What jazz do you like?

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  • vizviz Frets: 10644


    Ant Law



    Correct. 
    Roland said: Scales are primarily a tool for categorising knowledge, not a rule for what can or cannot be played.
    Supportact said: [my style is] probably more an accumulation of limitations and bad habits than a 'style'.
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  • BradBrad Frets: 658
    I started making a huge list and then I thought, actually let’s focus on the UK. Usually these guys have a much lower profile compared to American jazz musicians (for a variety of compounding reasons) but their skill and originality is top-drawer and the pandemic has been disastrous for many musicians, especially those working in niche genres. 

    These are off the top of my head and mostly band leaders rather than sidemen, so there are loads of names missing for sure.

    UK, so go and see these guys play!

    Guitar:
    Mike Walker
    Chris Montague
    Ant Law
    Alex Munk

    Piano:
    Kit Downes
    Gwilym Simcock
    Django Bates
    Robert Mitchell
    Tom Crawley
    Liam Noble
    Nikki Illes
    Jason Rebello

    Sax:
    Julian Arguilles 
    Mark Lockhart
    Jason Yarde
    Tim Garland
    Ian Ballamy
    James Allsopp
    Mike Chillingworth
    Shabaka Hutchings
    George Crowley

    Trumpet:
    Henry Lowther
    James Copus
    Laura Jurd

    Singers:
    Lauren Kinsella
    Emilia Martensson
    Norma Winstone
    Liane Carroll

    Drums:
    Gary Husband
    Mark Sanders

    Good call. I’d also add,

    Guitar
    Stuart McCallum
    Mike Outram

    Sax
    Iain Dixon

    Trumpet
    Neil Yates - Five Counties is a beautiful album

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  • Yes to those extras! I actually recorded a few tracks with Neil Yates years ago. Fantastic musician, his first-takes, improv. included, were perfect. It’s a real shame he’s not performing that much anymore.
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  • LitterickLitterick Frets: 586
    Greatape said:

    Have only recently discovered the loveliness of Paul Desmond's playing. 
    "I think I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to sound like a dry Martini."
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  • prowlaprowla Frets: 4896
    Nice jazz.
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  • jdgmjdgm Frets: 850
    edited July 2021
    JIM MULLEN.
    And Dick Morrissey of course....Mike Carr.
    Louis Stewart.
    Gil Evans.
    Mike Gibbs, who arranged an incredible amount of stuff for others.
    Elvin and Tony Williams forever.
    Pharoah Sanders is trending at the moment with the Floating Point record....it's not jazz though IMO.

    To get into (start to understand) jazz I had to suspend like and dislike, if you see what I mean.


    The late great Yogi Berra on jazz:

    Interviewer: Can you explain jazz?

    Yogi: I can't, but I will. 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.

    Interviewer: I don't understand.

    Yogi: Anyone who understands jazz knows that you can't understand it. It's too complicated. That's whats so simple about it.

    Interviewer: Do you understand it?

    Yogi: No. That's why I can explain it. If I understood it, I wouldn't know anything about it.

    Interviewer: Are there any great jazz players alive today?

    Yogi: No. All the great jazz players alive today are dead. Except for the ones that are still alive. But so many of them are dead, that the ones that are still alive are dying to be like the ones that are dead. Some would kill for it.

    Interviewer: What is syncopation?

    Yogi: 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.

    Interviewer: Now I really don't understand.

    Yogi: I haven't taught you enough for you to not understand jazz that well.

    ;)

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  • Philly_QPhilly_Q Frets: 22516
    @jdgm Is that for real?  Yogi Berra the baseball coach?  It's absolutely brilliant, I wish I could memorise it.
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  • FunkfingersFunkfingers Frets: 14321
    edited July 2021
    All sorts of stuff, starting from Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives and Hot Sevens.
    Be seeing you.
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  • RedlesterRedlester Frets: 1072
    All sorts of stuff, starting from Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives and Hot Sevens.
    Sheer genius. All roads in jazz lead from these records, just as all roads in jazz lead back to these records. 
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  • BluesLoverBluesLover Frets: 655
    Spyro Gyra "Morning dance" to me is a perfect piece of music. Is it jazz? dunno, but love it
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  • jdgmjdgm Frets: 850
    Philly_Q said:
    @jdgm Is that for real?  Yogi Berra the baseball coach?  It's absolutely brilliant, I wish I could memorise it.

    Yes - google;   Yogi Berra on jazz

    :)
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  • KilgoreKilgore Frets: 8599
    edited July 2021
    I'm not really keen on instrumental jazz but I do like female jazz vocalists. Etta James, Sarah Vaughan, Julie London, Billie Holiday, etc. 

    I saw Ella Fitzgerald live in about 1984.I was 16 and into Quiet Riot & Motley Crue at the time, so I fully expected to hate it but she was bloody brilliant. 
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  • TINMAN82TINMAN82 Frets: 1845
    lysander said:
    I’m a big fan of the bebop era, Charlie Parker and Sonny Stitt are two players I could listen to all day long, as well as Clifford Brown.
    On the piano I like Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans a lot.

    Traditional jazz guitar always seems to miss something for me, even though I do like a lot of players, I just can’t listen to them for extended periods.
    I prefer those who mix it up with more guitaristic rock vocabulary like Guthrie Govan and Matteo Mancuso, this plays more to the strength of the instrument IMO.
    Absolute nail on the head statement this. I’ve spent the last year getting into jazz, predominantly Bepop/ hard bop era’s and what’s struck me is how perfectly suited trumpet and sax are as lead instruments within the genre.

