Why is that?

[Christian Miller]

There’s also players like Dan Wilson who sound like they are picking everything, but by their own analysis, aren’t.

[Christian Miller]

Ooh what about Mike Stern? I think of him as mr alternate picker.

[pamosmusic]

There’s also players like Dan Wilson who sound like they are picking everything, but by their own analysis, aren’t.

Yeah he and Cecil both … and I imagine benson by extension … use the slurs to keep the string groupings workable for their machine gun picking. But in that case, the slurs are still essential to that specific thing. And it swings like crazy.

[Christian Miller]

Yeah he and Cecil both … and I imagine benson by extension … use the slurs to keep the string groupings workable for their machine gun picking. But in that case, the slurs are still essential to that specific thing. And it swings like crazy.

Yeah it’s a different type of swing - like Martino. What I think of as straight 8 pocket. The slurs are there to help with the picking.

So that’s a bit different… but it doesn’t seem like a general rule that straight ahead jazzers play this way when you have Wes, Grant, Raney and so on, who are much more hornlike (in the prez/bird sense.) let alone, Jim hall, Metheny etc. or Kurt.

It’s very personal.

Tbf I think this all wayyy overthinking what was a very superficial comment from someone who doesn’t know jazz guitar from a hole in the road on a rock guitar forum… but it is an interesting topic.

[frabarmus]

Ooh what about Mike Stern? I think of him as mr alternate picker.

Besides his "loud Bebop phrasing", he also does a lot of note-bending, though, which comes from Blues/Rock, IMO.

[Christian Miller]

@pamos To back up your other post, i think Jimmy Raney said bop should be straight and the phrasing comes from irregular groupings etc.

in fact if you listen to bird slow he has quite a pronounced inequality, but I see what Jimmy said as being useful to the student. Most students overdot… which relates to the ‘feel’ thread.

[Christian Miller]

Besides his "loud Bebop phrasing", he also does a lot of note-bending, though, which comes from Blues/Rock, IMO.

Yeah I think that’s almost something that’s ‘tacked on’ - he can play straight bop lines for ages without a bent note.

He usually adds in a little blues lick for punctuation (a bit like Bird) and then goes full blues rock when he wants to build the solo and take it to the next level. A bit like Wes with his octaves and chord soloing.

I really rate Mike as a linear bop player actually. And his pocket is great. I can see why miles liked him, he was a good combination between the old and new.

otoh it would be funny if one of the guy who slurs the least is one of the rockier sounding jazzers haha

[AllanAllen]

Thanks.

But as I have been trying to explain to my many critics on this thread, it is not a matter of individual guitarists. It is the conventions of the music. Extraordinary musicians do extraordinary things, but jazz guitar music doesn't require those things. We all know its necessary components, because they are discussed on this forum daily: changes, chord melody, arpeggios, all that jazz. We don't say much at all about hammer-ons and pull-offs because they are not essential parts of jazz guitar. But go to a rock guitar forum and you will find they are the subject of everyday conversation, because those techniques are the bread and butter of blues-based rock.

It’s basic technique, so basic that we can’t even argue about the right way to hammer on.

You know this place, if a debate is there we will have it. But you’re declaring the sky is always red because someone wrote about a sunset and closing your eyes when we say “look up it’s blue right now.”

[SandChannel]

You can say more than 'Oh dear.' Keep it up. But I disagree. These embellishments are not essential. Most jazz guitarists did not use them. They are not required to define jazz guitar. One does not think it unusual to hear a jazz guitarist who does not use them.

What is the point of gatekeeping? Jazz is not static. It develops and changes with new language and techniques added all the time. Julian Lage doesn't sound like Scott Joplin, but they are both playing jazz and part of the tradition. Who knows - maybe Joplin would have really gotten off on a Jupiter synth and a delay pedal....

[pamosmusic]

What is the point of gatekeeping? Jazz is not static. It develops and changes with new language and techniques added all the time. Julian Lage doesn't sound like Scott Joplin, but they are both playing jazz and part of the tradition. Who knows - maybe Joplin would have really gotten off on a Jupiter synth and a delay pedal....

Gate-keeping implies that someone is excluding certain musicians or approaches because they don’t fit inside of a somewhat conservative view of what constitutes “jazz.”

This isn’t a conservative view. It’s just an incorrect one. Jim Halls first solo album … Herb Ellis … Billy Bean … all these guys slur all the time. Charlie Christian doesn’t very much. But he does some. At any rate, you’d have to go that far back to have this be a relevant standard at all.

[Christian Miller]

Interesting he plays more slurred than I would have thought…. Lots of lower neighbours slurred into notes on the beat. Classic stuff.

[Doctor Jeff]

.... and then there is all that in between. J.J.Cale is one example: Quiet, laid back, subdued, often swinging, harmonically simple - and clever in the way he could nail a groove. He was an inspiration for Mark Knopler/Dire Straits and the later Eric Clapton among others.

Love JJ Cale but he didn’t invent the shuffle-style playing. It was around for decades in blues, country and skiffle. Come to think of it gypsy jazz has a lot of that shuffle feel.

It is cool how certain people just by their playing style and attitude become icons to younger musicians.

I mean Joe Pass didn’t invent fingerstyle guitar either, but he sure influenced a lot of people to play that way—and buy a 175. (I speak from personal experience.)

[Doctor Jeff]

How many guitarists use their thumbs? Not many, if any. He was one of a kind.

Well some of us don’t want to get that ginormous callus he had. Benson talks about Wes “digging in” with his callus to get a heavy attack.

Benson certainly plays a lot with his thumb. Derek Trucks—not a jazz player, but shall we say “jazz adjacent” uses his thumb.

I do it sometimes with strumming just for a different effect. It seems like a big commitment to play exclusively with your thumb, though.

