Jonathan Stout chord melody playing and guitars !

[campusfive]

Hey all, I've recorded a new EP of solo, acoustic, swing-style chord-melody guitar, called "All Cooped Up".
Two of the compositions were written under quarantine, and the whole thing was recorded here at home using what I had at hand. For the time being it's a digital-only release on jonathanstout.bandcamp.com - but it's been submitted for further digital distribution to itunes, Amazon and the like.

Recorded under quarantine during April, 2020, Jonathan Stout's “"All Cooped Up" is 5 tracks of solo, acoustic, swing-style chord-melody guitar playing.

The album was recorded at home, with what was at hand, using only a 1932 Gibson L-5 guitar, mic'd with a Rode NT-3 and a DPA4099, into a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, using Garageband.

It's available at All Cooped Up - Quarantine EP | Jonathan Stout

Also, sheet music/Tab for two of the tunes, "All Cooped Up" and "Front Porch Swing" are now up the "Merch" Section of the bandcamp store. "Untitled in G" and "Buffalo Convention" should be up there eventually as well.
Merch | Jonathan Stout

[radiofm74]

Got it through Bandcamp. Thanks for the heads up! I hope you’re managing it despite the strictures and difficulties!

EDIT: enjoying it right now, a lot. Beautiful playing and tone. Simple ingredients always make for the best recipe ;D

EDIT2: if and when you have time, it would be cool if you could share a little how you used Garageband, whether you used some home-made patches and adjustments. It sounds REALLY good.

[campusfive]

Thanks, man.

So, I picked up a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 for about $150 USD. I used the DPA4099 clipped on the guitar, like usual for my live set up. And then I used a Rode NT-3 about 1-1.5 ft away pointed at the bridge at a 90° angle to get a bit of ambiance. The "mix" was basically a 50/50 blend. The "room mic" Rode had a bit less output since it was further away, and I basically just let that natural blend work.

I'm running an older version of garageband, and the effect patch is mostly based around the "acoustic guitar smoothen" compressor preset. I added about a 10% reverb send. I then exported that mix, used Audacity to do any edits, and sent that to a couple friends for their feedback. They suggested I should warm it up a bit, cutting highs and adding a little bass, and then just a bit more compression.
I was planning to have a friend master it, but he was having computer problems, so I took matters into my own hands, and took the file from audacity back into garageband, and add the EQ and compression.

Frankly, I didn't really know what I was doing, and I got very lucky.

Also, I'd suggest having a guitar that already sounds extraordinary, because then there's nothing to fix.

[radiofm74]

Thanks, man.

So, I picked up a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 for about $150 USD. I used the DPA4099 clipped on the guitar, like usual for my live set up. And then I used a Rode NT-3 about 1-1.5 ft away pointed at the bridge at a 90° angle to get a bit of ambiance. The "mix" was basically a 50/50 blend. The "room mic" Rode had a bit less output since it was further away, and I basically just let that natural blend work.

I'm running an older version of garageband, and the effect patch is mostly based around the "acoustic guitar smoothen" compressor preset. I added about a 10% reverb send. I then exported that mix, used Audacity to do any edits, and sent that to a couple friends for their feedback. They suggested I should warm it up a bit, cutting highs and adding a little bass, and then just a bit more compression.
I was planning to have a friend master it, but he was having computer problems, so I took matters into my own hands, and took the file from audacity back into garageband, and add the EQ and compression.

Frankly, I didn't really know what I was doing, and I got very lucky.

Also, I'd suggest having a guitar that already sounds extraordinary, because then there's nothing to fix.

That sure helps ;D

Thanks for the tips! Unfortunately my lav mic is out of reach in another hose where I can’t go right now, but the idea of using two mics sounds really very promising.

And good luck for everything, Jon. You and my other musical heroes are very much on my mind in these days.

[campusfive]

Hey all,

I wanted to mention I will be teaching at two guitar camps this summer:

May 17-21 - Matt Munisteri's RED HOT STRINGS in Port Townsend, WA (along with Matt and the great Dave Biller)
Red Hot Strings 2023 workshop intensive | Centrum

Jun 6/14-18 - Django in June in Northampton, MA
Django In June

Also, check out my courses on DC-Music School here:
DC Music School

And here's a some live-fire demonstrating the Allan Reuss-style chord melody playing I'll be teaching at both camps and is featured in Vol. 3 of the DC Music School course. Cheers! (If there's any issue with the time stamp, the playing starts at 3:54)

[AllanAllen]

If you ever come to the Chicago area, I'll be there.

[campusfive]

Oh, and here's some more "live fire" demonstrations... a bit of my solo from Thursday night's gig on "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" (in Db, unusually).



