JGBE Virtual Jam (Round 31) - Road Song

[Christian Miller]

So... I never played this song before, but I'd fooled around with some of the melody phrases and thought I could wing it. Turns out, maybe 75% I could wing, a few things I need to work on. Looking at the RB6 lead sheet, I think measures 5-8 and the little transition in the middle of the bridge need attention. Maybe something other than blues cliches would help, too. But in the spirit of this group, this is truly raw, right of the chopping block. The second or third time in my life I've played the tune.

Observations and advice are welcome.

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Sounding better and better!

[John A.]

JipleTrazz: the guitar sounds good there. I don't know that the archtop would be an improvement. Overall, the take feels good, too.

SchmatteMensch (as long as we're oy veying ...) : Your latinization of an already latin tune (bossa noving the boogaloo?) is unquestionably appropriate (for a change ). Lots of interesting subs there.

LawlessStoned: Excellent version, totally agree with Christian that the rhythm work is paying off

WPLJ: To me, that tone sounds very much in the SF Twin neighborhood and is a pretty classic archtop tone. If that's the warmest that amp can get, maybe strident is the right word, but if it has room to bump up the mids and add a little hair, it might be a keeper. The playing there is very nice. I like the laconic, understated quality to it. Cool phrasing and melodic/motivic ideas, too.

And here's another one out of the bunch I did last weekend (painting is ongoing so no new ones thus far ...). Tipped the balance a bit more toward chord soloing on this one. I think the first take was a little crisper rhythmically and the heads were tighter, but this is a little more adventurous.

[mr. beaumont]

Lots to enjoy here!

Triple, loved that you went for a chorus in octaves...they are a BITCH. Nailed the head too. Great stuff.

Ron, as always, laid back, in pocket, great melodies. Grown up playing, the real stuff.

Rag, have you ever considered a nylon string? This kind of loping, Latin eque feel really works for you.

Wzpgsr, nice stuff. Always a good feel and great, clear tone. This kind of tune is your wheelhouse, it shows.

Lawson, in pocket, good lines, good stuff. As usual, you sound best when you play YOU. I honestly wonder what kind of gains you'd make if for 3 months, you completely put away the books and focused just on your own stuff with a bit of lick stealing from a bunch of different players. I bet it'd be huge.

[ragman1]

I must do a video. Lousy quality as ever. It's a short backing track (yes, a backing track!) so I've left out the tune.

[ragman1]

Rag, have you ever considered a nylon string? This kind of loping, Latin eque feel really works for you.

My nylon days are long gone! So's the nice classical guitar I used to have. I used La Bella strings usually, the black ones.

(I wouldn't use nylon for a tune like this anyway, not punchy enough)

[John A.]

My nylon days are long gone! So's the nice classical guitar I used to have. I used La Bella strings usually, the black ones.

(I wouldn't use nylon for a tune like this anyway, not punchy enough)

This guy (great player named Joe Ravo) would disagree. I've heard him him do it on a full bodied classical and an archtop as well. Works for him on all of them. [Not a great recording, but you can get a sense.]

[ragman1]

SchmatteMensch Your latinization of an already latin tune

John A doesn't sound terribly Yiddly so...

Two Rabbis in the railway station, one carrying a big case.

'Aren't you going to ask me where I'm going?'.
'So where are you going then?'
'Don't ask, don't ask!'.

I used to know a Jewish mathematician whose dad was a Rabbi in the Bowery. I've met a lot of people!

Nice, but it's just not Wes :-)

[John A.]

John A doesn't sound terribly Yiddly so...

And yet it is. My family name most likely got picked up in Romania during our rootless cosmopolitan phase.

Two Rabbis in the railway station, one carrying a big case.

'Aren't you going to ask me where I'm going?'.
'So where are you going then?'
'Don't ask, don't ask!'.

I used to know a Jewish mathematician whose dad was a Rabbi in the Bowery. I've met a lot of people!

I imagine I've met a few of those given that I grew up roughly midway between the Bowery and the Courant institute (where my dad often hid from his fellow economists), but I never inquired after that specific detail.

Nice, but it's just not Wes :-)

I dunno, maybe a little Wessier than the others (certainly feels brisker if nothing else).

[lawson-stone]

So how are you all approaching mm 5-8?


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[ragman1]

John A -

Certainly brisker :-)

I thought Albin meant white, hence albino, from Latin/Norman French -> Europe -> England -> US. Could be wrong, you'd know better than me.

[ragman1]

John -

Sorry! I was just looking at stuff about names (not yours) and I saw this. Priceless :-)



40 Illegal Names That Have Been Banned Around the World - Illegal Baby Names

[John A.]

