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I have a confession to make.
I don't listen to anyone who came out after 1970. I mean at all. I never listen to any contemporary players on any instrument
I play a 1954 Gibson 175 through a Polytone cube from the 60s. no effects, no digital anything, I tune up by ear and I don't even use reverb
the tunes I play and the way I play them are right out of 1955
The style I play is outdated and an anachronism. It is my life's work and it is the style that I fell in love with 40 years ago and it is the style I'll play until I'm deep in the cold, cold ground
I guess I see jazz as a dead language. I don't seek to add to it, I simply try and recreate it as best I can and my model is the stack of old vinyl records that I've kept for all these years
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01-21-2016 01:30 PM
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Dude, you're missing out! .... There was soooooo much good stuff between 1960 and, er, 1965!
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There are worse places to be stuck.....
You have a 175 and a polytone, what more could one want?
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I think jazz is a dead language. To me it's a bit like baroque counterpoint.
Originally Posted by Nate Miller
But that's not to say you can't play present day jazz influenced music :-) I like Bill Frisell for that reason. I don't see him as jazz really, although jazz is part of the mix.
I think what's changed is the swing, or rather the lack of it now. That's why I have trouble even calling contemporary jazz 'jazz' - to me it's post-jazz, often fusion with an acoustic rhythm section. I don't have a problem with it, but it has a completely different value system to my ears than the music of Wes Montgomery for example... It's not the same music. It's more like progressive rock or something.
People accuse me of being a frightful mouldy fig when I say this, but I don't dislike this music. I play in a 55-bar Chris Potter style band myself, and have loads of eclectic jazz-infuenced but non-swing based projects going on. I'm resigned to the fact that I am a modern guitarist and as such, I won't be able to recapture that swing myself, either. That world has gone.
I really like listening to some the modern guys, and some of them can even swing (Peter Bernstein, mostly, to be fair haha.) But it's a very different vibe, and why shouldn't it be?
Anyway you are talking to one who spends a lot of time playing the guitar as it was played in the late 30s. So for me, you are from the future! Filthy modernist!
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"To me it's a bit like baroque counterpoint"
that's interesting, Chris, that is EXACTLY the example I've used before myself
"playing the guitar as it was played in the late 30s" -- ah, an old stodge! I like the tunes out of that era a lot. And yes, I'm a modernist. I actually have a John Coltrane influence. Otherwise I would have had to call this thread "stuck in the 40s"
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I'm stuck in the 50s as well (except for Wes). All the music styles I love to play really blossomed in that decade, with the exception of Western Swing.
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I prefer the view that jazz is a strategy for making music that draws on a particular canon of work / tradition rather than a style - so love the older players....................but also love the more contemporary sounds.
But in the end I think you should listen and play the music you love..............life's too short to get caught up with what people think you should do or not when it comes to jazz
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"....................but also love the more contemporary sounds." Blasphamy!
...just kidding, buddy
it is interesting to me to hear what some younger players have to say on this subject. You know, when I started out, young people liked rock and old people liked jazz. Silly me, I thought that as people got older, their taste shifted toward jazz. So as a young guy, I figured everybody gets older, so if I play jazz, how can I lose, right?
well, it turns out that all those older people who liked jazz when I was young are all DEAD now!
but I fell in love with the music when I was a teenager. I was 16 and doing gigs downtown and staying out till 4 in the morning and I thought "this is the life!"
you know, a lot of the tunes I play I have played for more than 30 years now. I think I said yesterday that I hadn't played a tune I didn't know in 20 years, and that's about the truth. Even after all those years, I still find new things in these tunes all the time
for me there is a strange melancholy to this music. I think a lot of old friends, old mentors long gone, and more than anything a time in our society that is gone now
maybe that's why I stay stuck in the 50s
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I admire you Nate, up to a point at least, and I envy you too. Sometimes the world seems to be going topsy turvy - not your issue perhaps - but in any case, you have latched on to something beautiful and won't let go.
