# The Roots of American Music



## Guest (Feb 18, 2017)




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## Guest (Feb 18, 2017)

I am often in a quandary as a jazz musician in that I want to play with good people but I often find them stultified. They know their jazz and they know how to sight-read and all that but I usually find them operating within these very formal conceptions that I feel jazz has lost its magic. So I try to revitalize it by watching clips of the African and African-American forms to transform the rooms we play in into places of power and magic. Because that is what African dance and music does.

Watch how an ordinary rec center is transformed by the drums into a place of magic and power:


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

Victor Redseal said:


> They know their jazz and they know how to sight-read and all that but I usually find them operating within these very formal conceptions that I feel jazz has lost its magic


Surly true jazz is improvisation. OK once you get into big band jazz/swing you have to have music scores but for small ens it just has to be improvised.


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## Guest (Feb 19, 2017)

I'm not talking about improv. I want to charge the venue with a feeling of power, like an electrical field almost. Jazz has become too formalized. It's dinner jacket music. Once rich people wouldn't have anything to do with us. Now we're the entertainment. Jazz needs revitalization and to do that, I think we need to go back to the roots. I don't even know what I'm looking for exactly.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

I am not with you at the moment do you want to go back to basic Afro rhythms? And you say it is too formalised is that the case also in the jazz clubs are you a drummer by any chance, just trying to find out where you are coming from.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Victor Redseal said:


> I'm not talking about improv. I want to charge the venue with a feeling of power, like an electrical field almost. Jazz has become too formalized. It's dinner jacket music. Once rich people wouldn't have anything to do with us. Now we're the entertainment. Jazz needs revitalization and to do that, I think we need to go back to the roots. I don't even know what I'm looking for exactly.


Maybe this guy? I met him in a record store last summer. He's West African.
http://www.michaelmwenso.com/


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Or my favorite Danish jazz ensemble?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Or my favorite Boston ensemble? They enjoy collaborating with Ethiopian musicians.


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## Guest (Feb 19, 2017)

I don't know what I'm trying to do yet. This isn't coming out of some pure artistic yearning so much as it is out of sheer boredom. I'm tired of playing these places where I have to dress up like some damned monkey while snobby yuppie jerks take their ovelyr-made-up, high-maintenance chicks not to listen to good music but to buy a dinner that costs way too much so they can impress them with their success and hopefully snag some ***** before the night's over. Hell, the roar of the cheap conversation and cacophony of clinking silverware against dishes and the sound of glasses being set down on tabletops drowns out the music. And why not? It's not worth hearing. Just there for ambience not for entertainment. Now I know why Mingus got so pissed off about people talking and eating while he was playing. I'm really getting to despise it intensely.

All I know is that this is NOT jazz. If this is jazz then it's dead. Time to get back to basics and figure out what went wrong and figure out how to fix it. There may be others who are doing things in this direction and that's great but I want to do what I want to do not copy them.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Years ago I went to see jazz guitar great Joe Beck in a place like that. People eating and talking over the music. I'll never go to one of those yuppie joints again. I hate being around clueless, disrespectful people.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

Jazz clubs are where you will hear jazz not restaurants


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Dan Ante said:


> Jazz clubs are where you will hear jazz not restaurants


Unfortunately, most towns don't have one.


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## Guest (Feb 19, 2017)

That's exactly correct There are few venues left for jazz anymore. And we're the town with Baker's Keyboard Lounge--the oldest operating jazz club in the world. But its current ownership is pretty clueless and how many times can you play there before people start thinking, "Man, not them again!" My uncle was a Detroit jazz musician in the 40s and 50s and there were all these places to play then. Now, you scramble for whatever pathetic little gig you can get. And most of the time, you end up in some restaurant. And even some of these restaurants have decided not to hire bands anymore. Then many places don't pay you so you set out a tip jar and that isn't even worth it. You go home having spent more money than you had when you showed up.

And people want to hear the same **** all the time. I quit a gig in a band that played for these old folks because they wanted to hear "In the Mood" ten times a night. Once we played it totally improv and just did anything we wanted with it and the guy who requested it was furious! THAT'S NOT HOW IT GOES!!!! I'm sorry, sir, did you pay us to play it? As i recall, no, you didn't. You ignored the tip jar so SCREW YOU!! I suggested we put a sign on the bandstand reading: "REQUESTS $1. 'IN THE MOOD' $10" but the band was afraid it would **** people off so we'll just have to keep playing "In the Mood" every time they ask for it and play it exactly the same way every single time. Well, YOU'LL have to play it because I quit!

