On-the-spot Jazz Guitar Improvisers?

[legsilver]

Hey guys,

A while ago a guitar teacher was telling me about how a lot of great solos weren't really improvised on the spot, they may have been worked out a little ahead of time.

So, who are some great "on-the-spot" improvisers?

Thanks

Sam

[GuitarGerry]

Hey guys,

A while ago a guitar teacher was telling me about how a lot of great solos weren't really improvised on the spot, they may have been worked out a little ahead of time.

So, who are some great "on-the-spot" improvisers?

Thanks

Sam

I think this says more about your guitar teacher. Perhaps you can say that about rock/blues/pop guitarists, but not in jazz. Just listen to the output of any of the greats, and sure you'll hear pet licks, but they're clearly improvising.

[GuitarGerry]

Just to add something, go see some Jazz live. Preferably the same artist on different nights. No way can someone memorize extended solos for a whole set, and play a different memorized set the following night...all the proof you need.

[Peter Alton]

Now, I'm not a jazz great. I'm made my living mostly playing pop, but with improvised solos. I do recall a jazz residency I had some time ago.It was lounge/dinner jazz. How I handled it was, first I'd play the melody, then the improvisation, as long as I could keep an idea going & not bore the audience, then melody, or part melody & out. What happened in the improvisation was I knew the melody, I knew the chord support, and in my practice, I would work out some sort of variation on that melody & chord structure. In performance, I generally remembered what I'd done, but I always varied it, and extended it. I got some great ,original ( for me ) results. Like most jazzers, I'm singing along with the improvisation I'm playing. This helps with phrasing, as I have to take breath. Having target notes for various parts of the song also helps, and connecting single string work with turn around chords can also be effective. It's at this point, you realize how wonderful the 'Greats' are !

[coolvinny]

He may have been referring to the lines within the solo, not the solo itself. Everyone works out or transcribes some lines beforehand and spends time running them through every key and some tunes - that's called practice! Some of that will come out in your playing.

Hey guys,

A while ago a guitar teacher was telling me about how a lot of great solos weren't really improvised on the spot, they may have been worked out a little ahead of time.

So, who are some great "on-the-spot" improvisers?

Thanks

Sam

[Klatu]

Many point to Sonny Rollins as being one of the best pure improvisers in jazz.

[henryrobinett]

Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Wayne Shorter come to mind.

[55bar]

Krantz

[Irez87]

I think many are divided on this topic here on the thread. I try to play something new every time I play. Many people forget that you can apply old material to new contexts and all of a sudden, it's new material. Keep it exciting, and keep reaching. And get over the self edit of mistakes (I need to follow that last one )

[christianm77]

Krantz

Bless you. Here, have a hanky.

[christianm77]

I try not to think to much about what I do on the gig. It's possible to practice improvising slowly.

[Lazz]

Sam.

There is some truth in what your teacher says.

While currently many players aim never to repeat themselves and to be brilliant every time out (and those we consider the greatest possess the required commitment to the moment that enables this to happen) in the past, when swing was king and when jazz was popular enough to keep big bands on the road, things were different.

With those big bands like Duke E, f'rinstance, when a solo spot evolved and developed over time into something considered appropriately coherent and perfect, the player would be encouraged to repeat it the next night. And then, when folk bought the records and loved them and then went along to see the band, their expectation was to hear the solo just like it was on the record. Professional musicians being keen to keep working work, many important seminal players (like Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young for example) willingly embraced the wisdom (or duty) of giving the audience what it wanted. That's just show business - if you don't please your audience, you don't have an audience. Often that meant playing the same solo when it was called for. And so what was once spontaneous creation becomes crafted and polished. But, is it consequently any lesser art?

Jazzers don't do like that today.
But they used to.

[christianm77]

Sam.

There is some truth in what your teacher says.

While currently many players aim never to repeat themselves and to be brilliant every time out (and those we consider the greatest possess the required commitment to the moment that enables this to happen) in the past, when swing was king and when jazz was popular enough to keep big bands on the road, things were different.

