art/music

a

i've been dealing with this..
what i like about the "oriental" stuff (a lot of the gypsy stuff has this kind of harmony) is that it really strives to bust out of confines of western harmony without relying on arbitrary/reactionary schemes (like serialism). for example, with a lot of the taraf de haidouks stuff, it's deeply rooted in harmony but there are times when i can't tell if the tune is major or minor. the only problem with their stuff, is that it is too much about the community/tradition, and the individual expression gets lost a little. bach's stuff is great because all of his individual melodies have integrity (you can hear them fighting for attention), but somehow they work together.

a challenge with gypsy jazz is that it's very hard to create a sense that soloist/melodist has the potential to change the direction of the chords. it's like, the chords are master, and the solo is servant...almost superfluous icing on the cake. in fact, the times i've shown modern gypsy jazz recordings to the un-initiated, they're always like "wow, killer rhythm section." this happens even when i show django tracks.

but, django was good at giving a sense of freedom even within the confines of the chords. it's funny, because he cared about harmony and chords a lot. i guess he got to know that stuff so well that it helped him to brake out of confines of the chords. there are stories of his accompanists forgetting to play because they were so interested in what he was doing.

MichaelHorowitz

a wrote:

i've been dealing with this..
what i like about the "oriental" stuff (a lot of the gypsy stuff has this kind of harmony) is that it really strives to bust out of confines of western harmony without relying on arbitrary/reactionary schemes (like serialism). for example, with a lot of the taraf de haidouks stuff, it's deeply rooted in harmony but there are times when i can't tell if the tune is major or minor.

Actually, they're playing Romanian folk tunes which evolved before the introduction of harmony in Romania (which didn't really happen till the late 19th century.) Most of the music you here in the Balkans is more related to Turkish music then anything Western. But because of their geography, you get an interesting meld of Western instruments and harmony with Eastern musical practices.

What's very cool is how Western harmony gets adapted to the exotic, eastern modes used in the Balkans. For example you often have a Major I but a minor bvii chord. Really cool.

the only problem with their stuff, is that it is too much about the community/tradition, and the individual expression gets lost a little.

This is true with any folk music...it's bit like comparing apples and oranges here. Gypsy jazz is a form of music for entertainment whereas the Taraf stuff is folk music mostly for dancing. They really have very different functions in society.

Also, it should be mentioned that other then playing doinas, the Taraf guys aren't really doing much improv. Nothing near the level of Gypsy jazz player...

bach's stuff is great because all of his individual melodies have integrity (you can hear them fighting for attention), but somehow they work together.

Besides being a genius, he was composing Art music, which has really different goals and performance practice then Balkan folk music.

a challenge with gypsy jazz is that it's very hard to create a sense that soloist/melodist has the potential to change the direction of the chords. it's like, the chords are master, and the solo is servant...almost superfluous icing on the cake.

Exactly, the chords are the matser! Gypsy jazz is an extremely conservative form of jazz improv....if you like to get "outside" then you'll need to find musicians who like to do that. Most Gypsy players don't. Most of us spend our lives learning how to play over chords...that's the whole art of it.

Interesting topic!

'm

Jack

Over the last couple of years I felt like Stephane Wrembel was exploring some of this territory (not so much the last time I saw him) by using a lot of drones and the like. Not having a rhythm guitarist (much as the idea wounds me as a rhythm guitarist!) really opened up the sound to allow a much more fluid idea of harmony.

And not to take anything away from Stephane, who's always followed his own muse, but I have to admit I was really more excited by what he was doing then than at the last show I saw, which was much more electric jam band oriented. I left it wishing he'd given the other stuff more time...it felt like a whole new branch of gypsy jazz was opening up.

best,
Jack.

a

well, it's not really a matter of getting outside to me. it is, but it's also a matter of getting more inside. Expanding the possibilities within the limits.

