The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #51
    joelf Guest
    Ha---I remember now: he made that metronome for me! Lost it years ago.

    But he did trade 4s w/himself to a metronome tempo..

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  3. #52

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    Joel, thank you for bringing the warmth and compassion of your lived experience in this music and with people like Eddie to enrich our forum.

  4. #53
    joelf Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by Cunamara
    Joel, thank you for bringing the warmth and compassion of your lived experience in this music and with people like Eddie to enrich our forum.
    OK----but, believe me, it wasn't always a joy hanging with him. Difficult person---but could be warm and generous as the day is long. Janus-faced.

    The music is what made it worthwhile, and we did have some great times. Glad to have known him even with the ups and downs. (If only people were more like music...).

    I do appreciate your nice words...

  5. #54

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    My God! The baby finger on Pasquale...wow! He was born with wonderful tools to play guitar. (By the way, I love each of them in their own way, Pasquale and Eddie, but I prefer seeing Pasquale in a band setting - he really shines IMHO, where he can balance all those notes against those from fellow band members).





  6. #55

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    To Joelf.....

    I was a friend of Eddie Diehl too....unfortunately the need for concentrated care for my mom during her last several years caused me to drift away from our frequent visits and I deeply regret that I wasn't around to see him before he passed.

    He was first recommended to me as someone to see about refretting an old Gibson L-10, but I was also told of his guitar playing abilities and some of his musical backstory.
    So that began several years of me going to Poughkeepsie to bring him old guitars to work on and we'd sit and talk about just about everything.
    He also gave me some guitar tutoring along the way.....and would hand me his old D'Angelico style A to play sometimes.
    On the a day I would come by to pick up a guitar that he had completed, he always performed something beautiful on it before handing it to me.
    Those moments always brought his musicality to the forefront after talking shop, sharing our takes on the human condition (and conditioned humans) and telling stories of many times in our lives.

    Anyway....reading some of your Eddie Diehl posts and seeing that video of him playing again brought me to some of those times.

  7. #56
    joelf Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by zizala
    To Joelf.....

    I was a friend of Eddie Diehl too....unfortunately the need for concentrated care for my mom during her last several years caused me to drift away from our frequent visits and I deeply regret that I wasn't around to see him before he passed.

    He was first recommended to me as someone to see about refretting an old Gibson L-10, but I was also told of his guitar playing abilities and some of his musical backstory.
    So that began several years of me going to Poughkeepsie to bring him old guitars to work on and we'd sit and talk about just about everything.
    He also gave me some guitar tutoring along the way.....and would hand me his old D'Angelico style A to play sometimes.
    On the a day I would come by to pick up a guitar that he had completed, he always performed something beautiful on it before handing it to me.
    Those moments always brought his musicality to the forefront after talking shop, sharing our takes on the human condition (and conditioned humans) and telling stories of many times in our lives.

    Anyway....reading some of your Eddie Diehl posts and seeing that video of him playing again brought me to some of those times.
    Yeah, that helps me to remember the good things, thanks. He had a generous, honest heart and spirit. We played for hours, talked for hours. Countless times.

    Like the older brother I never had...

  8. #57

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    Quote Originally Posted by joelf
    It's been 3 years since Eddie passed, and I have some thoughts. Many of you know that we were tight for 40+ years. I'll leave the personal out---that stuff runs deep, like family, and it ain't all peaches and cream with intense, artistic types.

    So to the music: the reason Eddie influenced many in my generation (and, hopefully, beyond), like Sean Leavitt; Steve Berger; (they say) Doug Raney; Ilya Lushtak; myself---many more.

    Eddie was a natural at many things: he was an accomplished and gifted visual artist; loquater (sp?); very good on the page and verbally. The thing that came across in all of it: honesty. I think, foolishly, he hardly practiced (people mentioned 'rough spots') b/c he didn't trust rote recitations, but also he knew what his gift was---it was there, he only needed to reach for it. He practiced a lot before we hooked up. Metronome trading with himself (b/c of his techno-expertise, he was able to put an extra cam in a regular Franz metronome, and practice fast tempos). His best friend, the late David Woods, told me I never heard Eddie's best playing. Maybe, but I sure heard enough (and played w/him enough) to know he probably was one of the best ever---for my taste, anyway.

    A bit more analytically, he was a cross between a pure, in-the-moment improviser and a Sonny Stitt-Grant Green more 'worked-out type'---leaning way closer to the pure improviser (and no slam on those guys---it was for illustration). He had his pet moves---who doesn't?---but he would come in with them in new and refreshing places, and listen and play off you. It's what jazz should be, but often falls short of. I think Lee Konitz's designation of Charlie Parker as a 'composer'---a compiler of original materials to be cross-referenced at will---applies.

    Then there was his time. Eddie always swung---and right down Broadway, never ahead or behind. (He could be harshly critical of the time feels of a lot of players---including some big names. More to that than I care to get into, reason-wise). And he did it all quietly, never louder than the music called for. You had to lean in to really hear him. I know he taught me and a lot of young guys back to the earliest '80s how to swing on a guitar---especially with the single-string thing. There's lots of ways to swing, of course, but the relaxed way he did it is for mature players in the top percentile, IMO.

