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Post by peterh on Oct 10, 2013 7:39:44 GMT
I think it's good to be focused if you can be, but I've noticed that someone like Eric Bibb can turn up on every Radio 2 show, ie the blues on Monday, the Jazz on tues. , the folk on Weds, and Bob Harriss on thurs. Which must be a sign of rollover and immaterial boundaries....
I never know what to practice either!
regs Peter
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Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2013 9:21:31 GMT
Wrong. That's a bit like saying Rubens and Jackson Pollock were thinking and approaching work the same way because they both worked with paint. Besides, labels are useful. When I go into HMV my first stop is the conjoined ghettos devoted to jazz, folk, country and classical. I know there's no point in me looking at, say, the drum and bass section, because that stuff has never spoken to me. Hmm. I admire your passion, but please don't tell me I'm wrong because you disagree; tell me you disagree. To pursue your analogy - it's more like saying Reubens and Pollock were painters. Both with something to say and each going about it in their own way. What's a musician's medium - black dots on a page or the emotions they evoke? I agree that labels are useful - to an extent - however, they can be limiting. I try to keep an open mind with regard to music, although I find it more and more difficult to be surprised by something fresh. Each to his own. I sincerely apologise for the way I phrased my answer. I gave an over-brusque rhetorical response to a rhetorical question, and that was wrong of me, but then I am as common as muck. It's expected of me by my friends, but I should appreciate by now that it doesn't work with strangers on the internet. I think that whatever their common language, strands of art have developed at such distances from each other - in terms of time and cultural context as well as place - that they've come to exist to a practical extent in isolation. They have necessarily developed a localised cultural resonance that can never be fully appreciated outside of their host culture, in such a way that whilst I may know a great deal about, say, bluegrass and the way it works on a technical level, it will never have the particular religious associations or sense of place it would to a Ralph Stanley or Bill Monroe. In light of these and countless other contextual differences I'll argue that art begs for labels, and has thrown up unique forms and a taxonomy as specific and necessary as those of the natural world. To put it another way, I may have a great deal of DNA in common with the dog who's lying next to me, and I may scratch and yawn when she does, but I am not a dog. In a similar way, Duke Ellington may have started some pieces using the same blues DNA as Muddy Waters, but he'd produce something immediately recognisable as jazz, very distinct from Chicago blues and so far removed that it couldn't be called a hybrid. What's interesting - and a little terrifying - is that in this connected post modern world it's becoming ever more difficult for art to gestate in the relative isolation I spoke of, and hybridisation is becoming increasingly common. Maybe that's why it's difficult to find anything that we recognise as new and exciting. And why living in the past seems to me to be a good idea.
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Post by martin130161 on Oct 10, 2013 10:20:41 GMT
'Jazz' per se is such a vast, wide open 'country', John - bit like listening to Bach/Mozart then trying to 'get' John Cage! But if you love acoustic guitar, I'd have to say listen to the wonderful Ralph Towner - absolutely no-one like him on the planet ('jazz' - if that's what it is! - on classical and 12-string guitars) - 'Ana' or his latest CD 'Travel Guide' - or either of Pat Metheny's solo acoustic discs...
