Contrasting solo construction in Lennie Tristano and Charlie Parker
Paulo
in non-musical terms what I listen to in jazz. The grammar of jazz
gives me a generous stock of structures to describe other language
constructs. Let me give a concrete example: a friend was telling me
that she couldn't articulate her ideas precisely when she talked. She
resented that she grabbed an idea and went on and went on, relentlessly
forward, distilling the idea horizontally. I immediately thought of Lee
Konitz, Warne Marsh or Lennie Tristano solos. In contrast, I feel
dizzy, a vertigo, if I see myself exploring an idea moving forward all
the time, as if I couldn't sense where the thing would end. I then
thought of the way Charlie Parker built his solos. They hit me as
vertical, two-dimensional, as if he's trying to draw the whole picture
on a two-dimensional sheet of paper before showing it. I feel Tristano
& family writing a very long, sinuous, unending sentence, that
continually falls off the edge of the paper, so they have to place
another paper at the right and continue writing, ad aeternum. There's
certainly structure there too, but it feels horizontal to me.
Exactly because I'm not a musician, I envy those who can talk in
musical terms about the way they listen to jazz. So I wonder if someone
would care to contrast, in musical terms, the method Tristano & family
employed to construct their solos, with the method Parker & family
employed.
Paulo
j_ns...@msn.com
you're calling "vertical" and Bud Powell and Oscar Peterson would be
"horizontal"?
Joseph Scott
Paulo
Not quite. I don't like Oscar Peterson so I can't comment on him. This
is strictly how I feel:
Count Basie: definitely not horizontal, but I don't feel him as
vertical either
John Lewis: horizontal, ma non troppo
Bud Powell: definitely vertical
I feel that Tristano, Konitz & Marsh are quintessentially horizontal,
while the beboppers as a whole are quintessentially vertical.
Did I manage to paint the scenario more clearly ?
Paulo
Yard
(including "in musical terms"), I suggest you read "Jazz Visions"
(Equinox Publishing, 2005) written by bassist Peter Ind, who studied
and played with him during the 50's.
Yard
Paulo
> If you are seriously interested in learning about Tristano's music
> (including "in musical terms"), I suggest you read "Jazz Visions"
> (Equinox Publishing, 2005) written by bassist Peter Ind, who studied
> and played with him during the 50's.
Thanks for the tip, Yard. Could you tell me a bit more about the book ?
I found it at Amazon but there are no comments and you can't look
inside it. As I said, I'm not a musician but I'm acquainted with
musical terms. I wanted to know if my acquaintance level would be
enough to follow the book.
Paulo
Yard
http://www.equinoxpub.com/books/showbook.asp?bkid=136
It details the contents and gives a general outline. Explanations
involving "musical terms" are simple and to the point.
Yard
Andy Evans
while the beboppers as a whole are quintessentially vertical. >
Just because Bud Powell and Parker used a lot of vertical arpeggios and
scales doesn't mean they don't have a forward game plan.
Just because Basie and Konitz played less vertical notes doesn't mean
they had a superior forward game plan.
Pete
And of course there's the use of space:
Lennie Tristano is actually closer to Charlie Parker or Bud Powell in
terms of phrase lengths and space in between phrases, long phrases with
less spaces. On the other hand theres Basie, Monk or early minimalist
Ahmad who delivered their highly efficient and usually shorter phrases
after longer pauses.
You can have alot to say and say it in long elegant and
well-articulated sentences but you run the risk of sounding like you
are spewing uniteresting wandering gibberish if you dont make yourself
clear and dont have anything interesting anywhere in there. The other
side is that you can say what you need to say in brief powerful
sentences but theres also the chance that people might think you just
dont have anything interesting to say or have very much to say for
yourself.
Paulo
Wow ! You do have the knack of hitting the bull's eye with the minimum
number of arrows !
But I didn't mean to say that the beboppers didn't have a forward game
plan, only that they "felt" vertical to me, that this was the dimension
that hit me harder, or perhaps hit me first. Nor did I say that
Tristano et al had a superior forward game plan, only that they felt
"horizontal", before anything else.
If I got you clealy, you're saying that the two dimensions are not
mutually exclusive, that one may be dominant but doesn't imply the
inexistence of the other. I was reductionist in equating the whole
thing in terms of one dimension. What was a line in my reasoning became
two-dimensional space in your comments. Great !
Paulo
Paulo
> > I feel that Tristano, Konitz & Marsh are quintessentially horizontal,
> > while the beboppers as a whole are quintessentially vertical. >
[...]
> And of course there's the use of space:
> Lennie Tristano is actually closer to Charlie Parker or Bud Powell in
> terms of phrase lengths and space in between phrases, long phrases with
> less spaces. On the other hand theres Basie, Monk or early minimalist
> Ahmad who delivered their highly efficient and usually shorter phrases
> after longer pauses.
> You can have alot to say and say it in long elegant and
> well-articulated sentences but you run the risk of sounding like you
> are spewing uniteresting wandering gibberish if you dont make yourself
> clear and dont have anything interesting anywhere in there. The other
> side is that you can say what you need to say in brief powerful
> sentences but theres also the chance that people might think you just
> dont have anything interesting to say or have very much to say for
> yourself.
This thread is starting to give me goose-bumps. It relates directly to
what I originally had in mind: to use musical terms to describe the way
a person develops an idea orally. It would be interesting to apply the
criteria that are being laid out here reflexively, to the posts
themselves, to "read" them musically, as if we all, with our individual
posts, were building up a musical piece.
As a non-musician, I allow myself to ignore all other musical
dimensions, and tend to use space as my privileged yardstick to measure
styles. The use of space hits me harder than anything else. But, as you
precisely pointed out, this criteria is superimposed over/under the
horizontal/vertical one, it adds another layer of meaning. Like Bach's
counterpoint: two melodic lines, superimposed, creating a third line,
out of the vertical piling up, point counter point, of each pair of
corresponding notes from the original melodic lines.
