The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #101

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    [QUOTE=Marinero;1113131]Hi, C,
    Thanks for the honest reply. Can you provide one video of what you believe is an example of Debussy's best music? I'd like to give it a serious listen.

    La Fille aux cheveux de lin

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTjYM4lTSfM


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  3. #102

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    If measure composers by their influence (maybe not a bad reasonably objective yardstick?) it’s hard to top Debussy and Ravel. Equal, sure, but hard to beat them.

    If you measure composers by personal opinion, hard to argue it. Or find the motivation. As in: sure, whatever, I don’t care.

    So I suppose you need some sort of rationale to discuss these things. Which is BORING and kind of Germanic.

    TBH I think the French composers work on a different axis. You kind of either get it you don’t ... and Debussy is kind of that to the extreme almost .

    I don’t get passionate about Debussy but he’s a very significant figure in the history of music, for instance.

  4. #103

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Wait- on reflection I think I was referring to the MoMA gift shop as the high point of Western civilisation. You also have all the Van Goghs upstairs.

    Fair play. Good museum. Plays ALL the hits. All killer, no filler.

    But you know they are wonderful paintings?
    The Met has more Van Goghs than MoMa and a bigger gift shop, so that probably is what you meant. But MoMa is more specifically focused on modern art so and it has Starry Night, you see their (fewer) Van Goghs more contextually.

    And if you need to know more about modern painting, this is an excellent precis ...



    John

  5. #104

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    I miss the Met. The musical instrument room. The Frank Lloyd room. Egyptian wing. The breadth of their collections is really amazing. It's one of a few things I do miss about NYC. Art galleries and the architectural history on display everywhere.

  6. #105

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    Indeed! Most of the 1960-75 range cats got lots from various arts of various cultures, not just intense guitarists, but most leaders in music then.

    This is including cats like McCoy Tyner, who got a lot from orchestral music. Ravel esp in his Coltrane period. Trane learned voraciously from Slonimsky, Stravinsky, Etc (many! including Debussy and others but mostly the sad excommunicated Russians club, hah), Duke was a composer on par with Stravinsky, etc. Et. al

    But in the same point, every single rhythm used in _every_ single song of (North and South) American music, is directly derived from the traditional pre-euro influence African nations, esp Ghana and Nigeria, but all over. I studied a decent bit of Ewe and Dagomba from Ghana and it continually blew my mind hearing the traditional old world music rhythms. Mind staggering! The pre-kettle drum stuff on talking drum (or “Lunna” where my master came from in Ghana) and Gung Gong (sp. i only ever heard him speak it).

    N.S., or not: traveling to Hawaii we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center on Honolulu, and it was equally mind staggering to hear many of the *same rhythms* from ancient Polynesia!

    No idea what that means, like maybe ultimately, Earth resonances in their purest, sans electric grid, all decipher similarly. But i have no evidence past this. Just a fancy.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  7. #106

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    Quote Originally Posted by thealps
    Indeed! Most of the 1960-75 range cats got lots from various arts of various cultures, not just intense guitarists, but most leaders in music then.

    This is including cats like McCoy Tyner, who got a lot from orchestral music. Ravel esp in his Coltrane period. Trane learned voraciously from Slonimsky, Stravinsky, Etc (many! including Debussy and others but mostly the sad excommunicated Russians club, hah), Duke was a composer on par with Stravinsky, etc. Et. al

    But in the same point, every single rhythm used in _every_ single song of (North and South) American music, is directly derived from the traditional pre-euro influence African nations, esp Ghana and Nigeria, but all over. I studied a decent bit of Ewe and Dagomba from Ghana and it continually blew my mind hearing the traditional old world music rhythms. Mind staggering! The pre-kettle drum stuff on talking drum (or “Lunna” where my master came from in Ghana) and Gung Gong (sp. i only ever heard him speak it).

    N.S., or not: traveling to Hawaii we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center on Honolulu, and it was equally mind staggering to hear many of the *same rhythms* from ancient Polynesia!

