Jazz Player Magazine (with play-along CD)
Russ Evans
an article commending the Jazz Player magazine to us. I was tempted to
subscribe, but some negative follow-up comment put me off at that time.
Last week, I came across the magazine in the London branch of Tower
Records. The issue featured Dave Liebman's band, and I bought a copy.
I'm very impressed; good tunes, good playing, and the two or three
choruses allowed for soloing encourage appropriate discipline (yes,
something I can well do with!). What I particularly liked was that on
most tracks the keyboard was soloed into one track, so I could cut that
one out and practice 'comping as well as soloing. No less important is
that at 5 pounds or so retail (even less on subscription), it's a
helluva lot cheaper than the 20 pounds and more that Aebersold or
Advance playalongs cost here in the UK.
My question is -- is the Liebman issue typical or unusually good?
Interested in any observations you care to offer! And, given that I
have two up-and-coming sax players in the household, how does the
companion Sax Player publication stack up?
Russ
bbb...@cris.com
>My question is -- is the Liebman issue typical or unusually good?
>Interested in any observations you care to offer! And, given that I
>have two up-and-coming sax players in the household, how does the
>companion Sax Player publication stack up?
I highly recommend the Sax journal. The CDs are an invaluable addition to a magazine already crammed with a variety of information, tips, technique, opinion, and reviews.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
B.B. Bean bbb...@cris.com
Team OS/2 stri...@aol.com
Bean & Bean Cotton/Bean Farms 75474...@compuserve.com
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Mel Garcia
excellent top quality publications. I highly recomend them both.
Mel Garcia
Russell Heithoff
rag before. It sounds interesting.
Thanks
Russ
Marc Sabatella
> My question is -- is the Liebman issue typical or unusually good?
I don't recall ever having seen an issue where I had heard of the feature band
before. Of course, I'm not a subscriber, and the local newstand carries it
only sporadically, so I haven't seen that many issues.
--
Marc Sabatella
--
ma...@fc.hp.com
http://www.fortnet.org/~marc/
--
All opinions expressed herein are my personal ones
and do not necessarily reflect those of HP or anyone else.
guy f klose
>My question is -- is the Liebman issue typical or unusually good?
In my view, it's a typical issue, and one could do quite well by ordering
all of the previous back issues. Lots of great columns, especially for
the novice to intermediate improviser.
--
Guy Klose
g...@world.std.com
Jeff Miller
>Russ Evans wrote:
>> My question is -- is the Liebman issue typical or unusually good?
>I don't recall ever having seen an issue where I had heard of the feature band
>before. Of course, I'm not a subscriber, and the local newstand carries it
>only sporadically, so I haven't seen that many issues.
You must have missed the first issue with Mel Martin :)
Anyway, for the person who asked, here's the info:
Dorn Publications
(508) 359-7004
$35.00/year (6 issues inside USA)
--
/\-----------------------------------------------------------------------/\
/\/\ Jeff Miller /\/\
\/\/ mil...@seanet.com \/\/
\/-----------------------------------------------------------------------\/
guy f klose
>I don't recall ever having seen an issue where I had heard of the feature band
>before.
Most of the feature bands have been related to educators (for example,
Gary Campbell, Greg Yasinitsky, Jeff Holmes, Mel MArtin and Greg Abate).
They've all been pretty good (as far as play-alongs go), but I really
enjoy lots of the columns...and many of these same educators write the
columns.
Guy
--
Guy Klose
g...@world.std.com
Mel Martin
for musicians. Saxophone Journal is published written entirely by
saxophonists, both professionals and educators, and covers both jazz and
classical and some rock. Jazz Player features a broad variety of writers
and subjects, some of which tend to cross over a little but that hasn't
seemed to be a problem. I have gotten much positive feedback on both mags.
They are both available from Dorn Publications (508)359-7004 and are both
bi-monthly ( alternate months.
Mel Martin
--
Mel
"May the Vonce be with you"
***********************************************************
DLTerm
>have two up-and-coming sax players in the household, how does the
>companion Sax Player publication stack up?
