"Everything Is Hard On Guitar"--Matteo Mancuso

[Jazzjourney4Eva]

I've listened to jazz before but thanks for the 101 course on what "blowing" is.

You confirmed it for me "steady streams of notes". Monospeed. His "breaths" weren't enough to offset that initial impression. I suspect he is more adept than the rehearsal room backing track instagram video but so far his overdriven electric playing is more interesting which is also typical of a younger player IMO. There was more breathing happening there. Maybe I'll check out his acoustic stuff.

I don't like Giant Steps either, sorry. The melody ain't much as far as melodies go. It sounds like an exercise. Is that heresy? I don't care. Find something else dammit. I'd rather hear Afro Blue anytime. Superior composition. Soul, feeling, a melody that hooks immediately. I find it pitiful how narrow people's song selections are these days, regardless of genre. Blues rock? Gotta hit that cissy strut (barf) and Doodoo Child slight return. followed by Little Wing. Jazz? Giant steps and then we'll hit "Misty" (barf). Country? We'll hit Tennesse Whiskey and Wagon Wheel. Don't forget the only Santo and Johnny tune anyone has ever heard "Sleepwalkin" as though they never did anything else. Like a bunch of bots, all playing the same shit. I guess it makes it easy to be different unless you are the guy who plays all the same crap everyone else does. I guess I shouldn't complain. I need any advantage I can get. It seems most people's playlists have become impossibly narrow just like your average radio station.

One day I started dragging Shuggie Otis' "me and my woman" out at gigs because I wanted something much less traveled from the blues realm. I knew it was a good selection when I heard another band down sixth street covering the same song a couple weeks later but it was still kind of annoying. I am always on the lookout for stuff other guys can't, won't, or don't do. People sometimes request Hendrix. I tell them that the other three bands playing the same street will handle that for you.

Rant off.

Oh, you're welcome. Another point of education for you, is that up-and-coming jazz stars play songs like Giant Steps, Billie's Bounce, Donna Lee, Rhythm Changes, Cherokee, etc. to show the world what they have. To remove any doubts. To say "I have arrived". Matteo accomplaished that with Donna Lee - in spades.

Now OTOH, you're ranting about rock on a jazz site. Who cares, indeed?

Finally, you may have noticed that people and money are starting to get behind this player. (Music videos, debut album next month). Showing his prowess on Donna Lee very likely had a positive ROI for him. But your spending time complaining about what you DON"T like? Just the opposite.

Ciao.

[jameslovestal]

Inaccurate. Firstly, this is not a ballad or mid tempo sleeper. It’s a bebop burner.

There were very structured phrases with pauses, steady streams of notes, little thematic excursions, licks and quotes, then a lighting climax.

There is a lot of up tempo dense soloing in jazz. They call it “Blowing”. Listen to Coltrane on Giant Steps.

I agree with you. It looks like some others are listening without their ears but instead inherent bias.

Aand for the record, these postings were tje first time I have ever heard Mancuso play, since I tend to listen mostly to the players that started in the 50s. Yea, I wish he used more chords and varied the tempo of the stream-of-notes, but like you said this generally up-tempo bebop blowing. I assume he doesn't play Georgia the same way!

[starship9]

He looks like a bassist who got really good at efficient 5/6 string playing, then applied all that efficiency of motion to guitar.

[Jazzjourney4Eva]

This is my favorite video of Mancuso so far. The music, the incredible village in Italy, the drone footage from the sky.

If you like it bluesy, slower and soulful, the first tune works. A tribute to it's creator - with some Mancuso fireworks added.

If that's too somber for your mood, fast forward to 7:00. Plenty of spirited guitar playing - with lots of air time offered to his trio.

Enjoy.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

This is my favorite video of Mancuso so far. The music, the incredible village in Italy, the drone footage from the sky.

If you like it bluesy, slower and soulful, the first tune works. A tribute to it's creator - with some Mancuso fireworks added.

If that's too somber for your mood, fast forward to 7:00. Plenty of spirited guitar playing - with lots of air time offered to his trio.

Enjoy.

Someone was complaining about rock (BTW relating to 50ies and 60ies blues and soul) on a jazz guitar forum in this thread. Compare ...

When I was a kid my parents did not have a TV which was already rather unusual in the 70ies/early 80ies. So I grew up listening to the radio and not "watching music". When seriously talking about musicians and music visuals should not impress you.

And this is how Jaco P played his "The Chicken": as a relaxed funky R&B tune (from when that still meant Rhythm & Blues and not Rhythm & Bass) in the vein of e.g. Tower Of Power or Maceo Parker. The show-off noodling kills the groove.

[Jazzjourney4Eva]

Compare Jeff Beck’s take to Matteo’s? Not sure why we’d want to do that, but whatever.

