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When Lester Young would tell a band to "play the vanilla changes" he meant the basic ones, without ornament. He liked playing over them.
To say that someone plays without swing is to say just that; it has nothing to do with whether one is playing vanilla changes or using a vanilla arrangement. There's nothing wrong with "vanilla" in this sense. Sometimes people want to keep things simple---just as you might enjoy a fancy dinner one night but pizza and beer the next---and there's nothing wrong with that.
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06-03-2011 09:29 PM
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I'm glad that the term vanilla isn't really used by most as a derogatory term. I generally try to apply the principles of tension and resolution and if that's vanilla, that's absolutely fine with me since I enjoy that. It's kind of interesting though that my son who is also a professional guitar player has trouble singing along to my comping because it's not simple enough for him. I'm vanilla in one case and out of the box in another. My identity is secure now. Thanks guys for all the great words of wisdom and advice.
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I think folks here are pretty liberal with their definition of "vanilla." I think in reality, you'd be hard pressed to find a player who wouldn't take it as a slight.
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This is what I understand when someone refers to "vanilla" in jazz. It is not a value judgement, but merely a way of expressing that the harmonic backdrop is not ornamented or reharmed. It simply means the chord movements are stated in a clear, simple manner
Originally Posted by markerhodes
A good soloist can really make outside notes sparkle over vanilla changes. Of course chord solos are a different animal and rely on ornamentation.
IMO, too much harmonic texture can mask good melodic ideas just as too many notes (so called sheets of sound) can smother a nice groove or harmonic foundation. I suppose it all depends on how you like to mix your drinks.
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My experience with the term vanilla among other musicians, is in reference to performing with a bland and soulless feel. It is not meant to be a compliment. Colorless, lacking flavor...you get the idea...boring...
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Just when I thought it was over, they drag me right back in. I guess it also depends on who's calling who vanilla. If players like Pat Martino, John Scofield, Al Dimeola call me vanilla, I can deal with that because I know where they're going. If Lawrence Welk called me vanilla, I'm in big trouble.
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Your safe HFC; he's been dead for nearly twenty years. Originally Posted by hot ford coupe
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That's why I would be in trouble. Think about it. If he were talking to me, where would I be standing? Originally Posted by paynow
Your safe HFC; he's been dead for nearly twenty years.
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Yeah, Kenny G is kinda unique! Bland is a definition that rests well IMHO. Vanilla in one sense aswell. But the K.G. inspired me brother in law to take up playing the sax. That was 8 years ago but since I fed him on Charlie Parker it blew him away and has never looked back! He does solo events and he plays straight ahead 'Vanilla standards' a la Kenny G as he says the melodies are uncomplicated for the general public and these gigs pay well. So does it matter whom, what, why? Melody pays and the vanilla is the basic background flavour for that. I s'pose the Charlie Parker stuff is for the after hours sessions that we really dig as musicians/muso's.
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That's a great way of putting it. That's one reason the folks at the rehab center enjoy my music. The melodies are clear and that's what they're looking for when they make requests. One resident always asks for Gershwin which is really good stuff. Another asks for Glen Miller while another loves to sing along with any standards I play. Another wants to hear At Last 40's style and has me playing it as an opener and a closer. In the end it's all about the audience. I'm sure if I played stuff that was outside the box etc, (which I really can't do ) they'd get tired of that really quick just not understanding it. Originally Posted by jazzbow
This is what I love about this site. There are so many players that play all kinds of styles and play them well, you'll always get loads of info, both pros and cons and truly honest appraisals.
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I ain' no pro so that makes me a con Originally Posted by hot ford coupe
Ha ha ha ha ha
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There's always one in the crowd. Heck, I thought that was me. Originally Posted by jazzbow
I ain' no pro so that makes me a con
Ha ha ha ha ha
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I saw a documentary on Les Paul recently and he was talking about a conversation he had with Louis Armstrong. Louis asked how Les made so much money and what was the secret? Les replied 'Play the melody, that's where the bucks are!' (or words to that effect). Originally Posted by hot ford coupe
Last edited by jazzbow; 06-06-2011 at 07:07 AM. Reason: spelling
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Vanilla . . . ri-i-i-i-i-ght . . . the term most often used is JAMF jazz, which is an acronym I can't translate for you on this board. The polite version I use personally is barf jazz. It's a description, not an acronym.
Historically, it has been the difference between "safe" jazz and "taking risks". Glenn Miller was widely criticized by "serious" jazz musicians because the members of his band always played it safe. The difference was that "serious" jazz musicians always played at the very edge of their abilities. The Miller musicians never made mistakes. "Serious" players made lots of cuffs and crows and played right on the edge of their ability to control the instrument. The term for this at the time was "hot" jazz. The term for Miller's brand of music was "commercial".
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Vanilla is an essential ingredient in a good chocolate confection. Without it, something's missing. You can't really "take it out" without having it in first.
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I should have added that "hot" jazz meant a number of other things, too.
We had this same subject arise in one of the brass sites, and boy was there some heated debate! Good thing we were all on the ol' Interweeb because blows would undoubtedly have been exchanged, much physical pain and damage inflicted, it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye, and all that. ("Body blow! Take 'im out! Take 'im out!")
That said, I would like to bring up the spectre of what many of us call "spew", and I'll use trumpet players as an example.