Russ,
Both Jazz Player and Sax Journal are great mags, and are an excellent
value for the practicing player.
Dave
Michael Fitzgerald
continue to do so. However, it does have big problems. The number one
problem is that the editor is an idiot. A complete moron. They don't come
much dumber. He doesn't even have a good grasp of the English language.
He is enthusiastic enough, but has no place editing a magazine. Read a page
or two of him and you'll see. The next problem is the inbreeding that exists.
All the cats from Saxophone Journal get their stuff in Jazz Player. Then they
get their bands into the play-along CD (which guarantees them a multi-page
transcription article....). I'm not sure, however, that these are the best
people to be filling these positions. Some of the other people are not that
great as well: Emile DeCosmo (if I hear this idiot [yes, I've met him] spew
off about POOK any more....); Rande Sanderbeck (doesn't even know hemiola
from polyrhythm from cross rhythm); Michael N. Jacobson (this guy talks and
talks and still hasn't gotten to music yet); Scott DeVeaux (based an entire
article on the faulty premise that we don't know what the Billy Eckstine
big band sounded like); Bob Johnson & Lenny Pickett (I really have no
idea what the Jazz Fusion column is supposed to be).
Even the good guys are a little suspect. David Baker (a man I greatly admire)
has been making money off the same stuff for years. Now he seems to print
a few pages of one (actually several) of his books in this magazine each issue.
The good stuff: Chuck Israels - without fail, has something useful in his
column. Hal Crook - good practicing approaches. David Demsey - beginner
material, but good. Mel Martin - (could use more music examples, though).
Tim Price - I'm not sure what he does, but the people he gets for "Private
Lesson" always have useful things to share (again, more music examples).
The CD's are hit or miss. I think that the magazine is just too cheap
to pay for standards, so we get everyone's original tunes. Sorry, but
who cares? Once in a while, OK, but I think it would be much better to
get a bunch of tunes that we've heard of, want to practice, and could
play on a gig. (Yes, some of the originals are good, but I definitely
wouldn't buy most of the stuff to listen to, so why would I want to
play along with it?) The worst was when they got a bunch of WELL below
par college kids to play. Intonation? Tone? Swing? Ideas? They should
have called that one "Do You Sound Like This? - Don't Feel Bad, We Got
A Gig On A National Magazine CD Play-Along." Pretty scary.
There is always something good in each issue. But there is always
something that makes me want to write to the Editor. But then, that
something usually is on the Editor's page. So I'm not sure how much
good that would do. (The Letters to the Editor are all "Oh Wow, Thank
You, Thank You, Keep Up The Good Work" type things. Here's an actual
example: "I'm very satisfied with Jazz Player magazine. It helps me
like an excellent teacher. Michel, San Paulo, Brazil" Now, first of
all, it's Sao Paulo, right? Somehow, I don't think Michel made the
mistake. Same as how I don't think that Steve Turre called the guy
who gave him his start Rashaan.
I'm getting myself sick. I'll have to stop. Here's the story:
Get the magazine. It's worth it. But hope that someone else
starts one so there will be some competition.
--
Michael Fitzgerald
Rutgers University
Piotr Michalowski
THe inbred nature of the columnists, the lack of continuity, the academic
flavor (few of the writers are original stylists), the mutual adoration
society mentality, etc. get to you after a while. One will also find
that the adds and positive reviews are often for books and recordings by
the members of the ingroup. It is all rather obvious and shameless.
There is always something interesting, but much of it is hit and miss. A
really good editor would make sure that there was a progressive set of
columns or each level of ability, that there was more critical content
(you will never find anything but praise in any review) and more profound
intellectual content. David Baker is a good example. His column is
right out of his books; if you have more than a few of them you already
have his material more than once. He is capable of new stuff and a good
editor would pry that out of him (I know-I edit a scholarly journal). It
is sad as the concept is great, but the results are often mediocre.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Piotr Michalowski Office phone: 313-764-0314
Dept. of Near Eastern Studies fax: 313-936-2679
3074 Frieze Building
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marc Sabatella
> The number one
> problem is that the editor is an idiot. A complete moron. They don't come
> much dumber. He doesn't even have a good grasp of the English language.
