Jazz for aficionados
Rol, you may find these essays interesting: https://americansymphony.org/symphony-no-13-op-113-babi-yar-1962/ https://americansymphony.org/behind-the-curtain-submission-and-resistance-under-the-soviet-regime/ |
**** If The Frogman had lived in Russia.... **** Easy one. Play “A Train” to a polka beat....on the sarrusophone....endlessly. Sure to get you sent to the US as an instrument of psychological warfare. Actually, you have no idea just how much of what you describe I have actually experienced, in an offshoot of Russia. No thanks. |
More than one way to skin a blues: https://youtu.be/cxeihQrj_uY Silver wrote the lyrics: https://youtu.be/DpPXgjsjgAw https://youtu.be/I0lkGhMqBls |
**** I will never understand the silly compulsion some Jazz players have to try and connect Jazz with Africa. **** Personally, and not meaning to get personal 😊, I think a far more interesting question is why, in the face of so much musicological supporting evidence, not to mention the practically universal opinion of Jazz players, you are so bothered by the notion. |
Clear and succinct answer, thanks. I think you know that I strongly disagree with your take on this, but you did answer my question. Question: have you looked at the musicological evidence and do you feel you understand it? After all, we wouldn’t want to take away any due credit from “those people”. |
Sonny Rollins’ “place in Jazz”: As Jazz moved away from Swing toward and beyond Bebop, three tenor players would emerge as the greatest and most influential for tenor players in particular and Jazz players in general: Coltrane, Rollins and Joe Henderson; arguably in that order. I think most would agree that Coltrane was in a league all his own, but most tenor players would also agree that Sonny was not far behind as far as helping shape the way that the tenor is played in modern Jazz. Unique is that his vocabulary is very modern and harmonically advanced, but his tone concept remained more traditional than Trane’s. Also unique is that unlike the way that most players approach the improvisation of a solo by developing and expanding a melodic idea, Sonny would often pick and develop a rhythmic idea instead. Great player with an amazingly commanding rhythmic feel. Whereas most players play to the rhythmic pulse generated by the rhythm section, one often gets the feeling that the rhythm section is playing to (accompanying) Sonny’s pulse. https://youtu.be/HP3eg6quOdE |
You beat me to it, acman3 (wouldn’t be the first time); right were he belongs indeed! Here is the world’s greatest musical genius, greatest artist to ever exist, only player EVER to be able to do it all, keeper of all that truly matters in Jazz AND Rok’s musical soul brother; and who, it was presumed, would NEVER do something as egregious as this 😊, paying tribute to none other than..............Ornette! https://youtu.be/-OIlqV4scgs Making things even more interesting. This one is for you, mary_jo; per your recent advice 🙄: https://youtu.be/j3Tk6Z6XbMs |
(I was there:) https://youtu.be/_PwVBEcUUzk “I am optimistic about the soul, therefore I am optimistic about Jazz”- Sonny Rollins https://youtu.be/G0p1rz8Qc_s https://youtu.be/3bL3ptLicX0 |
Awsome! That’s got to be Turrentine. Like a slow Les MacCann groove. Thanks. Funny, I heard this this morning on XMRadio (It’s really not radio, but that’s another story). Anyone who knows the “Swiss Movement” record knows this groove. With Eddie Harris, “I’ll Take Les”. No SM, but pretty good. Harris kills. https://youtu.be/SBOFSZAjML0 |
That is correct, mary_jo. I rarely disagree with Schubert about anything having to do with Classical music and perhaps I am putting too fine a point on this. “Fantastic” is not an adjective that ever comes to mind whenever I hear Joshua Bell. I have heard him live many times; mostly while part of the orchestra accompanying him. Perhaps this is a different way of saying that “he is about himself more than the music” and I certainly agree with that assessment, but I have always found his playing uninspired. By the standards of the great players from the past and the best of today his playing, even on technical grounds, can be a little rough. A lot of chops, knows how to “work the audience” with a lot of physicality; but, for me.....a little like the Classical equivalent of Hiromi. Not my cup of tea. |
Speaking of Bach and Jazz, Roger Kellaway and the clarinet: https://youtu.be/DpKQ2sas7zM (Roger Kellaway is the piano player on this record) |
**** Notes: The Handy innovation which had the most impact on popular music was the introduction of the Negro folk singer’s frequent use of the flatten third (and, though less often, the flatted seventh). Identified by by Jazz fans and commercial songwriters alike as"blue notes" . Frogman, HELP!!!!! **** Be careful what you ask for 😊 There are seven notes in the most common scale in music, the Major scale. For the sake of this explanation let’s look at the C Major scale which would be played on only the white keys on a keyboard. In the key of C Major the scale would start on a C and would be: C, D, E, F, G, A, B. Each ascending note of the scale corresponds to a specific frequency in Hertz with a corresponding acoustical wavelength. In a Major scale there are two notes that are referred to as leading tones; they are the third (E) and seventh (B) notes of the scale. The reason that they are referred to as leading tones is that the difference in Hertz, or distance, between each of them (the third and the seventh) and the following note in the ascending scale is much smaller than the difference between any other two notes in the scale. In the context of music this proximity to the following note of the scale creates the FEELING of the third and seventh of the scale wanting to move (resolve) to the following note of the scale. The third (E) of the Major scale wants to move to the fourth (F) and the seventh (B) wants to move to the “octave”, which would be another C. This C would have a frequency in Hertz that is ROUGHLY twice that of the lower C that the scale started on. Keep in mind that all this is a simplification. In the Blues, what gives the music its distinctive “bluesy” sound is that the third (E) and seventh (B) notes of the scale are played a half step lower than in a Major scale. When playing the Blues, instead of playing the white keys corresponding to the third and seventh notes of the scale, you