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  #31  
Old 01-13-2020, 08:06 AM
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I have had the same type of experience the OP had. I've done jobs billed as jazz. Fast forward to today and I fingerpick traditional jazz from the 20s. Country ragtime blues type stuff.

In every type of music there are some very inspiring even great performances. But the reality is there's an overwhelming amount of generic music in each type. The surprising thing to me is there are people that really like allot of the generic music.

One of the best musical lessons I ever had came from listening to boxes and boxes of blues CDs. I was loaned hundreds of CDs by a blues radio station show that got shipped free CDs for promotion. I was recording what I liked and then give the CDs back. That'll teach a person to separate the wheat from the shaft.
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Old 01-13-2020, 02:33 PM
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Some Wes Montgomery -



Nothing falling down stairs there!
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  #33  
Old 01-13-2020, 04:55 PM
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Some Wes Montgomery -



Nothing falling down stairs there!
Indeed! Before folk begin that (...painfull) descent, let's review what we've learnt thus far...

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  #34  
Old 01-13-2020, 05:50 PM
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Indeed! Before folk begin that (...painfull) descent, let's review what we've learnt thus far...

Wow - check out the downward thumb strokes by Wes on ‘Round Midnight’ with all four fingers of the hand spread out over the guitar top - that’s a real old timey Grandma on the porch fingerpicking style, yet the sheer musicality of it in a group context where all players are listening closely to each other & with restraint - just wow.
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  #35  
Old 01-14-2020, 01:51 AM
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Hi Everyone

Thanks for these replies—I enjoyed reading the opinions.

Okay, I think I have reconciled that I’m not going to be a lover of jazz, but here’s the odd thing. If, as a guitar player you ignore what jazz has to offer from a learning point of view then maybe it’s because there is an element of laziness.

So what I have done recently (over the last 6 months) is learn some jazz standards and with my teacher I have learned some very useable chords together with the theory that goes with it. I do actually devote some time each day playing these tunes and messing with the chords and I must say that I actually enjoy gaining the skill and knowledge even though I don’t particularly ever listen to jazz.

A month or so ago I stumbled across Marcus King on youtube. He was playing a bluesy song which to me was obviously jazz inspired and I did connect with that. Ever since that day I’ve been getting into a more bluesy/jazz thing and I’ve learned an awful lot by going through this song with my teacher.

It starts at 20:00


I have to laugh though because my teacher, an excellent player, always comes back to a statement; “it’s all just music” and whilst he absolutely does acknowledge all ‘styles’ he encourages me to dabble and learn from these different styles.
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  #36  
Old 01-14-2020, 08:59 AM
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My gateway drug to jazz type chords were T-Bone Walker and rockabilly, swing.
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  #37  
Old 01-14-2020, 09:15 AM
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My gateway drug to jazz type chords were T-Bone Walker and rockabilly, swing.
Mine was Django. I remember when I first learned Nuages. The 9th chords didn't throw me (I probably already got those from T-Bone!), it was the Gm7b5 chord, and then the C7b9! What, a C7 chord with a Db on top?? You can actually do that?? Er, oh yeah, obviously you can...

7#9 chords, meanwhile, I already knew from the Beatles' Taxman, before Jimi Hendrix adopted them. Those ain't jazz chords! They're rock/blues chords! (And actually I had seen a 7b9 chord before, in the Beatles' I Want To Tell You, but used very differently from the one in Nuages. Took me a long time to make that connection!)
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Old 01-14-2020, 01:35 PM
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My first experience with all instrumental arrangements centered on a guitarist that I really liked was in the late 70’s with Lee Ritenour. My favorite album of his is Feel the Night which was preceded by the The Captain’s Journey and Captain
Fingers. The artists he collaborated with on those albums include bassist Abe Laboriel and Don and Dave Grusin. They are extremely well crafted. He veered in the 80’s with some albums that were very poppy (and trite to me) but came back later with quite a few albums with a strong Brazilian influence. His album WesBound (a tribute to Wes Montgomery) released in the early 90’s is outstanding and he continues to produce very nice material.