> He is enthusiastic enough, but has no place editing a magazine. Read a page
> or two of him and you'll see.
A tangent, but... I just read what may be the worst liner notes I've ever seen,
for Albert Mangelsdorff's "Live In Tokyo", on Enja. Written by one Horst
Weber. OK, probably not a native English speaker, so I'll forgive the fifth-
grade command of language (also, I could be missing some sort of deliberate
Hemingway thing). But the whole thing is just so disjoint and trite, it comes
off like a fifth-grader's book report. For example:
On the evening of January 14, I went with Hozumi Nakadaira to pick
up the German AAll-Stars at the Haneda Airport. The band was coming
in from Thailand, having just played three concerts in Bangkok.
Before our live recording on January 15, a concert was held in Kosei
Nenkin Hall. It featured the Sadao Watanabe Group and the Toshiko
Akiyoshi Quartet. After the concert we went to the DUG. There were
no rehearsals before the recroding. Before the concert, we had a
Teriyaki dinner at the Ibuki restautrant in Shinjuku. Albert tried a
Maguro Sashimi. Heinz Sauer and Albert discussed the coming evening's
music: "Let's not play a set programme. Let's just play what we feel
like playing, and at the end of a piece, decide what to play next."
Already in the first set, it was obvious that the band was in
unbelievable form.
> The CD's are hit or miss. I think that the magazine is just too cheap
> to pay for standards, so we get everyone's original tunes. Sorry, but
> who cares? Once in a while, OK, but I think it would be much better to
> get a bunch of tunes that we've heard of, want to practice, and could
> play on a gig.
But Aebersold and Band-In-A-Box do this to death. Why bump up the price of a
magazine just to get more of the same? I think this approach is great. Of
course, I haven't really listened, so you might be right that they are using
some major dreck.
My main problem with the magazine is that it appears to have done a lousy job
of defining it's market. The articles in the issue I have here are all geared
toward people who have played their instrument for a few years and have maybe
6 months to 2 years of jazz experience behind them. This audience has "one
year subscription, then I've outgrown it" written all over it. It's hard for
me to see where they are going to go with this - will they grow with the
audience? Or stay at the beginning/intermediate level and try for a new batch
of subscribers? Seems risky; the $8.95 cover price is probably a tough sell.
More likely, they'll just get more and more diffuse, with articles called
"Your friend the major scale" and "Improvising over implied secondary dominants
in non-tonal music" in the same issue, leading both beginner's and advanced
students to complain that half the stuff in the $9 magazine they just bought
was useless. Or maybe, the "Jazz Player" guys will focus and figure out to way
to make it work; you never know.
Michael Fitzgerald
>But Aebersold and Band-In-A-Box do this to death. Why bump up the price of a
>magazine just to get more of the same? I think this approach is great. Of
>course, I haven't really listened, so you might be right that they are using
>some major dreck.
If they would get some REAL players to do the cds (like Liebman or Mel Martin)
and let those people play a set of their music (as in a club), it might be
better. If those people play standards, let them use standards. I like to
think of a play-along as "sitting in" at a club. Most of the time, you don't
sit in on real arranged stuff. You play standards or blues or whatever.
I suppose you could think of the cds as "joining a band," but I would not
want to join 90% of the bands that are doing the play-alongs.
>My main problem with the magazine is that it appears to have done a lousy job
>of defining it's market. The articles in the issue I have here are all geared
>toward people who have played their instrument for a few years and have maybe
>6 months to 2 years of jazz experience behind them.
Do you have only one issue? or just one at hand?
>More likely, they'll just get more and more diffuse, with articles called
>"Your friend the major scale" and "Improvising over implied secondary dominants in non-tonal music" in the same issue, leading both beginner's and advanced
>students to complain that half the stuff in the $9 magazine they just bought
>was useless.
I could definitely see that happening, but with their current editor even
"Your friend the major scale" will have problems.
