A treatise on jazz guitarists on Quora

[JazzPadd]

That's nice to hear! Could it be that a lot of our chords are drop 2?

I vaguely remember reading on r/jazz or r/jazzguitar one player saying that it might help to think of the guitar as a more a percussive instrument instead of a smaller version of a piano or sax. It kinda makes sense to me. This is a poor example but we can play and repeat one exact same note in 16ths more easily than a piano/sax. Slightly unrelated, but when I watch banjo players take solos in trad groups, to my ears they sound pretty exciting when they do energetic strum-y chord solos with ghost notes or muted strings.

The guitar as a percussive instrument, I love it, thanks! That's a great way of looking at it.

My brother is a drummer / percussionist and we grew up playing together in bands. He's now studying Brazilian drumming and we still jam to this day whenever we get together. As an inspiration for playing jazz, I feel closest to Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, and in addition to listening to the Charlie Christian USB archive while driving I also have another with an Art Blakey archive. When playing at local jam sessions, I intuitively lock in with the drummers, and sometimes start my ad-lib on a moderate to up swing tune with a short melodic figure varied rhythmically. Now I'd like to explore the energetic banjo style strumming you mentioned, there's times when a soloist is soaring that it might work well.

The guitar seems to be emerging from this lively discussion as an amazing beast indeed!

[James W]

I think that's still true. I think a lot of that is due to how pianists, orchestral string and horn players, etc., start with a standardized comprehensive pedagogy from the first day they pick up an instrument. They begin learning to read music practically from the first note. Virtually every great jazz instrumentalist on piano, saxophone, trumpet, etc., started out learning the classical methods- not only the music itself but also the physical approach to their instrument to be able to play at ease and efficiently.

Guitarists, on the other hand, tend to learn the basics maybe with guitar lessons but mostly on their own, maybe looking at books and misunderstanding what's in there because most of us can't read sheet music worth a damn. Guitar teachers tend not to have pedagogical training themselves, so they can't train their students in it. Many of us have terrible physical interaction with the instrument with ineffective posture, poor breathing, etc. At 66, I am just beginning to reckon with this due to the undeniable back and neck pain that developed over 45 years of bad habit.

Joe Pass, I have been noticing on videos, had a good physical interaction with the guitar. His early guitar education involved some standardized pedagogy (classical books like the Carcassi method, etc.). The freedom he had in his hands and arms when playing came from having a good relaxed stance with the guitar. And Joe may have been the most complete of us ever on the instrument from a technical perspective of playing jazz.

Jazz guitar pedagogy has developed a lot thanks to places like GIT and Berklee, among others. But we will never be able to exactly play like piano or horns; and horn players and pianists will never be able to exactly play like us. The instruments are just different. Jazz guitarists, throughout my studies of jazz, have suffered from this inferiority complex that we can't play chords like pianists and we can't play lines like saxophonists and therefore we are second tier jazz musicians. But when I talk to pianists about it, they are always interested by how a guitarist stacks notes in a chord compared to themselves and find that refreshing to hear. I've read online discussions by saxophonists looking to take guitar riffs and transpose them to the horn. Different doesn't have to mean inferior, but we have to learn how to be equals.

I agree with all of this.

I think one of the reasons guitarists don't have a standardised pedagogy like violin, piano or horns do is that there are many more ways of playing a guitar than there are of those other instruments. This in itself makes teaching quite a bit more difficult because what works for one guitarist might not work for another. I am thinking in particular about picking hand technique here. But, like I say, we are coming around to this fact and hopefully these things will be more common knowledge for guitarists, and guitar teachers specifically.

It is true that we don't have the chordal possibilities of pianos and we find fast lines like saxophone more difficult, but I think the strengths of the guitar is that it combines aspects of other instruments into one instrument.

[Peter C]

I agree with all of this.

I think one of the reasons guitarists don't have a standardised pedagogy like violin, piano or horns do is that there are many more ways of playing a guitar than there are of those other instruments. This in itself makes teaching quite a bit more difficult because what works for one guitarist might not work for another. I am thinking in particular about picking hand technique here. But, like I say, we are coming around to this fact and hopefully these things will be more common knowledge for guitarists, and guitar teachers specifically.

