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I'd love to see/hear some Django & other Gypsy jazz solos (Birelli anyone??) done like this?
Ben, assuming you aren't thinking of just lyrics to Django tunes, of which there have been some excellent examples mentioned in a previous thread, the nearest I can think of to vocalese is the vocal version of
Rythm Futur/Soucoupes Volantes on the recent Adrien Moignard album.
It features in the (excellent) teaser video on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/moignardadrien/videos/10158776805145530/
or Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/13kKfOOnYDdCRMJEFevdsY?highlight=spotify:track:3uymMvRVOeNJUoka2S8KvJ
@Bill Da Costa Williams -exactly not just lyrics. I love the Baggerman and Eva; and Also Django Chant, but I'd love to see someone take this technique all the way . . . I guess franglais will have at least two of these on our next full band post pandemic recording session . . . whenever that will be.
And yeah Sanseverino is a great artist in his own right (vocally, guitar, composing, and he's pretty damn good at banjo too . . . ). That's closer for sure. Also the tempo on the rhythm future is nice - not so crazy fast. And then there is Adrien . . who is superb as ever.
My wife (because of her teachers and interests as a singer) has done quite a few - Remember from J. Redman's live a the village vanguard, Miles Davis on Budo, Freddie Hubbard's solo from Stolen moments, and a couple of other ones. I think I can get her on a few Django solos over standards.
@bbwood_98 the live version of Budo sounds great.
Look forward to hearing what she might do on a Django solo.
Any thoughts on suitable solos?
"I'll see you in my dreams" comes to mind.
Thanks for bringing up to speed on the correct title—“Twisted”—and the soloist. I knew I could count on the brain trust to correct my lazy ass.
And, yeah, I think a vocalese version of “I’ll See You in My Dreams” would be great.
Not Django, but related: french valse musette. The master is André Minvielle: 1) Flambée Montalbanaise, 2) Indifference.
Chief, I second your comments about knowing the melody.
I’m a bit of a moldy fig around here but for me it helps me with my phrasing to play stuff occasionally with some sort of rhythmic relationship to the melody...
Plus using the melody helps mystify the paying public into believing that we jazz magicians are improvising based upon the melody... and our lofty artistic expressions rise far above the prosaic dictates of the underlying chords!
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Plus, one of my favourite tricks is to play the melody and then immediately comment upon it..
It had to be you! (doodly diddily dat dat!)
It had to be you! (ya da da dad-a-la doot doot!)
...obviously this trick quickly becomes annoying if overused, but still... it’s fun and easy!
Will
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."
Agreed @Lango-Django. Incorporating the melody also helps make a tune recognizable rather than just blasting a bunch of notes over it. One of the gripes I have playing with some of my musician friends is when they say "hey you got the melody? I'll just solo over whatever." Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but this ain't a jam band!
Yeah! I occasionally listen to the local mainstream jazz station, and if you tune in in the middle of most tunes, you have no idea what song they are improvising over...
Sax players are generally the worst offenders! After a while every song sounds like meaningless saxophone gobbledygook.... without real tonality... bordering on being noise... and that’s when I get up and change stations!
I guess I’m too old school for that kind of stuff...
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Another thing I like to do when I play is to use the melody as a takeoff point...
“It had to be... doodly doodly doodly etc.“
.... or else, use the melody as an excuse to play one if those Django half step bends that have a wonderful horn-like quality on a Selmac guitar...
“It had to be [string bend up to the melody note]”
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 I would guess sax players probably say the same about guitarists who, having lost their way just noodle for a few bars. Either you are playing something related to the tune, whether the melody or harmonising with the chords or you are not.
But this has all gone off the subject now. The question was can singing help with improvising and my point was that I can only do that silent 'sing it in my head' thing to tell my fingers where to go; if I tried really singing, y'know, out loud, well it would confound even the most out there sax player!
I had two bandleader-mentors who always started with the basics--the melody and the changes--no matter where they wound up going. In fact, one of the most damning things Dan (a veteran bar-band rock player and huge fan of progressive music of all kinds) could say about a soloist is "he's not playing through the changes." Mike, who came out of country and folk, could (and often did) sing any solo he played, John Pizzarelli style. And I spent several terms watching a reed player teach jazz improv to university music majors, and he pointed out that for the sax players especially the instrument's layout makes it easy to string a bunch of notes together real fast, but that it's more challenging and interesting to leave some space and choose fewer. (He also said that there are no wrong notes, but I suspect that was mostly to reduce the anxiety of page-bound players just getting used to using their ears.)
I confess to being mystified at any musician who does not hear, internally, the melody and the changes when playing--I mean, nobody requests "Dorian minor" or "B-flat arpeggios" or even "pentatonic blues in E" from the dance floor. (Though plenty of bar bands seem content to play that last one all night.) A great melody invites a particular kind of improvisation--play through a bunch of Jerome Kern compositions and watch for the surprises, which are also delights.