What do you Country Guys think of Jazz?

Bob Martin · Post by **Bob Martin** » 8 Jul 2006 9:41 am

Simply stated I love jazz and I love country but I could never made a living playing jazz like I have country

Bob

Michael Haselman · Post by **Michael Haselman** » 8 Jul 2006 10:55 am

Bob: Don't know how it could be put better than you just did. I love jazz, but I love all good music. Like Duke said, there's only 2 kinds of music: good and bad.

Greg Simmons · Post by **Greg Simmons** » 8 Jul 2006 11:51 am

http://www.walrusmagazine.com/article.pl?sid=06/06/19/0417228

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“I always knew that there was something out there that I needed to get to.
And it wasn't where I was at that particular moment."
-Bob Dylan

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 11 Jul 2006 8:50 am

I'm not sure I exactly consider myself "a country guy" - I like lots of styles of music, from classical to modern atonal to country to bluegrass to jazz to blues to rockabilly to rock to heavy metal to folk, and I'm sure I'm leaving some out. But I do love good jazz. The Ellington quote is where I'm at, although what is "good" is purely a matter of taste.

I like traditional swing (especially Basie), western swing from Milton Brown to modern hillybilly jazz players (especially Vassar Clements' Hillbilly Jazz stuff), bebop (especially Monk), west-coast cool jazz, hard bop, the more funky approach exemplified by the organ-guitar-drum trios, most anything by Miles, Django, and Les Paul, and the pioneering work in the 60s and onward by people like Pat Martino and Jim Hall.

On the subject of country players who play jazz and vice-versa, I think players who really convincingly play multiple styles are very much the minority. IMO, this is not unreasonable - it takes years of hard work to get really good at any substantive style of music. Of course, there are exceptions, as already noted. Still, good players I have known in one style usually have respect for good players in other styles. I'm not in favor of style-fascism, but I think it's important for a musician to focus on one style long and intensely enough to avoid being a dilettante. I guess the limitation is "how much time and sacrifice are you willing to put into different styles of music?".

Intersting article, Greg. I'm not exactly like the new traditionalists - I don't think it's important to ape the dress and behavior of earlier styles of music, or focus entirely on technical perfection - I think soul is much more important than technical perfection. Still, to me, jazz is based on a tradition that has been passed down for a very long time - there should be a thread to that tradition for music to be jazz. For example, I expect a serious jazz player to be able to tear it up on blues - I don't mean play Robert Johnson or Muddy Waters note-for-note, but be able to soulfully and authentically play over blues changes like they understand it deeply. This was part and parcel of early jazz, and the thread to bebop is very clear, as it is with the other jazz styles I mentioned. The music evolved, but that thread remained intact. To my ears, that thread is missing from much, but not all, evolving contemporary jazz I hear right now. I agree with the author that this is probably a product of the modern world and instant communication, but I am not as optimistic as he is. I think it's OK to completely break away from the jazz tradition - but I don't consider that jazz.

This sort of thing is happening in many styles of music - there is always tension when moving from generation to generation, but the rapid pace of change has stood all this on its head. Sometimes, limitations are good - within limitations, a thing of beauty can be carved out. Sometimes, without limitations, what results is a jumbled up mess. Of course, different brains undoubtedly process this differently, but I think people have limits to processing complexity. I have always found that it is work to expand my musical horizons - and the number of people who make that effort declines with increasing complexity. This keeps very complex music from being very popular and widespread. Of course, this is all purely my opinion.

Kenny Burford · Post by **Kenny Burford** » 11 Jul 2006 11:36 am

Some jazz I love and some I hate. I like music that has great melody and sometimes that gets lost in jazz.

chas smith · Post by **chas smith** » 11 Jul 2006 12:24 pm

Well, I put in some time at Berklee Music. The hardest thing was realizing that I didn't have "it".

Bill Hatcher · Post by **Bill Hatcher** » 11 Jul 2006 12:51 pm

Being able to play a few jazz tunes and play a few jazz licks has nothing to do with really being able to play jazz.

Same with country, rock, classical etc.

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 11 Jul 2006 3:15 pm

I have a nifty little book by English guitarist Derek Bailey called "Improvisation", wherein he interviews people from a very wide range of genres, jazz, Indian, rock, even covering the improvisational skills standard in the earlier classical tradition. He quotes American saxophonist Steve Lacy (now living in Europe), speaking of the late 50's:

When you reach what was called 'hard bop' there was no mystery anymore. It was like - mechanical - some kind of gymnastics. The patterns are well known and everybody is playing them.... You know when Bud Powell made them, 15 years earlier, they weren't patterns. But when somebody analysed them and put them into a system it became a school and many players joined it.... Jazz got so that it wasn't improvised anymore. A lot of the music that was going on was really not improvised. It got so that everybody knew what was going to happen and sure enough, that's what happened. Maybe the order of the phases would be a little different every night...."