If they could get someone intelligent running the show, then they might be
able to decide on a topic and have 5 people write about it, sort of a
roundtable discussion or maybe a multiple master class idea. There are so
many people out there teaching (real people, not the lamebodies that most
of the writers are) that would benefit from having a set of articles in this
magazine. This magazine should be the place to find the discussions that
Paul Berliner proposes in "Thinking In Jazz," where rhythm teams talk about
playing together. I saw a little of that in one of Chuck Israels' pieces.
More music (notation) would be the best way to go. Magazines like Down Beat
think that their readers are afraid of it (and they could be right), but
why can't there be a place for what Down Beat did in the 50s through 70s?
A complete Duke Ellington arrangement, a Quincy Jones chart, an Oliver
Nelson or Benny Golson small group chart, transcriptions of major league
solos, AND lessons in harmony, improvisation, etc. All those things appeared
in DB, but have been eliminated. Jazz Player is where they should be.
JIll Goodwin
>If they would get some REAL players to do the cds (like Liebman or Mel
Martin)
Just a small point here. I have no opinion on the rest of this thread as I am
not a musician, but wasn't the first CD Jazz Player Magazine included done by
Mel Martin?
Jill Goodwin
Thomas F Brown
>
>This magazine should be the place to find the discussions that
>Paul Berliner proposes in "Thinking In Jazz," where rhythm teams talk about
>playing together. I saw a little of that in one of Chuck Israels' pieces.
This is where current jazz pedagogy seems to fall short. There is
plenty of help out there for individual instrumentalists to get
their chops together, but one sees little discussion of how
groups should interact, or how an individual learns to behave
in a group.
I know of no pedagogical approach to teaching group interaction,
and I think one is needed. I hear way too many bands that can
only play one groove per tune. But when you listen to a great
rhythm team like Ron Carter and Al Foster, they can get a
different groove on every chorus without ever leaving the
fundamental "swing in four" paradigm.
This is an intermediate topic, so perhaps that accounts in part
for its oversight. Berliner's chapter on group interplay was
my favorite one in the book (although I loved the whole book,
and have read it twice now).
Mel Martin
jazz...@pwent.dandelions.com (JIll Goodwin) wrote:
Hi Jill;
How's everything. My group Bebop & Beyond did do the first Jazz Player
play-along and Dave Liebman's group did the most recent. I think M.
Fitzgerald was referring to the fact that we did all originals. The reason
for that is that the magazine would not be able to include a CD if they
had to pay writer's rotyalties just as Jamey Aebersold doesn't include
melodies for the same reason. BTW, it's nice to be included in the
category of a "real player" with Liebs. We are actually on a new recording
of a group called the Afro-Blue Band on Milestone trading some real "8"'s.
Say Hi to the family for me.
Mel martin
Michael Fitzgerald
>>If they would get some REAL players to do the cds (like Liebman or Mel
>Martin)
>Just a small point here. I have no opinion on the rest of this thread as I am
>not a musician, but wasn't the first CD Jazz Player Magazine included done by
>Mel Martin?
Yes, this was my point. They need to keep all the cds up to the level of
the Liebman and Martin offerings.
Mike
Michael Fitzgerald
>How's everything. My group Bebop & Beyond did do the first Jazz Player
>play-along and Dave Liebman's group did the most recent. I think M.
>Fitzgerald was referring to the fact that we did all originals. The reason
>for that is that the magazine would not be able to include a CD if they
>had to pay writer's rotyalties just as Jamey Aebersold doesn't include
>melodies for the same reason. BTW, it's nice to be included in the
>category of a "real player" with Liebs.
Actually, everyone does all originals, right? I was referring to the fact
that those two play-alongs were the only ones (so far) to be exceptional
musically. The others seem to be "well, we can't do standards, so what are
we going to do? OK, let's play our originals..." Unfortunately I think
that these players' original compositions are nowhere near the level that
should be appearing in a national publication. Why not get "real musicians"
(yes, that elusive or not-so-elusive category) who write their own stuff
(as a fundamental part of their careers) to participate, rather than
educators who are nobodys in terms of playing or writing (some not even
in education)?
