Is it All about Lead?

[nc]

There's a perceived dichotomy between those who base their music on it's theoretical basis & those who who play (& often just as well!) according to the sound but both can achieve similar constructions & even work together.

 

We must remember that the "rules" of harmony came after the fact and are, indeed, not constant.Early European schools (medieval era) didn't even allow thirds, for cripessake !

 

As for diverting the topic, I think the original question has been well covered.Now I'm reading for the diversions !

[Jedi]

This is a great discussion. No complaints from me for diverging Henry and Ted. Much respect to you guys. Much like my father, you guys have all that technical stuff down.

 

Originally posted by Ted Nightshade

What I meant about Hendrix doing for guitar what Coltrane did for the saxophone is about pulling every concievable tone out of the thing and getting it to talk like people and elephants. Making the instrument do things it was not designed to do, on the sax playing chords and raucous squeals, you know what on the guitar, the microtonal stuff on both instruments. These guys were on the same quest, different axes, and both liked their LSD!

 

Nat Hentoff in his Coltrane biography comes to the same conclusion, Jimi was the only guy to step up to Coltrane's work and run with it.

I have to agree with this, IMHO. I'm a self-taught Modern Rock lead player. At the same time, I heve been lucky enough to be exposed to Jazz greats like Coltrane, Davis, and Mingus due to my father. The thing that impressed me the most about Coltrane was his approach to the music. He was attempting to explore his instrument to the point where he could express himself completely with the least amount of limitation. Total liberation with his musical expression. Now later on, when I decided to pick up a guitar, I started to really get into Hendrix. I swear I heard a direct correlation in their music. Hendrix, IMHO, was a Rock guitarists inspired by the Coltrane method of playing. To me, Coltrane's influence on Hendrix was in philosophy. And I do believe that Hendrix stepped up to the plate in philosophy like no other. The biggest thing to understand that their long solos were not ego-wanking. They were an expression from their souls. And that's what it comes down to, the person. You have to play from the heart, and more importantly you have to make sure your heart is set aright. This is the difference, which is ever so slight, between a wanker and a master.

 

Jedi

[Tedly Nightshade]

Of course Jimi called his instrument the "public saxophone".

James Gurley from Big Brother and the Holding Co. was another guy who consciously set out to do for the guitar what Trane did for the horn, but after he saw Jimi he had a nervous breakdown, too bad, no-good drugs involved too (speed&smack). Clapton has also said he was inspired by Trane, although strictly in terms of tone ( a biggie!), he never tried to follow up on the rest of it, and too bad.

 

Someone needs to be mentioned here, who carried on the Trane legacy in a big way, Alice Coltrane. She understood John to be Ohne Daruth, a spiritual and musical teacher, a kind of prophet. John and her had been obsessed during the 60's by Igor Stravinsky's work, and Alice had a vision in which Igor gave her a vial of colorless, tasteless liquid which she found inexplicably hard to down, but upon doing so she experienced all manners of colored light, seeing sounds, and other pyschedelic manifestations. She took Stravinsky's spirit as her own personal ascended master and devoted her life to musical service in his image and inspiration.

I can't find the quote, but to paraphrase, she said something like "John taught me to play the entire instrument. If it has a low register, use it to the fullest. If it has a high register, exploit it completely." Her piano and harp playing bear this out on her recordings on Impulse, and rarely do you hear disciplined comprehensive technique used so well in the service of beauty, grace, expression, magic and wonder.

 

Interestingly, Alice's far-out polytonal explorations of the potentials she saw in Trane's and Stravinsky's music took her right back to the blues, in a way that Trane himself never came full circle, except outside of a blues context at the height of speaking in tongues.

Alice's music has the earthy, testifying quality that the best straight blues guitarists have, B.B. King for instance, where it's like preaching- testifying. Where it's a spiritual truth being shared, from the bluesman's personal experience, the legacy of blues spirits dying to be reborn as sound, telling a not so pretty story in a beautiful, crying/laughing way. That can be done with one note or a million, as long as it's the truth from the heart.

From the heart.

Ted

[ManInTheBox]

I didn't read all of this, so I don't know if Incubus, Tantric, or any of the newer bands have been mentioned. Nowadays solos are pretty rare on the radio.

If I ever met a girl who could rip through a solo, I think I'd have to marry her(If she'd have me).

