Whose the best at:?????

Bones

I bet that would be full of real finger twisters.

Probably great stuff for building chops and also ideas for thinking outside the proverbial box.

noodlenot

well, you really can´t run away from bop if you´re gonna dive into this amalgam of idiosyncratic vocabularies that we call jazz - bop is the cradle of modern jazz, and modern popular music to some extent.

Passacaglia

noodlenot wrote:

well, you really can´t run away from bop if you´re gonna dive into this amalgam of idiosyncratic vocabularies that we call jazz - bop is the cradle of modern jazz, and modern popular music to some extent.

I think my ambitions are pretty humble. Might have been my late start, but my tastes so far don't range, much. I appreciate Donna Lee (for example), and do listen to some more modern jazz, but my love is pretty narrowly focused, pre-war stuff.

Jazzaferri

What one will pick up is some cool bebop style lines that bring the chord tones in on the downbeats

I am working on au privave and yardbird suite atm. I marvel at the people that can sight read and play from the omnibook at full speed.

It will be a few more years before my sight reading is up to that. I am learning. Few of my fave solos from bird by heart just like I have done on guitar. Beyond that I just rip the phrases I like or stumble upon whilst noodling.

Bones

Sounds pretty cool. I'll look for it in C if it comes out...

Buco

I'm already past that part of discussion but here's my thoughts on technique and musicality.
Of course neither can be dismissed if you want to be a complete musician and by saying this I don't mean that a person that isn't interested in technique is a lacking musician and more importantly lacking artist, that should go without saying as there are many legends and great artists in music that left their mark but were not great technical players.
I didn't pay attention to technique until recently and in my case I wish I had someone to teach me differently but I don't regret it either, it's just a process, different for every person.
I don't think any of the highly skilled, well known players are displaying their speed for the sake of it.
I do think that sometimes they do it to take the easy way out.
Of course you can't always have something original in every moment but I think musician's job is to be in the service of music. But I do understand when Gonzalo once said something like this when I watched him live "ohhh so many notes right? But it's just fun to play a lot of notes sometimes". I mean it should be fun and you should be able to reward your self so why not.
Fast players who practice and play for the sake of speed are the people who don't enjoy music, they think if they can prove they can play faster then you then they win. I think those are the kind of bop players that played at the same time as Django but nobody knows them now. Because they didn't do it for the music and ultimately they don't stick around as it's not a life time commitment for them.
For me, and I'm pretty sure everyone else that commented in this discussion, I'm never gonna stop plucking strings not because I'm after winning awards but because every once in a while you get that feeling of "ahhhh that was sooo nice" when you hit that harmony both musically and spiritually.

Passacaglia

My personal feeling, coming from two traditions that very much come from a traditional, apprenticeship-based training, is that technique is critical for the attainment of freedom - always and ever, fundamental technique refined over a lifetime, frees one up to make art (whether culinary, martial or, as here, musical).

My suspicion (only a suspicion, because I'm certainly not there) is that, having attained that technical mastery, it, like everything else, has to be let go - no good comes from making a religion out of something which is inherently just a way in to the true art. Not easy.

Michael Bauer

The great writer, John Barth, once said (and I am quoting from memory after about 40 years, so I may be off a word or two): "My feeling about technique in art is that it has about the same value as technique in love-making. That is to say: heartfelt ineptitude has its appeal, and so does heartless skill, but what you want is passionate virtuosity."

I with Scot and Teddy on this one. There are many technically-accomplished players in this genre, but maybe not so many who really move me emotionally. Django does, Oscar does, Fapy does, Tchavolo does, Patrick Saussois does, Tchan Tchou does, as do a number of other players, both living and dead. But too many players actually bore me with endless pyrotechnics. My wife will rarely go to see gypsy jazz anymore, and when women quit listening, a style of music is in trouble in the long haul. We were at a show once watching a great player, and she looked at me and said, "I'm sorry, but I just can't hear that fast." Now, except for a few favorites, she just stays home.

I have video of a concert of a player discussed above, and after watching it a number of times, I started breaking down the bag of tricks, and how many times the same stuff was used in song after song. I started thinking, I can mentally check out now, because I know what's coming for the next 15 seconds. It's less noticeable live, of course, but if someone followed a player around for a week, it would be just as evident.

I said this once in another post, but a great solo, to me, has a sense of logical inevitability to it, like each note sounds like the only note that could have been played. I hear that in Django (and other great players). It's over and I think, "that just couldn't be topped!". Then I have an alternate take on the same recording, and the solo is completely different, yet it still has that same quality, that each not led to the next note and that was the only way it could have gone. Get some CD's with multiple takes of Django, and you'll hear exactly what I'm taking about.

To improvise and have it sound "composed" (in the best sense of the word) to me is the mark of a true virtuoso. To improvise the same song again, go in a completely different direction, yet have the same sense of "composition", is the sign of genius. Lots of players play fast, and play great licks, and are worth listening to, but not that many leave me wanting a figurative cigarette after each solo.

And there is another approach, where the best solos simply convey the joy of the music. That's Tchavolo, Matelo, Mandino and their ilk. Their genius is different, they make you smile when you hear them, for no other reason than they were able to convey the deep joy they feel at being able to play. There are a number of young guns out there now that can probably play Tchavolo into the ground, in terms of pure technique, but when they finish, all I can think is, "great technique". When Tchavolo finishes, I think, "great playing". It's just different...

Jazzaferri

Great words Michael

AS Mr. Beethoven is reported to have said ...to play without feeling is unforgivable

Charles Meadows

I find that lesser technique tends to ruin the musicalityb of it for me. Boulou Ferre is a very emotional player, but it seems that he would be eve more so if he had a bit more technical prowess. To my ear, Stochelo and Angelo are the best of both worlds, with great taste and feel, and plenty of technique to convey those. Joscho, on the other hand, to me seems to be all tecnique and almost no "feel". But then again I have a lot less GJ experience than most here.