Jimmy Raney Under-appreciated?

[Durban]

Jimmy imo in terms of pure bop playing was probably the best player,

Now Bop playing is rather difficult to be accurate in terms of when it started and what exactly
does it constitute. for ex CC @ Minton's Monroe plays in a different manner than with Goodman's time constraints on the bandstand.

Bop is quite a narrow band in terms of Rhythm mainly 8ths 16ths but not limited too this gives a cerain sound

Given all this it is the specific language that Raney used almost his whole career.

Wes did not sound particularly boppish in the main. Wes is my personal fave.

Barney was also a excellent Bop player. Barney always Blues far more than Raney.

Ah ha just thought Raney does not overall have thats bluesy sorta thing Think Herb who was probably the Bluesiest. Chuck Wayne was pretty boppish ok i am drifting a bit just thinking why Raney was underrated
IMO his tone was good. although not that distinctive, when you heard Tal Barney Wes Johhny S, Benson
you knew immediately by tone forget notes/chords/phrasing so that may be a reason, also dynamically
he did not play (but undoubtedly could) big leaps or even pentatonics,

Jimmy always played musical sense, no theatrics , but then look at Miles
hell brilliant but a little posing which is fine, Both Jimmy & Doug Raney both were underrated.

Jimmy must have been so proud of Doug not that many Dads who see there sons play at that level
some of the best in the world, no doubt in my mind.

[Robertkoa]

Referring to Mr. Smith, I don't believe I ever heard anyone chord so smoothly and accurately way up above the 12th fret so routinely as he did. Smith would execute chordal material in his recordings quite far up in the cutaway on his D'Angelico, Guild, or Gibson.

Try it. It's tough sledding.

Ha! You are right ...I tried some of my fave voicings and even at the 15th fret on some with 25.5" scale Guitar AND small hands ( one of the rare times small hands are or should be better at something on Guitar ) it WAS tough sledding needs tightening to go up there.

And I have very good chops for Chords - wide stretches timing pick and fingers and am always trying to find* "new" voicings ...

*I hate it when you Guys are right ha ! Lucky I don't need to Play way up there often my little mini Barrès are a bitch to play up there !
Also any intonation errors are more obvious I think up at the Top of Neck.

It is easy to suddenly sound like a bad Ukelele Player up there...
Is there a Market for that 'skill '?




So Johnny Smith is mind expanding for me- regardless of Style and Smith was a brilliant Guitar Composer.



I imagine when Smith played ..common Audience question saying ..'Where's the other Guitarist ?'.

He juggled the Parts so well...

[fasstrack]

Bop is quite a narrow band in terms of Rhythm mainly 8ths 16ths but not limited too this gives a cerain sound


Barney was also a excellent Bop player. Barney always Blues far more than Raney.

First sentence: Wrong. Parker and others used triplets and assorted counter-rhythms. All the time.

I never felt Kessel 'got' bebop. In the beginning he was a Christian disciple with a blues sensibility. He was really IMO a swing-type player---not that that's a BAD thing. That was his strong suit for his entire career, and he did a good job with it. But when he recorded w/Parker, to me he sounded a little corny---and like he didn't fit...

[Dutchbopper]

First sentence: Wrong. Parker and others used triplets and assorted counter-rhythms. All the time.

Agreed. I'd go even further. Though Raney, Farlow, Pass, etc. and more recently Grasso are considered to be bebop players - and they are of course - I have never heard ANY guitarist that really sounded like Bird. Sure you can play bop on guitar but not like Bird. I don't think it can be done.

For a while I studied some Bird and Clifford Brown solos but soon discovered that that was lightyears ahead of where I was heading. Or probably anyone else on guitar for that matter.

For example, I have never heard any guitarist that played Clifford's solo on "Joy Spring" (especially the infamous bars 17-23) in the original speed. I'm not sure it even can be done. My take below is a slowed down version. It's very old so I forgot how much I slowed it down. The Bird solos are in the original speed and in real time.

There's always something "guitaristic" in guitarists, even in the best of them. Which makes perfect sense of course and does not detract from the art at all.

DB

For those interested, both vids are featured in my full Blog entries "Charlie Parker on Guitar" and "Clifford Brown on Guitar."

[Dutchbopper]

Anybody else find Raney to be a player's player?

