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An influential guitarist and teacher to all instrumentalists (including Jazz Bagpipes!!). His methods apparently drew much from classical theorists but also incorporated a lot of exotic materials as well. Strange how many of his students came away sounding like mainstream bop players (Martino, Bean, Golson, James Moody, Art Farmer, Randy Brecker etc). Of course there was also long term student John Coltrane who probably more than most utilised some of the more exotic stuff...
Here's an interesting link (too bad a lot of the examples are inaccessible).
Dennis Sandole’s Unique Jazz Pedagogy
Anyway, I'm mainly interested in what he seems to have taught guys like Bean and Martino. Any thoughts welcome.
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02-23-2024 12:35 AM
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It's always a little hard to take what Pat Martino said at face value, given his tendency to be oblique and opaque when describing his process. He has talked in interviews about studying with Dennis Sandole and has basically said he paid more attention to the person than to the things being taught. Studying with him also introduced him to a number of other musicians with names such as those listed above.
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Martino once said:
"To be honest with you, I studied Dennis more as a person than I did study his approach to music. I never really understood how to make use of his music information. It dealt a great deal with scales and with modes. Since I was self-taught, I spent just four months with Dennis before leaving for Harlem at the age of 15. What I do is totally different than what Dennis taught." (Creative Force)
Despite him saying that I think I can detect an influence, e.g., in "Exit" and "Three Bass Hit" and in the way the way he plays streams of 16th notes and altered dominant material. I definitely do not hear Martino as sounding like a "mainstream bop player" (unless you mean that to encompass hard bop). I haven't listened to enough Billy Bean to have any thoughts on the subject.
Listening to "The Boys of Istanbul" now, I can definitely see an influence on Benny Golson. I can easily imagine Whisper Not being on the same album.
But I'd add a giant caveat to the whole topic -- a teacher is supposed to give you information and guidance to make you a better you, not a copy of the teacher. So wondering why Sandole's students don't sound like him is kind of barking up the wrong tree.
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You can get books.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=dennis+...ref=nb_sb_noss
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Yes, I've heard his playing, I find it interesting, but I don't really hear any obvious influence he had on his "students". Perhaps the influence was conceptual, or maybe he attracted these famous names because there just weren't too many guru-like teachers around that knew more about theory than most of the players did at the time?
Originally Posted by ragman1
Before the 60's there seems to have been only a handful of Bop high priests that were self appointed pedagogues, each one with quite a unique approach. It's interesting to observe, with hindsight, which of these teachers have left a lasting legacy...
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I think you have to look at a lot of what Martino said through the lens of his brain injury. From what I understand, even though he made huge strides in recovering from the damage caused by both the avm/stroke/seizure and surgery (which removed a lot of brain matter), he still had a significant cognitive impacts. I think that Sandole comment stems from a combination of not fully remembering his experiences and vocabulary idiosyncrasies in how his mind found words. I suspect that if you had asked him in 1970 what he learned from Sandole, the answer would have been a lot different from the answers he gave 30 years later. Obviously, I have no direct evidence to support this, but several people close to me have had significant brain injuries (strokes, brain tumors) and I've seen similar things. Originally Posted by Cunamara
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Pat Martino doesn’t have much to say about Dennis Sandole in his autobiography ‘Here and Now’, he basically repeats almost word-for-word what John A. quoted above. He does add that Sandole hardly performed anything on the guitar by then, he just wrote and spoke about music.
The only other memory Pat recalls is that with his aggressive picking technique, he kept breaking strings, so he raised this issue with Sandole, who told him to completely change his picking approach. Because Pat respected Sandole as the ‘master’, he followed this advice for a few weeks, but it just caused him problems and frustration. So he found his own solution by keeping his technique unchanged, but using heavier strings.
From this he concludes that the ‘master’ and ‘pupil’ relationship isn’t always conducted in the most beneficial way.
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My thoughts exactly. I think you've expressed it very well. I really posted the music for those who may not have heard it before. Originally Posted by princeplanet
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I found some more details about Sandole in 'Chasin' the Trane', a biography of Coltrane by J.C. Thomas. In the early 1950s Coltrane enrolled at the Granoff School of Music in Philadelphia, where Sandole was his theory teacher. According to the book, Coltrane got on well with Sandole, who told him to listen to a lot of classical music, especially Bartok and Stravinsky (apparently he had not had much exposure to classical music at that point).
