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Originally Posted by Stevebol
I love this by Amos Milburn. (He didn't write this tune but this is my favorite version. I love this kind of piano.)
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01-16-2018 04:03 PM
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Originally Posted by jazznylon
John
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
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Originally Posted by Stevebol
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Might as well add some guitar boogie....
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Can't forget John Lee Hooker here...(He recorded this song several times; this is the original version from 1948.)
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I googled that phrase, and it only came up here. So it's not a universal phrase.
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Originally Posted by jazznylon
I really like his take on dearly beloved , as kind of a contrasting piece. To me, it sounds like an exercise in trying to be less idiomatic to guitar. Great playing in its own right and one of my favorite solos honestly, but if he'd gone THAT direction as a whole, more towards horn playing style, we'd have missed a lot of great music. ...from a few generations of guitarists maybe?
Listen to his choruses on Cariba from full house. The sax solo before makes you uneasy, imagining trying to play something like it on guitar. Anyway, then his entrance sounds completely relaxed, like he is smiling and completely enjoying himself, and then he just OWNS the rest of it. But it's 99% specifically idiomatic to guitar. Sounds a lot like " play this on your horn". :-)
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
If you go outside the jazz genre, there's lots of ways to use a guitar where you barely have to know how to play it, let alone theory. Three chord rock, cowboy chords, strumming, box patterns for soloing. Play loud & distorted, people think you're a genius.
But if you want to play jazz guitar, of course there's a pedagogy of scales, chords, standard tunes. Same thing for a trumpet, the difference being, a much bigger challenge to physically play the instrument. To do that, there's a whole body of work- embouchure, flexibility, breathing, tonguing, range building, etc.
I would remind you that in the evolution of jazz, guitar plays a very small part, mostly as a rhythm section instrument. The major developments in jazz were led by horn players, and on so many of the seminal recordings, a guitar isn't even present.
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Originally Posted by JGinNJ
I disagree about the major developments in jazz being lead by horn players. Some were, yes, mainly bebop, but the piano is the far bigger deal in jazz: Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller, Art Tatum, Earl Hines, Count Basie, Bud Powell, Bill Evans, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Keith Jarrett, Herbie Hancock, Horace Silver, Chick Corea, McCoy Tyner, Nat King Cole, Ahmad Jamal, Erroll Garner...That's just off the top of my head. Also, the piano is a rhythm section instrument.... ;o)
I think it is an advantage to be a rhythm section instrument in a rhythm-dominated musical genre.
Since Coltrane's death in '67, what developments in jazz have been lead by a horn player? I'm sure there are some that I have missed but I can't think of any.
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I think you'd have to give Miles credit for the beginnings of fusion, Bitches Brew, for example. The avant-garde continued with the AACM after Coltrane, pretty light on guitars. Likewise the ECM stuff from the 70's and 80's. The Marsalis' and "Young Lions"brought a resurgence of New Orleans and modal hard-bop, if not a new development. I will grant you, Benson was a pioneer of smooth jazz, and jazz-rock is very guitar based.
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Originally Posted by JGinNJ
Miles is an interesting case. (And let's be clear, I speak as a fan.) He pre-dates Coltrane. His fusion excursions strike me as among his lesser contributions. Even though I like some of Miles' later work---especially "Tutu"---I think he was chasing new trends and surrounding himself with key players rather than innovating musically himself. I don't think anyone has ever suggested he made any advance on trumpet playing in his last few decades. (Or did I miss something?)
I listened to Lester Bowie / Art Ensemble of Chicago stuff a lot in the '80s, but don't care to hear it much anymore.
I think Marsalis rates as a very influential horn player but his main thing is going back to the roots rather than breaking new ground. Some have called him a curator rather than an innovator. I'm not knocking him, by the way. I spent several years in New Orleans and love "trad jazz" (-but I realize it is that, trad jazz, and not some new thing. I'm not chasing some new thing.)
I don't have anything against horns. I think they are much more limited and limiting instruments than the guitar (or the piano), that's all. They're fine in their place. Their place is comparatively narrow. I think the longer jazz lasts, the more it will become apparent that the horn is not the main thing.
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Charlie Christian & Wes. Man they played guitar.
