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  1. #1

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    I read an excelletn Chet Baker biography called Deep in a Dream. There was an eye opening passage discussing the Baker/Getz tour in the 80's. One of the musicians on the tour (sorry can't remember who, a friend has the book) said it was interesting to compare the different approaches of Chet and Stan. He says that while Stan always relied on the same licks for certain progressions Chet always took a chance and tried something different. He mentions that sometimes it was a bit of a car crash but his impression was Chet was always in the moment while Stan was happy to play what he always played.

    I have to relisten to some of the clips on Youtube but I was interested in anyone's thoughts on this? This is not intended to denigrate Stan's playing, I just thought it was an interesting comment and something I had not really thought about before. I made me think of a story that Miles Davis fired George Coleman for practicing his solos before gigs (not sure if this is an apocryphal story!).

    Sorry not sure if this should be in "players" or "improv" so please move if needed.

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  3. #2

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    Here's a relevant quote from pianist Jim McNeely:

    EI: Contrast playing with Joe Henderson versus Stan Getz.

    JM: Well, I think the biggest difference was in their sounds. Stan’s sound was very big and Joe’s sound was relatively small, but he knew how to use a microphone to make it sound big. And their time feels – Stan was right down the middle, Joe tended to be a little more on top. He had worked out certain patterns, OK, so it’s eighth notes, but groups of 5 or 7, groupings like that. Some things he played weren’t even in time, they were just kind of gestures over the basic time.

    You know it’s funny, both guys, if you played with them for a while, you’d realize they had things that they would do on certain tunes. I think we all do that. But with Joe, there was more of a feeling of being the last car on a roller coaster where you’re just being whipped around, you’re just trying to keep up with the guy: he’s turning this way and that way, and you’re just trying to hold on and keep up with him.

    Stan was probably more…I don’t say this in a bad way, more predictable, there were things you knew he’d do on certain tunes. In a way, you’d lay for them, you’d knew that on the 4th chorus he was going to do this thing, and then you’d get in with him simultaneously. So in that sense, he and the rhythm section were building the solo, the solo was becoming not a composed piece but a, I don’t know, a pre-formatted event that you were all responsible for supporting. With Joe, you never quite knew what he was going to do, and it was more spontaneous, and that feeling of let’s just hang on, and try and keep up with this guy.

    Interview with Jim McNeely | DO THE M@TH

  4. #3

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    I understand what you’re saying. I think with some guys—Joe Pass comes to mind—they are monster players, but they build up this inventory of riffs that they call on in fairly predictable ways. That doesn’t mean it’s not enjoyable, but it’s not seat-of-the-pants improvisation, either. Though I think Pass could and did do that in certain settings when he wanted to, and I’m sure Getz as well.

    I’m not an authority on late Chet (or early for that matter), but I think sometimes with some technical limitations you are forced to think outside the box, and that can be really interesting. I find this for a lot of rock musicians as well.

  5. #4

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    chet was too ripped for structure...from very early on in his career...he winged it with a precise musical inherent sense..i always compare it to walking a tightrope...you can hear him making his way down the line..sometimes perilous...but most times he arrived at the other side sweetly...he did a beatles covers side with bud shank..you can hear he knew very little about the melodies..yet he pulled it off..he was extremely musical..innate..fellow musicians of his time have said the same...he was a wonder..but a great one

    listen to his later euro dates with doug raney and nhop..hes walking fine lines..but 9x out of 10 breaks on thru...a natural!!!

    check the film with ethan hawke as chet...insightful

    viva chet

    cheers

  6. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by 44lombard
    Here's a relevant quote from pianist Jim McNeely:

    EI: Contrast playing with Joe Henderson versus Stan Getz.

    JM: Well, I think the biggest difference was in their sounds. Stan’s sound was very big and Joe’s sound was relatively small, but he knew how to use a microphone to make it sound big. And their time feels – Stan was right down the middle, Joe tended to be a little more on top. He had worked out certain patterns, OK, so it’s eighth notes, but groups of 5 or 7, groupings like that. Some things he played weren’t even in time, they were just kind of gestures over the basic time.

