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Wayne Wright on rhythm guitar.
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03-24-2013 01:20 PM
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Of course, those I posted do not play like Freddie Green. They are exemples of swing rhythm guitar playing.
Another one: Marty Grosz (who can sometimes have a Carl Kress kind of thing going).
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Haha, love it. Lest we forget Benny was a huge supporter of electric guitar but he wanted to maintain the old vibe. You can tell he's thinking about his days with Charlie.
Originally Posted by Eddie Lang
Last edited by Stevebol; 03-24-2013 at 03:43 PM.
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Cool! Rhythm playing can be unsung because it's definitely not this outward expression like single line lead playing. I enjoy it and it seems like a more approachable method than, say, chord melody.
Here's a Brit who's an expert.
Last edited by edward74; 03-24-2013 at 02:28 PM.
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Benny's initial reaction: Originally Posted by Stevebol
Charlie Christian was playing at the Ritz in Oklahoma City where John Hammond heard him in 1939. Hammond recommended him to Benny Goodman, but the band leader wasn't interested. The idea of an electrified guitar didn't appeal to Goodman.
"Who the hell wants to hear an electric guitar player?" asked clarinetist Benny Goodman when producer John Hammond suggested he give Charlie Christian an audition in 1939.
It took the audience's reaction to Charlie, after Hammond snuck CC on stage, to change Goodman's mind. Even then, Charlie was not a member of the orchestra wherein BG continued to use an acoustic guitar. Charlie was hired to play only with the Sextet and only recorded one tune, Solo Flight, with the BG orchestra.
Goodman was slow to embrace the electric guitar but notably kept Charlie on the payroll even when he wasn't working.
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Read Peter Broadbent's bio about Christian if you haven't. 2nd edition. CC was only trying to sound like a horn player and keep it short and clean with Goodman. Very commercial. He played about 20 choruses when he sort of auditioned for Goodman so Benny knew what CC could do. Just read the book. Originally Posted by monk
Goodman knew CC would need his own band eventually. We still have Freddie Green for the un-plugged side. Swing lovers have to know this stuff. Labeling everything with bopisms is pointless. It's just old style rhythm guitar.Last edited by Stevebol; 03-24-2013 at 03:21 PM.
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Chris Flory sounds like a master to me. Rhythm guitar can be self-defeating if you play with too much intensity and have to do a single note solo later. He keeps it mostly down-stroke with the chords but does a little upstroke in just the right places. When he gets to the single note thing he doesn't lose the rhythm and keeps swinging. He's an ace.
Towards the end of the song he loosens up with the down-strokes while Benny is winding it down. Love this vid.
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Here's where I think swing rhythm comping works great for singers and guitar soloist. Whit Smith is extraordinary at it when he's not being awesome in Hot Club of Cowtown! This was one clip that must have been bonus footage cut out of his instructional video Chordination, which I highly recommend. There used to be two others clips like this but taken down long ago and would have been great studies if they were kept on the DVD.
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From what I can gather we're talking about pre-bop big band/or combo swing rhythm guitar, both acoustic and electric. There's a lot of grey area as soon as we get into electric. I thought the Charillo vids were excellent for a breakdown of the acoustic Freddie Green style. I'd go another way with electric decisions.
Like Basie said, he wanted to feel the guitar, not hear it so we have to make personal choices if we're using an electric to do basically the same music. As stated before this isn't about comping- just swing rhythm.
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I see, logical, but it has turned a little light bulb on above my head. When you're playing "rhythm" guitar for a trad or swing band, you are actually laying down something for the frontmen to use and build on, this is obvious (they are likely to complain if you don't do it fully enough). What I hadn't consciously realised (though you adapt without thinking about it in a real-life situation), is that you aren't expected or required to play this role when "comping". Which in turn means (again, it's obvious once it's been pointed out, though here's where the light bulb comes on) that post-bop jazz tends to require players to carry their own "rhythm" sense, both in terms of time and in terms of harmonic rhythm, internally. Ergo, incidentally, it might even be an illustration of how jazz evolved from a collective form of music to a more individual one, though that sounds pretentious now I've written it down. Originally Posted by monk
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Enormous amount of info and lessons here:
Basics of Freddie Green Comping
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This site is VERY valuable! Loads of info on a player who for the most part was low-key among jazz guitar heroes, but extreme essential to the Basie sound. This is one of my favorite pages of the site... Originally Posted by Gertrude Moser
A Comparative Study of Rhythm Guitar Styles
The section about strumming over a Teddy Wilson (Benny Goodman pianist) progression is a nice rhythm workout.
