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PS. I evidently can't do math either. 99.9% + 1% is not... before anyone else points it out
Just listening to Blue And Sentimental...
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04-25-2024 12:46 PM
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Jeff -
Thanks, nice recording. Well, what often happens is you ask someone to challenge your opinion, and they do, and then it's quite obvious from the response that they haven't budged an inch from where they were before.
I hope I'm not doing that, I know the difference very well. But I have to say what I have to say. I still find it thin. Possibly the quality of his tone isn't warm or full enough. That's one definite thing.
But I'm sensitive to people, I can pick them up from across a room or even in a crowded public place. And over the internet too isn't much different. My impression is that GG wasn't confident of his own abilities. Actually, apparently, Wes was like that too, maybe more so, but he somehow got round it. But, I may be wrong, I think it affects GG's playing.
I haven't researched him at all. I just now looked at Wiki and there's one mention of a lack of confidence. But there's also a complete absence of any mention of his personal life, marriage, or the illnesses that kept him in hospital.
I'm going to delve deeper in other links and I'll get back on it.
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*raises eyebrow, tilts head*
Originally Posted by ragman1
Personal preference of course is fine, but also … might consider immersing yourself for a moment.
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Some folks are too confident in their abilities. I've found with a lot of artists/musicians I know, self doubt still exists in performers of a very high level.
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Grant Green is your favorite guitar player's favorite guitar player. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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This is also one of Grants most endearing qualities. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
The chops just aren’t really all that remarkable. The ideas are incredible.
I feel like I should be able to play most of his stuff with enough time. So if you set out to learn a Grant solo, you know it’s reachable and you’ll get awesome ideas from it while you’re at it
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Here’s Grant Green playing with no feeling or confidence:
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Clearly intimidated by the cameras Originally Posted by grahambop
Re: Grant's stuff being easy to play...yes and no. I find it very easy to HEAR...
I've told the story before, but what the hell. I had been listening to jazz for several years before I tried playing it. I assumed it was over my head, and I had trouble hearing it, which made it tough for me to pick things up...sax and horn lines smeared together, piano just sounded like a blur, and guitar players like Wes and Kenny sounded like they knew notes I had never heard before.
And then I heard Grant. And I could hear it! And sing it. It sounded easy! So I grabbed my guitar.
And found out it wasn't. But it was my foot in the door.
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Well, I said I'd do it. I don't say it's a perfect picture but I haven't included anything non-factual. Apologies to those of you really rate him musically. Maybe it's a fault in me. But, to be honest, I actually doubt that.
Several things have emerged. Apparently he was not a great family man, being away most of the time gigging. Not a good idea. His biography was written by his daughter-in-law who never met him. He got divorced three times.
He deserted his children, an aunt found the children living alone while his wife worked as a model... etc.
Then there were the drugs. But then a lot of jazz musos succumbed to that. He did jail-time for drugs.
But there was also his beliefs. Apparently he was involved, strongly, with the St. Louis chapter of the Nation of Islam, a black separatist Islamic sect. Hey, nothing like a rigid belief in Islam to mess you up
But a lot of sites refer to conflicts in his life and personal issues. He was in debt, he didn't pay his musicians, and so it goes on.
But (as I suspected from listening to Blue and Sentimental) he wasn't really a complete jazz player. Which means he probably didn't love it. I suspect his heart was much more into other things like blues, gospel, R&B, Latin, even country.
So I'm probably getting all that from him. I guess it just pushes me away from him. It's not a matter of judgement over him, it's just an alienation without actually knowing it before.
I don't think he truly loved jazz. Maybe that's what I feel predominates, however good he was. I doubt if he loved people much either. In other words, he wasn't warm and that matters a great deal if you're going to play music.
I'm sorry if this sounds dreadful but facts are facts. And there's no smiley at the end of this one.
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Facts, which are your inferences, based on what you read. Got it.
Dude, a simple, "he's not my cup of tea" would have worked. But saying that you can hear that "he wasn't a complete jazz player and he probably didn't love it" is just ridiculous.
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what a load of BS. Originally Posted by ragman1
Well, I said I'd do it. I don't say it's a perfect picture but I haven't included anything non-factual. Apologies to those of you really rate him musically. Maybe it's a fault in me. But, to be honest, I actually doubt that.
Several things have emerged. Apparently he was not a great family man, being away most of the time gigging. Not a good idea. His biography was written by his daughter-in-law who never met him. He got divorced three times.
He deserted his children, an aunt found the children living alone while his wife worked as a model... etc.
Then there were the drugs. But then a lot of jazz musos succumbed to that. He did jail-time for drugs.
But there was also his beliefs. Apparently he was involved, strongly, with the St. Louis chapter of the Nation of Islam, a black separatist Islamic sect. Hey, nothing like a rigid belief in Islam to mess you up
But a lot of sites refer to conflicts in his life and personal issues. He was in debt, he didn't pay his musicians, and so it goes on.