Brooding over your post made me understand why, in spite of thoroughly
enjoying Konitz & Marsh, I feel at home, cozy, with Monk, and one thing
doesn't exclude the other for me, no vertical better/worse judgements
here, just qualitative differences. Last night I was showing a friend
albums by a bandoneon player named Gabriel Rivano. Running along all
the stylistic differences between the bandoneon players, they all
"spoke" all the time. Some more melodically (Anibal Troilo), others
more rhythmically (Astor Piazzolla), but they all "spoke" all the time.
Rivano introduces space. I'd risk a very questionable affirmation here:
musicians that privilege space, like Monk and Basie, parallel more
closely the way we think. When I listen to Monk, it hits me
immediately: "he's thinking with his fingers". Monk helps me to think,
helps me to shape my thoughts, or, better said, helps me, it forces me
to respect my natural way of thinking, it tells me: "don't interfere
with the way your mind naturally thinks, look, here's what you should
do".
Let me ask you something: do you know of any books that explore the use
of space in jazz ?
Paulo
Paulo
You really wetted my appetite. Amazon sells it at $29.95 + $12.98
surface shipping (to Brazil), which is salty. The most likely outcome
is: this discussion is building up in such an interesting direction
that a time will come that I won't resist and order it, salty or not.
It had been some time since I last listened to Tristano. Your reference
brought him back. I'm listening to Atlantic's '56 "Lennie Tristano" as
I write.
Thank you very much indeed for the reference
Paulo
Paulo
I made the "mistake" of bumping into:
http://www.lennietristano.com/docs/zenandjazz.html
The result: I've just ordered "Jazz Visions" directly from Equinox.
Same price as Amazon's but just $5 shipping.
If I were British, now it would befit a "cheers, mate" !
Paulo
nine...@grandecom.net
When a player uses the terms vertical and horizontal they may mean different
things than you mean.
Vertical = Coleman Hawkins and any others who explore each individual chord
as it passes by. Lots of arpeggios.
Many pianists are vertical, regardless of how much space they use.
Horizontal = Lester Young and others who work toward playing a melodic line
which 'makes' the changes, i. e., notes that occur over certain chords may
not tell you what the chord underneath is, but it is a good note choice.
The horizontal concept is often referred to as linear.
I don't know of any players (Hawkins and Young included) who are strictly
one or the other.
Vertical playing takes lots of practice--you have to sit down and learn
arpeggios and scales for every chord and you end up creating etudes of
continuous 8th notes which clearly demarcate the chords. It's physical and
intellectual work, and when you take such work through all 12 keys it can
make you want to pull your hair out. Nearly all the great players have some
of this work in their history (Lester Young did this work when he played
clarinet with his family band--and Louis Armstrong did the same work when he
copied clarinet solos early in his learning process.). It's part of learning
to play. Early Count Basie and early Monk are also more vertical and use
less space--they are caught up in the process of learning to 'nail down' the
changes. Later they shift gears. In your analogy to language, it's like
learning vocabulary, grammar, sentence construction, spelling, etc. Things I
would lump under the heading 'mechanics.'
The horizontal or linear aspect is similar to poetry. Generally, if you want
to be eloquent, you need powerful mechanical tools behind you when you reach
out for those gems of language. How well did the poets of Shakespeare's
time, for instance, understand language construction, etc? There's usually
someone who brings up the mythical personality who didn't bother with all
that study. This Romantic icon simply walked onto the world's stage and
began uttering thoughts of genius and never bothered learning C7 chords or
rules of grammar.
It's generally nonsense, and even if it is true, the rest of us have to do
the work anyway.
The dangers inherent in each approach are pretty obvious once you get some
chords and scales under your hands.
Exclusively vertical playing can sound mechanical--"he's playing exercises."
Exclusively linear or horizontal playing can be a way for a lazier musician
to dodge responsibility to his instrument and the music in question. You see
this is younger players who don't want to practice arpeggios, scales, etc.
They come to a jam session and sputter about while they fish for the perfect
melody. It becomes really obvious when a young player who sounds fine on a
blues in F has to play something in Db. Uh oh.
Jamal can make wonderful stuff happen with this approach, but he knows the
changes underneath cold, which is why he has the necessary control.
This is just my take on what the two terms imply. I think I first read this
use of the terms in Jerry Coker's books on jazz.
To go to your question about the difference in Parker and Tristano, I hear
in Parker a musician who is in total control of the vertical aspect. He then
creates linear (horizontal) lines which are both beautifully melodic and
mechanically perfect. I hate him. It's not fair.
Tristano, to my ears, took the intellectual implications of the bop style
into abstraction. He goes for long lines which may or may not indicate the
changes below. In some cases he deliberately avoids 'good' notes to achieve
an effect. It's almost like a stream of consciousness writer, so your
analogy has merit. I think, but I don't know, that Tristano's logic was the
idea of the integrity of the line itself outweighing the necessity of making
the changes. To some extent, I think Tristano was less interested in rhythm,
and thus avoided resolution at times. Parker usually resolves his lines when
the chords underneath resolve. In other words, his lines fit the changes,
the groove, the melodic import of the song, etc. His skill at creating
variations is top flight, but perhaps less 'daring' or 'crazy' than
Tristano. At one point in my learning process I tried playing the changes of
a song in one key while improvising with my right hand in another key. It
was a way to explore new territory. Sometimes the results sounded like
Tristano to me (depending on which two keys I used).
Music and language:
In Straight No Chaser Teo Macero is talking to Monk in the studio about
doing some free jazz. Monk says, "Like Dixieland?" Teo then shows him want
he wants--and the sound is similar to Tristano. Monk then mumbles something
that sounds like, "I want a melody and a groove, so the people can dig it.
And that sh*t'll be good."
Another great one: someone asked Count Basie how he'd like to be remembered.
He said, "Two words. Nice guy."
How much more perfect can you get? I hate him. It's not fair.
Morris Nelms
"Paulo" <marce...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1137101919.2...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Paulo
I got so excited with your exposition that I couldn't make myself
settle down enough to write. You were very generous and I thank you
sincerely for that.
