Uptempo jazz tunes with a featured guitar player that swing!

[Jazzjourney4Eva]

immediately thought of

So this is far from the fastest Bird recorded but it is at 300bpm so this will do for starters. It’s deceptive because Bird sounds so relaxed and plays every note with its correct duration and in the pocket. I mean he’s playing triplets at this speed, not just locked in eights - and swinging like a barn door.

I can’t recall if I’ve heard a pick guitar player play at this speed with this level of relaxed precision. Usually players choose one of those two….

Legato guitar it is more possible (I think Allan recorded some things at this tempo, Eunson can play at that tempo with aplomb) but I don’t think any of them match bird or Bud; and remember this is isn’t even Birds top gear.

Tbf they are GOATs.

EDIT: psychologically there’s a barrier too. I think a lot of musicians are more comfortable playing 16th notes at 150 than 8th notes at 300. That’s why there’s the joke ‘we all like to play ballads… because we like to play fast).

Try it….

Part of the reason is 300bpm feels intense. Another is that you don’t need the same rhythmic acuity to play a fast run than to play good jazz at a fast tempo. Parker’s double time always felt like double tempo… the middle 8 of Confirmation is a good example - the phrasing is so free.

Good. GOAT to be sure.

1. TBH though - I first heard Bird after listening to a lot of Cannonball (who emulated him obviously) and thought that Bird's phrasing sounded kind of... smeary, when he played fast. Still do. (I had similar thoughts after hearing Tal for the first time after years of listening to Joe Pass, George Benson, John McLaughlin. I thought that Tal sounded like a sloppy Joe Pass. Sigh, what can ya do?)

2. Given the smeariness from Bird (I know, I know, he's God, right?), I would not compare that to picking every note. It's so fast that - at times - it sounds a bit like a smeary scat singer. I didn't hear that from Cannonball so much. There are guitarists who play fast and clean - while picking every note, and when it comes to legato, well we can start with Holdsworth and Matteo Mancuso. (Yes tapping is a legato technique. You can decide whether it's "legit" or not). Now, swing? That can be a different question, just as it's a different goal.

[Jazzjourney4Eva]

Sorry, I hear 300bpm and above as "uptempo".

Around 200bpm I consider to be medium tempo.

Here's the genius Charlie Parker playing Kim (Rhythm Changes) at around 322bpm. Compare his articulation and phrasing at this tempo with the Koko that Christian posted.

Yeah, sounds great.

Guitarists can play that fast, and do. Furthermore their fingers aren’t working with breath so can play more evenly, and longer as well. Just some of the reasons that people LOVE the guitar.

[RLetson]

The OP's Pass and Condon examples (especially the Pass) and Tal Farlow are set at what I think of as fast-dance tempos--which means when a soloist accelerates over the basic pulse, the result sounds "really fast." Bireli's "Cherokee" does a bit of that--it's set at the fast edge of fast-swing-dance, with soloists tearing it up over that pulse. The Cohen/Grasso version seems set a bit faster--it would take a pretty ambitious couple to take on that one, and they'd have to ignore the invitation to follow the soloists, and would probably dance at half-time. And a lot of hard bop compositions strike me as not giving a thought to social-dance constraints--they're interested in a different set of effects and responses. (Though even a tear-it-up tune like "Koko" manages to push some somatic buttons.)

What I think I miss in high-speed playing in any genre is space, and I suspect that one of the elements that pushes us to dance (or foot-tap or fanny-dance) and offers the possibility of "swing" is enough space in which to move the notes and one's body-parts around. Sometimes I think that high-speed hard-bop playing is an attempt to have all the notes present simultaneously in all combinations and permutations, sort of like the phase-shifted words at the end of Steve Reich's "Come Out."

But then, I'm a song-and-dance guy, so what do I know.

[Christian Miller]

Good. GOAT to be sure.

1. TBH though - I first heard Bird after listening to a lot of Cannonball (who emulated him obviously) and thought that Bird's phrasing sounded kind of... smeary, when he played fast. Still do. (I had similar thoughts after hearing Tal for the first time after years of listening to Joe Pass, George Benson, John McLaughlin. I thought that Tal sounded like a sloppy Joe Pass. Sigh, what can ya do?)

2. Given the smeariness from Bird (I know, I know, he's God, right?), I would not compare that to picking every note. It's so fast that - at times - it sounds a bit like a smeary scat singer. I didn't hear that from Cannonball so much. There are guitarists who play fast and clean - while picking every note, and when it comes to legato, well we can start with Holdsworth and Matteo Mancuso. (Yes tapping is a legato technique. You can decide whether it's "legit" or not). Now, swing? That can be a different question, just as it's a different goal.

Yeah I’m talking more about the interplay of phrasing and technique. I think guitarists are a bit hampered here by the need to synchronise the two hands. Legato players have more freedom.

Cannonball more a continuous eighth guy so yes more similar to having every note picked.

Cannonballs fab of course. It’s a different approach more typical of the second gen boppers. The thing is bird is so free at scary tempos. Most horn players can’t do that of course, and afaik no guitar players (would love to be proved wrong)

re swing legato - I actually think Allan had a legit really nice swing feel - you can feel it on 16 men of tain. He grew up listening to that stuff of course. I think he dabbled with tapping but in the end it didn’t seem to become a big part of his bag.

[mr. beaumont]

More mid than up, but I always thought this tune swung particularly hard, and thereby had a great forward momentum.

