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Well, it looks like it's time for one of my odd ball questions. I've been doing a lot of listening to a few of my favorite CDs and I started to think, "what would the members on the jazz guitar site consider music that's 'vanilla' rather than good jazz?" I've been listening to Chet Baker, Barney Kessel, George Shearing with Chuck Wayne, Johnny Smith, Mundell Lowe and so on. A lot of these guys are considered good jazz but a lot of their solos are usually done during standards like Jersey Bounce, Someone to Watch Over Me, Tenderly, Misty etc. in that vein and they really don't seem complicated or particularly technically difficult or outside the box. I know there are many different styles of jazz but I'd like to hear what you guys think. Any opinions to help me out? Thanks in advance.
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06-02-2011 09:18 PM
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Vanilla's more about how you play than what you play.
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Ahaaaa!!! I think I understand what you mean. Playing the music without swinging, too straight and with uninspiring simple chord harmonies without extentions. Am I close?
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I don't even know if that's quite right. Clifford Brown rarely played complicated harmonic stuff. Pretty cutting edge at the time but right now the harmonic material is definitely pretty vanilla. Tone? Gorgeous. Swings? Damn straight. Melodic? Singable? Absolutely. Now Clifford's got some stuff (Cherokee comes to mind) that's technically mind-blowing... on the other hand... my favorite jazz solo of all time is his chorus on the recording of September Song he does with Sarah Vaughan. Really clean double time licks. Sexy steamy blues lines. Gorgeous melodies and well placed chord extensions. Nothing fancy just beautiful music. Another example... Mike Brecker could probably outplay God himself but my favorite Brecker solo ever is his solo on Midnight Voyage. He might play one or two double time licks the whole time and the rest is laid back 8th notes and some nice triplet lines. Stays pretty inside the whole time. It's just filthy blues playing and it sits right in the pocket. Perfection. Pat Metheny's solo on the same recording, however, is full of double time licks and chops galore but it just doesn't jive the way that Brecker's does.
I suppose, in the end, vanilla is up to the listener... but I think anyone would put the feel and the melodies above chops and harmonic complexity any day of the week.
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aaaaand that was largely in reference to your first post... not the second one where you pretty much agreed with me. hehe
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I also think that your original post brings up a pretty good question. What big time jazzers do you guys (personally) consider "vanilla?"
I'll start off the chat with maybe some controversy... Barney Kessel. Never really been a fan of his playing. Great player. Just a little boring to me. Definitely see the merits but I'd much rather hear a Jim Hall or a Grant Green.
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i like the individual members of the modern jazz quartet, but together they epitomize the word 'vanilla.'
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WHY is that a good question? As tempting it is to share with the world which jazz musicians annoy you, wouldn't you prefer to focus on those you LIKE..
Originally Posted by RememberClifford1
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One man's Vanilla is another person's Rocky Road.
Kind of an impossible question I think. It's all music.
I'm reminded of an exchange my son, who is a drummer had with Elvin Jones.
My son, who tours nationally with a rock bank said sort of apologetically to Elvin that he was only playing rock these days. Elvin replied "Hey man it's good....we all just playin' music....can't do no better than that".
edit: Morten you hit it right on the head.
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That is a good question because I know that lots of people like Barney Kessel... sooo... it follows that someone will get irritated and tell me that "albums x y and z are NOT vanilla" and I'll say "lovely... I'll purchase said albums" and if all goes well I'll have a new appreciation for Barney Kessel.
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Yeah, I don't think there's anyway to say "this player's vanilla, this ones not."
Think of vanilla as non-adventurous, safe playing. Like we all might do when first learning a tune. I'll admit, I play a few Beatles and Sinatra tunes pretty straight and "vanilla" when I'm doing restaurant gigs, because for some folks, that how they want to hear the tune--and that's cool too. Frees me up to play Chocolate and Pralines and Cream and Spumoni on the other stuff I play that gig...
Frankly, I hate the term "vanilla," because I love the flavor of vanilla.
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This is very true. ahh well.
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Well, if you need a record to prove to you Barney's not vanilla, snag a copy of "Feeling Free." That'll put that to bed.
I like Barney Kessel a lot, but I find the poll winners albums (which many folks love) boring as all get out...that's not as much a slight on Barney as it is "Different Strokes for Different Folks."
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Originally Posted by hot ford coupe
Well, it looks like it's time for one of my odd ball questions. I've been doing a lot of listening to a few of my favorite CDs and I started to think, "what would the members on the jazz guitar site consider music that's 'vanilla' rather than good jazz?" I've been listening to Chet Baker, Barney Kessel, George Shearing with Chuck Wayne, Johnny Smith, Mundell Lowe and so on. A lot of these guys are considered good jazz but a lot of their solos are usually done during standards like Jersey Bounce, Someone to Watch Over Me, Tenderly, Misty etc. in that vein and they really don't seem complicated or particularly technically difficult or outside the box. I know there are many different styles of jazz but I'd like to hear what you guys think. Any opinions to help me out? Thanks in advance.
