Solo playing, liberal time keeping

[fasstrack]

As aspiring artists we usually admire craft because it is what he want for ourselves. But why do we want more craft? To what end?

That's quite a can of worms.

Stephen Sondheim, a brilliant man and often astute commentator on songwriting, has said 'Art is craft', also 'Dull and smooth is better than clever and awkward'. I'm not so sure, though I know what he means. (Sonny Rollins also commented 'There's a lot to be said for proficiency').

(My own mea culpa: my art has always been ahead of my craft. It worked out fine for me, though I wish I wasn't as lazy about practicing technical things, even making up my own exercises to apply to my style---or reading. It's just that it's SO boring. So shoot me. Also, as a composer my hand-written lead sheets give certain people agita. THAT sucks, and needs remediation).

You need enough craft playing for the listener not to have to guess at what you meant. You don't want to be a stumblebum. But when it takes on a life of its own without the 'goodies' and the chance-taking you may be in trouble artistically.

Chris Anderson, the guy I keep mentioning, (but nobody here seems to have bothered to listen to---hint, hint) told me a story the night we met:

'Tommy Turrentine and them were talking s*&t about me. I could hear them, but they didn't KNOW I could hear them. They were saying I couldn't do things (chops-wise) like Cedar Walton'

He put his head down and continued, as if in agreement

'My thing is mostly harmonic'.

He also said he had 'no kind of discipline' and (stupidly) trashed a famous tenor player thusly

'If you put some new changes in front of him he couldn't hear S%&T. He was a PRACTICER!!' (last word spit out venomously).

Well Chris made his bones. He was highly gifted and unique and knew it---and I make no excuses for utterances he ought to have known better than to have made. But the salient point, or lesson, I get from this comes from that Turrentine story: Sensitive people and real artists can lock themselves comparing themselves to others and getting into thinking they have to make their art more in line with the herd or be scorned. Many truly talented people fall into this trap. Some never climb out. What a pity.

I would never downplay craft. Technique is like money in the bank---but how are you gonna spend it?...

[KirkP]

I like the fluid sense of time that one often hears in Chopin nocturne performances. The tempo varies frequently, but it's not choppy.

[fasstrack]

I listened. I hadn't actually heard of him before you started posting about him, so thanks for that. I liked the piano a lot (can definitely hear the influence on Herbie Hancock people write about). I didn't really dig his singing so much, but singing seems not to have been his main thing.

Speaking of under-appreciated blind piano players, did you ever check out Lance Hayward? He played a solo couple of nights a week for about 20 years at a bar called the Village Corner. There are a few things on youtube of him, but they're kind of tame and don't really capture the experience.

To your larger point, about the "guitar ghetto"... This is a jazz guitar forum. It's not exactly surprising that guitar is the focus of discussion, and it probably does attract at least some participants who focus too much on the instrument and not enough on music more broadly. But I wouldn't assume that everyone is so parochial.

John

Thanks.

I know about Lance Hayward. I used to hear him play solo at the Village Corner in NY. Candidly, I don't remember what he sounded like, except that he played in an earlier period style. I'm sure he was good.

I never heard the talked-about influence on Herbie's playing by Chris, though it was nice for Herbie to publicly acknowledge it. They're completely different, though both harmonically discursive and free-wheeling. Maybe Chris was an earlier influence that he used to find his thing?

I LIKE Chris's singing. It reminds me of a combination of Bob Dylan and those old-time street blues singers.

Re people who focus on only the guitar: I'm hoping my well-meant curmudgeonly comments will influence a few people to find a way out of the 'this is my instrument' cul de sac and think about making MUSIC...

[fasstrack]

I had to laugh out loud at this. It reminds me of people's reactions reading the novels of Zane Grey or Louis L'Amour. They say, "Just the usual cliches of 'western' novels! Nothing really new or fresh!"

Until you realize that Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour invented the western novel, they invented those cliches. The later authors stood on their shoulders.

Joe Pass did, on every track, on every tune, what other guitarists could only sustain for a line or two. Joe re-invented the solo jazz guitar performance on a level that literally stunned people who heard it for the first time. He is the Zane Grey, the Louis L'Amour of the solo guitar. It's like someone listening to jazz guitarists and hearing Wes Montgomery and saying, "Octaves and block chords, muffled tone, too much slurring... unlistenable."

