Only Gypsy Swing?

Shemi

I studied a degree in cello at a conservatoire and had initially intended to be a concert cellist or orchestral musician but became disillusioned with the whole classical music scene. After a stint as a classroom teacher of music I moved to London to work as a session musician and recorded and performed in lots of different band and genres.

As a guitarist, I started playing rock and metal when I was a teenager and played a lot of Satch and Vai type stuff but later found fingerstyle blues. This, as well as fingerstyle stuff by the likes of Emmanuel, Atkins and more modern players like McKee and Dufour, became a focus for some years. Recently I started gypsy swing and am enjoying the challenge.

The hardest thing I have found is getting a good swing feel. This week I feel I've turned a corner with that but so much of what I have played over the years was so straight that I would naturally fall back into that feel. I've been working a lot at improvising over changes in my head and practicing tapping my foot on 2 and 4 at the same time. This, and listening to swing music a lot, is getting me there.

I have found focusing on arpeggios has really opened me up as a player over all. My improv before was mainly scale based thinking and having never studied jazz at all I only loosly used chord tones as a guide. I stuck on a blues backing track the other day to test out some new effects software and I noticed that when jamming I was much more focused on the chord tones instead of just spanking the old major/minor pentatonic.

DragonPL

It's a shame GJ is not taken "seriously" in academia. Like the example of "none of that Django stuff" when I was a classical guitar major, then when was considering some colleges for a master's in jazz guitar, when taking some lessons with the schools guitar instructors, when bringing up Gypsy Jazz them commenting "that's not really jazz" or "yeah Nuages is good, but...."

Jon

This might prove controversial, but I don't think it's a shame at all that GJ isn't taken seriously in academia. Why does anyone want the attention of the academy? It's been neutering world music for centuries. While it does produce some great stuff (I say this as an MMus grad), that stuff is mostly targeted to a very narrow band of intellectuals and fellow artists (often unintentionally, as these people are the peers of the composers themselves, who move within those circles and think those thoughts), and fails to connect with the broader public in the way that traditional GJ does.

Nothing wrong with academic music (nothing at all), but don't lament it's advocates overlooking GJ - it's gaze freezes audiences in their seats. For me this is the music of bars, clubs, social gatherings and campfires, not of formal concert halls, huge stages and recital rooms. It doesn't belong in the academy, and there's zero shame in that - rather it's something to be celebrated.

malakka

Well said Jon!

Jazzaferri

Yes well said indeed. It's not even taken seriously in jazz studies, though I did get to do the lecture on Django in our history class, the instructor knew that I am a Djangophile of the first water.

dennis

i agree with you Jon (and I too have a music degree in classical theory and analysis).

The academic music world, is just that, a world of its own. Nothing wrong with it, but it is what it is.

I remember maybe 4-5 years ago, I felt I kinda wanted to go to back to music school just to get out of the gypsy thing. I thought it would be fun to spend 2 years checking out the whole "modern/contemporary" jazz thing so I applied to McGill University for this licentiate program, which is not a real degree, but it just allows musicians to exclusively take advanced music classes.

Anyway, we had to record a demo to get through to the audition round. My demo was rejected, and one of my students whom I taught practically all the fundamentals of music (harmony/playing over changes/performance), was accepted.

I was a bit stunned, so I emailed the dean, and he told me that it was because the program was highly competitive and that they could only take the best musicians.

Now, of course, I'm not the best player in the world, but I think I'm at least decent enough to get into music school (considering a lot of my former students have included music university professors , professional musicians , masters and phd music students, etc..). So I replied to him and explained to him my accomplishments , and then he said, alright fine, come do an audition tomorrow. That basically left me with no time to prepare one of the prepared pieces that was part of the requirements. So I just relearned Django's solo to Django's tiger as my prepared piece. The rest I could handle it.

They threw every curve ball at me at the audition, and to be honest, I aced it. They had me play random standards with a backup band that they provided, made me improvise chord melodies, made me do some ear training , and sight reading, I completely aced it.

A few weeks letter, I get a mail saying I wasn't accepted. I spoke to the dean again, and he says "ya , unfortunately it's a highly competitive program, and like i said, we can only take good musicians". My student, on the other hand got in.

A year later, one of my colleagues asked the dean about me, and he said "oh yes, Denis plays great but he plays Gypsy Jazz, we have no place for that here, he wouldn't fit"

That's life folks!

Jazzaferri

Hah....great story Dennis......typical of Academia these days. If it doesn't fit in their box, they don't want anything to do with it. We are better off being on the outside looking in than being trapped in there.

In my first year of combo I played guitar until xmas. As we were rehearsing our coach told me. I had to " stop that hiccup thing you are playing before the beat". He didn't like the pompe much but it did suit the song but the "hiccup" drove him crazy. I am glad I switched to sax......no hiccups.

DragonPL

In my experience the jazz guitar teachers I dealt with worn't good players at all. (knowledgeable theory, but not on par playing wise) That also could of been a contributing factor as none could play not only style of GJ, but could not hang with the tunes with their own techniques.

DragonPL

Jon wrote: »

For me this is the music of bars, clubs, social gatherings and campfires, not of formal concert halls, huge stages and recital rooms. It doesn't belong in the academy, and there's zero shame in that - rather it's something to be celebrated.

Isn't that most of jazz, yet other forms are part of the academic experience?!? Big band for example was originally viewed with ridicule and looked upon as a curiosity and was not a "concert hall" so to speak (well maybe for some famous singer) but dance music, and isn't that what Django was trying to accomplish, establish himself as a legitimate jazz musician ???

Shemi

I had similar experiences as I was interested when studying my degree in learning to improvise, so I took a jazz module. My cello teacher at the time actually said to me "why do you want to learn to improvise? It won't make you a better musician".