Gonzalo's rhythm

roch@rochlockyer.com

D...THat's A F#&$ng funny vid....I've never seen it. Great info and well worth sharing those idiosyncrasies....It's a topic that is debated constantly, but only those who have really gotten to know and jammed with the players, and sought this info out would have informed "opinions"...the rest is just debate..You were very generous to me this past year in France and felt like chiming in and giving you some props for your generosity and sharing some of those relationships so openly. These differences for me could never have been understood enough to even know how to work on or begin to address without sitting across from and being directly exposed to "the sound" in actual playing situations.
Don't be such a snob...lol
thnx brother D

AmundLauritzen

Passacaglia wrote:

AmundLauritzen wrote:

Gonzalo seems to be a strong believer in keeping it simple and not doing all those rhythm fills all the time, and I absolutely agree with it. When the rhythm is straight and even, the soloist can feel safe to experiment rhythmically. If Hono threw fills all over the place, it wouldn't sound good when Bireli does his crazy temporarily-out-of-tempo tricks and then locks back in perfectly(don't know a better way to describe that).

Forgive a relative noob's comment, and I think you're really saying the same thing, but just to be clear, I don't think it's a question between keeping it simple or not -one of the strongest takeaways I got from Denis's Hono material, is that Hono is quite strong on the point of keeping it simple. "Straight, sweet, and square," leaving the "crazy drummer" stuff out, and leaving whatever flourishes to be had, to the soloist. I think the question is one of how much the chords are voiced, or not. I don't hear a voice in Gonzalo's beats 2, 4, and I definitively do in Hono, and everyone from this "corridor."

But that's what I'm saying. Bireli can get away with rhythmical freedom because Hono plays very straight and without any extraneous fills or unecessary tricks.
And when you hear him play a fill it's always in the right place.

Passacaglia

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear, Amund. I agree, Gonzalo is one for straight, driving rhythm - as is Hono. I was merely trying to point out that I thought the question wasn't really about simplicity v. "frill" playing, but on voiced v. completely muted beats 2, 4. At the end of the day, in my opinion, if it swings, it works, though my personal taste, too, is one of trying to keep some voice in the percussive beats.

I don't know anything, so take anything I say with a grain of salt. I am grateful to Denis for so eloquently laying out the progeny of the Alsacian traditions. I know he lived them.

AmundLauritzen

Passacaglia wrote:

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear, Amund. I agree, Gonzalo is one for straight, driving rhythm - as is Hono. I was merely trying to point out that I thought the question wasn't really about simplicity v. "frill" playing, but on voiced v. completely muted beats 2, 4. At the end of the day, in my opinion, if it swings, it works, though my personal taste, too, is one of trying to keep some voice in the percussive beats.

I don't know anything, so take anything I say with a grain of salt. I am grateful to Denis for so eloquently laying out the progeny of the Alsacian traditions. I know he lived them.

Don't excuse yourself, your points are perfectly valid
Yes, it was kind of a side note what I added about fills and all that, though the use of fills and effects play a part in defining someones style.

At the end of the day, as you say: if it swings it swings and that's what matters.

I'm very new to this style so I'm just throwing my observations out there. I'm not a good rhythm player, but I'm really looking forward to the course with Nous'che that is coming in January. Hopefully, it will clear up a few things for me, and others who have questions about the rhythm.

Passacaglia

Don't excuse yourself, your points are perfectly valid

You don't know me well enough yet. It's all patina and bluster.

Bones

Hi Denis,

Thanks for all the info.

I guess what I am thinking based on my own learning curve is that I had too much ringing on all beats but WRT the 2 and 4 there is an acceptable range that goes from as little as next to no ringing or just a tiny but of it??? :-) I.E. in any event, light and dry.

Can you site an example of the least amount and the most for the 2 and 4?

Thanks

Mitch

interesting topic indeed!

Dennis don't be cautious on anything, you've sum up the whole thing brilliantly.
And I don't say that only because you liked my sound
No really, you've put all the aspects on the table... You've always been a excellent analyst.
I think everyone here should pay attention to what Dennis says, this guy knows the real stuff, I mean first time I saw him he was jamming with Angelo Debarre in the middle of 50 persons, at 3 am on the Berceau Island in Samois. I thought "That guy got balls"! and he could play with all the tricks. They played "La gitane" I remember.
Dennis went to see all the great players by himself in Europe and then did what you all know with those great methods. To me the DVD "the art of accompaniment" is a must have, always worth having a look at it from time to time.
So Dennis don't excuse yourself, people should listen religiously to you what you say.