But (as I suspected from listening to Blue and Sentimental) he wasn't really a complete jazz player. Which means he probably didn't love it. I suspect his heart was much more into other things like blues, gospel, R&B, Latin, even country.
So I'm probably getting all that from him. I guess it just pushes me away from him. It's not a matter of judgement over him, it's just an alienation without actually knowing it before.
I don't think he truly loved jazz. Maybe that's what I feel predominates, however good he was. I doubt if he loved people much either. In other words, he wasn't warm and that matters a great deal if you're going to play music.
I'm sorry if this sounds dreadful but facts are facts. And there's no smiley at the end of this one.
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Graham - Originally Posted by grahambop
I won't re-post the video.
I hear it, it's great stuff, of course it is, no question. My problem is my energy goes out to the person, not just the music. And I can't relate to what I feel.
I'll stop there before it's gets too New Age or something. But it is the way it is. Can't help it, sorry.
No, unfortunately it's not. Why should it be?what a load of BS.
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Yeah I think “simple, not easy” is the distinction. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
Clearly intimidated by the cameras
Re: Grant's stuff being easy to play...yes and no. I find it very easy to HEAR...
I've told the story before, but what the hell. I had been listening to jazz for several years before I tried playing it. I assumed it was over my head, and I had trouble hearing it, which made it tough for me to pick things up...sax and horn lines smeared together, piano just sounded like a blur, and guitar players like Wes and Kenny sounded like they knew notes I had never heard before.
And then I heard Grant. And I could hear it! And sing it. It sounded easy! So I grabbed my guitar.
And found out it wasn't. But it was my foot in the door.
And I don’t mean to say the ideas are easy—more like he’s our Chet Baker or Red Garland. The ideas are lyrical and within reach of anyone who wants to put in the time.
(If they were easy, I wouldn’t still be flubbing two big lines in this after having played it for four or five weeks.)
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He wasn't. That's why Graham's video is so good, because he's playing the R&B stuff so heavily (I'm talking about the first track). Think about what other jazz players would have done. Perhaps not Benson, though. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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Yes his interests and his style are not really like those of real jazz guitarists** Originally Posted by ragman1
** please disregard one of the greatest jazz guitarists of all time, who openly admires Grant and whose career looks quite a lot like that of Grant and who catches shit from purists for all the same reasons.
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Not sure if this is particularly true of other instruments (it probably is, but haven’t tracked it closely) —- but most of the great guitarists take a much more eclectic approach to their solo work after a time of being established:
Grants funk period
Benson once he started singing
Wes on Bumpin
Pat Metheny on anything post Bright Size
Jim Hall in the eighties and nineties
I definitely don’t love all of it and I almost universally prefer the straightahead stuff …. but it’s weird to dismiss this tendency as inauthentic or as invalidating the jazz playing. It’s a really cool artistic arc and there are lots of places where you can see its influence.
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I’m also just going to say it:
Raise your hand if you’ve transcribed Grant.
if your hand is not up, then your opinion about whether or not he’s a “complete jazz player” (whatever that is) might not carry much weight.
Im confident Jeff and Grahams hands are up.
…. Bueller?
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I think he liked Bossa quite a lot, I can feel that. There's a warmth to it. Just :-)
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And then he plays Oleo. Originally Posted by ragman1
Blues has been a part of jazz since the beginning. Lots of artists in the sixties and beyond looked for inspiration in other forms of black music, R&B, funk, soul, etc.
You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
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Yeah this is an obvious thing about the blues. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
But even with funk, R&B, and what we’d probably call Smooth Jazz—there’s a much more porous boundary between these and straightahead jazz than we give credit for these days. So a lot of the time when folks dismiss those things or downgrade a jazz player for exploring them, they’re kind of taking a marker of deep understanding of and real engagement with the tradition and mistaking it for shallow and inauthentic
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Of course GG had drug issues, broken relationships etc., so did nearly all the jazz musicians back then, it was a tough profession. Has nothing to do with his playing. Some of them found the drugs helped blot out all the bad stuff they had to face. Originally Posted by ragman1
As for the Islam stuff, many black musicians got into it as an attempt to escape racism (e.g. Art Blakey became Ibn Buhaina). Some of them even found they were able to get into white-only restaurants and hotels when in the South by virtue of being Muslems (hard to believe, but it’s true, read the biographies).
As for GG not having his heart in playing jazz, that’s just nonsense.
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There weren’t many jazz guitarists who got to make albums with a line-up like this:
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McCoy Tyner, famously a sideman for incomplete jazz musicians Originally Posted by grahambop
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Also worth noting that GG was effectively the house guitarist for Blue Note. Alfred Lion obviously liked him, and recorded him on loads of albums.
As far as I know the only other guitarist who did anything much on the label was Kenny Burrell.
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haha oddly enough I haven’t transcribed any GG. But I have listened to him a lot, and picked up something from it, I’m sure. As others have said, his lines have a wonderful clarity, and his time has a great sort of snappy bounce to it. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
I also like his sound, it’s brighter than most were back then, and it’s instantly recognisable.
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