The typical Django-solo

mmaslan

I do think Django likes to build his solos is discernible stages. He often begins with something dramatic, like the chords at the beginning of the 1937 minor swing solo or the commanding runs near the beginning of those in Nuages 1940 and Blues en Minor 1940. The alternative is to beginning by echoing some element of the melody, as in the solo to Douce Ambiance. The first grabs the listener's attention; the second makes the solo seem like an direct outgrowth of the melody. Once introductions have been made, he tends to build gradually to a climax, starting with simple, melodic material and getting faster, louder, or both as he goes along. The climax can involve a series of fast runs, octaves, some high-pitched chords, or all of the above. Sometimes he builds to two climaxes, with the first serving as a sort of teaser preview. The climax can finish off the solo, but he often likes to turn down the heat at the end and leave us with something simple and understated, a soft landing.

He also likes to sprinkle little motifs from the melody throughout the solo as a kind of structural element, although he doesn't develop his material out of them exactly. He takes the four eighth notes at the beginning of the Douce Ambiance melody, for example, trims them down to three in the third measure of the solo, and returns to them in the 19th and 22nd measures, albeit at different pitches. This provides a sense of continuity if not of development exactly; it's a rhythmic way of reminding you of the melody.

I think it's hard to compare solos from the 78 era, when a song lasted three or four minutes, to those from the LP era, when a soloist had a lot more time to develop his or her ideas. The longer the solo, the more need for structure. The swing era soloist had to be be succinct; the post war soloist had to build something coherent over an increasingly long period of time. It's a different job description.

Arnstein

Great reply mmaslan, that was just what I was thinking about!

MichaelHorowitz

mmaslan wrote:

I do think Django likes to build his solos is discernible stages. .

Definitely...and his solos certainly had climaxes, motifs, and other structural elements. But by comparison, he was still building his solos in a very different way then those who rely more strongly on melodic development. With Django, there was more reliance on spontaneity and drama then structural coherence. Django's playing was more baroque in nature...like Bach, Django's playing was more about function then form. The melodic development school is more of classical type approach, putting more emphasis on formal structure in a solo.

I'm getting the feeling that people are somehow feeling that saying Django's solo don't contain much melodic development is somehow slighting him. that's certainly not the case, it's just a different approach. Again, one which emphasizes spontaneity over structure. Personally, I think it's much more fun to listen to!

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MichaelHorowitz

pallopenna wrote:

The more I listen to Django's solos the more the melodic elements strike me. Granted he used riffs and patterns, but it's how he used them and, to my ears, most of the time they're employed in the service of melodic shaping.

Hi Paul...I'm not saying Django's solos don't have melody. I'm saying they're not based primarily on melodic development. Those are two entirely different things...to hear real full blown melodic development you need to listen to players like Sonny Rollins or Jim Hall. They are really using that concept in it's purest form. I think if you listen and analyze their solos, you'll get more of an idea of the melodic development concept and how it differs from what Django was doing.

I'm not talking about the difference between robotic lick players and melodic players here. Django was certainly a melodic player.

I'm talking about the difference between more structurally based players like Jim Hall as compared to more rhapsodic players like Django. That's the distinction I'm trying to point out.

I would also say many of the early bebop players had little melodic development. Including Bird, Diz, etc. You really see the melodic development school of playing come later in the 50s and 60s.

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mmaslan

Michael's analogy to classical music history seems apt to me, although I can't pretend to a full understanding of the method of the great Sonny Rollins. A movement in a Baroque suite or concerto was usually just a few minutes long, like a 78 rpm single. Sonata form, with its development section, came later, with Classical composers like Haydn and Mozart. This structure enabled Classical composers to construct movements far longer than anything found in Baroque music. But nobody would say that Bach and Handel weren't sophisticated or rigorous composers because their movements did not follow dictates that did not even exist when they wrote.

In jazz, I suspect the shift had a lot to do with Monk, whom Coltrane admired for what he called his sense of "architecture." But I'm out of my depth here. . . .