    When you played duo with him he never 'swabbed the deck'---slogging through changes and time blandly. He coaxed, underlined, goaded; kicked ass---made you play. It was a conversation, and could be intense.

    That's about it, except I don't want to diss Pasquale. We've been friends since he and Luigi got here, in 2009. Used to play a lot, in jams with Ari Roland and crew; duo in the back room at Fat Cat; sitting in on gigs. He's, first of all, a sweet, self-effacing man. No ego I've ever seen, just the opposite---never thinks he's playing anything, always practicing. And look what he's accomplished! May end up one of the all-time greats. He has the talent and dedication...
    Pasquale seems lovely

    Thanks for the story.

  9. #58
    joelf Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by neatomic
    ps- was recently talking about this lp in a thread with fass...eddie is credited as rhythm guitar... and there are some solo part overdubs by grant green on certain songs...but it's all eddie on this one ...just groovin along..no flash

    crenshaw west from george braith - laughing soul



    braith often played multiple horns at once ala roland kirk

    cheers
    No wonder Eddie & George got along---They were both NUTS!! (But could PLAY----how unusual!)...

  10. #59
    joelf Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by neatomic
    eddie was also big influence on the great doug raney...people often think that doug got his guitar knowledge from his dad jimmy..but this was not the case...they were somewhat estranged...eddie was key figure ( he was about 20 years older)...wasnt until later father jimmy and son doug got together and recorded many nice things together

    real old school nyc characters!

    cheers
    Respectfully, that is quite an odd analysis. Maybe Doug didn't learn DIRECTLY from Jimmy when young, but he imitated him like crazy---until he broke out in the last decades of his sadly truncated life and matured, became himself. He learned almost everything he played from Jimmy, at least in the early years.

    I'm not sure when Doug split for Europe, but I know this: I didn't know him and never saw him with Eddie, nor did Eddie mention him much---and we hung out almost daily from ca '80 for quite a few years. Sean Leavitt was the guy who hung out and played duo with Eddie---and they loved each others' work. I was tight with Sean too around then (he moved to Spain in '82) and can verify this.

    If Doug learned from Eddie it was either from records or hanging before I came on that scene. I know this: I heard very little, if any, of Eddie in Doug's playing, but plenty of Jimmy and for years.

    But there are things I don't know and I didn't know Doug, so...
    Last edited by joelf; 06-30-2021 at 11:33 PM.

  11. #60
    joelf Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by neatomic
    ps- was recently talking about this lp in a thread with fass...eddie is credited as rhythm guitar... and there are some solo part overdubs by grant green on certain songs...but it's all eddie on this one ...just groovin along..no flash

    crenshaw west from george braith - laughing soul



    braith often played multiple horns at once ala roland kirk

    cheers
    Eddie is supposed to be on tracks 1;2;4;6 on this, according to Wikipedia (not the world's most reliable source). I don't hear him---maybe he's buried in the mix? But it's a nice concept with the vocals; has the very underappreciated Jane Getz on piano---and to me George sounds best on one horn. The Braithophone stuff is original and interesting, but he's hard as hell to comp for. Comes in in the weirdest places. Best w/o chord players---let him romp...

  12. #61
    joelf Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by joelf
    Eddie is supposed to be on tracks 1;2;4;6 on this, according to Wikipedia (not the world's most reliable source). I don't hear him---maybe he's buried in the mix? But it's a nice concept with the vocals; has the very underappreciated Jane Getz on piano---and to me George sounds best on one horn. The Braithophone stuff is original and interesting, but he's hard as hell to comp for. Comes in in the weirdest places. Best w/o chord players---let him romp...
    It's Eddie for sure on the last track. Sounds like him on Embraceable You too...

  13. #62

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    Let me explain how someone so good can be playing to so few, I’ll use your previous comment as context:

    You were left speechless yet the masses like to speak more than they like to listen. That’s it right there.

    I was once at Smalls when a guy right behind me was talking loudly into my ear. It was unbearable so I turned around and asked him nicely if he could lower his voice. He then became belligerent, talking directly in my ear, harassing my girlfriend and becoming a general nuisance. This is the crazy part of the story. I had, an hour before, gotten my chef’s knife sharpened in the Village and it was in my bag at my feet. It took all the control I could muster not to pull it out and do something heinous. Instead I left the club and went home.

    It’s sad but true, we who appreciate artistry are a very small minority.


    Quote Originally Posted by sunnysideup
    Some of Pasquale's playing redefines virtuosity, and he's obviously got a natural gift, but most of the time I hear the conservatoire in his playing, not the gift. It often just doesn't sound like jazz to me.

    In general it leaves me speechless rather than breathless.

    But as others have said, he's a young guy and his best playing is ahead of him.

    But about the clip that Graham posted: how can anyone so extraordinarily good be playing to such a small handful of people!?

    Has jazz really died that much even in NYC?

  14. #63

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    The other lesson is be ready for trouble when you ask loud people to quiet down a little. For some reason, those stories never seem to end well....