With those big bands like Duke E, f'rinstance, when a solo spot evolved and developed over time into something considered appropriately coherent and perfect, the player would be encouraged to repeat it the next night. And then, when folk bought the records and loved them and then went along to see the band, their expectation was to hear the solo just like it was on the record. Professional musicians being keen to keep working work, many important seminal players (like Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young for example) willingly embraced the wisdom (or duty) of giving the audience what it wanted. That's just show business - if you don't please your audience, you don't have an audience. Often that meant playing the same solo when it was called for. And so what was once spontaneous creation becomes crafted and polished. But, is it consequently any lesser art?

Jazzers don't do like that today.
But they used to.

That's true.

Jazzers certainly don't do it like that today, largely because the commercial pressure no longer exists.

[Lazz]

the commercial pressure no longer exists.

If anyone works professionally, for a living, the commercial need to bring pleasure to one's audience is a constant.
Jazz audience expectations today are generally not geared towards hearing the same solo as on record.
Pop and rock audiences still seem to want that though, I think.

[christianm77]

If anyone works professionally, for a living, the commercial need to bring pleasure to one's audience is a constant.
Jazz audience expectations today are generally not geared towards hearing the same solo as on record.
Pop and rock audiences still seem to want that though, I think.

Yep. But people who come to Jazz gigs are more likely to be interested in listening to music they don't already know. As it's no longer pop music. Jazz was pop music, or at least pop music had a strong jazz influence in 30s/40s. Now a real, listening, jazz audience is more like a more rarified version of classical audience, given many classical concert goers would tend to check out performances of works they already know... This is why there are only 12 of them.

TBH I think instrumental solos are like white noise to most listeners, unless they have heard them a few times - cf David Gilmour playing Another Brick live, etc... TBH it's a bit like that for me with jazz solos even. I don't always appreciate what's good about them until I have studied them quite a bit and got to know them. And I am constantly training myself to hear faster.

That said, I'm not sure how often Lester would play the recorded solo on a gig? Do you have a source for this?

[Irez87]

I think this thread is turning into an older thread that I really enjoyed:


The different needs of the listener and the performer in improvised jazz?

This is my favorite post I've contributed to the forum, and it's not even mine. But this post clearly defines why we do what we do with music:

Wanted to revive this thread with this video

Music is much more than theory, scales, and ear training sounds. Music has the power to trigger memories, the power to communicate a story with or without words for our listeners. I think we all need to be reminded of that (me too). I thought this video was quite beautiful.

Here is the back story:

"My grandparents Laura and Howard have been married 73 years. In this video Howard is 92 and Laura is 93. Laura (Grandma) is at a hospice facility making peace with her final days. I was lucky enough to capture this precious, heart-melting moment between the two of them. Howard (Grandpa) is singing to her their love song, the song that comforted her when he went away to fight in World War II.

At family gatherings, it was not uncommon for the two of them to sing this song together, each taking a verse and serenading the other. In fact, after fifty years of marriage, they renewed their vows and performed this song as a duet for the entire family at the reception. Sadly, Grandma is now too weak to sing, but that doesn't stop her from saying the words to him. Howard then takes over for her and sings the rest of the song to her while stroking her face.

Moments before this video began, when Grandma heard that Grandpa was in the room, she asked if she could hold him. Grandpa cannot stand on his own, but he immediately pulled his wheelchair close to her bed ready to make it happen. My cousin, Serena, who is a physical therapist, helped him to his feet and held him up throughout the entire song.

You might notice above her bed there is a sign that says, “Patient Blind.” That is because she has macular degeneration, so she cannot see much of anything but shadows and light. That doesn’t stop her from looking deep into her love’s eyes. Grandpa, on the other hand, has lost most of his hearing, so you’ll notice us repeating things for him since Grandma is to weak to raise her voice.

The song used in the video is “You’ll Never Know” performed by Rosemary Clooney with Harry James. Our family prefers this version because everyone always said Grandma had a voice just like Rosemary Clooney.

After posting this video to Facebook, it began to go viral and all the outpouring of love lifted everyone's spirits... including Grandma's! They originally gave her just a week to live, but hospice eventually deemed her well enough to go back home to live out her remaining days. As of this posting my beautiful Grandma Laura Virginia is still with us resting peacefully at home. Our family along with the wonderful people from hospice are taking care of her and making sure she remains as pain-free and comfortable as possible while she prepares for her nearing departure. We all thank you so much for the love and kind words."

