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10-23-2021, 04:43 PM #76Dutchbopper GuestOriginally Posted by Christian Miller
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10-23-2021 04:43 PM
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Originally Posted by ArchtopHeaven
I was wondering, cos you said ‘school’ rather than ‘college’ or ‘uni’ which made me think you were American (but I often use US English here when I want to be understood by the colonials) so I thought it was strange you knew about John as no one knows him much in the US unlike Richard Thompson who obviously lives in LA.
I’m getting quite into Inside Out at the moment; probably is most obviously Miles influenced album I would say. I think he said he was really into ‘in a Silent Way’ (Danny Thompson was a bit of bop nazi and took some convincing apparently.)
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Originally Posted by Christian Miller
Arguably, NYC is not part of the US (a joke, not a joke, by a native), it is affected by the same trend toward college as that large continent off the coast of Manhattan. Talking specifically about jazz, no matter how much formal theory you study, learning to play it is still an oral/apprenticeship tradition, except that now that tradition (or a portion of it, anyway) and early-career performance opportunities are more within institutions than on the bandstand/road. I would guess that the majority of jazz musicians under age, what?, 70? have music degrees and/or post-secondary studies in some other subject but also studied and played music in college. There might be a college or two in NYC. OTOH, in much of Europe, secondary education goes past age 18 and includes vocational study and certification and/or leads to post-secondary studies in institutions that aren't (in the US sense of the word) colleges. So Europeans don't "go to college" as much as Americans do, but they're still in school until age 21; they just don't call it "college".
Anyway to the whole question of knowing "theory", I think it's more a matter of informal vs formal theory. You can't play jazz without having some organized knowledge of harmony. But that knowledge doesn't have to be formal academic knowledge. Just like you don't have to be an architect or engineer to design and build a building. you can be crafts-person whose knowledge is nearly all oral tradition and rules of thumb rather than formal architectural theory and engineering. But it's knowledge nonetheless.
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Originally Posted by John A.
I don't get the impression there's too many like that in the states, at least from interactions I've had.
Anyway to the whole question of knowing "theory", I think it's more a matter of informal vs formal theory. You can't play jazz without having some organized knowledge of harmony. But that knowledge doesn't have to be formal academic knowledge. Just like you don't have to be an architect or engineer to design and build a building. you can be crafts-person whose knowledge is nearly all oral tradition and rules of thumb rather than formal architectural theory and engineering. But it's knowledge nonetheless.
Theory
- unifying; seeks broader understandings and strong governing principles and laws
- academic
- seeks an overview or understanding
- separate from practical considerations
- may be studied exclusively of practice (so for example, literary theory or art history may be studied independently of actually writing literature or creating art)
- an end in itself
- testable and can be encapsulated in a syllabus
- suits pedagogy and classroom teaching
- can be communicated relatively quickly
Know-how
- usually quite disparate; rules of thumb, pockets of useful info, advice from experience alongside intuitive knowledge gained from personal experience
- practical
- seeks to facilitate effective 'doing'
- inseparable from practical considerations
- cannot be studied away from practice
- valued only by how well it facilitates practice
- not easily testable academically or turned into a syllabus as so many aspects are embodied or implicit. However, may easily be evaluated by experienced practitioners.
- learned 'on the job' often in trade schools, apprenticeships etc
- often takes time to internalise
So, as with all black/white dichotomies there are many shades of grey. Chord Scale Theory for example, depending on how it used might end up in either category. The teaching of figured bass in modern music education is often rather academic and classroom oriented, while in the baroque era it was a means to improvisation and so on. It is possible to have an interest and aptitude for both (we see this often in jazz), but when it comes to playing the music, any practitioner would tell you flat out - the former is dispensable, the latter is essential.
Typically the former category is associated with the professions, and the latter with the trades, but I would rather hope a practicing surgeon would have some know-how.
In general in the arts, however it is possible to trace a division between where arts education was about the training of artisans and when it is about the study of the subject for academic reasons. One can look at the development of conservatoires from their original use as trade schools for the very young into institutions that more closely resemble liberal arts colleges.
In jazz, 'theory' is almost always more practical and know-how oriented than it is in classical music. However, I think it's possible to see a steady shift towards more theoretical modes of study, especially in the literature that jazz education has produced.Last edited by Christian Miller; 10-25-2021 at 05:25 PM.
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Originally Posted by John A.
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Originally Posted by ArchtopHeaven
I'm in the UK too (North West) and am a JM fan also.
I only saw him live a few times myself from the mid-80s to 1990. Best of all was his appearance at Fairport Convention's Cropredy Festival in 1987. He headlined the Friday night in his classic acoustic duo with Danny Thompson. My abiding memory is the acoustic, echoplex-ed notes rattling about all over the place, underpinned by that amazing double bass as John, who was on great form, repeatedly rapped "gonna get your feet done, when you go to Cropredy". (I sincerely hope I didn't imagine this bit!)
