The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
Reply to Thread Bookmark Thread
Page 2 of 4 FirstFirst 1234 LastLast
Posts 26 to 50 of 95
  1. #26

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by unknownguitarplayer
    ...he's much more grounded in bebop than I had realized...
    I think the blues as well. But I don't think that he ever wanted to mimic it. I respect that about him.

  2.  

    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #27

    User Info Menu

    My favorite McLaughlin records are Que Alegria and the live album with similar trio (Kai Eckhart replaces Dominique DiPiazza). McLaughlin's music is unique, his technique is astonishing, and his music can be frighteningly intense and achingly beautiful. In terms of peaks and valleys, his music has everything. I also love Shakti, and the friday night in san francisco for pure athletic joy.

    all that said, I've just never enjoyed hearing McLaughlin playing anything swing related, and I don't think he sounds good on cherokee at all. what he's playing has nothing to do with the rest of the band.

  4. #28

    User Info Menu



    Yes. I have mostly only heard Metheny years ago on Jazz Radio ..for example

    And hearing this recently I was surprised that he can
    Play this well...

    And I notice that his Playing is remarkably free from
    Blues Clichès - and he actually has more interesting unique things to explore...very Lyrical and Melodic etc. and free...I can hear why he is so highly regarded...seems like he improved his technique a lot since he first emerged...but maybe I am too unfamiliar with all of his Material...I always thought 'James' was
    Brilliant - an Instrumental as Memorable and Melodic as a Beatles Tune -

    A few Santana Instrumentals are like that too...

    Anyway - JM may consciously avoid Blues Clichès -
    .

    Metheny sounds like he has too much to say Musically to play them..at first he sounds ' Blues Lite'
    but then I realize he's too brilliant to use most Blues Clichès or maybe avoids them purposely ...

    Pat's a Happy sounding Improviser- kind of Rare in that way...
    Last edited by Robertkoa; 05-10-2017 at 11:37 AM.

  5. #29

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by sgcim
    Don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing...
    'If you don't feel the Groove- don't play the Tune.'

    Robert K Scorpio

    Can I be famous now ?
    Oh I forgot I have to either Play or Write Something Great first...

    That quote is something I wrote for myself..actually.
    Last edited by Robertkoa; 05-10-2017 at 10:30 AM.

  6. #30

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by henryrobinett
    Well McLaughlin has great time. It's not that he doesn't. I'm talking about the way he phrases. I find most guitar players, especially post JM, have a phrasing issue. Picking. Strong vs weak beats. And yeah, most of those guys probably don't like bop. Fine. No problem there. But I find bop as one of the primary hallmarks of jazz. If you can't swing or bop you got to go back to the basics. Or not. I'm just pointing it out.

    And no I don't think JM nailed Cherokee at all. I mean he played it and he sounded good. Great. But his phrasing wasn't what I thought was all that. He sounded like JM. The highest compliment a musician can aspire to is to be recognizable. So I'm not putting him down. I greatly admire him. He was one of the most influential guitarists for me. It was interesting hearing his take on Cherokee. But it just didn't do it for me. I'd MUCH rather hear Clifford Brown or Cannonball play it. Now THAT SHIT is right. It swings. That tune is SUPPOSED to swing fast. JM just played it fast. Almost straight 8ths, which is how he plays. He doesn't turn the corners on the chords.

    Compare those guys to our alternate picking speedster guitar hero's. It's not that they're playing out of time. They're nailing the time. It just sounds the same. Maybe dynamics but articulation tends to be samey. Like a speed saw. No rhythm in that. Not time. Rhythm.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    Yeah ...my favorite ( that I know of )' Time Players' in
    Jazz are Brecker and Benson- they are so Funky and Eloquent at the same time that their Jazz sounds like Blues Funk and R&B even though it's harmonically expanded..

    If McLaughlin had Benson- like Time Feel and added some Polyrhythmic Stuff here and there...it would be amazing...but ..almost no reason( for me ) to Play Guitar if someone did that...ha.
    Last edited by Robertkoa; 05-10-2017 at 12:19 PM.

