Least favorite jazz guitar tone

[deacon Mark]

I went through a period i which I didn't like Lenny Breaux's tone. It struck me as sterile. But I've grown into it over time, I have to admit. But Stanley Jordan's sort of "harp like" (?) tone I have never found compelling.

Stanley Jordan has no tone, and the dimension of his sound is not good. To me he does not play the guitar he uses a guitar to get out his lines. As far as I am concerned, he might as well play the piano, which would sound much better.

[rpjazzguitar]

Tudo Bem! is one of my favorite albums. But, the guitar tone (Joe Pass) is completely dry and grates a little bit. I love the album in spite of the tone.

[st.bede]

Here are my thoughts…

I would think that many guitarist want to create there own sound.

If I remember correctly Santana said, “tone is your face”. I understood that to mean, that if a person wants to be immediately recognized they will have to have a tone that is different then everyone else.

I also think that everyone hears things a little differently.

In my mind, tone is only important in that how it functions in the area of physics. If it cuts through or gets lost.

I find myself not really liking anyones tone. Which makes sense since I play guitar. I should always be trying to nail down what sound I hear in my mind and, forget about everyone else except when it comes to physics.

On the other hand, after I state that I dislike x’s tone , I find myself looking at it more critically and, I see then how it is functioning, and strangely I then like it. (That assumes that a person spent some time learning how to shape a sound to make it work… there are plenty of examples of people not doing that).

When it comes to piano players, they have to settle with the piano offered. To be able to distinguish one from another is about listening to note choices, phrasing, and attack choices. For me that is much more fun then thinking about x’s guitar tone.

[wintermoon]

Scofield

can I vote twice for this?
oh, and I'll add Metheny's reverb drenched sound, blech.
[the line to skewer my opinion forms here.....]

[frabarmus]

Scofield

I love everything he does... and, yet, his tone I do not like and definitely avoid. However, it's his "trade mark tone" and I've sometimes asked my self: "would I still like Sco's playing if his tone suddenly became like Wes' or Jim Hall's?" (I should think so... yet I'm not sure) :-)

[Peter C]

Have to give a thumbs down to this thread because it's mad to have the words "not like" and "Adam Rogers" in the same sentence.

...OTOH, Gilad should lose some of that delay, especially when he's playing in his living room

[caue amaral]

Yes...Adam Rogers' tone is not one of my favorites...I like to hear more pick attack and I think his guitar tone is too closed for my personal taste. That doesn't stop me from enjoying your music! But hey... there was a guy who said bad things about Joe Pass's tone! :vitorioso::vitorioso:

[sgcim]

I didn’t know Adam was one of the Chuck Wayne school. He is a directional picker although his pick grip is certainly not the one recommended by the school and I always thought that school was very strict on that.

Anyway I won’t hear a word against AR but his straight-ahead jazz tone always seemed very dull and characterless to me. But now, I like it. It’s dry. On the album R’n’B it’s a little more open in places and even a tiny bit hairy.

AR can also bring the blues rock vibes…

I don’t really think of having treble on the amp as a problem regarding string scrape exactly. If you have that problem you may be able to solve it by changing your pick and maybe adjusting the pick angle. It’s been most noticeable for me when using benson style picking (like AR), but it really varies with pick. One effect of edge picking is it sort of rolls off the onset and treble a little without having to change your amp settings.
I hated his playing on Walter becker's album "Twelve Tracks of Whack" even more than his clean playing. That's when I realized Fagen did all the heavy lifting in SD.
for myself i sometimes roll off a little treble on the guitar (no lower than 8 if I do) and leave my amp settings flat.

A bigger problem to me is that a bright fender amp can make it harder to achieve a legato connection between the notes when you are turned up a little.

So many jazz players who have a brighter tone can sound a bit choppy and ‘picky’ to me. Swings and roundabouts.

I hated his playing on Walter Becker's album "Twelve Tracks of Whack" even more than his clean playing. That's when I realized Fagen did all the heavy lifting in SD.

[Christian Miller]

Otoh, being a good enough guitar player for legendary musicians to hire on one hand, and for guitar forum members to hate on the other, is an elevated plane.

Most of us will never be distinctive enough to dislike. Better hate than apathy!

For me SD is its own vibe. I love Krantz but can’t stand him with SD. Apparently he hated doing it as well haha

I enjoy Adam on tele too

[bluejaybill]

Always a big fan of Pat Martino, but never loved that dark tone of his. My primary guitar teacher was a big Martino guy, they both studied with Dennis Sandole, but I never understood that super dark tone of his. Some of the earlier albums are better.

In general I like a bit more "pop" to the notes, a bit brighter than sound some, and I don't really like the ES175 with tone rolled off as much as a lively L5, but that's just personal preference, a lot of players make it work. Maybe I like a bit more acoustic sound to the notes?

Not too crazy about chorus on jazz guitar. (Stern etc). Metheny I can deal with because it is so engrained in his style, and is more about modulated delay than chorus. I really dislike guitar synth whenever I've heard it though. That trumpet thing Metheny does earns an instant track skip with me.

