JGBE Virtual Jam (Round 10) - Idle Moments

[ragman1]

Christian -

I didn't even make it to the end of that Holdsworth thing. Very clever and all that but nothing to do with Nuages as far as I can see. What did he do? Just go doodle-doodle-do over the chords? That's not Nuages. It's not even a pretend Nuages.

[John A.]

I dunno I think what these threads have shown very nicely is that you don’t need a blues tune to play some blues.

That's what I do most of the time. Gesture vaguely in the direction of the changes and then go off and play some blues licks. Even when it sounds like I'm doing something more harmonically sophisticated I'm just playing blues licks in another key. It has brought me fortune and worldwide acclaim, as you can see.

John

[PickingMyEars]

So I could record a backing track and you could go nuts? .

Honestly, I LOVE that idea. We record backing tracks for each other to play over for these jam session tunes. I would be honored to play over a backing track of you going GJ style, Chris'77. I dunno if I would do it the GJ justice it deserves, but I would be honored to give it a shot. Why not, it should spark different solo ideas on my end. That, and most of these backing tracks you find on Youtube SUCK. That's why I keep going back to MrSUNNYBass. I don't want to play behind a computer algorithm. Those iReal tracks are not a first preference for me by any means. Actually, most of the time they get in the way. I really miss the human interaction of it all.

[christianm77]

Honestly, I LOVE that idea. We record backing tracks for each other to play over for these jam session tunes. I would be honored to play over a backing track of you going GJ style, Chris'77. I dunno if I would do it the GJ justice it deserves, but I would be honored to give it a shot. Why not, it should spark different solo ideas on my end. That, and most of these backing tracks you find on Youtube SUCK. That's why I keep going back to MrSUNNYBass. I don't want to play behind a computer algorithm. Those iReal tracks are not a first preference for me by any means. Actually, most of the time they get in the way. I really miss the human interaction of it all.

To be honest I’m more interested in comping rather than single note solos on backing. Especially as that stuff is really what you get gigs for as a guitar player maybe more than solos and I want to keep my hand in....

I often make my own tracks anyway.

[ragman1]

Everybody should make their own backing tracks, they'd learn lots.

[rpjazzguitar]

Slight thread hijack.

I have come to consider that a blues approach to jazz improvisation is at least two things. One is the note choice. Blues licks, bluesy sounds and so forth. That's what we usually think about.

But, there's another component. I'll call it structural for want of a better term. It has to do with how you build excitement or drama in a solo. Not that all blues players do it the same way.

To try to illustrate the difference, I'll offer the following comparison.

In a jazz solo, the peaks may come with a rapid fire stream of notes weaving inside and out with respect to harmony. Obviously, not every player does this, but it's reasonably common. The tone or attack of the notes tends not to vary much.

A blues solo is more likely to feature, as a peak, a high sustained note, an intense high note with heavy vibrato or a short, intense lick. The tone is more likely to start to distort from a heavy touch on the peak notes. Attack changes as the solo builds. Blues players are less adventurous with harmony.

I tend to hear the music the blues way. At times I wish I didn't, but I can't seem to do it the other way. It is certainly possible to approach a harmonically complex jazz style tune with a structurally blues approach. The reverse can be done too, but blues fans aren't likely to appreciate it.

I think that Gypsy jazz has another kind of approach, encompassing incredible chops with the blues sort of passion. Using, of course, the kind of harmony of those tunes.

Rock has changed from a blues type of approach to players like Tom Morello who are harmonically rooted in something else.

It's hard to discuss this without rambling because none of this falls neatly into categories.

[Peter C]

Why? I'm confused.

I think maybe Kris thought I was dissing his suggestion that I take this even more into blues territory, which is not the case, and I'm always grateful for constructive feedback. Seems like he sometimes misconstrues the lingo or the intention behind it: I'm trying to get away from blues for my own reasons. Other than that, dunno. Didn't he already leave before for some reason? If so, cut it out Kris and carry on posting your playing!

That's a nice sounding guitar Tommo - is it a Gibson or an Epi?

Cool again Jeff - I was just imagining sitting in a club swapping licks with y'all ad infinitum! How's the beer in Chicago?

Thanks John A.

[mr. beaumont]

I have very strong opinions about this, so I hope I don't rub anybody the wrong way.

Blues is like speaking with an accent. And it took a lot for me to type that, because I basically hate the "music is language " metaphor. But blues is not a tone, or bent strings, or definitely not a chord progression. Its phrasing, it's inflection...and yeah, its those "blue notes," too.

I find it interesting that RP used Morello as a "non blues" influence because i hear a ton of blues there. And many of his solos seem to mimic a hip hop dj scratching a record...and I think hip hop/rap is incredibly connected to the blues.

