If Charlie Parker was a guitarist he would have sounded like this

[grahambop]

Audacity is free and has a decent 'slowdown' effect packaged with it.

You can import any audio into it then apply the effect.

[targuit]

Graham - this may sound lame in a tech sense, but years ago I downloaded Audacity on another previous older computer. Perhaps I was not too sharp in figuring out the controls, but it seemed rather opaque to me. Thus, I have been loathe to download it on my latest desk top.

In the case of this Benson recording on YT, one would have to convert it or could you import it as is into Audacity?

[grahambop]

You could just set the Audacity preferences for Record Input to Stereo Mix, start recording, and play the YouTube video. It will record it from your computer's sound card.

Sure, it takes a bit of figuring out, but it's free, it does a lot of stuff, just read the online manual if necessary. I have done all my multitrack recordings with it.

[Groyniad]

targuit - i think what you say about benson's approach is very helpful - its a crucial structure in jazz, for both cultural reasons and straight musical ones.

it helps you hear the solo - the shadow solo is so 'direct' and 'easy to follow' because it uses the call/response thing so well.

i strongly associate sonny rollins with this technique on e.g. colossus and way out west and freedom suite etc. i think the reason i love his playing so much in these classic albums has a lot to do with how he uses the call/response thing.

the call is often strongly based either on the melody or on a simple (whistle-able) idea (so it likely has quarter note and eighth note meter) - the response has the nature of a 'fill' or a kind or flourish. it can have the feeling of a kind of 'off-hand comment' on the call idea - a kind of 'aside', or something spat out 'under one's breath' (this goes with it having eighth and sixteenth note meter very often). i think these conversational terms are the only one's that capture the musical facts at all adequately - and that they do intimates the deep connection between music (jazz music in particular) and talk.

(its great to remember that a response phrase can lead right up to the beginning of the next statement phrase - so it feels like a lead up to the next phrase. these can be harder to get right because you've got to come up with something that really does lead into the next statement phrase - not just something that starts after a statement phrase.)

the blues feels like its built round this sort of conversational structure:

statement - response - re-statement (conclusion?)

each taking roughly 4 bars i suppose

the danger if you don't use this structure in your playing is that you sound like someone just going on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on

not often groovy

[sgcim]

sgcim:

"having great chops doesn't mean you play like charlie parker"

that's obviously right

but equally obviously that is not what has been claimed. there was much more detail than that to the original proposal - and yet more detail has been added since.

and is there really 'an obsession' with likening benson to parker - i've never heard the connection made before - certainly not with an example to tie it to.

and i've been listening in loving admiration to raney and farlow for over twenty years - they've never sounded one bit like charlie parker to me despite their 'vocabulary' - but on shadow benson immediately reminded me of him.

I said that Raney was the equivalent of Bird on guitar, not Farlow (whom I mentioned was more influenced by Bud Powell, along with Charlie Christian and Lester Young).

If you ever caught Raney live, the experience was like he was channeling Bird. He even played the same standards live that Bird usually played.

One time I looked at all my Raney records to see how many of Bird's original tunes Raney had recorded, and the number was something like eight, which wasn't including the bootleg recording of "Donna Lee" that I don't have.

I've caught Benson live (when he didn't sing), and he sounded more like he was channeling Jack McDuff than Charlie Parker.

Other than "Billie's Bounce", I don't know how many of Bird's tunes Benson recorded, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't the more complicated Bird tunes like "Shaw 'Nuff" that Raney recorded with Bird's pianist, Al Haig.

Also, I doubt Bird would've played any of those funk/country/rock pentatonic licks that Benson played towards the end of "Shadow of Your Smile".

I'm sure Benson must have copied some of Bird's longer lines that he might have thrown in on "Shadow", but that strikes me as a more superficial similarity to Parker than Raney's more profound one.

[mr. beaumont]

Just wanted to add another great post of Jimmy Raney, slurring like my speech on a Saturday night in college.

[3625]

I said that Raney was the equivalent of Bird on guitar, not Farlow (whom I mentioned was more influenced by Bud Powell, along with Charlie Christian and Lester Young).

If you ever caught Raney live, the experience was like he was channeling Bird. He even played the same standards live that Bird usually played.

One time I looked at all my Raney records to see how many of Bird's original tunes Raney had recorded, and the number was something like eight, which wasn't including the bootleg recording of "Donna Lee" that I don't have.

