Chord soloing etiquette in your city

[JazzerEU]

Hey all,

I’m a retired professional guitarist turned English teacher. In my home scene (I won’t name it to minimize retribution), I had troubles with other musicians when I would chord solo à la Wes Montgomery. (That said, at this point, I’m fully retired from professional music, I might have mentioned what city I was based in during one of my YouTube videos, I’m also on the other side of the world).

I am curious to hear other’s experience with improvising with block chords like Wes Montgomery and how that went down in your music scenes.

I managed to anger pianists and other guitarists because I would chord solo à la Wes Montgomery on many gigs and at jam sessions. I recall being accosted at a jam session by an older pianist that guitarists had no right to play chord solos or chords and that guitarists should be like horn players. He had a good deal of influence in the scene.

Another occasion, I was trading fours with a horn player on a gig on a fast blues and couldn’t keep up with fast single note soloing so I switched to block chords. The horn player accosted me at the break in anger claiming I had made him look bad on the bandstand when I switched to chord solos because he can only play one note at a time.

I got into a similar scuffle with another guitarist who could play faster than me. We were playing Satin Doll if I remember correctly and we were trading fours and he did double time single note lines, and I’m not that good at fast single note lines. He was irate at me for apparently making him look bad when I switched to Wes Montgomery style chord solos.

I don’t know why improvising Wes Montgomery chord solos are easier for me than single note soloing and octaves. I presume that because most of my gigs from the beginning to the end of my 11 year career consisted of accompanying singers in a duo setting. No matter hard I tried prior to retiring from professional music, I was always terrible at single note soloing north of 240bpm so I would usually use my chord soloing as a way to dig myself out of a hole if I felt I was playing poorly.

I made a video showing how to get excommunicated, disavowed, and run out of town for playing chord solos for your own entertainment.

Is there any chord soloing etiquette in your respective music scenes?

[pamosmusic]

Honestly whatever city you’re playing in sounds awful. I have never heard of this, nor have I heard of anyone being made fun of for knowing too many tunes.

[JazzerEU]

Honestly whatever city you’re playing in sounds awful. I have never heard of this, nor have I heard of anyone being made fun of for knowing too many tunes.

I’m glad I got out of town (and the country for that matter) and found a new job teaching English abroad in Spain that I’ve come to like more than doing music professionally. Thankfully being made of for knowing too many songs ended when I left university, and the singers I worked with really liked my chord soloing. I don’t keep in touch with any musicians from my city or country for that matter and have no plans to go back or ever go back into professional music. Guitar is now a hobby for me at this point in my life. After 3.5 years after having retired, playing guitar is finally becoming fun again and it’s more pure for me for lack of better terms.

[mr. beaumont]

If we outlaw chord solos, only the outlaws will be able to play them.

Happy outlaw here.

[Jimmy Smith]

That's one of the funniest stories I've ever read. If people are mad at you for playing well, that's their problem. If someone got mad at me for playing well and tried to tell me what to do, I would seriously tell them fuck you.

The only etiquette in jazz is to play well in a way that suits the group. If you're doing that, you're free to do what you want, and noone is entitled to deny you that freedom. Unless you've previously agreed on your role in a band.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

The horn player accosted me at the break in anger claiming I had made him look bad on the bandstand when I switched to chord solos because he can only play one note at a time.

That’s one of the dumbest things anyone has ever said! I assume he never works with pianists

[mr. beaumont]

Seriously between this and the people who made fun of you for knowing too many songs, time to:

[frabarmus]

Jazzer EU, of course, there's competition in every city's scene and guys that are tougher than others and like to "mark their territory", but telling a guitarist to not play chord-melody seems, quite frankly, stupid, unbelievable and unworthy of any reaction/attention (imo). Luckily it never happened in my experience.

BTW I really like your chord-soloing!

[garybaldy]

[Jimmy blue note]

Well that's just silly. If it's musical, it's music. They're not playing music, they're playing egos.
Find other people to play with.
Next they're be telling you not to play F# because the bass player's playing them.

Tell THEM not to play chords. Tell THEM they're crowding you.
Tell them to shut up and play the music and see if the audience has an issue with it... or seriously, find a drummer and a bass player to play with yourself and take this as a lesson in group dynamics; ones you can avoid if possible.
When you play with children, you have to play childish games.

[JazzerEU]

I ended up moving out of town this reason being amongst many others When working as a musician in Nice, France, I never found this level of "conneries" for lack of better terms there. That said, I had left jazz altogether and started working accompanying a pop singer partway during my stint in France. It does seem this paradox seems to be unique to my home town. My career seems to have been unusual it seems now hearing others' experiences. Maybe I'll write a book about my odd career, there are many stupid and dumb stories I have to share now that I'm retired and no longer rely on other musicians to put food on the table.