    You know it’s funny, both guys, if you played with them for a while, you’d realize they had things that they would do on certain tunes. I think we all do that. But with Joe, there was more of a feeling of being the last car on a roller coaster where you’re just being whipped around, you’re just trying to keep up with the guy: he’s turning this way and that way, and you’re just trying to hold on and keep up with him.

    Stan was probably more…I don’t say this in a bad way, more predictable, there were things you knew he’d do on certain tunes. In a way, you’d lay for them, you’d knew that on the 4th chorus he was going to do this thing, and then you’d get in with him simultaneously. So in that sense, he and the rhythm section were building the solo, the solo was becoming not a composed piece but a, I don’t know, a pre-formatted event that you were all responsible for supporting. With Joe, you never quite knew what he was going to do, and it was more spontaneous, and that feeling of let’s just hang on, and try and keep up with this guy.

    Interview with Jim McNeely | DO THE M@TH
    Interesting interview thanks!

  7. #6

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    The whole concert is on YouTube by the way (the pianist is Jim McNeely who was mentioned above). Apparently Stan hadn’t seen Chet for ages and was expecting a clapped-out junkie, so Stan thought he would be the star of the show. He was surprised to find Chet in pretty good shape (for him) and playing well, and getting more applause than him! He wasn’t too pleased about that.


  8. #7

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    digging Chet’s chunky blue knitwear, dressed for Stockholm weather!

  9. #8

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    I’ve read several things where people say that Getz eventually arrived at a point where he wanted everything to sound perfect and polished, so he ended up focussing on his sound perhaps at the expense of his improvising. But I guess that’s a reasonable approach, it does make his later records very enjoyable to listen to.

    Whereas Chet always played by ear and ‘winged it’. So although he could be patchy, his solos always featured moments of great freshness and beauty, along with occasional awkward gaps and odd phrases. You can hear he often started a phrase on beat 2 or 3, as if he was just waiting a microsecond to hear the chord change. I read somewhere that on gigs he would often ask the pianist to play the first note of the tune, that was all he needed to get started.

    I like them both, but I suppose I end up listening to Chet more often, because of those great moments.

  10. #9

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    I think there's a movie to be made out of the story of Chet and Stan and the journey from 1953 to 1983. They both had moments of actual pop music stardom in their careers, and then "stuff happened" (jail, fusion music, having one's teeth knocked out, etc.).

    Then acoustic jazz experiences something of an upsurge in the early '80s, at the point where these two can qualify in age and accomplishment as "legends", and they go on tour together, each fighting a raging addiction, each emotionally stunted and full of contempt for the other, and the collaboration ends on a sour note, then Getz goes off to an artist-in-residence gig at Stanford which turns into something of a fiasco while Chet keeps drifting around Europe looking for any gig and any fix he can get. Calling Mike Leigh...here's your next script

  11. #10

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    Nobody even wanted to go see the Miles movie.

  12. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by grahambop
    I’ve read several things where people say that Getz eventually arrived at a point where he wanted everything to sound perfect and polished, so he ended up focussing on his sound perhaps at the expense of his improvising. But I guess that’s a reasonable approach, it does make his later records very enjoyable to listen to.

    Whereas Chet always played by ear and ‘winged it’. So although he could be patchy, his solos always featured moments of great freshness and beauty, along with occasional awkward gaps and odd phrases. You can hear he often started a phrase on beat 2 or 3, as if he was just waiting a microsecond to hear the chord change. I read somewhere that on gigs he would often ask the pianist to play the first note of the tune, that was all he needed to get started.

    I like them both, but I suppose I end up listening to Chet more often, because of those great moments.
    I think that is why I prefer Chet, I play by ear and wing it most times lol.