I've caught Benson live (when he didn't sing), and he sounded more like he was channeling Jack McDuff than Charlie Parker.

Other than "Billie's Bounce", I don't know how many of Bird's tunes Benson recorded, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't the more complicated Bird tunes like "Shaw 'Nuff" that Raney recorded with Bird's pianist, Al Haig.

Also, I doubt Bird would've played any of those funk/country/rock pentatonic licks that Benson played towards the end of "Shadow of Your Smile".

I'm sure Benson must have copied some of Bird's longer lines that he might have thrown in on "Shadow", but that strikes me as a more superficial similarity to Parker than Raney's more profound one.

I get what you're saying about Raney coming directly out of the bop scene, citing Bird as a primary influence, and I'm probably as big a Raney fan as anyone else on this forum, particularly his later recordings. But in terms of time feel, his way of playing 8th's sounds nothing like Parker - Raney preferred a much straighter feel. I actually can hear pretty clearly Groyniad's point about Benson capturing a similar energy to Bird - even though stylistically most of the stuff Benson has done is pretty far removed from pure bop. Take the Billie's Bounce clip: In terms of Benson's syncopated way of playing 8ths, and his technical fluency and dynamics (bluesy licks aside), I think Groyniad's got a pretty solid point. With the 'Shadow' clip in the OP, if you take away the cheesy (IMO) backing behind his playing, Benson's feel has a similarity to Bird with strings - not literally, but more as an impression, regarding phrasing and 'energy'...

Most of the 50's stuff that Raney and his cohorts did is a more refined, straighter version of the 40's bop players - he was also into the 3rd stream/classical stuff, so that straighter feel of his was most likely a conscious decision to sound like that. It's like he took Bird's language and innovations, and went on to make his own style.

[mr. beaumont]

I really don-t think benson sounds anything like Bird, but to each their own.

[pingu]

I really don-t think benson sounds anything like Bird, but to each their own.

i cant hear it either
Bensons amazing though

[Groyniad]

it is an impression thing - but i'm sure you could go through the shadow clip and find the particular bits that are VERY bird-like

and i don't think many people - including sonny stit - sound like bird very often

of course benson in general doesn't often sound at all like bird - much too much pentatonic type stuff i suppose

but the shadow clip is distinctive - and bringing out the connection to bird is a very very good way to make the right kind of fuss of the totally mind-boggling playing on THIS clip.

you can also hear just how pure-bebop benson can be on the long teaching video he did (the bits when he's playing the archtop rather than the classical guitar).

but its not even the vocabulary on shadow its the feel of the phrasing and the use of double time (the way he establishes a fore-ground with the strong melodic phrases and a background with the incredibly intricate fast figures)

[Groyniad]

Just wanted to add another great post of Jimmy Raney, slurring like my speech on a Saturday night in college.

do you know 'some other spring' from 'A'?

he's certainly one of my favourite players

but he doesn't sound at all like bird despite his very parker influenced vocabulary - i'm sure 3625 is on the right lines about why

(and surely pass is not on the same pedestal as wes - he can just reach wes' boots from where he sits - and he's certainly no higher up than raney is he?)

[sgcim]

it is an impression thing - but i'm sure you could go through the shadow clip and find the particular bits that are VERY bird-like

and i don't think many people - including sonny stit - sound like bird very often

of course benson in general doesn't often sound at all like bird - much too much pentatonic type stuff i suppose

but the shadow clip is distinctive - and bringing out the connection to bird is a very very good way to make the right kind of fuss of the totally mind-boggling playing on THIS clip.

you can also hear just how pure-bebop benson can be on the long teaching video he did (the bits when he's playing the archtop rather than the classical guitar).

but its not even the vocabulary on shadow its the feel of the phrasing and the use of double time (the way he establishes a fore-ground with the strong melodic phrases and a background with the incredibly intricate fast figures)

When Stitt first recorded, people caused him great anguish by accusing him of being just a Bird imitator.
It took him many years to get over it. He even switched to tenor to put more distance betwixt him and Parker.
He claimed he was playing in that style before Parker.

Raney's work with Stan Getz was pure Bird, but like Phil Woods, Raney came more into his own on later recordings.

However, when I saw Raney play live, the flow of ideas was so Bird-like, it was literally frightening!