When you listen to some players, you are hearing the music being invented in a manner of speaking. Others did more, maybe did better. But when Virtuoso came out, jazz guitar players, and classical players and many others, nearly fainted from the excitement of what he was doing.

Also, that same session produced two full additional CDs worth of material that was only released later. Joe literally played tunes the recording studio engineers were suggesting. Played them off the top of his head.

Wanky... seriously, show some respect.

Ha ha. 'Youth is wasted on the young'.

Jaki Byard said it all years ago when I was a wee slip of a lad and trash talking some musician or other:

'Everyone's a big-time critic. But no one plays s^&t'.

Took me 40 years to get what he was saying.

Virtuoso is a MF. Anyone with ears can hear THAT...

[John A.]

Thanks.

I know about Lance Hayward. I used to hear him play solo at the Village Corner in NY. Candidly, I don't remember what he sounded like, except that he played in an earlier period style. I'm sure he was good.

I never heard the talked-about influence on Herbie's playing by Chris, though it was nice for Herbie to publicly acknowledge it. They're completely different, though both harmonically discursive and free-wheeling. Maybe Chris was an earlier influence that he used to find his thing?

I LIKE Chris's singing. It reminds me of a combination of Bob Dylan and those old-time street blues singers.

Re people who focus on only the guitar: I'm hoping my well-meant curmudgeonly comments will influence a few people to find a way out of the 'this is my instrument' cul de sac and think about making MUSIC...

Well, I'll grant you that Chris is singing has personality and authenticity.

I remember Hayward as being somewhat Art Tatum-like. Older harmonic pallette and stride-ish left hand, but tremendous inventivenous and the ability to weave elaborate re-compositions of standards. But the stuff I found in youtube sounds much more conventional than how I remember him, so who knows? I grew up across the street from the Village Corner, and circled back there quite often after I left the nest. That and Bradleys are the two jazz places I probably spent the most time in, and miss the most. See? Us guitar players can listen to pianists, too. I draw the line at trumpeters though.

John

[ronjazz]

Rubato is much easier if the lyrics are available and in your head. It developed out of vocal music, and was and is very expressive with a story and some drama. Playing the first 8 of Prelude To A Kiss while singing the lyric in your head is a great way to get into the true nature of rubato. I never was bothered by Pass's rubatos on Virtuoso, because I know the words to most of the tunes, as he did. I think the succeeding volumes are problematic, because now money was involved. I spent some time with him during the beginning of his solo career, and he was having a hard time really enjoying the gigs because so many were at them to be dazzled.

In any event, rubato isn't random, it needs some narrative, dramatic thread to work. I'm not sure that the guitar can't do it very effectively, but not many really work at like pianists do. Oscar Peterson's ad lib classical-style Green Dolphin St. 1st entire chorus from the live London House recordings is an amazing display of rubato, and goes for a couple of minutes. I based much of my approach to arranging my playing and my group's playing from that trio, but I play nylon and can play more pianistically, perhaps.

Anyway, music has always been about singing, we louts are pale imitations of the real voice. But I do love accompanying singers, with rubato.

[fasstrack]

...and Bradleys are the two jazz places I probably spent the most time in, and miss the most. See? Us guitar players can listen to pianists, too. John

I hung heavy at Bradley's, and heard Hank Jones, Tommy Flanagan, Barry Harris, so many others regularly. There wasn't even a cover charge! (Just a minimum). I remember Mingus walking in, arms like tree trunks, when Jimmy Raney played there in '79. Also Cecil Taylor with 2 ladies turning to me to smile after a gorgeous ballad expedition by Larry Willis.

After Bradley Cunnigham died, though, his wife Wendy took over---and it became a different (and worse club). There was a door charge, and it wasn't a piano room anymore. I did hear Tom Harrell 3 nights in a row in '93, a positive thing, for sure.

She eventually lost the club and the entire building they had owned. Now it's yet another musicless yuppie bar/eatery---and a memory...

[John A.]

