Pat Martino greatest improviser on fast tempos?

[Christian Miller]

I stick by my conclusion that no one on guitar has come close to what Bird and Bud did at crazy tempos all those years ago.

People listed here were all amazing. Tal at his high point (back in the 50s) for example, Birelli… etc. it’s not lack of talent for sure. I think it’s just the instrument.

Tbh bebop guitar always has an element of fighting the instrument. And yet we are addicted haha….

[Tal_175]

Pat Metheny always sounds so together rhythmically regardless of how burning the tempo is. He is I think a bit on the laid back side which makes him sound even more swinging.

[Christian Miller]

Imo it's kind of a cop out to write off playing because it's mega up and the musicality will necessarily suffer. I personally don't want to self harm and force myself to play at that speed, or listen to it all the time, but it is what it is and they are doing a pretty good feat. Sometimes it actually sounds good too haha. Pat to me sounds almost at the musicality level of Parker at the up tempos. His approach is different, more smoothed out and range bound, and he doesn't quite have the expression within the fast tempos that Parker does, but he always sounded like he was doing the controlling of the playing rather than sounding like he was dying like a lot of guitarists and just trying to get in random phrases. I usually enjoy that, or at the least wouldn't find fault in any of it.

metul

You play keys so you are no position to comment haha. However it does mean you have a higher bar to live up to, which is the curse of the keys player is it not?

[princeplanet]

....
Tbh bebop guitar always has an element of fighting the instrument. And yet we are addicted haha….

It's our cross to bear... tragic innit?

[Christian Miller]

Pat Metheny always sounds so together rhythmically regardless of how burning the tempo is. He is I think a bit on the laid back side which makes him sound even more swinging.

Yes Metheny is good at that isn’t he? He hammers a lot, it’s a good solution.

Again I find a lot of his lines at that speed quite mechanically oriented which is probably true for anyone playing guitar at that tempo. I know it is for me.

he likes chromatic thirds across the strings for instance, hammering on the lower one. Makes that bubbly sound. It’s easy to do but as soon as you do it everyone says - oh it’s that Pat Metheny lick. So you can’t use it. Curses!

No doubt there’s stuff like that on other instruments too .

[Jerzy]

While we're at it, here's another one. You can see how he'd grab an audience. It's not particularly fast, of course.

Wes rules.Always.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

So we're all bad people because we've been asked, and we're sharing our personal preferences? OK...

Wow - that’s quite a stretch! I just think some are being a bit too harsh. I have no problem with those who think that Tal is sloppy or Benson is boring. You have every right to feel as you do. But I think those judgments are way off base because Farlow’s slop is more precise than most players’ precision.

Anyone who thinks it’s possible to play consistently perfectly at the cutting edge is either unrealistic or the best player on the planet.

{EDIT} Here's just one example of how precisely Farlow could play at speed. Listen to him with Eddie Costa (also seriously great) at 22 seconds into this one. The solos are wonderful IMO and I'd love to be able to play night after night at this level. The album is one of my favorites.

[charlieparker]

Wow - that’s quite a stretch! I just think some are being a bit too harsh. I have no problem with those who think that Tal is sloppy or Benson is boring. You have every right to feel as you do. But I think those judgments are way off base because Farlow’s slop is more precise than most players’ precision.

Anyone who thinks it’s possible to play consistently perfectly at the cutting edge is either unrealistic or the best player on the planet.

{EDIT} Here's just one example of how precisely Farlow could play at speed. Listen to him with Eddie Costa (also seriously great) at 22 seconds into this one. The solos are wonderful IMO and I'd love to be able to play night after night at this level. The album is one of my favorites.

I think you are being overly defensive. Tak Farlow is my favorite jazz guitar player. Period. I rate him higher than everyone with the possible exception of Wes.

The album you linked is amazing. However, I stand by my claim that other track at 400 bpm wasn't his best work and while it doesn't sound terrible. It clearly sounds like he is struggling to play at that tempo, IMO.

[grahambop]

Let us not forget the great Louis Stewart.

[Christian Miller]

The stuff with Eddie Costa is fire as well, as the kids say.

[mr. beaumont]

The stuff with Eddie Costa is fire as well, as the kids say.

That particular Tal record absolutely blew my mind when I first heard it. Like the type where I can even remember where I was, what the weather was like, etc.

[DawgBone]

[DawgBone]

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

I think you are being overly defensive. Tak Farlow is my favorite jazz guitar player. Period. I rate him higher than everyone with the possible exception of Wes.

The album you linked is amazing. However, I stand by my claim that other track at 400 bpm wasn't his best work and while it doesn't sound terrible. It clearly sounds like he is struggling to play at that tempo, IMO.