    No idea what that means, like maybe ultimately, Earth resonances in their purest, sans electric grid, all decipher similarly. But i have no evidence past this. Just a fancy.

    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    It certainly seems like these rhythms are deeply embedded into humanity.

    To add to what you said, there tends to be an assumption by a lot of writers that jazz took its harmonic influence solely from Western Music. This paper challenges that assumption - have you seen it?

    https://www.jstor.org/stable/30039290?seq=1

    very interesting stuff; I don’t know very much about West African musics so I’d love to take a deeper dive at some point.

    But the idea that things like balafon influenced for instance Basie’s horn sections had the ring of truth for me.

    Jazz harmonic practices are obviously at variance with European, even while no one can question the influence. It’s more of philosophical difference of anything.

  8. #107

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    Many have wondered about the composition of Da Vinci’s Last Supper:


  9. #108

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    "I don’t get passionate about Debussy but he’s a very significant figure in the history of music, for instance." ChristianM

    Perfect!
    Play live . . . Marinero

  10. #109

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    Quote Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
    Many have wondered about the composition of Da Vinci’s Last Supper:

    Five Stars, Dr.!
    Play live . . . Marinero

  11. #110

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    It certainly seems like these rhythms are deeply embedded into humanity.
    Universalism on a pale horse.

  12. #111

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    Quote Originally Posted by thealps
    Indeed! Most of the 1960-75 range cats got lots from various arts of various cultures, not just intense guitarists, but most leaders in music then.

    This is including cats like McCoy Tyner, who got a lot from orchestral music. Ravel esp in his Coltrane period. Trane learned voraciously from Slonimsky, Stravinsky, Etc (many! including Debussy and others but mostly the sad excommunicated Russians club, hah), Duke was a composer on par with Stravinsky, etc. Et. al

    But in the same point, every single rhythm used in _every_ single song of (North and South) American music, is directly derived from the traditional pre-euro influence African nations, esp Ghana and Nigeria, but all over. I studied a decent bit of Ewe and Dagomba from Ghana and it continually blew my mind hearing the traditional old world music rhythms. Mind staggering! The pre-kettle drum stuff on talking drum (or “Lunna” where my master came from in Ghana) and Gung Gong (sp. i only ever heard him speak it).

    N.S., or not: traveling to Hawaii we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center on Honolulu, and it was equally mind staggering to hear many of the *same rhythms* from ancient Polynesia!

    No idea what that means, like maybe ultimately, Earth resonances in their purest, sans electric grid, all decipher similarly. But i have no evidence past this. Just a fancy.
    Ha. I took a jazz appreciation course in college around 1975, and our first test included a variety of Africa drum rhythms which we had to identify. In some cases, it was easier for me to use the skips and pops in the recording in order to identify the amazing complex drumming.

  13. #112

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    It certainly seems like these rhythms are deeply embedded into humanity.

    To add to what you said, there tends to be an assumption by a lot of writers that jazz took its harmonic influence solely from Western Music. This paper challenges that assumption - have you seen it?

    https://www.jstor.org/stable/30039290?seq=1

    very interesting stuff; I don’t know very much about West African musics so I’d love to take a deeper dive at some point.

    But the idea that things like balafon influenced for instance Basie’s horn sections had the ring of truth for me.

    Jazz harmonic practices are obviously at variance with European, even while no one can question the influence. It’s more of philosophical difference of anything.
    ISTM that everything is oversimplified - baroque musicians ‘swung’ 8ths and for syncopation to exist you need a meter, which traditional African music lacks - its polyrhythmic but ametrical

    also from what little I have read, traditional African harmony practices tended to be localized and unique to particular people groups, with one or two pentatonic-derived intervals - so one group would harmonize in 4ths and another in 6ths etc

  14. #113

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    Quote Originally Posted by BWV
    ISTM that everything is oversimplified - baroque musicians ‘swung’ 8ths and for syncopation to exist you need a meter, which traditional African music lacks - its polyrhythmic but ametrical

    also from what little I have read, traditional African harmony practices tended to be localized and unique to particular people groups, with one or two pentatonic-derived intervals - so one group would harmonize in 4ths and another in 6ths etc
    well the chaconne originally being vamp based, highly rhythmic music from the ‘New World’; not to mention tango and bolero later on. Classical music has always been influenced by non-European rhythm.

