-
I like just about all kinds of jazz. It all sounds ‘jazzy’ to me.
-
11-20-2018 03:34 AM
-
I wish I had a straight DI signal of wes' playing there, I'd love to hear it pushed into the valves a bit more to even out the dynamics by about 15% (I know i know, it's ALL about his dynamics!), I just wanna hear his subtle articulation in all the bits where he gets a little lost. And I don't mean compression - I hate that on Jazz guitar - just a little more valve saturation. Then you wouldn't feel the momentum dropping when he solos, you'd hear it picking up!
Originally Posted by christianm77
...
But back to the discussion re what makes Bop Bop, I really don't think people are gonna put all those principals in the OP into practice, chiefly because no-one really plays Bebop (strictly speaking) any more and haven't for a long time. Like Latin, it's a dead language, but it remains the fountain or well spring that informed and informs so many spin off styles. Personally, if you don't have some Bop going on in your playing, it's just not Jazz, and I know that a lot of you guys feel the same way.
Hard Bop on the other hand is still popular and people still play it (although certainly not the way they used to). Now, the things that distinguish strict Bebop from , say, Hard Bop are actually the things I don't like about Bebop! The angular asymmetry of the line, the asymmetry of the beat, these things were "flattened out" to some extent by the Hard Boppers who felt the need to put some hard driving' attitude back into the music and make it less appealing to the egg heads. That's why I tell youngsters that if they don't wanna school themselves in Bebop, then maybe they might consider 1955 to be a kind of "year zero", and not miss out on too much. Infact, it may do no harm to get hip right from the outset to Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon etc. Hard Bop is easier to digest if brought up on Rock, and this might explain why young people don't care too much for Dizzy Gillespie, it just doesn't feel cool. Which is ironic given that Dizzy Gillespie was once considered the coolest guy on earth in the late 40's. And if Monk and Bird get any attention from youngsters, it's because of their life story (livin' on the edge etc), not so much because young people are addicted to listening to their music.
I even reckon that young people prefer to hear Charlie Christian or Lester Young more than late 40's - early 50's Bebop. Having said all that, I still think Bebop is the ideal gateway to all pre and post bop forms, but it will be a challenge to keep youngsters interested. They won't get the irony or humour in the music, the quotes, how outre it was to take a show tune and utterly destroy it, and they won't dig the heads, they sound too corny. Heck, I even struggle with it, except for the one thing that makes it compelling enough for me to keep listening - and that's the way that Yard totally floors you mid solo, again and again and again
...
-
It's interesting that though it is bebop.. I still hear in this record... Wes sounds a bit different than horns..I wish I had a straight DI signal of wes' playing there, I'd love to hear it pushed into the valves a bit more to even out the dynamics by about 15% (I know i know, it's ALL about his dynamics!), I just wanna hear his subtle articulation in all the bits where he gets a little lost. And I don't mean compression - I hate that on Jazz guitar - just a little more valve saturation. Then you wouldn't feel the momentum dropping when he solos, you'd hear it picking up! ...
I mean motives and some phrases 'in and in-betwee long runs' are recognizable as if he tries to insert some more relaxed bluesy and guitaristic phrasing into it?
Besedies I noticed that long runs both on piano sound a bit more 'mechanical' than on horns here.. I believe it is connected with the nature of instruments: a bit of patterned things and also horn players really often think in 'breaths' -
One attack and they can increase or decrease intensity and volume gradually while playing many notes...
their lines are like one note with extremly exquisite and complex vibratos)))
-
Clever people invented Fuzz Box for a reason. And they are not afraid to use it.
-
Yeah, they were going for a horn type sound alright, and what a fun sound it was! But I've been waiting all this time for the next generation fuzz pedal that could be more faithful to subtlety and dynamics, you know, like a real horn... Originally Posted by Vladan
-
Thanks to this thread I began to re-listen to Jimmy Raney... he sounds so good and fresh...
-
Channeling the familiar spirit of Tommy Gumina? Originally Posted by pauln
"Welcome to Hell... here's your accordion."
-
I don't share the belief that the rhythm of breathing is somehow better in music. If that was so great, why are horn players always trying to do all these tricks to extend their breath? Circular Breathing shows that at least horn players don't necessarily think the rhythm of breathing is essential to beautiful music. Originally Posted by Jonah
The gift of the piano, the guitar, other non-wind instruments is precisely that one is limited only by one's musical ideas, not by the mechanics of how big a breath one can take.
Anything can be mechanical. What's more mechanical than a guitarist imitating horn phrasing that was dictated by breath size? That's failing to let the instrument express the full musical thought.
-
I do not disagree.
And I do not say that piano and huitar in general is more mechanical. I tried to explain what I meant in regards of this certain example.
Horn players can take one breath and play many notes at the same time thinking it as one blow (one bow with arches).
Natural breathing is an important part of any music that comes from vocal music. If you sing you breathe. Most classical music - even instrumental orchestral - is rudimentary built on it.
Jazz imho is directly connected with vocals and singing.
Pianist and guitarists have problems with attacks and especially taking off the sound...
Of course every instrument has its own advantages but horns and bows just have more expressive possibilities of sound than plucked.
Miles said he wanted to imitate guitar with its dying fading sounds... why not explore guitar trying to repeat flexible phrasing of horns?
Actually she I played flutes I was surprised how single-voiced cadence on flute can be more affirmative than full chordal cadence on guitar or piano.
Just because you can control the notes all the way through...
