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Does playing and practicing with funky grooves help you work on your feel and feel of jazz?
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06-29-2025 03:39 AM
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It's all related, "The Two Beat Groove".
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I don't know why..but some do not like him. I am a fan..he knows music inside and out.
Originally Posted by GuyBoden
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Funky grooves have been a part of jazz since a long time already. But you mean does it help with feel for straightahead, swing etc? Not sure, but does it matter? I love funky grooves, and playing funk and R&B stuff is what pays the most (in my case) not to mention it's really fun and people love it. So I mean you should practice funky grooves for what it is, and practice jazz standards for what it is, not because one might help another, but because you just love it! Originally Posted by kris
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Thread Drift: I'm pretty sure the reason "some do not like" Wynton Marsalis has more do do with his attitude that Jazz should be archived, conserved, limited to a style that already exists and that existed ~50-75 years ago. He wants to lock it down in a museum and not have it evolve, not have it grow or stretch or become anything other than what it was up until 1959. That's certainly the reason I do not like Wynton, because to me that attitude is anathema to the original spirit of Jazz. Originally Posted by wolflen
But yeah, he sure knows music inside and out. Dude is a brilliant musician, no argument there. He's just a misguided (yet highly visible) spokesperson for a music that does not need nor benefit from a pedantic custodian.
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Wynton Marsalis seems to have promoted himself very well indeed. There's no doubt that he is a superb musician and Jazz historian. Originally Posted by Bob_Ross
I'd guess that he must know that you can appreciate both old and new Jazz simultaneously, if it's played well.
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If the kind of jazz being referenced is bebop, then the answer to the OP question is: absolutely not. I played the heck out of "funky grooves" for years; basically blues laced with simple devices like side-stepping and chromatics (chromaticism) to spice things up a little. Bebop improv requires hundreds, thousands of hours of study and practice to sound good. That said, I would say that most people who can funk it up can swing pretty good too. Vice versa, not sure....
Last edited by Peter C; 07-01-2025 at 03:54 AM.
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Both come from New Orleans. Originally Posted by kris
What I realise is that "jazz swing" isn't a single thing. Swing feel is actually a number of distinct grooves and rhythms that can be related to other African Diaspora musics. Understanding the interplay of straight and swung is really important.
Swing jazz (especially maybe on this side of the pond) had sort of evolved into a form of pseudo music that no-one likes, which is to say many jazz musicians see it as a playground for 'creativity' and 'interaction'. Now there's nothing wrong with those things, and we hear that stuff from the great post-war drummers from Kenny Clarke into Tain via Tony WiIliams and Elvin - BUT - the metrical and polyrhythmic cleverness was always built on a sublime internalisation of the groove aspect, an aspect of rhythm you can't get from polymetric exercises or metronome practice.
Put that side into it, and people start dancing and responding to jazz as they would to a latin band. You have to learn to feel it, and that comes from your fellow humans.
For modern jazz, I would say that ethos centres around the Blue Note era, which is good for us guitar players, because that's some of the best guitar music too. It's enjoyable to see how younger musicians are becoming more drawn to the dance elements of jazz feel. And that's a gospel spread by Wynton, of course.
I do think one thing that specialist modern jazz guitarists might specifically miss out on is experience playing professional rhythm guitar. Modern jazz guitarists focus on comping, which is a great thing, but comping itself, I think, should be built on rhythm guitar. I really hear this in the great players I love. They are like drummers on guitar, the difference being that comping is freer and less pattern based than strict rhythm styles - but the ethos is the same.
It seems to me that most of the great modern players are also good rhythm players. That doesn't mean just Freddie Green style although that's certainly part of it - I mean funk, soul, hip-hop, cuban feels, Brazilian, polka - anything else you can think of. Take Adam Rogers for example, a real rhythm guy, he started on Curtis Mayfield and stuff like that.
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If you think of someone like Larry Goldings on organ - how much of his day-to-day trade is built on the foundation playing walking basslines with an articulated Charleston comp in the right hand? Super simple, but no-one does it better, and it feels so good.
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I'm also not sure. Many moons ago in NYC when I was in college (not doing jazz program) I was asked by a sax player to join his funk band. I said why are you asking me and not some guitarists on the jazz program? He said no way, they can't funk, they are too deep in bebop they don't have the right feel. I was a bit surprised tbh. Originally Posted by Peter C
But these days playing a lot in funk bands I've also heard from singers, (about the drummers), they wouldn't hire such and such, some best jazz drummers in town for a funk/R&B, cos they don't have the right groove. I understand it's all subjective, but I see some tendencies in choosing musicians, and being a great straightahead player does not guarantee you would be qualified for 'simplier' music I guess?