A very brief, very much off the top of my head idea of this category:
George Cables
Renee Rosnes
Mike Mossman
Joanne Brackeen
Geri Allen
Tony Williams
Phil Woods
Jim McNeely
Kenny Barron
Randy Sandke
Cedar Walton
Dave Holland
(fill in the rest yourselves)
Players of stature are needed. Do you think Aebersold would sell record one
if he was using a trio of unknowns of dubious quality? You have to WANT to
play-along!!!
Composers of stature are needed. Aebersold is pretty much set. He can use
the REAL repertoire. Sorry, Dave, but how many of those David Baker sets
do you think he sells? No one plays those tunes (hey, maybe they SHOULD, but
they don't.) and therefore no one is interested. Personally, I think the
best Aebersold records are when he actually gets a working band in there.
Like Kenny Barron, Ron Carter, Ben Riley (all in Ron's band - with Buster
Williams); or Hal Galper, Steve Gilmore, Bill Goodwin (Phil Woods' section).
Even better when they get to play their own repertoire (like the Woody
Shaw set with Woody's section). But the repertoire must be QUALITY. Woody
was a great writer!!!
I just hope someone's listening....
Thomas F Brown
>
>Composers of stature are needed. Aebersold is pretty much set. He can use
>the REAL repertoire. Sorry, Dave, but how many of those David Baker sets
>do you think he sells? No one plays those tunes (hey, maybe they SHOULD, but
>they don't.)
When I was at IU, Dave used to assign his written-out solo etudes.
Just coincidentally, some of them happened to coincide with
the tracks on his Aebersold volume. So Jamey probably moves
some product down in Bloomington.
and therefore no one is interested. Personally, I think the
>best Aebersold records are when he actually gets a working band in there.
>Like Kenny Barron, Ron Carter, Ben Riley (all in Ron's band - with Buster
>Williams); or Hal Galper, Steve Gilmore, Bill Goodwin (Phil Woods' section).
>Even better when they get to play their own repertoire (like the Woody
>Shaw set with Woody's section). But the repertoire must be QUALITY. Woody
>was a great writer!!!
What does anyone think of the "Autumn Leaves" volume with
the Lan Doky brothers? I think it has the worst feel of any
Aebersold (discounting perhaps the exercise volumes and the
cheezy blues volume).
Dennis Freedman
I have tried unsuccessfully to get the Jazz Player mag over here in the UK.
I wonder if anyone can put me onto a distributor, or let me know if it's
possible to order direct from the States?
Thanks.
--
Dennis Freedman
Trafford Information Technology Centre, Sale, England, UKjt
(Amateur radio station G3VSH @ GB7ODM.#11.gbr.eu)
guy f klose
>I have tried unsuccessfully to get the Jazz Player mag over here in the UK.
>I wonder if anyone can put me onto a distributor, or let me know if it's
>possible to order direct from the States?
It should be possible to get it..the masthead gives pricing for outside the
US (US$45 for one year, six issues). Contact them directly:
Dorn Publications, PO Box 206, Medfield, MA 02052 USA. Phone: (508)359-7004.
Fax: (508)359-7988. Some credit cards accepted.
DLTerm
>I have tried unsuccessfully to get the Jazz Player mag over here in the
UK.
>I wonder if anyone can put me onto a distributor, or let me know if it's
>possible to order direct from the States?
I know of several people who get the Saxophone Journal (same publisher)
delivered to other countries.
Try calling Dorn Publications at (508)-359-7004.
Dave
Russ Evans
>I have tried unsuccessfully to get the Jazz Player mag over here in the UK.
>I wonder if anyone can put me onto a distributor, or let me know if it's
>possible to order direct from the States?
The world turns, and we get back to where we started! The discussion
arose because I picked up a copy of the magazine in Tower Records in
Piccadilly Circus, and asked whether a subscription was worthwhile.
Foreign subscriptions are available. Unfortunately, I made the mistake
of lending the magazine and CD to a friend, and it's proving remarkably
difficult to get it back, so Dennis and I will have to rely on someone
else posting the address again ...
:-)
Russ