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Post by fatfingerjohn on Oct 10, 2013 12:44:06 GMT
'Jazz' per se is such a vast, wide open 'country', John - bit like listening to Bach/Mozart then trying to 'get' John Cage! But if you love acoustic guitar, I'd have to say listen to the wonderful Ralph Towner - absolutely no-one like him on the planet ('jazz' - if that's what it is! - on classical and 12-string guitars) - 'Ana' or his latest CD 'Travel Guide' - or either of Pat Metheny's solo acoustic discs... So this post helps me a lot and Martin hits the nail on the head with his comment about the 'vast wide open country' Perhaps my original question, which has started a bit of an argument about 'labels', is actually misguided in that my 'label' was much too broad. I won't try to re-label (as I wouldn't know where to start) but will use Martin's suggestion to try to describe where my leaning is with 2 different pieces by his suggestion, Ralph Towner. This is a bit random because I can't listen to everything he's done, but the following is a good starting place for me to express myself. Piece 1. Green and Golden
Really liked this and could listen to an album full of it. Piece 2 Nardis (interestingly, part written by Miles Davis, see a previous post). Oh dear, just not my taste at all; grates, harsh, lacking in recognisable structure (to my ears) dischordent in an unpleasant way etc. So ...... they are both 'jazz', both played by the same person etc. So I can't even say 'I love Ralph Towner; or I hate him !!! No more I suppose than you can say that about many artists. So, it would appear to be the 'style' of composition within the genre 'label' which helps to define my like and dislike. The very amusing video clip yesterday of a spoof jazz concert was probably the best demonstration of what I meant when I said 'I don't like jazz'; I can now more easily say 'I don't like jazz that sounds like that (whatever 'that' is). I think you lot are slowly straightening me out into what I mean ...... Thanks FFJ
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Post by vicov on Oct 10, 2013 14:13:17 GMT
I typed a long winded response - then thought better of it & hit delete. I will say however that I think you are missing out on so much (& am in complete agreement with WD's posts on this thread).
Anyone for a Laphroaig?
Cheers Vic
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Post by ocarolan on Oct 10, 2013 15:34:44 GMT
..................... Anyone for a Laphroaig? Cheers Vic Hmm, I'd prefer another drop of whatever the one you had at Halifax was - v nice indeed! But apols for the , and back to the matter in hand, I do do quite like this sort of thing in small doses too - -apart from the "singing" bits anyway. Keith
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Post by scorpiodog on Oct 10, 2013 16:03:25 GMT
I have found a variety of non-committal grunts useful in these situations. there was much more than this that I agree with in your post (and in most of the other posts in this thread), Kym, but this is my favourite, so far. As regards the topic, I have only recently discovered jazz. By that I mean I have only recently discovered some jazz guitar that I like (paradoxically as a result I have discovered that some things I have liked for years, others describe as jazz). I discovered it by asking friends who like jazz to educate me (I had heard a Martin Taylor song and loved it) and as a result have discovered Wes Montgomery and Joe Pass - both very accessible jazz players IMHO - I can't say I enjoy what I've heard of Al Di Meola, nor Larry Coryell, but I'm just discovering Pat Metheny, and I'm not sure yet. I've only mentioned jazz guitar here, because that's the nature of the forum, but jazz is such a wide genre and there is so much good, melodic music out there that is called jazz, I'm sure if you explore any jazz fusion recordings with the type of music you prefer, you will enjoy them. This may be your way in.
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Post by maninashed on Oct 10, 2013 16:28:28 GMT
Not a massive fan, but I remember (hazily) in the '70s and '80s regularly getting home form the pub and there being great jazz shows on TV, The Sound Of Jazz and I particularly liked The Oscar Peterson Trio. Not sure it helps your quest much, but for me having been to the pub put me in a very receptive frame of mind and I've liked a bit of jazz ever since. This is the kind of thing, with Barney Kessel on guitar.
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Post by scorpiodog on Oct 10, 2013 16:33:34 GMT
What's interesting - and a little terrifying - is that in this connected post modern world it's becoming ever more difficult for art to gestate in the relative isolation I spoke of, and hybridisation is becoming increasingly common. Maybe that's why it's difficult to find anything that we recognise as new and exciting. And why living in the past seems to me to be a good idea. That's profound, WD and a fascinating thought. But if human creativity works on the same principles as evolution (sorry to all you creationist out there - Ah no. This isn't AGF) then hybridisation can produce an Akita or a Chihuahua from wolf stock in a relatively short time, or a seal and a bear from common stock in a slightly longer timescale. And that without the creative instinct of humans (possibly parallelled by mutation - what do I know?). So I'm quite optimistic that we haven't exhausted all artistic and musical possibilities and that the future may well hold artistic leaps and bounds. But I do live in the past. It is more my home than the present. And much more than the future. Good thread, this.