I want to create a new form of jazz that leaves people's heads spinning when they walk out, makes them say, "I've listened to jazz many times before tonight but it's the first time I ever really HEARD it!"


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

The world has changed, and I don't forsee the day when a bustling club scene will return. Anyway, I know a pianist in my town and the guy is phenomenal. Plays the hell out of everything with a lot of style and personsality. But nobody knows any jazz, so he has to play Billy Joel and Elton John tunes. But when i went to see him, I requested Monk, Ellington, Chick Corea, and he played the stuff great. But I was the only one listening.


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

Victor Redseal said:


> T I suggested we put a sign on the bandstand reading: "REQUESTS $1. 'IN THE MOOD' $10" but the band was afraid it would **** people off so we'll just have to keep playing "In the Mood" every time they ask for it and play it exactly the same way every single time.


LOL! I direct and play lead trumpet for a local dance band, and yes everyone wants us to play "In the Mood". Last year I dropped it off our play list and boy did the dancers at every gig that year grumble that we did not play it. The band enjoyed a year off but it's back and the dancers are once again happy.


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## Guest (Feb 19, 2017)

Like here is something important: in the hambone clip (aka pattin' jouba), the guy gives a history of how hambone started. Today, most of us don't know what the story is. We see guys slapping their chests and thighs in complex patterns. It's all well and good and quaint and then we turn away and don't give it another thought. But innocent blood was shed that gave birth to hambone. When whites took the drums away for fomenting revolution or, at least, that's what they thought and killed the drummers and cut their heads off. But the Africans exiled to America didn't whine and cry and give up--the used their bodies as drums. When they got their drums back decades later, they added the hambone rhythms to the way they played drums and this is partially the birth of jazz drumming. Hambone also gave us Bo Diddly's rock n roll. His "shave and a haircut two bits" guitar strum is a hambone rhythm. Bo Diddly, in turn, had a profound influence on rock music (listen to the Teddy Boys version of "Mona", a Bo Diddly song turned into tribal proto-punk).

But it all came out of violence and bloodshed and that must never be forgotten.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

*@ Victor* 
From what you have posted you are playing from scores, you even say the musicians are good sight readers, you also say you are not paid and rely on tips.

You can't play jazz from a score or in a dance band, you are playing some one else's ideas and are completely restrained unless you are given a free solo or middle eight, throw the dots away and play from your inner self.
There are no clubs and you get paid zilch?? 
Find like minded musicians and get together some where (deserted buildings or a free hall etc) when you are good enough invite a few people you know to come and listen (for free) if you connect you can invite others and word of mouth will do the rest start your own jazz club.
It is disappointing that jazz clubs are a thing of the past so the time seems right for a revival get you A into G and go for it.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Hambone rhythm


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## Guest (Feb 20, 2017)

Dan Ante said:


> *@ Victor*
> From what you have posted you are playing from scores, you even say the musicians are good sight readers


We play from charts or leadsheets not scores. We're not playing classical music from Europe. Yes, a good jazz player must be a reader. I will not hire a non-reader into a jazz band. In fact, I don't know any jazz musicians that are not readers. Virtually all of us have classical training.



> you also say you are not paid and rely on tips.


Sometimes. Hell, sometimes I play on the street. I'm not above busking and have done it for years. Sometimes I don't get money but I get free beer. Since I don't depend on the money to live--I have a regular job--I'm not too picky. But I know other guys that make their living as musicians and they can't do that stuff. They HAVE to get paid.



> You can't play jazz from a score or in a dance band, you are playing some one else's ideas and are completely restrained unless you are given a free solo or middle eight, throw the dots away and play from your inner self.


As I said, we play from charts. Charts give you structure to work from. You build from that structure--that's the improv part. They are head arrangements where you wing it off the top of your head but that's because you know it so well you don't need to look at a chart. Head arrangements are riff-driven so you have to know your riffs. Riff provide the structure.



> There are no clubs and you get paid zilch??


Pretty much, yeah.



> Find like minded musicians and get together some where (deserted buildings or a free hall etc) when you are good enough invite a few people you know to come and listen (for free) if you connect you can invite others and word of mouth will do the rest start your own jazz club.
> It is disappointing that jazz clubs are a thing of the past so the time seems right for a revival get you A into G and go for it.


What a novel idea. I'll have to try that sometime.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

Talking about going back to basics and roots and coming up with something else using crossovers: what I found refreshing in 2015 is Reverend Shine Snake Oil Co, a jazz, blues, gospel, African polyrhythm band. "Gather around my soapbox"!

I saw them twice and they are the real thing in my opinion.
















It's difficult to give a full impression of what they make. Listen to some more by them  
I've also heard more underground/punk versions but there's always that jazz undertone.


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## Jay (Jul 21, 2014)

The roots of American music are also in Europe.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

Victor Redseal said:


> We play from charts or leadsheets not scores. We're not playing classical music from Europe. Yes, a good jazz player must be a reader. I will not hire a non-reader into a jazz band. In fact, I don't know any jazz musicians that are not readers. Virtually all of us have classical training.


I don't know what you mean by "chart" would you be able to post a picture of one of the charts that you use with a rough explanation as to what it is for then I can work it out, and why must a good jazz player be a good reader I know many jazz musicians that are not good readers in fact I know one or two that can not read at all, and when you mentioned earlier "good sight readers" I was puzzled as to what you actually meant and why it had any connection with jazz.
Can I ask what has classical training to do with making a good jazz musician, playing classical is nothing like playing jazz and visa versa but you know this.
You have a regular job so are what we would call a semi pro, when I played jazz (a long time ago) I was in the same position.
I detect a note of sarcasm in your reply to my suggestion of forming a jazz club, I am sorry that you feel that way it was only a suggestion, I have done it and it is very satisfying, I can only conclude that jazz to day is more complicated than in my day and perhaps that is the problem, again I am only trying to help and find it very interesting to have an actual discussion on jazz compared to just posting CD labels :cheers:


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## Guest (Feb 22, 2017)

Dan Ante said:


> I don't know what you mean by "chart" would you be able to post a picture of one of the charts that you use with a rough explanation as to what it is for then I can work it out,











Here is an example of a chart. It's actually two charts. These are taken from the Real Book--the jazzer's bible. I don't know how you could have played jazz without knowing what charts are and never hearing of the Real Book. Every jazz musician has a copy. Some have several editions. Charts are usually very short--I don't like them to be longer than a page. I want to be able to see the whole thing and not have to flip a page over. Doesn't look like much but they are packed with meaning. You can make an hour-long jam out of each of these charts.

A bass chart can look like this:










In my experience, if you're filling in for someone, you're exceedingly lucky to get a bass chart as a bassist. Most charts are treble clef. So a bassist has to know how to play his bass in treble clef when he solos because that's how the melody is written. Unless the absent bassist left his fake book with another bandmember who brought it along but that has NEVER happened to me. I always bring my Real Book with me to gigs but if that chart isn't good (and they're often not) then I just read off the pianist's chart and pull the bass out of it.



> and why must a good jazz player be a good reader


That answers itself when you look at the above charts.

quote]I know many jazz musicians that are not good readers in fact I know one or two that can not read at all, and when you mentioned earlier "good sight readers" I was puzzled as to what you actually meant and why it had any connection with jazz.[/quote]

Because it's frickin important! There are occasional musicians with such an improvisatory gift that they can hang out in the jazz scene and get by but the vast majority read. Most jazz students today come out of universities where they are rigidly schooled so that's how they roll. Like me, they won't hire non-readers for their ensembles. I'm going to hand you a chart and you need to be able to read it. I don't have the time or inclination to explain it. You can either read it or your can't. If you can't, bye! And it's even more important with modal jazz. Modal jazz is often played straight from a score. I learned the entire "Kind of Blue" album from a straight score because you're not using chord progressions like you do when you play with charts.



> Can I ask what has classical training to do with making a good jazz musician, playing classical is nothing like playing jazz and visa versa but you know this.


Classical is the basis of western music. Our sight reading, our music theory and our techniques come straight out of classical. When I bow the bass in a jazz piece, I don't use some esoteric special jazz bow and grip. I use a straight-up classical technique and so does every other jazz bassist. But bowing is a special art. You don't just pick up a bow and start bowing. You have to start off easy and work your way to complex and you have to practice and you have to practice a lot. And when I practice, I practice classical pieces. Bach's cello suites are fantastic exercises. Mendelssohn also has nice basslines so I've learned a number of his pieces. Prokofiev, Tschaikovsky, Bartok, William Croft, Corelli--I've learned a fair bit of classical. My instructor teaches both jazz and classical. His instructor was the great Robert Gladstone who was known as one of the finest classical bassists of his time but also played quite a bit of jazz and schooled Leonard Bernstein on jazz.



> You have a regular job so are what we would call a semi pro, when I played jazz (a long time ago) I was in the same position.
> I detect a note of sarcasm in your reply to my suggestion of forming a jazz club, I am sorry that you feel that way it was only a suggestion, I have done it and it is very satisfying, I can only conclude that jazz to day is more complicated than in my day and perhaps that is the problem, again I am only trying to help and find it very interesting to have an actual discussion on jazz compared to just posting CD labels :cheers:


There is no love for jazz anymore. The public doesn't understand it and doesn't want to. It is the same with classical. As was stated on this thread, the days of the jazz club are over. Nowadays, every band has to have a DJ in it or it's retro. So you have acid jazz and electro-swing which is all fine and dandy but it's not what I want to do. I want to do something else but I'm not sure what yet.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

OK the charts that you posted are basic music that any first year student should be able to play also the chords are basic. Any jazz musician worth his salt will know the majority of this stuff by heart and if a piece is encountered that is new to the player it does not need sight reading ability to play said piece. If you are a stand in bass player you should be able to do all this easily and if someone gives you the chords then you are very lucky. 
I now take it that you are a bass player, we never had these charts in my day now I admit that was in the late 50s to early 60s, the Guitar/banjo player would have the chords which the bass player could follow, nothing else needed except the ability to play your instrument and a good memory.
I state again that you do not have to be a good reader to manage the charts that you have shown, 1st year stuff.
I get your point about jazz being taught but, in University really? I am amazed, you only get to know and play jazz by playing with real jazz musicians, still if that is the way it is being done, so be it.
You are right in saying that “Classical is the basis of western music” but that is not jazz is it, I also understand your comments about bowing but most jazz that I have known is Pizzicato sure there is a bit of Arco but not much.
Just for clarification “sight reading” usually refers to the ability of a musician to play an unknown work or arrangement without having seen the work before it is a very difficult thing to do, I am talking about classical works not the kind of dance band dots that were on the charts.
If this seems as if I am attacking you please be assured that is not the intention.
Dan.

PS If I were looking to find musicians for a jazz band the most important thing 
would be to hear him/her play so would get them to sit in on a jam session I would then know if he has the jazz in him.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

I'm enjoying this thread and your exchange a whole lot! Hope to improve my insight


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

Jay said:


> The roots of American music are also in Europe.


I was thinking that too. I recently started a thread on Stephen Foster that got zero traction here. I do think that Jazz also mixed up rhythms and melodies from different sources. Foster eased them together and Jazz threw them into a blender!

Victor once again congratulations on a great thread and like Casebearer I'm enjoying watching.
Q Have you seen La La Land? There's one character you could relate to. I hope you achieve your dream.

Jazz does seem to me to be in a lull period with little that has lately attracted my attention. Hopefully it's not in the doldrums.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

Belowpar said:


> Jazz does seem to me to be in a lull period. Hopefully its not in the doldrums.


Does the Ronnie Scott club still exist you should go.


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

Have been a few times, saw Nina Simone there and walked past it Monday evening!

Dont recognise many of the acts but I wil return. Noteits seling out regularly.

https://www.ronniescotts.co.uk/schedulemonthly


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## Guest (Feb 22, 2017)

Dan Ante said:


> OK the charts that you posted are basic music that any first year student should be able to play also the chords are basic.


Okay, tell me how the bassist walks using that chart. The notes are the basic melody. That's what you build your solo out of. You're not going to play that straight off the page or you'll get fired. That's just a reference. You are going to improvise a solo based on that melody. You want it simple or it's too hard to embellish it off the top of your head.



> Any jazz musician worth his salt will know the majority of this stuff by heart and if a piece is encountered that is new to the player it does not need sight reading ability to play said piece. If you are a stand in bass player you should be able to do all this easily and if someone gives you the chords then you are very lucky.


Doesn't work that way and it never has. You show up at the gig and they hand you a chart. That's what they do. They're not going to play it for you, they have other things they have to do. You get a chart and you start familiarizing yourself with it. No rehearsals. You have enough time to set up and then that's it--start playing. Yes, it certainly helps to be familiar with the material but it's the chart that gets you through the song because you can see the changes. Nothing sounds more amateur than when the band changes and you're still playing the same line. In fact, I'll guarantee you they'll never call you again if you miss the changes. Nothing grinds a bandleader's gears more than that because it sounds bad and you cant cover that up. You can cover mistakes during the solos--that's actually part of the art of soloing--but missing changes is a no-no.

The Real Book charts are very simple. Nobody uses them as written but use them as a starting point for a more complex chart. You have to know how to read to handle it.



> I now take it that you are a bass player, we never had these charts in my day now I admit that was in the late 50s to early 60s


There have ALWAYS been charts!! It's NOT a new thing. They have used charts since the days when jazz was still spelled jass. It came out of marching bands.



> the Guitar/banjo player would have the chords which the bass player could follow, nothing else needed except the ability to play your instrument and a good memory.


Well, you can guess a chord progression of a simple piece. Most of that jazz is ii-V, ii-V-I or I-iv-ii-V but. as I said, that stuff goes out the window with modal jazz. You have to read! You can't play modal jazz if you can't read. I mean, you can listen to the recordings and learn it by ear but you're not going to get hired. And as far as banjo is concerned, that's only used in dixieland. Most jazz crowds don't want to hear that--they like swing, bop, cool jazz and, occasionally, free or avant jazz.



> I state again that you do not have to be a good reader to manage the charts that you have shown, 1st year stuff.


You're not going to play that stuff in your first year. You have to be WAY better than a first year student. You simply won't have the chops in your first year. You sound like me back in the 80s when I told a DJ that being a DJ was easy--all you have to do is spin records. He set me in front of his turntables and mixer, handed me a few records and told me to show him how it's done and I had no idea where to start. That shut me up pretty quick. It's a lot harder than you're making it sound. It takes practice to be any good. Lots and lots of practice. A first year student couldn't squeeze that much in in a year's time. A gifted musician who gigs regularly might get the hang of it in five years but it takes years to get it down. Until you're standing there in front of a hundred people sitting there expecting to hear some good, slickly-arranged jazz, you have no idea how hard it is.



> I get your point about jazz being taught but, in University really?


Yes, really.



> I am amazed, you only get to know and play jazz by playing with real jazz musicians, still if that is the way it is being done, so be it.


I learned under at university. My instructors learned at university. You think colleges are going to hire hacks who know nothing about jazz. You know how many jazz musicians teach at universities? I know people who learned from very famous jazz musicians who were teaching jazz at colleges. I know a trumpet player who studied at a university under Thad Jones and a drummer who studied under Pheeroan AkLaff at New Wesleyan, I think it was. I met another drummer who studied under Billy Hart. Ron Carter teaches jazz bass at colleges and was himself taught bass the same way. He graduated with a degree in bass performance. University is where you go to learn jazz, son!



> You are right in saying that "Classical is the basis of western music" but that is not jazz is it,


No but jazz IS a form of classical. I've argued with a few of the purists here about that but jazz is American classical music. That's why so many classical and jazz students switch around all the time. Andre Previn is thought of as a classical guy but he is a jazz guy. Keith Jarrett is thought of as a jazz guy but spent 20 years releasing nothing but classical. Wynton Marsalis is a jazz guy but broke into the music business playing classical. Paul Chambers played classical bass for several years before he ever tried his hand at jazz. Charlie Parker was a close friend of Igor Stravinsky and they influenced each other's ideas.



> I also understand your comments about bowing but most jazz that I have known is Pizzicato sure there is a bit of Arco but not much.


There's a lot more now than there used to be BECAUSE so many jazz bassists are classically trained. I always bow a bit at every jazz gig.



> Just for clarification "sight reading" usually refers to the ability of a musician to play an unknown work or arrangement without having seen the work before it is a very difficult thing to do, I am talking about classical works not the kind of dance band dots that were on the charts.


It's not any different.



> PS If I were looking to find musicians for a jazz band the most important thing
> would be to hear him/her play so would get them to sit in on a jam session I would then know if he has the jazz in him.


At the level I'm talking about, all the musicians are good and the competition is fierce. I only want people who can read. I already know he or she is going to be good.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

deleted................................


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

*@ Victor.*
I read your post last night but had just arrived home after a day spent shopping in Taupo with my wife, not one of my favourite pastimes and the heat was unbearable, I am playing golf this morning but will reply this afternoon.


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## Guest (Feb 23, 2017)

America's classical music. Listen to the unintended but striking similarities between Bach's Praeludium XX and Tom Waits's "Potter's Field."


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

I vowed that I would not get into a quoted discussion but to reply to your many comments I will give it a go. What the heck yesterday cost me a fortune and my golf this morning was terrible so….



Victor Redseal said:


> Okay, tell me how the bassist walks using that chart. The notes are the basic melody. That's what you build your solo out of. You're not going to play that straight off the page or you'll get fired. That's just a reference. You are going to improvise a solo based on that melody. You want it simple or it's too hard to embellish it off the top of your head.


You are referring to the treble chart so the bass walks 1-2-3-4 through the arpeggios, and for a solo improvises on the melody, if he needs reminding what the melody is then he has a problem. This is straight forward nothing complicated, and the musicians are all highly skilled and classically trained at university.


> Doesn't work that way and it never has. You show up at the gig and they hand you a chart. That's what they do. They're not going to play it for you, they have other things they have to do. You get a chart and you start familiarizing yourself with it. No rehearsals. You have enough time to set up and then that's it--start playing. Yes, it certainly helps to be familiar with the material but it's the chart that gets you through the song because you can see the changes. Nothing sounds more amateur than when the band changes and you're still playing the same line. In fact, I'll guarantee you they'll never call you again if you miss the changes. Nothing grinds a bandleader's gears more than that because it sounds bad and you cant cover that up. You can cover mistakes during the solos--that's actually part of the art of soloing--but missing changes is a no-no.


Correction yes it used to work that way I was there were you? the jazz world that you are in is nothing like the one I was in. What on earth are these changes that you mention that are so important and have been noted on the chart for you.


> The Real Book charts are very simple. Nobody uses them as written but use them as a starting point for a more complex chart. You have to know how to read to handle it.
> 
> There have ALWAYS been charts!! It's NOT a new thing. They have used charts since the days when jazz was still spelled jass. It came out of marching bands.


Wrong again not always by any stretch of the imagination, not in jazz.


> Well, you can guess a chord progression of a simple piece. Most of that jazz is ii-V, ii-V-I or I-iv-ii-V but. as I said, that stuff goes out the window with modal jazz. You have to read! You can't play modal jazz if you can't read. I mean, you can listen to the recordings and learn it by ear but you're not going to get hired. And as far as banjo is concerned, that's only used in dixieland. Most jazz crowds don't want to hear that--they like swing, bop, cool jazz and, occasionally, free or avant jazz.


I used Banjo/Guitar as an example of who would have chord sequences probably in a small booklet that they compiled themselves, You say "crowds" I thought jazz was dead.


> You're not going to play that stuff in your first year. You have to be WAY better than a first year student. You simply won't have the chops in your first year. You sound like me back in the 80s when I told a DJ that being a DJ was easy--all you have to do is spin records. He set me in front of his turntables and mixer, handed me a few records and told me to show him how it's done and I had no idea where to start. That shut me up pretty quick. It's a lot harder than you're making it sound. It takes practice to be any good. Lots and lots of practice. A first year student couldn't squeeze that much in in a year's time. A gifted musician who gigs regularly might get the hang of it in five years but it takes years to get it down. Until you're standing there in front of a hundred people sitting there expecting to hear some good, slickly-arranged jazz, you have no idea how hard it is.


I think you are making it sound harder than it actually is but I will be very generous and amend to 2nd year student that should make you happy, yes you need good regular practice on any instrument but what is it on these charts that you show that is so very hard?


> Yes, really.


Well I am not surprised all sorts of thing are taught at Universities to day (but not necessarily learned) do they teach hip hop, country, etc I know they teach hair dressing, basket making. I would have thought a Music School would be the place to go.


> I learned under at university. My instructors learned at university. You think colleges are going to hire hacks who know nothing about jazz. You know how many jazz musicians teach at universities? I know people who learned from very famous jazz musicians who were teaching jazz at colleges. I know a trumpet player who studied at a university under Thad Jones and a drummer who studied under Pheeroan AkLaff at New Wesleyan, I think it was. I met another drummer who studied under Billy Hart. Ron Carter teaches jazz bass at colleges and was himself taught bass the same way. He graduated with a degree in bass performance. University is where you go to learn jazz, son!


No comment,* son! *


> No but jazz IS a form of classical. I've argued with a few of the purists here about that but jazz is American classical music. That's why so many classical and jazz students switch around all the time. Andre Previn is thought of as a classical guy but he is a jazz guy. Keith Jarrett is thought of as a jazz guy but spent 20 years releasing nothing but classical. Wynton Marsalis is a jazz guy but broke into the music business playing classical. Paul Chambers played classical bass for several years before he ever tried his hand at jazz. Charlie Parker was a close friend of Igor Stravinsky and they influenced each other's ideas.


Previn and Marsalis are exception and very good ones also I believe Benny Goodman but in general I think two different worlds.


> There's a lot more now than there used to be BECAUSE so many jazz bassists are classically trained. I always bow a bit at every jazz gig.


Why?


> It's not any different.


Are you kidding no difference in sight reading dance music to Classical? I can't believe a classical trained musician would say that.


> At the level I'm talking about, all the musicians are good and the competition is fierce. I only want people who can read. I already know he or she is going to be good.


The competition is fierce to play in a band that gets paid zilch the more I read of your posts the more confused I become. You go to a university to learn jazz but are trained classically.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

Belowpar said:


> Have been a few times, saw Nina Simone there and walked past it Monday evening!
> 
> Dont recognise many of the acts but I wil return. Noteits seling out regularly.
> 
> https://www.ronniescotts.co.uk/schedulemonthly


Thanks for the link.
The named artists are new to me as well. I do envy you access to London jazz clubs how many are you aware of?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

All this argumentation about jazz! It's really quite simple. Here's how Yogi Berra explained it.

"90% of all jazz is half improvisation. The other half is the part people play while others are playing something they never played with anyone who played that part. So if you play the wrong part, its right. If you play the right part, it might be right if you play it wrong enough. But if you play it too right, it’s wrong."

Jazz of course often involves syncopation.

"That’s when the note that you should hear now happens either before or after you hear it. In jazz, you don’t hear notes when they happen because that would be some other type of music. Other types of music can be jazz, but only if they’re the same as something different from those other kinds."

I hope this clarifies things. But if you say you still don't understand:

"I haven’t taught you enough for you to not understand jazz that well."


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

Dan Ante said:


> Thanks for the link.
> The named artists are new to me as well. I do envy you access to London jazz clubs how many are you aware of?


Quite a lot actually.

https://jazzinlondon.live/

One of my best musical expereinces was walking through Soho past the Pizza Express and it said tonight Harry Sweets Edison. I knew he was the muted trumpeter behing Sinatra on The Shadow of your Smile and that he'd been around. So I asked the wife if she was peckish?

Well he joined a local pick up band onstage and announced he'd like to start with a song that he was lucky enough to have played on the first recording of...pause...the singers name was Lady Day.

He had an anecdote for every tune, the band followed him like a shadow and the feeling of being once removed from Basie etc was amazing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Edison


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

Belowpar said:


> Quite a lot actually.
> 
> https://jazzinlondon.live/
> 
> ...


That is surprising who said jazz was done for, I will check out those clubs this afternoon, thanks for you links


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## Guest (Mar 3, 2017)

Dan Ante said:


> I vowed that I would not get into a quoted discussion but to reply to your many comments I will give it a go. What the heck yesterday cost me a fortune and my golf this morning was terrible so….
> 
> You are referring to the treble chart so the bass walks 1-2-3-4 through the arpeggios, and for a solo improvises on the melody,


Now tell me how a first-year student is going to do that.



> if he needs reminding what the melody is then he has a problem. This is straight forward nothing complicated,


It IS complicated!! That's what I can't seem to get you to understand. You were saying this is nothing a first-year student couldn't do. A first-year student cannot do that. It seems simple but it takes years of practice.



> and the musicians are all highly skilled and classically trained at university.


That's where I got my chops so that would be my preference. I want to put any piece of music in front of that person and they play it--even if they have no idea what it is. They play it.



> Correction yes it used to work that way I was there were you? the jazz world that you are in is nothing like the one I was in. What on earth are these changes that you mention that are so important and have been noted on the chart for you.


See--let me word this delicately. I'm having difficulties finding verisimilitude in what you are saying about your experience as a jazz musician. I've played with some very well-skilled musicians--people I only wish I could match--who played with people like Benny Goodman, Wild Bill Davison, Billy Eckstine, Lady Day and they ALL use charts. Now a tight band that's been together for a long time don't use charts much because they all know each other's styles and the repertoire so well that it isn't necessary. But when they joined with another ensemble or a new guy joined their ensemble, they were given charts to study. It's always been that way.

In the beginning, each band had its own fakebook of arrangements which was kept by the band's arranger and jealously guarded so a less experienced band couldn't swipe it and become competition. But, it wasn't at all unusual for a bandleader to buy another's arrangements for his own band. Benny Goodman bought Fletcher Henderson's fakebooks when he formed his first band. Sometimes, they hired another band's arranger to write arrangements for them. Mary Lou Williams made a decent living writing arrangements for other bands besides her own because she was so good at it.

Sometime in the 1940s, some guy got this idea to publish charts on little cards that all jazz musicians could use. Other fake books that got passed around were illegal because the material was copyrighted but no one was paying the holder. I have a Ron Carter bass transcription book like that. All the songs have changed titles to avoid copyright lawsuits. For example, Charley Parker's "Now's the Time" is called "Blues in F." "Yardbird Suite" is called "A Yard of Birds," "Dewey Square" is called "Dewey Round" and so on. Now, I think this book has found a legit publisher but my copy is 11x17 photocopied paper spiral bound from the 70s. Many of the fakebooks were built out of marching band clarinet charts or pages torn from a twenties ukulele songbook and the like all marked up in pencil. It took experienced jazz musicians to be able to read them and tease jazz harmonies out of uke chords or clarinet lines. Prior to the 40s, these books or individual charts from the book were copied by hand as musicians passed them around. Photocopying made things a whole lot easier and that, not coincidentally, was when the idea of issuing charts and arrangements to all musicians started to happen. Nowadays, most jazz musicians use something called "The Real Book" put out by Hal Leonard. There are several editions floating around. I personally prefer the 6th edition but some musicians use earlier ones.

These fakebooks are where jazz is archived! The whole history of jazz is not found in scholarly works by music historians. The history is condensed in these fakebooks. To write any comprehensive history about jazz, one must first collect these fakebooks wherever one can find them and arrange them chronologically and be able to read them. To my knowledge, no historian has done this. Who knows how many were destroyed or lost over the years? Those pages are where jazz is found and where it is preserved. Countless musicians learned off those pages. They contain the teachings and knowledge of the masters of this music, their ideas, their vision.



> Wrong again not always by any stretch of the imagination, not in jazz.


You're lucky you're not standing in front of me because I'd be yelling at you. Buddy Bolden's band used Joplin sheet music marked up for their songs. Now, Bolden couldn't read so he was entirely dependent on his trombonist,Willie Cornish, to teach him the intricacies of ragtime which they mixed with blues and put in 4/4 time to forge jazz. Almost certainly none of these charts exist anymore. Other guys like King Oliver, Joe Howard, Alvin Alcorn and Bunk Johnson learned cornet playing in marching bands. So did early white jazz men as Papa Jack Laine and Manuel Mello. Interestingly, Oliver had all the rags of Joplin assembled into one book for his own use. When he took on Louis Armstrong as a student when both were playing for Kid Ory, he taught Armstrong jazz using Joplin's rags. Louis was one of the best sight-readers in the history of music thanks to his first wife, pianist Lillian Hardin, who was educated at Fisk University. They teach you to read music at university, son.



> I used Banjo/Guitar as an example of who would have chord sequences probably in a small booklet that they compiled themselves


Sure, the first fakebooks were taken from these old manuals. But you seem to think it was easy. it was HARD! It took someone with musical chops and experience playing jazz to convert that stuff into jazz harmonies and chords. Again, that was no first-year student.



> You say "crowds" I thought jazz was dead.


It is. That doesn't mean a jazz show doesn't get put on somewhere once in a while. Doesn't mean there isn't any audience for it. It just means it's getting smaller and smaller and no longer is true to the ideas that spawned it. It's damned hard to make a living as a jazz musician. That's why I work. If had a steady ballroom gig like they did in the 30s, that's what I'd be doing.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

I really am loosing the will to live, you say "there has always been jazz charts" I have said my jazz world was completely different to your jazz world.

There were no "Real books" in the 50s and 60s all I saw was the chord sequences put together by the guitar player which any one could copy and learned at home if needed.
In dance bands you would be provided with the bass parts very simular to the example you gave of a "chart" but covered the complete work and were numbered, the leader would tell the band "number 7 and 20" you found these and played them it was that simple provided you were an average reader nothing complicated as you seem to think.

Now regarding jazz I am talking small groups say from a trio to a septet none of these used music it was simple melodies a lot of the melodies came from tin pan ally or musicals and were improvised by the players you just memorised the tunes, other tunes came from very early American black folk or work songs etc.

Now you doubt my jazz experience well I can't do much about that and all your name-dropping by proxy of well known musicians rally means not a lot, e.g. I know a man who sook the hand of a drummer that played with Stan Kenton ? so what.
From what I found on the www concerning the "Real Book" it came out in 1970 and would explain why I had not seen one, I stopped jazzing in 1966 approx.

*Were you playing jazz in the 50s and 60s in England or anywhere?*

I fail to understand why you find playing basic notation as in the bass chart that you posted "hard" and requiring years of practice.
Also you say if we were face to face you would be shouting at me, that would be the same loss of control that you showed to a member of you audience when they did not like the way you played something and told them they "had not paid to hear it so screw you" perhaps a little more consideration and patience* Son*.

Finally you said :
_" I am often in a quandary as a jazz musician in that I want to play with good people but I often find them stultified. They know their jazz and they know how to sight-read and all that but I usually find them operating within these very formal conceptions that I feel jazz has lost its magic."_

You are constrained by your charts try what I suggested to get back to basics.
I stumbled upon this as I was looking into the "Real book" 
It echoes what I am driving at.
http://www.jazzadvice.com/why-you-shouldnt-be-a-real-book-player/


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