I have yet to meet a jazz guitarist that did not appreciate Raney. And over here he is not underappreciated at all by anyone that's into jazz guitar. At least not anyone that I know.

That said, I like his son's work equally much.

DB

[fasstrack]

Agreed. I'd go even further. Though Raney, Farlow, Pass, etc. and more recently Grasso are considered to be bebop players - and they are of course - I have never heard ANY guitarist that really sounded like Bird. Sure you can play bop on guitar but not like Bird. I don't think it can be done.

For a while I studied some Bird and Clifford Brown solos but soon discovered that that was lightyears ahead of where I was heading. Or probably anyone else on guitar for that matter.

Same for Brownie. For example, I have never heard any guitarist that played Clifford's solo on "Joy Spring" (especially the infamous bars 17-23) in the original speed. I'm not sure it even can be done. My take below is a slowed down version. It's very old so I forgot how much I slowed it down. The Bird solos are in the original speed and in real time.

There's always something "guitaristic" in guitarists, even in the best of them. Which makes perfect sense of course and does not detract from the art at all.

DB

For those interested, both vids are featured in my full Blog entries "Charlie Parker on Guitar" and "Clifford Brown on Guitar."

My man Onstenk! Ever the student, you make me ashamed of my laziness.

What the classic approach to jazz guitar has always been is to simulate an air column like a saxophone----I'm talking about SINGLE-STRING playing, not what people like Van Eps did. The best always took that approach. You do it by using a lot of left hand, slurring, ESPECIALLY not picking every note. That's fine for country (which I like, too) but IMO can sound square or corny in jazz.

Since rock, R& B, funk, etc. came in the game changed, and jazz changed too----being influenced. In guitar, specifically, it became more rhythm guitar and groove-oriented. Shorter phrases and more 'tricks' in soloing. Jeff Beck is a good example: Lots of going up one string, etc,----though he's melodic and lyrical, too. But even the rock sound is a saxophone sound on guitar----it comes from blues, and players like T-Bone Walker, and Lonnie Johnson before him, were very 'saxy'.

There's almost no getting away from it. As orchestral and pianistic as the guitar can also be, the vocabulary and sometimes sound---in SOLOING still comes from the horns. Like you said, they're light years ahead of us...

[neatomic]

impossible to truly emulate bird, but there were guys that understood what he was doing a little better & way earlier than the rest...

bill d'arango, jimmy raney..and lets not forget 4 string tiny grimes...who was bird contemporary in his way...plays early on with bird, after playing with tatum/slam stewart trio

little knowns as well, like arv garrison

cheers

[fasstrack]

Chuck Wayne was on the scene, too----and recorded w/Gillespie.

I asked him if he ever recorded with Bird? 'No'. Did he play with him?

'Are you KIDDING? That c&#$^er STILL owes me $15'...

[coolvinny]

I'm currently nerding out on Raney's Live in Tokyo album (not my first exposure to Raney by any means). I'd echo many of the comments already made above (Kessel also sounds a bit out of place when he recorded with bebop wizard pianist Hampton Hawes on the album "Four!").

but...but...and not to detract from Jimmy Raney's greatness, but I feel Billy Bean on guitar is on par with the very best horn players, Bird included. Most pro musicians haven't even heard of Billy Bean! Talk about underrated.

[mr. beaumont]

I would say the Billy''s (Bean and Bauer) are woefully underrated.

Raney's not underrated by guitarists.. at least the ones who have a clue

[pcsanwald]

Agreed. I'd go even further. Though Raney, Farlow, Pass, etc. and more recently Grasso are considered to be bebop players - and they are of course - I have never heard ANY guitarist that really sounded like Bird. Sure you can play bop on guitar but not like Bird. I don't think it can be done.

Having spent a lot of time on Bird myself, I agree with this 100%. There is a certain kind of slippery-ness that alto players get, that I don't even think you can get on tenor. Cannonball, Bird, Stitt, Woods, I can't even think of a tenor player that gets the articulation they do on alto. Hell, even when Stitt plays tenor he gets a very different sound! I think part of it is simply a register thing as well.

I think there's similar things in all sorts of musics on all kinds of instruments. I mean, who sounds like BB King that doesn't play guitar? there are tons of great blues horn players, but no one plays that guitar vocabulary on the horn and really nails it.

[Robertkoa]

I agree...I love the liquid glide that Alto Sax has..

It is usually more clear sounding than Tenor.