It just feels like thee approach treats the chords like a given, like gravity. same thing with the key of the tune.

this is why i like django's solo belleville...i'm pretty sure it's all in the key or whatever, but it feels like he's just going and going...like taking a hot air balloon to the moon, instead of a rocket. maybe it has something to do with the fact that he's not playing over a dance beat.

oh yeah, there's something that's been lost in the modern stuff, but it's often that swingy/dancy stuff that appeals to most people who aren't musicians. it's funny because stephane once showed me a police album and said he likes his rhythm to sound like theirs. no up stroke. just vroomp - twack.

while the new guys have been able to catch up to django on the technical side, they ain't got nothing on him when it comes to ideas (except his!). i think that one of the ways django brakes the monotony of the chords is by playing lines that seem to be contradicting each other in their momentum/direction. it's like he can't just rely on one giant phrase for the whole section of chords like most new guys. it's more about soul than some dogma/spirit thing with him. so whereas django was really a jazz musician, the modern stuff is more like blue grass. his music was hot with ideas and even despite the old recording sound, you can really feel his musical presence. new stuff is cold, fast, sort of tunnel vision like.

Bones

Hi a,

Interesting questions.

I'm only a beginning lead player but from the transcriptions that I have studied by Django, he would definitely get 'outside' at times (especially for that period of time I imagine). For example. he would use the tritone sub for the V chord (either major, 7th, or maj7). Other things I've noticed I can't really categorize by the rules (anticipating the next chord, sequence ??) but they work.

The thing I wonder about is how do great soloists improvise like this on the fly especially at higher tempos. Djangos solos are so perfectly constructed sometimes that I wonder how much of it he worked out ahead of time. I'm guessing that he may have had some basic ideas worked out (like some of his trademark phrases) but the genius that he was I imagine that most of it just flowed out.

Jack

Here's a clip of Stephane playing earlier this year that illustrates a bit of what I was trying to get at:



best,
Jack.

HCPhilly

The question about how to improvise at fast tempos is a good one.
It's fair to say that virtually all great improvisers spend a lot of time working out ideas, especially in relation to outlining changes and
connecting chords. When you spend a lot of time transcribing
solos you really begin to see the underlying principles involved.
For example check out the way that a player like Clifford Brown approaches improvising at fast tempos. [There is a complete book of his solos available, notation only]. Listen to what he's doing, use a program to slow the track down and follow along, and try to analyze what's going on. You'll see many examples of change running, side stepping,
[enclosure]. This material is worked out, and drilled over and over, it has to be to have it under your fingers at fast tempos. Needless to say, it still takes creativity and musicianship to pull it off and make it sound musical, and you will certainly at times just play what you hear and feel. You have to work it out, because it needs to become 2nd nature as much as possible.
Also, on the guitar, it's really helpful to get your left hand in the right place on the neck to navigate changes. [ingraining by Rote. It works!]
You still have to make it sound, musical, the same goes for when you play Django's choruses and then your own. Tony Robbins would call it "Modeling,"
[It also works. It ain't easy, but it works!]
Charlie Parker developed his vocab by ingraining Lester Young's solos,
which he used to develop his vocab.
He slowed down the 78's to learn them. I've seen Wrembel play Django
solo after solo with the mp3 at the original tempo, and also slower to
emphasize nuances. As far as substitutions, Django of course had great ears and great intuition, and a wonderful sense of composition. He uses substitution and also bar line shifts amazingly well, his ideas sound like a precursor to the bop era. ["A Night In Tunisa," isn't really far away from the 1st few bars of "Dark eyes," especially when you hear Django's b5 approach with octaves].
His solo on pieces Like "I'll see You in my Dreams," are very symmetrical and pretty astounding from a compositional standpoint.
Like the famous sax solo in "Mood Indigo," or the shout chorus in
"Take the A Train," Django's solo is almost part of the original song.
His use
of themes and thematic development arguably rivals that of the great classical composers, and it really pulls the solo together [it reminds me at times of the way that Sonny Rollins uses themes and development.] All the more amazing, because he did it without learning textbook theory. Part melodic statement/ part new melody/solo. How much of it was planned out is a we will probably never know. The fact that we are still listening to it and are still moved by it in 2007 is pretty astounding in itself.

a

it would be interesting to make a list of all the phrases django played, and how many times they were used. i wonder how many he used, and how much of his playing was playing with those phrases/functions.

does music work like a language? or is it more like painting? is it about creating new languages or using the established language to communicate/express.

