lmr80
Tiger Talk Pro
Reged: Aug 28 2005
Posts: 1553
Loc: CA
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If you like jazz I think you'll like this documentary "Jazz in the Present Tense." It talks about the future and new direction that jazz has gone. I personaly dig it and i'm glad jazz is getting bigger again,in a different aspect.
One of the groups is a bassist Avishai Cohen and check out this drummer Mark Guilliana in these clips.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOkuk1AqMtI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ2UnOVRFgE
Here's his solo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au7L_kIh4p0&feature=related
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It's about expression, not impression
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awfulldrummer
Tiger Talk Pro
Reged: Jun 26 2007
Posts: 984
Loc: the internet
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i love jazz, and that trio is awesome. thanks for posting LambChops, i hadn't heard of them before, i'll have to purchase me a cd or 2 by them.
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roger strange
Tiger Talk Pro
Reged: Dec 09 2003
Posts: 1650
Loc: Nova Scotia Canada
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Where else would we go in Jazz? When I play Jazz that's where I sit in most instances. A little more powerful at times but in that thinking of playing. It's just the logical progression. Jazz never died, it just does what it always did, ozmose and adapt. Take from everywhere and shake it all up in a bag and bring it out as an expression of many styles.
Jazz is like a many faceted mirror ball. Any way you cut it, it will survive. We just don't make a lot of money at it. It's a labor of Love and for us drummers we have to do other styles and genres to survive financially so that we can play Jazz when the opportunity arises. In doing that we have pretty well single handedly dragged Jazz kicking and screaming into the 21st century as a robust and healthy idiom. We bring back to the table rhythmic and groove experiences from the other fields we have to play, to eat.
Stan Kenton once said in the early 60s. Wait until the rock kids mature and become jazz cats. Jazz is changing. Miles stated in the early 70s that Jazz as it was then (be-bop) was dead. So what did he do? grab influences from everywhere else and bring it forward in his way into the latter half of the 20th century which fired the growth of those who are coming after, to drop their first influences into the mix. The key here with Jazz moving forwards is what Jack DeJohnette says. Roughly he expresses the following: Drummers make Jazz move, they influence the other players and impel them forward to new heights. Without the drummers, Jazz truly would be dead and very lifeless in its performance. Take heart cats, we are the very heart beat and seminal drive to keep Jazz around and in its turn influencing the other players. We challenge and look for new ways to express the music. Those who wish to stay back in a comfort zone become no more than commercial players with a Jazz sound. Another cat who is on the cutting edge is Ari Hoenig who has been discussed before on these threads. It's not what he technically does, which is a total gas, it's what he does in moving the Music with the other players. I sometimes think that in truth, we drummers are the last and strongest of the improvisers left standing in a World of Music that seeks to pigeon hole everything Musical and make it comfortable. Jazz is not comfortable. It can't be, it deals with "in the moment" playing.
Jazz is a state of mind and nothing more. What genre it hails from is the basis for the piece and it's the drummer that pushes the rest to create. That's why Jazz players on any instrument are always at their instrument because the more you know about all Music the better you can express "in the moment" playing within a Musical piece. And that's why Jazz men/women think differently in all walks of life. They are in that state of mind all the time. They are "in the moment" improvising in all parts of their lives. And that's why they call us artists instead of players of instruments.
Edited by roger strange (Wed Aug 11 2010 04:11 AM)
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lmr80
Tiger Talk Pro
Reged: Aug 28 2005
Posts: 1553
Loc: CA
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Amen Roger! You said that we are the very heart beat and seminal drive to keep Jazz around and in its turn influencing the other players. I agree and there are so many new fresh faces out there that i'm barely getting the pleasure to listen too. You're right Roger, it's about the feeling in the moment. The more you know about music the better you can express yourself in the moment.
I heard a trumpet player say " I wanted to play like Wayne Shorter so bad on the trumpet. I wanted to play like him so bad and one day I had the privilage to meet him. After that I knew I was never going to play like him because my personality was NOTHING like his. Then and there I realized why Wayne played the way he did and it was the scariest moment of my life. It raised the question...well if that's Wayne and his playing is syncronized with his playing...then who am I?"
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It's about expression, not impression
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roger strange
Tiger Talk Pro
Reged: Dec 09 2003
Posts: 1650
Loc: Nova Scotia Canada
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And that my friend is the key. When you can look in the mirror in the morning and say to that cat "I know you" and mean it, then that's how you will play. An old friend of mine who has been around this Jazz world for decades as a writer, reviewer and player (drummer) once got into a discussion of what makes a soloist (melody instruments) so different than a section player. All we could think of is that it hinges on WHO the player is, Well it's the same in drumming. There are section players who are good owners of the instrument who play everything right at the right time and dot all the i's and cross the T's. Then there are those drummers who uniquely put their stamp on their playing no matter what they do. And that's the difference between players and owners of the instrument.
You can be a rubber stamp player in any genre and do OK and feel like you are a star. Or, you can be yourself, interpret the Music and not know you are a star nor care either. But to do that you have to be your own person, you have to let YOU come out in the Music and you have to, in most cases, have no more than reasonable facilty on the instrument and a World of knowledge about all Musics and rhythms. So...you have to know that cat/chick in the mirror. Jazz is a very personal thing and you can tell right away if you are going to get on in a Jazz situation with other players by how they handle the Music, NOT WHAT THEY PLAY, or how cool they are with technique, tone, precision reading and precison copying. You can't re-write a book that has already been a best seller but you can write a new book on the same dialogue from a different perspective. For instance, in drumming, you can cop to the last note any playing from Gadd, but it'll never cut it. It'll almost be boring because basically all that is, is an excercise in technique in handling the instrument. Do it your way and it talks.
Freddie Waitts once said years ago that in his Music world, they get these hot-shot Berklee, North Texas, Miami and Julliard players with music degrees and perfomance degrees by the dozen and technique up the ying yang. What they had to do was actually teach those cats how to play in a band out there. All they had was an ability and talent for playing exact transcriptions of the great players note for note, and with the same sound. In other words, section players. And that of course is why there are so many basement/bedroom vids of fine little players on You Tube. Lots of exact technical playing but in the end, saying nothing expressiviely and musically.
Edited by roger strange (Fri Aug 13 2010 03:35 AM)
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