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Jonathan Stout's Swing Guitar blog was mentioned above and I have been watching it for quite a few, from the days of his first blog on another platform.
Anyway, I just want to say, yesterday, I purchased his three albums on iTunes Store and I've been listening to them last night and today. Some Allan Reuss kind of rhythm, with some solos à la Charlie Christian. It's pretty good. And at 21 songs per album, you sure get enough for your money.
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Originally Posted by Stevebol
48 secs!! I LOVE that sort of playing!!!! Anyone know what he's doing? Or where I can find some more help on this??!
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Watch this video. Pay attention to the part where he talks about drop 3 chords. Originally Posted by Rickydisco
I couldn't find it on youtube, but there is a section on his DVD Exploring Jazz Guitar where John Pizzarelli explains the same sort of thing but said differently.
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Thanks for that. I'm surprised though.. To my ears that sort of playing seems a lot more than just inversions of the same chord. There's a lot more "flavour" there if you see what I mean?
The reason I started learning Jazz was to accompany a good friend who sang. She wanted to do Misty and although I did manage to play it, to me just the chords on guitar and a vocal left too much space. I was playing the same chord for 4 beats in a bar and yet I had the strong urge to change chord every beat. I'm not even really sure what that technique is called?
For example, on Misty it goes "look at me...(and then a whole bar of Emaj7)" Now, I find a whole bar of Emaj7 on a guitar a bit dull and kind of too sugary. I tried finding some inversions of Emaj 7 but I couldn't get anything cool going on. It just sounded like the same chord- which it is....
Does anyone know what I mean?
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A rare spotlight on Freddie though, as usual, here he is the self-effacing cog that drives the engine. Scroll down to link below ....
Last edited by AndyV; 12-15-2016 at 10:05 AM.
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I do love these records where you can really hear Freddie.
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There seems to be a little bit of minor controversy about exactly how many notes Freddie was actually sounding in his chord voicings vs how many notes he was fingering. I recall reading at times, he muted so many strings that only one note was truly audible. When I take the time to critically listen in general, it sounds to me like he mostly played three note voicings.
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It often sounds like more than it is.
Generally from what I've read, fingering three, often hearing one or two.
Also, as time went on, Freddie went more for the less.
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the beautiful thing about the ellis/green recording is that freddie g is rock solid...but relaxed..the master timekeeper... gives room to ellis (and his penchant for looseness, slurs and bends)...an anchor.. & also for bassist ray brown, who does some sparring with herb for lead instrument!..hah
good stuff
cheers
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Sounds like 3 to me. Originally Posted by AndyV
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I think I read that the bigger the ensemble, the more he tended to play less notes. So yes, three note chords in small combos makes sense.
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Yes, I think that in those small combos he made more notes sound, but it's hard to tell because is so hard to listening to him in most big bands records.
I love those records, some of my favorites.
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Those two Freddie Green albums have been two of my favorites for the past 40 years. When I turned 18 I received my first acoustic archtop guitar (a Gibson). I started casting about for a guide as to how to play it effectively. I chanced upon Mr. Rhythm and Rhythm Willie. It was like a direct, rhythm-vision injection from the heavens.
A die-hard rock/blues player of the Clapton school, I was instantly transformed by the insistent drive of Freddie Green. It was a fork in the road, for me. I took the fork and never looked back. As I reflect, I suppose that my "rock chops" probably stopped developing in about '73 or so, but I continued, from then to now to explore jazz.
Thanks, Mr. Green.
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