Sunday's Child is also my favourite album. It's madly diverse, going from the beautiful, traditional folk of Spencer the Rover (I could weep when I hear that track) to the frankly psychotic heavy metal reggae of Root Love!
Thanks for triggering happy memories of when John was alive and I still had some hair.
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Originally Posted by Chrome Dome
I've heard amazing stories abbot John, most of which you likely already know. The best one was when he was paid to play Stone Henge and demanded the money upfront. He took the money, promptly got smashed out of his mind and then refused to play so a bunch of bikers beat him up and left him in a ditch.
Most of the time he got what was coming to him.
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Originally Posted by Christian Miller
You might enjoy this bunch.
These are two more British folk acts around at the same time, although TISB started a bit earlier. Nick Drakes best album is 5 leaves left. Danny Thompson also plays on the TISB song/album. His style is instantly recognisable. Not sure if he played with Drake. Most likely did.
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Originally Posted by ArchtopHeaven
Nick was quite influenced by jazz with his use of Danny and Ray Warleigh on flute and sax (on Bryter Lyter). His songwriting skills and voice were out of this world. His ability to write lyrics with such few words, yet still able to evoke a world of meaning, has never been equaled.
The UK just wasn't up to him, and his music never reached the States until years after his untimely death.
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Originally Posted by Tal_175
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Originally Posted by ArchtopHeaven
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Originally Posted by ArchtopHeaven
James Jamerson was a bop bass player but ended up being the daddy electric bass player of all time didn't he?
Anyway as others have noted the 'folk baroque' scene was hugely influenced by jazz. Davey Graham literally had a tune called 'Tristano' and played plenty of bop licks. An eclectic time... free thinking and highly individual musicians.
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Originally Posted by jim777
My central point, if I have one is - learning chords and so on is cool, but remember the heart of jazz is not (just) in the note choices... not special 'jazz notes' (which you can find in Nirvana songs lol, let alone Vai)
A jazz player can take a minor blues scale and make it sound like jazz. (And could do the same thing with the diminished scale or whatever, of course.)
Be hip to that or you'll wake up in ten years wondering why you still can't pay jazz. Very important, the books don't tell you that, hopefully your teacher knows that. In Philly it seems likely?
You might find it helpful to read a French grammar, but you need to learn pronunciation, accent, idiom to speak French... right? You are in a good place to do that in person. Better than me!
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Originally Posted by Christian Miller
I would say Danny Thompson was a jazz bassist at heart because you can hear him capably improvising his bass lines throughout songs.
So in that way Jazz simply means 'A musician of high caliber able to create melody and direct harmony at will, relative to an agreed framework'.
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Originally Posted by ArchtopHeaven
Now, I know some people like to say Bach was a jazzer, but actually I find that a bit dodgy culturally. Jazz, in so much as we should even use the term, refers to an African American tradition of music that happens to incorporate improvisation (as does Hindustani music, Arabic music, or rock), but also has an aesthetic, groove and social history that is all its own (which is not to say that jazz itself isn't a fusion, and that there aren't commonalities and influences from other musics.)
But the association of jazz specifically with improvisation is a quirk of western music history, and tells us more about (20th century) European musician's hang ups than anything about jazz itself. Bloody hell, Monk's Crespuscule with Nellie is one of the best things in the history jazz and not a note of that is improvised. It's a piece, as much as a Chopin prelude. It doesn't half piss me off when influential people who should know better like David bloody Elliot start talking about how jazz doesn't have an aesthetic or 'texts'.
Aside from the fact that jazz has flipping gorgeous corpus of music with a very specific aesthetic and texts in the form of many great recordings, compositions and even scores, you can talk about its social and community focus, its layered organisation, you also its connection to dance, groove and polyrhythm... all that stuff. Even the use of 'jazz' as a noun is a bit of a problem - trying to pin down something which really was quite organic once upon a time.... (not so now)
Sorry about that, a bit triggered. Reading too many music edu theorists who seem to know bugger all about anything apart from saying over and over again 'ooo Western Classical Music Education isn't it awful?'. To which I say 'yes, mate, leave me out of it and deal with your own baggage, and please don't infect us with your disease.' (Too late)
Right, with that off my chest, people think playing jazz makes more versatile and knowledgeable, quite honestly I'm not sure it does, but to be a good jazz player you need good ears, to be able to hear what's going on in an ensemble and adapt what you are doing, and a developed sense of rhythm. These are all transferable skills. But a lot of jazzers need to learn to reign it in to play nice with non jazzers....Last edited by Christian Miller; 10-30-2021 at 07:03 PM.