Wetter sounds - more Reverb and Delay ...like Kriesberg uses get closer to Alto Sax with precise low attack picking...but it still isn't the same sound as a Column of air.



Actually - In the Chicago Song 'Just You and Me ' was when I first became aware of this..although I probably heard Sax Players do it previously..

Go to 2 :40 for Solo ...

It's what they call 'Ghost Notes'..looks like it was Soprano Sax...on the Recording it's short and sweet .

Here he seems to be emulating Trane ( somewhat of course ) on Soprano.

Doing it effort free and pretty on Guitar is the really hard part..IME.




Chicago sounds Great on this Live Clip - super tight-
I was never a huge fan when younger -odd.

[jazzimprov]

Absolutely checkout Tony Purrone, you can see the influence......

[Greentone]

It is much easier to produce 8,16, and 32-note runs on the alto sax than on the guitar...unless you are two-hand tapping. Tone suffers like a mf, however, when tapping.

[DB's Jazz Guitar Blog]

Jimmy and Doug in a quartet setting. For me, it does not get any better. This is what bebop guitar is all about. Legal upload by the way.

Raney 81 - YouTube

[joelf]

My teacher in '79! And a lasting influence ('The Influence')...

[grahambop]

First Jimmy Raney album I heard - instantly converted me!

[mr. beaumont]

One of my favorite jazz records, period. Raney hit such a stride in his "second career" as I call it, such a string of good records, beautiful sound, masterful playing.

[grahambop]

It’s been posted before, but it’s good:

PREPARED GUITAR: How Did I Become A Living Legend by Jimmy Raney

[joelf]

Jimmy was one of those players who never felt the need to radically change the source material---like Sonny Stitt, Getz, Pat Martino, others. He also seemed happy to play the same repertoire and stick to that same small group setting. One youngun from hometown Louisville (who actually really admired him) smirkingly said 'he's been playing the same licks for 30 years'.

Maybe he was from the 'if it ain't broke...' school. Dunno. I do know that his playing deepened in later years---in sound, spacing, asymmetry. And there was one significant change: a lifelong love of classical music that was always front and center in his writing moved up in his playing. He loved, for example, Bartok. Eddie Diehl used to say that when Jimmy stayed with him briefly he would talk obsessively about Bartok, and how he wanted to play like he wrote. I know he started ending pieces (like the live Darn That Dream from Tokyo) with a quote from (I think) Petrouchka---and I could be dead wrong attribution-wise, but I've heard that exact passage in a Bartok piece. I know he talked as much about classical influences as jazz the few times we got together for lessons (and when he stayed with Tim Whalen in summer of '80, for the festival he played with Getz).

I think he did go somewhat afield from his early reputation as a successful Charlie Parker guitar interpreter with his own additions to that language.

Young radicals and fellow travelers, if they live long enough, are one day labeled 'conservatives'. Isn't that lovely?

[joelf]

This one cracked me up, too---good, dryly humorous writing:

PREPARED GUITAR: Things Downbeat Never Taught Me by Jimmy Raney

[mr. beaumont]

Jimmy was so good at what he did...if anybody thinks him playing "long ago and far way" in 1990 something was tired shit, they're a damn fool.

I say "you play it then, slowhand"

[lawson-stone]

I'm a huge fan of Jimmy Raney and kick myself every day because I live just an hour's drive from Louisville Ky where Raney lived and never went to hear him when I had the chance. Stupid.

I spent several years on this forum learning about 8 of the solos in Jimmy's Aebersold volume 20. It was the best thing I've ever done for my melodic playing. We worked so slowly, 4 measures a week! That first solo I crept along so awkwardly, and these days I'm learning Charlie Parker material from the Omnibook--that's how helpful those Raney solos were! They created in my mind a different sense of how a line lays over the form of the song, gave new rhythmic patterns to play with, and in general it was like doing a solid physical workout every day. I still play 6 or 7 of those solos every week and they are still fun, When I play them, my amp thinks it has been sold to a real guitar player.

I love Raney's music from all periods of his career equally, but I know there are people who prefer early Raney or later Raney, and I can see why they do in each case. No disagreement, I am just one of those people who likes it all and doesn't want to choose one or the other!

I always felt Doug Raney really took his dad's style and advanced it. There is something just amazing about Doug Raney's huge tone and perfect technique that completely blows me away. I miss them both deeply.