> Many pianists are vertical, regardless of how much space they use.
Great ! Vertical/horizontal and space/dense are independent criteria.
Pete had indicated that and you brought it out explicitly. The picture
gets more interesting, more dimensions.
> When a player uses the terms vertical and horizontal they may mean different
> things than you mean.
> Vertical = Coleman Hawkins and any others who explore each individual chord
> as it passes by. Lots of arpeggios.
> Horizontal = Lester Young and others who work toward playing a melodic line
> which 'makes' the changes, i. e., notes that occur over certain chords may
> not tell you what the chord underneath is, but it is a good note choice.
> The horizontal concept is often referred to as linear.
> I don't know of any players (Hawkins and Young included) who are strictly
> one or the other.
Got your point. Vertical and horizontal are not mutually exclusive:
it's a matter of privileging one of these dimensions. Coffee is still
coffee even if you pour some milk in it.
> Vertical playing takes lots of practice--you have to sit down and learn
> arpeggios and scales for every chord and you end up creating etudes of
> continuous 8th notes which clearly demarcate the chords. It's physical and
> intellectual work, and when you take such work through all 12 keys it can
> make you want to pull your hair out. Nearly all the great players have some
> of this work in their history (Lester Young did this work when he played
> clarinet with his family band--and Louis Armstrong did the same work when he
> copied clarinet solos early in his learning process.). It's part of learning
> to play. Early Count Basie and early Monk are also more vertical and use
> less space--they are caught up in the process of learning to 'nail down' the
> changes. Later they shift gears. In your analogy to language, it's like
> learning vocabulary, grammar, sentence construction, spelling, etc. Things I
> would lump under the heading 'mechanics.'
Zen has a lot to say on this. No wonder that Zen and jazz are always
linked. People practice the tea ceremony for years and years. The
technique has to be so thoroughly mastered until it can be forgotten. I
like a Zen saying that says that language is an axe that you sharpen
all your life so that one day you can use it to cut its own handle and
render the axe useless. From a Brazilian writer named Clarice
Lispector, roughly translated:
"My voice is the medium through which I search for reality; reality,
before my language, exists as a thought that doesn't think itself.
Reality comes before the voice that searches for it, but like earth
comes before the tree, like the world comes before the man, like the
sea comes before the vision of the sea, the body flesh comes before the
body, and, in its turn, language one day will come before silence takes
over. I have, in as much as I give names - and this is the splendor of
having a language. But I have even more, in as much as I can't give
names. And it's useless to try to find a shortcut, wanting to start,
already knowing that the voice says little. Because there is the path,
and the path is not just a way of going. The path is ourselves. In
life, one can never arrive earlier. The via-crux is not a wrong turn,
it's the only passage, and you can't reach the end but through it and
with it. Insistence is our effort, giving up is the reward."
In other words, reinforcing what you said, you've gotta sweat over your
chords, so that you can't forget about them.
> The horizontal or linear aspect is similar to poetry. Generally, if you want
> to be eloquent, you need powerful mechanical tools behind you when you reach
> out for those gems of language. How well did the poets of Shakespeare's
> time, for instance, understand language construction, etc? There's usually
> someone who brings up the mythical personality who didn't bother with all
> that study. This Romantic icon simply walked onto the world's stage and
> began uttering thoughts of genius and never bothered learning C7 chords or
> rules of grammar.
> It's generally nonsense, and even if it is true, the rest of us have to do
> the work anyway.
Haiku has 5-7-5 syllables and it's gotta be a precise snapshot, a world
unto itself. And the inhuman discipline to achieve this... Which
reminds me of Bill Evans, in the liner notes to "Kind of Blue":
"There's a Japanese visual art in which the artist is forced to be
spontaneous. he must paint on a thin stretched parchment with a special
brush and black water paint in such a way that an unnatural or
interrupted stroke will destroy the line or break through the
parchment. Erasures or changes are impossible. These artists must
practice a particular discipline, that of allowing the idea to express
itself in communication with their hands in such a direct way that
deliberation cannot interfere".
Once again, technique must be so thoroughly interiorized before you can
forget about it. But technique is not the end. It's not even the means.
It's just the strenuous exercise one must go through before trying to
reach the end directly.
I lived with a girlfriend who played the alto sax. At one of the
workshops she attended, the teacher said it was useless to learn how to
say something with your instrument (the technique) if you had nothing
to say (the expression). Contrast this with another one that almost
made me throw up at his feet: he came from the French classical
saxophone school and had a phenomenal technique but, after you heard
one of his performance, nothing got stuck in your ears or memory,
anyway, he said: "if my wages were proportional to the number of notes
I can play per second, I'd be a rich man", and he took pride in this.
> The dangers inherent in each approach are pretty obvious once you get some
> chords and scales under your hands.
> Exclusively vertical playing can sound mechanical--"he's playing exercises."
> Exclusively linear or horizontal playing can be a way for a lazier musician
> to dodge responsibility to his instrument and the music in question. You see
> this is younger players who don't want to practice arpeggios, scales, etc.
> They come to a jam session and sputter about while they fish for the perfect
> melody. It becomes really obvious when a young player who sounds fine on a
> blues in F has to play something in Db. Uh oh.
> Jamal can make wonderful stuff happen with this approach, but he knows the
> changes underneath cold, which is why he has the necessary control.
It's really interesting to hear this. It feels very concrete to me.
> This is just my take on what the two terms imply. I think I first read this
> use of the terms in Jerry Coker's books on jazz.
Is any of them palatable to a layman like myself ?
> To go to your question about the difference in Parker and Tristano, I hear
> in Parker a musician who is in total control of the vertical aspect. He then
> creates linear (horizontal) lines which are both beautifully melodic and
> mechanically perfect. I hate him. It's not fair.