    I don’t think syncopation is a good description of jazz rhythm. Jazz rhythm is clave oriented to my ears; upbeats form a natural part of its rhythmic language while in Western music syncopations are generally a subversion of expectation. But I feel some of this in some of the baroque dances to a lesser extent.

  15. #114

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    Quote Originally Posted by Litterick
    Universalism on a pale horse.
    Maybe. You have to be careful. but I think rhythm has more universal aspects than harmony.
    Last edited by christianm77; 04-10-2021 at 11:39 AM.

  16. #115

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    Quote Originally Posted by thealps
    Indeed! Most of the 1960-75 range cats got lots from various arts of various cultures, not just intense guitarists, but most leaders in music then.

    This is including cats like McCoy Tyner, who got a lot from orchestral music. Ravel esp in his Coltrane period. Trane learned voraciously from Slonimsky, Stravinsky, Etc (many! including Debussy and others but mostly the sad excommunicated Russians club, hah), Duke was a composer on par with Stravinsky, etc. Et. al

    But in the same point, every single rhythm used in _every_ single song of (North and South) American music, is directly derived from the traditional pre-euro influence African nations, esp Ghana and Nigeria, but all over. I studied a decent bit of Ewe and Dagomba from Ghana and it continually blew my mind hearing the traditional old world music rhythms. Mind staggering! The pre-kettle drum stuff on talking drum (or “Lunna” where my master came from in Ghana) and Gung Gong (sp. i only ever heard him speak it).

    N.S., or not: traveling to Hawaii we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center on Honolulu, and it was equally mind staggering to hear many of the *same rhythms* from ancient Polynesia!

    No idea what that means, like maybe ultimately, Earth resonances in their purest, sans electric grid, all decipher similarly. But i have no evidence past this. Just a fancy.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  17. #116

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    goes back a long way


    After around twenty years of thinking I liked it, I realise I just don’t like Debussy very much. I do like Ravel.
    I read a biography on Bix. Very interesting, albeit, troubled life.

  18. #117

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    Quote Originally Posted by jaco
    The French composers associated with this movement had a huge influence on certain jazz artists. I know Coryell recorded several Ravel pieces, Kreisberg has a beautiful arrangement of Debussy with analysis on his mini-lesson site.Keith Jarret, Bill Evans, Pat Metheny... It's an interesting influence. Any thoughts...
    How can one not enjoy the artistic exuberance evident in this thread...? Gives pause to make one think.

    Did Impressionist Composers Save Us From The Tyranny Of The Triads
    Impressionist painters may have awakened all artists to a new way of seeing things, as earlier posts indicate, and jazz may have been influenced by the impressionist movement indirectly, but it was the impressionist composers who may have influenced jazz most directly with one unique aspect - their music exemplified the tendency to use tertiary extensions. Harmonies using chords constructed beyond the triads and dominant sevenths. A new sound, with all tensions and resolutions imaginable at the birth of the 20th century created by extending the triad and dominant seventh quatrad to ninths, elevenths, thirteenths and all their possible alterations to extend the colours of majors, minors and dominant sevenths.


    They Played Creole...
    New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz, has a fascinating history. The mark of Spain and France is still evident there in their architecture, music, culture and lifestyle. And it was not lost on New Orlean's Creole nusicians, who were well versed and highly educated in classical music of all types. They played all the classics and taught it.


    The Proof Is In The Jazz Sound
    And what is jazz, without arrangements of colourful chords, extended to the 13th. Triads and their inversions are magical, but try playing jazz with tones restricted to one octave. The 'old' harmonies of triads and their inversions gave way to the colourful sound of extended jazz chords. Thanks to the Impressionist Composers. New Orleans may be a tourist destination today, but it was once the major center of the New World and the birthplace of jazz. Even the modern musical sounds of Brazil could not exist without intervals beyond the octave.