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Originally Posted by JensL
I wouldn't necessarily want to dive into the BH stuff from the start, I think it's something to explore later (as in my case).
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03-25-2016 09:34 AM
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You know I was checking out this solo and it's amazing how much Django learned from the Barry Harris improvisation DVD. Scales with added notes, use of important triads over the dominant, a hefty minor six tritone sub.
He's a sly old ultrafox, but I know what he got his ideas. Ha!
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I've only recently stumbled upon Barry Harris's ideas and watched a number of his videos. Aside from his beautiful music, I actually like that he's so opinionated. Students of jazz are often made to feel they should embrace the whole "progress" of jazz with equal reverence. It seems to be a pretty heavy expectation. What if you were to join a place like Berkeley today and happened not to like a lot of stuff as of Coltrane and McCoy Tyner , but had a love of Nat King Cole? Wouldn't that make you a pariah from the get-go?
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Originally Posted by m_d
Actually you are describing a lot of my friends and colleagues, many of them below the age of 30.
I know one excellent young guitar player - and complete straight ahead nazi - currently doing the rounds on the London Jazz scene who left college without completing it, on realising that he had no interest in what they were teaching. I wish I'd had such presence of mind (and ability!) at such a tender age. Some other highly impressive young swing and bop players have never been near a music college.
Others stick with it to get the piece of paper. Plenty of avid boppers have had to sit through classes on Kenny Wheeler harmony to get a pass. (OTOH many contemporary guys have been bored by bop classes.)
For myself - I'm not so focussed, and I'm not necessarily into recreating the past. I love different kinds of music. But I feel that the BH thing is a great thing to explore, like counterpoint or tonal harmony. I find it interesting and rewarding.
One thing I've noticed - 10 years or so ago, people used to laugh when I talked about Barry Harris's ideas as if he was a dotty old has-been or just didn't know who he is. Now people are taking notice.Last edited by christianm77; 05-29-2016 at 09:58 AM.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
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Originally Posted by christianm77
I'm outside the professional music world, basically a home learner, with a wild dream to have a band some day playing the Great American Songbook the way it's "supposed to be". Barry Harris's playing speaks for itself. In one clip it was very interesting, the audience is a friendly, but mainstream one. He has them singing and even crying, literally in the palm of his hands. Some criticisms I've read of the Barry Harris guitar method have struck me as ill-willed and unfair; endless complaining about a lack of indications about how to apply it to the ii-V-I framework, whereas a cursory glance (I just acquired the book) revealed at least two places where the author explains how to do just that. It probably has its limitations and contradictions, but some people pass judgment on it without even trying it apparently.
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Originally Posted by m_d
Anyway, we also feel the same about Bill Frisell, so for me this is not an old school/new school thing - it's just about someone's spirit and whether they are interested in communicating and playing music for the audience. Bill is so shy, and yet he comes across with tremendous warmth. Although Bill knows his history!
In fact, I had a Jim Hall marathon yesterday, and Jim was such a swing cat, it did make me question the validity of playing bebop. Bebop on the guitar to me sounds a bit like a dog standing on its hind legs to me even when Pass, Farlow, Rainey and Martino do it about as well as it can be done :-) But I'll practice it anyway.
I think the lineage of Lester is a big one, transmitted through Charlie Christian, Jim Hall etc. I think some of the young cats are getting really into that.
Anyway, speaking of Nat Cole, a guy I play with introduced me to this trio, have you heard it?
Last edited by christianm77; 05-30-2016 at 05:56 AM.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
It wasn't my intention to make this into an old school/new school contest either, it just seems to me the new school "loses it" more often than not. Frisell is on my list of "moderns" I'm reassessing and an album purchase is in my plans.
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Originally Posted by m_d
(Of course according to Ethan Iverson Buddy Rich isn't a real jazz drummer right? ;-))
Well while we are on the no bass vibe - I'd check out Frisell's version of Benny's Bugle on Beautiful Dreamer...
I think the problem I have with 'new school' jazz is that I rarely enjoy guys playing originals as much as standards, but they kind of have to play originals to get anywhere with touring, recording, publishing and so on... There are exceptions though, of course...Last edited by christianm77; 05-30-2016 at 07:23 AM.
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interesting that you have such a negative attitude to be-bop guitar c77:
it can be done - just not very well
i'm sympathetic to this picture i have to say (however much it does my head in after putting so much into trying to play be-bop guitar for 25 years or so)
i think Raney and Pass at their best make it work
but i typically feel that jim hall does better by taking a different tack (jimmy giuffre etc.)
and the master - wes - is surely not a bebop guitarist (however fabulously sophisticated his 'vocabulary' is)
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in the end wes is so steeped in be-bop that - however original his mature style - it seems to me to show that properly modern jazz guitar can work a treat.