> Tristano, to my ears, took the intellectual implications of the bop style
> into abstraction. He goes for long lines which may or may not indicate the
> changes below. In some cases he deliberately avoids 'good' notes to achieve
> an effect. It's almost like a stream of consciousness writer, so your
> analogy has merit. I think, but I don't know, that Tristano's logic was the
> idea of the integrity of the line itself outweighing the necessity of making
> the changes. To some extent, I think Tristano was less interested in rhythm,
> and thus avoided resolution at times. Parker usually resolves his lines when
> the chords underneath resolve. In other words, his lines fit the changes,
> the groove, the melodic import of the song, etc. His skill at creating
> variations is top flight, but perhaps less 'daring' or 'crazy' than
> Tristano. At one point in my learning process I tried playing the changes of
> a song in one key while improvising with my right hand in another key. It
> was a way to explore new territory. Sometimes the results sounded like
> Tristano to me (depending on which two keys I used).
This is really fascinating. Let's see if I got it right. In Parker, the
chords drive and shape the melodic line, or perhaps more precisely, the
melodic line is extracted from the the chord line (is it correct to say
"chord line" ?), so the chord line comes first. I think of Bach,
inverted: superimposed melodic lines vertically producing a chord line.
In Tristano, the focus falls directly on the melodic line, without the
intercession of the chord line.
Tristano feels like running blind-folded (no pun intended with his
blindness). Parker feels like drawing a map before running, but not the
precise path; a set of alternatives is defined beforehand for each stop
along the path. Would this be a valid analogy ?
> Music and language:
> In Straight No Chaser Teo Macero is talking to Monk in the studio about
> doing some free jazz. Monk says, "Like Dixieland?" Teo then shows him want
> he wants--and the sound is similar to Tristano. Monk then mumbles something
> that sounds like, "I want a melody and a groove, so the people can dig it.
> And that sh*t'll be good."
> Another great one: someone asked Count Basie how he'd like to be remembered.
> He said, "Two words. Nice guy."
> How much more perfect can you get? I hate him. It's not fair.
This is pure poetry. I hate him, too, and I hate you for nailing this
theme down so precisely and viscerally. It's not fair.
I remembered one: Lester Young played drums and always got the
"left-overs" from the women at the gigs because, by the time he had
disassembled his drums, the other guys had taken over the
better-looking chicks. So he switched to the saxophone.
Another one, by Borges, a writer from Buenos Aires: "when I die, forget
my name, forget who I was; I'd just like that one or two of my words
became part of the Spanish language".
Thank you very much, Morris, for the great trip that was reading and
reacting to your text. Your discourse is articulated and vital, at the
same time. I wish I had the chance of hearing you "speak" through your
piano.
Paulo
nine...@grandecom.net
> workshops she attended, the teacher said it was useless to learn how to
> say something with your instrument (the technique) if you had nothing
> to say (the expression).
This is very true. A visual artist I know put it this way: "Form follows
content. What do you want to say? Then you will know how to say it."
However, at the beginning stages, I wonder if any musician knows enough
musical vocabulary to clearly formulate ideas or statements? Once again, the
language comparison shows up. A child of 3 may have some thoughts that are
as profound as any adult, but without the means of communication, we can't
know that. So we copy someone else, just like we copy our parents to learn
to speak.
"if my wages were proportional to the number of notes
> I can play per second, I'd be a rich man", and he took pride in this.
The statement at face value has some merit--classical pianists try to get
major scales up to speeds that amazed me when I first was exposed to it. If
by this he means one should have an unimpeachable technique, great. If by
this he means that he measures a successful performance by how many notes he
plays--help.
>> This is just my take on what the two terms imply. I think I first read
>> this
>> use of the terms in Jerry Coker's books on jazz.
>
> Is any of them palatable to a layman like myself ?
How to Listen to Jazz
>
In Parker, the
> chords drive and shape the melodic line, or perhaps more precisely, the
> melodic line is extracted from the the chord line (is it correct to say
> "chord line" ?), so the chord line comes first.
Musicians will use the term chord progression, and yes, Parker's solos stick
very closely to the given chords, though he will use substitute chords.
I think of Bach,
> inverted: superimposed melodic lines vertically producing a chord line.
Sort of, but in jazz the chord progression is a given at the beginning of
the improvisation, and all that you hear is based on that agreed upon
premise at the beginning--i. e., "Let's play 'What is This Thing Called
Love?'"
Regardless of what else happens, I'm going to expect a chord progression
that arrives at the IV minor chord on the 3rd measure, and my improvisation
will probably try to resolve there.
> In Tristano, the focus falls directly on the melodic line, without the
> intercession of the chord line.
Not completely, but he's willing to ignore the resolutions of the given tune
when it suits his purposes in a way that Parker seldom if ever does.
> Tristano feels like running blind-folded (no pun intended with his
> blindness). Parker feels like drawing a map before running, but not the
> precise path; a set of alternatives is defined beforehand for each stop
> along the path. Would this be a valid analogy ?
I think the reason it feels this way is because Parker doesn't avoid
resolutions--he rejoices in them, much like Bach.
Morris Nelms
Paulo
> At one of the
> > workshops she attended, the teacher said it was useless to learn how to
> > say something with your instrument (the technique) if you had nothing
> > to say (the expression).
> This is very true. A visual artist I know put it this way: "Form follows
> content. What do you want to say? Then you will know how to say it."
> However, at the beginning stages, I wonder if any musician knows enough
> musical vocabulary to clearly formulate ideas or statements? Once again, the
> language comparison shows up. A child of 3 may have some thoughts that are
> as profound as any adult, but without the means of communication, we can't
> know that. So we copy someone else, just like we copy our parents to learn
> to speak.
Visual artists usually almost get there, but not quite. Cortázar said
that content/form is the greatest western fallacy (just like
mind/body): each content asks for its peculiar form. The egg and the
chicken, born together, at the same time.
> "if my wages were proportional to the number of notes
> > I can play per second, I'd be a rich man", and he took pride in this.
> The statement at face value has some merit--classical pianists try to get
> major scales up to speeds that amazed me when I first was exposed to it. If
> by this he means one should have an unimpeachable technique, great. If by
> this he means that he measures a successful performance by how many notes he
> plays--help.