I think the credit goes to Erin Solari, but because of the copyrights some stupid media company has the rights. Thank you Erin for posting such a heartfelt and beautiful moment and sharing it with the world. This is why we play music, folks. Nothing else, not even meeting people in person, can harness and trigger memories like the power of song as you advance in age.

All other discussion over music, including ear training (my favorite topic), is null and void if it doesn't include the intangible power that music embodies. However, we often loose sight of this power when we become too detail orientated.

That's why I agree that we often loose ourselves in bs (including how to hear sound) when we talk music.

Here is a quote from Roland Barthes that sums up this phenomenon quite brilliantly:

Language, according to Benveniste, is the only semiotic system capable of interpreting another semiotic system (though undoubtedly there exist limit works in the course of which a system feigns self-interpretation -The Art of the Fugue). How, then, does language manage when it has to interpret music. Alas, it seems, very badly. If one looks at the practice of music criticism (or, which is more often the same thing, of conversations 'on' music) it can readily be seen that a work (or its poorest performance) is only ever translated in the poorest of linguistic categories: the adjective...

I could go on, but Barthes has a real point here. The power, the aura, the force of music, is too vast, too ineffable, too ubiquitous (do you believe I was an English teacher now? Maybe a cruddy one, but one nonetheless) to be captured by the mere word.

Although I love waxing about music, the end all be all is the sound, the piece, and the performance. If you can convey power by internalizing someone else's solo, go for it. If you can convey power by memorizing your own solo, go for it. If you can convey power by improvising, go for it.

If you can't convey power and weave a story on the bandstand with one of these approaches then I have a simple solution for you... Use another approach. Sound fair?

[MarkRhodes]

Here is a quote from Roland Barthes that sums up this phenomenon quite brilliantly:

Language, according to Benveniste, is the only semiotic system capable of interpreting another semiotic system (though undoubtedly there exist limit works in the course of which a system feigns self-interpretation -The Art of the Fugue). How, then, does language manage when it has to interpret music. Alas, it seems, very badly. If one looks at the practice of music criticism (or, which is more often the same thing, of conversations 'on' music) it can readily be seen that a work (or its poorest performance) is only ever translated in the poorest of linguistic categories: the adjective...

I enjoyed that quote. Thanks for posting it. What is it Mark Twain said about adjectives? "When you catch an adjective, kill it," I think.

[Irez87]

Mark,

I love your Aristotle quote, so I needed something to compete. I love philosophy.

[wolflen]

If anyone works professionally, for a living, the commercial need to bring pleasure to one's audience is a constant.
Jazz audience expectations today are generally not geared towards hearing the same solo as on record.
Pop and rock audiences still seem to want that though, I think.

lazz..it depends on the demographic of the audience and the groups..people going to Chicago or Eagles concerts tend to be older and expect the solos to be note for note..Imagine an eagles solo on hotel California that was very different from the record..people would be very disappointed..hell they would BOOOO..

new groups tend to have much younger fans and seem to enjoy anything the band plays even if it strays away from their "hits"

now jazz today has many elements in it and the players experiment with new technology..i have heard some miles standards done in a 21st century style setting..I liked it and it seemed to be excepted well by the room..

now due to technology..where is music going in the future..will improvisation even be a factor..this is an interesting time in all aspects of music..country is now pop/rock..im not sure what rock is..take away "metal" and all its variations..im not sure whats left..there is a lot of what I call "space" music..its nice I have no idea what the bands are or who is in them..

in a general overview of change--who would have dared say--"..did you see the IBM commercial with Bob Dylan.?"

[sgcim]

Actually, if we were to believe what Lee Konitz said in a recent interview, he believes that most of the better known players of today are so concerned with sounding technically impressive, that very few of them are really improvising.

Rather than a commercial pressure to play the same solo that was on the record, as mentioned in a previous post, he believes players are bending to another pressure; the pressure to work their solos out beforehand, so they sound technically fluent, and don't play any clinkers.

So in answer to the OP, Lee Konitz would be one example of an 'on-the-spot improvisers.

[Vladan]

That's true.