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i haven't heard anyone sound anything like say bud powell's right hand on guitar. i see no reason why something like that (without the absurd virtuosity of course) could not work very well. and barry harris is the man to help people to it.Last edited by Groyniad; 05-31-2016 at 07:19 PM.
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Originally Posted by Groyniad
I think Pasquale Grasso gets pretty close to the Bud Powell thing in on guitar. And yes, BH helped him.
Also I think there is such a thing as playing bop language with a very contemporary guitar sensibility. I feel PG is actually this to an extent - his sheer level of technique I think is quite new - but I hear a lot of bop in Gilad's lines, for example. The development in electric guitar technique makes it possible to play with the fluency and legato I often feel a bit lacking in the older bop players.
TBH I'm very conflicted about my direction as a player - I'm very eclectic, as you an see from my videos. I'm uncomfortably aware that this means I will probably never be as good a a) contemporary b) bop or c) swing player as I could be, but I really don't want to specialise. I kind of want to play my thing, but it's hard to know what that is from the inside.
London sometimes seems like a town of specialists to me, people trying to recreate records. I just want to improvise, listen and play music really, and trying and find my own voice. It's pretty confusing.
In practice I play a lot swing gigs, but without the interest in either modern gypsy jazz or vintage authenticity which seem like the obvious paths to take with that music. I've fallen into it. So I guess I'll keep trying to be as eclectic as possible while keeping the core of my musicianship as more-or-less changes based jazz and see where that takes me.
That said, I feel like I learn a tremendous amount from purists, in whatever style. They can really roast you. I got roasted on the gig tonight! Very interesting.
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i have always just wanted to do one thing with the guitar.
- improvise as much like my bop heroes as possible (or something like that)
i grew up with the flute - classical flute, but i never had any desire to use it to try to play jazz on
so the guitar is just what i happened to try to learn how to do that sort of improvising on. i had almost no relationship with the guitar before i started to learn how to play be bop on it.
every single gig i ever played i got roasted by one or other of my two regular horn players. and that did have quite a lot to do with how easy it was for them to sound fluid and graceful (and easy to hear - for god's sake). its a huge challenge to make guitar really work with a double bass (i.e. no chordal accompaniment) after a strong horn solo.
i've never done gigs in other styles. though i don't take myself to be trying to recreate a given style either.
one of my central concerns is how to bring the single-note side of playing and the chordal side together into an effective style. i haven't achieved much with this since my focus has been on blowing. and i don't like solo jazz guitar.
its important to me that i'm playing good tunes in public - (i don't want my improvising to have to take all the pressure) - and this puts me off very impressionistic sketch-like modern tunes. this restricts the sort of material i take on. but the idea that the mainstream repertoire is any way 'restricted' make no sense to me.
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jesus christ i just hear this for the first time
and now i have heard a guitarist who sounds a lot like bud powell's right hand
thank you c77
and pasquale grasso - what a trip
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and he has the virtuosity too (which is bonkers - bud powell! i mean that's insane)
i don't know what to say
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You made a prediction, and it was proven to be correct.
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well that's absolutely nailed the be-bop jazz guitar thing then
good
i thought it might be possible
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Do you get what I mean about PG, though? I think his playing owes as much a debt to Frank Gambale etc as it does to Bud Powell. It's shred level e-guitar technique applied to bebop.
That Just One of Those Things video is completely crazy. I don't think I'd seen that one.Last edited by christianm77; 05-31-2016 at 08:32 PM.
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the blues in e flat is a revelation
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he has that pure be-bop relentless forward falling thing - the continuity of thought is fantastic
great phrasing too - hard to hear on the insane cole porter - but on the blues its just fantastic
its really hard to commit to this sort of style because if not done with real flare and fun (ornaments, jokes, quotes, flourishes) you sound relentless and flat.
joe pass emphasizes the need to play through all the changes - very few guitarists do it - but its meat and drink for horn players (especially alto players i think)
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Originally Posted by christianm77
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Originally Posted by christianm77
Fuck man! You are a beautiful player and a smart man. You are playing in hip joints with interesting people (as far as the vids allow) and you are stuck in to your craft. To hell with where it all leads. You are making your own way quite convincingly thank you very much. Now have a cup' a tea, some mushy peas, kiss your mum (incorrect spelling) and Bob's your uncle.
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Originally Posted by A. Kingstone
I'll stop soul searching and feeling sorry for myself and get on with it then.
Cheers, mate.
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Speaking of Wes and Trane, they performed together at the Monterey jazz festival in 1961 I believe. There's suppose to be an audio of the concert recorded that day that is soon to resurface. From what I've heard, Wes out played everybody on stage that day...including Coletrane!
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Originally Posted by JBM
It'd be nice if it finally surfaces, but I'm not expecting it.
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
There's really no such thing as a minor flat five triad. A minor triad with a flatted fifth is a diminished triad.
Regards,
Jerome
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