Straight Ahead Jazz vs. GJ on the Banjo

Jazzaferri · November 2015

Check out Bela Fleck's work.

I had my son convinced that what he was hearing was some strange 18th century instrument before I showed him it was Bela playing Bach with Edgar Meyer and friends.

His work with the Flecktones (Victor Wooten and his brother) while not GJ will give you some idea of how far outside the box you can take banjo.

It will be doable IMO but will take a vast amount of technical skill, a bunch of real artistry and thinking way outside the typical 5 string Box.

I agree with @NylonDave that you should be very careful and not get too caught up in the chord scale theory bag. Good to understand the idea, just as is the Lydian Chromatic thing but.....it's all about the phrasing and the articulation that makes the GJ dialect work.

If you want to speak this language, first learn it, then, if you want to break out from there you have somewhere to go and more importantly, somewhere to come from.

Lango-Django · November 2015

Here's a thought experiment... let's say a really gifted pianist decided he wanted to play gypsy jazz... or bluegrass.

Imagine our imaginary hero works up a really spectacular arrangement of "Minor Swing" or "Foggy Mountain Breakdown".

Would such an arrangement really be gypsy jazz/bluegrass?

Would our hero be welcomed into the gypsy jazz/bluegrass jam sessions with open arms as a musical equal?

Or would he be ignored, or shunned as a weirdo?

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Now if our imaginary protagonist wanted to play gypsy jazz/ bluegrass tunes in his own solo career as a musical novelty, sort of the way Birelli Lagrene occasionally plays a few rock tunes, then fair enough.

Nobody's going to stop the piano player in the middle of a concert and say "No! You can't play that song!"

By the same token, no rock music fan is ever going to say, "Wow, that Birelli Lagrene! He's one fantastic rock guitarist!"

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There are limits to genre-bending. History and tradition are important, and often trump other considerations.

In the English language, for historical/traditional reasons we have wound up with a crazy spelling system and the QWERTY keyboard, both of which are pretty stupid.

But anybody who comes along advocating that these stupid things be replaced with something more reasonable is either ignored or derided as a crackpot.

That's just the way it is, and is extremely unlikely to change.

NylonDave · November 2015

Just a few points to add to that LJ. You seem to be ignoring the fact that studying music earnestly is a worthy endeavor with intrinsic value for both amateur and professional alike. It is perfectly accebtable to use ones own taste to as a basis for the selection of material.

And you get to notice things. Like how Bye Bye Blackbird is mostly this

The only way to get perspective is to step outside of narrow definitions.

Like the QWERTY keyboard, a pretty rigorous study of the frequency of letter combinations was used in order to design a keyboard which would avoid the repetition of a single finger on common words in a ten finger technique. Suited the hand and by encouraging the maximum right left alternation also conveniently avoid mechanical jamming in an actual physical typewriter.

Now if people only know two finger technique then it might not seem to make much sense but if you have actually learned to touch type it makes an awful lot of sense.

Now if all your friends are using two fingers they might tease you for being different. But seriously, would you really want that to stop you getting to the bottom of things ? Does anyone really take pride in consenting to having their horizons narrowed by the prejudices of self appointed aficionados ?

I know the answer to that, it's yes. I have talked to a lot of Metal guitarists, they are usually around sixteen and they know all there is to know about nothing. Some get over it.

But it may change because the record industry is dead. So maybe people can be objective again and listen widely instead of being branded by the first music that makes them feel rebellious. Rebellious and part of a cool club like that first Marlboro....a brand they can wear for a lifetime, like the guy on the ads.

D.

steven_eire · November 2015

Lango-Django wrote:

let's say a really gifted pianist decided he wanted to play gypsy jazz... or bluegrass.

Imagine our imaginary hero works up a really spectacular arrangement of "Minor Swing" or "Foggy Mountain Breakdown".

Would such an arrangement really be gypsy jazz/bluegrass?

Would our hero be welcomed into the gypsy jazz/bluegrass jam sessions with open arms as a musical equal?

Or would he be ignored, or shunned as a weirdo?

Django played with Steph backing him on piano and regularly played with all sorts of instrumentalists, drums etc. that are rarely heard on Gypsy Jazz recordings nowadays. I don't see why we can't broaden the definition of GJ to include more than acoustic guitar, bass and fiddle.

Lango-Django wrote:

There are limits to genre-bending. History and tradition are important, and often trump other considerations.

