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I think you're referring to gigs of a certain type or types, I was talking about live music in general. I'm not disputing that there may be fewer small venues, less work for jazz players, we've talked about it often enough before. What I was referring to was that there's more live music because more people get to hear it. There is a greater variety of live music, especially large-scale things. Maybe there isn't more work, but that's a different matter, though I have the feeling there are probably more working musicians, as well.
Originally Posted by jzucker
As for young people dancing to CDs, as you call it, well, I'm a very sporadic disco-goer at my age, maybe once or twice a year or less, but most of the discos I'm aware of seem to have some sort of concert two or three times a week, which they simply used not to do. Small discos are much rarer than they used to be, it's true - discos are fewer but bigger, so they get more people in.
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06-17-2011 11:29 AM
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I'll vouch for Chicago. The Blues City is not kind to the Blues' precocious little brother, jazz. Originally Posted by jzucker
I'd say there's less than 10 real jazz clubs left in the city and burbs. The places in the city--they got some names playing there...you ain't gonna just stumble upon a gig at the showcase or even the green mill.
We got big players (not gonna name names, but I'm talking world class cats) playing for folks eating spaghetti.
It's tough. I'm going to be working with a piano player at a few places in the far west suburbs this summer (or as I call anything past 355, "Iowa"), but these are really cocktail music gigs for people who will find the music to be classy aural wallpaper. Good thing this piano cat knows how to play some real jazz--we're gonna have our fun, just quietly enough so folks can sip their martini's too, and the few in the audience who actually appreciate jazz will get to hear some.
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only if there's no looper involvedthe few in the audience who actually appreciate jazz will get to hear some
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This thread is really a continuation of an older thread. Actually, when I first got back into active gigging, I found backing tracks could nicely fill the absence of good musicians in the small town I live in. Truthfully, I would far rather play with live musicians with eye contact who listen to each other and interract during each performance. Playing live gives me a musical high that no machine can ever ever produce. However, I use BIAB with "Realtracks" (made up with live musicians) for practise and learning new concepts. Unfortunately, there are no bass players and good keyboard players to choose from within 50 miles of my hometown and if I have an ongoing gig and the bass player or the keyboard player can't make it, I do use the BIAB tracks to fill for them. This kind of problem probably would not exist if I lived in or near a bigger city.
wiz
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I'm not so sure of that... I saw the orchestrion show, which I thought was great. If I remember correctly, all but one of the tunes backing tracks were canned... you could have recorded those parts and put them in a looper and performed the same music (though you'd lose all the visual impact of seeing all those machines moving around). Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
There was one song where he explained what was going on and he created/recorded via midi and looping one instrument at a time for the A section, but the B section which included a modulation appeared as though a miracle had occured (I'm guessing that was preprogramed like the rest of the tunes).
For most of that show Metheny was essential using an extremely elaborate looper with pre-programed midi instructions.
Maybe he can get away with it because of who he is and because it was all orginal material. It came off as though he was some sort of mad scientist/engineer/musician.
The crowd was awe struck and totally dug it.
Imo, the bottom line is for most of the show he was using pre-programed backing tracks. (There where a couple of tunes at the begining that he played as solo guitar pieces (with no accompainment).Last edited by fep; 06-17-2011 at 01:42 PM.
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God bless Pete Miller's steakhouse! (if I 355 is "Iowa", I'm thinking Evanston is "Tete-de-Frommage" Land, I.e., "Wisco" Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
I'll vouch for Chicago. The Blues City is not kind to the Blues' precocious little brother, jazz.
I'd say there's less than 10 real jazz clubs left in the city and burbs. The places in the city--they got some names playing there...you ain't gonna just stumble upon a gig at the showcase or even the green mill.
We got big players (not gonna name names, but I'm talking world class cats) playing for folks eating spaghetti.
