The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    Drop an alto sax down the stairs and it'll play an Eb scale.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #27

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    Drop a band down the stairs and they will charge scale.

    Drop a vocalist down the stairs and he/she will call a lawyer.

  4. #28

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    drop a new guitar down the stairs and you'll have a 500$ customshop relic upcharge!

    hah

    cheers

  5. #29

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    I started out on trumpet, while my sibs and Dad played clarinet; was moved to French Horn by the band director and stayed there through high school, then off to college to become entranced by the guitar; but saxophone has always held a special place in my sonic imagination. I developed a tone a colleague dubbed "the Sax o' Fender" - tube amp, just enough gain to flirt with soft-knee compression, tone rolled off; ride volume to phrase with; et voila! [Inspector Cleauseau voice} The Saxofauxne! Great for ballads & blues.

  6. #30

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
    Yeah, it's all good. There's just something about instruments that require the breath...

    Talking of sax and bass, this has to be one of the oddest, most wonderful bass solos ever, from Jimmy Garrison:

    And people say there is no God...

    Unbelievable. Transcendent.

  7. #31

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    Quote Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
    When I was a kid I took one look at that tube with ALL THOSE KEYS (and the piano with 88 of ‘em), and thought NO WAY. Then I saw a guitar with six strings, and thought I might be able to handle that...
    So, you ended up with the most difficult of those three instruments to master!


    Personally I can barely tolerate the sound of the saxophone most of the time. There are exceptions to that, of course, but to me it is such a tremendously overused instrument in jazz that I am heartily sick and tired of the sound. And there is a set of jazz saxophone clichés that really get under my skin; oddly enough the guitar clichés don't!

  8. #32

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    Well, I'm glad we don't all like the same thing.

    Drop a piano down an underground lift shaft, and you get a flat miner....

  9. #33

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    The guitar is the best instrument overall, because it can be percussive as well as lyrical, is polyphonic, needs direct contact with/from your body to create its sound, and has enough variables & possibilities to occupy you a lifetime. It's also the best jazz instrument, because Wes Montgomery...

  10. #34

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    A friend of mine once took a gig at a "jazz cafe" that had opened near us...I think he did a duo with a bass player, played standards, etc.

    Afterward, the owner came up to pay them and said "You sounded great, but I thought you were going to play jazz."

    They were confused, considering they had just played two hours of jazz. So my friend says "But we did play jazz?"

    To which the owner responds, "No, JAZZ. Like saxophone."

    She was out of business 3 months later.

  11. #35

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    Quote Originally Posted by neatomic
    pianos don't bend!...
    True. Also true that you don't sound a piano by blowing on the keys. But this isn't a problem. It may be one reason the piano is an especially good instrument to sing against (or over or with)

  12. #36

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    I don't know if it's the best jazz instrument, but I like it. I played saxophone in elementary and junior high band, but I quit before it started to get interesting. I wish I had stuck with it. I've thought about getting a cheap one and trying to learn again but I'm hesitant to take away from my guitar practice time.

  13. #37

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    I put the question of the ultimate jazz instrument to my wife, and without hesitation or prompting , she also quoted the saxophone.
    Her preference is for Jazz singers ,Ella, Sarah, Tony Bennett, Gregory Porter, etc.

  14. #38

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    Well, that makes it official!

  15. #39

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    Quote Originally Posted by citizenk74
    I started out on trumpet, while my sibs and Dad played clarinet; was moved to French Horn by the band director and stayed there through high school, then off to college to become entranced by the guitar; but saxophone has always held a special place in my sonic imagination. I developed a tone a colleague dubbed "the Sax o' Fender" - tube amp, just enough gain to flirt with soft-knee compression, tone rolled off; ride volume to phrase with; et voila! [Inspector Cleauseau voice} The Saxofauxne! Great for ballads & blues.
    That is the best description of
    Insp Clouseau’ s faux French accent I have heard C74K , and an impressive background of formal tuition on Horns , before taking up Guitar . Which must have served you well.

  16. #40

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    I'm in a local jazz quartet. I play saxophone and guitar. Both at a reasonably competent (in my head anyway) amateur level by jazz forum standards. And while in some ways I'm a better guitar player, the audience certainly prefers saxophone. There's just something about the warm embrace of a tenor. Seems there's a physical resonance with the human body. That.. and saxophone cuts through just about anything. What in the heck will it ever take for the rhythm section to drop the volume way down for a guitar solo on an archtop?

