The greats have raised my standards too high

[TF]

In my car, in my home, I listen exclusively to recordings of Sonny Rollins, Oscar Peterson, Wes Montgomery, other genius musicians.

And now, last night I went to a club and heard a jazz pianist, and I felt slightly disappointed. He was good, but he wasn't as good as Erroll Garner! My enjoyment was lacking - the guy was perfectly competent, even sensitive, but I could hear his "mistakes".

Not to mention my own guitar playing. I sound OK, but I am no Jim Hall.

I have to stop listening to recorded music!

[AllanAllen]

Did you get his phone number?

[Jimmy Smith]

I'm the opposite. I can hear what's going on so I notice it when local guys are playing well and to what standard they're playing. I usually enjoy the pianists at the Smalls or Mez cam. And sometimes I'll listen to greats recordings and think that wasn't that good. But usually I'll hear the greats and think I could never do that lol.

[RJVB]

I have to stop listening to recorded music!

And not just of the greats, because of the editing out of mistakes, glitches etc. Even live recordings aren't always guaranteed to be "honest".

[DawgBone]

In my car, in my home, I listen exclusively to recordings of Sonny Rollins, Oscar Peterson, Wes Montgomery, other genius musicians.

And now, last night I went to a club and heard a jazz pianist, and I felt slightly disappointed. He was good, but he wasn't as good as Erroll Garner! My enjoyment was lacking - the guy was perfectly competent, even sensitive, but I could hear his "mistakes".

Not to mention my own guitar playing. I sound OK, but I am no Jim Hall.

I have to stop listening to recorded music!

You're one of those "arms folded musician without a gig of his own in the crowd" guys hyper analyzing everything? That's good, now go get a gig, and the piano man's number like Allan said.

You're comparing studio recordings of jazz legends to a local guy playing live. You sometimes need to temper things through the light of "live performance" because even the greats hit clams. In fact I'd argue the greats have spent more time playing than most, and so have also probably hit more clams than most too. It's all about that stage time and time spent with an instrument. It's a journey without a final destination, remember that.

[pamosmusic]

Did you get his phone number?

…. good question

[rpjazzguitar]

I think it varies. One of the all-time great guitarists sounded very sloppy to me when I heard him live. Maybe it was because he was older and had declined, or maybe he'd always played like that. Another well known name (you'd probably know it) didn't nail a single fast passage when I heard him live. He was late on everything. Both these players have made great records. I could name a few others (and I'm not naming them because I don't want to create a searchable negative for a guy who had a bad night).

OTOH, I heard Wes live, Jim Hall, Pat Metheny, Joe Pass, Chuck Wayne, Warren Nunes, Chico Pinheiro, Yotam Silberstein, the guy whose name I can't think of who played with Joey D, Mundell Lowe, George Benson -- I don't recall any clams from those guys.

[fep]

Everything is so easy to access that the extraordinary has simple become ordinary.

I was in high school in the 1970s and back then it was special when someone got an album, a group of friends would go to his house and give it a listen. We'd really listen because it was so special.

Now with the click of a mouse, I can listen to just about anything.

[JGinNJ]

I have a similar problem, the pretty good have reminded me why I get disappointed by the mediocre. I went to a jazz festival yesterday at an Ivy League university and heard a couple of the student ensembles playing with guest artists. They were really good! It was just what i needed, because I was getting kind of down on the lame playing situations I've found in the last couple of years.

[ragman1]

In my car, in my home, I listen exclusively to recordings of Sonny Rollins, Oscar Peterson, Wes Montgomery, other genius musicians.

And now, last night I went to a club and heard a jazz pianist, and I felt slightly disappointed. He was good, but he wasn't as good as Erroll Garner! My enjoyment was lacking - the guy was perfectly competent, even sensitive, but I could hear his "mistakes".

Not to mention my own guitar playing. I sound OK, but I am no Jim Hall.

I have to stop listening to recorded music!

This is strange thinking! If it wasn't for great music all we'd know would be average stuff... except we wouldn't know it was average stuff. If you see what I mean :-)

[oldane]

Cornettist Rex Steward (with the Ellington band 1934-45) once told that at an early point of his career he felt very discoragered after having heard Louis Armstrong live. For a while he considered giving up being a professional musician but he ended up realizing that Armstrong could only play one gig a time so there was room for him (Steward) after all. And as it turned out there was indeed.

Trivia: Steward was also an excellent cook. While living in France, he attended the Le Cordon Bleu school of cooking.

[ragman1]

the Le Cordon Bleu school of cooking.

Is that the one where they give you a huge plate with a tiny splodge of something in the middle* and charge you three-figure sums for it?

* Drizzled with 'jus', naturally :-)

[oldane]

Is that the one where they give you a huge plate with a tiny splodge of something in the middle* and charge you three-figure sums for it?

* Drizzled with 'jus', naturally :-)

I don't know but haute cuisine sometimes is that way. Whatever, Steward was loved by his fellow musicians and other friends for his abilities as a cook. He may have learned other things in addition to the sparse portions at the cooking school. Judging by his looks on photos, he didn't seem to have starved himself.

[ragman1]

Steward was loved by his fellow musicians and other friends for his abilities as a cook..

