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It's hard to remember for sure, but I do believe my entry point into jazz was Johnny Hodges. I heard some solos if his and I thought they were just so beautifully put together. After that I came across some Zoot Sims and other straight ahead sax players. Weirdly, or maybe not, Roland Kirk was there in the early days, too. I think guitar players came later, and probably because I wondered who the hell that was on Cry Me A River, or playing with Nat King Cole. It's such a vast genre I'm sure with a bit of light digging you will find plenty to adore.
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08-31-2024 03:22 AM
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Regarding listening to Standards, there's such a wealth and variety of (sometimes radically) different interpretations and renditions of them that any taste could probabily be satisfied...
Originally Posted by brettdz
I guess what I get hung up on is standards. I completely understand WHY I should learn them and from an academic perspective, I really enjoy studying them, and actually, playing them. My issue is that I rarely feel like listening to them for my own enjoyment. And then I judge myself and feel like I’m being bad
For example: which of these two versions of In A Sentimental Mood do you like best?
Edit. Acouple more examples with Autumn in New York.
Last edited by frabarmus; 08-31-2024 at 12:26 PM.
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Well, Russell Malone once said he'd rather listen to the Ramones than to some of today's jazz.
Some days working at my desk I will have music on all day. That way I've heard a lot of jazz from all eras and styles in the past three years or so. I'll easily be critical of the "genre". At times I do feel a sense of an artistic direction or vision is lacking. For instance I can think of the work of a Quincy Jones with Helen Merrill or Frank Sinatra - those albums sound awesome. Not all jazz albums have the benefit of the "touch" of a Quincy Jones. The big bucks for production are in other genres. I do feel recording quality can be lacking sometimes too. All in all it's great ; I would say don't be afraid to be selective and know what you want - and you don't "have" to love everything, there's no jazz police coming for you. I miss some "authentic" be bop playing which I feel has kind of been lost... there's an electric energy to good be bop like in blues or early rock'n roll/rockabilly that I feel is not always conveyed. It's a good and refreshing to listen to other stuff too. I regularly listen to rock, hard rock, bluegrass, blues, classical, songs in my native vernacular, French, you name it... oh and classical guitar (Segovia !), bossa nova guitar (João, Caetano...)... It's all good, there's a such a wealth of incredible music in jazz; but again don't be afraid to like what you like... life is too short.
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They are old songs, regardless of the interpretation. I prefer original compositions. Originally Posted by frabarmus
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Russell did play Ramones covers in his youth sometimes which was mentioned in one of the recent memorial articles (NYT?) and which was something that really surprised me. Originally Posted by m_d
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On the subject of potential anachronisms, my only true problem I've ever had with Standards is the lyrics.
I mean, I do love the melodies (nothing anachronistic there, as far as I'm concerned) but oftentimes cannot get past the lyrics, even though, which is the problem, they would be helpful in memorizing the songs. But then again, am I really supposed to think in terms of "Every honey bee fills with jealousy", etc.? Come on.
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Thats a good line. Originally Posted by palindrome
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I really like some of the old-fashioned lyrics. The only song so far I learned w/o lyrics is Ray Noble's Cherokee. Originally Posted by palindrome
The GASB lyrics inspire my own songwriting as well. And I am in good company.
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I'm a big "know the words" guy. Partially because I like to sing.
Yeah, some of the old stuff is corny (but I too like the jealous honeybee line) but I think it's important to at least look at the lyrics to get the sentiment of the tune.
We have so many resources available to us today that allow us to easily access the history of the tunes we play. Lyrics are part of that, as are original recordings. Jazz gives us the freedom to do what we want with tunes, but I like knowing where a song came from too.
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Even if jazz was the only kind of music, there'd still be plenty of variety, and you can't expect to like all of it.
It's easy to forget on a jazz guitar forum, that most jazz, even now, doesn't have a guitar or it's a supporting instrument. So if you only listened to jazz that had a guitarist who soloed, you'd be missing the fundamental language and history of the music. As a player, this would be very limiting.
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I’m completely with the OP. I love playing with other people, but a jazz jam is going to focus on standards. My tastes run more to what you might call “jazz adjacent.” But while I’ll never find a jam in Indianapolis that’ll play “Deacon Blue,” which I love, there are several that’ll play “Autumn Leaves,” which I just can’t stand.
The only other genre with lots of people jamming is bluegrass. I don’t hate it, but I sure don’t love it enough to learn the songs or how to solo on them.
So I’m back to learning the jazz standards…..
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You like what you like. But your tastes also develop over time.
With the history of any music I think it can take time to get accustomed to the stylistic conventions of the time and learn to hear beyond that.
We’ve had a century of music labelled as jazz, and beyond the broad outlines two represents a huge stylistic spectrum. There’s no rule stipulating that have to dig all of it, much less play it… (But I suspect over time you will dig more and more of it.)
Beyond that if one wants to actually play jazz with other humans you are going to find yourself learning repertoire and that repertoire will most likely be the GASB. You may not end up playing that stuff in your own bands but it is a sort of social glue that sticks all of us together at jams, pickup gigs and informal plays. True of all the players on the scene.
