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I don't understand this thread. Maybe Joel's gone coo-coo! This is the Lessons folder, isn't it?
Blues-blues isn't jazz-blues. Shouldn't it be under 'Other Styles' or something? Not that I care, I'm just wondering.
Because we've gotten so far away
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02-16-2020 04:17 AM
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Actually, I think the idea of the blues as the expression of black suffering is outdated. I think it's become a cliche. In today's world I'm not sure it's very relevant any more.
This is not to say it should be forgotten, any more than the Holocaust should be forgotten, but we can't live in the past. The blues is perhaps a generic way of expressing human despair because of its structure and nature but, in the end, it's only a feeling, the expression of a feeling. And it makes good music.
Jazz has incorporated the blues sound into its genre, and makes the music more interesting, but 'Blues For Alice' hasn't really much relationship to what Bukka White was doing in the video. There's musically a historical relationship but that's all.
So I don't think we've 'gotten far away', it's that we've moved on - as we should have done. It's not being disrespectful of the past, it's just that life is about movement, change and progression.
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makes me want to get a dobro. Lonnie Johnson always one of my favourites - out and out blues player but with Ellington, Louis. And Eddie Lang, the classical and ragtime influence.... there’s jazz right there.
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Originally Posted by joelf
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02-16-2020, 05:36 AM #30joelf GuestOriginally Posted by ragman1
You're late, dude. I 'went coo coo' in 1954---the year I was, er, released from inside Bess Fass...
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02-16-2020, 05:48 AM #31joelf GuestOriginally Posted by ragman1
Yes, jazz has gotten away from its heartbeat and roots. Yes, an art evolves and moves on. (The change was mostly in harmonic affectation and to more 'harmony-first, and the 'straighter' orientation of the 8th note---in 'mainstream' jazz). No, I'm not one of those 'retro' people (ick!). But I want to hear the roots in there somewhere. Shoot me...
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Originally Posted by christianm77
Ragtime Crazy - WILLIAM MOORE. Ragtime Blues Guitar 1928
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Originally Posted by christianm77
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Originally Posted by joelf
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02-16-2020, 06:03 AM #35joelf Guest
If even one of us learns something from this, yeah, it belongs in the 'lessons folder'...
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02-16-2020, 06:06 AM #36joelf GuestOriginally Posted by ragman1
'What about Bob?'--Julie Haggerty...
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Originally Posted by ragman1
from this point of view, I rather agree with Joelf
moreover, "Roots" has a relatively precise meaning about the history of the American Black People
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You know, anyone would think the coloured people were the only ones who had suffered. Everyone's suffered, right? What about the Red Indians? The Aborigines, the Africans, the Chinese, the Jews, the Christians, all those in the Middle East living with wars, sanctions... everybody, including you and me.
But the black guys produced this extraordinary musical genre that's lasted and pervaded so much. That's a little wonder in itself.
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I like Skip James, he had quite an eerie-sounding voice and he used a D minor open tuning on the guitar.
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Originally Posted by joelf
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A photo I took in 1982 of Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry - rock’n’roll meets the blues!
They were both appearing (but not together) at the same festival. Chuck suddenly ran on stage at the end of Muddy’s set and hugged him - luckily I had my camera ready, they were only together for a few seconds.
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Muddy with Tele:
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Couple of early favourites, Sonny Boy Williamson's King Biscuit Time recordings - the first (& only) record I ever learned to play along with all the way through, & Tommy McLennan Bluebird Records Volume ?...
I taped the Sonny Boy & never returned the McLennan to the library....
Seeing Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee was a life changer too. Although the sound man told me they'd both asked not to hear the other in their monitor...(I was trying to wangle a recording)
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I got into blues soon after getting into rock guitar, probably after hearing Hendrix’s ‘Red House’. Then a friend played me Muddy Waters ‘Hard Again’ with Johnny Winters, I was knocked out by it. So we tried to play the blues, but we knew we were just middle-class white boys who couldn’t pull it off, we weren’t stupid. But I took the trouble to read books about the whole history of it, and collected quite a few blues records.
I once knew a guy who thought the blues started and ended with Clapton, he didn’t care at all for any of the black bluesmen. I thought that was stupid, but he probably wasn’t the only one, sadly.
When I got into jazz I could hear how some players had a feel for the blues, e.g. Bird playing ‘Parker’s Mood’.
I think it’s beneficial to at least try and absorb some of the emotion and background of the blues, it can only help your jazz playing surely. I do find some jazz a bit too ‘mathematical’ these days.
Anyway here’s the track by Muddy that blew me away:
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Here's a guy who is clearly influenced by pre-war blues guitar - mixing sophisticated lines with downhome blues licks:
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Originally Posted by joelf
Groove is social and you can't measure the blues. So there you go.
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Duke Robillard recently made an album of acoustic blues songs he loved and learned in his youth. This is one of my favorties, a song from the '20s that is rather more sophisticated than a lot of later blues.
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Buddy Guy and Stevie Ray Vaughan at Buddy's club in Chicago, 1989. A 30-minute jam on "Champagne and Reefer"
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Very important blues guitar player. His rhythm was strong and catchy.
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One of my favorite records. Guitar Slim doesn't even take a solo on this and it's still great. (I'm not sure he plays at all on this recording.)
But he could play, of course. And with distinction.
Lucy’s Jazz Guitar Gretsch G5420 an Projects
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