I hung heavy at Bradley's, and heard Hank Jones, Tommy Flanagan, Barry Harris, so many others regularly. There wasn't even a cover charge! (Just a minimum). I remember Mingus walking in, arms like tree trunks, when Jimmy Raney played there in '79. Also Cecil Taylor with 2 ladies turning to me to smile after a gorgeous ballad expedition by Larry Willis.

After Bradley Cunnigham died, though, his wife Wendy took over---and it became a different (and worse club). There was a door charge, and it wasn't a piano room anymore. I did hear Tom Harrell 3 nights in a row in '93, a positive thing, for sure.

She eventually lost the club and the entire building they had owned. Now it's yet another musicless yuppie bar/eatery---and a memory...

Yup, saw a bunch of those guys. A little too young to have seen Bill Evans, but Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Barron, another under-appreciated pianist - Kirk Lightsey, many times. In the last couple of years it did try to be more than just a piano place, but to pretty good effect, IMO. I never had a bad experience there, and it was never as pricey as the Blue Note or the Vanguard. Whatever the story of its passing, very sorely missed.

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[christianm77]

Playing an established style is very comforting. You know what's wrong and right and can measure how good you are at it.

If you do something outside of this, some people will always hate you. Also you have no way of knowing whether it's any good.

The two things attract fundamentally different people.

[fasstrack]

Here's Chris Anderson playing with Charlie Haden on a CD they made for Naim, None But the Lonely Heart.

It's in traditional time, walking ballads and swing tunes, but you can hear the freedom and security he approaches it with. He was just as evolved in rhythm and rhythmic placement/displacement as Bill Evans or anyone else:

[fasstrack]

If you do something outside of this, some people will always hate you. Also you have no way of knowing whether it's any good.

? OF COURSE you know whether it's any good. Isn't that the whole point of this discussion, knowing oneself and sticking to one's guns?

It takes self-belief and balls not to follow the crowd, but the rewards are great. Maybe not financially or in notoriety---but those things are dust, and will die with you (unless you are Mozart or Hitler.) It's how you live your life, the the faith you have in your gifts---and especially the way you treat people that count. The latter is all anyone will remember of you anyway, unless you are one of the above named---so it's of prime importance to get THAT right...

[goldenwave77]

I'm re-reading Harold Schonberg's The Great Pianists: From Mozart to the Present (1987). This is a 500 pg. book, with 50 pg. devoted to "rubato".

C.P.E. Bach, the son of Johann Sebastian, wrote the 1st great piano treatise (1753), and analyzed rubato. He said the right hand should "play against the other", that individual note values should be preserved (all slowed or speeded up consistently), and that bar lines should be crossed, with the right. Left-hand regularity should be preserved.

Beethoven spoke of "rubato" and his piano playing took great liberties with time. Schonberg says he "plays like a composer, not a pianist". While self-taught, and a bit sloppy, Beethoven was also VERY technical when he wanted to be, and his sight-reading was amazing. He showed up to play a C maj. concerto, found the piano out of tune, and ripped it off in B major (hello black keys) !. Based on an extended written review from a knowledgeable music critic, who analyzed Beethoven's playing on 2 sonatas, phrase by phrase, Schonberg says that if a pianist played this way in 1990:

"{he} would be laughed off the stage as an incompetent, a stylistic idiot who knew nothing about the Beethoven style, and as a bungler who was incapable of adhering to a basic tempo."

Later on, Chopin was famous for his rubato, esp. on mazurkas, and once had a famous fight with Meyerbeer, the opera composer, over whether a mazurka was 2/4 or 3/4, time. Lenz, was being given a lesson by Chopin:

"...Chopin let me play on.

'This is two-four time,' said Meyerbeer.

For reply, Chopin made me repeat, and kept time...beating loudly... with his pencil.

'Two-four' Meyerbeer repeated...

I never but once saw Chopin angry; it was at this time...

'It is three-four,' he said loudly, he who always spoke so softly...and he played it several times, and stamped time with his foot."

Five yrs. later, Chopin had it demonstrated to him, that one of his mazurkas was written in 3/4, but counted in 4/4, "the result of his dwelling so much longer on the first note". Chopin laughed, agreed, and said it was due to the nature of the dance itself. Halle, a good pianist, and the demonstrator stated "The...remarkable fact was that you received the impression of 3/4 rhythm whilst listening to common time."