But just like you can get too much lead, I get sick and tired of too much groove. Creed, Tantric,Incubus, those guys can play, but LimpNoodle, Slipknot, even Panthera, sounds like noise to me(I actually like Down and Corrosion of Conformity,so go figure)

[D_dup3]

Originally posted by tundrkys:

But just like you can get too much lead, I get sick and tired of too much groove. Creed, Tantric,Incubus, those guys can play, but LimpNoodle, Slipknot, even Panthera, sounds like noise to me(I actually like Down and Corrosion of Conformity,so go figure)

I must admit I can't comment about some of those bands (not having heard them) but if you're using Limp Bisket(Noodle?)or Creed as an example of groove, you are way off .

[Dix]

Originally posted by Lee Flier:

Well! Lessee, I'm a chick that plays guitar... and I can and do play solos...

... as Lee now inspires me to break out my Lita Ford & Vixen CD's for tonight's entertainment.

[fantasticsound]

Interesting Blues/Jazz conversation, Henry and Ted Nightshade.

 

But to the original question:

 

It's about the song, stupid!

 

If a solo adds to a song, it should be included. If, however, you have nothing to say that supports the rest of the song, leave the solos out.

 

The best example of exceptional music with all the unneccesary parts left out that I can think of is the theme to the TV-comedy, Scrubs. It plays in 15 seconds, the one sentence lyric is a great tag line for the show, and the music has a (short) beginning, middle, and end. No solo, but there is a connecting musical phrase between repeats of the last vocal phrase that, in the context of a 15 second composition, could be defined as a solo. (I believe it's a keyboard sound.)

 

On the other end of the spectrum, listen to any of several Harry Chapin songs. Most are in excess of 4 or 5 min., and every moment belongs in each song. Most have nothing that approaches a solo.

 

Then listen to Stairway to Heaven, Dust In The Wind, Jump or Beat It. Each of these songs has a definite solo that serves the song well and adds to the musical statement. I love Satriani when he plays to the song, but too often he goes off on tangents that, IMO, detract from an otherwise fantastic tune. Somewhat the same with Steve Vai, although both CAN write a pertinent, lengthy, solo.

[Skip_dup1]

IMO, Satriani could, and Vai has, benefitted most when they are connected with a group that has good songwriters. I think they`re both really good composers/arrangers, but I`ve never heard anything from either of them that sounds like a good song.

[whitefang]

Not to get totally off the track, here, but whether you discuss rock or jazz, insomuch as solos go, the whole idea, to me, is the shape it takes. We've ALL discussed the solos as additions and distractions. And sometimes unneccessary. Some have gone overboard to analize things to the point of sounding like a master's thesis'. And all the while, the soloists being discussed not giving any forethought to the matter at all. Just going with the groove. Responding to what they might feel in the music. It would seem to me that these solos are the ones that are heralded for their ingenuity. For if one thinks too long and hard on what shape the solo will take, it likely will sound insipidly pretentious. But it's all in a point of view. Bird would play what sounded like carefully structured solos at a thousand miles an hour. Whether this was the case or not, only he can say for sure. On the other hand, another alto player, Paul Desmond, said he never practiced very long periods of time because when he did, he would catch himself playing "too fast"! And while Desmond's solos never reached the breakneck SPEED of Parker's, nobody ever complained about the QUALITY of them, either.

To add another thorn, over the weekend, I surfed onto a radio station playing jazz, in the middle of a tune, during the sax solo. I have NO idea who the soloist was, but he was trying to reach the sound barrier playing what sounded, more or less, like SCALES! Up and down and up and down and up and down the same line of notes for what seemed like five minutes until I switched the station in disgust. For all I know, he may STILL be playing those scales at this very moment! Sorta like Kenny G on crank!!

And all just a cunthair flat, to sound arty!

 

But some people like this. I see it as a presumption. I may be able to pick up my guitar and play scales faster than anyone of you! Is that a solo? One might think so, someone else may feel it was lacking a voice of somekind. Like those guys who try to win an arguement by loudly repeating the last two or three words of their last sentence over and over again.

 

These points, both mine and all of yours, are valid perceptions for ANY form of western music, just not rock or jazz. You can find the same thing going on in many forms.

 

Whitefang

[Tusker]

I agree, it's about genres too.

 

If it's pop, then it's the song. What if it is an instrumental genre? We have inherited the tradition of the troubadour, the symphony orchestra, the jazz combo... there's lots of metaphors for any kind of music anyone wants to make. Whether it will be successful......?

