The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Someone asked me recently who is the guitar world's answer to Miles Davis? And followed with "and who is their answer to Thelonius Monk". I said I couldn't answer that, but told him that I know a cool jazz guitar forum where someone will be only to happy to school us! Any takers?

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  3. #2

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    We could easily ask, where is the piano's Miles or sax's Monk? Guys like that are pretty rare, and imo, transcend the instrument. According to Phil Upchurch, there have been 3 unique voices in jazz guitar, Charlie Christian, Wes and Lenny Breau. Everyone else has been derivative.

    I don't know that I necessarily agree, but it is a compelling statement, and suggests it is pretty rare to find someone who really is unique on any instrument. If I were to look around and think of someone today who could be that level, I would probably suggest John Stowell.

  4. #3

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    i'd include bill frisell on the list of unique voices. heck, i'd include grant green--you can tell who he is in two notes!

    but "unique voice" and "artist who completely changed the face of the music" are two different things...to me, there hasn't been a bigger groundbreaker since good 'ol CC.

  5. #4

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    Strange question.

    It's hard to compare one great musician to another. There were many great early guitar players like Charlie Christian Wes or even Joe Pass obviously.

    Only in hindsight can we really say " (insert musician here) has clearly had a big impact on both the evolution of jazz as well as simply being an incredible improviser "

    A more modern guitarist that I think one should consider is Pat Metheny. He has definitely opened up some new interesting formats in which Jazz and a more traditional style of composition can blend. The Pat Metheny Group is a great example of this.

    All players are influenced by someone who came before them. So I suppose any musician who can get your attention and make you want to talk about them and learn what they did would qualify them as an "answer to x y or z musician" It really depends on how you define it though.

  6. #5
    OK, I think the guy who asked me this was wanting to know if there was ever a guitarist that ever played like Miles, ie, the slow, searching, seemingly unresolved phrasing, the almost pained tone etc..
    As for Monk, he was wandering if there was a player who did similar things, kooky whole tone runs, off kilter angular dissonance, "teetering on the edge" note and phrase choices etc...

    I guess the answer has to be "no"?

  7. #6

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    The answer would be undoubtedly yes. However, they like Monk, may be toiling away in obscurity as people don't tend to want to hear that sort of playing from a guitarist. Guys like David Torn and Robert Fripp come to mind as players who cut against the grain and don't just play predictably melodic.

  8. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by princeplanet
    Someone asked me recently who is the guitar world's answer to Miles Davis? And followed with "and who is their answer to Thelonius Monk". I said I couldn't answer that, but told him that I know a cool jazz guitar forum where someone will be only to happy to school us! Any takers?
    Derek Bailey

  9. #8

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    If we're talking Monk and Miles then we're really talking in terms of influence, right? We're talking about musicians who helped to define the sounds of their respective generations. In which case, I don't think there is a "Miles" or "Monk" of guitar, because we really didn't have much say in the developments of those musical areas.

    If we're talking about guitar players who have helped define the sounds of their generations though, I'd say there are four who did that in a big way. Charlie Christian, Wes Montgomery, Pat Metheny, Kurt Rosenwinkel. Charlie Christian helped pen the vocabulary of bop, Pat Metheny's slash chords are I think what really characterized jazz harmony from the late 70s and 80s, and Kurt's melodic and harmonic concept can be heard in the respective voices of most of his contemporaries.

    I'm not sure what to say about Wes. He's easily the most recognizable one of the four, and for many defines what the prototypical jazz guitar sounds like... But he came too late for bop, he wasn't exactly a founder of hard bop or cool jazz or soul jazz or really anything else going on when he stepped onto the scene. He's just a giant, even if his sphere of influence didn't make an obvious mark on any one musical movement (like Miles' or Monk's).

    What do you guys think?

  10. #9

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    in his generation I think Jim Hall, He´s very Modern player

  11. #10

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    I think Jim Hall is probably the closest thing that I have ever heard to Miles Davis in terms of saying a lot with a few notes, great note choices, and that sort of thing.

    For Monk, I would think of Scofield but with less notes and a more chordal approach. Joe Diorio is the master of the wide and unusual intervalic manipulations on guitar.

    Just opinions of course and based on limited information/listening.

  12. #11

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    Lets talk Monk

    Monk was more than just 2nd intervals and whole tone scale runs. He was genius in simplicity.

    He reduced things , like harmony, down to it's basics. Tension, release. His style was unique. You know it's him in a couple of notes.