Personally I think innovation trumps history and tradition. Musical styles become stale without it. I like that some of the younger Parisian GJ players are trying different things. There's plenty of traditionalists to listen too anyway. And there's room for both IMO. I was listening to the Norig album Gadji earlier today, there are tracks with a great driving Pompe rhythm, unmistakably GJ and then tracks with Balkan rhythms and different types of instrumentation. Whether it's would be considered a GJ album or not, I'm not too bothered, it's great.

pickitjohn · November 2015

Not sure if Django was AWARE of any genre to bend.

He could play classical wonder who he pissed off?

It's music ENJOY!

>-

Jazzaferri · November 2015

if you have the technical chops and the artistic taste to communicate the feel/emotions/essence of GJ there will be some who get it and some who unfortunately are stuck in a box and won't. 'Twas always thus.

I heard Hubert Byers play an insanely fast rendition of Mt. st. Genevieve on melodica along with some of the top players in the Genre. Most people loved it and the band were certainly having fun.

Russell Letson · November 2015

What we have come to call "gypsy jazz" (or any of its alternative labels) has a center and a periphery. (As does any genre.) Around some notional center orbits a set of expectations--pulse, repertory, instrumental combinations and textures, harmonic vocabulary. There are certainly historical matters-of-fact, starting with the practices and preferences of Django & Co. and extending through how those were preserved and built upon by musicians who followed them. And there have always been practitioners who chose to stretch one or more of the elements, or who incorporated some elements into another genre. (Is John Lewis's "Django" gypsy jazz? What about the Alice Babs/Duke Ellington "Manoir de mes Reves" ?)

When the GJ convention-set was being formed, it wasn't "gypsy jazz" yet--it was small-combo, dance-rooted swing with a serious improvisatory side, and if Grappelli chose to play piano on a tune (or if Coleman Hawkins played on a recording session), that was just one of the options open at the time. And Django, of course, was interested in following his own muse and produced meditative non-swing/dance solo pieces, as did, say, Bix Beiderbecke in "In a Mist" or "Flashes."

But I digress. Adapting significant parts of the GJ formula/constellation for the banjo isn't unthinkable--though doing so for the 5-string presents some non-trivial problems, starting with adapting the GJ version of the swing pulse to any version of traditional American banjo right-hand technique. (BTW, the most common open-G American banjo tuning is not much like standard guitar/Chicago-banjo tuning.) I suspect that getting a 5-string to sound idiomatically GJ presents a really serious techique challenge--though with a tenor or 6-string much of that goes away, leaving only the strangeness of banjo timbre.

Perltone · November 2015

As a Bluegrass banjo player for 30 years who has spent the last couple trying to play gypsy jazz, I have found this thread very interesting. One of the problems with playing any kind of jazz on the banjo is the use of the high
5th string in various right hand combinations. While that gives the banjo its'
unique barrage of eighth notes, it is a challenge to break up that rhythm and keep the drive going. Many players today are expanding on Don Reno's single string style, where you use your thumb and fingers consecutively on 1 or more strings to play horizontal lines, like a pick. The question then is, why not use a guitar?
The open G tuning presents other issues. The D first string means that
many of the licks using your little finger for extensions become insurmountable stretches. Since your lowest string is the 4th string D, like a guitar, your lower range is really limited.
That being said, there have been plenty of players who have played some pretty acceptable jazz, starting with Bill Keith's late 70's version of Caravan, Rick Shubb, Bill Knopf, Pat Cloud and others. Many of the new players have the chops to pull off Gypsy Jazz. Not many have tried and I can only guess why. The 5 string banjo is not a great solo instrument. Most players I know play to jam and hopefully to get some gigs. Neither of those
possibilities exist in most places for a banjo player trying to play GJ.
Chicago has a pretty vibrant GJ scene. I took rhythm guitar lessons from Alphonse Ponticelli and Adrian Holavaty, but realized that playing lead was not going to happen in this lifetime. I have a pretty good selection of books and play the tab on the banjo. We had a jam going for awhile with some of Adrians' students and the banjo was accepted. As some of the posters observed, it takes a lot of technique, which I don't claim to possess. Fred Geiger has a regular Jazz column in Banjo Newsletter and has had some nice rolling Scruggs style versions of J'Attendrai, Dinah, It Don't Mean a Thing and Sweet Sue. I think some of you guys might be surprised. I will try to post something after Thanksgiving.
Finally, Russell mentioned the timbre of the banjo, which I understand.
The tone of a banjo is very adjustable, with many Bluegrass players going for a very piercing tone. As the banjo is being accepted into other styles, many players, including myself, are going for a rounder, more full, mellow tone.
I have attached a link to an example of the Old Guard, Ron Cody and
the New young Turks, Ryan Cavanaugh playing Sweet Sue. I know it's not strictly GJ, but what do you guys think?