 

I think there will always be underground genres for lovers of instrumental solos and melodies. Whether they will rise to prominence depends on their artistry and whether the current mainstream stays relevant. When I look at the quality of top 40 offerings, I figure Pop is begging to be pushed off it's pedestal (by something).

 

Paganinni more or less created the cult of the virtuoso violinist at a time when such an idea did not exist. After discussing the rules, it is appropriate to consider how to change the rules. Hendrix is a good example of that too.

 

Cheers,

 

Jerry

[henryrobinett]

Originally posted by fantasticsound:

Interesting Blues/Jazz conversation, Henry and Ted Nightshade.

 

But to the original question:

 

It's about the song, stupid!

 

If a solo adds to a song, it should be included. If, however, you have nothing to say that supports the rest of the song, leave the solos out.

Yes, but like I was saying earlier and Tusker reinforced, it's about genre. Fantasticsound, you should qualify that statement so it's less of a universal and blanket generality. In Pop music your position holds true. Not so in some other forms of music. In jazz, for example, it's ALL about the solo, primarily. There are notable exceptions like the aforementioned Duke, or Mingus or Brubeck, and other artists who defined themselves mainly as composers.

 

Unfortunately attempts to turn this level of importance around in jazz, i.e. make the song of dominant importance, sometimes turns the music into pop drivel like smooth jazz and Kenny G. Now often the best jazz soloists drive their solos in interpretation of the song, but not always. Most often the song is a mere vehicle for self expression.

 

But I agree in a pop format with what you're saying 100%. It's all about the song and what serves the song.

[D_dup3]

I confess I haven't read every word of this (I'm skimming & waiting 'til the "end" so I can print it out & take it to a publisher!) so someone may've already made this point (& I know it's at least been approached, in the aspect of soloists who interpret the song compared to those who're into "self expression" and also in the mention of soloists compared to "rhythm players").

 

Anyhow, my point is that terming soloists "lead" players that's often a misnomer, especially when they are working (or over-working) static territory (2 chord vamps ,etc).

Often the "backup" musicians are really leading the music. This is most true in situations where the soloist is still listening to the other players rather than just "wailing"(& of course in real ensemble jazz, everyone is the "leader").

 

I'm "leading" myself to the surprising conclusion that the simultaneous leads/counterpoint of early jazzbands may've been much more advanced than all the self-conscious, intellectually based explorations of later Artistes.

 

Take off on that one, Henry !

[Wrave]

I was reading this thread and decided to pop in a little music and picked up "Blue Miles" which is playing even as I write this.

 

First cut is "'Round Midnight" with Coltrane and all I can say is how seldom I've heard two R&R lead guitarists get together and compliment each other like these two guys do. It happens, I know I've heard it. But I just can't remember who, when or where. Adderly and Coltrane and Miles in "Blue in Green", virtuoso's engaged in "complimenting" one another's work. Damn, that's nice!

[Tedly Nightshade]

Well you got me going, I just love old time New Orleans jazz, before my beloved Satchmo, who was not a team player, came along and invented the jazz soloist! This is one of my favorite musicians, and a total inspiration, but he just blew right over the top of everybody else, LOUD, no interplay, too bad.

Back then everyone soloed at once! In an amazing contrapuntal way. The 'bone soloed while the trumpet (or two) soloed while the clarinet ran circles around all of them. Beautiful! It's too bad that this fine form of music is dissed as archaic by most jazz players, who almost to a man never bother to master this art and take it with them to a more harmonically sophisticated gig. Another case of the baby going out with the bathwater...

Ted

[henryrobinett]

Originally posted by d:

I'm "leading" myself to the surprising conclusion that the simultaneous leads/counterpoint of early jazzbands may've been much more advanced than all the self-conscious, intellectually based explorations of later Artistes.

 

Take off on that one, Henry !

I'll Try! By "early jazzbands" do you mean dixieland and early Chicago/Orleans ensemble improvs with Louis Armstrong, etc.? Yeah, I'd agree that those ensembles were "intellectually" challenging. Not my cup of tea personally and I wouldn't say they were more advanced.

 

Some "advanced" modern jazz definitely does have an air of intellectual snobbery that frankly it doesn't deserve. Some of the more advanced "free" jazz casts a hue of severe complexity when in reality is anytihng but, in some cases.