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Horn players, like singers, have one advantage that sticks out: They are obliged, from time to time, to breathe. This helps their phrasing immeasurably. Guitarists would do well to ponder this. My Dad's highest praise for a musician ( he himself played clarinet, harmonica, organ, guitar, ukelele, and lord knows what else, as well as singing in the church choir) was "He can make that thing talk." People like the sense of communication - with the emphasis on the "commune" part, IMHO.
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
As to horns in general, I'd put Wayne Shorter, Sonny Rollins, and Michael Brecker up on any list of major post-Trane innovators. Not particularly my taste, but a bunch of more avant garde figures (e.g., Anthony Braxton, Arthur Blythe, Sun Ra, some of the 80s-90s "Downtown" scene-sters), are a pretty big deal. It's a big world, with lots of people doing stuff you never heard before.
As far as horns being "limiting" vs piano or guitar? Let's just say I've heard Sonny Rollins play all by himself, and I think that's a very strange statement.
John
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At the risk of starting WW III, I think guitar is a "first rate, 2nd rate instrument".
Can't play single note lines like a horn...can't do half the harmonic stuff piano can.
It does a bit of both...yes it can bend notes, and has some expressive qualities that other instruments don't have.
But honestly, go listen to any well known jazz tune, and find the trumpet, sax, or piano players who can rip off great extended lines....they will be faster, more fluid, more rhythmically precise and just more "happening" to listen to, at least to my ears.
You'll struggle to find guitarists who can labor to keep up, and make it happen, IMO. Time after time, I'll sit down to listen to jazz guitarists and the heads sound really good but by the 2nd chorus, it's wearing thin for me, a lot of the time.
Chuck Wayne at the top of his game is as good as anyone. Johnny Smith, some of the time, though he even said he didn't consider himself a jazz guy. Joe Pass is pretty reliable...Hank Garland...Bruce Forman. Jimmy Raney is good and later in life was REALLY good.
I still say if I had to go to a desert island and had 100 jazz albums to take with me, I wouldn't be taking a lot of guitar jazz albums, but I can't imagine "listening life" without Dizzy, Lee Morgan, Coltrane, Bird, Stan Getz, George Coleman, Woody Shaw, Wynton, Artie Shaw, Sidney Bechet, Louis A., Earl Hines, Monk, Oscar Peterson, Miles, Dexter G. to name a few, and big bands.
As I say, I don't want to start a war. In the jazz realm, I think guitar is just a bit of an odd duck.
Blues or rock, it is supreme.
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^^^^ "On the Corner" and "Doo-Bop" are very interesting albums, IMO.
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Originally Posted by John A.
An instrument that can't sound chords is limited, especially when it comes to jazz, a harmonically rich form of music.
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Originally Posted by jazznylon
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
John
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Originally Posted by goldenwave77
For me, Barney Kessel is the “jazz guitarist” who is least apt to bore me pretty quickly. (Though I personally love studying music on guitar through the “jazz” doorway, along with blues. A peek through it, anyway.)
I can (and do) listen to decades of horn players and piano players all day. But jazz guitar...I listen to one or two albums and I’m good for awhile. And the more solo it is, the better (which brings us to “chord melody”....another WWIII starter....)
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Originally Posted by goldenwave77
I have recently started transcribing Charlie Christian. I was amazed at how rock n roll he is. All those Chuck Berry, Angus Young lines are there.
Early Benson, obviously Wes, Kenny Burrell they would have been so exciting to see.
Have you seen Jonathan Kreisberg live? Man the audience is on the edge of their seat. We have a guy in Melbourne James Sherlock yeah he plays some sophisticated stuff but he plays the guitar.
Exploiting the ability to play single lines and chords and then being able to bend stuff grab the third and give that sixth a little bend how cool is that! Can't do that on a horn or piano.
Perhaps a good reminder to us all, don't get lost in guitar noodle land, don't roll that tone down so much that the dynamic is lost.
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That live solo sax recording of Sonny Rollins happened at a free concert at the Museum of Modern Art NYC.
I arrived 90 minutes early thinking I could get a good seat but there was already a line 5 blocks long.
Never did get in, glad they recorded it. I don't know how well the record sold but the concert was highly successful.
At concerts it was typical for him to play very extended intros and codas unaccompanied.
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