He meant in the "help" way: that's why I almost threw up.
> >> This is just my take on what the two terms imply. I think I first read
> >> this
> >> use of the terms in Jerry Coker's books on jazz.
> > Is any of them palatable to a layman like myself ?
> How to Listen to Jazz
I had seen a reference to this at Sabatella's web site but Sabatella's
posts here are usually so off-the-mark, actually downright distasteful
and uninteresting, that, as the saying goes "tell me who you walk with,
and I'll tell you who you are", I thought to myself "Jerry Coker can't
have anything interesting to say". Exactly because of that saying and
because you delivered the reference, I'm sure now that Jerry Coker must
have a lot of things to be paid attention to.
> In Parker, the
> > chords drive and shape the melodic line, or perhaps more precisely, the
> > melodic line is extracted from the the chord line (is it correct to say
> > "chord line" ?), so the chord line comes first.
> Musicians will use the term chord progression, and yes, Parker's solos stick
> very closely to the given chords, though he will use substitute chords.
Do the laws of harmony prescribe which chords can be substituted in a
given chord progression ?
> I think of Bach,
> > inverted: superimposed melodic lines vertically producing a chord line.
> Sort of, but in jazz the chord progression is a given at the beginning of
> the improvisation, and all that you hear is based on that agreed upon
> premise at the beginning--i. e., "Let's play 'What is This Thing Called
> Love?'"
> Regardless of what else happens, I'm going to expect a chord progression
> that arrives at the IV minor chord on the 3rd measure, and my improvisation
> will probably try to resolve there.
Please correct me if I'm speaking rubbish: the turn to the Baroque,
epitomized by Bach, was the switch from melody-focused music to
harmony-focused music, and Bach achieved this by superimposing melodic
lines in a way that the "vertical slices" of these superimposed melodic
lines would constitute a chord progression. To listen to any of his
fugues with this plastic image on mind is, to me, the musical
equivalent to taking an acid trip.
> > In Tristano, the focus falls directly on the melodic line, without the
> > intercession of the chord line.
> Not completely, but he's willing to ignore the resolutions of the given tune
> when it suits his purposes in a way that Parker seldom if ever does.
When you say "the resolutions of the given tune", do you mean: the
resolutions of the chord progressions implied by the melodic line ? If
I understood what we discussed up to this point, Tristano lays out the
melodic line without an a priori chord progression. In other words, he
doesn't extract the melodic line out of a pre-agreed chord progression,
as Parker does.
> > Tristano feels like running blind-folded (no pun intended with his
> > blindness). Parker feels like drawing a map before running, but not the
> > precise path; a set of alternatives is defined beforehand for each stop
> > along the path. Would this be a valid analogy ?
> I think the reason it feels this way is because Parker doesn't avoid
> resolutions--he rejoices in them, much like Bach.
I don't exactly why, but it feels more like Mozart to me, or any of the
classical period composers. It's sonata form, the orgastic discharge,
arriving home after the trip. Following this line of reasoning, Parker
is classic, and Tristano would be... Uhhm... I immediately think of
William Byrd and the English virginalists, but I'm not sure if the
parallel can be established on musical terms. Hey, no, Tristano is
baroque, in the purest Bachian fashion. Yes, that's it. Focus on the
melody and let the melody determine the harmony. No wonder that
Tristano, Konitz and Marsh were the first jazz musicians to record
Bach, and counterpoint is all over their recordings (I can think right
now of Konitz and Marsh "counterpointing" on "Night and Day" at
"Cross-Currents"). I think I read somewhere that Marsh used Bach 2 and
3-part Inventions to practise. Do you think this is a valid formula,
Parker = classical period, Tristano = baroque ?
Paulo
PS: How/where can I hear what you play ?
nine...@grandecom.net
have a lot of things to be paid attention to.
The information in his book Jazz Keyboard alone puts him at the top for me.
The stuff about voicing was just what I needed at the time. I got to meet
his wife once, and I made a point of telling her how much Jerry's books have
helped me. She appreciated it, but at the same time it was obvious she's
heard it a lot by now. :)
>Do the laws of harmony prescribe which chords can be substituted in a
given chord progression ?
In essence, yes. Most if not all of the things jazz musicians do
harmonically have their counterpart in European art music (classical).
>Bach achieved this by superimposing melodic
lines in a way that the "vertical slices" of these superimposed melodic
lines would constitute a chord progression. To listen to any of his
fugues with this plastic image on mind is, to me, the musical
equivalent to taking an acid trip.
I love him too, and you are correct about this.
>When you say "the resolutions of the given tune", do you mean: the
resolutions of the chord progressions implied by the melodic line ?
Other way around. If the tune resolves at beat one on measure 3 (What is
This Thing Called Love? makes its first resolution at this point), then I
expect a resolution in the melodic line to mirror what is there in the given
chord progression. Tristano (and he was probably innovative in this) will
delay or avoid the resolution called for in the chord progression: Parker
doesn't do that much, if at all.
>If I understood what we discussed up to this point, Tristano lays out the
melodic line without an a priori chord progression. In other words, he
doesn't extract the melodic line out of a pre-agreed chord progression,
as Parker does.
Not really. Nearly all Jazz before Ornette Coleman offered us another
possibilty (improvising with no set harmonic structure, at least in a
traditional sense) was based on pre-existing chord progressions--sets of
variations on tunes like "I Got Rhythm" and the 12 bar blues form, both of
which Parker mastered.
>I don't exactly why, but it feels more like Mozart to me, or any of the
classical period composers. It's sonata form, the orgastic discharge,
arriving home after the trip. Following this line of reasoning, Parker
is classic, and Tristano would be... Uhhm... I immediately think of
William Byrd and the English virginalists, but I'm not sure if the
parallel can be established on musical terms. Hey, no, Tristano is
baroque, in the purest Bachian fashion. Yes, that's it. Focus on the
melody and let the melody determine the harmony. No wonder that
Tristano, Konitz and Marsh were the first jazz musicians to record
Bach, and counterpoint is all over their recordings (I can think right
now of Konitz and Marsh "counterpointing" on "Night and Day" at
"Cross-Currents"). I think I read somewhere that Marsh used Bach 2 and
3-part Inventions to practise. Do you think this is a valid formula,
Parker = classical period, Tristano = baroque ?