And it's not of course about pointing anyone bad.
Like we talked about elsewhere online earlier with Dennis, I really think the sound of recent recordings has an influence on the muting thing because a record is what it is. it's a recording that's been mixed, mastered in a specific way. It's often a "boosted" and compressed way so the soud may be pleasant but isn't a truthfull copy of what you'd hear standing next to the guys.
They though sound quite different of course from Tchavolo or Moreno but be careful not to be fooled by flatterish sound work.
So hearing genuine jazz manouche live does have an impact on the understanding of that music. it's about feeling indeed. Something you can never tell in books or on a screen.
Just like if you want to play Flamenco, seeing it live and having basics in Spanish definitely clears the view on what it's all about. You can not get the full picture without that.
Still, you can't blame anyone one for living thousands of kilometers away from the place the music is played!
So like muslims with the Mecca, we should go to Samois at least once in a lifetime

Passacaglia about the "evolution of style" well I have nothing against it as long as the roots remain somewhere. We all have to realize we play a repertoire music based on the style of two men, Django and Grappelli. Like playing be-bop or stuff, it has rules that defines it.
You can mix it, change it a bit so that it doesn't die but if you loose bit by bit what makes the style then it won't exist anymore.

Mixing colors is cool but when you mix to much or when you mix all of them it just turn grey at the end. That's why la pompe is important because starting to learn it with annoying muted 2 and 4th or from youtube videos where guys don't even know how to play themselves, that's no good. Honestly, there are so many tutorials on youtube that are crappy. Givone, Daussat, Bouly and Chang stuff are good.

As Dennis said, no gypsy ever mutes the 2nd and the 4th, that should be enough to reconsider the way of playing la pompe, I mean this music comes from the European gypsies, not to say Django. So if you want to call your music "Jazz manouche" it's the way it should be played. Can be great music otherwise, but not Jazz manouche.
Many of the young lions didn't start with Gypsy jazz and are now starting to get away from it. They fell into it with Django of course but also with Bireli, Stochelo...
Adrien was playing rock and is now with his last record miles away from Jazz manouche, closer to Sylvan Luc, Metheny and other influences that belong to him.
Seb Giniaux started copying Angelo Debarre, digs Matelo, Bireli... for several years he's going crazy on bulgarian guitarists like Atesh, plays with Norig, Florin Gugulica... His last record "Melodie des Choses" speaks for itself with classical, african, Contemporary influences..
Benoit Convert, that I know less, seems also to be in contemporary jazz etc...

So at the end it's more a french school of acoustic jazz guitar now than gypsy jazz.

Buco

I'm really thankful that there is an acknowledgement that there can indeed be more then one way of playing rhythm and still have a good gypsy jazz rhythm sound.
I've been to more then few classes where instructor's way of playing was the only way accurate.
And funnily, this way was not what another instructor said, who also said that was the accurate way of playing rhythm.
I wish people would more often realize that this isn't a chemist formula, it's music after all.
That said I understand that there is a completely wrong way of playing it and as others said there are plenty of bad examples on youtube.
And on keeping to traditions, there will always be musicians who will strictly stick to it as a sort of torch keepers but without straying away and letting your creative freedom think outside of the box we wouldn't have many of today's music genres not to mention when Django started creating what we now call gypsy jazz, a guitar soloist wasn't exactly common and he had to step outside of the box to and rebel sort of.

B

Jazzaferri

The creative side of it is when a player can play it "right" aka sounding traditionally, and decides to play it differently. If a person hasn't mastered the original it is not possible to be be "creative" with it.

The other path is just being limited by lack of technique. Thats OK too. There is no law saying one has to master anything.

Passacaglia

Mitch wrote:

Passacaglia about the "evolution of style" well I have nothing against it as long as the roots remain somewhere. We all have to realize we play a repertoire music based on the style of two men, Django and Grappelli. Like playing be-bop or stuff, it has rules that defines it.
You can mix it, change it a bit so that it doesn't die but if you loose bit by bit what makes the style then it won't exist anymore.

Mitch, I passionately agree. I consider myself almost pathologically orthodox in my ways - it's the kind of training I received as a French cook, and it's the food I made, professionally; it's why I chose, at 35, to enter a zen temple and martial arts dojo, to train as a disciple to a zen and martial master. It's actually a hindrance - I'm great on discipleship, less great on letting go and moving on.

It's a difficult point to call - at what point does evolution become abandonment? I am categorically unqualified to declare. I just know I am deeply indebted to a lot of people, Denis more than others, for providing a way in to playing this music that has grabbed my soul. And I stand in awe of so many players, who bring their special voice to bear on a form, and create something living. I don't want to play like all of them, but each of them has given of themselves genuinely, and I honor them accordingly.