Have You Met Miss Jones?

**Mark Kleinhaut** · 10-07-2022, 12:55 PM

"Have You Met Miss Jones" is a favorite tune of most jazz musicians. Written by Richard Rogers, it was published in 1937, a full 22 years before Giant Steps was recorded by John Coltrane. The bridge on Miss Jones foreshadows Trane's harmonic inventions, or at least that's how it tastes to me. My version is in the sleepy pre-dawn hours at my home studio.

**rsclosson** · 10-11-2022, 04:46 PM

Hard to know where to begin! So tasteful yet also way beyond the standard chords. I love the transitions and the tone is beyond beautiful. I want to be you when I grow up.

**tbeltrans** · 10-11-2022, 05:02 PM

Beautiful playing as I have come to expect from you, Mark. It sounds as if you are exploring the tune, finding what it has to offer and I like that approach.

Tony

**A. Kingstone** · 10-11-2022, 07:37 PM

Along with the musical brilliance the cinematography is also first rate.

I always play Jones up and edgy. This is interesting.

**Jimmy blue note** · 10-11-2022, 10:01 PM

I'm always so impressed by the way you can make real beautiul music despite obviously knowing how to play guitar.
Bravo and thank you!

**Mark Kleinhaut** · 10-12-2022, 08:17 AM

Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note

I'm always so impressed by the way you can make real beautiul music despite obviously knowing how to play guitar.
Bravo and thank you!

I think you’ve touched upon something essential here about how we play DESPITE our knowledge. Some think if it as “forget everything you know and just blow”. I’ve come to believe it’s about finding how to turn on the subconscious, switch off the conscious self, and let go of all desire to control things.

**Jimmy blue note** · 10-12-2022, 08:46 AM

Originally Posted by Mark Kleinhaut

I think you’ve touched upon something essential here about how we play DESPITE our knowledge. Some think if it as “forget everything you know and just blow”. I’ve come to believe it’s about finding how to turn on the subconscious, switch off the conscious self, and let go of all desire to control things.

This is an entire thread, an entire book, an entire way of thinking.
I had a duo partnership with a guitarists known for his extensive theoretical and practical knowledge of the instrument, but in the last ten years of his active career, we started to actively explore guitar, not as an instrument for playing song forms, but as a compositional medium for bridging the worlds of left brain thinking and right brain imagination. He was a teacher at a music school and it radically changed the way he taught, and the music he made.
In the end, graphic arts, fine arts, drawing and painting became part of a larger artform with music and in our music, free improvisation (the compositional canvas) was used as a way of creating sound interpretations of a live model in a room of artists. These compositions ranged from largely rhythmic to complex fugue-like pieces often being 'folded into' the structure of a piece of music, and treating that composition as an equal partner in the mix.
It wasn't a performance, and it wasn't a physical drawing as was being created by the other artists there but somehow we all created some kind of mutually synergetic artform that was guitar playing in its purest form and treated standards in a way unimagined before.

He'd invite certain students to do this with us and it was a transformative experience.
It almost seemed as if the guitarists who joined us learned to leave everything they knew about guitar at the door, and embarked to find a new way of realizing what they'd known all along: their own persona within the music.
I think you would've had a good time. Sorry you never did this with us.

**Mark Kleinhaut** · 10-12-2022, 09:06 AM

Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note

This is an entire thread, an entire book, an entire way of thinking.
I had a duo partnership with a guitarists known for his extensive theoretical and practical knowledge of the instrument, but in the last ten years of his active career, we started to actively explore guitar, not as an instrument for playing song forms, but as a compositional medium for bridging the worlds of left brain thinking and right brain imagination. He was a teacher at a music school and it radically changed the way he taught, and the music he made.
In the end, graphic arts, fine arts, drawing and painting became part of a larger artform with music and in our music, free improvisation (the compositional canvas) was used as a way of creating sound interpretations of a live model in a room of artists. These compositions ranged from largely rhythmic to complex fugue-like pieces often being 'folded into' the structure of a piece of music, and treating that composition as an equal partner in the mix.
It wasn't a performance, and it wasn't a physical drawing as was being created by the other artists there but somehow we all created some kind of mutually synergetic artform that was guitar playing in its purest form and treated standards in a way unimagined before.