As for me, I too have a confession to make: I won't put away my Spyro Gyra or Weather Report albums, nor my James Taylor, Paul Simon, Eva Cassidy, or Jordan Smith (Voice 2015 winner) albums, nor a lot of Afro Cuban and Putumayo stuff etc.
Nevertheless, there is something so gently but powerfully charming about your OP, at least for me. I guess it's the affirmation that some of the things I grew up with, in this case the jazz, haven't worn or tarnished with time. On the contrary, they shine, excite, and inspire every bit as beautifully as they did 60+ years ago, when I was a kid standing in front of an AM radio or victrola.
And they really are worth a lifetime of dedication.
Thanks for posting mate.
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it doesnt matter if your stuck in one era. every era has good music, choose one or more or all. I just don't like it when people say there's no more good music being made. bullshit there's always good music being made somewhere.
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I read the OP again & what jumped out at me was the line....."...The style I play is outdated and an anachronism."
I'm working on Straighten Up and Fly Right at the moment - to play with my singer - our reference is the Nat King Cole - so trying to get a nice swing feel with the comping - with a walking bass line underneath & to keep the single lines moving - light & bright.
Its not a slavish copy but it is clearly coming out of a 30s swing feel - the reason we are playing it that way is because it feels right for the song (to us) - equally we do Wonderful World & initially play it with a discordant 2 chord vamp for the versus' & chorus - a dark contrast to the sentiment of the lyrics and the melody; before going back to the original changes.
I suppose my point is if you are committed to what you are playing; it works for you & it isn't a cynical attempt to make music - its all good - human emotion and commitment to create art / music doesn't age...........
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I read in Nate's post what I feel about the music. As Barry Harris says, "I'm a dyed in the wool bebopper." I don't listen to anything stylistically after Wes. I have played a 1951 Epiphone Zephyr Regent since 1970 and had one Polytone for 20 years and a couple others, tune by ear and never use reverb. In my old age I've bought a few new D'Angelico guitars and a Henriksen to replace the dead Polytones but haven't changed my style of playing. The old tunes each still teach a lesson, whether it is a chord change, finding a new way to voice them or lesson in creating a memorable melody. When I hear a modern player play a thousand notes in an endless string of eight notes I don't remember anything. When I listen to the music from the era I enjoy, mostly the 1950's to mid-60's, there are melodic phrases that stand out, hip variations on chord changes, different chord voicings, etc. It's an endless source of inspiration.
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I have a deep and abiding love for the swing era and the pre-modal jazz period. Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Scott Hamilton whom as a RI resident I grew up with including Duke Robillard in my misspent youth. Scott was always a musician grounded in the music of a previous era, but he is the real deal.
There is a heavy scent of jazz elitism that occasionally becomes evident in discussions here about pre versus post modal Miles Davis styling. Yes, he was a cool mothertrucker. But the elitism is so self referential it is amusing.
But don't misunderstand - my current interests are Kurt Rosenwinkel and Andreas Oberg. Good players are beyond the stylistic limits of their time.Last edited by targuit; 01-22-2016 at 03:36 PM.
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People can like whatever they like, play whatever they want to play.
I don't mind dead languages. I work daily with ancient (dead) Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Akkadian, and sometimes even Egyptian hieroglyphic (middle Egyptian to be precise!).
Still, I don't see any particular virtue or advantage of cutting off my musical exposure at a certain date, or at a certain moment of musical evolution. No, I don't like most of the new kinds of playing in the jazz "stream," but I am not the custodian of the True Definition of Authentic Jazz, so if it's played in the jazz community, I am fine calling it jazz. I can also respect the artistry and try to learn from it.
It takes all kinds, to be sure. I'm glad they are all here.
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Me too. As long as they don't take an elitist attitude or bully others into submission. Especially when their names are most definitely not up on a big marquee or in a feature article in Downbeat.