This is where the comparisons start to break down. Parker is like Mozart in
the sense you describe, and Tristano is certainly more interested in Bachian
counterpoint. Parker dips into this with tunes like "Ah Leu Cha." I wish
he'd had more time to explore music. He would probably have done some more
stuff to send us all to the woodshed.
Tristano enjoys sounds that are clearly 20th Century classical, and thus
dissonant by comparison with either Bach or Mozart, and this is where this
comparison breaks down for me. Both Bach and Mozart want their music to be
easy on your ears, and Parker generally seems to feel this way as well
(though writing unison lines for trumpet and alto sax does seem to be
designed to create an edgy performance).
>PS: How/where can I hear what you play ?
I play in San Antonio every Sunday at 8 p. m. with a group called Small
World, but that probably doesn't help much. I need to get a web site up with
some samples of my playing, and I need to get a CD made. So I have my 2006
projects laid out for me (I'm also going to work on a book of Christmas
tunes with a guitarist I play with a lot).
I'm on a CD called The Best Thing for You Would Be the Cullen Offer Quartet,
which is on Progressive Records out of New Orleans. It's available from
Tower Records and others.
Morris Nelms
Paulo
> The information in his book Jazz Keyboard alone puts him at the top for me.
> The stuff about voicing was just what I needed at the time. I got to meet
> his wife once, and I made a point of telling her how much Jerry's books have
> helped me. She appreciated it, but at the same time it was obvious she's
> heard it a lot by now. :)
You and Morris have the Midas touch for me. Throw a bit of luck in and
I managed to order "How to listen to jazz" from Amazon at $6.50 + $9.79
shipping. It's gonna take an eternity of around 21 days to get here.
> >Do the laws of harmony prescribe which chords can be substituted in a
> given chord progression ?
> In essence, yes. Most if not all of the things jazz musicians do
> harmonically have their counterpart in European art music (classical).
Where does that George Russell book (just checked: $169 used at Amazon
!) fit in this scenario ? I mean, what does he formulate which is not
already formulated within the European classical music canon ?
> >Bach achieved this by superimposing melodic
> lines in a way that the "vertical slices" of these superimposed melodic
> lines would constitute a chord progression. To listen to any of his
> fugues with this plastic image on mind is, to me, the musical
> equivalent to taking an acid trip.
> I love him too, and you are correct about this.
I don't know how I'd listen to a Bach fugue if I played an instrument.
For the experience to kick in fully, I have to remain completely
motionless, and sort of open up all senses, schizophrenically split
them amidst the various lines, and keep a final one tuned to the
vertical dimension. It has something to do with those Zen exercises:
you've gotta be completely alert without a hint of tension, so that the
vertical and the horizontal dimensions are apprehended simultaneously,
as an unsplit whole. Just like reading an haiku. This may sound far
fetched but it feels exactly the same when you're deliberately delaying
an orgasm, pushing, delaying the discharge indefinitely forward, up to
the point of almost fainting, and then the orgasm at the final
resolution. A well listened-to Bach fugue produces this sensation in
me.
> >When you say "the resolutions of the given tune", do you mean: the
> resolutions of the chord progressions implied by the melodic line ?
> Other way around. If the tune resolves at beat one on measure 3 (What is
> This Thing Called Love? makes its first resolution at this point), then I
> expect a resolution in the melodic line to mirror what is there in the given
> chord progression. Tristano (and he was probably innovative in this) will
> delay or avoid the resolution called for in the chord progression: Parker
> doesn't do that much, if at all.
Oops, I got it wrong. So, ultimately, both in Parker & Tristano, the
chord progression determines the melodic line resolution, but Tristano
shifts and displaces this relationship by delays or suspensions. Did I
get it right this time ?
> >If I understood what we discussed up to this point, Tristano lays out the
> melodic line without an a priori chord progression. In other words, he
> doesn't extract the melodic line out of a pre-agreed chord progression,
> as Parker does.
> Not really. Nearly all Jazz before Ornette Coleman offered us another
> possibilty (improvising with no set harmonic structure, at least in a
> traditional sense) was based on pre-existing chord progressions--sets of
> variations on tunes like "I Got Rhythm" and the 12 bar blues form, both of
> which Parker mastered.
You confused me. Do you mean that, before Ornette, jazz always took off
from a pre-defined harmonic structure, but this structure assumed many
guises, like the 12-bar blues form ? And then, after Ornette, "Anything
Goes" ? But doesn't this "Anything Goes" have precise rules, like
Schoenberg's and Webern's dodecaphonic rules, or even Cage's precisely
determined chance experiments ?
Allow me one last try at this analogy. By stretching here and curbing
there, the Parker/Tristano thing itself gets delineated more clearly to
me. Parker is Mozart in method and result (peak of sonata form: always
arriving home at the end). Tristano employs Bachian procedures, in the
sense of style (rigour) and method (counterpoint as a structural
workhorse), but the product is Wagner & family, for its usual harmonic
displacements, for delaying or avoiding resolutions. Reducing to a
formula: Parker = Mozart, Tristano = Wagner dressed in a Bach outfit.
How valid ?
> >PS: How/where can I hear what you play ?
> I play in San Antonio every Sunday at 8 p. m. with a group called Small
> World, but that probably doesn't help much. I need to get a web site up with
> some samples of my playing, and I need to get a CD made. So I have my 2006
> projects laid out for me (I'm also going to work on a book of Christmas
> tunes with a guitarist I play with a lot).
We've got the Atlantic Ocean between us: I'm in Curitiba, Brazil.
Shame.