And I think these guys deserve a defense. “Not his best work” is a very reasonable and appropriate criticism with which he’d probably have agreed. But sloppy is a bit of overstatement, and it’s undeserved IMO.

[ragman1]

I think at those speeds you're allowed to be 'sloppy'. I did like the Louis Stewart. Something of quality about it, although maybe Tal held the technical highground. Big mits, probably :-)

It's all just personal taste, of course.

[ragman1]

Is that the Dark Net???

[sgcim]

this seems like an odd conclusion to reach on that basis lol

theres plenty of alternate pickers who are musically marginal.



Tal Farlow didn’t alternate pick. Look carefully at his picking hand.

Raney picked in whatever way suited the phrase. Almost like he was a musician or something. You couldn’t play like Raney using alternate picking alone.

PG studied with a disciple of Chuck Wayne, who used to make his alt. picking students not to take any gigs for a year, until they mastered his method of picking. PG has completely mastered that technique, yet I got that email from a pianist friend of mine (who has recorded with Michael Brecker) completely out of the blue.
This isn't the first time a pianist has made that type of comment about someone who used the CW method. Another pianist friend of mine had to leave a club, because he couldn't take the playing of a very well-known CW student. The lack of articulation (accents especially) resulted in a sameness of sound that was literally driving him nuts.

Listening to PG record himself using alt. picking was a revelation. He was actually making clear musical statements that swung, because he was accenting the upbeats on his distinct phrases.
Does that make my "conclusion" seem less "odd" "lol"...

Of course there are alt. pickers who are "musically marginal", why do you think I opened my post with the fact that Pat Martino spent 36 straight hours practicing?
A friend of my father's lived above Johnny Smith in the Bronx. JS terrorized the guy's poor family by practicing ALL DAY AND NIGHT, every day.

We have no idea how Tal picked in the 50s, because there are NO films of his playing during that period.
If you came off your high horse and actually read my post, you'd know that Tal's playing after the 50's was seriously flawed due to a neurological disorder. To assess his playing on the basis of that pitiful trio with Lennie Breau is simply wrong.

If you listen to Tal's best playing of the 50s, almost every note is clearly plucked, with obvious slurs thrown in.
Raney made that tape of him trying to imitate Bird's phrasing for pedagogical reasons. When I saw him live for four hours straight, the vast majority of his picking was alt. with those swinging accents on the upbeats. I spoke to him and asked him how he picked, and he demonstrated his alt. picking technique for me.
Of course, he does use slurs to great advantage, but he in no way used the Chuck Wayne method that PG used. In fact, his opinion of CW was not all that high.
No one can use alt. picking exclusively, due to the nature of the instrument (arps etc...), but as Reg has said about his picking method here many times, Farlow and Raney also used it as their default picking method. Others do not.

[Peter C]

I think Mikko is talking about how Pat came up with and pulled off those badass lines at speed, not just speed per se. That silly talk. All the rest is down to whether your nervous system tunes into it or not.

I was lucky enough to catch him in Spain on a 2013 tour with Pat Bianchi on B3 and Carmen Intorre Jr. on drums. Great concert.

[sgcim]

I stick by my conclusion that no one on guitar has come close to what Bird and Bud did at crazy tempos all those years ago.

People listed here were all amazing. Tal at his high point (back in the 50s) for example, Birelli… etc. it’s not lack of talent for sure. I think it’s just the instrument.

Tbh bebop guitar always has an element of fighting the instrument. And yet we are addicted haha….

Actually Tal's goal in the 50s,that he stated in a letter, was to combine the lines of Bud with the surprise of Bird.
In the 50s, I think he achieved that goal.
Back when you could take jazz criticism seriously, Metronome magazine had a reason for including him on the recording of The Metronome All Stars in 1956, where he holds his own with the best of that time.

[princeplanet]

...
Anyone who thinks it’s possible to play consistently perfectly at the cutting edge is either unrealistic or the best player on the planet....

.... Or his name is Pat Martino ...

[princeplanet]

Actually Tal's goal in the 50s,that he stated in a letter, was to combine the lines of Bud with the surprise of Bird.
In the 50s, I think he achieved that goal.
....

Yeah, I remember reading that somewhere and that's what it sounds like to me. Which is nothing short of Heroic - he must have worked so hard to try to figure out how to do that (his giant hands no doubt helped). His lines look and sound fiendishly difficult to play, and I'd say they were harder for him than piano was for Bud, or horn for Bird, because I think I can always hear the "effort" or something... He was playing non - guitaristic lines with lots of changes of direction in the melodic line that are almost impossible on our instrument.