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01-22-2016, 05:30 PM #16destinytot Guest
Posting at 10.29, playing at 10.30 - '5os style. How cool is that?
lol
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Mike - I lived in Italy for over a decade. Loved it for the most part. I met my wife in a bar in Padova where I happened to be singing with an older pianist who was quite good. Never got to Spain unfortunately, but hopefully there is still time. But I never really got into Pino's music. In the sense that I'm ignorant of it. But I will take a listen.
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Lawson-Stone - so you are an archeologist? Sounds cool to me. Though my Egyptian hieroglyphics are a bit rusty.
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I am a professor of Old Testament studies, which is heavy on languages. I take students to Israel every summer to excavate and have studied archaeology, but wouldn't claim to be an archaeologist. I'm a biblical scholar who has done archaeology.
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It's not everyday Scott Hamilton gets props on a guitar forum, and it's nice to see. FWIW I too am a big Scott Hamilton fan. He's got great chops, swings beautifully, and can melt your heart with a ballad. Originally Posted by targuit
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all very interesting - can i just say Originally Posted by christianm77
how on earth can you resign yourself to that? seriously. i've maybe been very lucky to play a lot with old(er) guys who have no thought to do anything but swing - and i just don't think of it as an historical phenomenon - its just a musical imperative.
and i relate very strongly to the op - except to say that nobody has ever swung in the way bird did. or in the way bud powell did. or fats navarro. or sonny rollins or bill evans or billie holiday or louis armstrong
what is new and fresh and important about all these guys and girls (and so many more of course) is that they have their own way of making it feel good - of swinging. bill evans destroys the meter all the time and so does billie holiday - but they've almost nothing in common - the feel has almost nothing in common. swing and swinging is not an historical thing - its a personal thing. the whole point of learning the music - as i see it - is to learn to swing. if you do that in an 'authentic' way - you'll probably not swing quite the way anyone else has. and that would really be something.
and p. bernstein is as good an example as one could hope to find. he plays totally straight ahead jazz guitar - he swings all the time - and he sounds wonderfully fresh.
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When I first moved to New Orleans 16 years ago the first gig I went to see was upstairs at the Funky Butt, it was Delfeo Marsalis, Henry Butler, Herlin Riley and Bill Huntington. They swung like a swing set in a tornado, super bad, unbelievably good. After having spent the previous ten years in Boston where the swing is more "modern", the New Orleans swing felt new and refreshing. Time laid out in a clear concise manner with the intention of making you incapable of sitting still. That's what I like, and aim to do. It reminds me of the first time I saw Stevie Ray Vaughan in 1985, I couldn't believe my ears that the old way of playing was new again. I see all around me 20 year olds playing the old old jazz and the song book is from the 20's and 30's. I think the older I get the more I want to explore the older styles. I like a lot of different eras and give equal love to Ed Bickert and Wes and Kurt god I love when Kurt plays standards and obviously I'm alive now but I certainly wish at times that I coulda been a player in the 1950's that's just the sound of jazz that sounds like jazz to me.
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jazz, like all living languages, evolves.
If we look at how we qualify jazz, as a language, than we know this to be true (I won't start a convo on linguistics)
Everything else is BS if you don't understand the fundamental purpose of language:
COMMUNICATION
So, whatever you play, you have to communicate something. That's it. Elsewise, you're just pushing waves of air into the void.
Communicate, listen, interact. Don't get caught up in the stasis of the ego. Reach out and communicate
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You can still create Art without communication, but you can't create Art without expression.
It's not the same thing (unless you see it as self communication?). Sure, once upon a time Jazz was meant to be "heard", just like a jingle is meant to be heard... but since it's evolution, I say L'art pour L'art, baby!
Anyway, we get carried away with the whole "Jazz is a language" thing. There are many ways in which it is decidedly not.
Hmmm, now there's an idea for a thread!
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Jason Marsslis posted this article on trad vs modern jazz. It's not clear cut nor black and white .
That of Lowly Pwuth: Modern Jazz vs. Trad Jazz
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