Stuck in the 50s

**Nate Miller** · 01-24-2016, 10:47 AM

"jazz, like all living languages, evolves" - but this is where we disagree. I think jazz, bebop jazz, is a dead language. It can't evolve or it becomes something else, and that something else may have its merits, but it will no longer be bop.

you see, even if you put me in with electric keyboards and whatever it is that constitutes an evolution of the jazz ensamble, I will still play like it is 1955. And I will be out of place.

this is the true nature of my confession

I play a style that is frozen in time

**princeplanet** · 01-24-2016, 11:24 AM

Originally Posted by Nate Miller

"jazz, like all living languages, evolves" - but this is where we disagree. I think jazz, bebop jazz, is a dead language. It can't evolve or it becomes something else, and that something else may have its merits, but it will no longer be bop.

you see, even if you put me in with electric keyboards and whatever it is that constitutes an evolution of the jazz ensamble, I will still play like it is 1955. And I will be out of place.

this is the true nature of my confession

I play a style that is frozen in time

Hmmm, see, I always thought Hard Bop, for one, was just getting warmed up before it got discarded in the rush to be more "contemporary" as each new year in the 60's rolled by.... so much unfulfilled promise! Even when the Young Lions era revisited, there was still much to explore, and there still is. Same goes (even more so?) for the Post Bop era. Not so many champions there, yet so much more fertile vistas of sound to explore before any capitulation is necessary.

Any way, New York is full of Hard Bop meets Modern right now, that if you asked them they'd probably say "What Rennaissance? It never went away!"...

**HighSpeedSpoon** · 01-24-2016, 03:35 PM

Originally Posted by Nate Miller

"jazz, like all living languages, evolves" - but this is where we disagree. I think jazz, bebop jazz, is a dead language. It can't evolve or it becomes something else, and that something else may have its merits, but it will no longer be bop.

you see, even if you put me in with electric keyboards and whatever it is that constitutes an evolution of the jazz ensamble, I will still play like it is 1955. And I will be out of place.

this is the true nature of my confession

I play a style that is frozen in time

Hey Nate,

One could say the same thing about Baroque, Rococo, or Classical. People still play them, and people still eagerly listen to them being played. The labels have stabilized, and perhaps the things being labeled are not evolving. But the languages are not dead because they still live in the hearts of players and audiences alike.

Am missing something Nate? Do my remarks seem on point and sensible to you?

**Nate Miller** · 01-25-2016, 09:53 AM

a dead language is one that is no longer growing and evolving. Dead languages may still be known to living people, its just that the language itself is no longer growing. Generally speaking, when the only place the language exists is in the halls of academia, then it time to hold the wake.

English is a very living language with new words and phrases being added to the lexicon every year.

Latin is an example of a dead language. It is still used in medicine and science, and there are still some Catholic Masses said in Latin here and there, but the language itself is not changing anymore

I don't see bop being a dead language as a negative thing at all. Just like baroque music, it is a very highly evolved style that is very demanding and for some people it is a lot of fun to play

**rkwestcoast** · 01-25-2016, 04:35 PM

"I don't see bop being a dead language as a negative thing at all. Just like baroque music, it is a very highly evolved style that is very demanding and for some people it is a lot of fun to play"

I was at a Dave Liebman masterclass a couple of years ago & he spoke about bebop being the lingua franca for contemporary jazz as it not only gave musicians a common language to use through-out the world but set a standard both in terms of song canon (ie standards!) and musicianship - he said you don't have to learn it...........but it really helps in terms of understanding the music - where it came from & where it went & allowed you to work with other jazz players.............

**Groyniad** · 01-25-2016, 05:18 PM

Originally Posted by Nate Miller

"jazz, like all living languages, evolves" - but this is where we disagree. I think jazz, bebop jazz, is a dead language. It can't evolve or it becomes something else, and that something else may have its merits, but it will no longer be bop.

you see, even if you put me in with electric keyboards and whatever it is that constitutes an evolution of the jazz ensamble, I will still play like it is 1955. And I will be out of place.

this is the true nature of my confession

I play a style that is frozen in time

peter bernstein - bill evans

these players (and bill evans is on his own in terms of importance i think) evolve the bop world without abandoning it for a different one.

i don't think keith jarrett does - or chick corea - for example. they leave it behind - and i'm not happy. but bill evans shows that it can evolve without becoming extinct.

and maybe say mark murphy too.