[Christian Miller]

I think he gets cast as the blues and vibe guy, but Grant green is really no slouch at bop. This is lot Koko speed but it’s a respectable tempo (240ish) and I really think Grant swings as hard as any guitarist has at this speed. Great lines.

Apparently an early influence was Jimmy Raney

[Jazzjourney4Eva]

The OP's Pass and Condon examples (especially the Pass) and Tal Farlow are set at what I think of as fast-dance tempos--which means when a soloist accelerates over the basic pulse, the result sounds "really fast." Bireli's "Cherokee" does a bit of that--it's set at the fast edge of fast-swing-dance, with soloists tearing it up over that pulse. The Cohen/Grasso version seems set a bit faster--it would take a pretty ambitious couple to take on that one, and they'd have to ignore the invitation to follow the soloists, and would probably dance at half-time. And a lot of hard bop compositions strike me as not giving a thought to social-dance constraints--they're interested in a different set of effects and responses. (Though even a tear-it-up tune like "Koko" manages to push some somatic buttons.)

What I think I miss in high-speed playing in any genre is space, and I suspect that one of the elements that pushes us to dance (or foot-tap or fanny-dance) and offers the possibility of "swing" is enough space in which to move the notes and one's body-parts around. Sometimes I think that high-speed hard-bop playing is an attempt to have all the notes present simultaneously in all combinations and permutations, sort of like the phase-shifted words at the end of Steve Reich's "Come Out."

But then, I'm a song-and-dance guy, so what do I know.

Not to pick nits but Hard Bop was a later movement that came after Bebop. More soulful, bluesy, aggressive and more moderate tempos, as compared to Bebop. “A return to roots”.

All before my time, of course. Just something I became aware of after taking one of those free Internet college courses in jazz history. It may be the only thing I remember about that “fun class”, now that I think about it.

[mr. beaumont]

I think he gets cast as the blues and vibe guy, but Grant green is really no slouch at bop. This is lot Koko speed but it’s a respectable tempo (240ish) and I really think Grant swings as hard as any guitarist has at this speed. Great lines.

Apparently an early influence was Jimmy Raney

I have always intended, but never got around to, transcribing some of this early Grant...I feel like so much of it, even at faster tempos, is down picked...

[Christian Miller]

I have always intended, but never got around to, transcribing some of this early Grant...I feel like so much of it, even at faster tempos, is down picked...

let’s do it and compare notes?

[mr. beaumont]

let’s do it and compare notes?

Sounds like a plan. This tune (Miss Ann)? I think it'd be a good one.

And then we need to take it over to the articulations thread!

[Jazzjourney4Eva]

Parker played mostly eigth notes on Koko and Kim (308 and 322 per Omnibook). A few triplets too. Very fast.

• It sounds like McLaughlin's "Cherokee" on Johnny Carson was at about 320 (my metronome doesn't go that fast so I have to double tap at 160). That was a nice solo and played on an acoustic.
• "Do you hear the voices you left behind" is about 316 (per a transcription on the interwebs), steady eighth notes.
• "Encuentros" at 198 bpm according to a transcription but sounds more like 188 to me. Steady sixteenth notes in sections so that's like eigth notes at 376. Long lines, picking every note, and very clean of course.

Always loved that tune.

[Jazzjourney4Eva]

Here you go:

That Cherokee sounds like it's at about 336? Smokin'.

[Alter]

I've actually transcribed Green's "Miss Ann's Tempo". Was fun to play, he's a killer player! I really like his double album with Sonny Clark (The Complete Quartets).

[StringNavigator]

Up-tempo and swinging.
Joe Sinacore on guitar with the Dardanelle Trio. (Dardanelle Breckenbridge on piano and vibes.)
He left jazz to work with with Patti Page and Frankie Laine.

[Jazzjourney4Eva]

Jim Hall could play up tempo tunes too, now that I think about it. He just played sparsely. That’s one way to go.

[delo054]

[Jazzjourney4Eva]

Up-tempo and swinging.
Joe Sinacore on guitar with the Dardanelle Trio. (Dardanelle Breckenbridge on piano and vibes.)
He left jazz to work with with Patti Page and Frankie Laine.

lol, that’s a little bit naughty.

[Christian Miller]

Sounds like a plan. This tune (Miss Ann)? I think it'd be a good one.

And then we need to take it over to the articulations thread!

sounds good… grants articulation is amazing to me

[ruger9]

lol, that’s a little bit naughty.

I dig the music! The dancing... not so much...

[RLetson]

I dig the music! The dancing... not so much...

The dancing in the Soundies was a revelation for me--very different from the choreography even of movies of the same period, let alone the kind of thing Bob Fosse got up to a decade or so later.

There's a Facebook group, The World of Soundies, run by preservationist/historian Mark Cantor, who has just published a book about them. He posts samples, usually with performers identified. The dancers are often ID'd as from LA and NYC nightclubs, and I was struck by the similarities of their routines--there was clearly a nightclub-chorine style, heavy on sexy moves (lots of lift-the-skirt-and-display-the-gams) and adaptations of social-dance steps and light on high-precision Busby Berkeley or Hermes Pan stuff.

The Soundies are great windows into the musicianship of that period--lots of competent working guys (and gals) providing the entertainment that the customers wanted. (Or that the producers and club owners thought they did.)

(Pause for some rummaging.) I see that Cantor also has a website: https://www.jazz-on-film.com. All manner of filmed music there.

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