Ando

Alex

Check out Thierry 'Titi' Robin. Get his "Gitans" (first of all) and then "Ciel de Cuivre." I'd also like to hear how jazz manouche collides with flamenco a bit more. The twelve-beat format of the latter opens up new territory. I'm sure that percussionist with Wrembel would do wonders with a cajon.

Ando

Ando

I've been mining Django's "Blues Clair" for phrases. He repeats an ending lick quite a lot in that one. For someone who approaches soloing like painting, check out Tony Green. He definitely talks about what he does in terms of sketching, working things up, adding stronger colors and contrasts, and so on. It's a very useful set of terms for thinking globally about a sequence of choruses. I think learning to improvise melody is very much about learning grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. The main difficulties are a) patience, and b) losing the urge to communicate a story, an individual soul.

scot

Alex said:
"while the new guys have been able to catch up to django on the technical side, they ain't got nothing on him when it comes to ideas (except his!). i think that one of the ways django brakes the monotony of the chords is by playing lines that seem to be contradicting each other in their momentum/direction. it's like he can't just rely on one giant phrase for the whole section of chords like most new guys. it's more about soul than some dogma/spirit thing with him. so whereas django was really a jazz musician, the modern stuff is more like blue grass. his music was hot with ideas and even despite the old recording sound, you can really feel his musical presence. new stuff is cold, fast, sort of tunnel vision like."

I've been saying the same thing here for years. There are a lot of reasons why things went this way. Very few folks playing this music are trained jazz musicians is one big reason. Yes I know that Django wasn't trained but none of us have what he had. Many people who play this kind of music don't listen to much else and don't apply other influences into their GJ playing. In that way they are very like bluegrassers, many of who don't have the slightest interest in music outside bluegrass.

Compare the narrow focus of modern "gypsy jazz", music that generally shows zero influence from anywhere else, and the Ferre brothers. You can here traces of everything they ever listened to in their music - yet it still retains the connection to Django. It CAN be done.

It's really an interesting observation - that you feel trapped and even subordinated by the chords. I think that if you play with the same rhythm player for a period of time, you ought to be able to achieve (or at least aim for) some kind of equilibrium where the two instruments are on equal footing - sorry, Ferre brothers again. Well, you can learn a lot from their method even if the music is not what you like. I think that it's really important for any rhythm player to have the fundamental chords of a tune so totally mastered that you don't need a chart at all - so you can devote more attention to what the soloist is doing. That way you can try to anticipate what direction your soloist is heading, and provide whatever he wants - just harmonic and rhythmic support, or some kind of a chordal or rhythmic push. Truly working together as equals takes time and effort, of course, and it's helpful if you can leave your ego behind...

I've attached a link to "Tea for Two" played solo by Matelot Ferret, and I strongly recommend his dissonant and rubato solo of Sidney Bechet's "Petite Fleur" on "Tziganskaia" which was played entirely spontaneously in the studio. He was a fabulous guitar player. I may have other solo pieces by Matelot - I'll look and see if I do. It's too bad that there are not a lot more solo recordings of jazz pieces within our idiom.

viewtopic.php?p=22654&highlight=#22654

I play several other styles of music, too. One of them is solo fingerpick/ragtime blues. I have applied many chord shapes and melodic ideas from GJ into that kind of playing, and I really like the way it enhances my approach to that old-fashioned kind of music. It works both ways.