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Lest someone say, "What does a bass player know about the guitar?" (Kaye has played on over 10,000 recording sessions as a bassist) let it be noted that she was a gigging jazz guitarist and her first studio work was a guitar player. (She took up the bass at a session when the bassist didn't show and found it she dug playing it...) This is an interview for Bass Player. TV but much of what she says (and plays on her bass) should interest jazz guitarists.
My favorite bit is about how bebop bands in the '50s wouldn't let guys who "played scales" sit in (!)
For the record, I am NOT anti-scale! I find her approach interesting, and hearing this, I know why she got along so well with Joe Pass. (She produced one of his albums and played bass on some tracks.)
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08-30-2012 08:04 PM
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Oh, this is great. I agree about knowing both note-scales and chords, and I use both methods, but she totally has the bebop sound going on. The thing is is that both the scalar method and the arpeggio/chord method can go wrong if not done well. There isn't really a one or the other, it's just a whatever works for you sort of thing, in my opinion.
This is a really great video though.
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Yeah, I enjoy it too. She's not anti-theory---she knows her stuff---but she does think that learning to play is one thing and understanding theory is another and that you DON'T have to master the latter before tackling the former.
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There's something interesting going on in this video, which often gets glossed over in the debate about scales. When she's riffing on "Another You", she says "don't play scales" (and plays an Eb maj scale) , then goes on to play an extended arpeggio. I think some people hear "don't use scales" and think that it lets them off the hook for learning scales. when it really means 'just playing scales is not sufficient for playing jazz, but it is necessary to know them".
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Knowing the right scale will get you in the ballpark, but your still not on base.- J.B.
Originally Posted by paulkogut
You have to know your scales, more important need to know your chord tones, especially the main guide tones to "make the change" in your lines. Then last piece of the puzzle is knowing where in time to place which notes.
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Of course you have to know scales, and arpeggios, etc. And I'm sure she does too.
But learning scales is not an "improvisation method". But it is part of the basic rudiments of understanding harmony learning the instrument. When she talked about the guy playing scales, she meant he was a beginner and didn't know the bebop vocabulary.
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By the way, she still IS a pro---she ain't dead yet!
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I know what you're talking about and, as Richard Nixon might put it, "let me say this about that." Originally Posted by paulkogut
She thinks that players should START by learning chord tones, triads, and she has several nifty exercises for helping players get them down and then play them in cycles. Then you add notes---leading tones, chromatics--and that livens things up. With this approach, even if she plays a scale line, that's not how she's thinking about it. She's thinking in terms of chords, keys, substitutions, not scales.
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I got the coolest email from Carol Kaye today! I emailed her last night after working on some of her exercises. She said Joe Pass was in the unemployment line when she published the first of his instructional books and he bought a house with his first royalty check. Good for Joe, and good for her! (She still sells several of his books, and the "Duets" disc Joe cut with Herb Ellis.)
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Joe Pass and Carol Kaye do "Slick Cat." A funkier side of JP...
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This scale/mode emphasis didn't begin before around 1960 when modal jazz entered the scene. George Russell wrote his book "The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization" in 1953, but it didn't really catch on in wider circles before years later when it became one of the inspirations for the modal jazz players. When written, the book was an attempt to put into system what had been played until then - especially bebop which was THE thing in 1953.
And yes, Carol Kaye was one of the great studio musicians. She was one of the members of "The Wrecking Crew" in LA / Hollywood (other members of this group of first call studio musicians were Barney Kessel and Howard Roberts).Last edited by oldane; 09-01-2012 at 02:48 PM.
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It's funny but as legendary as the "Wrecking Crew" is, Carol hates that name and insists it was made up later. (I think she's working on a book about her career and from what I gather.)
I like her approach. I wish I had started out learning that way rather than the way I was taught. But it's available to me now and as the saying goes, there's no time like the present...
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Not to take away from her great legacy, but she's really been behaving strangely in the last several years. Do some digging - she's been claiming that she played bass on a whole slew of recording dates that have been credited to James Jamerson....I'll see if I can find the link...
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Here's a link that details some of her claims that have been de-bunked:
Motown Webring
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One of her daughters turned 49 the other day, so Carol's getting up there. It wouldn't surprise me if she mis-remembered some things.
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That's got to be one of the best Joe Pass tracks I've heard in a long time. All 3 musicians wee great. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
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This is nothing recent Carol has been claiming to of been on lot of stuff she wasn't. Others have said there was a hell of a lot of sessions going on back then and would be easy for her to not to remember which was which, but she's insistant. Motown said when in Hollywood they would cut tunes with multiple rhythm sections and pick the strongest, but tunes in question weren't Carol's versions. Originally Posted by Spirit59
All I can say from growing up in this town you meet a lot people Carol has ticked off in the past.
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You probably don't meet many who deny she's a great bass player who got called for thousands of sessions with top players though, right? Originally Posted by docbop
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Which begs the question of why she feels the need to "embellish" her already stellar legacy. It's a real head-scratcher for sure.... Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
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...and it's not about a failing memory. She's claiming to have played on sessions in LA, where everyone else involved on the date confirm Detroit as the location. She claims a conspiracy against "the white woman".
Oy.
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Maybe it's because I live in South Florida and know a lot of senior citizens. They talk about their pasts but not everything they say checks out. It happens. They're not lying, they just remember some things wrong. (In order to lie, one must KNOW that what one is saying is false.) Originally Posted by Spirit59
The people who are talking about who "really" played on session X are also talking about things from forty-fifty (or more) years ago and quite capable of getting them wrong.
The one bee in her bonnet that I'm aware of is that the author of "The Wrecking Crew" got a lot of things wrong. (I haven't read the book.)
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Carol was a good bass player in her day and studios were cranking out lots of stuff because record industry was booming. So anyone who was a good sightreader had as much work as they wanted. I started as a bass player and Carol Kaye's claims are a sore subject with a lot bass players. As I've said before I pretty much grew up in the music business in this town as player, recording engineer, music education, working for production companies, etc all through that era, before turning left into computer industry. So my perspective is from behind the scenes, so no not everyone would agree with you. If you really want to get into the whole Carol Kaye thing there are huge threads on most bass sites. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
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If it's all the same to you, I'll take the word of Quincy Jones over you on a) how good a bassist Carol Kaye was and b) how she "could do anything and leave the men in the dust." (See Quincy's autobiography.) Originally Posted by docbop
I really *don't* want to get into the whole thing about who played on what track. That came up during this thread---which is fine; threads drift--but that was never the main topic.
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I don't doubt for a second she wrote that. But she is one person I think is... well let's say I'm skeptical about the claims she makes. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
Bought a house from one royalty check from a jazz guitar instructional book? You really think that's possible?Last edited by fep; 09-09-2012 at 01:23 AM.
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Certainly houses were much cheaper in the '70s. And it's also true that as rock increased in popularity, the number of good gigs for jazz musicians decreased. Jazz radio stations had small audiences. (Jazz was decreasingly a part of "popular" radio programming.)
One reason so many jazz players took 'the experimental turn' in the late '60s and early '70s is that they were having a hard time making a living just playing the kind of music they played in the '50s. They were trying to find something the record-buying public would pay to hear. (Most failed at this, though a few, such as George Benson, succeeded.) Several players gave up touring and took gigs as teachers.
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