**gggomez** · 01-25-2016, 06:26 PM

Nate Miller that is cool and the world needs your view. Share the music man. It would be pretty boring if we were all morfing into new versions of Gilad Hekselman.

I love the new stuff, it so excites me. At the same time I love to listen to George Barnes and Barney Kessel. I would love to go to a gig and let you and your mates take me back to that era. Keep it alive man, keep it real, there are plenty of people listening.

destinytot · 02-04-2016, 01:38 PM

Bebop. Forever.

**Nate Miller** · 02-04-2016, 01:43 PM

Originally Posted by destinytot

Bebop. Forever.

nice to see you still around, brother

I was afraid you were going to take your fish and hit the road

**rictroll** · 02-04-2016, 08:07 PM

Originally Posted by Groyniad

peter bernstein - bill evans

these players (and bill evans is on his own in terms of importance i think) evolve the bop world without abandoning it for a different one.

i don't think keith jarrett does - or chick corea - for example. they leave it behind - and i'm not happy. but bill evans shows that it can evolve without becoming extinct.

and maybe say mark murphy too.

Boy, I don't understand the comment about Corea and Jarrett at all.

**nick1994** · 02-04-2016, 08:14 PM

Originally Posted by destinytot

Bebop. Forever.

yeah!! as long as we're playing it on solidbodies through tube amps with with distortion and chorus...otherwise you're doing it wrong

**christianm77** · 02-05-2016, 08:16 AM

Originally Posted by nick1994

yeah!! as long as we're playing it on solidbodies through tube amps with with distortion and chorus...otherwise you're doing it wrong

Mike Stern is a great bebop guitarist IMO.

Bop is like Bach, it sounds great regardless of instrumentation.

**HighSpeedSpoon** · 02-05-2016, 10:00 AM

deleted

**targuit** · 02-06-2016, 04:36 AM

I loved the article NSJ linked. Because I live that situation. I grew up taking classical guitar lessons at the same time I was devouring Beatles' records and rock and folk music. Later transitioning through a 'fusion' thing to jazz. Somewhere along the line learning the Great American Songbook became an objective because once I discovered the "classic" traditional jazz, they were songs that I listened to Nat Cole or Sinatra or Bennett sing when I was a kid. The songs and rhythms and stylings that fascinated me.

I still remember vividly the first time I heard Jobim's The Girl From Ipanema in the early Sixties. Taking a bath listening to the radio in the house I grew up in. I was just hooked on the bossa rhythms and sounds. Traditional jazz songs were a part of the 'sound track' of my life, along with James Taylor, CSNY. Then later in my twenties I got into Chick Correa, Return to Forever, Weather Report. Ralph Towner and other contemporary composers.

Today, my motto is "music is music". I am not a "jazz snob" who disdains listening to Andrea Bocelli playing standards like Besame Mucho with David Foster and an orchestra. But I think my abiding passion is a search for beauty and sensuality and lyricism. That is what tickles my fancy. If it is beautiful and gives me a chill, I am more inclined to play it.

The one thing that I find hard not to disdain is the faux intellectualism of jazz academia which has conditioned a generation or two to "look down" on traditional jazz and promoted the "jazzturbation" thing that has helped to consign jazz to that massive 1% market share of the big music pie. But that was the road taken and no one can change history or impose their tastes and standards on history.

Not that anyone gives a crap what I think nor should they. We are all just a grain of sand on the beach.

**mr. beaumont** · 02-06-2016, 10:38 AM

Jazz has an inferiority complex? News to me.

**Stevebol** · 02-06-2016, 10:43 AM

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

Jazz has an inferiority complex? News to me.

Yes. Many still look to classical music as some kind of model. As in, what would classical music do? Maybe it's not much of a complex at this point but jazz needs to break free once and for all.
It's a complete school of music. people argue about how much you need to know about classical music to be a jazz musician. I don't think you need to know much at all.

**Stevebol** · 02-06-2016, 12:38 PM

This is definitely Bach;

**Stevebol** · 02-06-2016, 12:41 PM

The only guitar player I ever heard who had a vibrato as sublime as Menuhin is Hendrix.

