The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
Reply to Thread Bookmark Thread
Page 10 of 10 FirstFirst ... 8910
Posts 226 to 234 of 234
  1. #226

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Jonah
    Actually it proves once again that there is no tone per se...

    If he played more conventional jazz stuff with taste and wit... I am sure the same gear setup would have sounded much better to our ears.
    Yes. Early Derek sounds not unlike Jim Hall.

  2.  

    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #227

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Jonah
    I do not care who shareks about what...
    But I am not going to pretend something is good if I do not think it is good either.


    I have no problem with 'avant-garde' .. I am not prejudiced in that sense. I listened a lot of modern academic 'avant-guarde' and there are composers I really love

    I but I do not like his playing there, the music, the tone..

    The same concerns Mary Halvorson to me...
    I deliberately tried to listen to her music and I do not like the music, the playing, the tone...


    Anyway I think my comment is still true...
    The main idea: jazz is still much pitch related musical language... it is not sonoric language (though the tone is important part of aesthetics).

    So if the player does a good jazz language playing the audience might ignore weak or poor tone... because they hear it all together.

    When something like that incoherent (and to me pretencious) playing goes on where I do not here any relations to build upon the musical integrity of impression... the attentions tries to catch other aspects and the tone as s result sounds terrible.


    There is great putily donoric music like Nono's Prometeus.
    There are good modern 'avant-guarde' improvizers that seem convincing to me...
    Do tell!

    I think Literick was objecting to the use of ‘we.’

    Anyway Derek passed away 15 years ago. His playing helped found a new way of playing music that’s been in existence for 50 years. While unfamiliar or strange to many, I’m not sure we can call this avant garde anymore.

    I think the past decades have been characterised by a general retreat from the avant garde. In general it’s more modern to play tonal (or modal), groove oriented music, all things Derek was rejecting (he described his music as ‘anti-jazz.’)

    That said free improv itself is not necessarily modernist/avant garde either, and is by necessity a broad church. Not everyone active in this approach to music shares Bailey’s ‘squeaky bonk’* aesthetic, although I find it hard to escape when doing free improv because at least it stops me from playing bebop lol. Keith and Julie Tippets duo performances, for instance, sound nothing like Derek’s work.

    (BTW if anyone thinks free playing is easy, they haven’t tried it.)

    I’d recommend everyone here to read his book Improvisation BTW, if they haven’t, and check out the TV series he did if you can; you don’t have to like it even have checked out his music to get a lot out of it.

    *thanks, Jim Mullen
    Last edited by christianm77; 01-01-2021 at 07:15 AM.

  4. #228

    User Info Menu

    What Christian said. I use 'avant garde' as the name of a genre, one that is now largely a thing of the past, but from which one can learn. There is something about Mary, but it is a different thing, a formal approach. The most interesting free guitarist at present is Jessica Ackerley who, unlike Bailey, does not avoid melody.



    All my playing is free. Nobody would pay for it.

    I’ll get my coat.

  5. #229

    User Info Menu

    Well tbh I think ‘free’ is often used as a synonym for ‘dissonant or not conventionally tonal’ or even ‘I don’t like that’; isn’t a lot of Halvorsson’s music actually composed, or do I remember wrong?

  6. #230

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Average Joe
    Something like this would be my ideal for a tone I would like to work with. The playing ain't half bad either. As much as love the classic clean jazz tones, I like to hear a little breakup in guitar

    I love Scofield too. Interestingly his tone developed from "very processed" with the chorus, reverb and drive to less processed (chorus only once in a while but then all controls cranked) to just a guitar into a tube amp (just like Burrell or Green). And I think his intention changed over the years from wanting to sound like a horn to embracing the tone of a guitar. Personally I think his tone improved.
    Here he's playing material from different phases – through 2 different rigs interestingly:

    But then it's all about his feel and choice of notes anyway. I had an epiphany when trying to play transcriptions through a very inadequate rig (probably a tele through a totally dry amp) – it was still identifiable as Scofield's music.

  7. #231

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by BickertRules
    Grant had that nice breathy attack - sliding the pick across the string instead of striking it maybe - reminds me of an old-school tenor saxophonist attack.
    After reading your post I tried to figure out that technique in this video:

    Honestly I can't see that he's using any irregular technique. But you can see and hear that he has a very light touch. Maybe that's responsible for the beautiful tone?

  8. #232

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Litterick
    Bailey was not a jazz guitarist, so what is the point? You may as well be talking about Segovia.
    I agree. I didn't initially post that Bailey video.

  9. #233

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Well tbh I think ‘free’ is often used as a synonym for ‘dissonant or not conventionally tonal’ or even ‘I don’t like that’; isn’t a lot of Halvorsson’s music actually composed, or do I remember wrong?
    That is what I meant.

  10. #234

    User Info Menu

    I’m not sure if he’s doing anything you would see on a grainy old TV to video transfer, but it sounds like there’s contact (preparation?) and a little slide of the pick on the string and then the note pops out as the pick “lets go” of the string.

    Again, I am just guessing but I have always liked that about Grant’s tone, or attack sound. Most other jazz guitarist have a “duh-duh-duh-duh” sounding attack, while Green’s has that little airy breath before each nice ringing bell of a note pops out.

    I love this album, “Standards”, for a few reasons, but one is I think you can hear Grant’s tone more clearly because of the lack of piano/organ and the subdued, but grooving, playing of the bass and drums.

    Grant Green – Standards - YouTube

    I also love the cavernous reverb and the fact that Green almost never plays a chord, except on the last note of the track or very sparse voicings during the bass solos. He plays no chord melody during his melody statements or solos, but I don’t miss it at all.

    I imagine a story where everyone was set up at RVG’s studio for a regular date and the piano player didn’t show. Somebody said “F it, let’s roll tape!”, and we get this beautifully sparse swinging masterpiece.

    A genius of groove, time, and tone.


    Quote Originally Posted by guavajelly
    After reading your post I tried to figure out that technique in this video:

    Honestly I can't see that he's using any irregular technique. But you can see and hear that he has a very light touch. Maybe that's responsible for the beautiful tone?
    Last edited by BickertRules; 01-01-2021 at 04:31 PM.