 

Be-Bop, on the other hand, is very, very complex, as was Coltrane, pre-free period especially. He invented what has become known as the "Coltrane Substitutions" which was a device to apply to tired and overly played chord progressions to add spice and challenge the player/listener. This is where he would play 3-4 or more chords at once over a give chord sequence. He would actually play this notes so fast, it sounded like a blur so he could give the illusion he was playing several CHORDs on the saxophone.

 

So the harmonic structure of jazz became much denser than anything the early jazz bands were doing. The melodic structure also became denser. Where in early jazz melodic embellishments were used, basically nothing greater than a triad was explored, very often. Around the mid 30s with Coleman Hawkins and later Lester Young the 9ths and 6ths were explored. Parker, in the 40s opened the door to the upper extensions, Aug 11th, 13ths, b9, +9 (Foxey Lady) and the groundbreaking b5.

 

Duke Ellington and later Mingus explored BEYOND the 13th.

 

Miles Davis, Coltrane and Eric Dolphy applied modes, chromaticism, poly-tonality, polymodality and Coltrane, eventually influenced by Ornette Colemen, explored Free Form.

 

Now there ARE simultaneous "leads" and soloists that happen all the time with jazz today. Almost everybody in current "serious" jazz. Even early Weather Report, especially the 1st two albums, had the adage "we always solo, we never solo.

 

Got to run!!

[Tedly Nightshade]

George Russell has an interesting analogy for something else that happened along with the ever loftier extensions (Man that flat 5 was there from the get go!- Robert Johnson does that!)- soloists began to gloss over chord changes, and did not give each individual passing chord the attention that the early players did.

The analogy is a trip down the Mississippi River.

 

Coleman Hawkins, in his steamboat, stops in every one horse town on the way down (every passing chord is acknowledged). Coleman was one of the most sophisticated players to continue to acknowledge each passing chord, which all the older players would do.

 

Charlie Parker is traveling EXPRESS, and only stops in the bigger cities- in other words, each harmonic center is acknowledged, and the passing chords are not each given individual attention, so a whole vi-ii-V-I, with whatever substitutions, is treated as one harmonic situation, which helps explain how it is possible to solo at those breakneck tempos, with a few chord changes every second!

 

Coltrane is traveling by aeroplane, and sets of from New Orleans and ends up in whatever big northern town, without stopping for any of the passing chords, or the major harmonic centers! Of course he travelled it all in Parker style at one time, but eventually this remarkable man decided that it was a form of tyranny to insist on the other musicians playing the changes together- now Trane plays whatever changes he wants and the other guys do the same! But they all end up at the planned destination.

 

Then Ornette Coleman comes along, by spaceship, lifts off from New Orleans, and no one knows where he's going to come down, and none of the cities/chords on the river have any effect at all.

 

So, rockers, how do you blow? Does every chord get it's due, or is it anything goes until the end of the solo, where you end up where you're supposed to?

Me, I'm stuck perpetually in Coleman Hawkins land, I can't resist giving a little nod to every chord as it goes by, unless the McCoy Tyner chords start coming, in which case I'll meet you all at the soundboard after the show...

Ted

 

PS Tyner, Trane's pianist for the great quartet years, decided to make chords not just by stacking 3rds, which gets you the whole 1-3-5-7-9-11-13 thing, but by stacking fourths as well, with some thirds for variety. C-F-G is a typical McCoy Tyner chord- it would be G-C-F by stacking fourths, but inversions are fair play. Crawling up and down chromatically completes the effect, and stays out of the way of whatever madness Trane is perpetrating now...

I wanna hear some loud guitars crunching some McCoy Tyner chords! And best of all, all the grindheads will think you invented it...

Ted

[Tedly Nightshade]

BTW, Pete Townshend has said that if you play with heavy distortion, you will be creating overtones in the harmonic series all the time, so if you want a major chord, just hit the root and the fifth and distortion will provide the third, an octave up. He says if you want to hear a 13th chord, play a major chord with heavy distortion...

Ted

[D_dup3]

Well, in response to the last few posts, let me say that:

(1)I don't think intellectual justifications help music sound better than it does to the naked ear. Before anyone pounces on this, please consider the point made earlier that theoretical constructions & aurally based compositions (& those that work by either method) are both valid, both have their place and, in skilled hands, can be indistinguishable (I'm paraphrasing).

(2)Twin rock lead guitar:

Duane Allman & Dicky Betts, while generally working their duets out in advance, did sometimes shoot from the hip.A more free-form (& "rock"ous ) example might be Johnny Winter & Rick Derringer...

(3) The comment about Pete Townshend's electric guitar X harmonics/overtones is true...as can be reported by anyone who hear him play live.

I guess it's an electronic version of those Tibetan monks or that Tuvan thing.

...back to you...

[D_dup3]

Oops, double post!(edited out).

[Lee Flier]

Originally posted by Ted Nightshade:

Well you got me going, I just love old time New Orleans jazz, before my beloved Satchmo, who was not a team player, came along and invented the jazz soloist! This is one of my favorite musicians, and a total inspiration, but he just blew right over the top of everybody else, LOUD, no interplay, too bad.

Back then everyone soloed at once! In an amazing contrapuntal way. The 'bone soloed while the trumpet (or two) soloed while the clarinet ran circles around all of them. Beautiful! It's too bad that this fine form of music is dissed as archaic by most jazz players, who almost to a man never bother to master this art and take it with them to a more harmonically sophisticated gig. Another case of the baby going out with the bathwater...

Geez Ted... are you my spiritual twin that I didn't know about?

 

I feel the EXACT same way about New Orleans jazz. It's my favorite, and most of today's jazz players look down their nose at it. Breaks my heart.

 

Part of the reason I love a lot of the drummers who played in the 60's British Invasion rock bands, was because they cut their teeth on traditional jazz, which was the "trend" in the clubs in England just prior to the Beatles and Stones changing everything. You just don't hear many drummers like that now, rock drummers who have that swing in their groove, that character in the cymbals that just makes everything float. Ringo had it, Charlie Watts had it, Keith Moon even had it. Mick Avory of the Kinks, all those guys. By the late sixties it was disappearing. Bonham, much as I love him, he didn't have that. IMO that traditional jazz feel, those smooth wrists, is what made it "rock'n'roll" as opposed to just "rock" as it later became.

 

So my dream was always to find a drummer who came from a New Orleans jazz background but was into Watts and Ringo and Moon. That had to be the shit, I figured. Been dreaming of that since I was about 17. Then one day two years ago I went to see a local band here in Atlanta which played 60's Brit Invasion stuff. Within about eight bars, my jaw dropped. There it was - THAT sound. The floating hi hat and ride, the perfect ghost notes on the snare, the fluid rolls down the toms with train wreck force. And sometimes riding on the crash cymbal, just beating the hell of it but still somehow sitting beautifully on top of the groove - OH YEAH! I left the show in a daze, unable to even get up the nerve to speak to this personification of drumming perfection.

 

Well, needless to say I went to see him at every gig after that, and eventually did presume to speak to him. Turns out he's from New Orleans, and his dad was a Dixieland jazz trumpeter. So he grew up playing Dixieland and playing in marching bands, but fell hard for the Beatles early in his drumming days and the Who and Zeppelin too. Bloody hell! He sounded just like I thought someone would who had all those elements... just never thought I'd actually find such a person.

 

A little over a year later, we started playing together, and have been ever since. I'm still not over it. Denying traditional jazz is kinda like getting up to the gates of Heaven and saying, "Naaahhhhh."

 

--Lee

[Tusker]

Originally posted by Ted Nightshade:

Back then everyone soloed at once! In an amazing contrapuntal way. The 'bone soloed while the trumpet (or two) soloed while the clarinet ran circles around all of them. Beautiful!

Yes. I love that stuff too. In a rock context, there's a tiny bit of that in the King Crimson "Double trio" format, where Belew, Fripp and sometimes Trey Gunn are playing semi-improvised lines together. They are listening to each other but not on a note by note level, more on a phrase level and with complementary timbres and pitch ranges.

 

Similarly in Indonesian Gamelan music.... they subdivide the measure by instrument. So for example one player has a pattern that it's ok to play on beats 1,3,4&6. And another player may be "ok to play" on beats 1,2,4&5. On beats 1 and 4 you hear two instruments. So you can stack many instruments who are playing improvised notes in strict rhythmic time. This yields a sense of convergence and divergence at the same time. And it is cyclical.

 

Jerry

[D_dup3]

Originally posted by Tusker:

Similarly in Indonesian Gamelan music.... [/QB]

 

Alright !

Another gamelan fan!

I love that stuff, especially how they suddenly shift tempos.

[henryrobinett]

Ted, you are just plain wrong, sorry to say. Parker and Trane played every single chord. Man, where do you GET this stuff? Serious generalizatins here. Hawk did play on every single chord and arpeggiated like a mad man! Listening to "Body and Soul" can wear you out! He was the first of the highly educated tenors, so much so that he COULD keep up with the younger Be-Boppers when the music became more complicated.

 

What I think you're describing is the overall tonal center approach some teachers use in order to get their students on board enough to play. Details to come later. But Bird played II-V patterns and gave each chord his due. Same with Trane. He played ON TOP of chords. Each chord was an event in multiple. Sometimes they were alternate changes that flew n top of or sideways across the "real" changes or he pivoted off of extensions.

 

Robert Johnson was NOT doing the flat 5. That was a "blue note".

 

McCoy was stacking 4ths, but not doing them chromatically. They were being played modally. with ocassional chromaticism in Tranes modal phase. So if Coltrane were play Impressions and in D dorian, Tyner would go up and down the mode of D Dorian in stacked forths, because that defines the tonal center LESS and that was what Trane was playing. They were astronauts paving new ways to play.

 

It is simply NOT TRUE that "in other words, each harmonic center is acknowledged, and the passing chords are not each given individual attention, so a whole vi-ii-V-I, with whatever substitutions, is treated as one harmonic situation, which helps explain how it is possible to solo at those breakneck tempos, with a few chord changes every second!" There ARE some devices that he uses that CAN traverse several chord sequences. You might call these licks.

 

OK, OK. Bird played often in such a way (back to subject a little) as to LEAD the ensemble, in the sense that melody can supercede, if strong enough, the importance of the chord changes. But he would still wrap around the 3rd of each chord, or the flatted 7th, resolve, upper/lower neighbor, flat 5, flat 9, 13th, etc., etc.. You can't do this GENERALLY, over the tonal center. It simply doesn't work.

 

Now with Trane you have to talk about 3 or 4 different major periods of innovation in a span of just 8 short years. Absolutely remarkable! His last period he abandons conventional structure although many of his solos retain much of his previous work, it's just too hard to tell easily with all of that cacophony of the other players.

 

Both in 1958 when he was first exploring his "sheets of sound", and later with his "Giant Step" Substitutions he was playing on given chord changes, very specifically. Each note was accounted for. Coltrane is studied today in Universities as seriously as Bach and Mozart are. So it's just not me saying this.

 

BTW I play on each chord. I USED to play by tonal center, but this got boring for me. Playing modal music you have to play "modal".

 

Ted, it seems as though you still want to say one music is better than the other, which I object to outright. Each music is what it is, on it's own, of it's own accord. I've STUDIED these musics, including Duke and Satch. They are all great. I see them more for what they are and less in opposition from each other. Just like I don't believe there is a BEST guitarist. There are just different guitar players. Everyone brings his/her own world/point of view to the instrument. I get to hear it and go "Wow! Cool!" Some people play fast. Some people play slow. Some people like to play the blues. Some people like avant garde. Thank god not everyone shares my taste or it'd be pretty boring to listen to all these beings make music.

[henryrobinett]

Originally posted by d:

Well, in response to the last few posts, let me say that:

(1)I don't think intellectual justifications help music sound better than it does to the naked ear. Before anyone pounces on this, please consider the point made earlier that theoretical constructions & aurally based compositions (& those that work by either method) are both valid, both have their place and, in skilled hands, can be indistinguishable (I'm paraphrasing).

I was thinking about this earlier. Theory, something I teach and was teaching earlier today, is used to EXPLAIN what others do naturally. All great movements in music aren't so much theorectical. The ear creates and the mind later justifies and explains. This is a generality of course. Bach and Beethoven clearly made sure all of their "ts" were crossed theoretically before finishing a composition. But Lester Young just started hearing these lush open intervals of 9ths and 6ths. He wasn't saying "What hasn't been explored yet? How about the 9th and 6th!" He HEARD them. Same with Bird. Less so with Trane. I think Trane was more self concious as an innovator. He had an inquisitive, intellectual mind. But even at that you must HEAR it in order to make it music. Music is NOT theory. Theory is simply the thought behind how music is constructed. If it weren't so the music wouldn't survive. There'd be nothing musical enough to hang your hat on. It has to have musical validity. I may SAY it's a 13th, but the player may not think of it that way at all. He/she may hear it as the color green. It is just a SOUND that can be called something specific so others can learn about it another way. It's merely a sound that has a name that can be agreed upon.

[Tedly Nightshade]

Lee, you mean you didn't know you're my spiritual twin? You're just figuring this out?

 

Henry, I told you where I got that particular stuff, from George Russell, and my own listening to Parker and Trane and grappling with the changes made it seem reasonable enough to me.

As for McCoy Tyner not playing those chords chromatically, take a fucking listen, it's everywhere. No, not strictly chromatically, and modal awareness is of course part of it. If every other jazz pianist is doing chromatic substitutions, is McCoy perversely refusing to do some? Come on, let's at least disagree about meaningful things. Perhaps it's my predilection for the wilder Trane that has me listening to McCoy crawl around chromatically forever....

It's very true, Trane went through a whole hell of a lot of ground in 8 years, and I have not studied the beboppy stuff like I have the later quartet and his stuff with Alice. Simply because I had more pressing reasons for addressing the later material in detail. Definitely on Giant Steps Trane addresses every chord, in his usual fanatical obsessive way, but it's fully accurate that in his later work he played whatever changes he wanted while McCoy or Alice and Reggie or Jimmy were free to do their own improvised changes. Elvin of course did whatever he wanted, and if he wanted to play in three time signatures at once, no permission was necessary.

 

And no, I don't believe any form of music to be inherently better than any other, but I have to recognise the strong and weak suits of even the greatest of musicians, as everybody has their blind spots, and when stealing from the best, the blind spots are just baggage. Nonetheless, the blind spots are usually emulated along with the rest of it.

So while acknowledging Satchmo's titanic contribution to jazz, which included early and whopping doses of 6ths and 9ths, which he most likely lifted from the old Caruso records he would play for himself, it need be noted that he was not the finest of the original school of New Orleans group improv, but a poor ensemble player who was such a dynamite soloist and singer (god does he dwell on those 9ths all day) as to remake jazz in his own image.

Even the phenomenal Ellington never managed to integrate singing into his music as convincingly as he integrated everything else- which tells us where to head immediately to take his torch to the place he never managed to take it, though he tried, even with Mahalia Jackson.

Jazz would not be limited to such marginal demographics if the issues of songwriting had been addressed in a really compelling way- the Beatles had to do that, but to integrate that with jazz might take a Cassandra Wilson, if she could overcome her own blind spots, which are distressingly evident and could be easily addressed.

 

I do agree with you that theory is an after the fact explanation of what just works, the reason for the explanation being- "that was great! What was it? How can we make it happen again?"

 

And any discussion that goes through Johnny Winter And (Rick Derringer) and Gamelan has my hearty approval! The end of "Funky Music" with two guitars "soloing" at once is a great thing indeed! Rick Derringer's leslie guitar on that seriously diverted my energies for some years, before I figured out he was using a leslie.

As far as I'm concerned Rick's other great moment was that tune "Cheap Tequila". That alone justifies a lifetime spent in sordid pursuit of that "dirty music"...

Ted

[pauldil]

Originally posted by henryrobinett:

Theory...is used to EXPLAIN what others do naturally.

 

Henry, you have an eloquent way of explaining things. I agree with you. I think that music is an extension of your self. Much like the way one speaks or writes in a language, the “theory” will either matter or not. A great storyteller doesn't need to be grammatically perfect. In fact, it can sometimes enhance the telling of a story if one is not perfect. In the various posts on these forums, you see where a post contains misspellings, grammatical errors, etc, but the point is made and understood by the reader. I think that the way one approaches and plays music is a reflection of so many others aspects of that person's life. Some people ramble on and on without saying much (kind of like I'm doing). Others, like Henry, can say things clearly and make a logical statement (if you've ever heard his playing, you know what I mean). I haven't heard Ted's music, but from the ideas exchanged on this post, I'll bet he can make a musical statement as well.

 

Paul

[Skip_dup1]

very cool discussion, worthies!

I had read somewhere that Vernon Reid, the living Color guitarist, was heavily influenced by Ornette Coleman`s idea of `harmalodics`-that the traditional relationship between chord/key center and melody was artificial and confining. Some people don`t care for Reid`s playing because it seems so all over the place-but there is solid method behind it. I wonder when listening to someone like Frank Gambale, whether he may have picked up on a similar idea. Some of his playing that I`ve heard doesn`t seem to follow any particular tonality, but it fits with the ovwerall soundscape.