  7. #31

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Robertkoa
    Damn Costello's so flat ( below target pitch )....
    it's like he's Tone Deaf- ever work with anyone in the Studio where you need 30 takes for each line ?

    OK - McLaughlin sounds not horrible Rhythmically - but he's got some unresolved chromatic tones ( is it a b9 ? ) where they don't belong and needs a cleaner Tone not completely undynamic...

    But he maybe didn't Rehearse..more than one run through...probably Rusty...
    But yeah - I get it...

    Also Virtuoso Solos kind of don't belong with this Music- unless you are a Master of sneaking the Phrases in...like Brecker could...

    Give JM credit for being willing to Play with these Guys..no fear...lol.

    It's a really odd pairing.

    Playing some cool fills on Acoustic and a pretty Solo with James Taylor..might work...

    Or maybe on Acoustic with Costello would have been better.
    Bang out some chords and solo on the low strings..

    OK - I don't want to ruin my Kharma any more than this..
    Haha, there are a lot of mysteries for me in the world still, one of them is how Elvis Costello is actually not some random guy trying to do karaoke in a bar, but a houshold name singer. Never could figure that one out.
    On the other hand, JM tone is appealing to me in that video, and the whole band is awesome!

  8. #32

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by pcsanwald
    ...and I don't think he sounds good on cherokee at all. what he's playing has nothing to do with the rest of the band.
    I know that a few people have responded the same in this thread. Funny how people can view/hear the same thing and have very different reactions. With the exception of the first 12, or so, bars where he seemed to be tentative, I think the rest of it is great. Miles Davis saw something in him. I am glad that he did. The bigger packages of In a Silent Way, Jack Johnson, Bitches Brew, etc. have a lot of good JM stuff in them IMHO. They were stretching.

  9. #33

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
    Haha, there are a lot of mysteries for me in the world still, one of them is how Elvis Costello is actually not some random guy trying to do karaoke in a bar, but a household name singer. Never could figure that one out...
    He wasn't a household name singer for quite a few years and had to break down a lot of barriers with hard work to get there. Quite prolific to say the least. If you have ever seen him live you might be influenced.

  10. #34

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
    Haha, there are a lot of mysteries for me in the world still, one of them is how Elvis Costello is actually not some random guy trying to do karaoke in a bar, but a houshold name singer.

    Different strokes! I think Elvis is one of the greatest musicians of our time. His album "Painted From Memory" with Bacharach is perfect, and he has a great episode of "Piano Jazz" with Marian McPartland, who was a huge fan as well.

  11. #35

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by lammie200
    I know that a few people have responded the same in this thread. Funny how people can view/hear the same thing and have very different reactions. With the exception of the first 12, or so, bars where he seemed to be tentative, I think the rest of it is great. Miles Davis saw something in him. I am glad that he did. The bigger packages of In a Silent Way, Jack Johnson, Bitches Brew, etc. have a lot of good JM stuff in them IMHO. They were stretching.
    I'm not throwing JM under the bus. I'm not saying he can't play. How come some people can't see subtleties? How come everything has to be all black or all white? Either all great or all terrible?

    JM is great. One of my biggest hero's. But not everyone plays everything great. I don't think he play bop well. And that's ok, right? It's not his thing. And by the time Miles got JM it wasn't his thing any longer either. Miles wasn't interested in playing bop stuff. Jazz was no longer about that. It went modal and free. JM was a perfect fit.

    But since that time jazz returned to a more wholistic approach. Where modal lived side by side with swing and bop and free, funk and hip hop, country and classical. A cool time. I like it except for the money and lack of gigs.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  12. #36

    User Info Menu

    JM on acoustic guitar has always been a huge inspiration for me.

    I spent many many hours listening to Live at Royal Festival Hall with Kai Eckhardt and Trilok Gurtu while working in the darkroom in the 90's.

    His duets with Katia Labeque on the flip side of "Mediterranean" are beautiful, intimate and full of delicacy


  13. #37

    User Info Menu

    My introduction to JM was Extrapolation... no mention of it so far?


