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In response to Reg, I might add that according to Hal Galper American jazz is really in 2/4 as well because of the second line march band tradition, which is of course not unlike the Rio samba in some ways ....
For uptempo jazz I agree with him, but of course there are many ways we can learn to feel and phrase the basic swing beat, including on all 4, 1 in a bar.
So just because we notate something in 4/4 doesn't mean that's the way it is actually felt... It's more that most jazz musicians are more accustomed to reading eighth note rhythms than 16ths. I know I am.Last edited by christianm77; 11-04-2016 at 12:28 PM.
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11-04-2016 12:26 PM
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I know you were addressing Destiny, but speaking for myself, it's true you can only play what you are. Some people have gone to school on this stuff properly.
Originally Posted by Reg
There are quite a few guys in the UK jazz colleges who are super up on this stuff, so I would say in the UK knowledge of Latin American feels is probably better than it is on American swing feels. Most jazz graduates here have played in a Samba Bateria and understand the basics of Afro Cuban music, and many have had a wider exposure to less well known grooves.
The dreaded Generic Latin Jazz is the way most jazz rhythm sections play, because, to be frank, they are ignorant of that music (I know I am compared to many) but we are still expected to play 'a Latin' which is a 'straight eights' feel. It does seem to me most jazzers should understand the distinction between Cuban and Brazilian phrasing in latin feels at least - 'Jazz Ears' has a neat little bit on this.
In fact these are heavy traditions of music. I know people who have gone to Cuba to study and have been practicing for 8 hours a day and still just scratch the surface.
OTOH - if you insist on playing Blue Bossa in the style of an authentic Brazilian Bossa, you are kind of missing the point? There is such a thing as a Blue Note Latin feel, and you kind of need to know that if that's the stuff you are playing.
As always, it's a matter of taste and interest. Over time I am learning to be more specific about feels because it can make for a more interesting variety of vibes for the music. For example, you can be really specific about swing feels if you want. Or not.
You can go as deep as you want with anything, really. There's no end to any of it. There's only so much time: follow your heart.Last edited by christianm77; 11-04-2016 at 01:36 PM.
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That reminds me....
In Gypsy jazz we have this feel. This is called a 'Bossa.' (See also video 2 in the OP)
When I was just getting into playing Gypsy stuff, a Bossa got called at a GJ jam session and I played a Brazilian style thumb and fingers Bossa and everyone looked at me like I'd grown an extra head. Context is everything!Last edited by christianm77; 11-04-2016 at 01:40 PM.
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Great discussion.
I have seen many people talking about clave as the basic pattern of samba. As a Brazilian I'd say (as Christian said) it is more closely related to tamborim and surdo patterns. Also, Christian is completely right when he says the second beat is stressed. Either when playing alternate bass or not, because the bass in second beat lasts a little more than the one in the first beat.
I also think that we don't use alternate basses in bossa because it uses a lot of chord inversions.
The typical instruments used in a group of samba are cavaquinho, flute, pandeiro, guitar, and 7 string guitar. Sometimes a matchbox and other instruments. This was also the typical formation of a choro ensemble, and most of samba composers used to be accompanied by musicians called "Chorões" (choro players). Because those musicians used to be the most skilled ones, and they were indeed.
The 7 strings guitar usually plays a lot of bass lines (baixarias). When it happens the 6 strings guitar do not usually play alternate basses. Other traditional samba from Rio:
On the other hand, there is a rhythmic pattern that is common in many musical styles from Central and South America called tresillo. We can listen to this from 1 min 08 sec in the claps in the video below. This is a root style of samba called "samba de roda" which has its origin in Capoeira games.
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I agree, clave is not a part of samba/bossa. Thankfuly
On that "Aguas de Marco", Jao religiously plays the reverse form (2nd measure first) of the "Partido Alto". Airto agreed with the "Partido alto" term for the rhythm when we chatted years ago (although it does have another definition)
Christian also played it in his video blog, not sure he had a name for it other than the real way as shown to him by a knowledgeable Latin percussionist. It can be played both ways, but reverse is like Jao's "Aguas de Marco" arrangement.
This example below is not reverse form. It is usually learned like this (because forward form is easier to start with and will still work for various samba/Latin grooves). Next you are taught to start at the "+ of 4" so that the 2nd measure becomes the actual 1st measure (like they do with reverse clave).
More :
"Partido alto is a type of funky samba that is played in more urban areas with smaller ensembles. There is a syncopated bass part that typically accompanies the guitar, but here is the samba variation for the guitar by itself."Last edited by rintincop; 11-11-2016 at 11:46 PM.
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"Tresillo" ... yeah! That is what I play as a solo pianist most of the time. I got it from Monty Alexander, because that is what he plays religiously with his left hand when playing solo Latin piano (St Thomas, Fungi Mama, Blue Bossa, etc.) (Yes, we can vary it a bit) We comp bass and chords in Tresillio with our Left hand while the Right solos.(the 2 side of clave is not useful at all for this way of playing solo piano). Wynton calls it the "New Orleans clave". Certain books by a Levine and by a Mauleon have brainwashed a generation to think that clave is some sort holy grail. "Tresillio" is closer to the holy grail, and is it , imo.
It is the main rhythm pattern from Africa (3 hits against a 4 pulse). I believe all other rhythm patterns are variations and extrapolations of the simple "litte 3 " or "Tresillio"
Tresillo (rhythm) - Wikipedia
I believe Tresillio is the rhythm that spawned syncopation in ragtime, blues, swing, jazz, funk etc.Last edited by rintincop; 11-12-2016 at 01:26 AM.
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Yes partido alto... Good that I have internalised this rhythm so I play it without thinking...
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This rhythm is everywhere of course. It also one of the primary rhythms of North African music. Originally Posted by rintincop
EDIT: Ooh that Mark Levine! D'oh!Last edited by christianm77; 11-12-2016 at 09:50 AM.
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You guys ever play latin or brazilian jazz... ever get past basic 5 stroke clave. Or is everything a one bar pattern over and over... because "that's the way it is", there is only one way...
There is a modern world out there... here's a 20+ year old live version of another cool Brazilian, who did perform with Jobin etc...
And a new one...
And a standard..
Eliane Elias - So Danço Samba - YouTube
This is the simple pop stuff etc...
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So grateful to Reg for talking up 'modal interchange'. Hearing it in the subs of Tania Maria's '70s trio (Out of Nowhere) - simple, but so effective. Lovely stuff - the future looks bright.
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"Jamaica reach." Originally Posted by rintincop
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Incidentally, to me, Aguas almost always sounds bad in English... The words 'a stick a stone' wrong rhythm, wrong stress, doesn't swing... Originally Posted by Reg
The ecstatic flowing quality of the original language is lost, it's not the fault of the lyric writer it's just built in to the language.
I think it's because it such a wordy song, other bossa standards don't suffer as much.... I'm not a purist...
Also for the same reason I don't see it as a jazz vehicle in the way that some of the other Jobim tunes are.....
The same way that standards need that conversational American delivery (at least post Sinatra), which is a huge problem for English singers of course....Last edited by christianm77; 11-12-2016 at 05:56 PM.
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Btw Reg I'm not being funny, but the Clave thing really is a Cuban thing. It works with Bossa but it is not a specific Bossa rhythm.
Every Brazilian musician I have known says that and it's fair enough to get annoyed at all Latin music getting lumped into one ... lump.
Jazz musicians often don't know what the **** they are doing in this music, but that's ok. I don't really... I've just hung around some Brazilians. Used to share a flat with a Brazilian guitar player, who used to tell me that my patterns were fine but I had no swing.
It's mostly osmosis than any concerted effort to study the music.Last edited by christianm77; 11-12-2016 at 06:16 PM.
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That said one of the rhythms Bosco taught was the Bossa Nova cross stick pattern which is the 3 2 clave with the 5th note put back by an eighth.
When I tried playing this with a non Brazilian percussionist he complained that this was an American innovation. Sometimes the non Brazilians are more purist than the Brazilians.
In any case I do feel that the clave or related rhythmic structures are kind of felt in many musics all over the world and is a pretty upfront part of US jazz phrasing IMOLast edited by christianm77; 11-12-2016 at 06:17 PM.
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In reading about Brazilian Guitar on here, I had a few thoughts.
1. There are some great books. For the rhythms, I recommend Nelson Faria's Brazilian Guitar styles. I got more out of that book that went directly into my playing than any book since I was a beginner. Antonio Adolfo and Marco Pereira also have great books on Brazilian styles, with Marco P's book being particularly good, although not for the beginner.