> I'm on a CD called The Best Thing for You Would Be the Cullen Offer Quartet,
> which is on Progressive Records out of New Orleans. It's available from
> Tower Records and others.
Is this the one ?
Paulo
The Arranger
Paulo wrote:
> I had seen a reference to this at Sabatella's web site but Sabatella's
> posts here are usually so off-the-mark, actually downright distasteful
> and uninteresting, that, as the saying goes "tell me who you walk with,
> and I'll tell you who you are", I thought to myself "Jerry Coker can't
> have anything interesting to say". Exactly because of that saying and
> because you delivered the reference, I'm sure now that Jerry Coker must
> have a lot of things to be paid attention to.
>
>
> Paulo
"Downright distasteful"? Marc Sabatella?
Where the hell did this come from?
The Arranger
nine...@grandecom.net
Here's the link for the Cullen Offer CD.
I'll write more later.
Morris
"Paulo" <marce...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1137525369.3...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Paulo
> > I had seen a reference to this at Sabatella's web site but Sabatella's
> > posts here are usually so off-the-mark, actually downright distasteful
> > and uninteresting, that, as the saying goes "tell me who you walk with,
> > and I'll tell you who you are", I thought to myself "Jerry Coker can't
> > have anything interesting to say". Exactly because of that saying and
> > because you delivered the reference, I'm sure now that Jerry Coker must
> > have a lot of things to be paid attention to.
> "Downright distasteful"? Marc Sabatella?
> Where the hell did this come from?
I have my coffee black and strong, a tincture almost. A friend of mine
finds it bitter and "downright distasteful". I'm right and he's right.
Paulo
Paulo
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00003L9GS/qid=1137531579/sr=11-1/ref=sr_11_1/104-8561780-4441529?n=5174
> Here's the link for the Cullen Offer CD.
> I'll write more later.
I'd rather have a beaten-to-death review than a positive one like that,
don't you think ? "calm behavior, inspire writing": I doubt you ever
dreamt of being Orpheus to calm beasts !
"Wave" is Tom Jobim's "Wave" ?
Paulo
nine...@grandecom.net
I smiled at the review. The idea that my music would
inspire creative writing is a nice thought.
Morris
"Paulo" <marce...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1137533127.6...@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Marc Sabatella
>> harmonically have their counterpart in European art music
>> (classical).
>
> Where does that George Russell book (just checked: $169 used at Amazon
> !) fit in this scenario ? I mean, what does he formulate which is not
> already formulated within the European classical music canon ?
Well, that's among the exceptions. True, "most" of the things jazz
musicians do come pretty directly from classical music. Russell's
approach has its basis in some scales also used in that music, but his
methods are pretty unique to jazz. Still, most of the poeple using his
methods are using them to play music that *does* come pretty directly
the the classical harmonic tradition (eg, standards, bebop, et al).
>> >If I understood what we discussed up to this point, Tristano lays
>> >out the
>> melodic line without an a priori chord progression. In other words,
>> he
>> doesn't extract the melodic line out of a pre-agreed chord
>> progression,
>> as Parker does.
This is true on a small handful of Tristano recordings. The vast
majority are based on the same types of pre-existing chord progressions
that Pakrer or anyone else might have used.
> You confused me. Do you mean that, before Ornette, jazz always took
> off
> from a pre-defined harmonic structure, but this structure assumed many
> guises, like the 12-bar blues form ?
Aside from the one or two recordings by Tristano, and arguably some of
the music on Cecil Taylor's first records (although he actually kept the
form to a larger degree than might be expected back then), yes, most
definitely. Almost all jazz before Ornette was this way, and
realistically, most jazz *since* Ornette is this way. But Ornette was
indeed one of the first to popularize the idea of improvising without a
pre-set harmonic structure, and many who have done this since owe a debt
to Ornette in their approach.
> And then, after Ornette, "Anything
> Goes" ? But doesn't this "Anything Goes" have precise rules, like
> Schoenberg's and Webern's dodecaphonic rules, or even Cage's precisely
> determined chance experiments ?
*Some* of the music generally referred to as "free jazz" has fairly
rigid structure, some does not.
---------------
Marc Sabatella
ma...@outsideshore.com
Music, art, & educational materials
Featuring "A Jazz Improvisation Primer"
http://www.outsideshore.com/
j_ns...@msn.com
"No wonder that Tristano, Konitz and Marsh were the first jazz
musicians to record
Bach"
They weren't. Hazel Scott did in 1940, for example. Jazzing the
classics was quite popular during the late '30s and '40s.
Joseph Scott
Paulo
[...]
> > Where does that George Russell book (just checked: $169 used at Amazon
> > !) fit in this scenario ? I mean, what does he formulate which is not
> > already formulated within the European classical music canon ?
> Well, that's among the exceptions. True, "most" of the things jazz
> musicians do come pretty directly from classical music. Russell's
> approach has its basis in some scales also used in that music, but his
> methods are pretty unique to jazz. Still, most of the poeple using his
> methods are using them to play music that *does* come pretty directly
> the the classical harmonic tradition (eg, standards, bebop, et al).
What is this "pretty unique to jazz" thing in Russell's book. I'm
genuinely curious about this. I've always heard about this book, never
even browsed it but always got this impression that it was to Jazz what
Schoenberg's Harmony was to the classical music tradition. But then,
what makes them different, unique ?
> >> >If I understood what we discussed up to this point, Tristano lays
> >> >out the
> >> melodic line without an a priori chord progression. In other words,
> >> he
> >> doesn't extract the melodic line out of a pre-agreed chord
> >> progression,
> >> as Parker does.
> This is true on a small handful of Tristano recordings. The vast
> majority are based on the same types of pre-existing chord progressions
> that Pakrer or anyone else might have used.
Would it be right to say, then, that, for Parker, the chord progression
were the structural driving force of the whole process whereas, for
Tristano, they were simply a given element, together with rhythm (he
didn't seem to give importance to timbre, did he ? BTW, as a side
issue, perhaps to be explored in another thread, timbre doesn't seem to
occupy the center stage of jazz, does it ?), appropriated to produce
music whose structural driving force is melodic.