  14. #38

    User Info Menu

    I think my introduction was Turn It Over. Tony Williams Emergency.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  15. #39

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by pauln
    My introduction to JM was Extrapolation... no mention of it so far?

    Wow. His comping was so cool on this .. and he was
    very close in many ways to sounding like Modern Sax...( not the Tone so much ).
    When you hear him ' doubling' some of the Horn Lines it suggests that much of his ' time feel' was by
    choice - not by Limitation ....

  16. #40

    User Info Menu

    The expression of musical rhythm is as much an art form as anything else. Beyond a certain point - i.e. can you play accurately in time?

    It's not like players who have developed their craft have simply good or bad time the way any more than they make good or bad note choices.

    When Jack Wilkins says Metheny or Jarrett's standards playing is 'off' we must assume he is referring to previous models, such as for example Wes or Bill Evans. Standards playing is based for him perhaps on a certain vocabulary and rhythmically this includes a particular way of phrasing eighth note swing as much as it does specific note choices (more so in fact.)

    A detailed understanding of what swing is and how it manifests itself and has changed over time is I think is well worth going into. One poster I find particularly worth listening to on the forum is Robert Koa - he has good ears, man! Taught me a lot already.

    What specifically distinguishes MacLaughlin or Metheny from Wes or Kenny Burrell? That's much more interesting to me than the pitch choices. Wes can play the whatever scale and sound like Wes, and Metheny can play chord tones and sound like Metheny.

    Anyway the detail here is really interesting. Thanks.
    Last edited by christianm77; 05-10-2017 at 05:36 PM.

  17. #41

    User Info Menu

    I'm curious to know, as has been mentioned about JM or DiMeola, how being grounded in flamenco time and feel translates to playing jazz rock electric guitar with a plectrum.

    Thinking aloud, off the top of my head: Flamenco guitarists are perhaps the only finger-stylists who can hang, speed wise, with plectrum players in terms of single note lines. (as a point of reference, Joe Pass mainly played fingerstyle, but when the tempo was ramped up, he knew to pick up a pick (his pick was weird: he cut a small teardrop pick in half, which apparently allowed him to obtain a certain tactile feel or grip of the pick).

    John M and Al D play strictly alternative picking. In flamenco, to repeat a finger is an absolute NO-NO when playing picado (unless, of course, the repeated finger use is separated by a slur/legato/ligado. Failure to alternatealso kills the rhythmic feel.

    Do you mean John M's feel and time is different because he maybe locked into a longer rhythmic cycle???Flamenco rhythm usually based on iterations of a 12 beat cycle with accents on the 3,6, 8, 10 and 12. Indian (Hindustani and Carnatic) classical music is even more complex with its talas (various beat cycles and accents).

    In other respects, playing flamenco doesn't translate to electric guitar. Rasgueados on a steel string? Forget about it. The reason they play only cowboy chords (err, sorry, "por medio" y "por arriba") and with the capo is because the open strings are necessary for the attack and sound of the rasgueados.

    In jazz, open strings are frowned upon. Generally.

  18. #42

    User Info Menu

    Might be worth pointing out that there is a link between Flamenco and Indian Music & Dance, deep down... Silk roads, gypsy migrations etc.

    JM is obviously a devotee of Carnatic (?) rhythmic concepts, which are quite in vogue in jazz education generally.

    If I had to call it, I would say JM's phrasing is based primarily on additive mono-metrical rhythm, but it's a long time since I've listened to his later stuff. Different rhythmic approaches - including vocalisations - give a different feel to rhythm even though the basic mathematics might all be the same.

    One interesting point from the book on Cuban music someone suggested here is how the author points out the contrast between Cuban rhythmic concepts (derived from Congo) compared to the African-American rhythmic inflection which is related more to West African rhythmic concepts.

    The 6/8 displaced onto beats 2 and 4 (see Larry Koonse's fantastic Over the Barline video) is and this is something I hear in say Wes (and most if not all of the American jazz players of his generation) and can also derive many of the key rhythms of classic straight ahead jazz. That's something that's rather important to my concept of Swing. That Bembe lilt against the European 4/4.