I definitely picked tunes the first 10 weeks with strong blues tendencies, because to me, that's jazz. But you have to think of blues in a broader sense too...I thought Night Dreamer is the blues..I think Naima is the blues.. its all over a Love Supreme...even Ascension. I hear the blues in almost every kind of jazz worth listening to.

Guitar playing, and jazz guitar playing, is very much populated by white dudes...and hey, I'm one of 'em. For some reason, a lot of jazz guitar players (and to be fair-- not so much HERE) shy away from the blues...or they feel like they're not supposed to play it, or even sometimes, like "hey I play jazz now, ive graduated from blues." And I think thats not very good. I've even seen people (again, not here) try to downplay the importance of blues to jazz...that kind of thinking makes me feel like those people have absolutely no business playing jazz at all.

[John A.]

I doubt I'll have enough time to put together a backing track (especially given my hunt and peck keyboard non-chops).
Plus for me it kind of defeats the purpose of these "jam" threads. I'm trying to learn tunes quickly (if they're new to me, as they mostly have been), then play chorus or two, maybe the head and step down for the next soloist.

Youtube backing tracks are mostly lame, but good enough for these purposes. (And Mr. Sunny Bass is pretty cool) But if you guys are willing and able to do better backing tracks I'm happy to piggyback on that (parasite that I am ...)

John

[mr. beaumont]

I think ill play unaccompanied on what ever Christian decides on. Its good practice anyway.

I'm definitely not sitting and recording a backing track.

[rpjazzguitar]

I have very strong opinions about this, so I hope I don't rub anybody the wrong way.

Blues is like speaking with an accent. And it took a lot for me to type that, because I basically hate the "music is language " metaphor. But blues is not a tone, or bent strings, or definitely not a chord progression. Its phrasing, it's inflection...and yeah, its those "blue notes," too.

I find it interesting that RP used Morello as a "non blues" influence because i hear a ton of blues there. And many of his solos seem to mimic a hip hop dj scratching a record...and I think hip hop/rap is incredibly connected to the blues.

I definitely picked tunes the first 10 weeks with strong blues tendencies, because to me, that's jazz. But you have to think of blues in a broader sense too...I thought Night Dreamer is the blues..I think Naima is the blues.. its all over a Love Supreme...even Ascension. I hear the blues in almost every kind of jazz worth listening to.

Guitar playing, and jazz guitar playing, is very much populated by white dudes...and hey, I'm one of 'em. For some reason, a lot of jazz guitar players (and to be fair-- not so much HERE) shy away from the blues...or they feel like they're not supposed to play it, or even sometimes, like "hey I play jazz now, ive graduated from blues." And I think thats not very good. I've even seen people (again, not here) try to downplay the importance of blues to jazz...that kind of thinking makes me feel like those people have absolutely no business playing jazz at all.

Thanks for chiming in on this issue.

I generally agree.

Where I draw a distinction is in the way solos build drama. I can't think of a blues player who does it with a seemingly endless stream of fast eighth notes. Or, with a rapid fire sequence of ear-bending harmonic movements.

And, there aren't many jazz players who would be likely to punctuate a line with a single stinging high note, like BB King did routinely.

And, of course, if you say "jazz tone" like folks often do on this forum, it brings to mind Wes or Kenny Burrell. If you say "blues tone" it brings to mind BB King or SRV or Albert Collins.

Of course, every in-between gradation exists.

I haven't listened to Morello much, but I was thinking of a live performance I saw on TV. He was playing a screaming lead with outside harmony. I thought he was doing something no classic blues player would do.

Years ago, I was at the Kingston Mines in Chicago to hear Son Seals. He's an interesting player because it seemed like every note he played was intentionally a bit off-pitch. When he comped, his guitar was, in fact, perfectly in tune.

An aside: It was the night in Autumn when the clocks "fall back". The club usually went till 4am, but this night it went to 5am. I'm a lifelong night owl and I couldn't make it to the end. I was impressed.

Anyway, he had a backup guitarist who outlined changes and harmonic movement like a jazz player. I spoke to him briefly during a break. He said that he had to be careful not to go too far in that direction because it would get him fired.

As far as shying away from blues, I see the point. In fact, though, I think of myself as a blues player, even though most of the music I actually play is associated more with jazz. It's because I hear building drama in a solo the blues way -- trying to get the guitar to scream. And, I've never been able to execute a classic jazz guitar style. Either not good enough harmonic ears, inadequate chops or I simply don't hear the music that way and I can't seem to change that. Of course, as an older player, I'm trying to improve my execution of my own style, not develop anything brand new at thsi stage.

[christianm77]

To really play jazz you have to be able to synthesise a few elements among them the blues and also classical harmony.

Gypsy jazz is heavily rooted in classical harmony; but also a heavy Eastern European flavour for obvious reasons. But spend any time with that music and you realise there’s a ton of blues in it too. Perhaps a little more second hand, but the harmonic approach is all over it.

But there’s also something else. Django and Grapelli’s music as frequently borrows from Impressionism as that in Bill Evans, but there’s also a distinctive African influence you can find in jazz harmony going back to Louis.

In jazz in general would say that use of pentatonics and parallelism (and the relaxation of the function of the leading tone) originate as much in jazz’s African heritage as its European, and you can hear in the music of the Balafon for instance.

[rpjazzguitar]

To really play jazz you have to be able to synthesise a few elements among them the blues and also classical music

Gypsy jazz is heavily rooted in classical harmony; but also a heavy Eastern European flavour for obvious reasons. But also bop. Minor key bebop melody owes a tremendous amount to Bach.

But there’s also something else. Django and Grapelli’s music as frequently borrows from Impressionism as that in Bill Evans, but there’s also a distinctive African influence you can find in jazz harmony. I would say that use of pentatonics and parallelism (and the relaxation of the function of the leading tone) originate as much in jazz’s African heritage as its European, and you can hear in the music of the Balafon for instance.

I haven't spent a huge amount of time listening to GJ. My take-away had to do with the way that the GJ players express passion. To me, it's a lot about dramatic changes in pitch, high velocity lines over multiple octaves and what sounds to me like Gypsy violin erupting with emotion.

[christianm77]

I haven't spent a huge amount of time listening to GJ. My take-away had to do with the way that the GJ players express passion. To me, it's a lot about dramatic changes in pitch, high velocity lines over multiple octaves and what sounds to me like Gypsy violin erupting with emotion.

GJ is not quite the same thing as Django, strange as it might seem. Some aspects of Django’s music have been picked up on more than others inevitably. Django is droll, harmonically outrageous, highly melodic and quirky as well as being a virtuoso technician.

Anyway, speaking of blues ,I think your description is true of what blues is now, but in the same way some aspects of BB, Albert Collins etc have been picked up on at the expense of others.

[Peter C]

I have very strong opinions about this, so I hope I don't rub anybody the wrong way.

Blues is like speaking with an accent. And it took a lot for me to type that, because I basically hate the "music is language " metaphor. But blues is not a tone, or bent strings, or definitely not a chord progression. Its phrasing, it's inflection...and yeah, its those "blue notes," too.

I find it interesting that RP used Morello as a "non blues" influence because i hear a ton of blues there. And many of his solos seem to mimic a hip hop dj scratching a record...and I think hip hop/rap is incredibly connected to the blues.

I definitely picked tunes the first 10 weeks with strong blues tendencies, because to me, that's jazz. But you have to think of blues in a broader sense too...I thought Night Dreamer is the blues..I think Naima is the blues.. its all over a Love Supreme...even Ascension. I hear the blues in almost every kind of jazz worth listening to.

Guitar playing, and jazz guitar playing, is very much populated by white dudes...and hey, I'm one of 'em. For some reason, a lot of jazz guitar players (and to be fair-- not so much HERE) shy away from the blues...or they feel like they're not supposed to play it, or even sometimes, like "hey I play jazz now, ive graduated from blues." And I think thats not very good. I've even seen people (again, not here) try to downplay the importance of blues to jazz...that kind of thinking makes me feel like those people have absolutely no business playing jazz at all.

Fair comment and I kind of agree actually. 60s Brit blues is hard-wired into my technique (US funk, too) and sometimes overpowers other phrasing possibilities that I'm aware of but somehow forget to play! Curious because some of my own tunes contain 0% blues.

[John A.]

I have very strong opinions about this, so I hope I don't rub anybody the wrong way.

Blues is like speaking with an accent. And it took a lot for me to type that, because I basically hate the "music is language " metaphor. But blues is not a tone, or bent strings, or definitely not a chord progression. Its phrasing, it's inflection...and yeah, its those "blue notes," too.

I find it interesting that RP used Morello as a "non blues" influence because i hear a ton of blues there. And many of his solos seem to mimic a hip hop dj scratching a record...and I think hip hop/rap is incredibly connected to the blues.

I definitely picked tunes the first 10 weeks with strong blues tendencies, because to me, that's jazz. But you have to think of blues in a broader sense too...I thought Night Dreamer is the blues..I think Naima is the blues.. its all over a Love Supreme...even Ascension. I hear the blues in almost every kind of jazz worth listening to.

Guitar playing, and jazz guitar playing, is very much populated by white dudes...and hey, I'm one of 'em. For some reason, a lot of jazz guitar players (and to be fair-- not so much HERE) shy away from the blues...or they feel like they're not supposed to play it, or even sometimes, like "hey I play jazz now, ive graduated from blues." And I think thats not very good. I've even seen people (again, not here) try to downplay the importance of blues to jazz...that kind of thinking makes me feel like those people have absolutely no business playing jazz at all.