1. Firstly, Mancuso’s performance was a tribute to Beck, insofar as I’m aware. (I’d forgotten that Stevie Wonder was the songwriter).

2. Beck did Beck. Highly stylized articulation of the melody with his post-Hendrix, uber-electric guitar tricks (i.e., Airplane dives with the whammy bar and hyper vibrato stuff, etc). That was his voice/schtick and helped differentiate him from Clapton and other contemporaries, blah, blah, blah. Always fun and creative.

3. Now, when it comes to soloing - and the musicianship of the trio - well they aren’t even in the same zip code. But then Beck never represented himself as a jazzer or fusion soloist, as far as I remember.

Next up: Albert King and Holdsworth - compare and contrast!

[mr. beaumont]

"The guitar is the easiest instrument to play and the hardest to play well"

Segovia

[Jazzjourney4Eva]

"The guitar is the easiest instrument to play and the hardest to play well"

Segovia

A former instructor stated that it was the 3rd most difficult to master, after (2) violin and (1) the harp.

I wouldn’t know.

[kris]

The guitar is a very popular instrument and therefore seems to be easy to learn.
Speaking of the guitar, I see how many styles of music it is used in.
Is it possible for a guitarist to play good any style?

[Jazzjourney4Eva]

The guitar is a very popular instrument and therefore seems to be easy to learn.
Speaking of the guitar, I see how many styles of music it is used in.
Is it possible for a guitarist to play good any style?

Good? I think so.

Great? Haven’t seen that yet, that I can recall anyway.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

[...] 3. Now, when it comes to soloing - and the musicianship of the trio - well they aren’t even in the same zip code. But then Beck never represented himself as a jazzer or fusion soloist, as far as I remember. [...]

If you cannot remember this means you never listened to e.g. "Blow By Blow" (1975, which includes "Cause We've Ended As Lovers") and "Wired" (1976, including Mingus' "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat") ...

[Jazzjourney4Eva]

Not true. I heard a lot of that back then.

Covering jazz tunes doesn’t make one a jazzer (see Clapton’s Autumn Leaves), and I would repeat that he didn’t represent himself as one.

That would have required a different guitar, haircut, and shirts with sleeves - at minimum.

[AllanAllen]

Not true. I heard a lot of that back then.

Covering jazz tunes doesn’t make one a jazzer (see Clapton’s Autumn Leaves), and I would repeat that he didn’t represent himself as one.

That would have required a different guitar, haircut, and shirts with sleeves - at minimum.

George Benson didn't need sleeves.

[ccroft]

Donna Lee head is 32 bars of sixteenths with a couple of quarters, a smattering of triplets and a half dozen rests.
Folks tend to maintain that flavour in their solos. It's OK not to like BeBop :-)

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

Donna Lee head is 32 bars of sixteenths with a couple of quarters, a smattering of triplets and a half dozen rests.
Folks tend to maintain that flavour in their solos. It's OK not to like BeBop :-)

I like bebop. But I do not like soullessly noodled solos that do not breath. And most important I find it is a pity that one of the most important ingredients of jazz gets lost more and more: the blues and the feeling for it. Charlie Parker started busking blues and later played with Jay McShann. John Coltrane played in the band of Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson. Tadd Dameron played (together with Benny Golson) with Bullmoose Jackson. Barry Harris and Oscar Peterson started playing boogie-woogie (BH: "[...] See, now, Berry Gordy [later Motown boss] … when we were in high school, the two boogie-woogie piano players were Berry Gordy and Barry Harris. [...]"). George Benson started as a rhythm & blues singer. Listening to Mary Lou Williams' (who was called the "Godmother of Bebop" and was a mentor to Monk, Gillespie and Powell) music from the different stages of her development one might understand what I mean by bluesy feeling. Listen how bluesy Monk, Bird and Diz were.

Listen how lyrical the solos are on the original recording of Donna Lee are compared to the version in question. Listen how rhythmic and dynamic the theme and solos are on the real thing, there are accents. Mancuso's version and solos for me are a mechanical lifeless stream of notes that sounds like a machine. If I want machine music I rather listen to Kraftwerk (which I do sometimes LOL).

[Jazzjourney4Eva]

Oh sure.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

Oh sure.

George Benson is a singer, he knows what breathing means.