The other interesting thing is that because Coltrane kept wanting to play ever higher notes and intervals, Sandole suggested he take up soprano sax.
No specific sources are given for any of this, but supposedly the book is based on interviews with people who knew Coltrane well.
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Scroll down the link given in the OP to "Influence On Coltrane" about 3/4 of the way down. It's clear Sandole had a huge influence on Trane, possibly more than anything or anyone else?
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Yes interesting info, I had a look at that after posting.
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Interesting, not sure exactly what is being demonstrated here:
Billy Bean & Dennis Sandole Solos from Vol. 2 , Unabridged "Billy Bean: The Life and Music of a Jazz Guitar Legend" - YouTube
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All comes from this book apparently:
Billy Bean: The Life and Music of a Jazz Guitar Legend Vol. 2 of 2 (Unabridged eBook Edition) – Red Note Press
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On that website there used to be certain Sibelius notation files that could be played back through a Sibelius browser plugin that does not work with modern browsers any more. That happens when you use closed source software on your website. Originally Posted by princeplanet
EDIT: The browser plugin was called Sibelius Scorch.
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I managed to look at and listen to one of the examples from the Current Jazz Research article in the OP. The procedure is a litlle intricate:
- The first example with notation and playback is example 2. Open the page source with "Ctrl + U". Search ("Ctrl + F") for "ex02.sib"
- Right click that link and use "Save link as ..."
- Name the file "ex02.sib" and download it
- Go to the AVID website and download the free "Sibelius First". You have to open an account there and they will send you a download link.
- With Sibelius first you can open the .SIB file, look at the notation and listen to it by hitting "Space".
- There are more than 50 examples, so have fun
[Key commands work with Linux or Windows. For mac probably use the Command key instead.]
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Nice one BH, cheers! I'll check it out when I get a chance. Originally Posted by Bop Head
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This thread has got me on a Billy Bean kick (I am familiar with some of his stuff, I already have 4 of the recordings he made) so I purchased the ebook (Billy Bean his life and music, vol 1).
Really interesting book, about his development, playing, and later, the personal problems he faced. It’s based on interviews with Billy himself and those who knew and played with him. There is some info. about Dennis Sandole too. It seems that Billy improved his picking technique under Sandole’s guidance, but he did not feel he was musically influenced by him very much (he said he learned mainly by copying Charlie Parker records, and this had already taken place by the time he met Sandole).
Reading about the trio with Hal Gaylor, the name of the trio’s pianist (Walter Norris) sounded vaguely familiar to me. Then I remembered I saw Walter at the Tenor Clef club in London back in the 90s, playing with Peter Ind. It’s a pity I hadn’t heard of Billy Bean back then, I would have asked Walter all about him!
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Yeah Billy Bean deserves more attention, I think many on this forum agree. Interesting he felt Sandole had little impact on his playing. Are we getting the impression that people went to Sandole because of some reputation he had, but that not of all of his students really learned that much from him?
Maybe it was just "cool" back then to say you took lessons from him?
*edit : mind you, if Sandole only helped BB with his picking technique, then that was quite something I suppose. After, all, BB's picking is more articulate than most, beautiful clean lines...
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According to Bean, he was using mainly downstrokes and anchoring his hand on the bridge when he went to Sandole. Sandole got him to use alternate picking, keep his hand floating off the bridge, and practise tremolo exercises.
Sandole used to write out sample solos on standards and the author was given Billy’s copies of these. Apparently the idea was that the student would write out his own solos on the same tunes, in response. However none of Billy’s solos (apart from a couple of fragments I think) were found in his manuscript books, only Sandole’s examples.
I believe that is what the author (Seth Greenberg) has performed here (i.e. this is him playing mostly Sandole’s example solos):
Billy Bean & Dennis Sandole Solos from Vol. 2 , Unabridged "Billy Bean: The Life and Music of a Jazz Guitar Legend" - YouTube
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Norris was great. He was on several early recordings of future names, including Ornette Coleman. When he replaced Roland Hanna in the Thad Jones - Mel Lewis band, I was disappointed until I heard him. Hanna remains one of my favorite pianists, but Norris filled the chair very well. Originally Posted by grahambop
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