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I'm a fan of Joscho. But then I'm a fan of just about all of them. My playing is so basic that everyone else is impressive. But here's my take... the important people are the non-guitar-playing audience. For this music to spread even wider and generate enough appeal that artists can tour, and venues are full up, and CD (or streaming) sales warrant recording costs then the audience that matters isn't us, but is the non-guitar players - and from what I can gather they really like Joscho, and that is way more important than what we think.
Weird analogy, I know, I'm put in mind of seeing the first ever David Blaine street magic special all those years ago when David was blowing people's minds with a two dollar card trick that anyone could buy. All the heavy-weight card magicians were up in arms about how simple this effect was, and yet David was causing people on the street to scream, and run away, and declare him some kind of devil. He then went on to super-stardom, whilst all those other card magicians carried on practicing their diabolically difficult tricks that impressed other magicians but left Joe Public totally non-plussed.
One of the advantages we have over other forms of jazz is that Joe Public actually seems to like Gypsy Jazz, and we should take advantage of that. It seems to me that many other styles of jazz are very incestuous and involve playing to / teaching only other jazz musicians.
Cheers
Derek
No, I'm not. It's about the difference between "most", which is what you said, vs "nobody", which is what I said.
I think the best way to see it is most of the players who are on his level have the humility and understanding of what it takes to get to that level of playing guitar and therefore don’t see the need to criticise. However, players who haven’t put in that level of effort may not have developed this humility to not criticise so heavily. Although, everyone has a right to their own opinion and taste in terms of what they like. Some people prefer players like Angelo or Fapy who are also legendary players but their style is very different to Joscho. Of course a lot of us still put in as much effort as we can to reach a high level of this music. For example, I would like to say I put in a lot of effort however at the same time understand I have left it too late to ever develop the musical and technical understanding to match any of the players mentioned or even half of their level for that matter
Spot on, you said it perfectly.
'cept this part and that's your biggest mistake
For example, I would like to say I put in a lot of effort however at the same time understand I have left it too late to ever develop the musical and technical understanding to match any of the players mentioned or even half of their level for that matter
Because if you say that, you'll end up developing half of your potential.
I think the point of playing is to express yourself at the level of technical ability that you're currently at, while continuing to develop techical ability. You don't need to wait until you have a super-high technical ability before you can express yourself and communicate something genuine.
"Would Joscho be considered a legend?" - The simple answer is no.
youtube.com/user/TheTeddyDupont
Yikes.....ouch
opus20000 idea that you have to exceed some level of playing before you can "criticize" is pretty strange to me. Can't you say a movie was bad without being an accomplished filmmaker yourself? Can't you say you didn't enjoy your meal at a restaurant unless you're an award-winning chef? I could say that Blue Poles belongs in the garbage, even though I know absolutely nothing about painting. It's a question of taste.
That's part of being an artist, you're not beyond criticism from the peanut gallery. Quite opposite, especially in the performing arts- you're putting yourself on display for the public to critique.
I liked Buco's earlier analogy with language. One can still communicate something meaningful just using basic and simple words. On the other hand, you can know every word in the dictionary, speak perfectly and fluently, but still not be saying anything interesting.
If half my potential is half as good as stochello or bireli or Joscho I think I would still be happy. But for me music is about the journey not the destination. I know if I work hard enough I think I can get to a point where I would be considered a good musician. I really like Christiaan van hemert’s video about the levels of jazz guitar and the hours, tunes learned and technical aspects of levelling up to the next part. For someone who is mathematically inclined it allows me to set goals to achieve to go to ‘the next level’. I’ve been recording my hours since and writing up notes at the end of each month in terms of things I’ve learned, what I’ve improved on and what still needs work. I’m hoping that once I’ve reached the 10,000 hour mark I could write an entry on here about my experience reaching this goal and what I would have done differently
This is a very strange thread.
In terms of playing, Joscho's renowned technique is already legendary even as I type this. Same w/Bireli, Stochelo, Jimmy, Debarre, Adrian, Gonzalo, etc. - these are all modern masters of the style, songs & technique and at this point there's way too many incredible players to list at because the talent pool for this genre at present has probably reached an all-time high, yet will only continue to grow due to the vastly superior resources we have nowadays for learning it.
That said, as far as being an actual LEGEND of music, I really like the earlier person who commented something like "there's only 1 legend - Django" and "ultimately we are all playing and interpreting his music" because that's the honest truth.
Personally, I tend to gravitate away from the more folk-inspired Manouche songs -- why? Simply because my American sensibilities will always find more pleasure in playing swing or even more "modern" era tunes such as Monk, Coltrane, Miles, etc. in large part that's what I was raised on and what I'll always hear. However, even if/when I'm not playing songs that would be considered "authentic" to the genre, I still owe all of my playing technique and inspiration to Django. And that's what makes Django the one and true forever legend because without his virtuosic musicality none of us would even be here right now having such a strange debate.