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Edit: Buco, true story on the colorful fingers. Couldn't believe it but by whatever day, it's like I'd been in a nasty fight....and had used only my fingers..
pas encore, j'erre toujours.
As I try to learn this piece, I realize this has got to be the ultimate in guitar playing. In the first chorus alone, Django's brilliant restatement of the melody is like a Picasso painting, and all the amazing improvisations that follow are sheer essence of simplicity and genius.
I started to think... is there any player alive today who could create something as perfect as this?
Just for one example, bars 54 to 60--- as the changes go from D7+ to G7 to C7 to F7, Django plays a simple two-note phrase that descends chromatically to follow the chords.
In today's "busier" GJ style, I can't imagine anyone doing something that simple and repetitive. Most simply could not resist the temptation to cram as many blazingly fast arpeggios into that space as possible... or resist the temptation to fill in Django's dramatic whole-bar rests with a zillion notes...
Somehow the idea that "less is more" seems passe nowadays.
And I wonder, why is this?
Is it because this more melodic style of playing has just plain gone out of fashion?
Is it because Django is the only cat around who is brilliant enough to play in this melodic style?
Is it because Django "composed" this solo deliberately rather than truly improvising it? And perhaps if he'd simply improvised it, it would have sounded more typical of todays hyper-arpeggiated kind of soloing?
But most of all, I wonder this... is this kind of melodic playing a model that the rest of us mortals can actually learn from?
Or is it some sort of beautiful vision that we can only admire, take apart and try to learn by rote note-for-note, but somehow never really comprehend the essence of?
Edgar Degas: "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.... To draw, you must close your eyes and sing."
Georges Braque: "In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that can’t be explained."
And that song might be the best example of his genius. That song exemplifies his mastery of empty space, development of an idea and just how different the two nearly identical lines can sound if you give them slightly different treatment over the same number of bars.
He creates a line, then in a different part of the song he takes the same notes, over the same number of bars and creates a completely different melody.
I noticed this when I was transcribig the same solo.
As for his solos being composed vs improvised, he was surely aware that they couldn't get an unlimited number of takes so he had to have known at least where he wants to go before he went into a studio. And this is something I read in an interview with Stochelo, makes a perfect sense to me.
The other day I had a revelation of sorts; how about that the reason Django's solos sound so great is that besides being a technical genius he was also a brilliant composer? The two skills must be closely related, yes?
I think the best way to play truthfully like Fapy is to go straight to the music. Fapys love for Djangos playing is so blatantly obvious when you listen to him play. His tone, articulation and timing is probably the closest anyone will get to Django. But at the same time, he has gone beyond Django, but not so much that it sounds out of place.
I think that is the natural consequence after spending countless hours trying to emulate your favorite musicians. When you practice with such attention that you will keep on practicing just one lick until you make it sound perfect. Many people don't spend enough time on the vibrato and the articulations and ornamentations. They just want to play fast right away just to impress. Then you have the opposite, those who reject fast playing out of principle.
I think having preconceived ideas like that is destructive no matter what it's about. It's limiting.
I think practicing like the masters did(and probably still do) is like being at an all you can eat buffet of delicacies. You pick the ones that appeal to your taste.
That is what it's like when you learn licks and solos. You listen to different players and pick out those particular components in their playing that really moves you. It can be just a small detail, but from many different players. After doing that for a long time, something new emerges: A personal voice.
Many people reject that idea. "I want to create my own style", but they forget the foundation. Often, these people will think 400 scales is the foundation. Scales aren't BAD per se, but it can be overdone so that it creeps into your playing the wrong way. I don't teach much these days, but I've always told my students that when you practice, you're programming your muscle memory which ultimately is what will be accessible to you in improvisation. When you have a large vocabulary and automatic muscle memory, you will start combining things taking tiny fractions of licks and combining them in new ways. Listen to Bireli: he sounds unique but he spent so much time copying not only Django, but Benson, Wes(I presume) and obviously even classical music. When you have a wide enough array of influences, originality happens.
Not only that, but even if you were to concentrate on only one player, there is no way you would play it exactly like him. Nobody hears music the exact same way.
So I think the reason why Fapy plays so incredibly beautiful and with such taste, is that he practiced music and not exercises. There is no unwanted muscle memory happening. No scales being played on accident because they are programmed into reflexes.
He has probably never programmed his hands to play anything that he didn't love to listen to.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is this: Everything you practice will come out at some time. Therefore it is important to take care and determine if what you're practicing is something you'd actually play in a tune. And I assume Fapy practiced like that because most gypsies learn that way, with Djangos music.
Interesting question... when I think of some of Django's contemporaries, some of them were both technical geniuses and brilliant composers... others fell more into one category than the other.
Louis Armstrong? I'd call him a technical genius, but not so much a composer, though he did write a few tunes... unless we fudge the issue and call his brilliant solos 'compositions'?
Benny Goodman? Ditto.
Joe Venuti? Ditto.
Adrian Rollini? Ditto.
Jack Teagarden? Ditto.
Duke Ellington-- brilliant composer, solid pianist whose technical genius was probably more evident in his band arrangements than his soloing.
Of all of the jazz greats of the 78 rpm era, Bix Beiderbecke and Fats Waller are two who I think best exemplify "technical genius AND brilliant composer".
Edgar Degas: "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.... To draw, you must close your eyes and sing."
Georges Braque: "In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that can’t be explained."
Your post beautifully articulated something I have felt about the direction of this music in the last several years, as well as how I feel about jazz improvisation in general. I have always felt that Jazz, as an art form, need only evoke our intellectual and emotional considerations to be great. These 2 things are evident in the improvisations of ALL great jazz masters, Django included. I only hope that one day melodic and harmonic inventiveness are championed over overt virtuosity for the sake of virtuosity alone.
Great posts though, from everyone!
Regards,
Marcelo Damon
Definitely. And just as true for Django as well as us lesser mortals. The only difference being, he had that amazing ear, and that amazing musical imagination... both seemingly without limits.
It seems as though even us hacks can develop our ear through practice. And our muscle memory.
But how do we develop our musical imagination?
Edgar Degas: "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.... To draw, you must close your eyes and sing."
Georges Braque: "In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that can’t be explained."
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