And as much as I love Julian Lage, I sometimes wish he would play with a more straight ahead tone and back off the distortion, a little of that goes a long way. Same with Sco.

Tones I love OTOH: Benson, Burrell, Frisell, Green, Carlton, Jim Hall with Bill Evans, and of course Wes. All a matter of opinion!

[Christian Miller]

So, just to be a devils advocate… how much are we advocating that everyone plays with the same, idealised jazz tone (tm)?

[wintermoon]

I don't think anyone's advocating it, just answering a posted question.
I don't care if Sco plays w/ that awful sound or Metheny sounds like he's playing in the Grand Canyon.
They don't care what we think about their tone and shouldn't.

[omphalopsychos]

So, just to be a devils advocate… how much are we advocating that everyone plays with the same, idealised jazz tone (tm)?

Definitely not. I think that's more the idea of this post. It's not meant to be a scofield bashathon even though it seems like hatred of his tone is common. My hope was that people would hate what other people like and people would not get pissy. And we'd appreciate the catharsis of a few good roasts without creating defensiveness.



Here's a unique tone. now that's what i call omphalo psychosis.

[wintermoon]

Why do I expect Yoko Ono to suddenly show up at that show and join in?

[lammie200]

I can only think of one: Lil’ Wayne

[omphalopsychos]

I once saw Marc ribot play a duo gig with Julian Lage. That’s all I’ll say about that night.

[sgcim]

Otoh, being a good enough guitar player for legendary musicians to hire on one hand, and for guitar forum members to hate on the other, is an elevated plane.

Most of us will never be distinctive enough to dislike. Better hate than apathy!

For me SD is its own vibe. I love Krantz but can’t stand him with SD. Apparently he hated doing it as well haha

I enjoy Adam on tele too

His sound was much more percussive on that track than the AR CD I took out from the library. It's probably the Tele.
Although I didn't like that track, I can't put it down, because I could never have the chops to play that head and solo like AR did. I thought CP sounded more relaxed and swinging than AR did, but you have to admire the chops and precision on both of their parts.

But I'm kind of reminded of CP's recording of Stella. Just shoving as many notes as he could into it till there was no sense of contrast, space or melodic concept. When virtuosity detracts from the music, I'm out.

[wintermoon]

And he needs a Twin for that?
Or maybe it's just the galleries back line amp!

[Jimmy Mack]

bluejaybill: who was the guitar teacher you referred to? Just asking because my guy sounds like the same fan of Martino, and studied with Sandole. I had a hard time telling him I couldn't listen to PMartino, but I really enjoyed "El Hombre" that my teacher turned me onto. I bought a Johnny Smith after that!

[sgcim]

Definitely not. I think that's more the idea of this post. It's not meant to be a scofield bashathon even though it seems like hatred of his tone is common. My hope was that people would hate what other people like and people would not get pissy. And we'd appreciate the catharsis of a few good roasts without creating defensiveness.



Here's a unique tone. now that's what i call omphalo psychosis.

He subbed for me in a band I used to play in. By the end of the night, they wanted to kill him!
That didn't happen when Chuck Loeb subbed for me.

[Christian Miller]

I’m imagining in my head it was your top 40 covers band, mostly because I find the idea extremely funny.

(I daresay it wasn’t.)

[Spook410]

Here's a unique tone.

Not that I would listen to that all the time, but I kind of enjoyed it as an ambient while doing other stuff.

And of course I'm defensive about the tones I like and others dismiss. Lage is brilliant. His tone sucks on purpose.

[Christian Miller]

I would love to be enough of myself for some people to really hate my playing.

I mean honest, pure, respectable hatred, not just because I’m crap, or because I’m trying too hard to be different. Some people go ‘I love what you do’ and other people complain about me having bad toan on JGO. That sort of vibe.

it would mean someone somewhere cares haha

[ccroft]

now that's what i call omphalo psychosis.

Thanks for breaking down your handle. I've always wondered what it was all about. This made it a lot easier to google. And I discovered Omphalophobia

On tone: I don't like it when the guitar sounds like a '80s synthesizer.

Oh... and if John MacLaughlin is a jazz guitarist I've always thought his tone was a weak point. I say this as a devotee who saw him 3 times before '76. I do kind of like his rubber-bandy sound on Silent Way though.

[BreckerFan]

I'll be controversial by disagreeing with the the folks trying to be controversial

I am another Adam Rogers stan. I think his tone is the platonic form of jazz guitar. Every note has such clarity and purposiveness. It's full and rich. He sets his treble to 0 on his Twin and I've started doing the same lol.

I like Kurts latest tone when Kurt is doing it. I don't like when any other guitarist tries to use a POG or a HOG or whatever it is. They should stop making them and probably make it illegal for anyone else to use them.

I like Scofield's chorus tone, again really only when he's doing it. He does all the nice subtle bends and playing with pitch and combined with the chorus it sounds cool and slippery.

I have to agree with the Metheny takes tho. I like his 80s chorus thing, but on the Brecker record Time is of the Essence it sounds terrible for example.

Here's a good controversial one...Grant Green. I think his tone is just so thin and plinky and bad.

I think delay on jazz guitar is generally bad. Reverb is simply a better way to add some space.