-
I don't agree with the necessary link to vocals. Much of music in nature is not related to breath, vocal chords, or animal sounds. Linking instrumental music to vocals also links it to texts, words, and music is at its finest when it goes beyond what can be put into words. Many of the great symphonies and purely instrumental compositions of the centuries were not encumbered by breath cycles or words and texts. Music is melody, harmony, timbre, rhythm, dynamics, articulation, and much more that need not have any connection to voices, vocals, words, or breathing. Originally Posted by Jonah
No, there is no harm in trying to imitate another instrument, but in a music devoted to players finding their own voice, it's odd to me when someone takes their chosen instrument and tries to make it sound like something else, sacrificing the potential resident in the instrument itself.
-
As always, no right or wrong here, but I will say that listening to speech with rising as well as falling inflection is easier than listening to a boring monotone. Similarly, speech with pauses is effective in helping us pause for thought. When we say a soloist is "lyrical", we probably mean it reminds of vocalising, no? Originally Posted by lawson-stone
Mind you, I play too many unbroken 8ths lines, mainly because I like to. But I bet if I listened to recordings of myself I'd notice how tedious it is to listen to...
-
The alternative is not unbroken lines. Just lines that break where the ideas naturally fall, not where a horn player or singer might need to take a breath. Symphonies has splendid range and variety, but do not imitate breathing. A piano concerto doesn't feel bound to breathing rhythms, but isn't unbroken 8th notes. The dichotomy is a false one. We have an instrument that allows us to express ideas that follow their own logic and energy, unrestrained by breathing limitations. We might choose to use those limits, but I see no special or uncommon virtue in it. Originally Posted by princeplanet
As always, no right or wrong here, but I will say that listening to speech with rising as well as falling inflection is easier than listening to a boring monotone. Similarly, speech with pauses is effective in helping us pause for thought. When we say a soloist is "lyrical", we probably mean it reminds of vocalising, no?
Mind you, I play too many unbroken 8ths lines, mainly because I like to. But I bet if I listened to recordings of myself I'd notice how tedious it is to listen to...
-
I think we about two different things .. I will try to explain what I meant a bit later. Crazy day today..
-
It's also possible we just see the same things differently, which is fine, even wonderful. Music is not a realm where there are fixed, empirical facts in this sort of discussion. Originally Posted by Jonah
-
Sure, just like writing a novel or essay that has longer sentences than can be spoken without a breath. Heck, there's no rule that says you can't write a novel without full stops (periods) or commas, but I wonder if humans are hard wired to digest smaller chunks of information in one go... Originally Posted by lawson-stone
One thing I'd like to add about the unbroken 8ths thing - I do notice that some players can make it compelling by really milking the antecedent / consequent thing. Some people are also very good at speaking this way...
-
You see I think that what I am taking about is not that litteral. Originally Posted by lawson-stone
I am using here also my experience in classical and early.
THere is long history of 'vox humana' in European music, instruments were built to imitate the human voice, often this imnitation was not considered directly as we might thing today but with opther means.
Voice was considered an ideal instrument, direct expression of humanity. Besides the influence of church in this conception was very strong (even now in the Orthodoxal church the instrumental music is still forbidden).
The intonation of speech in the language made strong influence too in national musical school, Italian early baroque was conciously derived from speech and rhetorics.
French baroque is definintely connected with the intonation of teh French language.
(I am sure you know it all better with me as if I rememder correctly your job is connected with sudy of Ancient languages. Extremely fascinating subject for me as I am a linguist and have very deep interest in Hebrew and Ancient Classic traditions and history))
But it is of courser no the only component of music.
Surely instrumentalism influenced music a lot but if you take a closer look even at Romantic concertos or Symphonies you will find that the motives and phrases (which are often parts of long runs or passges and chords) are derived from and subject to vocal phrasing.
Gardual total aesthetical groth of interest to 'mechanism' began in high baroque period and I believe it is approxamately since that period it began a transition to more or less pure instrumentalism when they began to consider the abilities of the instruments without its connection with human voice but rather 'outside' of human.
For example, imitation of bells in late renaissance and baroque is very different from imitation of bells in Romantic music. In first they rather imitate the logics of it, in the second they try to mimick the sound itself.
Often we do not even distinguish these things in baroque music now because they seem too abstract for us.
Of course as a result you are right... there began backwards influence from the instruments to singing which led to teh development of extreme possibilities of players and singer (whic was not common in renaissance with its conception of 'natural comfortable range and force').
In jazz it all began from singing or imitating singing but then instruments took over and influenced backwards.. the singers began to imitate instruments. So I believe you are right here too.
But still I feel like the conception that was in early music is still visible even oin modern symphonic works...
Those days even cembalo or lute that played chords and were seemengly least reminiscent of human voice... were still considered imitationg voices very well.
Because actually they thoight that complex chordal sound could express the complexity of human tone.
It is very interesting way thinking. Isn't it?
-
I In between the posts I want to say how I appreciate this forum..
I listend to Jimmy Raney some years ago - it was fine.. I frogot it.
Now thanks to this thread I rediscoverd him.
Yesterday and today I listend to 'But Beautiful' album (his las one?)
It is undelieveable record.. the melodies he does are so lively that seems you can touch it. And he talks with it, he really says so much to me...
Right at the moment that you do not expect that something would surprise you, something like this comes up/
Thanks guys
-
Over the last 3 years I've been learning the solos in the Vol. 20 Aebersold series, solos created and performed by Jimmy Raney. It has been the most productive and enjoyable--as well as challenging--learning experience in my musical journey. I am still a long way from transferring this to my own improvising, but just playing his lines, thinking his thoughts after him, has enriched my enjoyment of the guitar and the music. Originally Posted by Jonah
Reply With Quote
Playing live and getting the best sound from the...
Yesterday, 02:08 PM in Guitar, Amps & Gizmos