I experience blues, jazz, and r&b/soul, along with hip hop and gospel as a family of related and overlapping music, as do the musicians I encounter in real life. I've never met a good jazz musician who couldn't also cut it authentically on a gutbucket/Chicago/KC style blues, ethnicity not withstanding. I've encountered plenty of not so good jazz musicians who can't, and I think those two things are connected.

John

[mr. beaumont]

I know you don’t mean it this way, but one could see in this statement a tacit assumption that black musicians must play the blues.

In fact, this wasn’t true in Detroit in the 1950s, Harlem in the 1930s (or for that matter anywhere else); blues is seen as a signifier of blackness among musicians, but in fact I’ve spoken to black musicians who get quite annoyed by that assumption. It’s easy to see why.

I also appreciate the need to ground the jazz in blues and I think this is important, and it can easily get forgotten, but at the same time the blues is a field now largely populated by many white musicians too, in exactly the same way as jazz. But that’s another can of worms. Blues as virtuoso guitar music is its own thing....

If the blues is to be more than a collection of licks and cliches it must relate to a feeling in the music.... which to me is a great deal more than playing a b3 on a major chord.

Obivously it is for most. Kurt Rosenwinkel plays dozens of actual blues licks but people still accuse him of being divorced from the blues (I don’t agree, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Sorry don’t mean to be oppositional. I think we are in agreement?

Yeah mostly. I'm definitely not saying black musicians "need to play the blues."

But what I am saying is when I hear white musicians downplay the importance of blues in jazz, its like--to my ears--trying to downplay the fact that jazz is black music. And that bothers me, because it's almost always guitar players i hear doing it...

And yes, plenty of blues in Rosenwinkel. I think its a pretty narrow view of the blues that makes people make statements like that.

[TOMMO]

That's a nice sounding guitar Tommo - is it a Gibson or an Epi?

Thanks, Peter. It's an Eastman AR 372 CE.

Good posts about the blues. I have my own strong views on the topic - that being said I would agree with most of what has been posted above.

[christianm77]

The blues has a lot of meanings. It can be a form, a tempo, a vocal style, a vocabulary, an intonation.... most profoundly it’s the feeling.

I think blues is also a bit more than simply playing a b3 on a major chord.

it’s an attitude to playing.

When I play this stuff and put in a little blues lick sometimes it feel like an affectation. The blues should never be that.

OTOH if you play a non blues phrase with the right energy it will feel like the blues. Everything Wes and Charlie Christian played sounded like the blues, be it blues or not.

I feel like my putting blues licks in because I want to be closer to the spirit of jazz would be missing the point.

OTOH I think this is very close to swing. And similar in that there’s a textbook definition, and a wider sense to it.

Basically it’s not what you play, it’s how you play it, and many jazz people get distracted by the note choices rather than the way in which they’re played. Which includes the blues, swing and all the other good stuff.

In terms of honouring jazz as Black music; that’s complex.

[christianm77]

I think ill play unaccompanied on what ever Christian decides on. Its good practice anyway.

I'm definitely not sitting and recording a backing track.

Send me an unaccompanied solo and I’ll comp for you.

[mr. beaumont]

That sounds fun. Let me know what song you end up going with, but keep it a secret til next Thursday...I've been throwing tunes at these guys for 2 months with no warning...I want to be surprised

Last comment on the blues:

Nothing screams hack like hanging on a m3 over a chord with M3 in it.

You listen to the greats...nobody just plays that note. There's always a tug up towards M3.

[Peter C]

After looking back at a few clips, I've noticed that John A. physically rocks back and forth when digging in. I also move around a lot and tend to lay into the instrument, so maybe that has a lot to do with the way you're gonna phrase. Hmmm. Video clips are very useful and very revealing!

[PickingMyEars]

This goes out to John A. who gave me a name I now love but won't dare say in public

Hope this doesn't get me in trouble, I only played a little of each...

John, I tried out your guesses (different song from same band for the 2nd reference )

[John A.]

After looking back at a few clips, I've noticed that John A. physically rocks back and forth when digging in. I also move around a lot and tend to lay into the instrument, so maybe that has a lot to do with the way you're gonna phrase. Hmmm. Video clips are very useful and very revealing!

I do somewhat consciously key myself in physically to the intensity of what I'm doing, but not as specifically as "move this way, phrase that way". Hard to describe it exactly. The ridiculous facial expressions are not conscious, though (might be gas, come to think of it).

John

[rpjazzguitar]

This is my first time playing this tune, and I'm not sure if I've heard it before. I had some breaks in the day to learn it, then some time this evening to record. To be honest, it took me several false starts and takes to get through without mistakes, but I decided to stop here. I will work on it some more, find some less blues-licky paths through the changes, etc.

John

Nice take! Easy swinging feel and soulful lines.