2. As I understand it, with the caveat that there are lots of different opinions, a lot of Brazilians don't like the use of the word clave. They prefer, I think, "tamborim pattern". The concepts are similar, but one difference is that clave rarely turns around within a song. Tamborim pattern sometimes does turn around (meaning it's a two bar pattern that's invariant in, say, Cuban salsa, but may flip in Samba.
3. If you read the sixteenth, eighth, sixteenth rhythm (commonplace in samba) exactly correctly -- meaning metronomically perfect, it won't swing. Somebody posted a spectrum analysis. They don't play it as written. You have to pick this pattern up by ear and get your body moving the right way.
The ginga (Portuguese word for their swing) is elusive. The band sinks or swims together. One guy just a little off, and you can't feel it. OTOH, one guy playing a shaker perfectly, and you can't sit still. You have to experience it to believe it. Jovino Santos Neto has a long video on youtube which may give you the idea.
4. Antonio Adolfo's book covers the role for the guitarist's thumb (in a combo) quite carefully. Basically, it's a simplied version of the bass line. But, if you listen to the younger generation of virtuosos, you may find that they play a lot on the upper set of four strings and leave the bass notes to the bass. Solo guitar is a different story -- since I don't play it much, I don't have much to add about it.
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Can you refresh my memory - is the tamborim pattern the same as the clave or slightly different?
Also I like the Nelson Faria book.
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Re. Sinatra, I think his Someone To Light Up My Life is a phenomenal take on that song - a 'beacon'.
Last edited by destinytot; 11-12-2016 at 07:19 PM.
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What a Brazilian has told me is that there is no one pattern. He laughed and said, "every song is different". And, when you listen to tamborim players, they're varying it constantly. There are some common versions though.
x0x0 xx0x / 0x0x 0xx0 is one I hear a lot. That's two bars, 2/4, and each digit is a sixteenth. You can play it forward or backward. I wrote it with the downbeat-on-one bar first, but, more often, it's played the other way. That is, switch them.
The version I wrote is more common in slower tunes but there are exceptions, like Rio by Leny Andrade.
I don't know much about Cuban and Puerto Rican styles. I have been told that the 2-3 and 3-2 claves (or the rhumba versions) are ubiquitous, but I suspect somebody will set me straight on that.
So, to answer your question, I think that there's probably a Brazilian tune someplace that uses straight Cuban style clave, although I can't think of one. The way I think of it is that there are more different tamborim patterns than different claves, but, again, since I don't know much about clave, maybe somebody will be more expert and let us know.
Here's something interesting though. If you listen to Baiao - a NE Brazilian style, you will often hear the chord instrument play a two bar pattern that's almost 3-2 clave. The difference is in the second bar. The first of the two notes is played one half beat sooner. In 2/4, that would mean the second sixteenth. In 4/4 it would be played on andofone instead of two. If you listen to Luis Gonzaga Au Vivo, you'll hear it in a bunch of the tunes. Played much faster, it's the common pattern in Frevo. Listen to Spok Orquestra to hear it (and the most amazing big band you've ever heard). They're on youtube.
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Here's a link to Spok and you can hear that beat.
The second one has a guitar solo. I think it would be very hard to solo in that band. All that energy and then you have to have your hands relaxed enough to play that fast with perfect time. I have played with him (in a class) and it was tough.
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Reg, it has nothing to do with "that's the way it is", but the fact is that many Brazilian musicians who have made international careers by playing Bossa Nova after the 60’s have put many Jazz elements into the songs (or what they thought were Jazz elements, I don't know). Perhaps because most of them used to play Jazz repertoire, or because they liked to improvise a lot. I'm not sure about that. Although these reinterpretations may sound good for many, they don't sound good for everyone. Originally Posted by Reg
It's a personal choice where someone is going to get the references for a given musical style from, and I respect yours. Eliane Elias, Os Cariocas, Sergio Mendes, among others, all of them had Jobim's work as reference. What they usually play can be called Brazilian Jazz, but IMO Jobim, João Gilberto, Nara Leão, Carlos Lyra, and etc, used to play Bossa Nova.
I don't understand why music from Cuba is called Latin Jazz or why music from Brazil is called Brazilian Jazz. It sounds as strange to me as saying that Blue Bossa is an American or Texan Samba.
Do you know the meaning of the lyrics of "Só danço samba"?