  13. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by 44lombard
    I think there's a movie to be made out of the story of Chet and Stan and the journey from 1953 to 1983. They both had moments of actual pop music stardom in their careers, and then "stuff happened" (jail, fusion music, having one's teeth knocked out, etc.).

    Then acoustic jazz experiences something of an upsurge in the early '80s, at the point where these two can qualify in age and accomplishment as "legends", and they go on tour together, each fighting a raging addiction, each emotionally stunted and full of contempt for the other, and the collaboration ends on a sour note, then Getz goes off to an artist-in-residence gig at Stanford which turns into something of a fiasco while Chet keeps drifting around Europe looking for any gig and any fix he can get. Calling Mike Leigh...here's your next script
    Why was Stan's Stanford gig a disaster?

  14. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by grahambop
    The whole concert is on YouTube by the way (the pianist is Jim McNeely who was mentioned above). Apparently Stan hadn’t seen Chet for ages and was expecting a clapped-out junkie, so Stan thought he would be the star of the show. He was surprised to find Chet in pretty good shape (for him) and playing well, and getting more applause than him! He wasn’t too pleased about that.

    Oh fantastic will watch this!

  15. #14

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    Like all great jazz improvisers, Getz combined true improvisation with planned patterns and pre-planned architectural ideas for how he was going to approach a tune. He was such a canny veteran that he could beautifully hide the seams between the two. His tone became deeper and more throaty in his later years and he took on challenging content more regularly. I adore his tone from the late 40s through the 70s before that gossamer sound, in my view, coarsened.
    Even John Coltrane said of Getz's sound "Let's face it, we'd all sound like that if we could."

    If you really want to go deep in the Stan Getz weeds, there's this:

    https://etda.libraries.psu.edu/files...dKCovuotSOmEDI

  16. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by Babaluma
    Why was Stan's Stanford gig a disaster?
    According to McNeely in the interview on Do the M@th (linked above), Getz bailed on a planned concert and recording session with Dizzy Gillespie and seriously vandalized the borrowed house he was staying in during some kind of fit of rage or frustration (the house of a Stanford prof. who was abroad, iirc). McNeely lays the blame on Getz's addiction problems. It was such a bad scene that McNeely quit the band for a while to get away from Getz. McNeely doesn't say one way or the other if anything positive happened in classrooms or clinics...I suppose its possible that some students got something out of it.

  17. #16

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    Stan was an addict, a narcissist and a mentally ill person who badly treated many around him - especially his family. It's a sad story made all the more remarkable by the consistent excellence of his music. This book is very well researched and written and tells the story well - both the music and every nook and cranny of his shambles of a personal life. It's mind boggling to learn that his wife felt she had to go so far as to poison his drinks (without his knowledge) with Antabuse - a drug that would make him throw up immediately if he consumed alcohol. To some, the torrid details are a distraction for others they illuminate the music via a fuller picture of a tortured soul.

    https://www.amazon.com/Stan-Getz-Lif...0064769&sr=8-1

  18. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by AndyV
    Like all great jazz improvisers, Getz combined true improvisation with planned patterns and pre-planned architectural ideas for how he was going to approach a tune. He was such a canny veteran that he could beautifully hide the seams between the two. His tone became deeper and more throaty in his later years and he took on challenging content more regularly. I adore his tone from the late 40s through the 70s before that gossamer sound, in my view, coarsened.
    Even John Coltrane said of Getz's sound "Let's face it, we'd all sound like that if we could."

    If you really want to go deep in the Stan Getz weeds, there's this:

    https://etda.libraries.psu.edu/files...dKCovuotSOmEDI
    Getz was a strong believer in trying to reach what he called 'the alpha state', an advanced state of mind where you seem to get in touch with some type of higher force that seems to be playing the instrument through you.
    Jimmy Raney, who worked with Getz in both the Herman Band, and Getz' Quintet, also believed in something similar (although he never called it the alpha-state), and I witnessed it live once, and it was the most powerful thing I've ever experienced musically.

  19. #18

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    Interesting!