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Originally Posted by Christian Miller
To that end is Kenny Wheeler, Ornate Coleman, Bill Frissell, John Scofield etc.. jazz? Of course all have done more straight jazz work and use jazz musicians, or musicians trained in jazz but is Bill Frissel's 'trio live' stuff jazz? I would imagine if you played it to a 'non jazzer' they would say "turn that crap off", which is a good indicator that they would think of it as jazz
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Originally Posted by ArchtopHeaven
Oh man, Sco is massive case in point as to how much of that you can have going in your playing, on a deep level. He gets it. His playing is full of NOLA, funk, bop, even 30s swing. You don’t play with Mingus and Miles and get away without having that.
Bill? I think he’s simply one of the best musicians to grace gods earth and it wouldn’t matter to me if he could play jazz or not. The fact that he can with his own flavour and feel is icing on the cake. I remember reading a downbeat blindfold thing with one of the straightahead big hitters - christian McBride, Joshua Redman someone like that, can’t recall, listening to him on Benny’s Bugle (with NO BASS) and saying, ‘man that guitar player swings’. He’s not known for it, but he does.
And Kenny. Well, it’s fashionable in some circles to diss him as taking jazz away from the blues, but I don’t hear it. Perhaps it’s a more European flavour, but I still feel it as being a part of that tradition. The same with EST, for instance. I also love that Kenny came out of bloody trad jazz haha.
Ornette’s music swings as hard as any Blue Note record, deep blues, layered music, a commitment to community in music… etc. His early stuff practically is Hard Bop…. From a Western point of view, very eccentric, untutored, possibly a ‘naive’ artist, apparently he couldn’t even transpose a melody (according to Gunther Schuller) but who cares? To me he goes deep (it seems in the UK a lot the top free players - Orphy, Mark Sanders etc - swing as hard or harder than a lot of the straightahead guys to my ears)
yeah, absolutely jazz isn’t stacking notes on GASB standards according to some bullshit you read in a manual. Or putting on a suit and pretending to be a 1950s jazz musician. Those can be part of it, but these basic attempts to gatekeep this music are… well I have a hard time taking it seriously. There are your traditionalists - Barry Harris wouldn’t think those guys are jazz and no one is going to change Barry’s mind haha. But I think that inherent quality is something I know when I hear it and feel it - and it’s not (usually) in classical improvisation or Hindustani music for instance.
Good music doesn’t have to have anything to do with jazz of course, but IMO their music really goes to the core of what jazz is. You don’t have to limited to playing jazz of course; plenty of Bill’s music in particular transcends jazz. But jazz is a bit like truffle oil, right? We get used to eating loads of it, but outside of our little gang, a little flavour of it goes a loooooong way haha .Last edited by Christian Miller; 10-31-2021 at 07:05 AM.
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Originally Posted by Christian Miller
Broad, cheap comedy about 'Murka.
Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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Originally Posted by Hammertone
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Originally Posted by Christian Miller
I think you're being pretty generous with Scofield but I'm not against your point.
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Originally Posted by ArchtopHeaven
To me at least- Jazz goes so far beyond "Swing". Bolero, Gypsy, Bossa,,,,,,
To limit the definition of Jazz to North American roots and swing dismisses the enormous contribution and heritage to all these other jazz forms. I am no expert as to whether this music which has existed as long as that from North America. I am too new to it all. Certainly though; through Western Media and the distribution of new and exciting American cultural ideas/concepts into other 'Western' cultures through the 30s 40s 50s etc has become the predominant known form. I suspect though these forms developed independently or at least developed their own dialects to the point they are unique and just as popular- just not in our own little worlds. The further I dive into this, the more I appreciate these other forms, even the 'westernised' adopted versions of them.
EMike
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Originally Posted by ArchtopHeaven
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Originally Posted by ArchtopHeaven
Swing is certainly a defining feature. It's not a technical thing like the inequality of eighth notes, it's partly the interaction between Western meter and African diaspora concepts of rhythm, you get different flavours of that all over the Americas of course. People think it's notes, but it's rhythms. (I was lucky Phil Robson told me that like day 1; wish I'd listened to him lol.)
But as you say, it's those outside the bubble who probably get the final word on this. 'Urgghhhh it's jazz, turn it off!'
I think you're being pretty generous with Scofield but I'm not against your point.
It's more likely I'm being too generous to Kenny from that perspective, he wasn't really that sort of thing to my ears. But I like his tunes, and he had a beautiful sound.
I'm not interested in gatekeeping jazz anyway, miserable thing to do, and a total waste of time. But I am interested in relating some of the thing I hear and enjoy in the music, and have learned about from the great musicians I've been lucky to be in contact with over the years.Last edited by Christian Miller; 11-01-2021 at 07:30 PM.
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