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A couple of thoughts about feel.
A few years ago, my band hired a great Brazilian drummer to coach us on rhythmic feel.
In the course of the lesson he picked up an egg shaker and shook it in 16th notes -- by himself. Suddenly, we could feel Brazil. We could all feel it. None of us could do it.
Sometime later, we had another Brazilian drummer try to teach us how to do it. He pointed out that it's not a back and forth motion, but more of an oval (as seen from the side). Didn't help us. None of us could get that feel.
You know you've got good feel when people can't help but move to it. Some dance, others sway or tap. Imagine trying to sit still to a groovin' salsa band. And, try to imagine dancing to a band that doesn't have a good rhythmic feel. Equally difficult, I think.
And, my impression is that every player should be able to do it by himself.
And, it seems to be easier on the music you grew up with.
How to develop it? Listen, listen, listen. Maybe you absorb it automatically after a while. Play with players who are good at it, so you can experience it live; I think it's easier to take it in live. Of course, how can someone trying to develop good time feel get into a band that already has it? One answer: pay them.
And, be patient. It takes time for this, and you may never fully get there. Same perhaps, as trying as an adult to learn a new language -- you can expect to speak with an accent. To be fully bilingual you have to speak the language by around age 10 or so (I don't know the exact number). Has to do with normal changes in the developing brain.
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I can see that, though I've heard and played with horn players specifically who can cover a lot of territory. Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
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Totally, there are players on every instrument like that, I know plenty as well. I guess the point relevant to the thread, practice your funky grooves, it's very beneficial for your overall musicinaship. Unless of course you're one of those single neck pickup 'jazz' tele 'i no play no stinky funk or any of that foolishness' players. Just kidding! Originally Posted by Peter C
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Any playing is good for you, so of course playing funk will help your jazz playing and vice versa. But those two fields have different needs; what works for funk might not work for jazz, and you have to keep that in mind. That said, R&b and funk music overlaps with jazz a lot. A lot of those guys can play jazz really well, they just dial it back for the gig. I mean, where does one become the other? It's not clear cut.
Generally, funk is repetitive, the groove is paramount, simple is almost always better, the guitar is almost a percussion instrument, etc. The pattern/groove is the song. You want to lock in with the rest of the band. If you solo, pentatonics will go a long way, as will string bends.
In jazz, you usually don't want to play the same rhythm over and over again, no matter how good it is. You'll just be cluttering up the space. The harmonies are more sophisticated and abstract. Pentatonics are only a part of soloing, and you gotta be careful about bending too much, lest the jazz police come and take away your jazz license.
But a good musician will know this. I think good musicians also listen to a lot of different musics, musics that are different than their own music. It will come thru, even if not directly. You have to sound good, whatever it is your doing.
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Um, no. Originally Posted by kris
R&B, funk, soul, disco and the like all have a heavy emphasis on the downbeat (aka "the one.") Jazz, by which I think you mean bebop language and a "swing" feel, tends to imply the downbeat, except when it's straight eighths.
Looking at it from the opposite perspective, "funky jazz" wasn't all that funky. The drums were too busy and the backbeat didn't really pop. Al Jackson Jr., the house drummer for Stax, could play a simple pattern that was so stanky you'd have to open a window.
By the '70s the funk was off the drums and onto the bass. Interestingly, James Jamerson (of Motown renown) was incredibly funky, but the Motown sound wasn't.
So, like I said, no.
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this thread is Russian disinformation.
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I think that playing one kind of rhythmic music probably makes it easier for you to play another kind of rhythmic music -- by sharpening your ability to feel syncopation and your precision.
It's no guarantee that you can get the time-feel of the new style down perfectly. But, I think it will help.
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Yes... it will help. Even more advanced players.
Part of playing jazz is not just being, as said above, being repetitive... but being aware of what's implied. Rhythmically, melodically and harmonically etc..
Then your able to have those aspects implied... even when not actually played. Form and use of space within Form.
Most people seem to be able to feel it.... even when they don't understand what it is.
I've got into this before.... use of Targets. The better one gets at using Musical Targets and the organization of playing or implying those Targets within Forms. Is generally what creates Feel. It's not magic...one needs to understand and work on it.
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