It is true that we don't have the chordal possibilities of pianos and we find fast lines like saxophone more difficult, but I think the strengths of the guitar is that it combines aspects of other instruments into one instrument.

Good post!

Regarding the idea proposed by Cunamara that "an average pianist (or whatever) is way better than a really good guitarist", from a musical perspective, I don't see much sense in that. Anyone who is a really good musician on any intrument is going to "cut through" in some way and transmit that energy to the audience and have an impact. Good is good, average is average, whatever you're playing. JMO

[djg]

this is a fantastic video. there are just as many ways to play the piano.

[AllanAllen]

Now I'd like to explore the energetic banjo style strumming you mentioned, there's times when a soloist is soaring that it might work well.

Arnt Arntzen, he's in The Louis Armstrong Eternity band that livestreams on RaioFreeBirdLand, so hours and hours of him playing in a group.

Here are some clips from SwingYouCats

A slow one

A fast one

[brent.h]

Arnt Arntzen, he's in The Louis Armstrong Eternity band that livestreams on RaioFreeBirdLand, so hours and hours of him playing in a group.

yeah man saw him a number of times on the livestream... the eternity band is awesome

[brent.h]

this is one of the coolest things i've ever seen on banjo... makes me wanna give up circular picking and learn this strum-y playing

gotta love that vaudeville energy too, it's so entertaining!

[RLetson]

Those videos remind me that Bucky and John Pizzarelli both started on banjo, as did Frank Vignola. And Howard Alden first played tenor guitar and banjo. Carl Kress started on banjo and used a banjo-influenced all-fifths tuning on guitar (picked up and maintained by Marty Grosz). Something going on there?

Always loved Bucky's supporting playing, as here he is with Zoot.

[Jonah]

At the jams in a town where I live, half of the people are guitarists. Sometimes I feel like I am in all guitar band.
It is obviously partly because the guitar is popular in general and once amateurs want to start jazz they are often already in guitar

Also I noticed that for many non-jazz/non-musicain people 'the jazz guitar (archtop)' is one of the immediate recognizable symbols of jazz (nest to saxophone).

As for why it was not so much recognized in the earlier days. Probably it was kind of lost behind horns and piano till the amplification era began, and then it took time to develop and establish a voice strong enough to bring forward people like Metheny or McLaughlin or Scofield or Frisell etc. who are also important for non-guitar players of next generations.

I should admit most trumpet and sax players I know do not really know music of Wes or Jim Hall... at best they know the names and who these guys are, but not the music really. Maybe they could hear Jim Hall as a sideman.
And most of the know the music of Metheny and Sco, even copied something from them etc.

quite a few jazz people know Joe Pass, but this is mostly because of his special stand alone virtuoso image and also I think because of collaboration with Norman Getz where he appeared with Ella and Oscar Peterson.

Overall to me the jazz guitar is best in a small group (best probably bass + guitar + one soloist (or I could live without a soloist either... kidding))
Very intimate context even if one plays manouche.

And modern electric guitars with overdrive and all... it is a bit different instrument already, different context...

[brent.h]

Those videos remind me that Bucky and John Pizzarelli both started on banjo, as did Frank Vignola. And Howard Alden first played tenor guitar and banjo. Carl Kress started on banjo and used a banjo-influenced all-fifths tuning on guitar (picked up and maintained by Marty Grosz). Something going on there?

here's frank doing that tremolo strumming at 2:20... so percussive, so nice

[Christian Miller]

this is a fantastic video. there are just as many ways to play the piano.

I love these sorts of videos. As I said, I think it’s a shame we don’t have the same sort of discourse about the way the great guitarists played. We just kind of high handedly assume that we’ve fixed technique and any divergences from that are kind of wrong as opposed to part of the artists individuality. It’s boring


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[Peter C]

Well Metheny's peculiar picking "technique" was the result of there only being thin picks availble in his local store, IIRC. Trying to visualize a parallel in the piano world...

[Peter C]

I occasionally like to play single lines with thumb only and enjoy doing so, but always have a pick on hand for the faster stuff.