[pamosmusic]

Interesting he plays more slurred than I would have thought…. Lots of lower neighbours slurred into notes on the beat. Classic stuff.

Goes to show, I guess. I suppose I shouldn’t have spouted off about someone I was only familiar with in passing.

I stand corrected.

[grahambop]

A lot of the jazz guitarists I see at gigs here in the UK are playing 335s and using delay pedals, occasional distortion and generally mixing rock techniques in with the more traditional jazz sounds (e.g. Ant Law, David Preston).

In fact I can’t recall the last time I saw an archtop in action (other than Howard Alden and Jim Mullen).

So I think these distinctions are becoming increasingly blurred, jazz guitar is quite a broad church these days.

[rpjazzguitar]

A lot of jazz sounds better with a good deal of harmonic movement. Part of the appeal.

A lot of rock sounds great with limited harmonic movement. Part of the appeal.

There's more than one way to make appealing music.

[604bourne123]

Rock like WILD ONE has a audience so does JImmIe HENDRIX so harmonic stimulation in jazz is different it’s there but off to the side of th general listening audience

[rpjazzguitar]

I think that rock, country and blues, more often, use a range of techniques to change the way a note speaks. Hammers, slurs, pull offs, bends, shakes, mixing in open strings, Bigsby or whammy, finger vibrato, electronic processing and whatever I'm forgetting.

Not that jazz players never do it, but you do sometimes hear jazz solos that seem like they could have been played on piano -- an instrument with limited ability to speak notes differently.

I think that history of jazz guitar, and to an extent, what is thought of as jazz guitar, is rooted in a time when the instruments themselves limited what could be done. Archtops with heavy strings aren't especially conducive to some kinds of expressiveness.

I don't know the rich history of country guitar well enough to have an opinion about how it evolved. But, it seems clear that country music looked for ways to be expressive with guitar.

In rock, I think the relatively early adoption of the solid body instrument, lighter strings, the whammy bar and electronics all made a difference. Some of that was rooted in country and blues. I'm not sure who to name as early (pre British invasion) pioneers. Les Paul?

I think that we will see more jazz players exploiting these aspects of the instrument. Or maybe I've missed some. I think there's more that can be done, but I say that as someone who hasn't listened to a great many younger players.

[604bourne123]

So country and western doesn’t do that

[Litterick]

What is the point of gatekeeping? Jazz is not static. It develops and changes with new language and techniques added all the time. Julian Lage doesn't sound like Scott Joplin, but they are both playing jazz and part of the tradition. Who knows - maybe Joplin would have really gotten off on a Jupiter synth and a delay pedal....

I know it is not static, but we have categories for reasons. We make distinctions.

[Litterick]

I don’t know who “we” is in this context, but any serious examination of jazz guitar will tell you that slurring is absolutely an essential part of jazz guitar.

You and I have different ideas about what is essential. I do not think technique is essential. I do not believe that examples of musicians who use slurs prove them to be essential. Technique is one of the qualities of jazz that changes, over time and place, and in the hands of individual musicians.

And that is all I have to say. I am leaving this thread, because I do not want to read any more insults from Christian.

[Peter C]

Rock players (I know what I'm talking about) use limited ingredients and lotsa herbs, spices and sauces in an attempt to keep their dishes interesting. Jazz players have at their disposal many more ingredients, so adding flavours is kind of optional, down to personal taste etc. Of course they (we) use hammer-ons and -offs if they fit. It's not like we're doing the E blues Rory Gallagher thing (D string, 2nd fret)!

[emanresu]

In classical guitar music a slur creates the perfect legato and it is kinda essential for the genre. The slur gets special attention, assortment of technical tricks to make it not to lose too much tone-wise. It tends to happen on nylon strings, so it gets addressed quite extensively.
When I was in jazz college, they treated slurs as shortcuts. It was baffling. I couldn't get why a perfect legato would be a nono. And the other baffling thing was - why to practice picking every note the same way and compress it with the tone knob.

Now, I know its not like that anymore. But it really was a strange experience back then.

[emanresu]

And that is all I have to say. I am leaving this thread, because I do not want to read any more insults from Christian.

I once made a joke that went wrong with Christian. I was joking about me but it could be read as joking about him.

Anyway, the only way to live peacefully in the Internet is never to go there.. to those sensitive places. There is no need for it, nothing to be gained from it and it can be interpreted differently than expected.
All criticizms has to be thoroughly written out so every word means exactly one thing and nothing more. Or else...
Or else it can hit the fan quickly. That took 10 years of trial-error to figure out

[pamosmusic]

You and I have different ideas about what is essential. I do not think technique is essential. I do not believe that examples of musicians who use slurs prove them to be essential. Technique is one of the qualities of jazz that changes, over time and place, and in the hands of individual musicians.

And that is all I have to say. I am leaving this thread, because I do not want to read any more insults from Christian.

This is a pretty common thing I find with students. They think the technique is separate from the sound. Technique is how you produce the sound. You can’t just slur or not slur depending on how you feel like executing it … slurring sounds different.

Strike the open E, hammer on with each finger in succession. The pinkie sounds pretty weak by the end. This is obvious, but we still act like slurring has no implication for the sound of the music.

And slurring isn’t a flash in the pan technical innovation. Sor and Giuliani etudes. Arban. Kreutzer. These are considered essential components of music making and absolutely change the sound of the music.

Youre going to say that you know slurring is old and that you know slurring changes the sound of the note, but that you don’t think that difference is essential to jazz.

I will reply that you should find a session trumpet player who plays Easter Sundays, orchestral rehearsals, the occasional salsa gig, and second book on a big band hit — and ask him how much he thinks about slurring in those eighth note lines.