I’m a child of the Beatles era so I like “jazz” that might have a rock kind of flavor to it but I think I really like jazz arrangements that are centered on a strong melody. Pat Metheny is another favorite of mine. His music is so layered and textured but usually built around a central melodic theme.

And since I started playing acoustic guitar, it’s opened my ears to folks like Eric Skye, Doug Smith, Doug Young, Jamie Stilway, Vicki Genfan, Tommy Emmanuel, Frank Vignola, and the list goes on.
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  #39  
Old 01-14-2020, 03:02 PM
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"Jazz" is such a huge music, I'm not sure I could imagine anybody liking all of it...or not liking some of it.

It's also a live music. I kinda feel like if any jazz hater went and saw a great performance, there's a good chance their mind would be changed.

But as others have said...you don't have to like it.

Oh, and I like jazz and Slayer.
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  #40  
Old 01-14-2020, 04:36 PM
Sonics Sonics is offline
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Originally Posted by Mojo21 View Post
Okay, I think I have reconciled that I’m not going to be a lover of jazz, but here’s the odd thing. If, as a guitar player you ignore what jazz has to offer from a learning point of view then maybe it’s because there is an element of laziness.
Well you don't have to go "full-fat" jazz. You can dip your toe (...or an ankle) in the jazz pool and take what you find 'useful' and blend it with your style.

Is this offering from Miles (feat. John Scofield on guitar) jazz, blues or both?




And of course there's this 'crazy' guy (sic)...

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  #41  
Old 01-15-2020, 03:58 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mr. beaumont View Post
"Jazz" is such a huge music, I'm not sure I could imagine anybody liking all of it...or not liking some of it.

It's also a live music. I kinda feel like if any jazz hater went and saw a great performance, there's a good chance their mind would be changed.
Good point. Jazz on record - even great jazz - is often "meh". Jazz live is really what it's all about.

That's because the whole point of jazz is improvisation. A jazz recording is just how they happened to play that tune on that day, on that take.
You don't go to a jazz gig to hear a band play their latest album. You go to experience a unique event - whatever tunes they play tonight, they'll play them different from last night, and will play them differently tomorrow night. The difference, the invention in real time, is the point.

You still don't have to like that concept. It's quite valid to like a musical performance to be much the same every time, as in a classical symphony, or a rock band playing their latest album (attempting to get as close to the recording as they can).

But if you like the idea of new music being created in front of you while you watch, then jazz is your kind of music.
You still get some of that in blues and folk, which each have their traditions of improvisation (within understood stylistic parameters) and instrumental virtuosity. And of course rock does too, to some extent. But it's jazz that treats improvisation as its whole raison d'etre, and has therefore developed it into a high art, over the last 100 years (and counting).
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Old 01-15-2020, 10:34 AM
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Good point. Jazz on record - even great jazz - is often "meh". Jazz live is really what it's all about.

That's because the whole point of jazz is improvisation. A jazz recording is just how they happened to play that tune on that day, on that take.
You don't go to a jazz gig to hear a band play their latest album. You go to experience a unique event - whatever tunes they play tonight, they'll play them different from last night, and will play them differently tomorrow night. The difference, the invention in real time, is the point.

You still don't have to like that concept. It's quite valid to like a musical performance to be much the same every time, as in a classical symphony, or a rock band playing their latest album (attempting to get as close to the recording as they can).