**lawson-stone** · 02-06-2016, 12:58 PM

Originally Posted by Stevebol

The only guitar player I ever heard who had a vibrato as sublime as Menuhin is Hendrix.

Jimmy Raney actually used a good bit of vibrato. His bop lines always seemed to me to teeter on the brink of collapsing completely, but he always stayed on the wire. The vibrato underscored the deft slip-slide quality of his bop lines. I never noticed it really until I started trying to learn a couple of his solos, and then I heard it. Amazing.

**lawson-stone** · 02-06-2016, 01:00 PM

My problem with "trapped in the 50's" is summed up in a couple of thoughts.

No Wes Montgomery Smokin' at the Half Note. I just heard "No Blues" from that album on JazzRadio.com driving to the office today and about wrecked my truck.

No Joe Pass For Django or Virtuoso. Still for me the Masters Thesis and PhD Dissertation of jazz guitar.

No Tal Farlow, No Jim Hall.

Hmmm. Maybe we need to bump it up to the 60's.

**Stringswinger** · 02-06-2016, 01:14 PM

Originally Posted by Stevebol

The only guitar player I ever heard who had a vibrato as sublime as Menuhin is Hendrix.

Perhaps you have missed out on Django and his progeny...they use vibrato in their style to great effect.

We should all play what moves us. Life is short. There is room for all kinds of musical expression.

That said, those whose skill set is, ahem, "lacking" ought to stay in the confines of their living rooms. When players of dubious skill play jazz in public, it does not help to advance the art form with the public.

The super modern jazz with indulgent twenty minute solos that lack melody, (discernible)harmony and (apparent) rhythm bores me, but if folks want to pay to see that stuff, more power to the guys who do it. I like to see fingers snapping, toes tapping and people dancing when I play.

My favorite styles of jazz happened from say 1935-1975, but I respect that which happened before and that which has happened since. If I had to pick an absolute favorite, it would be hard bop from 1955-1965 with swing from 1940-1950 being a close second.

YMMV

**targuit** · 02-06-2016, 02:56 PM

Well, not that it's hot news, but today I am preparing to home record one of those songs from the pre-Bop era that is just mysteriously gorgeous to me and sublime - Tenderly. I just finished rehearsing the tune with my Tascam DR 05. I record a 'rhythm' track to rehearse playing the melody and improv. This great recorder is not the multi-track (4) version which I somewhat regret not getting, as the quality of the recordings and fidelity is shockingly good for a small recorder. Anyway I was just rehearsing over the track for recording this afternoon in my living room 'studio'.

I'm trying to develop a solo and duet or trio type repertoire with vocals with songs adaptable to solo or group performance. If I were sitting in a bar nursing a Jack Daniels on the rocks and a broken heart, I'd rather hear someone performing this song well than most any other style. Or dancing with a beautiful woman, this song is an aphrodisiac. As a musician what I truly love is the openness of the chord progression to soloing jazz style on a classical guitar. The freedom of this ballad. This to me is jazz.

And since it's time to make this post all about me (given that I can't make it all about you

), I spent last night pining away over my illicit desire - to own a Daniel Slaman archtop nylon string. Of course I can't begin to afford one, but when I win the Lottery....

**mr. beaumont** · 02-06-2016, 07:26 PM

Originally Posted by Stevebol

Yes. Many still look to classical music as some kind of model. As in, what would classical music do? Maybe it's not much of a complex at this point but jazz needs to break free once and for all.
It's a complete school of music. people argue about how much you need to know about classical music to be a jazz musician. I don't think you need to know much at all.

I've never heard anybody say you need to know classical to play jazz.

**nick1994** · 02-06-2016, 07:32 PM

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

I've never heard anybody say you need to know classical to play jazz.

you don't need to know classical but it wouldn't hurt if you did

**christianm77** · 02-06-2016, 09:42 PM

Perhaps the point is that jazz has made some serious attempts to ape the classical music world - as it becomes more and more of an art music, the obvious direction. Jazz professors probably feel a bit like imposters compared to their classical colleagues.

One example is the use of terminology which becomes less 'street' and more 'high-falutin' while adding no extra meaning, and often taking away from clarity. The emphasis on harmony in jazz education, and so on.

Big mistake if you ask me, but then no one does.

I say this out of respect for the completely different way that jazz musicians approach music. Emulating classical European practices can only limit this...