[henryrobinett]

Ted, I'm sorry for being such a dickhead. I can't believe I was so rude.

 

McCoy IS playing modal rather than fully chromatic; doing willy-nilly what ever he wants. Listen to Miles Mode (Red Planet), Impressions (same chords and form as "So What" -- as a matter of fact on live recordings where you can hear Trane calling the tune he still calls it "So What") On this you can clearly hear the demarcations from D Dorian to Eb Dorian. "My Favorite Things, Afro Blue, etc.. By the time of "Meditations" things get harder to decipher because the whole group sound goes for density. But "A Love Supreme" is clear too with the modal 4th comping. Every 16 bars or so the band often comes down on the mode root "BAM!".

 

And after posting that I realized you must've been talking about something George Russell said. I totally disagree with Russell, if that's exactly what he said.

 

I once went to a George Russell show Monday night at the Vanguard in NYC. Loved it. I was moved especially by "Ezzethetic" and "All About Rosie". I was living with Mingus at the time. I came back all excited and asked him what he thought about George Russell. He looked at me like I was from Mars. "I don't think about him". I disagreed with him. I thought he was great.

 

I later picked up his book and gave it a study. All of the heavy musicians I knew at the time never used his Lydian Chromatic thing, but they respected him as a writer. It didn't grab me as something I could use. It was all upside down for no good reason, as far as I could tell.

 

Still don't know anyone who uses it. It basically is a modal approach that at one time may have been valid. Still can be except for the fact that it hasn't caught on, as far as I can tell. Now it very well may be that I don't understand it any better than I understand "Harmolodic theory, where everything is equal or in balance with everything else.

 

So when GR equates a more general tonal center approach as Trane goes further out, if your talking about his modal and free zones OK. But not Parker. It's all very TONAL.

 

OK, I'm just blathering out loud.

[Skip_dup1]

henryrobinett

I`m going to go out on a bit of a limb here, and say that harmalodics is not about one note being as good as another, necessarily, as much as it is about combining notes in ways that complement the backing elements WITHOUT sticking to a particluar agreement of tonality.

[fantasticsound]

Originally posted by henryrobinett:

Yes, but like I was saying earlier and Tusker reinforced, it's about genre. Fantasticsound, you should qualify that statement so it's less of a universal and blanket generality. In Pop music your position holds true. Not so in some other forms of music. In jazz, for example, it's ALL about the solo, primarily. There are notable exceptions like the aforementioned Duke, or Mingus or Brubeck, and other artists who defined themselves mainly as composers.

I respectfully disagree. Even in a genre or style that is instrumental, a solo that is simply scalar acrobatics is completely boring to me. Melody is just as important to instrumental solos as it is to lyrical songs. Playing without direction is just that... semi-random stabs at musical phrasing.

 

Originally posted by henryrobinett:

Unfortunately attempts to turn this level of importance around in jazz, i.e. make the song of dominant importance, sometimes turns the music into pop drivel like smooth jazz and Kenny G. Now often the best jazz soloists drive their solos in interpretation of the song, but not always. Most often the song is a mere vehicle for self expression.

 

But I agree in a pop format with what you're saying 100%. It's all about the song and what serves the song.

To the bold phrase: No sir. Putting the song first doesn't ever result in smooth-jazz-pop-drivel. Poor composition and performance result in smooth-jazz-pop-drivel. You can't blame a technique for bad music. Only insipid composers.

 

It's not whether a solo is included in a free jazz or be bop piece. The solo, especially if we're speaking of improvisation, demands a beginning, middle, and end. The middle can be long and still support the melodic aspect of the song.

 

And to whoever said Vai hasn't written songs on his own that are strong songs first, I suggest you listen to Sisters off the Passion and Warfare album. That song is fantastic from start to finish and incorporates stylistic changes that all support the melody. Very cool song. And Henry, if you're familiar with Vai's tune, The Attitude Song, from Flexible, you know what an extended instrumental solo composition can sound like and still be consistantly interesting and supportive of a basic structure of the song as a whole. To paraphrase what you aptly stated; Theory is about describing musical phenomenon so as to allow understanding for both listeners and musicians and repeatability of the piece by musicians.