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Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
Second, I agree with you that overall Coltrane is accessible. I think he is a good example because, when I was young, I was listening to his Newport 65 (I think that is the album), and I felt like I was not fully getting it. Later when I came back to that album, it all made sense. There are pieces or areas of music, I still have a hard time fully grasping. Even though my favorite 12 tone row composer is Berg, I do not really connect with his opera Wozzec .
Yes in part it is about accessibility, but there is more to that. Comfort with a experience is sometimes a factor in preferences.
We could make a long list of preferences that would contain bunches of dichotomies. These dichotomies would be spoken in the same sentence when we asked someone why they liked something.
For example, “I like it when I can understand what is happening but it is not boring”. Typically that type of statement is saying: I like it when I can predict something but not too much. As a musician, what does that mean? Do I use common chord progressions and then throw in a modulation to another key for a bit, and come back around to the original key? ... or maybe I sub some chords out... those devices seemed to work extremely well for the Beatles. (... and many others).
I do not think anyone can fully understand why they like or dislike something.
As an artist, I think what is of upmost importance is connecting as deeply to your vision of what art is, as possible. The problem with that is, no one can make a judgement about that process and if it has been fully actualized but the artist themselves.
Now there is another story. What if you reach that moment when you have so expressed that inner vision? Do you continue on that path? Do you say, “I did it I am done”? Do you start to see other’s needs as more important?
Which each of those decisions, what values do they contain? What strengths and what weaknesses? How could you even decide?
my instincts suggest that BB King and George Benson had that moment.
I myself will never have that moment. I can explain why, but that beings up a whole set of questions.
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09-30-2021 02:14 PM
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Originally Posted by st.bede
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Originally Posted by Cunamara
George Benson'''s guitar at the Musical Instrument Museum, Phoenix, Arizona, USA Stock Photo - Alamy
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Originally Posted by jazzkritter
There was, unfortunately, obvious pressure on many players to impress with speed and Tal was not immune, otherwise attempting Cherokee at 400 bpm would not have happened. OK if you're Art Tatum, or Oscar Peterson on a piano, but guitar picking complex jazz lines (Django, GB, Birelli more so than McLaughlin, Dimeola retc) at warp speeds sounds sloppy to me once the tempo gets faster than one can play cleanly. YMMV...
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Back in 1974, I heard George Benson play at the old Jazz Showcase on Rush Street in Chicago. He played really well. That was before he started singing. After that, I didn’t pay attention to him.
This brings me to one of my secret pet peeves. Listening to a new jazz album by an instrumentalist, and suddenly, an unwanted vocalist appears as if out of nowhere. Always a bummer for me… but I am a radical instrumental music purist.
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T
Originally Posted by vernon
At one point, I had to learn how to sing. I did around two years of lessons. I had to change my thoughts about vocal stuff. It is a very different process learning to sing, then any other instrument, that I have learned to play. My vocal teacher would drive me crazy with her metaphors. One day I realized how many metaphors that I used in playing other instruments. Things came together a bit.
I still find myself falling back into that habit, of thinking, “these stupid words are distracting me from the music”, and “I do not what to think about some girl form someplace I have no idea how to spell”. That just happened yesterday. The guitar solo was good.
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Originally Posted by vernon
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Originally Posted by Marcel_A
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He is obviously a floating lover. His passionate playing and musical soulfulnesscis great with the floating pu thinner sound, especially in the lower registers.
Maybe it is the recording, but that Gibson sound not as good as later Ibanez.
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Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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Originally Posted by vernon
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I really do not understand the general whining about Benson's sold out topic. Lets suppose he never played jazz, and never improvized in his soul recordings. Even this case he would be one the greatest soul musician, and this forum nobody argued it.
Now he created plus at least dozen great jazz albums, and ironically this makes he less.
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We should be grateful that a jazz musician made an effort to improve pop music. I wonder how many jazz musicians and listeners came to jazz through Benson.
That said, what I do dislike about Benson is the product endorsing: the overpriced Thomastik-Infeld strings, the overpriced Fender amp, etc.
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Originally Posted by Litterick
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Originally Posted by smallie_stalker
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Originally Posted by vernon
Little Georgie Benson was singing on the street as a youngster, and if I recall from his autobiography also in clubs before he had a record contract.
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As a relative newbie to trying to play jazz, I lack the knowledge to declare someone the "best" or "greatest". I love what I've heard by George, Wes, Grant Green, Kessel, Martino, Pass and countless others.
What fascinates me is that with many of these players, I listen and am amazed at the jaw-dropping timing, note choice, groove, swing, drive etc. that I hear in their music.
What makes George Benson unique, at least to me, is that he does all this and consistently leaves me grinning from ear to ear as well. There's just something so joyous in his playing that is utterly infectious and positive. I can't really explain it (and I suppose I'm talking about the earlier albums like "Cookbook" or the CTS records as that's what I have) but it's quite special and something that he seems to do way more than anyone else.
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Originally Posted by Gabor
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Originally Posted by Marcel_A
Now, if you're talking about fuuuuusion or post fusion or whatever we want to call it these days, that's different.
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This is a jazz guitarist, mind you. Take Five was not exactly "Chamber Jazz" in his hands, was it?
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Wow
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Originally Posted by Donplaysguitar
Besides John McLaughlin's this is my favourite Naima interpretation
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Originally Posted by Litterick
What about the Ibanez George Benson Guitars? Do you dislike them?
Just wondering.
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No. Signature guitars are commonplace. But putting one's name to a host of products, everything in the chain, is vulgar.
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Originally Posted by Litterick
I see. So it's the quantity of endorsement that is vulgar?
Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah (Christian Scott)
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