Whose the best at:?????

Bones

He's got "ears"!

Passacaglia

Hahah, that's awesome, Noodle!

Jazzaferri

Thats way cool noodlenot. You are bringing him up so nicley.



Kungfu I don't think that this topic is an absolute. I hear guys play some passionate musically creative stuff and then have some fun and bang off a piece at high speed which has little emotional content.,,,no big deal It isn't wrong, it isn't right.....if not too much of it the audience appears to enjoy such takes.

What has happened in the past and can happen to anyone (but particularly prevalent in younger musicians) when ones focus is on bravura technical prowess, often because all one's attention is needed just for the mechanics of it playing at high speed that the feeling goes out the window. A player can get going down that road and sometimes get lost in the world of technique for a while...or a lifetime....

The saying my first mentor told me that a musician spends the first part of their career exploring how many notes they can put in a piece and the latter part exploring how many notes they can take out was around a long time before he quoted it to me in the 50's He was a great swing jazz guitarist in the 40's and 50's in Vancouver.

kungfumonk007

See but I hear that example and see the exact opposite going on - you are not musical when you are focusing on technique. . . but you only focus on technique when it isn't that good. When something is at a good tempo for my technique, or my technique has reached a new tempo, that is when the musicality steps up - again the two are married, not separate. In fact when my technique is lacking, and I see other musicians doing the same thing, I try to overcompensate with technique - it's a big mental hurdle I have to get over to just relax.

Anyways, I don't sense this attitude in you, but I think some people make these criticisms just to be snots, and it is usually people who are neither technical or musical - but since that is not you: good conversation friend.

Jazzaferri

I thoroughly enjoyed it too.

scot

Well, kungfu, it did not take long to reach that point where you denounce those people who disagree with you as lacking technique and musicality and as pretentious snobs - unkind words to use about people you clearly know nothing about.

Look - I recognize the appeal of relentless and blazing fast players like Joscho or Jimmy Rosenberg. When you first hear those guys, it's just incredible that they can play that fast with that much power and precision. It had strong appeal for me when I started playing this music 20 years ago. But for many people, and that includes me, the novelty wears off fast and it begins to sound like just an endless high-speed barrage of notes - it might be musical but it's not romantic. If that's what you like, what you want to play, you go. It's surely a challenge and that part I really do understand, even if it's not for me. But it's not all there is to this kind of music. There are other ways to play gypsy jazz and many great guitarists who play(ed) "gypsy jazz" in a more accessible, romantic style - Patrick Saussois, Koen de Cauter, Ninine Garcia and Francis Moerman to name only a few.

I understand the nature of this disagreement better now, and maybe if I had originally used the word "romantic" (which is actually what I meant anyway) instead of "musicality" it would never have gotten to this point. You are a successful, professional musician who studied formally with teachers from the age of seven and have a pre-romantic approach to music. I'm a hard-working mechanic by trade and never took a guitar lesson in my life. Music is all romance for me, and I would not trade my 40 years of travel and experiences with other musicians for a lifetime of teachers and practice rooms just so I could play a little better than I do.

kungfumonk007

I apologize Scot - I'm sure you are not a pretentious snob.

I think the romantic players and the blazing players, like Gonzalo and Joscho, have a great deal of mutual respect and love for each other, and hopefully we can as well.

Jazzaferri

I have heard from a number of sources that there are quite a number of young roma who are blazingly fast on guitar but stay in obscurity.

I wonder if part of the reason is getting stuck in the world of bravura technique. I don't know the answer and I doubt anybody ever will...but I cant help the wondering.

Every year jazz schools pump out horn players with great technique. Te can do all their scales and arps and the current standard is eighths at 300 bpm yes 300.

I hear a number of older jazz players complain about a lack of originality and musicality in this group. Some seem to get beyond it some not.

Miles Davis used to tell Coltrane to take the horn out of your mouth man....Coltrane was starting down his sheets of sound road in the late 50's and that style has influenced the sax world immensely. Another Miles Comment that I think is worth thinking on....stop before you are done....

Miles was technically not a particularly great trumpet player, often fracked notes...and his upper range was not strong...but musically....one of the greats of the last Century.

I recall reading somewhere perhaps in Delauney's book about Django complaining that all the y oung guys wanted to do was to try and outplay him or play really fast, can't quite remember...and then he would start really mixing up the harmony and show em who was boss.

Jazzaferri

For a musical example of what I refer to listen to Stochelo's playing on Stephanesque from the Caravan CD and then right after listen to his playing on Tears from Selmer 607.

That cover of Tears is one of my fave guitar pieces in the genre. :shock:

kungfumonk007

And for the record Scot my degrees were in composition and sound recording, I'm new to GJ and consider it one of my greatest honors to play with older musicians such as yourself who are more experienced than myself (maybe we will get to play together some day). Really there are few careers that so blessedly mix the older and younger generations, and it one of the best parts of being a musician.

Jazzaferri - I think there is something else going on in the jazz studies world. Don't even get me started on "jazz studies." I went to UNC Greeley that has a well known "jazz studies' program and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. I'll shut up about jazz studies programs now before I REALLY start offending people .