BTW, Chopin always had a metronome on his piano, and it was stated that in his playing, his rubato was technically precise. He himself said "The left hand is the conductor, it must not waiver or lose ground; do with the right hand what you will or can."

I think mattguitars previous post is correct, that in whatever approach, is adopted, it must be consistent within a phrase, a chorus, or whatever musical passage is being played. You can't be out....without a sense of where "in" is.

(I'm not a pianist, and have never studied it, but found this book interesting. Basically, the 19th cent. players were much less prescribed in their time, and also in departing from, or ornamenting the written piece. Elaboration, and "phrase-making" was expected, and encouraged. At some point, around the 1920's adherence to the printed music, became more valued, and styles changed, with the older Romantic approach becoming less influential.)

[christianm77]

? OF COURSE you know whether it's any good. Isn't that the whole point of this discussion, knowing oneself and sticking to one's guns?

Well I don't know. There's plenty of artists who were unsure if what they were doing was any good. For some reason the composer Edgard Varese pops into my head - fantastically original and creative, yet plagued with self-doubt. Bruckner too... In the jazz guitar world I'm sure there are many examples - were healthy humility topples into uncertainty?

Usually helps if you have gigs! :-)

It takes self-belief and balls not to follow the crowd, but the rewards are great. Maybe not financially or in notoriety---but those things are dust, and will die with you (unless you are Mozart or Hitler.) It's how you live your life, the the faith you have in your gifts---and especially the way you treat people that count. The latter is all anyone will remember of you anyway, unless you are one of the above named---so it's of prime importance to get THAT right...

The latter point surely we can all agree on - personally I find people who don't have a strain of this bloody minded determination in their personality a bit insipid, but that says more about me perhaps.

There is a kind of person who is comfortable going their own way and sticking to their own guns - and this kind of person is different to the kind of the person who is happiest working within a pre-existing style.

Perhaps this latter personality type would have been drawn to classical music 20 or 30 years ago, but now jazz is becoming classical music.

[henryrobinett]

Yeah. Metheny and Sco are old guys now.


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[grahambop]

For the record, Metheny is 62, Scofield is 65.

[destinytot]

I think the Parker and Bernstein clips are pretty outstanding. Those guys are really improvising, reaching for some shit. That's listening music, not the tame, in-time stuff I play at the local spaghetti house as background wallpaper.

I'm relieved to see the scope of this comment limited to that of your own playing. 'Improvising' and 'reaching' does occur within 'tame, in-time stuff' played by others at local spaghetti restaurants?. 'Background music' or no, not only is it increasingly 'listening music', it's often the only paying gig in town.

[mr. beaumont]

I'm relieved to see the scope of this comment limited to that of your own playing. 'Improvising' and 'reaching' does occur within 'tame, in-time stuff' played by others at local spaghetti restaurants?. 'Background music' or no, not only is it increasingly 'listening music', it's often the only paying gig in town.

Well, I'm certainly not saying you can't improvise in that context--and you can try new stuff when you're not the center of attention too--but would you agree it's idiomatic? There's an expectation, I think.

In a setting like Parker or Bernstein are playing, people are expecting to be challenged. Very different.

[destinytot]

Well, I'm certainly not saying you can't improvise in that context--and you can try new stuff when you're not the center of attention too--but would you agree it's idiomatic? There's an expectation, I think.

In a setting like Parker or Bernstein are playing, people are expecting to be challenged. Very different.

Would I agree that improvising is idiomatic? Certainly, and I agree that some level of expectation exists a priori among listeners - 'people'.

Moreover, I think sympathetic listeners are likely to be more open to 'reaching' - exploration and self-challenge.

I also agree with what seems to have been be implied, i.e. that it isn't reasonable to assume that the people dining at the local spaghetti house are sympathetic listeners - or even 'informed' ones, musicians or fans privy to a pretty high level of relevant procedural knowledge.

And that's why I say, "More power to anyone who - regardless of whether what they do is appreciated, admired or understood - actually summons the temerity to 'reach'."

Regarding the setting of Messr.s Berstein and Parker's playing, my claim remains the same; be it on a grand stage, at the 'spaghetti house' or in the 'subway', reaching takes 'balls'... and these have a propensity to show up any time or place.