I heard Jim Mullen say in an interview "Basically, it's all downstrokes". Yeah, right

[JGinNJ]

Arnt Arntzen, he's in The Louis Armstrong Eternity band that livestreams on RaioFreeBirdLand, so hours and hours of him playing in a group.

Here are some clips from SwingYouCats

A slow one

A fast one

I know the trumpet player, Danny Tobias from way back. He's from my area, was a couple of years ahead of me at the same college.
He's been playing a lot of trad gigs in NYC lately.

[Christian Miller]

I occasionally like to play single lines with thumb only and enjoy doing so, but always have a pick on hand for the faster stuff.

I heard Jim Mullen say in an interview "Basically, it's all downstrokes". Yeah, right

Looks like it from the video. The left hand does a lot of work.

Wes does sometimes alternate pick with the thumb. It’s not natural for me to do so, although I can do it, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Jim doesn’t do it at all.

I’ve been studying Wes closely recently.

The fingerings are super important. A lot of slurring and raking.

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[Christian Miller]

this is a fantastic video. there are just as many ways to play the piano.

The major add 4 chord at the end of the Brad Meldau segment. Bloody lovely. I must add the natural 4th to more major chords.


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[ragman1]

The fingerings are super important. A lot of slurring and raking.

That's because, as he has admitted many a time, that he's not good at fast runs with his thumb and slurs to cover it.

[Peter C]

The left/fretting hand stuff is a given; Mullen has some "distal phalanx" flex (had to look it up) going on there that I just tried to consciously reproduce and yeah I can see that beginning to happen after years of practise and sheer dogged determination to get the job done without the help of stinky picks! The clip I posted is really happening from a groove perspective. Love it!

[djg]

The fingerings are super important. A lot of slurring and raking.

you need to play above your comfort zone, tempo-wise. then the slurring comes natural lots of LH index medius two-finger movements.

[charlieparker]

I agree with all of this.

I think one of the reasons guitarists don't have a standardised pedagogy like violin, piano or horns do is that there are many more ways of playing a guitar than there are of those other instruments. This in itself makes teaching quite a bit more difficult because what works for one guitarist might not work for another. I am thinking in particular about picking hand technique here. But, like I say, we are coming around to this fact and hopefully these things will be more common knowledge for guitarists, and guitar teachers specifically.

It is true that we don't have the chordal possibilities of pianos and we find fast lines like saxophone more difficult, but I think the strengths of the guitar is that it combines aspects of other instruments into one instrument.

For sax and trumpet, the pedagogy is pretty standard. You learn to read and play in large ensembles/bands.

Guitar isn't really an ensemble instrument in that it's more of a folk instrument played alone or in a small group or alternatively as a solo instrument in the classical instrument.

The piano is honestly more similar to guitar. The main difference is that most pianists learn the classical solo repertoire where as that is less common on guitar.

[James W]

The piano is honestly more similar to guitar. The main difference is that most pianists learn the classical solo repertoire where as that is less common on guitar.

It's less common because the guitar can be played with a plectrum or fingerstyle. I'm not entirely sure of the reasons why jazz guitar is more closely associated with the plectrum (but I can guess) but that creates a bit of a gap between the jazz style and the classical style. I get that the piano accommodates a variety of techniques, but nothing as fundamental IMO as the difference between plectrum-picking and fingerstyle.

[Christian Miller]

The left/fretting hand stuff is a given; Mullen has some "distal phalanx" flex (had to look it up) going on there that I just tried to consciously reproduce and yeah I can see that beginning to happen after years of practise and sheer dogged determination to get the job done without the help of stinky picks! The clip I posted is really happening from a groove perspective. Love it!

Jim can hold his own with anyone. He's a master.

I've not really studied his lines in particular, although I'd like to at some point. He has a different vocabulary to Wes, I think - more modern in some ways.

[Irishmuso]

The major add 4 chord at the end of the Brad Meldau segment. Bloody lovely. I must add the natural 4th to more major chords.


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Bloody lovely indeed. It can be heard at 17:57. What would be your notation and fingering for that Christian, dare I ask?