He'd invite certain students to do this with us and it was a transformative experience.
It almost seemed as if the guitarists who joined us learned to leave everything they knew about guitar at the door, and embarked to find a new way of realizing what they'd known all along: their own persona within the music.
I think you would've had a good time. Sorry you never did this with us.

I absolutely love what you’re describing. Where and when was this? Small world and all

. Meanwhile in upstate NY there’s a few of us doing this.

**Jimmy blue note** · 10-12-2022, 10:01 AM

Originally Posted by Mark Kleinhaut

I absolutely love what you’re describing. Where and when was this? Small world and all

. Meanwhile in upstate NY there’s a few of us doing this.

Very Cool!
Our thing was in Boston. My duo partner in crime was Mick Goodrick, a remarkable guitarist. We did this for 7 years, twice a week.
His last phase of his playing really embraced real time composition (it seems to be a criminal understatement to call it merely free improvisation). He called solo free improvisation "The Last Frontier", the place he saw the culmination of his playing evolution. He would play pieces that were full four part fugue-like pieces with intentional tonal areas, modulations, recaputulations, second theme sections and return to original key and them areas. This was all done to the time of a pose. We'd announce the length of the pose (one, three, five and up to 20 minutes) and start an electronic timer.
We'd look at the pose, determine some kind of musical theme or harmonic interpretation of it and develop or free flow sound so it'd include inner arc that ended when the pose came to an end and the timer would signal the double bar.
Sometimes I'd begin solo, he'd be drawing, walk over to his chair and finding the right time, join and turn it into a duo. He told me to be aware that every configuration has its own dynamic and you could play with what each had to offer by seamlessly entering and laying out. That's why he was one of the best compers. He knew what to add and when to add it, and when to lay out, so it changed into a stronger composition.

**Mark Kleinhaut** · 10-12-2022, 11:21 AM

Originally Posted by Jimmy blue note

Very Cool!
Our thing was in Boston. My duo partner in crime was Mick Goodrick, a remarkable guitarist. We did this for 7 years, twice a week.
His last phase of his playing really embraced real time composition (it seems to be a criminal understatement to call it merely free improvisation). He called solo free improvisation "The Last Frontier", the place he saw the culmination of his playing evolution. He would play pieces that were full four part fugue-like pieces with intentional tonal areas, modulations, recaputulations, second theme sections and return to original key and them areas. This was all done to the time of a pose. We'd announce the length of the pose (one, three, five and up to 20 minutes) and start an electronic timer.
We'd look at the pose, determine some kind of musical theme or harmonic interpretation of it and develop or free flow sound so it'd include inner arc that ended when the pose came to an end and the timer would signal the double bar.
Sometimes I'd begin solo, he'd be drawing, walk over to his chair and finding the right time, join and turn it into a duo. He told me to be aware that every configuration has its own dynamic and you could play with what each had to offer by seamlessly entering and laying out. That's why he was one of the best compers. He knew what to add and when to add it, and when to lay out, so it changed into a stronger composition.

Mick was a legend in Boston (and beyond). I lived in Boston from 1980 to 1988. Actually, Mick played a quartet at MY wedding in 1984 on a harbor cruise boat, though I never got to know him. Now I’m wondering your name/identity. Did we ever cross paths?

**Rene Asologuitar** · 10-12-2022, 12:32 PM

What beautiful guitar playing.
And your guitar sounds heavenly, must be the fingers playing it!!!
Simply beautiful!!!
Rene

**Mark Kleinhaut** · 10-12-2022, 01:13 PM

Originally Posted by rsclosson

Hard to know where to begin! So tasteful yet also way beyond the standard chords. I love the transitions and the tone is beyond beautiful. I want to be you when I grow up.

Thanks so much. Let’s all never grow up, ok? Deal?

**Mark Kleinhaut** · 10-12-2022, 01:15 PM

Originally Posted by tbeltrans

Beautiful playing as I have come to expect from you, Mark. It sounds as if you are exploring the tune, finding what it has to offer and I like that approach.

Tony

. Thanks, as you’d imagine, I’ve played this tune a thousand times, but there’s still new twists and turns every time. That’s what I love best about playing!