On Thursday, March 6, 2003, at 05:15 AM, Christopher BJ Smith wrote:
At 9:23 PM -0500 3/05/03, Darcy James Argue wrote:The scales only fell from my ears relatively recently, because I finally had a teacher who had been around long enough to know how jazz eighths are actually played, and he kept after me and wouldn't let me get away with the bullshit swing feel that had by now become comfortable for me.
I'm interested to know, who was it? Reply privately if you don't want the whole world to know.
Oh I don't mind at all. It was Brookmeyer, although there are definitely a few other people around NEC who stress this -- George Garzone, for one. So much so that some people even refer to the "Boston swing feel" -- straight eighths slightly behind the beat.
But they are! They are supposed to be metronomic! Seriously -- listen to any 1940's or 1950's jazz player at a medium tempo or above -- Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Sonny Rollins, Clifford Brown, Stan Getz, Lee Konitz -- and you'll find that continuous eighths notes are played absolutely even, or very close to it.
Ben Webster, Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon; these guys DIDN'T play metronomically. Granted, they didn't play "Mickey Mouse" style eighths either, but placement in the measure was just another aspect of the style that was flexible to them. Your point stands.
Well, I what I'm talking about here a default, generic "jazz feel" that a young player should use as a jumping-off point. Obviously once someone has that down, there's lots of room to stretch it in one direction or another. But practically every kid nowadays starts off with the horribly misguided idea that exaggerated long-short eighths should be "home base," and that's a very, very difficult habit to get out of. Older players had the advantage of growing up in a culture where swing was the lingua franca, where practically everything on the radio swung like a mother. Whereas those of us who grew up in less enlightened times have to work a lot harder to internalize this style of playing.
Oh, yeah, Bob Brookmeyer, too, had a pretty flexible feel in his trombone solos with the Terry-Brookmeyer Quintet, Gerry Mulligan, and other groups from that era. Quite beautiful too, though I imagine a bit perplexing to students who are constantly being told "Don't rush" and "Don't drag!"
Oh yes. But of course Brookmeyer is one of those guys whose basic time feel is so solid that they are able to put all kinds of shadings on a phrase depending on where they're placing the upbeats. But you notice that (A) Clark and Bob play most of the heads pretty straight, at least when they have to play a unison line together, and (B) Bob is "bounciest" on the short, clipped phrases, and is much more likely to straighten out on a long line of uninterrupted eighths. I don't actually have any of the Clark-Bob records on CD (I think only one was ever issued) so I can't point to a specific track to support my argument -- but if you have the 1961 Stan Getz-Brookmeyer record that was recently reissued, check out how they play "Nice Work If You Can Get It." Whenever Stan has the melody and Bob has a guide tone line (or vice versa), the swing feel varies tremendously, but when they play in unison, as on the signature line -- "Nice work if you can get it, and you can get it if you try" -- it couldn't possibly be more straight. And it swings you into bad health.
Another eye-opener is the way Bob's European big band, the New Art Orchestra plays. Compare their recording of Bob's '94 chart of "King Porter Stomp" to the one recorded by the Eastman Jazz Ensemble (found on the CD that came with the book Changes Over Time). It's like a case study of how the real pros do it versus how a student band -- one of the best student bands in the world! -- do it. And I know for a fact that Bob has spent a ton of time working on phrasing issues with the NAO, so it's no accident they play this way.
- Darcy
----- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Boston MA
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin
_______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
