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Love the thread, guys. Great humor. This place has been really fun lately (props to Mr. B, and all of you fine people).
Now I think where you are using the term "vanilla" you might want to use "flaccid jazz".
Vanilla to me is purely harmonic language. A vanilla chord is a "garden variety" chord, or triad (not superimposed stacks, mind you). Even a "power chord" in rock. If the implied/outlined harmony over it is also triad based, it is a vanilla song. Lots of rock, folk, and pop.
When tunes were written in a vanilla style, they are harmonically restrictive. I play in a country jam session every week at my guitar store, and at first I was using CST to run extended arpeggios and connecting them with logical chromatic notes and it sounded like shit. Seriously. I got looks like "this isn't song good enough for you? - gotta stink it up with those jazz notes?" After a month or so I stated watering down my harmony; never playing maj7's over the I chord, etc, and it started sounding better. Now I know what actually works, and I can run up-and-down the guitar without disrespecting the genre. It's fun actually. Vanilla is good when you want vanilla.
I think jazz has a vanilla base. Like a sundae!! One big scoop of vanilla triad, a 7th syrup, and sprinkled extensions on top. Tasty!! Think how lame it would be if your extensions were all on the bottom or all you had... A cherry buried under more cherries and a few jimmies. No good. lol.
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06-10-2011 09:22 PM
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BTW this thread might interest some of you: https://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/theor...-thoughts.html
I surly hope that default harmony and "inside choices" don't fall into this model of lame vanilla jazz. Good notes are good notes.
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This is a fantastic way to put it.
Originally Posted by JonnyPac
Believe it or not, I had the same problem when I started to play in a country jam group here in Shelbyville. (Don't forget, I'm born, raised and educated in NYC. So what the hell am I doing in a country jam group anyway? Oh yeah, I was looking to play with some other musicians.) They were playing all these old country tunes, strumming away on some old Martins and Guild flattops with open G, open C, open E, Open A chords----you get the picture and there I sat swingin' away, eyes closed with Maj7, min7, dominant 9th and 13th chords, b5, #9, passing chords, chord subs ---you get the picture again. Then I looked up and saw these old dudes, each with a chunk of chaw (no kidding) in their cheeks and spit cups next to their chairs looking at me like I had 3 heads. Then one of them asked me to play something I knew so I played Nightingale Sang in Barkley Square. Then another one interrupted my beautiful chord melody before I even got to the second chorus and barked "Boy, what in the hell are you playin'? Play them chords down here (pointing at the first 5 frets). I just couldn't handle it. My hands just wouldn't go to those chords and those were the very same chords I played when I first got my guitar in 1966 and played throughout the rest of the 60's, 70 and 80's. I hadn't played them in so long, they began to feel unfamiliar and altogether foreign. Need less to say, I got sent home in disgrace with my head hanging as I pushed my guitar case in the car and drove home.
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Great story. lol
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A few decades ago I put together a heavy-metal country band in Toronto, just for a lark. One of the guys made a few calls and got an agent out to give us a listen. Not realising we were having a little fun at his expense, he said, in all seriousness, "You guys are really good, but . . . I just don't know where I'd put you."
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Vanilla is a safe flavor. I like vinegar with my jazz.
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In my world 'vanilla changes' its not a pejorative term at all
its just the basic changes
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It's 100% true. What I didn't mention was when I took a solo, the looks I got were astounding and I don't mean admiration. Originally Posted by JonnyPac
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I think it's a very different thing to tell somebody "play the vanilla changes" than it is to say "that guy plays vanilla."
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Okay . . . so how does Neopolitan fit into this?
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Neopolitan is where you play a very well known standard with good subs in a Bossa beat. Butter pecan is where you play in the dorian mode and tomato celery is where you playlike Sonny Sharrock.
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Here's some vanilla jazz guitar for you.
01 My Romance II.mp3 - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage
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There you go. That I can listen to and enjoy. If that's considered vanilla, then I'm in good company. When I play, I have to remember who I'm playing for. I'm not playing for savvy musicians or for their approval. Originally Posted by Kman
I'm playing for average people who like good songs but most of all, I'm playing for me.
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A couple of questions from a newbie...
1) By "vanilla", do you mean straight-ahead jazz, or is it something different? Because there were/are lots of straight ahead monster players...
2) Is Kenny G really considered "straight ahead" jazz? I thought he was more identified with 80's smooth jazz than with the Great American Songbook.
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See my post. There is a bit of misuse of Vanilla as Fuzac or flaccid jazz. Originally Posted by Hernandinho
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Kenny G is classified as smooth jazz which is different than straight ahead jazz.
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There are 2 types of music, someone once remarked, good and bad. So maybe there are 2 types of ice cream, good and bad? Personally I'd rather have great vanilla than a bad "gourmet" flavor, just like I'd rather listen to excellent dixieland or ragtime than lousy free jazz.....
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I've seen that statement attributed to Duke Ellington. I've also heard Buddy Rich said it. Richard Strauss too. Duke, however, seems to be the consensus. Originally Posted by princeplanet
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Duke once said he hated the new bebop jazz that had come out. He called it Chinese music. It's all in the ears .ike the taste buds.
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You have taste buds in your ears? Talk about synaesthesia!
So have we come to any consensus on vanilla? I know I haven't. I don't consider "inside playing" on a dixieland tune to be vanilla--I consider it "doing it right."
I'd still take it differently in different usages. If someone told me "Hey, play the vanilla changes," I'd simplify my voicings and do so. If someone told me I played "vanilla," I do NOT think I'd take it as a compliment.
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Maybe I ought to rephrase the taste buds thing. Nah. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
You have taste buds in your ears? Talk about synaesthesia!
So have we come to any consensus on vanilla? I know I haven't. I don't consider "inside playing" on a dixieland tune to be vanilla--I consider it "doing it right."
I'd still take it differently in different usages. If someone told me "Hey, play the vanilla changes," I'd simplify my voicings and do so. If someone told me I played "vanilla," I do NOT think I'd take it as a compliment.
I have come to a conclusion about the vanilla question. It's like putting pineapple on a pizza. For some folks it's great and for some it's ridiculous. Listen and play how you like and the rest is bull. It doesn't matter what other people's taste is. Yours is the only one that matters.
Oh yeah, you have to go along with the folks that are paying you.
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So does vanilla jazz taste different than whitebread jazz? I can't seem to find recipes for either in my jazz cookbook.
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Vanilla jazz is when you play, you sound good and you get to wear some really nice suits with good ties. Whitebread jazz is when you do the same but you have to wear a tuxedo and find a way to jazz up the Hokey Pokey or the Alley Cat.
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There is a great play by Warren Leight entitled "Side Man", which sums this up perfectly. This line is taken from a review of the play: Originally Posted by hot ford coupe
That's what one of the musicians says of the patrons. Love it.It's best illustrated in a scene when Gene and Ziggie and Al are dressed in powder blue tuxedos and on a break during a gig with the Lester Lanin society band which plays for people who "couldn't' swing if you hung them."
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Louis didn't actually say that. Les was pulling someone's leg. That's one of a bazillion Louis Armstrong jokes that were popular when I was a kid. Another was, Guy walks up to Louis Armstrong and says, "So Louis, how are things in the music world?" Satchmo replies, "I'm not in the music world. I'm in the music business." Originally Posted by jazzbow
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).
B'doom, ksh!
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