would play the black key just behind the white key corresponding to the third and seventh of the scale. You are then playing a third and seventh that are lower in pitch by ROUGHLY half the frequency in Hertz than they are in a Major scale; they then become a “flatted” third or seventh. Also referred to as “blue notes”. Now, where the quoted liner notes go wrong, or at least are misleading, is that while it may be true that Handy “introduced” this technique to popular music (published music, as Rok points out) it was hardly an “innovation”. While I have some ideas as to why, I don’t understand the resistance (political/personal?) on the part of some to the well documented wealth of musicological evidence that the folk music traditions of any people travel with them when they go, willingly or not, to a different land. Just one example of many available. If you can’t hear the connection to Blues as we know it in this music which goes back centuries before the creation of American Blues, I recommend Q-Tips moistened in peroxide ☺️ Flatted thirds and sevenths: https://youtu.be/VzqDq2R7KT0 |
**** and brought the blues. **** Yes they did, O-10; as a major influence. “Brought the blues” is an oversimplification. **** American slaves lost the African rhythms, **** No, they did not. What you consider “distinctive African rhythms” are also a major influence in what would develop into what we think of as “swing” feel. O-10, there is a tremendous amount of documentation and literature on these very interesting topics. I suggest you read some of it; it’s very interesting and enlightening. With respect, you are thinking about and approaching this stuff in much a too broad and simplistic fashion. INFLUENCE INFLUENCE INFLUENCE |
**** Two agendas are in play here: Not the agenda of The Frogman, but the people who write the stuff he reads. **** Well, gee, thanks so much for explaining to me why I make the comments that I do. I really had no idea until you enlightened me. Rok, you really don’t know what you’re talking about. The only agenda in play here is the one that you and our OP obviously have as concerns this topic. The only obsession in play here is the obsessive need to demean any formal research, analysis or education on this topic and others. Then, to use this as a smokescreen to hide your resistance to learning something new or to even consider a different viewpoint. There is no agenda to take any credit away from American blacks. Quite the contrary. The only agenda is your insistence on not giving any credit to blacks in Africa; a place that you have often gone out of your way to demean and trivialize. The criticism of “agenda driven elite institutions” of higher learning is an old and lame argument here. As concerns this topic your fallback position is always to delegitimize their value as an excuse for your myopic viewpoints on this topic. What you miss is that the viewpoint I expressed is not agenda driven or the result of agenda driven textbooks, but that it is all there to be heard. Of course, this assumes that the listener is capable of hearing it, or open to hearing it. You dismiss the evidence driven viewpoint on the subject of the Blues while asking for explanations of some of the very things that define it. I have pointed this out several times previously. Just about everyone who is considered to be authoritative on the subject and just about every Jazz musician past and present supports the idea that the Blues as we know it have a very important African component. By extension, Jazz does a well. (Remember, “no Blues, no Jazz”?). But, yours is the lone voice out there with the real truth.....right..... |
Loved the Moffett solo clip, acman3. Thanks for that. Great talent indeed. Right back at you: https://youtu.be/xPwp6Ysra |
Rok, glad you liked it. You are correct, the modern double bass has four strings. In that clip he is playing a period three string double bass. It was not until the late 1800’s or so that the four string bass became “standard”. Before then three, four and five string double basses were used. Memory is extremely important to a musician. Whether it is to remember the chord changes of a Jazz tune or complex passages in a Classical work. The goal is to remember to the point when the “remembering” process becomes subconscious and the musician is not “working” at remembering. A good musician doesn’t want to be completely preoccupied with remembering the changes of a tune or to be glued to the notes on the page when performing. When the subconscious takes over is when the musician is freed to interact musically with the other musicians and to take the music to a higher level with inspired and creative phrasing in an improvised Jazz solo or a Classical work. |
Rok, a peace offering. Live a little, will ya 😊. (Only thing that could have made this better is if the accompanist had been playing on Schubert’s favorite piano) https://youtu.be/QgZ_-f7pVk4 |
Thanks, Schubert. Thanks for sharing and promoting the spirit of Christmas..... and the name. Not, this or that...CHRISTMAS! You too, Rok. Re Cherry Tree Carol: Intrigued as to what you mean by “oops moment”. Btw, if anyone doesn’t know, that is a man singing; a counter tenor. That alone should keep it out if the “oops” pile. pjw, loved the Carly Simon. I love singers like her. For them, it’s not about “the voice” and making a stylistic statement. They just sing from the heart with a voice that is not “designed”. Here’s another like her: https://youtu.be/qLuW8joOge4 |
https://youtu.be/gfGKqERBRLkSpeaking of Herb Geller and Christmas. Merry Christmas to all!: https://youtu.be/P7meYOaEmVU |
Fabulous Agnus Dei, Schubert. Thanks for that. In the off chance that someone has not heard Barber’s original composition that he later arranged for choir, here it is. Similar pacing from one of the best orchestral string sections ever (often played too cloyingly slow): https://youtu.be/ThDIKvee_mY Re pop Christmas songs and the Red Army choir. Great, of course, but..... Always room for a some lightheartedness this time of year 😃 https://youtu.be/GfZPtkqXQIA |
Schubert, agree about Barber. His songs are great; as are his “essays” for orchestra and others. That was Ormandy with Philly. **** Internet is not human , we humans use inflection as the real meaning of what we say .**** So true and important. Same as in Jazz and music in general. Important to remember here; on all counts. |