  17. #41

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    Wintermoon beat me to it but that's what I would say as well. Unfortunately there are very, very few really good jazz vocalists. But when you listen to Lady Day in that early post, oh man, the inflections, the emotion that comes out through her voice cannot be mastered by any instrument.

    And that's coming from a sax player who dabbles poorly on guitar. My early influences were Johnny Hodges and Gerry Mulligan and I still am in awe when I listen to them. So, yes, probably the sax as 'the' jazz instrument for me.

  18. #42

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    A woman once told me that when she was young , her local village hall ( where they would have had local dances ) had a sign on the wall forbidding the playing of saxophones which were thought ( this was around the 1920s , 30s ) to have a deleterious effect on young ladies morals . I played the saxophone semi-professionally for years , can confirm .

  19. #43

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    Quote Originally Posted by Spook410
    I'm in a local jazz quartet. I play saxophone and guitar. Both at a reasonably competent (in my head anyway) amateur level by jazz forum standards. And while in some ways I'm a better guitar player, the audience certainly prefers saxophone. There's just something about the warm embrace of a tenor. Seems there's a physical resonance with the human body. That.. and saxophone cuts through just about anything. What in the heck will it ever take for the rhythm section to drop the volume way down for a guitar solo on an archtop?
    I have no doubt about this. To many people, jazz means a horn. But a horn alone makes thin jazz. Years ago I wished I had taken up sax instead of guitar, but now I'm glad I play guitar. For many reasons: chords, sliding chords, walking bass lines, double stops, and you can sing at the same time as you're playing it.

  20. #44

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    Quote Originally Posted by Zina
    The guitar is the best instrument overall, because it can be percussive as well as lyrical, is polyphonic, needs direct contact with/from your body to create its sound, and has enough variables & possibilities to occupy you a lifetime. It's also the best jazz instrument, because Wes Montgomery...
    Beethoven said "The guitar is a miniature orchestra in itself." Good enough for me!

    Nonetheless, nothing can keep me from making horn-like noises whenever I get a chance.

  21. #45

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    Quote Originally Posted by Patlotch
    Anyway, the question of the topic makes no sense, it is only there to make people talk

    Sorry for introducing a topic for discussion on a forum...

  22. #46

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  23. #47

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    I'm totally down with the idea of the supremacy of the sax in the jazz idiom. It's like every single note run I have ever played wants to be a sax line when it grows up.

    But then every once in a while I think, "Oh yeah, then play me a chord, oh ye superior instrument. Play me some octave double-stop runs like Wes..."

    And then I snigger to myself about horns and spit valves and hygiene.

    And then I spin "A Love Supreme" and sigh.

  24. #48

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    Quote Originally Posted by Pycroft
    A woman once told me that when she was young , her local village hall ( where they would have had local dances ) had a sign on the wall forbidding the playing of saxophones which were thought ( this was around the 1920s , 30s ) to have a deleterious effect on young ladies morals . I played the saxophone semi-professionally for years , can confirm .
    That vulgar generalisation may be true in your locality, but not elsewhere.

  25. #49

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    My comment is in relation to Pycroft's concluding remark that he "...can confirm...", which is why I used the present tense. And unless you are a young lady yourself, it is perhaps wisest not to affirm categorically what you cannot feel. Et épargnez-moi tout un discours basé sur des 'on dit' stp; la vérité est simplement qu'une fille normale, càd non influencée par des bêtises, n'en a rien à cirer de ces saxophones à la nouille. A propos, votre "traduction" de 'kill 2 birds with 1 stone' est fausse. Kulturbanause.

  26. #50

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    Quote Originally Posted by Pycroft
    A woman once told me that when she was young , her local village hall ( where they would have had local dances ) had a sign on the wall forbidding the playing of saxophones which were thought ( this was around the 1920s , 30s ) to have a deleterious effect on young ladies morals . I played the saxophone semi-professionally for years , can confirm .
    When I still played the saxophone in bands, I had women talking to me with quite obvious intentions. Now that I only play the guitar, men come and ask me technical questions.

    And this is in Kulturträger country, mind you. Beethoven was born just down the road. True, he didn't play the sax, but had syphilis all the same