It's tough. I'm going to be working with a piano player at a few places in the far west suburbs this summer (or as I call anything past 355, "Iowa"), but these are really cocktail music gigs for people who will find the music to be classy aural wallpaper. Good thing this piano cat knows how to play some real jazz--we're gonna have our fun, just quietly enough so folks can sip their martini's too, and the few in the audience who actually appreciate jazz will get to hear some.
) where said world class musicians can come off the road after a successful world tour with Sonny Rollins and be reminded again that rich north shore yuppies will not tolerate incredible music well played in the background to spoil their very important and utterly vital private conversations .
shit, it's not just Chicago, dare I say it, even Mecca itself --even Kreisberg has a regular Manhattan gig competing with cooks slinging spaghetti....
Commerce aside, theres a valid musical reason AGAINST backing tracks. We play a beautiful instrument that can be as big as an orchestra or, unlike a piano, as intimate and personal as the human voice. That's what's been ingrained into me by my teacher. My teacher played professionally for over 50 years, the last 25-30 mainly as a solo guitarist. That's exactly how he viewed it--we have a beautiful, diverse and personal musical instrument--take advantage of its polyphonic implications, the possibility to mimic sections of an orchestra, as well as it's ability to mimic the human voice. (and for the record, mainly without technology, effects, et al, he did it ALL, from performing Bach or Vivaldi concertos with the CSO/Grant Park Symphonies, comping for years in big bands, accompanying the world's best and noted jazz singers from Sinatra, Garland, Vaghan etc on down).
Thus, if we need backing tracks that means --to me, anyway, that we have not developed sufficiently as players enough to take advantage of the possibilities of our instrument.
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you nailed it right there.Maybe he can get away with it because of who he is
bill frizzle can loop, and it's great, but 99 percent of us shouldn't, cause we suck at looping.
using that logic, if that was the only way of approaching music, we would all have to quit playing.
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I got nothing against looping. I got a Digitech Loop Station in my rig, although I'm planning on using it differently than most people use it--to loop other instruments, not guitar, live on the fly--eg, dobro, harmonium, little percussion instruments, Korg Wavedrum. Its my personal vision of music and music presentation, thats all. Originally Posted by markf
you nailed it right there.
bill frizzle can loop, and it's great, but 99 percent of us shouldn't, cause we suck at looping.
using that logic, if that was the only way of approaching music, we would all have to quit playing.
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I think that's a big part of it. I also think a looper works better than aebersold tracks if you can play in time...I think those canned backing tracks have their place but on the gig ain't one of them IMO. Originally Posted by fep
Having said that, I have heard several backing track / looped performances by Matt Garrison that were wonderfully creative but it wasn't just playing head and soloing over aebersold. Far from it...
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I think it's a shame that music has so little value that economic factors have people replacing real musicians with technology. Some folks are into the electronic thing, but for those who aren't, it sucks. Do you realize how many lives it affects when a live production replaces a pit orchestra with pre-programmed music? Most musicians are totally ignorant of the bigger picture. Someday, they won't need real musicians at all, and it will start to sink in. Then it will be too late. Rant.
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Rant, I'll give you rant. The first real musicians who won't be needed will be those how haven't learned how to keep up, and they'll have no-one but themselves to blame. To begin with, we weren't talking about orchestras being replaced by taped music, but about the legitimacy of a single musician using backing tracks. Which is like absolutely any other activity, from car mechanics to banking - things change, you have to adapt. If you've been left behind, catch up if you can, then keep up. If you can't, it's your problem, don't whine about it. And don't claim some moral high ground just because you think yours is an 'artistic' activity - there are people far worthier than you in the ranks of the unemployed. Someone tries to improve his employability using a bit of technology, who invests in equipment, gear, the time required to learn how to manipulate it, well, you're perfectly entitled not to want to listen to someone who has done all that, but you think you can sneer at him because it isn't "authentic" enough? You're a wanker. Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo
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Did someone pee in your cheerios? I think several nerves got struck.