John A -

Certainly brisker :-)

I thought Albin meant white, hence albino, from Latin/Norman French -> Europe -> England -> US. Could be wrong, you'd know better than me.

In our case, it's probably Romanian which is also a romance language, so also "white". I don't have a lot of geneological info or consistent details of where the branches of my family came from, but what I do have points to that.

[John A.]

So how are you all approaching mm 5-8?


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In what sense?

[lawson-stone]

In what sense?

I'm not sure really. But it seems to me that something is going on with the chord movement in that line that isn't just a static repeat of mm 1-4, but I can't make a lot of sense out of the harmony. And yet lots of the chords imply similar sets of notes (Gm7, EbMaj7, Cm7). Seems like just playing a static Gm7 based line misses something that the chords are "wanting" us to catch and accentuate.

I'm just unfamiliar with a progression like this and wonder how you all feel it out. I DO NOT MEAN A THEORETICAL ANALYSIS--just more how to you make this line stand out as different from the first part.

Does that make sense?

[Reg]

I'm not sure really. But it seems to me that something is going on with the chord movement in that line that isn't just a static repeat of mm 1-4, but I can't make a lot of sense out of the harmony. And yet lots of the chords imply similar sets of notes (Gm7, EbMaj7, Cm7). Seems like just playing a static Gm7 based line misses something that the chords are "wanting" us to catch and accentuate.

I'm just unfamiliar with a progression like this and wonder how you all feel it out. I DO NOT MEAN A THEORETICAL ANALYSIS--just more how to you make this line stand out as different from the first part.

Does that make sense?

No... but if you play the 1st 4 bars in Gmin. say in a II- sound with embellishments from VI- sound, pents and blues... Min blues with II- V sound etc...
bars 5 and 6 move to Ebmaj or C-7 ... The IV- chord,(the relative Min chord of Ebmaj) and bar 7 is really just G-7 to C-7 , the E-7b5 is Diatonic sub of G-7 and the bar 8 is just a V7 back to I-7 or G-.

/ G-7.../ G-7..,./ A-7...,,,, / A-7 D7 /
I-7.....................II-7............II-7 V7
/ C-7.../ C-7... / G-7 C-7 / D7 G-7 /
IV-7...................I-7....IV-7..V7 I-7

This would be in the embellishment approach... vanilla, nothing wrong etc... I generally don't play this way... but depending on the audience can...

[John A.]

I'm not sure really. But it seems to me that something is going on with the chord movement in that line that isn't just a static repeat of mm 1-4, but I can't make a lot of sense out of the harmony. And yet lots of the chords imply similar sets of notes (Gm7, EbMaj7, Cm7). Seems like just playing a static Gm7 based line misses something that the chords are "wanting" us to catch and accentuate.

I'm just unfamiliar with a progression like this and wonder how you all feel it out. I DO NOT MEAN A THEORETICAL ANALYSIS--just more how to you make this line stand out as different from the first part.

Does that make sense?

To me, it's all just G minor, with a cadence. I make it sound like not just uninterrupted noodling in a static key by adding in bits of chromaticism, blues licks (especially hitting the b5 blue note), enclosures, side-slipping, and D altered dominant stuff on the cadence. All the flavors of G minor (natural, dorian, melodic, and harmonic) work at various points. At the risk of committing theoretical analysis, in the first two bars the changes run part way down a harmonized G natural minor scale; the last two land on G melodic minor for a moment, revert to natural minor on the C min chord then you have a cadence (which gives you G harmonic minor or D alt dom).

Putting it more simply, to the extent that I have a thought process at all, it's basically "hang out in G minor (especially G minor pentatonic), play around with bends between C and Db, and with using Eb, E, F, and F# for color to find sounds that work, use chord stabs and/or stretches of chord/melody, and dynamics/phrasing for variety, throw in some 16th notes and hope no one notices the clams as they blur by, try to hit an A# or F natural on the D7 chord." It seems to me that you're pretty much doing that on your take, the one comment I'd add is that there are places where you play either a C or a D, and in some of those spots try a triplet bend C-Db-C bend instead, or just a bend to not-quite-Db (i.e., a blue note). In a couple of spots you also end a phrase by playing Bb-G; trying throwing in an F# before the G. All that said, your note choices all sound "right" to me, and these suggestions are for the sake of variety, not correction.

[lawson-stone]

So here's an attempt at improvising a bit more, warts and all. IN the first 8 bars there are quite a few unexpected moments of negative creativity... clams... I'm feeling a little rebellion against mistake-free perfectly mixed clips, I guess. I decided to try to stretch out over several choruses but I think really one was enough.