    I saw him live once, in the mid 1980s on the jazz boat in Boston Harbor. He was in terrific form and very playful - a tugboat sounded its horn in the middle of his solo and Getz's matched the tug on his horn. He was chain smoking and the smoke billowed out through his horn.

  20. #19

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    Quote Originally Posted by AndyV
    Interesting!

    I saw him live once, in the mid 1980s on the jazz boat in Boston Harbor. He was in terrific form and very playful - a tugboat sounded its horn in the middle of his solo and Getz's matched the tug on his horn. He was chain smoking and the smoke billowed out through his horn.
    I was talking about seeing Raney live, not Getz.
    I just got off the phone with an old sax player friend of mine, who was raving about Getz' solo on "Move" from the album he made with the quintet he had with Raney at Storyville. He still can't get over the ability Getz had to play burning tempos like that, and still be able to play incredibly beautiful lines. Raney had that same ability when I saw him live, also.
    My friend said that Getz had a photographic memory. When he played with the Woody Herman big band, he only had to look at the charts for a week, and then he was able to play the entire book (which must have consisted of at least 100 tunes) WITHOUT ever looking at the book again.
    Couple that with a sound Trane admired, and maybe an extraordinary musical memory, and you get Getz.

    The record that he made with Eddie Sauter and an orchestra, "Focus", is probably one of the crowning achievements in jazz history.

  21. #20

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    Quote Originally Posted by sgcim

    The record that he made with Eddie Sauter and an orchestra, "Focus", is probably one of the crowning achievements in jazz history.
    you got that right!!!

    i'd add art peppers later (1980) winter moon recording...equal to getz focus for tone and lushness


    good post!

    cheers

  22. #21

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    Getz/ Raney was an incredible pairing , sgcim's assessment is dead on, those 2 sounded like brothers musically, pretty uncanny when you think about it.
    And NA's comment is reflected in my username, even though I revere tbe Hoagy Carmichael version w Pepper on Hoagy's 'Hoagy plays Carmichael' on Pacific Jazz lp, actually heard the Pepper led version w strings first, bought it when it came out, a watershed lp for me personally, my favorite Pepper recording along w the 1st Rhythm Section lp w Red, Paul and Philly Joe....Art really is at his zenith here, teetering on 'out' but still so in...incredible recording

  23. #22

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    one of my fave getz/raney...parker 51...a raney tune! obviously a nod to charlie parker...but parker 51 was actualy a classic parker brand fountain pen...jimmy raney genius humor!!...jim hall loved raneys humor!

    getz was nicknamed the sound!! he was all tone...closest ive ever heard was desmond, but on alto!!

    a tone that said everything..with one note or a flurry

    listen to what jimmy raney does on this!! his picking!...he was a bird disciple and investigated all means to get him to that sound! well done!!




    cheers

    ps- seem to recall a later interview with art pepper where he says winter moon was his proudest effort!!...not a bad one to choose!!! amongst a few!
    Last edited by neatomic; 01-27-2020 at 02:22 AM.

  24. #23

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    From the aforementioned wintermoon lp, "when the sun comes out".......


  25. #24

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    After reading this discussion of Getz and Raney, I have to dig out my Stan Getz at Storyville Vol 1 & 2 CD and give it a listen.

  26. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by neatomic
    one of my fave getz/raney...parker 51...a raney tune! obviously a nod to charlie parker...but parker 51 was actualy a classic parker brand fountain pen...jimmy raney genius humor!!...jim hall loved raneys humor!

    getz was nicknamed the sound!! he was all tone...closest ive ever heard was desmond, but on alto!!

    a tone that said everything..with one note or a flurry

    listen to what jimmy raney does on this!! his picking!...he was a bird disciple and investigated all means to get him to that sound! well done!!





    cheers

    ps- seem to recall a later interview with art pepper where he says winter moon was his proudest effort!!...not a bad one to choose!!! amongst a few!
    Give up hope all amateur players listening to this.