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It's just maths. It's a matter of arithmetic to break it all down and then you just need practice it.
Originally Posted by Eck
If you can be arsed :-)
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12-11-2020 08:08 PM
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For me at a certain point maths takes over from music. That’s why I prefer Dizzie over Charlie. However Bitches Brew does seem to require maths for the counts and it is so expressive, a bit like Varese. And all very far from bop. Originally Posted by christianm77
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Well yes, in the sense that if you can't accurately hear and play 3 on 4, or 6 on 4, you won't be able swing. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
Some learn this intuitively; they might not necessarily know what that is intellectually, but just be able to play it. You can find these nuances in traditional West African rhythms, for example, so it's not really a maths thing per se?
But if you haven't grown up in a rhythmic culture, it's useful to have a way to practice it.
OTOH if you grew up in some parts Eastern Europe, 7 and 11/8 might feel natural.
But - this is the rub. 7/8 is actually pretty natural. The problem comes when you want to, as a jazz musician have a little bit of those West African style polyrhythms in 7... because otherwise you are sort of locked into the pattern and can't swing. So, you go to the maths and practice your quarter triplet on 7/8 or whatever. You need to find a way to break it down until it becomes intuitive... (Not that I have been able to do this lol, but part of my homework is quarter triplets on 5/8, so I should be able to do it soon)
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Salseros teach polyrhythms with language. Originally Posted by Eck
This video isn't salsa oriented but explains the ideas quite well.
Don't miss the demo on acoustic guitar at the end.
You can be playing 3 in one hand and 4 in the other in a minute.
It's harder to do with counting.
You'll see it in the video.
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What I referred to with respect to the desireability of some skill with polyrhythms is that, sooner or later, you'll be in a band situation where it starts to happen. And you will need the ability to do two things at once -- have that clock going in your head while you play (or listen to) something else. For most of us, that's going to require some practice.
Swing feel, at least for those of us who grew up with swing, is so natural that it seems effortless by comparison, although I know that different people experience that to different degrees.
I do recall a lesson in which the teacher recommended being able to play eighth, quarter or half note triplets at any time in 4/4. He recommended practicing it "so you'll have it when you need it". Excellent advice, depending, of course, on what you're trying to do.
I play in a big band that has quite a few charts in 6/8 at brisk tempi. Mostly, you feel the pulse in 2 (dotted quarters), with a triplet (aka 3 eighths) on each of those beats. The leader even counts them off in dotted quarters. BUT, the bar may be divided into three parts (or uneven parts), so you need instant access to 3 over 2. That one isn't so difficult to master, but I found it confusing the first time I encountered it.
An example at the risk of too much detail: tap R l r L r l. That's sixth eighths with the accents felt as 2 over 6. So, the accent changes hands. Then do R l R l R l. The accent doesn't change hands. Neither one is difficult. With enough repetition it becomes an available skill to go back and forth.
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I like exercising 3 vs 4 - I did start my life as classical pianist. 5 vs 4 is fun too. Especially tapping alternating bars. But I wouldn’t bother with higher orders, I don’t know any song that successfully does 6 vs 7. When I say vs I mean simultaneously, preferably by the same person. A song written in 7 or 11 quarter notes is fine. I think Music Evolution is wicked! Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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That’s a great piece! I quite liked Le Beuf sur le Toit and used to listen to it daily. Originally Posted by BWV
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late to the party: Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
hi mark
none of these things ARE be-bop you're right - but all of them feature be-bop language. more than that - all of them feature more be-bop language than any other single 'bag' too. (maybe that's not true of Love Supreme - but it might well be.)
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Lots of 3:4 in the classical canon. Brahms springs to kind. Originally Posted by Eck
if you want to get that swinging flavour, try the Bembe bell pattern over swing.
Also, great way to practice fast bop tempos. Tap your foot in 2, and play in 6/8 (quarter triplets) - after doing this until you can lock in. Then, move back to 8ths.
It will feel completely different.
In terms of more complicated rhythms that’s getting more into the modern jazz odd meter/polymeter stuff. 5:4 is quite common, higher polyrhythms might find use as metrical modulations.
Mind you don’t you get 5:4 in Chopin?
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I'm starting to get the picture. Learn the language and run with it. But sometimes I feel like bebop in its true form never attracted me. I do prefer more groove oriented sub genres of jazz , even though soloists would use bebop language
So in a funny way, to paraphrase a popular accordion joke, wouldn't it be true, a definition of a modern jazz player- 'someone who can play bebop, but doesn't'?
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Maybe; although I wonder if it isn’t a phase go through. I doubt Dave Douglas can play bop like he did when he was 20. And back then he was an incredible bop player. Mehldau too.... Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
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some guys sound really great at it. I can't get over how great Chad LB sounds for example - and I don't know who this piano player and bass player are but I'm a bit in love with both of them. (what a piano solo - what a great relaxed but pushing/tipping feel on the bass) Originally Posted by princeplanet
I just had the great good fortune to hang out and play for a couple of years with a great New York bass player who is always busy in NYC when he's not living in Addis Ababa. the picture he paints of the scene/culture there is that pure glorious be-bop is very much loved by very many very serious players. Chad in his Standards Sessions seems to me to be doing this as well as anyone has ever done it. He seems right up there with Hank Mobley, Dexter and Sonny - and I just can't believe I'm saying that. The amount of music he is making happen here strongly suggests to me that it's the language he's using that really counts.
it seems to me to have more bite and intensity than any other form - it seems to me fresher and edgier and more surprising and dangerous and much more articulate than any other form.