Oh, nothing against him, it was just my little dig at pretentious modern food presentations :-)

[RJVB]

pretentious modern food presentations :-)

Nouvelle cuisine is hardly modern anymore, unless you adopt a historian's definition of the term (and for that it's not really old enough)

[ragman1]

I think these days it's just called fine dining. And a similar restaurant in France a 'restaurant gastronomique'. As far as I know. I don't really move in those circles :-)

[RJVB]

Gastronomie — Wikipedia

A priori un "restaurant gastronomique" is just a good restaurant that aims for quality over quantity to some degree but still doesn't usually require to go for a 12-course meal, ask for several baskets of (free) bread or hit the fries shack afterwards in order to be satiated. (It's also a place where you'd use that word rather than say you're full ).
Thing is that there isn't really a different term for the restaurants where you might be able to order a demie couille de moustique farcié avec sa mousseline de trois planctons . Those target the fins gourmets who value quality and empty space over quantity, but I've never seen a restaurant call itself gourmettique or whatever the adjective would be.

I went to such a restaurant one, unknowingly (naively as my partner said later), suggesting to my then direct lab boss, a friend and said partner that my birthday would be a good pretext to check it out. First time I encountered the phenomenon that the ladies got menus without the prices printed. I forget how many courses there were (also because some didn't really look like a full one), but we weren't hungry at the end. Just our wallets. Or rather, theirs, as the 3 others decided I shouldn't pay, leaving me feeling more than a bit awkward.

[Skip Ellis]

I listen to a lot of 40s big band, etc. on XM radio and Pandora when I'm out and about in my car and often times think that there's no point in even trying to play these tunes because they've already been played/sung so well and it would just be a disappointment.....maybe better to put it in the case and be a listener from now on.

[wintermoon]

I listen to a lot of 40s big band, etc. on XM radio and Pandora when I'm out and about in my car and often times think that there's no point in even trying to play these tunes because they've already been played/sung so well and it would just be a disappointment.....maybe better to put it in the case and be a listener from now on.

If everyone that came after Duke and Basie thought that way a lot of good music wouldn't have been created.

[AllanAllen]

I listen to a lot of 40s big band, etc. on XM radio and Pandora when I'm out and about in my car and often times think that there's no point in even trying to play these tunes because they've already been played/sung so well and it would just be a disappointment.....maybe better to put it in the case and be a listener from now on.

You’re coming at this the wrong way. Instead of trying to show up Count Basie, just try to have some fun. That’s what his band was doing.

Sure, there were cutting contests and stuff, but that was all for fun. It’s dance music.

[princeplanet]

If everyone that came after Duke and Basie thought that way a lot of good music wouldn't have been created.

Perhaps, but if Jazz ceased to be recorded after 1970, there'd still be more than enough recorded Jazz to keep all future generations entertained for, well, ever..

[RLetson]

I suppose it's a matter of individual thresholds, but I find musicality* even at our weekly old-guys jam (country, folk, country rock, my half-assed swing standards). To be sure, it's usually the former bar-band players/singers who offer that kind of pleasure, but they're the ones who most effectively get inside the tunes they call. And the day-job-working jazz group that lets me sit in produces quite a few moments of genuine jazz pleasure--though to be sure it's the best-trained members who produce the most satisfying moments. Technical skills do matter--it's just that they're not the only ingredients in the recipe.

I have a thousand or more jazz recordings in my library (been accumulating since 1962) that I could sit home and listen to, and while they have educated my ears and formed my taste, I still go out and play with and listen to amateurs who find pleasure in generating music, however flawed or less-than-stunning, on the spot.

* My shorthand term for whatever it is that gets our attention and gives pleasure in a musical performance, even if it's not absolutely new, technically ambitious, or perfectly executed.

[Danny W.]

I had a very good friend in elementary and high school days who was a very good trumpet player. I wanted him to play in my band, which was doing what we now call doo wop, but he thought he wasn't good enough to do gigs because he & I once caught Lee Morgan with The Jazz Messengers. I told him that Morgan was suis generis, that not being able to play like him was not shameful and that I didn't need Lee Morgan in my band, I needed my friend, but as far as I know, he never did do any gigs even though he was perfectly capable of doing so.

Luckily, I never set my own standards that high, so I've been able to enjoy an avocation as a thoroughly mediocre guitar player who’s been gigging for 67 years so far.

Danny W.

[AllanAllen]

I had a very good friend in elementary and high school days who was a very good trumpet player. I wanted him to play in my band, which was doing what we now call doo wop, but he thought he wasn't good enough to do gigs because he & I once caught Lee Morgan with The Jazz Messengers. I told him that Morgan was suis generis, that not being able to play like him was not shameful and that I didn't need Lee Morgan in my band, I needed my friend, but as far as I know, he never did do any gigs even though he was perfectly capable of doing so.

Luckily, I never set my own standards that high, so I've been able to enjoy an avocation as a thoroughly mediocre guitar player that's been gigging for 67 years so far.

Danny W.

Yeah exactly, it's just music. Something we do for fun. The stakes just aren't that high. For every Jo Jones cymbal toss, there are thousands and thousands of jams where a patient drummer lets the new guy stumble and after says "not bad kid. Keep working at it and be sure to come back next week."

[2bornot2bop]

The greats raised standards high. That’s what made them great. I don’t stop playing flugelhorn because Freddie Hubbard plays much better than I ever will. You do it because you love it! Keep it simple.