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I think Adam Nealy did a video where Peter Erskine yelled at him for saying that Jaco didn't improvise the Donna Lee solo and Adam recanted, but it appears this recording is 2 years before the Jaco album came out and the solo is in large parts exactly the same. I'm not sure if everyone is as into this solo as I am. It's still amazing but it's maybe a bit disappointing.
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08-01-2025 07:16 PM
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Jazz can be like that sometimes.
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and the problem is what?
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Uh well, apparently a lot of jazz is improvised and in general the expectation is that solos are at least mostly improvised? In general playing a canned solo is kind of odd, regardless of how amazing it is.
Originally Posted by rictroll
It's still an amazing piece of composition and one of my favorites. It was pretty odd hearing that he was playing the same solo 2 years prior to the famous recording.
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Everyone repeats themselves. The fundamental reality of having a recognizable musical style is based on the tendency to repeat ourselves. I think it is aspirational that jazz musicians improvise something new in every solo, but realistically none of us do that and most of us recycle ideas all the time.
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Wait until those upset find out about comping takes...
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I had this kind of ‘disappointment’ a few times when I heard some great solos repeated almost completely by the player in other records… Originally Posted by sully75
it actually moved to the idea the improvisation is not in the intention of the player but it is in the character of performance and composition how it is perceived by listener.
Lots of pre composed music sounds as if it is improvised.
but how do we feel that character?
also the fact that we know : jazz solo should be improvised gives us certain pre-conditions of perception
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But, it's still excellent.
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The expectation that genius level jazz musicians can play innumerable improvised lines each night without repeating themselves? Originally Posted by rictroll
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We all agree that (in Jazz) a solo must be spontaneous and improvised. But reality exists. To those who think that Jazz Greats always play different solos, I have a question.
Many professional musicians have been playing for decades and play hundreds of concerts and sometimes hundreds of jam sessions every year. The songs are often the same in the same keys. Greats like Joe Pass, George Benson, Pat Metheny, Mike Stern, Bruce Forman, Gary Burton, Michael Brecker, Jaco Pastorius, John Scofield, and many more...do you think they can play COMPLETELY NEW melodic lines and chords after playing the same song a thousand times?
Do you think they're amazed by what comes out of their instrument?
No...the better and more experienced the musician, the LESS THEY IMPROVISE!
A beginner improvises, but a Jazz Great doesn't. This doesn't mean the solos will be the same, but they will certainly be VERY SIMILAR. It would be enough to record and transcribe all the solos of a good jazz musician during an entire tour and be sure that the solo on a given piece will be very, very similar from one evening to the next. There is also a musical genre closely linked to free jazz and the "radical improvisers" who, by not using known harmonic structures and melodies, create something very different from "mainstream jazz," which in fact rarely repeats itself. But this is not the place to compare Lee Ritenour with Fred Frith.
Ettore
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I'd put it down to laziness. If Jaco had worked more on the tune, he wouldn't have had to take recourse to his pre-composed solo.
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It's an old idea even in jazz, to have a set solo, or at least the outline of one, for a particular song. It's part of what makes a song a song, rather than set of changes to blow over.
The idea might be less popular than in the olden times, probably coinciding with the idea of the player as artist. But your Webster, Hodges, that era player, often had them.
And I'd very much also like to know how often people work something out ahead of a recording date
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Just wondering, did people actually listen to this recording before commenting?
It's not "recycling" ideas. It's playing the same licks in the same order in the same places.
I still find it an inspiring composition, he played some crazy shit there and it's an amazing sound. But "recycling" phrases it is not. This is not a 1930s recording, I think it's a reasonable assumption to think that at that time, it was largely improvised. I think people would be surprised if a Pat Martino solo from that era were note for note the same two times in a row. Or Herbie Hancock or Wayne Shorter.
Anyway it still remains one of my favorite solos but I think it's not totally out of left field to suggest that it's a bit disappointing that it's the same solo from 2 years prior. It's still on my short list of things to transcribe. I was just surprised by this.
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In Countdown, Coltrane plays the same line over the same chords throughout the solo. Not sure that was his intention, or if it he heard it that way spontaneously. Maybe an end justifies the means sort of concept.
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How would Erskine know? He wasn't there, he doesn't appear anywhere on Jaco's eponymous album, he didn't start playing with Jaco until ~2 years after that album was released... Originally Posted by sully75
btw, it's considered common knowledge that Jaco also pre-composed the bass solo on "Havona" from Weather Report's Heavy Weather album. :shrugs:
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Yeah I think Coltrane was critiqued for using some of the same patterns in different versions of Giant Steps as well but that would probably be more of a "recycling ideas" thing then a composition. Also...writing an entirely new set of chord changes that will remain difficult forever more, you probably get a pass. Originally Posted by StevenA
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Totally. Sometimes I want to dislike Adam Neely for no good reason but he is oftentimes correct in the things he said. I forget which is the video where he talked about Erskine critiquing him but he didn't push back. It's totally clear that he was correct from listening to this. Originally Posted by Bob_Ross
I hate to say that as much as I love Jaco's playing, Weather Report I mostly find annoying. I should check out that tune though.
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I actually have transcribed some of it... but I gave up when I encountered a fast bit whose pitches I struggled to make out... Originally Posted by sully75
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Doesn't bother me in the slightest.
There are 1000s Donna Lees played by many people and improvised each time different that I don't give a crap about. Jaco I listen.
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I put the false part of your thesis in bold. Originally Posted by Irishmuso
The whole solo being worked out is unusual, but less unusual than people expect.
But let’s not also forget that Jaco was 23 and 25 years old for the recordings you posted. How are the live solos? Did He expand the solo then?
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Any album by jazz players where you have multiple takes of the same tune, typically sets with titles like "The Complete XXX Sessions" will reveal the player playing substantially the same solo for each take. Charlie Parker's famous "solo break" that was so hard to play required several takes to get right, but hey, it was the same break each time. Some of the solos got played so many times they simply got given names and were put out there as original tunes based on the changes of the standard.
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I remember reading that Benny Goodman was so knocked out by Charlie Christian's "Stardust" solo that he wanted Charlie to play it that way every time. It became part of the song.
Joe Pass said, "We're not making it up off the top of our head!"
This is the one way in which improv is like conversation: if you talk about a subject frequently---death, taxes, what have you---you will find in transcriptions of your talk familiar phrases, images, even tendencies of stress placement that you were not conscious of at the time. This should surprise no one. It's not as if when you improvise (or speak extemporaneously) that you become a different person with a different past, different habits, different skills, different preferences.
I wish jazz musicians were LESS concerned with spontaneity and more concerned with playing good solos with conviction.
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I don't know, to me this is fairly simple. I thought he improvised the solo to a large extent but really he improvised very little. As I said, it's still very impressive and a masterful composition.
The things people are comparing are not really relevant. Charlie Parker playing the same lick 2x in one recording session is not similar to playing mostly the same solo 2 years apart.
I still love Jaco's music and have since I was a kid but diminishing the value of improvisation is weird to me. In general I think it's reasonable to assume that people are not playing the same exact thing the same way when they solo. Certainly for learning that's a strategy.
I was just mostly making an observation. It's a bit disappointing/surprising to me but musically it's still pretty incredible.
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I improvise because I am too lazy to work out solos before hand.
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Here's a little secret: solos played at 220+ bps (more or less) are never improvised, no one can make lines up at that speed - vary them a bit, sure, but the architecture has been composed.
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