    As far as a guitar player equivelent to Monk, I don't think we've seen one yet. At least not in jazz.

  13. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by franco6719
    I think Jim Hall is probably the closest thing that I have ever heard to Miles Davis in terms of saying a lot with a few notes, great note choices, and that sort of thing.

    For Monk, I would think of Scofield but with less notes and a more chordal approach. Joe Diorio is the master of the wide and unusual intervalic manipulations on guitar.

    Just opinions of course and based on limited information/listening.
    I think Jim Hall as well as far as the Miles thing (very loosely of course), but I'm glad someone else said it cos I didn't think anyone would agree

    The Monk comparison is tougher, maybe there are countless guys who try to play like Monk, and the reason we never hear about them is because, well, they try to play like Monk!!

  14. #13

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    how about Joe Morris for the Monk comparison? - not saying he sounds like Monk, but another player with a "different" concept

  15. #14

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    i could possibly go with abercrombie having a bit of a miles thing going on.

  16. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by princeplanet
    Someone asked me recently who is the guitar world's answer to Miles Davis? And followed with "and who is their answer to Thelonius Monk". I said I couldn't answer that, but told him that I know a cool jazz guitar forum where someone will be only to happy to school us! Any takers?
    I think Bill Frisell can be kind of Monkish in his use of both dissonance and rhythm.

    =-) PJ

  17. #16

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    Nice to see Joe Morris get a mention. 'Last I heard him, he was playing upright bass. But as for guitar, I find him closer to Cecil Taylor/Jimmy Lyons. I haven't heard his guitar playing in several years though.

    As for a Monk influence, I'd have to recommend fingerstylist Duck Baker. He's also deeply hip to Herbie Nichols, Elmo Hope and Randy Weston -- Modern, jagged harmonies that still swing Hard. Deep, being the operative word. A bit of a genius, in fact.

  18. #17

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    i hear monk in frisell, and maybe miles in hall or scofield.

    how about coltraine in the more "eclectic" material of metheny??? and i hear hall in metheny, too.

    randy z

  19. #18

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    I hear Miles and Coltrane in John McLaughlin.

  20. #19

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    Mongrel is right - John McLaughlin is the nearest to Miles - he played with him (didn't Miles write a song called 'John McLaughlin' and vice versa too. Also, JM has/can do funk, classical, ballad, blues, modal, fusion - JM's My Goal's Beyond album is guitar equivalent of In A Silent Way. Granted Jm would play maybe 4,000 notes to every quarter note of Miles - Pequod.
    - Fripp is good too.

  21. #20

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    i really don't hear anything remotely miles in mclaughlin's playing.

    why bother trying to find a comparison? miles and monk were as unique as they get, and that's what the OP was getting at, the unique voice, not a guitar-equivalent.

  22. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by Pequod
    Mongrel is right - John McLaughlin is the nearest to Miles - he played with him (didn't Miles write a song called 'John McLaughlin' and vice versa too. Also, JM has/can do funk, classical, ballad, blues, modal, fusion - JM's My Goal's Beyond album is guitar equivalent of In A Silent Way. Granted Jm would play maybe 4,000 notes to every quarter note of Miles - Pequod.
    - Fripp is good too.
    Thanks. Just an opinion of mine. If you get a chance, there's a record entitled "Aura" recorded in Copenhagen in 1985 featuring the Danish Radio Big Band playing 10 compositions of Palle Mikkelborg, a trumpet and flugelhorn player. Featured soloists are Mile and McLaughlin. Give it a listen or seven and tell me with a straight face that they are not kindred musical spirits.

  23. #22

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    Although I really don't think any guitarist has added as much for jazz as Miles Davis, I do think Jim Hall comes closest as a modern guitarist and music innovator.

    wiz

  24. #23

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    And to add, on the couple of discs I have of John's and a handful of vids of his, I don't really hear him playing the changes. Not to say you have to, but John appears to be coming from a different place than Miles. Just my $.02.

  25. #24

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    McLaughlin and Miles. Not even in the same universe, as far as anything I have heard.

  26. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
    i really don't hear anything remotely miles in mclaughlin's playing.

    why bother trying to find a comparison? miles and monk were as unique as they get, and that's what the OP was getting at, the unique voice, not a guitar-equivalent.

    Exactly. That about sums it up, I think. Who is the Louis Armstrong of guitar? Who is the Pat Metheny of the trombone?