Originally Posted by
brent.h
When I wrote my comment earlier in this thread, I excluded the following text (and kept it somewhere temporarily).
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Zooming out, knowing how difficult it can be to play jazz guitar, sometimes I wonder about these things:
How do I navigate this music?
How much do I improvise?
Improvise with the melody?
Improvise with the bop idiom?
How much rhythms to add?
When do I play?
How do I play?
What do I play?
These 'philosophical' questions could help you decide which techniques to develop or not develop, and how much speed you need or not need.
Here are the changes I noticed in my favourite musicians on fast tunes:
Early in his 1920s career, Louis Armstrong played virtuosically. Not shreddy like a rocker or a bebopper, note-y enough. By the 1930s and in the big band era, he changed his playing quite significantly. He stopped playing too many notes and would play only a few that would soar and float above everything (using a tonne of half note triplets, hemiolas, and quarter note triplets).
On the other hand, Frankie Trumbauer played with so many bends in the 1920s you'd think he was a guitar player. By the 1930s, he played fewer bends but even more notes and even faster – practically shredding triads up and down!
Pre-WW2 Prez didn't rely on too many licks, and he was really focused on asymmetry of rhythms. Post-WW2 Prez relied heavily on linear licks (do-re-mi-fa-sol style), the mordent ornaments, and honking one-note rhythms.
I'm guessing that these guys had a change in a musical philosophy, and therefore a change in their playing, technique, and ultimately speed. Perhaps check out some of your favourite players and see how they changed? That could be an inspiration to what kind of technique/chops you need and how much.
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