I no longer have piano/sax envy.

[brent.h]

..

[2bornot2bop]

Each instrument is a challenge on its own. Do you think the trumpet player has an inferiority complex when he knows he can’t hit Maynard Ferguson style high notes? No. You don’t spend your time on that. Instead you develop ways to sound musical. It’s the sound that counts.

I fail to understand why any guitarist would feel as if he has to imitate a piano? No, a guitar is a guitar. Each instrument is something to behold unto itself, and each has its own unique characteristics and challenges.

[Groyniad]

I dig the whole piano (chords) sax (lines) envy - as a guitarist. I enjoyed your post.

After spending a great deal of time digging the poll winners albums (in the first five years or so of playing) I am also not one to underestimate BK's musicality. I still can't get over how direct and intelligent and swinging those records are - and not a trace of 'trying to be clever' in any of the takes.

my picture though is that we ALL (whatever instrument) have to get as close to vocal vibes as we can (and that horns have a bit of a head start when it comes to achieving that fluidity, poise, grace - and, above all, that rhythmical freedom.)

I think BK gets as close to sounding conversational and vocal as any guitarist I know.

I find it hard to dig his fast 'chording' (as they use to call it) - but find it doesn't get in the way much in the classic records with Ray Brown and Shelley Manne.

Every phrase he plays achieves something - and in a cool way too.

The clip below is a crazy interview on Swedish TV - in which he takes a pretty folk tune (that they all know in Sweden) and makes it 'jazzier' and 'jazzier' in stages - with crystal clear explanations of what he is doing. It's as good a demonstration of what jazz improvisation is really about as anything I've seen (apart from BH of course). He even gets a sort of mediaeval folk song vibe in his voicings because that's part of the feel of the tune. He's a joy.

I always think you have to swing at least as much as him - even if you don't do it in the same sort of way. That's a high bar.

1:00 - 9:10 ish on the video :

[Stringswinger]

Barney rules. Nuff' said.

[pamosmusic]

I fail to understand why any guitarist would feel as if he has to imitate a piano? No, a guitar is a guitar. Each instrument is something to behold unto itself, and each has its own unique characteristics and challenges.

Haven’t met many guitarists?

[Kirk Garrett]

I especially love BK as a solo player (meaning playing by himself or as the main accompaniment to a singer.) His rhythmic vocabulary even when playing the song’s melody is terribly pleasing to my guitaristic-loving ear.

[RLetson]

As an unschooled, ear-biased, folk- and swing-rooted (and rather lazy) musician, I've never been able to avoid facing the guitaristic nature of the guitar, despite my admiration for the players who make it do hard things that other instruments do easily. And I've had my nose rubbed in the fact that a traditionally-constituted bebop group does not have much space for a swing-style rhythm guitarist, since the piano occupies that space along with its own solo space. (And that's before we get to the matter of tempos and eccentric melodic lines.)

I shouldn't have been surprised, since I put in my listening time long ago and should have noticed that bop groups didn't have guitarists until guitarists figured out how to sound like horns, and especially like saxes. And the techniques required to navigate that harmonic space in a linear, hornlike manner are quite different from the ones that a member of the rhythm section in a dance band needs. In the folk world, it's not unlike the difference between backing a fiddler, Texas-style, and playing fiddle-tune leads a la Doc Watson and Clarence White.

So as much as I love Monk, I pretty much sit out when the jazz guys call a Monk tune--it's not really material for a guitarist lacking serious technical chops. (On the other hand, Duck Baker has an album of fingerstyle arrangements of Monk--but then, Duck does have serious fingerstyle chops.)

[Al Haig]

^ Monk didn't have serious technical chops, at least compared to his peers. It's what he did with his approach that made it incredible. Maybe look at playing Monk that way.

[Al Haig]

Well if it makes you feel any better, as a vibraphonist I have guitar envy. I can only play 2 notes at a time, although I can sustain notes for a chordal effect. I ain't messing with 4 mallets. Also, the Milt blues vocab is way more intuitive on guitar. I'm going back to my brief stint playing guitar and trying to remember box 1 licks.

[Al Haig]

47:25

[2bornot2bop]

Haven’t met many guitarists?

the only thing I’ve repeatedly read on this forum is how often pianists overplay on gigs. But it’s the first time I’ve read that guitarists are actually envious of piano players. When I play Flugelhorn and Trumpet I don’t even think of the fact that I can play piano. So perhaps this is something unique to guitarists?

[wintermoon]

btw, Bags was also a guitar player

[Al Haig]

^ Yeah, that's pretty cool!