It's more or less the following:
I only dance samba,
I only dance samba,
go, go, go, go, go
I only dance samba
I only dance samba, go.
I have danced Twist too much
But I don't know why,
I got tired from calypso to cha-cha-cha
Only so you know, Brazilians often use this expression: - Go, go - meaning "get out from here with this bullshit" or "disappear of my sight". Yeah, strange, isn't it? If you visit Brazil at sometime and someone say to you: -Vai, vai! Know that they are probably pissed off at you.
Sorry for any English mistake.
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Yea.. as with most jazz feels... as I think I said originally... it usually comes down to different feels.
I play and have performed with afro-cuban jazz and afro-brazilian jazz bands for years. After awhile, the clave or accent pattern and pulse just become feel. 3-2 or 2-3 , one bar or two etc... are combined and can be turned around as long as the feel isn't lost. There are differences between players who can swing and those that can't within both styles. Spok Frevo clips above are straight rhythmically and very straight harmonically... not bad or good, well actually I like straight feel just as well as swing... but personally, swing and harmonically more interesting, more in a jazz style is much more fun to perform and play. In larger ensembles or big bands, when there are just three percussionist and not drums... feels lock for notated arrangement sections... but can explode for solos, much more in the jazz tradition.
Generally with jazz players... Latin implies more in the style of Afro-Cuban, Brazilian is Bossa or samba and the variations.
When you get into more traditional rhythms and music, it becomes non-jazz and more folkish, in the written tradition, memorized. Again... not bad or good... although personally beautiful, just not in a jazz style.
I'm giving my opinions from a Jazz perspective... this is a jazz guitar sight. I said in my first post... jazz players don't generally perform traditional Brazilian or any South American music in the traditional style.
As a jazz player...most tunes are about the improvisation and interaction within the band. The clave is just a tool for helping to create a rhythmic and harmonic reference for developing the music. Were not performing folk memorized tunes, not that that is good, bad etc... Most drummers, percussionist, bassist etc...from all over the world generally understand the differences between different clave references, or they can hear and feel it.
Why don't we take this months Practical standard tune... "All the things you are" and lets post a few examples of different Latin jazz takes, Afro-cuban Afro-Brazilian and maybe just Brazilian or whatever it should be called. I'll try and get recordings from one of my gigs the next few nights... to show what I'm trying to talk about. Christian could also get involved.... we could have different inputs from three different parts of the world. Would be great learning material for all.
I mean... we're all guitarist, so basically from the same clan... no right or wrong just help us all improve, I know I look forward to hearing... I love learning more references...
Thanks Reg
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That would be very cool. Originally Posted by Reg
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rpjazzguitar and rcandro seem pretty on it. Tbh I defer to their knowledge.
I would add that my knowledge of Cuban music is extremely sketchy beyond the very basic rhythms.
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good points.
Spok's music is Frevo, which is, in a way, I guess, a more folkloric style, although it's played (and danced) with greater intensity than I usually think of as folkloric.
I don't know if traditional Frevo had the jazz elements that Spok uses. But, I think Spok has retained much of the harmonic and rhythmic conception that makes it an identifiable style.
Bossa emerged, as I have read about it, from rhythms of traditional samba, with the addition of more modern guitar based harmony (reportedly, some of the bossa pioneers passed around a copy of an album by Julie London and Barney Kessel and copied his voicings) and, because they lived in apartments, played softly.
But, that was around 1960. The music has continued to evolve, becoming even more harmonically and rhythmically sophisticated. Dori Caymmi's music represents that for me. Check out "Migration". But there are so many other threads of development, I hardly know where to begin. Leila Pinheiro's Tudo Bem takes it in a funkier direction. Rosa Passos sounds more like a direct outgrowth of bossa, but she's so good .... Trio Corrente takes it into outer space and they won a Grammy with Paquito De Rivera.
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Understanding the Samba groove
This links to an analysis of where the accents are in samba based on recording a bateria and graphing the results.
The key points: they aren't even and they aren't played as written.
If you play it exactly as written and completely in time with a metronome, it won't match what the great players actually do.
The feel is so different from American jazz that Brazilians speak of an "American accent" when they hear gringo bands play.
My Brazilian music teacher said that Blue Bossa is not a bossa, because the melody does not line up with the tamborim pattern.
Another Brazilian laughed when I asked him to teach me the bossa nova rhythm. He said, "every song is different".
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