    Guitar in this setting can reach great heights (Wes Montgomery most notably, some Kenny Burrel and Grant Green too). But traditional jazz guitar tone seems to lack something that is abundant with, for example, Wayne Shorter or Dexter Gordon. Trying to play the older stuff with a guitar sometimes feels like an inferior choice of instrument.

    Electric guitar tone excels in the realm of overdrive with rich harmonics and sustain. Hence Guthrie and the bluesy jazz crowd (Ford, Carlton er al) come into their own.
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  • GreatapeGreatape Frets: 3490
    TINMAN82 said:
    lysander said:
    I’m a big fan of the bebop era, Charlie Parker and Sonny Stitt are two players I could listen to all day long, as well as Clifford Brown.
    On the piano I like Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans a lot.

    Traditional jazz guitar always seems to miss something for me, even though I do like a lot of players, I just can’t listen to them for extended periods.
    I prefer those who mix it up with more guitaristic rock vocabulary like Guthrie Govan and Matteo Mancuso, this plays more to the strength of the instrument IMO.
    Absolute nail on the head statement this. I’ve spent the last year getting into jazz, predominantly Bepop/ hard bop era’s and what’s struck me is how perfectly suited trumpet and sax are as lead instruments within the genre.

    Guitar in this setting can reach great heights (Wes Montgomery most notably, some Kenny Burrel and Grant Green too). But traditional jazz guitar tone seems to lack something that is abundant with, for example, Wayne Shorter or Dexter Gordon. Trying to play the older stuff with a guitar sometimes feels like an inferior choice of instrument.

    Electric guitar tone excels in the realm of overdrive with rich harmonics and sustain. Hence Guthrie and the bluesy jazz crowd (Ford, Carlton er al) come into their own.
    There's a reason so many players like Stern use chorusing. 
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  • lysanderlysander Frets: 574
    I never really enjoyed Mike Stern, he’s an absolute master but it leaves me a bit indifferent.
    Larry Carlton and Robben Ford are more to my taste when they do play a bit jazzy.
    I took Guthrie and Matteo as examples because they’ve absorbed so much from the more recent guitar vocabulary of Eric Johnson, Van Halen, Frank Gambale, Pat Metheny and many others, as well as the traditional bebop language.
    They’re far from the only ones though
    - there’s too many modern players I enjoy and admire to make them all justice, but these two popped to mind as it’s particularly obvious in their style. 
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  • GreatapeGreatape Frets: 3490
    I don't know Matteo; I'll look him up. I never warmed to Guthrie - never liked his sense of time/tumeni notes. But that's something that many genuine jazz players are guilty of  ;) And certainly not just on guitar. 
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  • BradBrad Frets: 658
    Yes to those extras! I actually recorded a few tracks with Neil Yates years ago. Fantastic musician, his first-takes, improv. included, were perfect. It’s a real shame he’s not performing that much anymore.
    I was lucky enough to have Neil as a tutor for a year at Uni, got to watch him loads at Matt and Phreds. Last saw him a few years ago on a gig and got him to throw a solo on a track I’m working on. Like you say, such a shame he’s not playing much. A seriously deep guy!

    Greatape said:
    I Approve This Message.
    I approve your approval :smile: 

    @jdgm Jim Mullen is fantastic! It’s funny, I always try and steer students away from that right hand approach he uses haha it just looks so wrong, but he makes it so right. 
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  • HAL9000HAL9000 Frets: 9551
    As an aside, and a genuine question - Where does jazz begin? And blues, rhythm’n’blues, etc end?

    I like people such as Ray Charles, Nina Simone, Etta James, Ella Fitzgerald, etc. but, depending on where you look, they seem to be sometimes categorised as jazz, but just as often something else. I can appreciate the likes of Coltrane, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, etc. but would very rarely choose to listen to them.
    I play guitar because I enjoy it rather than because I’m any good at it
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  • smigeonsmigeon Frets: 282
    HAL9000 said:
    As an aside, and a genuine question - Where does jazz begin? And blues, rhythm’n’blues, etc end?

    I like people such as Ray Charles, Nina Simone, Etta James, Ella Fitzgerald, etc. but, depending on where you look, they seem to be sometimes categorised as jazz, but just as often something else. I can appreciate the likes of Coltrane, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, etc. but would very rarely choose to listen to them.
    One definition off the top of my hat:

    - Blues, Rhythm'n'blues etc: snare is on the 2 and 4
    - Jazz: from the drummer's perspective, the beat is carried mainly by the ride cymbal

    As usual with such definitions, there are gazillions of exceptions and half-way houses that "prove the rule".
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  • GreatapeGreatape Frets: 3490
    smigeon said:
    HAL9000 said:
    As an aside, and a genuine question - Where does jazz begin? And blues, rhythm’n’blues, etc end?

    I like people such as Ray Charles, Nina Simone, Etta James, Ella Fitzgerald, etc. but, depending on where you look, they seem to be sometimes categorised as jazz, but just as often something else. I can appreciate the likes of Coltrane, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, etc. but would very rarely choose to listen to them.
    One definition off the top of my hat:

    - Blues, Rhythm'n'blues etc: snare is on the 2 and 4
    - Jazz: from the drummer's perspective, the beat is carried mainly by the ride cymbal

    As usual with such definitions, there are gazillions of exceptions and half-way houses that "prove the rule".
    When does a blues become a jazz blues, for example? 

    I think chord substitution / extension / alteration comes into it. How the players navigate the changes. Lots of crossover..

    Like you infer, very muddied waters... ;)
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