The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    Quote Originally Posted by NSJ
    You know, a while back I asked my teacher if he listened to a lot of modern jazz. He said immediately,"no!".

    Keep in mind, he is of the caliber of player and teacher that people like George Benson and Joe Diorio have asked to study with him, in the past. And he personally started, wrote the syllabus and got accredited the first college level guitar programs in the area ever, many years ago.


    His general gripe is that melody and lyricism have become dirty words. At a certain point, it's like music became too esoteric, too academic.

    For myself, as a relative beginner who mainly enjoys playing for the sake of playing, with no professional ambition other than to enjoy playing music for myself, I always try to ground myself on very basic concepts: is it in time? Does it groove? Is it melodic and lyrical? Really basic stuff, as far as discussions go, I guess. But, when it comes down to it, the most important stuff.

    So, yeah, a lot of modern stuff is for players-only music. Too bad.

    Like so?


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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #27
    As if "melody" and "lyricism" indicate anything but "sounds good to me."

  4. #28

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    Much use is being made of the well-known unmelodic scale.

    ...According to a good friend of mine.

  5. #29

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    Quote Originally Posted by Reg
    Jon, I think, thanks for satirical compliment...

    Jazz is designed to be played live in front of a live audience... the audience is part of the equation...
    Oh, I agree totally. (Can I make that 110%? 150% )
    IMO that applies to all music, but to jazz even more so.
    Quote Originally Posted by Reg
    If your not aware of the equation, then there's another skill to put on your list on the long and windy road to developing into a jazz musician.
    Speaking for myself, I've been playing to audiences since I was 17 (9 months after I began learning guitar, 46 years ago almost to the day ), and need no convincing that live skills are the most important ones.
    As I say, I don't think jazz is any different in this respect, except that it requires better listening and (of course) better playing - not only because of its more complex nature (compared to other popular musics), but because of the centrality of improvisation, which is peripheral at best in other genres (blues excepted, although we can make that part of "jazz" I guess).
    And I've been improvising from the beginning too, athough obviously in a fairly crude, instinctive way to start with.
    Quote Originally Posted by Reg
    There are some pretty narrow views and ears on this Jazz forum, I played jazz gigs in the late 60's and by the 70's I could cover... yada yada... I don't just talk jazz...
    You don't need to tell me that. I don't mean to sound sycophantic, but no one can talk the talk the way you do if they can't also walk the walk...
    Quote Originally Posted by Reg
    Maybe you haven't played enough live jazz gigs in front of an audience to feel and see how much effect the audience can have on live jazz.
    Oh, I've done my fair share. But admittedly only as an amateur.
    My first "real jazz" experience was playing Django-style music, but to folk club and college audiences back in the 1970s.
    More recently (from the early 90s until a few years ago) I played sporadic jazz gigs in various line-ups, mostly amateur, but sometimes with professionals too, although rarely to the most discerning jazz audiences.

    I'm still painfully aware of the gulf between my skills (mainly in technical terms) and those of the pros I know. (In the 1970s band I was lucky to play alongside a pro sax player; a truly inspiring musician who remains a good friend, but what he could do then is still ahead of where I am now.)
    Quote Originally Posted by Reg
    Or maybe you haven't developed your jazz skills well enough to be able to draw an uneducated audience in to be part of that equation.
    I would say that's true.
    It's certainly true that I've never committed myself sufficiently to jazz to develop those skills. I've been more interested in (or at least involved in) other forms of music, and in any case only became a professional musician around 10 years ago (and that's largely in a teaching capacity, more than playing).
    But I have to say, I've also seen highly skilled jazz players fail to "draw an uneducated audience in". That's no reflection on their playing skills, although I can see it might be a reflection on poor audience communication skills.

    Yet again, in that pseudo-Django band, we always managed to "draw uneducated audiences in", because we (at least our frontman) had very good audience skills. I was no Django, needless to say, but they always liked us. (Naturally, it's debatable whether it was the "jazz content" of what we were doing that caught their imagination. I don't imagine we converted many of them into jazz fans, if they weren't already.)
    Quote Originally Posted by Reg
    There has to be some reason for such naive comments about jazz and performance of jazz.
    "Naive"? I don't see what was naive about my comments. You're welcome to disagree, of course (based on your extensive experience, which has to be better than mine), but my view is based on quite a lot of experience of all kinds of live gigs, and long consideration. My views may be "stupid" (and based on bad or incomplete experiences), but I can't see they are "naive" .

  6. #30

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jake Hanlon
    It's important also to realize that the Modern Jazz community and Jazz as a whole has been a counter culture to American Music culture since the mid 60's and has over the last 15years probably blown so fast and far beyond what the average person considers to be 'good music' because of the over simplfied music that is available to them in pop culture.

    Art Music has always been this way, an attempt to stretch the evelope of what we as Humans are capable of. What that means is that people get left behind in terms of understanding, appreciating or even caring about what is going on. Jazz has been on the fringe of what our society thinks is worth listening to for a very long time (close to 70yrs) and won't ever reach a mass audience ever again unless something completely insane happens like "listening to jazz prooves to cure world hunger". Because those of us out there that make this music for a living are doing it because it's a calling moreso then it is anything else.

    Every serious and professional level Jazz Musician that I have worked with, talked to, studied with couldn't do anything other then this with their lives outside of maybe raise their families. I know guys who would sooner give up their wife then give up their axe (I've seen it happen actually). You are consumed by it, and you actually don't care if people like what you're playing or if they understand it or want to listen to it... then you get confused why people don't buy your album or go to your gigs.