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I was waiting for this to get a little ugly.
Heres the deal, at least in the states. I can't speak to the situation in Europe and the UK, but I understand that it's different.
1. As a amateur or hobbyist, you're on the honor system. If you ever wanna be a pro, don't screw pros (people who make music for a living) out of their gigs. If you do, and it gets known, don't ever expect to get a call for a good gig, and don't expect to be making music with folks other than fellow amateurs.
2. If you're a pro doing it to put food on the table, then you do what you do. If you resort to some methods of getting the gig, again, don't expect to get the call.
3. There's always gonna be people out there gigging steadily making "bad" music. In any genre. There's a acoustic rock duo in my neighborhood that plays nothing but Dave Matthews/Tim Reynolds covers. Artisitcally, they're as vacant as it gets. They gig weekly. That's life. It's not fair. Life never is. In my professional life, I had 10 years of Superior ratings, was Chair of my department, and was responsible for the biggest and most successful advanced placement program in the school. I still got laid off last summer when budgets were cut and folks were let go by seniority.
I mention that not to bitch, but to tell it like it is. If you want to maintain your artistic integrity and gig, it's a tough road. The chips are stacked against you. If you beleive it's worth taking, then it absolutely is, and you reserve every right to be mad as hell at the hack taking your gigs... If being a musician is your path in life and you need to take some less than desireable gigs to make ends meet while you pursue your artistic ideal, then do it.
Nobody's forced into being a musician. It's a chosen path. We do it because we love it, or we're called to it. So look out for each other. If you're gonna have a "every man for himself" attitude, enjoy those solo gigs.
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I really think some of you are making a mountain out of a molehill.
I don't see musician being put out of work by someone using backing tracks, not in my town. Those were solo gigs from the get go. Backing tracks are not responsible for the end of the world.
And if you don't think you can be artistic with backing tracks... just check out Metheny's Orchestrion.
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But surely any "backing tracks" would have been MIDI instructions to the various orchestrion acoustic instruments? That is very different sonically to an audio recording in a looper. With regard to the modulation issue, and I'm not saying this is the explanation, MIDI would in theory also allow Pat to change key and mute/unmute instruments on the fly. Originally Posted by fep
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I think that's it. If the technology is used with sincere creative intent, maybe, say, using the machine-like quality of a loop as an artistic feature,that's a positive thing. In performance, if it is used as a substitute for something better, I wouldn't want to listen to it personally. For practice or demonstration/teaching everything has a use. imo ... Originally Posted by jzucker
Having said that, I prefer to practice with a looper rather than backing tracks as it exposes more weaknesses I need to work onLast edited by Bill C; 06-18-2011 at 07:30 AM. Reason: clarification
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Well, I have to weigh in, since I am a full-time working pro in a culture where live music seems less and less important, at the same time that the economy is tanked and the culture is swirling the bowl. I use backing tracks for solo gigs. I don't have to, nobody asked me to, but I have decided that creating good, exciting rhythm tracks to play and/or sing over is an artistic pursuit as much as playing is. I would never use Abersold or Karoake tracks, mainly because, by and large, they suck, but I have not only created a playlist of about 100 tunes, I have recently purchased a looper, and, as a 7-string player, this is as much fun as I have had in years, whether in a solo or group context. Just last night I did my first singing gig is a club/restaurant (after 4 decades of being an instrumentalist), and between the solo guitar stuff for the dinner hour (much of it really just solo) and the dance material later on, the combination of good-sounding, lively tracks and the right tune choices made my debut a minor triumph, and I was hired for the rest of the summer to do this gig when I am available. This is a small place which will, quite literally, never be able to afford a band of the level I would need to do the gig right, but now everybody's happy, and I really like playing over my own bass and rhythm tracks, which I can tweak and change during the week so that they don't get stale. I get to do Wes tunes over orchestra, Benson tunes with B3, bossas with the nylon, etc., and I get to pay the bills. Even the musicians that showed up had to admit that it all worked.