I just discovered a new record full of recordings of Bird that I hadn't heard before - I think it came out this year but I don't seem to be able to find out much about it. (It's called unhelpfully 'out of nowhere') I managed to find this take from it on YouTube - but on TIDAL I get a whole beautiful album. Here's a taste.
Just the way he combines the sweetness of the ballad playing and the fury of the uptempo flourish at the end is so creative. not to mention his astonishing clarity of musical thought. The only thing that matches how articulate and intelligent he is, is how playful he is. This is unrepeatable playing - but Chad LB shows on his own - it seems to me - that its the 'language' that really counts. He's not as articulate as natural or as playful as Parker, but he generates a whole lot of poke through his profound mastery of the language. (don't you think?)
It's parker's language more than any one else's - and he certainly speaks it more brilliantly than anyone else - but its such a fabulous language that just learning to use it competently promises huge musical rewards. (Greater rewards - it seems to me - than anything I could gain from trying to get away from it). Since I first heard Parker and Bud Powell and fell for the music I have always felt strongly that by far the most obvious place to find the real musical juice is in this playing - because none of the forms that have followed (but if Christian McBride is right have not superseded it) have been so good at enabling such articulate playing - such clarity of musical thought and such intelligent playfulness. So it doesn't seem like a reactionary or conservative stance to me - because I hear more that's unexplored and undeveloped in Parker than I do in say later Coltrane, or Wes, and certainly in Henderson or Shorter. (Early Ornette does it for me - but its as fabulous as it is because of the way it takes up the language - not because it changes it significantly or leaves it behind.)
There's no other jazz language that is 'still' modern language. I think that's because we haven't yet found a better musical framework to use to express ourselves. Chad LB, Benny Benack and perhaps best of all Veronica Swift make it clear that be-bop works as well now for the most talented young musicians as a medium for musical self expression as it did in the forties and fifties.
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Bebop now is classical music.
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can't resist sharing this too - since the topic is be-bop language. wow.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
but rather groovier
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Yea, good stuff. Saxophone is almost ideal instrument for bebop soloing. Which begs the question why would anybody choose guitar if they fell in love with bebop? Learning the language on guitar sometimes feels like pissing against the wind. Originally Posted by Groyniad
Players like Sco or Mike Stern, or Bill Frisell, obviously came influenced by rock/blues/pop and brought that language to jazz and mixed with bebop language and it came out beautifully. For me that what makes jazz guitar interesting. Strangely, the next generation mostly didnt follow that path.
Who are the purely bebop guitarists past and present?
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Billy frickin Bean ;-)
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pasquale grasso deserves a mention perhaps?
but otherwise Jimmy Raney?
there are big phrasing issues with guitar - just had a discussion about that on an earlier thread - you can't let the 'positions' dictate when you change string you have to find ways to get good phrasing by constantly going out of 'position'.
it does feel like pissing into the wind sometimes - but if you love the guitar and you love the bebop language what can you do?
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bass players can do pretty well with it and their instrument is a bit like ours
the bass solo on the take of out of nowhere just posted is a treat
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this cello solo is the first jazz solo i ever transcribed. Originally Posted by Groyniad
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12-12-2020, 04:26 PM #97Dutchbopper GuestHow would you call players like MVI, JVR, Ulf Wakenius, Bireli to distinguish them from the Raneys for example? How about Wes and Herb? Not bop? Originally Posted by djg
DB
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Hi, Groyniad. Long time, no sea. Season's greetings. Originally Posted by Groyniad
I suppose it hinges on what counts as a single bag. For example, when fusion came along and some jazz players reacted against it and instead played "straight-ahead" (Wynton Marsalis is a name much associated with this), walking bass lines were prominent. Those predate bop. When one hears the name Wynton Marsalis today, or Jazz at Lincoln Center, does one think first of bebop? I don't, but your mileage may vary.
If someone were to call the Modern Jazz Quartet or Weather Report bebop groups on the ground that they play more bebop language than anything else, it would be farcical.
For that matter, Christian McBride isn't primarily a bebop player (though he can play bebop.)
This is from his recent big band album, "For Jimmy, Wes and Oliver." (That's Jimmy Smith, Wes Montgomery and Oliver Nelson, all great players but none of whom strike me as bebop players. Again, your mileage may vary on that.)
That's Mark Whitfield on guitar.
Then there's blues language, which predates bebop. George Benson has said that Jack McDuff taught him to put some blues in everything he played. For McDuff, blues was the universal musical language. There was a lot of blues in Charlie Parker's language, for that matter.
Didn't Barry Harris say that the music of Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock stopped being jazz? (If it wasn't jazz, it wasn't bebop, certainly not bebop enough for Barry.)
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my friend matthias nadolny uses the term "modern mainstream". imo MVI and jesse play mainstream jazz that is also informed by jim hall,sco, metheny et al. same for wakenius i guess. bireli plays fantastic gipsy and fusion jazz, i think mainstream jazz with standards, let alone strict bebop, is actually not his strongest side (still stronger than most mortals of course). wes moves between charlie christian and hardbop, there is some parker influence of course. but you can hear that his development happened at the same time as bop came into focus. he is almost a transitional player from swing to bop, but goes beyond as well. herb is a swing guitarist to my ears. Originally Posted by Dutchbopper
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Very much so. His preference for both additive and palindromic rhythms came from early studies of classical Indian talas. Originally Posted by christianm77
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