot of the old guys like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Son House, but whose names didn't stick with me until later on in life.

The difference between one type of blues and another for me back then was maybe determined by whether or not you had the Fuzz Face switched on, and how brisk the pace was. It was all about making your instrument sing with those 5 notes, and meaning it. I could not read a dot of music by the way; no teacher, just determination.

No, at that time I would not have taken kindly to the assertion that this music was somehow superficial... which it actually isn't, per se. The problem was the showbiz element which Alter alluded to in his above post when it became a mass consumer product. My posts aren't usually long enough to go into much detail, so I suppose could be misconstrued.

Yeah, I'm aware of Robben Ford and Sco and I'm guessing they jammed a LOT of blues (rock) before they seriously learned jazz. Living in England in the early 70s I was exposed not to jazz, but to prog.

Go ahead and post wherever you are right now in your journey if you wish, not that I'm very good at explaining technique

Here is someone who left the planet recently and who knew how to to rock some down home blues as well.

[DawgBone]

Key word being "personal" - to each his own. After decades of playing jazz, I'm finding myself attracted to certain kinds of authentic Chicago blues style. Not all Chi blues, and not "blues rock." I wouldn't say that this music lacks depth. And I'm also not saying that we have to agree or that one of us is right and the other is wrong.



Difficult, yes; impossible, no. There are many counterexamples; consider Robben Ford to name just one. He's widely acknowledged as a master bluesman ... who also played with Miles.

The "unlearning" of certain mechanical technique is, in fact, a key part of the journey, as is the learning of a new vocabulary. I've said many times that Mozart and EVH use the same twelve notes; they just use them differently :-) But you don't forget how to speak English just because you learn French. As for posting a clip, maybe in a year. My original point is that as simplistic as this music may sound, it has its own set of idioms and techniques that are not trivial to learn if you've never played that way. I don't think I'll never learn to play authentically in this style; I'm just being realistic about what it takes to master a new idiom. At least, about what I perceive as what it will take.

"Master bluesman" means more to me than guitar chops.

[Peter C]