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Just heard this record for the first time. One of the finest jazz records I have heard in quite some time. Incredible. His renditions of the first 3 cuts: "The Song Is You", "Billie's Bounce" and "Along Comes Betty" are top top top notch.
Incredible tone, beautiful phrasing, assertive, swinging lines. I could spend weeks just trying to understand these choruses and it would make my year.
Along Came Betty, a song by Jimmy Raney Quartet, Eddie Gladden, Jesper Lundgaard, Kirk Lightsey on Spotify
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01-11-2014 08:03 AM
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link not working for me
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A great record - you can hear another track here:
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his solo on along came betty is too legit. the song is taken slowly and stately (unlike a lot of cats who really like to burn over this tune) and he makes magic.
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The stretch of records Raney made from the early 80 ' s through early 90 ' s (roughly Raney 81 through But Beautiful) are among the finest jazz guitar records ever, imho.
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I just read this on his Wikipedia page. Even more impressive.
Raney suffered for thirty years from Ménière's disease, a degenerative condition that eventually led to near complete deafness in both ears, although this did not stop him from playing.
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Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles
I'll just quote what my teacher wrote about Jimmy, which deals, in part, with this predicament you mention.
"Jimmy Raney is the intellectual of the guitar. His ability to think horizontally on the instrument permits him to articulate like a horn or saxophone. He plays gorgeous counter lines and to me is the poet of the guitar. I never tire of listening to him. It wasn't until much later in life that I realized how great he was. I was too musically illiterate to appreciate the profundity of his musical lines. There are recordings of him playing with Stan Getz when Getz was twenty years old and Raney was twenty-two years old. He sounded like a mature player with fifty years of experience at that young age.Jimmy Raney is a true Be Bop player. He is my favorite player because of the strength of his improvised lines. Just before his death he sent me a CD of his playing called The Master. It is available on the Criss Cross label. It is a great CD and it belongs in every jazz lover's library. The last time I heard him perform was at The Jazz Showcase in Chicago.
Jimmy suffered from a hearing impairment. He would lose his hearing and it would suddenly come back. While performing one evening with Barry Harris and a rhythm section he had the distortion switch turned on and he could not hear the distortion. I went up to the stage and turned it off while he was playing. The amazing thing is that he knew the music so well he didn't have to hear the chords. He could feel the pulse of the bass and drums. His playing was great even though his hearing was gone. My greatest regret is that I didn't have the opportunity to study with him."
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I had never read that before...remarkable, considering if you've heard his duo records with his son Doug--Jimmy could LISTEN.
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great player, and interesting that some of his best recordings are from the last decade of his life.
his other son Jon has a website dedicated to him.
http://www.jonraney.com/
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Yes, one of my favorite albums too!Very sophisticated player!
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Marvelous player and wonderful, kind person. Had the great fortune of studying with him very briefly in the late '70's
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is that quasi classical stuff - the two part inventions - with his son Doug? i listened to them a lot a long time ago - now i don't know how to search for them even.
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i didn't listen to them - i learned them, i just remembered. is it an aebersold thing?
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Aebersold has a great Jimmy Raney CD where he plays solos over some well known heads and the solos are transcribed. I learned a lot of those.
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Aebersold Vol 29 "Play Duets With Jimmy Raney" Originally Posted by Groyniad
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I've been transcribing Raney's solo on Billie's Bounce this week...2 choruses to go. Bebop gold in there!
"Here's That Raney Day" is a great album too.
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Tom, I don't know that one! Did it ever make it to CD? Or perhaps was named differently when it did? (Like the one with Al Haig?)
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Here's That Raney Day - Jimmy Raney | Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards | AllMusic
CD, probably out of print but it is totally worth hunting down a copy!
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Great insights from Raney in that clip, 2b! What an intelligent artist. Thanks for posting.
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One of the few Raney albums I didn't like. The rhythm section isn't a good fit with Raney's style, and seems to get in his way and disrupt his great lines; especially Lightsey's comping.
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A friend recently hooked me with a copy of a recording of a private lesson with Jimmy Raney - not sure who the student is or when it was recorded but JR talks him through the 'Just Friends' solo in the Aebersold book. Interesting stuff.
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I grew up with jazz guitar, being the son of two parents who played guitar and listened to jazz guitar. They hipped me to the fact that the guitarists on the TV show bands in the 60s were guys like Herb Ellis, etc. Walking around as a pre-teen, I heard Wes Montgomery in my head all day long.
This being said, I am afraid that I didn't tumble to Raney until the Aebersold record came out (I have it on vinyl still). Once I started learning all those solos, though, I could finally SEE how bebop worked on the guitar. I also started collecting the albums of this genius. When the 80s rolled around it seemed that Raney was really active. I learned that he was going deaf--yet he was still really active. (The same thing, by the way, was true of the great New Orleans drummer who gave so many guys their start in jazz, Art Blakey. Blakey was super active in the 80s, but almost completely deaf. He would just punch time and figure that everybody else would follow him--he was the band leader.)
One thing I think is unarguable: Jimmy Raney was the torchbearer for bebop right into the late-20th century. Anybody that wants to understand how bop horn lines can be translated to the guitar should come to grips with Raney's "grips."
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@Greentone:
" Anybody that wants to understand how bop horn lines can be translated to the guitar should come to grips with Raney's "grips.""
Where might I find out more about Raney's "grips".
edh
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Grips is what the old jazz guitarists call chord forms. I was being funny, which translates poorly in the web.
I got my feeling for Raney via vinyl. Today, there's YouTube.
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