Recorded using my Aria Pro II PE180 and the DVMark Micro50 head into a home-brew cab with an 8" speaker. Backing track just going int the aux input and "air mixed." Recorded with the iPhone microphone. I was surprised at how well it actually came out.

Feedback is welcome.

[lawson-stone]

To me, it's all just G minor, with a cadence. I make it sound like not just uninterrupted noodling in a static key by adding in bits of chromaticism, blues licks (especially hitting the b5 blue note), enclosures, side-slipping, and D altered dominant stuff on the cadence. All the flavors of G minor (natural, dorian, melodic, and harmonic) work at various points. At the risk of committing theoretical analysis, in the first two bars the changes run part way down a harmonized G natural minor scale; the last two land on G melodic minor for a moment, revert to natural minor on the C min chord then you have a cadence (which gives you G harmonic minor or D alt dom).

Putting it more simply, to the extent that I have a thought process at all, it's basically "hang out in G minor (especially G minor pentatonic), play around with bends between C and Db, and with using Eb, E, F, and F# for color to find sounds that work, use chord stabs and/or stretches of chord/melody, and dynamics/phrasing for variety, throw in some 16th notes and hope no one notices the clams as they blur by, try to hit an A# or F natural on the D7 chord." It seems to me that you're pretty much doing that on your take, the one comment I'd add is that there are places where you play either a C or a D, and in some of those spots try a triplet bend C-Db-C bend instead, or just a bend to not-quite-Db (i.e., a blue note). In a couple of spots you also end a phrase by playing Bb-G; trying throwing in an F# before the G. All that said, your note choices all sound "right" to me, and these suggestions are for the sake of variety, not correction.

Thanks for your ideas. You do a great job on this tune and I am happy to know how you feel your way through it.

[Peterson]

Sorry about the foot-tapping

[TOMMO]

Here's the Tommo - take:

[Reg]

Hey Tommo... yea, you played the changes nicely... I could hear the Ab or Ebmaj7 subdom. sound of 8 bar blues. cool.

[TOMMO]

Hey Tommo... yea, you played the changes nicely... I could hear the Ab or Ebmaj7 subdom. sound of 8 bar blues. cool.

Thank you for the kind words, Reg!

[John A.]

So here's an attempt at improvising a bit more, warts and all. IN the first 8 bars there are quite a few unexpected moments of negative creativity... clams... I'm feeling a little rebellion against mistake-free perfectly mixed clips, I guess. I decided to try to stretch out over several choruses but I think really one was enough.

Recorded using my Aria Pro II PE180 and the DVMark Micro50 head into a home-brew cab with an 8" speaker. Backing track just going int the aux input and "air mixed." Recorded with the iPhone microphone. I was surprised at how well it actually came out.

Feedback is welcome.

Agreed, there are some stumbles, but there's a good shape to the solo, good mix of blues-y licks, arps and 1/8 notes to keep things moving, and the recording sounds really good. That Aria is a great sounding guitar. I strongly agree with what Jeff said upthread about focusing on just playing you for a while, and focusing less on nailing other people's styles. I think that could yield a lot of progress and fun stuff to listen to.

Thanks for your ideas. You do a great job on this tune and I am happy to know how you feel your way through it.

Thanks.

Sorry about the foot-tapping

Nice take.

Here's the Tommo - take:

Another nice one.


My one unsolicited comment on some of the takes here is that I find them a little too even and polite sounding. A lot of us come from a blues/rock background and this is a tune that can draw on that because of the boogaloo feel and the relative simplicity of the harmony. The devices we use as blues/rock players -- vibrato, bends, blues/pentatonic licks, dynamics, space/phrasing -- they all work here, so exploit that. I get the sense that some of you are focusing on making the changes, hitting chord tones and getting it "right", at the expense of just going for it with the vocabulary you actually have.

[Triple_Jazz]

1140826[/URL]]Sorry about the foot-tapping

Nicely done, changes well executed. My issue is the volume of recording was so low I really had to crank the volume.

Tommo great tone again! You and wzpgsr are head and shoulders high with great tone, I’m very jealous!

[TOMMO]

I get the sense that some of you are focusing on making the changes, hitting chord tones and getting it "right", at the expense of just going for it with the vocabulary you actually have.

That would include me there - you are right. You think I should do a more bluesy one?

Tommo great tone again! You and wzpgsr are head and shoulders high with great tone, I’m very jealous!

Thank you TJ. !