But if you like the idea of new music being created in front of you while you watch, then jazz is your kind of music.
You still get some of that in blues and folk, which each have their traditions of improvisation (within understood stylistic parameters) and instrumental virtuosity. And of course rock does too, to some extent. But it's jazz that treats improvisation as its whole raison d'etre, and has therefore developed it into a high art, over the last 100 years (and counting).
I’ve attended enough live jazz events (instrumental smaller ensemble, bass, drums, horns, less guitar) to know that it’s a jam - musicians improvising on themes, classic tunes - hours of it - while attending, you can get the feeling there’s a lot of filler, or musicians warming up, trying to find their way through to brilliance - and when the latter happens, it can go so fast by the time you go home your head is spinning and you don’t know what hit you - but if that jam was captured on recording, you can go back and listen to it a hundred times and always find something new - that’s the special thing about it - it’s vital, dynamic, and not easy to capture.
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Old 01-15-2020, 10:46 AM
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I’ve attended enough live jazz events (instrumental smaller ensemble, bass, drums, horns, less guitar) to know that it’s a jam - musicians improvising on themes, classic tunes - hours of it - while attending, you can get the feeling there’s a lot of filler, or musicians warming up, trying to find their way through to brilliance - and when the latter happens, it can go so fast by the time you go home your head is spinning and you don’t know what hit you - but if that jam was captured on recording, you can go back and listen to it a hundred times and always find something new - that’s the special thing about it - it’s vital, dynamic, and not easy to capture.
Understood, but to me it's not those missed details that matter.
If the jam is not captured - well, you just go along to the next one. And try and resist recording it, because if you know it's being recorded that stops you paying proper attention. It's the paying attention in the moment that is what it's all about - even if some of it goes over your head. If you know you can never hear this again, that's when you begin to appreciate the primal power of the event. Understanding everything they're doing is secondary.

Recorded music is a great thing (hard to imagine a world without it - few of us would be musicians at all), but IMO it's a quite different art form from live music, at least from live improvised music. There are different criteria, precisely because you can play a recording again and again, and because you can listen in private.
Certainly a recording of a great jam session is a great learning tool - it's just a different kind of experience.

Naturally not all live jazz - even by great musicians - makes for a transcendent experience. Some of it is really formulaic or predictable. Some is just too cerebral or impenetrable - like listening to great poetry spoken in a foreign language. (If it all goes over your head, that's a kind of waste of time.) Even jazz fans have different tastes.
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  #44  
Old 01-15-2020, 11:38 AM
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Understood, but to me it's not those missed details that matter.
If the jam is not captured - well, you just go along to the next one. And try and resist recording it, because if you know it's being recorded that stops you paying proper attention. It's the paying attention in the moment that is what it's all about - even if some of it goes over your head. If you know you can never hear this again, that's when you begin to appreciate the primal power of the event. Understanding everything they're doing is secondary.

Recorded music is a great thing (hard to imagine a world without it - few of us would be musicians at all), but IMO it's a quite different art form from live music, at least from live improvised music. There are different criteria, precisely because you can play a recording again and again, and because you can listen in private.
Certainly a recording of a great jam session is a great learning tool - it's just a different kind of experience.

Naturally not all live jazz - even by great musicians - makes for a transcendent experience. Some of it is really formulaic or predictable. Some is just too cerebral or impenetrable - like listening to great poetry spoken in a foreign language. (If it all goes over your head, that's a kind of waste of time.) Even jazz fans have different tastes.
I think one of the things that has crippled jazz in North America is this idea of “cerebral or impenetrable - like listening to great poetry spoken in a foreign language” - that kind of appeal to snobbery - that it flies over the heads of the people, the masses.

When I have Davis “Kind of Blue” on the turntable, my dog “gets it” - same with the cat or a three year old child - great art is *direct*, reaches people on all levels, it’s a musical language of communication.

That’s why classic recordings of old jazz is so vital - it’s full of nuggets of truth, and although I support live jazz and lament its scarcity in many parts of North America - those brilliant moments and brilliant jams are infrequent - I’m not holding a phone up at a live event to record it, but any disdain for the classics on vinyl is a disrespectful attitude to this art, with all due respect.
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Old 01-15-2020, 11:55 AM
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Yeah, I still love the recordings...I was simply saying for someone who can't get into it on record, they might find seeing the process more invigorating.

Kinda like a Jackson Pollack painting.
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