Jazzers certainly don't do it like that today, largely because the commercial pressure no longer exists.

I'd say it's a chicken - egg situation.
Even more, I think at one point, for the bright side, some really skilled and talented instrumentalists and musicians got bored by repetitive nature of music and went for invention, while for the dark side, some were just lazy, or had other things on their minds, like heroin and alcohol, they all found it, respectively, more convenient to improvise on the theme than to actually put together something coherent and commit to it.
That practice provided them status of geniuses among the few, but at the same time alienated the many.

[targuit]

Improvisation does not happen ex nihilo - how's that for a turn of phrase?

When most of us improvise on a jazz standard, we know the melody and the harmony cold. What then happens is you play around with that by varying how you go from point A to point B. While I think it is certainly possible to record an improvised solo over a tune and then refine it to a point of creating a 'fixed' phrasing (like classical music), most of us don't care to do that, preferring to go with the moment and your past experience. In other words, I'm too lazy to go to the lengths necessary to refine every phrase and set it in stone. And I like to discover what path my improvisation takes.

I am interested in the improvisation process per se. Lately I am focusing on the rhythmic figure of the phrase, selective target notes as landmarks along the way, and I'm doing something so very basic that it may sound odd, but that would be to just focus on the next note to connect phrases. In other words, I don't try to sing mentally every note in the phrase I am crafting, but rather just to connect certain key notes in the phrase. This seems to help with maintaining fluidity and continuity between phrases and melodic improvised statements.

I am also trying to structure my solo guitar playing around the melody and bass as the basic structure of my phrasing, confident that by now I can play the harmony instinctively in any position on the neck where the melody is happening. And overarching all that is the striving to seamlessly 'sing' mentally - to play what I hear. And the bass line is becoming more important to me than ever in terms of keeping the continuity of the song's movement together as that against which I am improvising.

I am often struck how in Joe Pass' last couple of recordings, especially with his solo nylon string playing such on Songs for Ellen and Unforgettable, he really focused intensely on just harmonizing the melody beautifully, rather than the more frenetic single note phrasing runs that he often would interpose in his playing earlier in his career. I often wonder if that was an artistic decision reflecting maturity or a sign that he was losing his improvisational skill. I prefer to think that it was an artistic decision.

[grahambop]

Many point to Sonny Rollins as being one of the best pure improvisers in jazz.

I only saw Sonny Rollins once, and unfortunately I don't think he was feeling inspired that night (this was sometime in the late 1980s I think). Twenty minutes of him worrying away at the same phrase on 'St. Thomas' became almost unbearable.

Whilst I admire Sonny immensely, I suspect that is the downside of being a 'pure' improviser.

[Peter Alton]

I do recall Maynard Ferguson at the Berlin Jazztage playing 'Maria', and getting booed, as he was playing his recording of it note for note.

[vladmartino]

ok guys, on my own level i started pure improvising just using my ears. The way i used to do it was playing chord tones, licks and pattern over and over always hovering around shapes corresponding to the chords. i got so sick of it because i was repeating myself over and over. I had to calculate in my head how to link chords on the fly, had devises too that i ve done it for years. No more of that though. The main thing for me is melody. If i know it in and out i stick to its variations Thats not say that i repeat it in some stupid limited way. What it means is that i follow it in my head as an outline just like when one follows harmony as an outline. What opened me using this approach was a limitless number of melodic resolutions. To explain it: before i would strictly follow the chord structure so it was very rigid i would play the hack out of it then link it to another chord--to me its not jazz its pretend (at least for me). Because of that i got stuck in guitaristic positions very rigid and vertical. I couldnt even play some tunes without memorizing certain passages that had diff chords every measure or half measure. Recorda me was giving me fits for instance and other tunes like that. Now im getting through it naturally because i follow melody outline and flow.

Also the main thing is if im playing the note i dont rush to jump on another chord shape. i sit where i am and resolve it with the following chord. I never was able to organically connect chords in different tonalities /keys etc.

also because i just started this approach there mistakes and rough spots show up, but i believe i will work that all out just need more time. Now i can tell you guys that i really dont repeat myself as much as i used to. it just becomes more random but so much more fun to play!