    It's a funny thing to live that way. Some people make it work. Some people are the starving artist for their entire lives and are of the happiest people on this planet.

    I feel strongly that no matter what path you take in the music, how advanced harmonically or rhythmically if you're honest about the music and your place in it, you'll find an audience, no matter how small. Talent is a very small part of the success game in Music, it's probably like %10 of the reason someone makes it. The rest is insanely hard work at and away from the instrument and bandstand and the drive to get to whereever you need to get.

    You look at an extreme case of Pat Metheny who still does 200+ shows a year... how many Jazz artists play 200 shows a year? Probably not too many... how many play 200 sell out shows a year? Metheny is pretty modern, he's also insanely popular and one of the few 'famous' Jazz Musicians in this world... and he's a guy that holds the flag up high for tradition and support of the old guard as well.

    As far as the have to be a musician to like modern jazz? I think that's bullshit. It would help on an intellectual level. I think no matter how complex the music is, that if that musician can get the message of the music across it will speak to any listener. If their music has no message, they need to go back to the drawing board.
    Excellent post!

  7. #31

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    Quote Originally Posted by Insufferable_Rhythm
    As if "melody" and "lyricism" indicate anything but "sounds good to me."

    well, maybe "song like melody" would be more to the point.
    but i think that "lyricism" is descriptive enough.

    some people prefer instrumental performance to seem sing-song like, or at least something that approaches it. Busy "blowing" is not to their liking. i've noticed that the less a person has listened to instrumental jazz, the more they have this tendency. (and that's a pretty large group of people).

    i dont think that there's any way around this. that is, intensive blowing in a modal context is just not going to be attractive to the average joe or josephine - especially josephine.

    so be it.

  8. #32

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    Hey Jon... My naive comment was directed at anyone reading... and many post besides yours... Not the brightest comment... I apologize to anyone offended. (Jon your included).

    But one needs to open their ears, eyes and knowledge base, (I'm talking about music), to play jazz... Jake's point about music having a message, also is about the performance. The composition is not the only message... With out jazz performance skills... that message is rarely expressed.

    That message thing... I tend to keep music, just what it is... music. It doesn't always need to define, explain or save life.

    Reg

  9. #33

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    From a 2006 All About Jazz interview with Sonny Rollins:

    "AAJ: Well, to conclude, what advice or guidance do you
    have for aspiring young jazz musicians?

    SR: Oh, boy, that’s a big question. What you have to
    confront if you’re a young gifted musician is what
    some people call the “real world.” But your music,
    which is the real real world, that comes first. The
    world of making a living, putting bread on the table,
    you meet a girl and get married, support a family. But
    music takes a lot of time and dedication. You run up
    against the so-called “real world,” so that’s a big
    wall between your aspirations and what you are
    actually able to accomplish. If you love music and
    think you have some aptitude, then I would just say,
    “Do it to the greatest level you can, feel privileged
    that you have that gift, and as for the rest, who can
    say?”

    Being a musician and raising a family are often two
    antithetical things. But as far as the music, if you
    have the aptitude, the talent, and you love it,
    consider yourself blessed that you have that
    understanding and love of music in this life. That in
    itself is a great blessing. But as far as earning a
    living, there’s not much one can say. We live in a
    world that’s all about making money and having
    things—big cars, big homes—and you’re running into a
    conflict. But if you love music, there’s nothing like
    it. If you’re gifted and you can play it, I wish you
    well, and just continue doing it. But don’t expect
    anything, because in the world in which we live,
    people who are artists, painters, musicians, writers,
    we can’t expect anything in this world. The way the
    world is set up, it’s not for us. But it’s not a
    negative thing. It’s still a wonderful thing anyway."

  10. #34

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    Sonny knows.

    Man, I'd like to just like to sit and talk to him for a half hour...I bet I'd learn a lot.

  11. #35

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    2nd on Sonny gets the last word.

  12. #36

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    I see that some musicians are personally attracted to the intellectually advanced math/logic aspect of modern jazz, and that path challenges, stimulates, and satisfies them as much as other more esoteric facets of the music, and I feel you can hear that in the music. Some folks dig it, some not so much. There is no right or wrong. Jazz musicians don't all have the same goals.

    However...I have played some pretty crazy stuff with advanced musicians, creating stuff without an audience that was totally phenomenal, yet it does not hold a candle to the transcendent experience and musical outcome of tapping into the energy created by engaging/capturing the collective consciousness of an audience that involves real communication, where communion with others is the ultimate goal. You can never dismiss the audience and achieve this. This has always been where real jazz happens, not alone in your living room. IMO.

    Quote Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
    Sonny knows.

    Man, I'd like to just like to sit and talk to him for a half hour...I bet I'd learn a lot.
    For what it's worth, Sonny always said that Bud Powell was THE bebop professor.
    Last edited by cosmic gumbo; 10-30-2012 at 03:14 PM.

  13. #37

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    I listen to about an 80/20 split in favor of modern jazz. I dig the old stuff too but feel more of a connection to what guys like Moreno, Kreisberg, Hekselman, Christian Scott and Robert Glasper are doing.

    The modern influences appeal to me as they echo the other types of music that I grew up with before getting into jazz. It makes sense to me that jazz musicians would draw on everything that's come before them as opposed to ignoring the last 50 years and trying only to imitate the past.

    Just my personal tastes. Good jazz is good jazz, no matter what era (of course 'good' is subjective).