I remember taking an entire year where I did nothing but played Parker solos and yeah, it was hard work to get them up to speed where I could play with the records! I'd record myself when I got them as good as I could and thought it was OK. And then I recorded myself without Bird behind me and I'll never forget the sinking feeling I felt - it sounded like ass! It simply was not musical, in the same way that you put some tracing paper over a great artist's illustration, and copy it as best you can, then take the tracing paper away. Does it look as "artistic" as the original? Of course not!

Lesson for me (and I consider it a very important one, and hard won at that), was that I would never sound artistically convincing trying to emulate horns or pianos. Those of you who work with tools will know it's all about using the right tool for the right job, and that using the wrong tool will not only take longer, but yield an inferior result, and be an unsatisfying experience. The guitar is simply the wrong tool to play like Bud and Bird, so it's astonishing when you hear guys that actually try to do it anyway! Like Tal, and like PG more recently.

So I think that's why I can't connect with those guys, it doesn't sound casual or "off the hip" like Bird or Bud... which is why I like Bird and Bud . And so it is for most Jazz guitar "shredders" (God I hate that term), as Christian says, it's hard to sound effortless when playing fast lines. It's the damn pick! The most effortless sounding fast guitar lines I've ever heard came off of Wes's thumb (often quicker than you think!), but pickers like JS, Pat Martino, GB, Birelli, Oberg - oh, and let's not forget Django! - they come close to sounding effortless because they found a way to work with the guitar and not against it.

BTW, I'm also the kinda guy that will go on Art forums and declare I prefer Monet to Manet, and I can't paint for shit...

[Gabor]

the "natural variation of a real drummer" , is not random, neither came from execution difficulties, instead it *grooves*. Either in rock John Bonham or Ginger Baker or in jazz say Billy Higgins or Paul Motian.

[charlieparker]

Yeah, I remember reading that somewhere and that's what it sounds like to me. Which is nothing short of Heroic - he must have worked so hard to try to figure out how to do that (his giant hands no doubt helped). His lines look and sound fiendishly difficult to play, and I'd say they were harder for him than piano was for Bud, or horn for Bird, because I think I can always hear the "effort" or something... He was playing non - guitaristic lines with lots of changes of direction in the melodic line that are almost impossible on our instrument.

I remember taking an entire year where I did nothing but played Parker solos and yeah, it was hard work to get them up to speed where I could play with the records! I'd record myself when I got them as good as I could and thought it was OK. And then I recorded myself without Bird behind me and I'll never forget the sinking feeling I felt - it sounded like ass! It simply was not musical, in the same way that you put some tracing paper over a great artist's illustration, and copy it as best you can, then take the tracing paper away. Does it look as "artistic" as the original? Of course not!

Lesson for me (and I consider it a very important one, and hard won at that), was that I would never sound artistically convincing trying to emulate horns or pianos. Those of you who work with tools will know it's all about using the right tool for the right job, and that using the wrong tool will not only take longer, but yield an inferior result, and be an unsatisfying experience. The guitar is simply the wrong tool to play like Bud and Bird, so it's astonishing when you hear guys that actually try to do it anyway! Like Tal, and like PG more recently.

So I think that's why I can't connect with those guys, it doesn't sound casual or "off the hip" like Bird or Bud... which is why I like Bird and Bud . And so it is for most Jazz guitar "shredders" (God I hate that term), as Christian says, it's hard to sound effortless when playing fast lines. It's the damn pick! The most effortless sounding fast guitar lines I've ever heard came off of Wes's thumb (often quicker than you think!), but pickers like JS, Pat Martino, GB, Birelli, Oberg - oh, and let's not forget Django! - they come close to sounding effortless because they found a way to work with the guitar and not against it.

BTW, I'm also the kinda guy that will go on Art forums and declare I prefer Monet to Manet, and I can't paint for shit...

I just started a thread on this a few days ago. I have been transcribing Sonny Rollins and the lines don't pop when I play them on guitar. I'm starting to come to the conclusion that each instrument has it's own idiosyncrasies.

[princeplanet]

I just started a thread on this a few days ago. I have been transcribing Sonny Rollins and the lines don't pop when I play them on guitar. I'm starting to come to the conclusion that each instrument has it's own idiosyncrasies.

Ha! how cool would it be if you could somehow capture that Rollins "vibe" on the guitar? I realised I'm playing the wrong instrument a long time ago...

[Alter]

Tal Fallow had said that it was his record company that wanted him to play these fast tempo numbers on records. But he sure could do it elegantly!

I think this is by far Pat Martino's most technical album, and it's a live one. He's kind of unstoppable here:

And another technical monster is Rodney Jones. Check out his first album, "Articulation"