[Jazzjourney4Eva]

I like bebop. But I do not like soullessly noodled solos that do not breath. And most important I find it is a pity that one of the most important ingredients of jazz gets lost more and more: the blues and the feeling for it. Charlie Parker started busking blues and later played with Jay McShann. John Coltrane played in the band of Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson. Tadd Dameron played (together with Benny Golson) with Bullmoose Jackson. Barry Harris and Oscar Peterson started playing boogie-woogie (BH: "[...] See, now, Berry Gordy [later Motown boss] … when we were in high school, the two boogie-woogie piano players were Berry Gordy and Barry Harris. [...]"). George Benson started as a rhythm & blues singer. Listening to Mary Lou Williams' (who was called the "Godmother of Bebop" and was a mentor to Monk, Gillespie and Powell) music from the different stages of her development one might understand what I mean by bluesy feeling. Listen how bluesy Monk, Bird and Diz were.

Listen how lyrical the solos are on the original recording of Donna Lee are compared to the version in question. Listen how rhythmic and dynamic the theme and solos are on the real thing, there are accents. Mancuso's version and solos for me are a mechanical lifeless stream of notes that sounds like a machine. If I want machine music I rather listen to Kraftwerk (which I do sometimes LOL).

Two reasons why your criticism is off base:

1. You're comparing an informal take of the 1950s tune by a young guitarist in his house - about 70 years after the original - to a studio version for a record company, and at a time when the style of music was "relevant".

2.Taking a breath is good and bad, for horn players. The good side is speech-like phrasing. The bad side is being unable to pursue long ideas (like pianists and gutairists do). That's why horn players developed "circular breathing".


Do you think there is any of that happening here?:

[kris]

I like bebop. But I do not like soullessly noodled solos that do not breath. And most important I find it is a pity that one of the most important ingredients of jazz gets lost more and more: the blues and the feeling for it. Charlie Parker started busking blues and later played with Jay McShann. John Coltrane played in the band of Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson. Tadd Dameron played (together with Benny Golson) with Bullmoose Jackson. Barry Harris and Oscar Peterson started playing boogie-woogie (BH: "[...] See, now, Berry Gordy [later Motown boss] … when we were in high school, the two boogie-woogie piano players were Berry Gordy and Barry Harris. [...]"). George Benson started as a rhythm & blues singer. Listening to Mary Lou Williams' (who was called the "Godmother of Bebop" and was a mentor to Monk, Gillespie and Powell) music from the different stages of her development one might understand what I mean by bluesy feeling. Listen how bluesy Monk, Bird and Diz were.

Listen how lyrical the solos are on the original recording of Donna Lee are compared to the version in question. Listen how rhythmic and dynamic the theme and solos are on the real thing, there are accents. Mancuso's version and solos for me are a mechanical lifeless stream of notes that sounds like a machine. If I want machine music I rather listen to Kraftwerk (which I do sometimes LOL).

A young talented guitarist will appear and criticism will appear... it's normal.

[Jazzjourney4Eva]

A young talented guitarist will appear and criticism will appear... it's normal.

Newcomers have NO right to be great, lol.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

[...] an informal take of the 1950s tune by a young guitarist in his house - about 70 years after the original - [...]

I did not upload that video to the internet, he did.

[...] at a time when the style of music was "relevant". [...]

This is a can of worms. There was a thread here recently about the relevance of bebop in today's jazz. Why would Matteo Mancuso use an "irrelevant" tune?

[...] Taking a breath is good and bad, for horn players. The good side is speech-like phrasing. [...]

This really helped me to express my feelings about Matteo's music: It does not speak to me. And there are reasons for it which I tried to explain above. Speech-like phrasing is good for the listener. There is a reason why musicians and musicologists talk about "phrase-ing".

[...] Do you think there is any of that happening here?:

[...]

Any of what? (I like this BTW)

[ragman1]

I don't really do specific players, I do tracks. I think it's faintly ridiculous to home in on a particular player and compare them with others.

I like some things some players do. I like particular versions. I like Raney's Autumn Leaves. I like Lage's solo version of Autumn leaves too. I like Joe Pass' Nuages and Bernstein's Sandu. I like Wes' Round Midnight and D Natural Blues... etc, etc.

Mancuso's technique is awesome but not all the time. He's become a one-trick pony. Like having strawberries all day, every day.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

Newcomers have NO right to be great, lol.

They have a right to be great but being a newcomer does not mean being great per se.

[kris]

I don't really do specific players, I do tracks. I think it's faintly ridiculous to home in on a particular player and compare them with others.

I like some things some players do. I like particular versions. I like Raney's Autumn Leaves. I like Lage's solo version of Autumn leaves too. I like Joe Pass' Nuages and Bernstein's Sandu. I like Wes' Round Midnight and D Natural Blues... etc, etc.

Mancuso's technique is awesome but not all the time. He's become a one-trick pony. Like having strawberries all day, every day.

haha....
do not embarrass this forum ... I think I will stop writing here ....

[kris]

They have a right to be great but being a newcomer does not mean being great per se.

Great player is a great player...:-)