    I hear this less in the more modern players such as JM.

    Obviously the influence of Cuba can be felt in New Orleans - and most obviously in bebop, so it's a complex fusion of influences as always. The classic NOLA march beat is kind of a fusion of Cuban Clave and US 12/8 lilt.
    Last edited by christianm77; 05-10-2017 at 07:47 PM.

  19. #43

    User Info Menu

    Incidentally dead straight can swing really hard if you have a really 12/8 inflected drummer. As Robert Koa points out, Benson's upbeats are very often pretty straight.

    Also I believe there might very often be a habitual difference between the position of a joining 8th (between two beats) and the placement of structural offbeat - a push or anticipation - in jazz phrasing. How consistent this is I couldn't say ATM, and probably varies from player to player, but structural offbeats do often tend to be on the 3rd triplet of the beat.

    Some players also hang back on the beat so they are catching the swung upbeat but also playing straight - Jimmy Raney springs to mind, and this is a feel I like to play around with because it's so flipping cool when it clicks..

  20. #44

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by ronjazz

    As far as the original discussion on McLaughlin, et al, my take has been, for some years, that he is playing 21st-century jazz,
    sounds like early 70's jazz/ROCK to me ?

  21. #45

    User Info Menu

    Lol. Yes. 70s fusion extrapolated to now. There's not enough history represented for me to think of it as 21st century jazz. That's just me though. The ability to swing is still a fundamental component for me. Not that it has to swing but the artist should be able to. JM doesn't. ITS OK. He's still great.

    Maybe it's that he's always playing too fast to swing. When the band is swinging 8ths but you're always playing 16ths and above it's hard to swing that. Meaning you're not swinging the 8th notes. The way you do that is in how you phrase. Coltrane. Brecker. Hubbard. Brownie. They can play double time and phrase in a swinging manner.

    Also when playing fast it's easier to get the phrase if you articulate on the beat. Not always. But if you're always starting your phrase on the up it can confuse the other guys on the bandstand to not feel where you are. They might think you've lost the beat, which unfortunately guitar players are famous for doing.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  22. #46

    User Info Menu

    I see Pat Metheny mentioned often here too, so I re read the OP... I mean that's kinda rediculos to bundle him with JM. Nothing in common. PM rhythm is sublime, swings like a mofo. Im not a fan of his solo albums, but the one I had with John Scofield, and the concert with Joni Mitchell and Jaco, thats enough to see.

    And yeah, I remember that recent thread that ended up discusig PM ability to swing and got locked I think? I had a good laugh.

  23. #47

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by pauln
    My introduction to JM was Extrapolation... no mention of it so far?

    I've mentioned and posted Extrapolation on a couple of threads. I think it's a great album.

  24. #48

    User Info Menu

    You know PM is one of my favorite guitarists, but I couldn't say he swings his ass off. I mean he CAN. But he's a melodic player primarily. His phrasing isn't really built around be swinging. He plays over the bar lines a lot. That purposely blurs and makes vague. SWING is deliberate and not blurred or vague. It's the opposite of that. All the note placements are designed to make you feel the rhythm in your bones regardless of the notes, almost. Pass and Wes swing. Very deliberate.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  25. #49

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by henryrobinett
    You know PM is one of my favorite guitarists, but I couldn't say he swings his ass off. I mean he CAN. But he's a melodic player primarily. His phrasing isn't really built around be swinging. He plays over the bar lines a lot. That purposely blurs and makes vague. SWING is deliberate and not blurred or vague. It's the opposite of that. All the note placements are designed to make you feel the rhythm in your bones regardless of the notes, almost. Pass and Wes swing. Very deliberate.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    Pass? Barely. Wes of course, but it's old fashioned. Still good and timeless, but... Metheny is modern swing type! Adopted to the new rhythms, not just bop related. I dig it. At some point jazz musicians just need to stop living in the past, and look forward somehow!

  26. #50

    User Info Menu

    True. No argument there. But we're talking about swing which is a very specific thing.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk