Django's timing

Lango-Django

Interesting turn this thread has taken.

I particularly enjoyed the Evan Christopher clip about Louis Armstrong's influence on Django.

That being said, I was a bit baffled by Evan's playing examples... the one which he said was Armstrong-influenced did sound a lot better than the first one, but I had trouble understanding exactly why...?

Anyway, now I'm hoping some enterprising Djangologist will simplify my life by developing a "Louis Armstrong Phrases For Idiots" teaching method.

Until that day comes, I guess I'll just have to pull out my old Armstrong CDs and listen to them a lot until his musical genius transfers to my fingers via osmosis... if music is a language, then I want to be fluent in Armstrong-ese!

Buco

Watching the video with Evan I'm wondering about what's often mentioned about playing ahead or behind.
Is it the whole timing of the phrase that's ahead or behind or the phrase is manipulated so that the certain notes are placed ahead or behind compared to what they would sound like if you played everything strictly on the beat?
Like, you might make a pause in playing the phrase and then fire off the remaining notes, or play a string of notes in rapid succession and then wait.
There's a moment in the Evan's video where he kinda pulls backwards indicating Django's playing behind but the phrase is still properly placed in the context.
On the flip side sometimes you hear highly accomplished players and it's obvious they know the craft but some of the playing just sounds off, almost clumsy. The reason I'm thinking might be the loose understanding and interpretation of this concept.

Will, if I'm getting correctly which moment you're referring to, Evan was first playing the line squarely on the beat and they he became more playful, to use his description.

PS I remembered Sebastien talked about playing ahead or behind in the video that Dennis produced.

billyshakes

@Buco,

Yes, that was the Yaakov vid I was thinking of. Also noted with interest Evan's discussion of jazz music for dancers as per an earlier topic discussion sideline..

dennis

bopster wrote: »

@Buco - if anyone would know about (and write about) Django’s timing, it would be Denis.

hehehe you're darn right about that! It's the stuff I've been carefully studying for the past few years. Lots of misinformation out there!

normjohnson

"If you have to ask, you'll never know."

Louis Armstrong when asked to define the rhythmic concept of "swing", quoted in Jazz 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Jazz by John F. Szwed, 2000.

Buco

Ok @dennis what's with a " two minute teaser trailer"?
Is there a blog post about to be published? Give us something...

Lango-Django

Well, looky here... the guy that wrote this is about fifteen years ahead of us...

https://rhythmcoglab.coursepress.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2014/09/CollierCollier_2002_A-study-of-timing-in-two-Louis-Armstrong-solos.pdf

Buco

Wow Will, this is great! I scanned over it and it sounds really interesting.

normjohnson

“The supreme misfortune is when theory outstrips performance”

― Leonardo da Vinci

Jazzaferri

While Will's link is an interesting read, it just goes to show that science doesn't get the fact that the music is in the spaces between the notes and not in the technical analysis. One has to really "hear" the feel on a holistic and deeper level

No one usually thinks about the letters in the words when speaking, and a lot of the time dont even think about the individual words. The cadence of the phrases depends on how we are feeling, happy sad, passionate, clinical etc etc.

Evan C gets it.