Have You Ever Heard A Worse Jazz Orchestra Than This?

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#21
Sprags said:
...basic deal is is you can't learn how to play blues guitar if you're a 15 year old white kid from the suburbs.
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Yeah, to play the blues properly you have to have had a long hard life, a chemical addiction to a few illegal substances, a few failed marriages, a gambling problem, a propensity to violence, and maybe a criminal record. 😀

Because, apparently, playing three dominant-seventh chords in a row is just that hard to get right. 😀

-Gnobuddy
 
#22
Intentionally and blissfully ignorant of the preceding several pages in this thread, I feel inclined to suspect that gno might have salted his last post with just a sprinkle of sarcasm - something which I frequently attempt myself.

As for needing a lengthy and tragic life history to learn how to play blues guitar (or any instrument/ genre) - in my humble experience- I call BS to that

Write meaningful soul-wrenching lyrics - definitely maybe - but I'd wager there are legions of younguns in basements around the world posting YouTube videos right now that would contradict that position.

For example, the late Jeff Healey - was 15 when he formed his first band, and after knocking around Toronto area for a bit; what's that called, something about "dues" -as if being blind by the age of one count? He was only 22 when he wrote a little tune named "Angel Eyes"
 
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#23
chrisb said:
...I feel inclined to suspect that gno might have salted his last post with just a sprinkle of sarcasm...
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More than a sprinkle, but you're quite right! 😀

chrisb said:
As for needing a lengthy and tragic life history to learn how to play blues guitar (or any instrument/ genre) - in my humble experience- I call BS to that
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Ditto. There was an earlier mention on the thread about someone (a fictional character in a film) claiming that a teenager of European ancestry was automatically incapable of playing the blues, presumably because of both her age and skin colour...I find that not only absurd, but also more than a little offensive.

(BTW, I threw in the "her"; those sorts of attitudes usually go with sexism to match the racism and ageism, so in the mind of the fictional character who made those statements, I'm sure all women were automatically excluded from the awesomeness needed to play the blues, regardless of skin colour or age.)

From my point of view, the sordid truth is that blues is - almost always - a primitive, predictable, boring, repetitive, tragically simplistic, form of lowest-common-denominator music. Many guitarists of a certain age seem to like blues - IMO, probably because they are so boringly predictable that anyone can jam along. No ear for harmony, or musical creativity, needed.

Put another way (and over-simplified for fun!), there are 12 notes in Western music. Great jazz players use all 12. Simple pop music uses 7, while more complex pop music might use a few more (chromatic notes, key changes, etc).

And blues players? They use a whopping 5 notes in their pentatonic scales, and boast mightily about the astonishing complexity of their art. 😀

By the way, I agree with you entirely about prodigious talent often trumping a lifetime of experience - look up Emily Bear if you haven't already heard of her. She was fronting a jazz trio - playing dozens of complex, beautiful original compositions - by the time she was thirteen years old. 😱

-Gnobuddy
 
#24
gno - not to contradict above, but there's something to be said for a good piece of blues making such a lot with less (notes)

Emperor Joseph II: My dear young man, don't take it too hard. Your work is ingenious. It's quality work. And there are simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect.
Mozart: Which few did you have in mind, Majesty?

thanks for the tip on Emily Bear

Joey Alexander, folks

final ps -- I know of a few jazz musicians capable of more than all twelve notes - Roland Kirk, Ornette Coleman are the first that come to mind, and I think FZ used more than just 7 or 9 on occasion .
 
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#27
chrisb said:
gno - not to contradict above, but there's something to be said for a good piece of blues making such a lot with less (notes)
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Fair enough. It's just that there is so much blues-machismo thrown around that I can't resist an occasional push in the opposite direction. 🙂

I have certainly enjoyed a few inspired blues songs along the way, for instance, Peter Green's "Need Your Love So Bad". Probably not coincidentally, said song isn't comprised of nothing but dominant seventh chords - there's even a diminished chord in there. And there have been a few musicians of such talent that they could make blues sound interesting - Gary Moore, for instance, or Derek Trucks.

But if I never hear another insipid, uninspired twelve-bar blues shuffle in my life, I suspect I will manage to contain my broken heart quite well. 😀
chrisb said:
I know of a few jazz musicians capable of more than all twelve notes.
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Good point. Microtonal stuff aside, good violinists will play notes from the equally tempered scale when playing along with a piano - but will play in just temperament when playing with other non-fretted string instruments, so that, for instance, the notes C# and Db are no longer exactly the same pitch. In effect, each black note on the piano becomes two different - but very closely spaced - notes.

Amazing, and awe-inspiring, considering the subtlety involved, but true - I learned this during a discussion with a very skilled violinist on the evils of equal temperament. It probably helped that he played everything from Egyptian traditional music to European classical music to contemporary jazz, so he was more tuned-in to all sorts of unusual musical scales than most musicians are.

-Gnobuddy
 
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