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Originally Posted by ronjazz
thanks. Your entire post sums up my thoughts perfectly.
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Yes. They don't swing and except in the cases where they use some top players (I think I have a Coltrane CD with Ron Carter) sound like a bad club date where all the guests wear yachting clothes and ascot ties. Originally Posted by ronjazz
For me, however, jazz is a reactive music and I want to bounce ideas off of live players and craft what I'm doing based on what they are doing. That's pretty tough when the backing is canned and always the same. But there are places that just can't hire more than two cats, or in many cases don't want certain instruments, like drums. If that's who they hire it's not undercutting. And it's also not undercutting if they were hiring bands and stopped, unless of course you want to stand in solidarity with the bands that have been cut. You can't eat that however, or use it to pay your electric bill. I have a buddy who does pop stuff in a variety of venues and has recorded all his own backing tracks. He has over a thousand tunes; he started with cassettes, then went to CDs, now has everything on an IPOD. For what he does it sounds great.
I hate Karaoke with a passion. One night some friends asked me to meet them at a bar, not telling me that it was happening there that night. I was talking to the guy running it and he told me he was jazz drummer and wasn't getting any work so he started hosting these things. He had worked at this bar previously with a variety of groups. That's the business. It sucks.
Ronjazz, I would love to hear what you do with it. And you work all the time in Mystic? Wow. I grew up outside of NYC and spent many summers in that general area (Old Saybrook Essex, etc). That's awesome. You must have to really hustle. If you ever play at The Griswold Inn, let me know.
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I'm working on putting a really nice DJ rig together, and if things work out, I'll be working 5 or 6 nights a week. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep every live musician out of work in a 50 mile radius, Too bad. Ka-ching! $$$
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moon must be full soon, the internets are getting kind of weird.
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Wow. Originally Posted by max chill
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Well, we should have figured. From the rest of your posts, it's pretty clear you don't play jazz or guitar. Or do you? Oh! An idea! Post about that. Originally Posted by max chill
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lol Bill Frizzle
for shizzle
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"Ronjazz, I would love to hear what you do with it. And you work all the time in Mystic? Wow. I grew up outside of NYC and spent many summers in that general area (Old Saybrook Essex, etc). That's awesome. You must have to really hustle. If you ever play at The Griswold Inn, let me know."
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Paynow, I have played the Gris in the past, but the duo I was presenting was "too sophisticated" for the room, not something I haven't heard before. Of course, living on the CT shoreline, I travel extensively to do any meaningful jazz work, running the Boston-Baltimore axis with either my Flamenco-jazz trio Vuélo or my World Music trio Trio Amaroso. I also do a lot of solo work, from senior facilities to restaurants, clubs, and concert halls. My main rig is the Bose L1 system, I have 3 for band work, but generally 1 is plenty for the trio stuff, I use Digitech pedals for effects and looping, vocals direct into the Bose with no effects. My guitars are set up with RMC pickups for acoustic sounds and driving a synth: electric is a tricked-out Samick Royale 3 with Duncan and RMC pickups, acoustic is an Aparicio Flamenco with RMC pickup. For 7-strings, I have a Bartolex nylon with a Fishman Presys (soon to be replaced by RMC) and a hand-made archtop by Sal Pace, with EMG and Roland synth pups. My concert/recording guitars are by Lester Devoe, two of the finest Flamenco guitars in the world.
I agree fully with you on the reacting with other players thing, I really miss it when I have to use tracks, but, since I am a full-time performer, I need to do what it takes to eat and keep on playing. Fortunately, I do get a fair amount of work with groups, including a local big band, great for keeping the reading chops up, as well as corporate and casino work. The looping thing is brand-new to me, but I am already finding all sorts of ways to make it interesting, including putting my percussionist into the looper with me via a small mixer.
And it's a great way to put DJs out of work.
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