My own appreciation of all that stuff came later - I learned it out of necessity first, I was initially more interested in originals. Doesn’t work that way for everyone but it did for me.
Sent from my iPhone using TapatalkLast edited by Christian Miller; 09-02-2024 at 05:40 AM.
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This is an interesting discussion, sharing lots of good advice and experiences.
I fell in love with guitar in the 1970s and started playing the rock tunes and folk songs of the day for fun with friends. During most of the 1980s I was a work-a-day musician playing in a big band and a wedding band, mostly the old standards and new hits of the day. In between all that, I had a short but intense affair with Fusion.
One of my favorite records from those days was the Wes Montgomery Verve double LP "The Small Group Recordings." I still enjoy listening to that, decades later, as a streaming playlist while driving, along with Grant Green, Barney Kessel, Jim Hall, Kenny Burrell and just a few others. I guess that's my pleasure listening.
I also do practical listening while learning tunes for jam sessions. Where I live in Japan, there are several venues that hold open jazz jam sessions, and I go to at least a few jams every month for some fun social interaction around playing jazz. There's variety in what people call at these jams (one venue seems to favor Hard Bop, another prefers Jazz / Pop crossovers, still others Funk, Blues, or Bossa). But the common denominator for everyone is Jazz Standards (we use a 2 volume "Jazz Standard Bible" with about 500 lead sheets, more or less akin to the Real Book elsewhere). I learn standards mainly for the purpose of playing jazz live with others; what I love most about playing them is the spontaneous melodic creativity.
For what it's worth, my work flow to learn standards is pick a tune that caught my ear at a jam or which gets called often, learn the melody and chord changes in keys that are most common at the jam sessions, select ten versions online from different artists, eras and instruments (this introduces me to some newer artists who still play standards), listen to that, and practice until going to the next session. Sometimes, another participant and I will agree to work on the same tune for the next session. A trumpet player and I at a monthly jam play Ceora, Strollin' and Sugar; recently at another jam an alto player and I are working on a few tunes. (What I would really like is bringing them together to work up some Hard Bop!)
As an aside regarding lyrics, I generally dislike them (as some have noted in this discussion), but then realized that most of the people singing these lyrics at jams don't understand English. The meaning is relatively unimportant; the lyrics are a vehicle by which to participate in a jam. (Two of these singers have approached me about doing guitar and vocal duos, which I might delve into later on this year.)
Beyond streaming while driving and prepping for jam sessions, the only other jazz listening that I do is when we have a dinner party and I'll play some CDs, usually guitar or piano jazz. I also listen to World Music often, but that's another story.
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I’ll bet you can play Deacon Blue at a local blues jam. The house band likely knows it. Just talk to them. Send a Facebook message if you don’t want to commit to going. Originally Posted by StuartF
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Good idea. I went to a local blues jam recently, where the trio of people who'd never met played Bill Withers's "Use Me," including one of the best bass solos I've ever heard. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
OTOH, if I'd had my name on the sheet, I would've left after that!
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IME experience, it's extremely unlikely that a blues band would be able to play Deacon Blues, and beyond extremely unlikely that a random group of blues jammers would. But I guess it wouldn't hurt to ask ahead of time. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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Agreed, Deacon Blues is a pretty complex tune to just "jam on."
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Deacon blues is the opposite of a jam tune. I real pro has it and it’s two busy pages of chord symbols. The roadmap is barely comprehensible.
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The house band probably knows it. They should be professionals, to some degree.
The jammers who came to drink 5 beers and pretend they’re Keith Richards probably don’t know it.
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Yeah, but it’s a killer tune for a cover band to do. Most blues jam bands I see are professional bands slummming it at a jam night. So… they might know it. And if they do, they’ll be happy to play something different. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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I understand that it can be difficult to solo when one doesn't enjoy the melody. I love all the jazz standards (since I'm an old movie buff and discovered at lot of the songs watching films from the 30s - 50).
I had a friend that I played rock with that wanted to play more non-blues instrumental songs. I knew he liked The Beatles (since we played many of these but with singing).
Thus, I took some and reharmonized them with 'jazz' chords. I wrote out the chord grips and we played them as instrumental jam tunes.
At first his solo was mostly just the melody, but after a while he was able to improvise based on the melody.
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I could be wrong about this, but if I were at a jam with players [I didn’t know, and somebody called Deacon Blues the first thing I would do would be to put the guitar down and take a seat. Even if I knew Deacon blues I would expect that there would be roadmap problems, and that somebody would end up trying to play a different version of it, leading to a train wreck. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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I think we're going to have to chalk this one up to differences in local scenes. That's generally not how it is hereabouts. But again, no harm in trying. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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Yeah, that’s why I said the guy should talk to the host band before. Not walk on stage and call it. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
I agree completely it’ll be a mess if he calls it for casual jammers.
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Funny enough guitar isn’t in my top 3 of instruments for jazz. If I got to go at it again i may have stuck with piano or done tenor sax. I love Wes, Jim Hall, Jimmy Raney etc. but I find myself listening to Bill Evans or Hank Mobley more
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