There is a knack to playing really high on trumpet. It's a subject that's poorly taught because most players and educators have no clue as to what is really going on. What it really is is falsetto playing. The mechanism is the same as singing falsetto. But because the process is something you can't see and feel directly, it's something you have to play around with until you flukily hit on it. This is why it's a knack, and why so many players can't do it. Anatomy plays a role as well, but for now, let's just say that it's like whistling and vibrating your tongue at the same time in order to produce a trilling whistle. Some people can just do it, some will get it with a lot of trial-and-error, some will never get it, not matter how long and hard they try.
Now, trumpet players tend to do this "macho-man" thing by featuring their ability to play high. As I said before, it's not a talent- it's a knack. So in essence, it's what you might call a "gimmick".
What it's not is inherently melodic, musical, and/or artistic. It's hard work, sure, but in guitar terms it's like playing furiously while balancing a car on your head. It's not quite "hamboning", which the rocker bending a note while grimacing like it's hard work is an example of, but it's the next worst thing.
Getting back to spew, this is when you're playing really fast but saying nothing noteworthy at all. Spew might also be called "reaching the speed of extreme note-iness while saying nothing of any value or content".
Okay, I admit to being pretty opinionated on the matter, but to me, if it's not memorable, it's not worth playing or presenting.
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I think I know what you mean, GS. It reminds me of something Jim Hall did. He supposedly put a card into his guitar case that he could see when he took the guitar out. It said "Make musical sense". He used it to remind himself that if he's going to play something, it should be more than an exhibition of technique and just showing off. It should be melodic and say something regardless of the speed and how many notes he played per measure. He made it clrear that in a lot of situations more is less and less is more. Les Paul said just about the same thing. He said that many times just hanging on one note can say a lot more and can express more feeling than a shotgun blast of shredded notes. I think Spew is a great word for it.
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Hah! I can play really fast spew. I do it just for applause and its over, usually on bass. It is nothing I ever practiced, don't know where it came from and the notes are correct. But it is just so much diarrhea of the fingers. On bass there is a synchronization I can get, alternating the two plucking fingers and hitting the strings with both sides of the fingers, synching that with the left hand somehow.
I used to be able to do it on guitar. Since I've started back seriously playing guitar this year, I've sworn NEVER to do this, no matter how much it slows me down.
I really want to make the same promise on bass. It really is garbage that gets applause.
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No! Kenny G is Vanilla soft serve no dairy ice cream sort of tooth decay food product. Originally Posted by ESCC
Joe Pass is Hagen Daaz Vanilla.
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because i occasionally enjoy a bit of vanilla soft-serve ice cream, i would rather consider kenny g "ice milk," a disappointing substitute for the real thing that my dad used to buy during hard times. Originally Posted by Billnc
joe pass was "frusen glädjé," a yummy, premium-quality ice cream that, sadly, is no longer in production.
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PERFECT! Originally Posted by patskywriter
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I'm gonna make some rubber bracelets..."WWJHD?" Originally Posted by hot ford coupe
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06-09-2011, 11:25 AM #48TommyD Guest
Speaking of descriptive terms, like "vanilla", I was playing with my brother one time (jazz pianist, deceased now) and I asked him what the changes were to a tune he started to play. He said, "Just Sears and Roebuck all the way through."
About vanilla . . . for me it's a thing I fail to hear in a solo, or maybe better said, 'feel'. As someone pointed out, Basie was certainly no outside player, yet nobody could accuse him of playing 'vanilla' solos. The same with Mulligan and Freddie Greene. Neither of them could be said to be avant-garde, but vanilla? No way! Of course there are many more.
That said, we've all enjoyed players who could be said to play vanilla solos. So for me, it's not about content. It's about the feeling imparted by the player. "The occasional flat-fifth does not an outside player make."
Tommy_
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I think there are a couple of perspectives that are applied to music to make it sound vanilla.
The first being, anything that is commercially successful, like Nora Jones commercially successful (Pop Star), not Pat Metheny (Jazz Star) commercially successful, Like Come Away With Me, (calling that jazz is a stretch to me, if Bill Frisell and Adam Rogers weren't on that one record...), is likely to be vanilla to experienced jazz fans or musicians - not to take away from the quality of playing or musicianship - but the sound isn't meant for musicians, its meant for lovers, lonely girls, and the such.
Then there is also the perspective of context. The changes of 'I got rhythm' have been recorded probably a million times, with different heads and what have you, I challenge, and strongly recommend going through the jazz history, picking out rhythm tunes and seeing how they change, both in the head, and during the solos. Someone may call "lester leaps in' pretty vanilla to say the epic conquest of 'Nice Pass' by the Brad Meldhau Trio. But that is in today's terms. Is the old sound vanilla, I don't think by itself it is, but if someone said I had to choose yes or no or I would die, Lester Leaps In as preformed by lester, is pretty dang vanilla next to Nice Pass.
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THAT is what I was trying to put into words, only you did it a lot better! Originally Posted by sc06yl
CONTEXT! THAT's the word! Snowbird by Ann Murray is pop shmaltz, but play the chorus in the context of someone's dead child, and you've got depth of emotion, strong visualisation, conviction and deep connexion.
And you're right about a lot of older jazz- what made it what it was was context- deep, often painful social divisions; genuine, not feigned mood and emotion, such as poignance, and so on.
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