who are some great jazz guitarists that didn't know theory and just relied on their

[ragman1]

trying to imagine how exactly he might have arrived at some of the amazingly ingenious results that infuse his playing without at least occasionally thinking in these kinds of terms (tritone relationships, substitutions, etc.).

Well, you can pick things up, you know. After a week in Japan you'll be asking for a saki and a bowl of noodles like a native. You don't need to study Japanese :-)

[Boston Joe]

Lastly, from my own experiences in playing jazz, especially standards based jazz, with professional and experienced musicians is discussion of improvisation theory is non-existent. You tend to talk about anything other than music...

One guy in my fusion band loved to talk theory. He always wanted to break down the tunes and work them over in detail. I'm more of the Miles school of just, here's the music, take it and do your thing, so I always found that kind of frustrating.

The bassist in that band once said to me, "I don't know anything about theory. I just know which notes go with which chords." I replied, "I'm pretty sure that IS a theory." Dude could play his ass off.

[matt.guitarteacher]

Yeah. So much of these discussions get down into semantics and trying to make something literal out of a statement a player made in a very specific context. Those audio samples from the Joe Pass workshop which were posted recently were really interesting to me. Personally, I thought he sounded a lot like Reg talking about theory or something. Very aware of everything, melodic minor harmonic minor, symmetrical.... all of it .

He then went on to differentiate his very PHILOSOPHICAL outlook on simply calling things "minor" etc, and you understand that for him, it was a mental simplification for philosophical approach purposes, and not any lack of understanding for what was going on in a very specific way. In fact, he talked about in very specific theoretical ways in the BEGINNING with students who needed to know the nuts and bolts specific notes etc.

People need to understand it's just not as much of a DEBATE as you would think in these things. We tend to have a narrow view of seeing things as being competing statements which maybe aren't:

"You really need to understand what you're playing , the nuts and bolts, specific notes, all of the arpeggios and scales etc. Know your basic theory".

Or...

"Screw theory, and just play".

Great players like Pass basically say BOTH of these type things in different contexts, and they're both 100% TRUE, again, depending on the CONTEXT and the person they're talking to.

The problem isn't with the statements or the person making them , nor is it with the truthfulness of the statement etc. The problem is mostly with someone taking it out of context and trying to make it some "commandment of music" or something, which stands on its own - in isolation- and which somehow illustrates all potentially conflicting views to be false.

Wes and Joe knew what they were playing.

[MarkRhodes]

Wes and Joe knew what they were playing.

Another way of saying this is, "They knew what they were doing."
I know a guy from Canada who comes down here (Florida) every winter and he plays a little keyboard and guitar. We talk music some. He doesn't read music. (Odd for a keyboard player. At least, it seemed odd to me. Might not seem odd if I had heard him play a keyboard.) Tab is fine for him. Not everyone needs to read music. Whatever works, right?

And one day I said to him, "Yeah, whatever works. If you can play anything you want any way you like and have it sound good, make the melody sing, comp, take nice solos, sound like the pros you mentioned, then obviously you don't need to Learn Theory." He didn't have much to say after that. He's not much of a guitar player. He's a nice quy, I don't mind running in to him, but I'm not looking to jam with him. He has some fun but he's just not very good. Which is fine. For him. For me, I would like to be very good and being very good on the guitar never came naturally to me. I've needed a LOT of help, and will avail myself of more.

One caveat: those guys who came up learning tunes (and chord changes), a lot of tunes, picked up a lot about music w/out studying theory directly. They know a lot more about music than they realize. They can be excellent musicians w/out much theoretical knowledge. But they can PLAY. And the great guys who ALSO KNOW THEORY are enjoyed b/c they can play too. As Hamlet almost said, "The playing's the thing." ;o)

Playing well is an activity.
If you can play well, you know enough to play well.
If you can't play well, it's probably not theory that's holding you back....

[rpjazzguitar]

On the JBGI website a couple of years ago, Jimmy Bruno had a video where he played a Bb major scale over a Bb major chord -- and burned.

How? His time was great. Every note was articulated clearly. And, he played great melody.

So, if I had it to do all over again, I think I would make certain that I could make theoretically simple stuff sound great before adding any additional theory. And, then, every time I added a theoretical consideration, making sure I could get it to sound great before moving to the next bit of theory.

Instead, at times, I became seduced by what seemed like arcane theory and glossed over the fundamentals.

[lammie200]

...Playing well is an activity.
If you can play well, you know enough to play well.
If you can't play well, it's probably not theory that's holding you back....

I like this.

I also think that certain aspects of rhythm and harmony are pretty forgiving. That makes things fun for me. Melody is a lot less forgiving and requires more of a "know how" IMHO. Also fun.