Click full screen if you browser is oddly cropping it.

[callouscallus]

Jonathon, if a guy wanted to study one of these arrangements in detail what would be the best source with added documentation (accurate notation)? DC music or one something else? It would be cool to learn a some thing like you played at Normz Guitars.

[campusfive]

At the moment, there are no published Reuss transcriptions that are correct. A friend of mine has a whole George Van Eps transcription book but no publisher for it.

So, yeah, other than doing the transcribing yourself, the DC Music Course is probably your best bet.
I'm not sure when they'll actually get a round to finishing the transcriptions on volume 3, but until they do it's 25% off.

[campusfive]

Hey here's a video I just did for my friend Natalie Hanna Mendoza on "My Blue Heaven" as a trio.
It was a fun chance to not only throw in some chord-melody fills between the vocals (since there was no piano), but also take a full chorus of my Allan Reuss-influenced style.

I thinking I'm going to transcribe this soon and put it up for sale on Soundslice, I've got the video from the camera that was just on the fingerboard the whole time, so it'll be very clear.

And there's still plenty of time to register for Red Hot Strings next month or Django in June in, uh, June.
May 17-21 - Matt Munisteri's RED HOT STRINGS in Port Townsend, WA (along with Matt and the great Dave Biller)
Red Hot Strings 2023 workshop intensive | Centrum

Jun 6/14-18 - Django in June in Northampton, MA
Django In June

Also, check out my courses on DC-Music School here: (The transcriptions are finally done so the pre-sale discount will be ending this month!)
DC Music School

[Webby]

Hey here's a video I just did for my friend Natalie Hanna Mendoza on "My Blue Heaven" as a trio.

You sound amazing! Love your dedication to this style of music!

[AndyV]

Jonathan, when I listen to you play I forget I'm a musician and just revel in the music as a listener. Fantastic stuff! Thanks for your dedication to unlocking the Ruess style and for all you do to keep swing music alive. Thanks, man!

[campusfive]

Hey all, thanks for the kind words.

I just had a rehearsal for a new project I'm working on... and I think anybody following this thread will dig it.

I found that so many of the folks who dig my guitar playing have a harder time locking into listening to a small-group swing band like my main one, the Campus Five, because there's not enough guitar in it for them. And I've been doing a lot of gigs as a sideman where there's no piano (like in the last 2 videos I've posted upthread), and I realized how something like a piano-less trio or quartet is a far better feature for my acoustic archtop playing, and especially the chord-melody solos.

So I put together a basic quartet of guitar, bass, tenor sax, and drums, and it was cooking. We recorded the rehearsal and tried to treat it like half-rehearsal/half-recording, and I'm hoping we might two tracks out of to throw on Bandcamp next month. Even if not, it was a welcome "proof of concept", so I'll be aiming to do a quartet album in the near future.

And while playing swing dances for swing dancers is still one my main interests, I'm hoping that I might be able to use the new group as something to offer seated jazz clubs (who basically don't know I exist and don't give me the time of day). Especially if I'm, say, flying out for a Fri/Sat night weekend swing event somewhere to play with the Campus Five or my Orchestra, it'd be really great to be able to do a quartet gig on the Thursday for a different audience and focus on the guitar.

Anyway, I hope to post something from the quartet soon. Cheers!

[campusfive]

Here's what I've been working on lately... just came across a new-to-me live recording of the Harry James band in Culver City, CA from 1945 with an absolutely slaying Allan Reuss solo on it. There’s two other recordings (at least that I know of) of Allan playing on “Honeysuckle Rose”, and on both he’s really struggling to be heard over the band and you can tell it’s not his usual best. But this one is exactly what one would expect from Allan, and it’s got a few especially clever moves in it that I’ve never heard before.

And for reference, while played his 1938 blonde L-5 acoustically for rhythm, during this era he was pictured with an additional guitar on stage, an ES-300 with the slanted “bridge” pickup, played through an EH-185 amplifier. Whenever people this it’s crazy that I typically bring both an acoustic L-5 and my electric ES-150 to a gig, I think about the fact that Allan was doing just that.

[mr. beaumont]

HELL YEAH! That was killing.

[campusfive]

I just got back from teaching at Matt Munisteri's "Red Hot Strings" camp. It was unbelievably awesome and inspiring.
Anybody that's into this kind of chord melody playing should make it out. Plus, there's so much more awesome stuff there.

While I was up in the Seattle-area, I was lucky enough to be able to drop by the Fretboard Journal HQ and pick a couple tunes accompanied by buddy Matt Weiner on bass. Jason Verlinde recorded it "properly" with several cameras and mics, but he posted this quick and dirty phone video snippet on instragram, and snagged it to re-share in the meantime.