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Post by ocarolan on Oct 10, 2013 17:10:14 GMT
"The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there." (L.P.Hartley)
Thank goodness.
Hopefully some stuff will come around again, as these things have a habit of doing. Always difficult to hang onto the best of the old and meld with the best of the new. Worth attempting though.
Keith
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Post by maninashed on Oct 10, 2013 18:12:06 GMT
What's the difference between a rock guitarist and a jazz guitarist?
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Post by markthomson on Oct 10, 2013 18:30:17 GMT
I love the possibilities of Jazz, and when well exectuted it is fantastic, but much of it does leave me cold.
It is such a broad field, and that makes it difficult to find what you like in it. Personally I love the obvious classics like Miles Davis or John Coltrane, but I also like the Django / Hot Club thing too, not to mention Pat Metheny's atmospheric work, all very different then there's the likes of Joe Pass or Lenny Breau or Ted Green......what attacts me to it is the harmonic richness of it, which is in stark contrast to the melodic focus of most of the tradtional music I enjoy.
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Post by martin130161 on Oct 11, 2013 9:20:18 GMT
I'm really glad you checked out Ralph Towner, John! If you like 'Green & Golden', I promise you, you will love the 'Ana' CD. I thought it was interesting that by comparison, you DIDN'T like 'Nardis' - Towner recorded this on a live album years ago, and that version has long been a real 'Desert Island Disc' of mine! I think in a 'live' setting, though, a lot of people ARE turned off jazz, often because of the long, self-indulgent improv trips that many of these (albeit at the very top of their game, technically and theoretically) musicians go off on. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer to your original post: I think instead - as with all music - it's what 'does it' for each of us. A shimmering chord change, a lyric, a melody line - something that grabs hold of us and won't let go. Take a listen to Tony McManus's version of 'Goodbye, Pork Pie Hat' (which would fall under the 'jazz' label) then go straight to the avant-garde free improvisation of the late Derek Bailey... I'm saying nothing more! Good luck with your listening and playing...
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Post by brianr2 on Oct 11, 2013 10:43:03 GMT
"Music is the shorthand of emotion." - Leo Tolstoy
There is much music in this world that I admire (and much, much more that I don't!) but not all of it moves me and makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Sadly, jazz remains one of these things for me; this, I know, is my loss. But then, the great thing about music is its variety and constant development, and that only comes about because different things stir different people. Vive le difference!
Brian
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Post by fatfingerjohn on Oct 11, 2013 11:40:04 GMT
I'm really glad you checked out Ralph Towner, John! If you like 'Green & Golden', I promise you, you will love the 'Ana' CD. I thought it was interesting that by comparison, you DIDN'T like 'Nardis' - Towner recorded this on a live album years ago, and that version has long been a real 'Desert Island Disc' of mine! I think in a 'live' setting, though, a lot of people ARE turned off jazz, often because of the long, self-indulgent improv trips that many of these (albeit at the very top of their game, technically and theoretically) musicians go off on. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer to your original post: I think instead - as with all music - it's what 'does it' for each of us. A shimmering chord change, a lyric, a melody line - something that grabs hold of us and won't let go. Take a listen to Tony McManus's version of 'Goodbye, Pork Pie Hat' (which would fall under the 'jazz' label) then go straight to the avant-garde free improvisation of the late Derek Bailey... I'm saying nothing more! Good luck with your listening and playing... Hi again. I'm glad I won't be on your desert island or it would have to be a big one with a sound-proof hut! But if we all had the same tastes then Desert Island Discs would have the same songs every week and there would only be one book taken! Regarding the Derek Bailey link, I'm glad you put a smiley after your suggestion or I would think you'd lost it! The bits I found on youtube re improvisation just about sum up everything that I have been trying to express in that I just don't get it. I know this is extreme, but ...... P.S. 5 out of 10 for the Pork Pie Hat.
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