> > You confused me. Do you mean that, before Ornette, jazz always took
> > off
> > from a pre-defined harmonic structure, but this structure assumed many
> > guises, like the 12-bar blues form ?
> Aside from the one or two recordings by Tristano, and arguably some of
> the music on Cecil Taylor's first records (although he actually kept the
> form to a larger degree than might be expected back then), yes, most
> definitely. Almost all jazz before Ornette was this way, and
> realistically, most jazz *since* Ornette is this way. But Ornette was
> indeed one of the first to popularize the idea of improvising without a
> pre-set harmonic structure, and many who have done this since owe a debt
> to Ornette in their approach.
If Ornette didn't improvise on a pre-set harmonic structure, where did
he lean upon ? I immediately think of all classical music experiments
post-Wagner: no matter how much they destroyed some dimension of the
musical tissue, and each of those crazy Germans and French guys had his
(no women, strange ?!) own idol to destroy, but there was always a
proposed structure, even in the case of Cage, because there was always
a method to propitiate change, like when you play the I-Ching, the
outcome is "chance" but the method to reach "chance" is painstakingly
pre-determined and pre-coded. Which makes me think, and this is a
tentative affirmation, not based on factual evidence, just a plain gut
feeling: free jazz may have gone beyond the limits where 20th century
classical music extinguished itself (I say extinguish in the sense of
having abolished the harmonic safety net with Webern, the
pre-determination of all musical parameters with Cage, the
pre-selection of musical material with Boulez, ...). Did I push too far
? If I dig the facts deeper, can this hypothesis hold water ?
> > And then, after Ornette, "Anything
> > Goes" ? But doesn't this "Anything Goes" have precise rules, like
> > Schoenberg's and Webern's dodecaphonic rules, or even Cage's precisely
> > determined chance experiments ?
> *Some* of the music generally referred to as "free jazz" has fairly
> rigid structure, some does not.
Could you give example of which has and which hasn't ?
Paulo
Marc Sabatella
> genuinely curious about this.
Russell was probably the first to resurrect interest in the old
Greek/Church modes among jazz musicians, and also modes of the melodic
minor scale, the diminished scale, and others that were practically
unheard outside a few specialized circles of classical musicians. In
the classical tradition, uses of these sorts of scales generally was in
an *entirely* different type of context. If a song was lydian, it was
lydian the whole way through - it was in a lydian *key*. Russell
introduces the idea that we might use a lydian scale over just one chord
in a progression - a progression that ight be in another key entirely,
or have no key center at all. Basically, the whole notion that we might
use particular scales over particular chords without much concern for
the key of the piece as a whole is Russell's.
> Would it be right to say, then, that, for Parker, the chord
> progression
> were the structural driving force of the whole process whereas, for
> Tristano, they were simply a given element, together with rhythm (he
> didn't seem to give importance to timbre, did he ?
I just don't see any such significant difference. Both started with a
chord progression, both made new melodies over that progression. The
character of their melodies differed, sure, as will those of any to
different musicians, but their basic approaches are the same.
> If Ornette didn't improvise on a pre-set harmonic structure, where did
> he lean upon ?
Good question. He's not particularly eloquent in describing this
himself. But based on how his cohorts have described the music, and
some fairly basic analysis, one can see that he *is* very often
improvising within the major scale and often around pretty specific
chords. It's just those those are not pre-determined. That is, in
playing more traditional jazz forms, you know before you put the horn in
your mouth that your are playing a chord progression that starts with
one chord, goes to another after a specific amount of time, etc - the
entire harmonic structure of the piece is pre-determined, and all the
members of the band are following that same progression. Ornette might
start with no idea of what chord he's going to use first or what chord
he is going to follow it with, nor does anyone else in the band. So
Ornette might start his solo on Bb7-Gbmaj7, and the bassist might be
thinking D-Dbm7. To the extent they are really thinking specific chords
at all. I suspect they aren't; it's just habit of centuries of Western
music that causes us to improvise melodies that are resemble traditional
scales and chords tonal even when not trying to. It takes a certain
amount of retraining and effort to improvise more atonally, and while
Ornette did this to some degree, his ties to the traditionals of Western
tonality are pretty strong, especially in those early recordings.
> free jazz may have gone beyond the limits where 20th century
> classical music extinguished itself (I say extinguish in the sense of
> having abolished the harmonic safety net with Webern, the
> pre-determination of all musical parameters with Cage, the
> pre-selection of musical material with Boulez, ...). Did I push too
> far
> ? If I dig the facts deeper, can this hypothesis hold water ?
I'm not sure. I suspect you'll find extreme examples in either genre,
and a wide range of different approaches within each.
>> *Some* of the music generally referred to as "free jazz" has fairly
>> rigid structure, some does not.
>
> Could you give example of which has and which hasn't ?
To mention some famous examples:
Early Ornette quartets: the basic structure is head-solos-head, and
solos remain over a basic more-or-less 4/4 pulse, but aside from that,
no imposed structure.
Cecil Taylor - pretty mysterious, but it seems there are likely "cells"
of composed material than the players are expected to use in some
unspecified way, mostly at times of their own choosing.
Coltrane "Ascension" - there was a prearranged order of solos, and some
written material to use as interludes and so forth, and some scales to
work within. But *lots* of room for doing whatever one wanted within
that structure.
Anthony Braxton - often very structured, where you start reading the
chart from left to right as with any music, although you won't always be
reading standard notation that tells you specific notes to play (that's
mixed in there too). The improvisatins occur within the framework of
this score.
Evan Parker - I'm pretty most of what he is known for is pretty much
completely freely improvised with no pre-determined constraints
These days, if someone says they are going to play "free", they might
mean any of these sorts of things, or just about anything else.
Sometimes they mean, *no* pre-determined structure. Sometimes, they
just mean, the pre-determined structure is of a much less rigid form
than the traditional chord progression.