Often times when I learn vanilla or "not too complicated" solos they turn out to be more complicated then I realized. It sounds easy, but you don't know until you play along with the recording. At least that is my experience.
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or the stew metaphore is good ........
If you start with a good basic stew , you can add salt, pepper
and herbs to taste
If you start with a too salty or seasoned-up stew
it's difficult to sort it out later
You can always add
so I really like to get the 'vanilla' changes as basic and functional
as possible first
(rather than as some lead sheets in RBs etc which already have
lots of subs and spice added)
you dig ?
This site is great for sussing out the basic Vanilla changes to standards
Index
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I dig. Thanks all for the great replies you've given . That's helped me a great deal.
Here's the reason why I posted this in the first place. It has to do with my guitar "identity" so to speak. When I'm asked "what kind of guitarist are you?" ,( I'd like to say I'm a musician but they wouldn't understand) I say I'm a jazz guitarist. Then I think to myself, am I really a jazz guitarist or just some guitar plucker trying to play jazz and coming up short? Am I the real thing or am I just fooling myself? I play standards mostly from the 30's to the early 60's cool period. I use the usual extentions i.e. b5s, +9's , etc. but is that enough. I'm always trying to learn more and more but a lot of the more modern stuff I don't like and I avoid. That's why I started to think am I too "vanilla", are my subs too basic, are my ideas too boring and where do we go from here? The answers you guys have given me have really helped me a lot. I play the music I like and that's that. Thanks again.
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Ah, if you play jazz music and improvise, you're a jazz player. It's just music. I don't reserve the title of "jazz" for only the chosen few...that's the elitist BS that we as jazz lovers/players get accused of all the time anyway. Mind you, it does take some hard work to be a competent jazz player, and a lot more to be a good or great jazz player!
I mean, Eddie Van Halen and Jack White both are "Rock" guitar players, right?
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Good point Jeff. That's exactly how I feel. I started playing jazz guitar later in life like approximately 20 years ago when I was laready in my 40's. Before that, I was an electric bass player fpr 25 years and could definitely work my way around a jazz tune. Then again, guitar is more complicated than bass (at least to me) but if I spend a few more years at it, like about 40 more, I should be pretty good. Then again, I'd be 101 and probably too old to change my G string. Get it? G string? On a 101 year old. Ah hell, that's disgusting. Nevermind.
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I just think of vanilla jazz as being what I most commonly see performed. Basically it's some of the best jazz musicians in town playing standards in small combos or in a solo setting. Just my opinion...
For me it has nothing to do with extensions or substitutions... it's just what is common and tried and true. Joe Pass, Barney Kessell, Herb Ellis etc are players that I would consider vanilla. Not vanilla for me are players like Scofield, Metheny, Holdsworth, Rosenwinkel.
I like vanilla jazz and vanilla ice cream.
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To me, vanilla = plain = uninspired = Kenny G.
Do I like vanilla, it's OK, only when nothing else is available.
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To me vanilla jazz is when traditional jazz language is used and the person doesn't stretch out or experiment too much, adhering to the basic melody and harmony for the most part and outling the changes. To me Kessel sounded his best when he played simple "vanilla" jazz. Other times he would really stretch out. I think many of the great players are vanilla for the most part. Vanilla is good, and not easy IMO.
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Thanks again, all. I've got a pretty good idea where I stand at this point. Vanilla is not generally looked down on and that was what concerned me more than anything as far as my "jazz identity". Jazz can be plain but it's still jazz. It can be as plain as can be or all the way to Sonny Sharrock if anyone's heard of him. He's so far outside the box I think he doesn't know where the box is. Jazz can also be anywhere in between and I'm somewhere in there.
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I had to look this one up, sorry, it's not a usage of 'vanilla' I was familiar with. I find "ordinary or conventional, having no special features," so if that isn't what was meant, I'm sorry about that as well.
Count Basie was none of those things, or almost never, and I certainly wouldn't consider him 'ordinary,' 'conventional' or 'not special' - he had more swing than a pendulum. I wouldn't even call someone like Kenny G 'vanilla' based on this definition - he's not ordinary, he's extraordinarily trite. So I suppose 'vanilla' is People Like Us, or People Like Most of Us: perhaps good but less than outstandingly gifted players who just keep doing it because that's what we do, or in my case, did. That's OK - if everyone stood out from the crowd, how would you be able to tell? Originally Posted by hot ford coupe
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Hmm... that's a good point about the liking vanilla ice cream and vanilla jazz. I don't necessarily think vanilla is a bad thing. For me there's jazz that I stop what I'm doing and listen to and there's jazz that I listen to while I'm working on homework or something.
also if we're using the flavor metaphor I'd say that Kenny G' is closer to a half melted ice cube. Maybe with some dust or an old hair stuck to it...
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I think Kenny G. is a perfect example of vanilla. To me, it's a kind way of referring to playing that is Bland (capital B intended). Music lacking drive, rhythmic, harmonic and melodic life. Originally Posted by ESCC
Not a big Kessell fan, but he did a couple of LPs with Julie London decades ago. They were terrific albums.Last edited by ingreen; 06-04-2011 at 04:11 PM.
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