I like to read musician's biographies, and I thought it explained quite a bit that both Miles and Coltrane considered themselves to be anti-beboppers, trying to shake things up again. Wynton Marsalis made something of a problem for himself in the 80's when he started trying to enshrine "classic" jazz as the only legitimate form; he caught a lot of stink from musicians who were bored silly playing licks that had been 'rad' in 1955.

Tom Zielinski · Post by **Tom Zielinski** » 12 Jul 2006 10:14 am

Wynton Marsalis still has a bad rap for the 80s, I am pretty sure his record sales show it. The 7 cd set live at Vanguard is a monumental recording that not enough people have heard!

Many of the Joe Pass fans out there know that his very last recorded album was a Hank Williams tribute album, but what most people don't know is that Pass also recorded 6 Hank Williams tunes as his demo, it was what he wanted released on his first album. But the record execs said no way!

Jazz for me is #1, I have about 4000 Jazz cds and records. Most everything is pre-1959. That goes for everything rock (abilly), country, blues etc. My taste has more to do with the way the recordings sound. There is some great fusion but that pristine clean studio sound takes away all the feel.

There is good jazz and good country...I don't wast my time listening to bad music.

Webb Kline · Post by **Webb Kline** » 12 Jul 2006 12:59 pm

That Derek Baily quote sums up to me what happens to any kind of music. There are only ever a handful of true inspired improvisors in any generation; everyone else beats the ideas to death. Just look at cliched guitar and psg licks. Everytime somebody comes up with something truly different, all the wannabes drive it into the ground. Perhaps the worst example was the murder of the 1,6,2,5 progression. Way too much of a good thing in played in some very bad contexts.

Chopin, Schubert, et al, are said to never have wanted their music to be played note-for--note. It was meant to be interpretive--that's what made it romantic. Miles Davis and John Coltrane are best performed the same way. Everytime I hear someone trying to cop their chops note-for-note it makes me feel like I'm listening to Muzak, no matter how well it's done. Give me a player who captures the spirit of the song and puts his own soul into the performance anytime over the copycats.

Better still, give me something completely new. Afterall, there are over 700 million melodic possibilities in the 12 tone scale.

Andy Volk · Post by **Andy Volk** » 12 Jul 2006 6:19 pm

I was a hardcore jazz snob for years until it gradually dawned on me that any single genre of music is neither better, more difficult or easier than any other genre. Each bag has it's own idiosyncatic aspects like phrasing, tone, attack, paradigms, traditions, etc. and being really good at any one genre does not give you an open ticket to success in any other. Case in point: I once heard Beverly Sills sing Smoke Gets in Your Eyes ..... hooo boy, was THAT bad!

And once you get the above aspects down pretty well, then you move into the realm of artistic expression and taste ... and there, in my book, we have what distinguishes the pretty damn good from the transcendently great.

John McGann · Post by **John McGann** » 13 Jul 2006 7:21 am

The Beverly SillsBillies were way hipper

David L. Donald · Post by **David L. Donald** » 14 Jul 2006 7:09 am

Ah you Boston boys... drole!

Any music has it's little stylistic idiosyncarcies.
Learn them, and the general mindset
behind the music and you can play it.

Leave either off and it's only partly the style.
As a life long studio rat I had to change gears,
and mindset, some times several times a day.
So I got used to looking for those differences,
and incorperating them when needed.

Though at this point I prefer,
if let off the chain,
to mix them up at will,
for something new.

Michael Haselman · Post by **Michael Haselman** » 14 Jul 2006 1:46 pm

Just a slight attempt at a humerous aside. I've long believed that every possible blues harp lick has been played already.

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Marrs D-10, Webb 6-14E, Peavey NV112, Hilton volume.

Vern Wall · Post by **Vern Wall** » 14 Jul 2006 10:24 pm

If I knew more about music I might appreciate it more, but it just sounds like elevator music to me. I've talked to people who know a lot about music and they assure me that jazz is better than it sounds.

Bill McCloskey · Post by **Bill McCloskey** » 15 Jul 2006 3:37 am

"If I knew more about music I might appreciate it more, but it just sounds like elevator music to me."

Unfortunately, like anything else, you need to be exposed to what is good and what is not. Jazz radio stations are few and far between, although with satellite radio there is hope. You also have to have the desire. You don't need to know anything about music to love jazz. You just need to be exposed to the right artists and enought of them to find the ones you like. Jazz is a neverending discovery for me.

Right now there is a reneissance of sorts going on in Brooklyn. And of course the Lincoln Center Jazz center.

Jesse Pearson · Post by **Jesse Pearson** » 15 Jul 2006 6:41 am

My older brother isn't a musician and he can't understand 1940' Bebop, lol. Knowing jazz helps you in some many different ways on your instrument, it's all good.

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 15 Jul 2006 7:40 am

What's the difference between "jazz" and "improvising over a chord progression"?

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 15 Jul 2006 7:41 am

Playing jazz guitar well (or even half-assed) is a big hole in my knowledge that I plan to spend some time over the years working on, but I don't really want to take it too far past the 40's. I think the use of different chord inversions and alterations to effect close & sneaky voice leading is a fascinating thing, but when the beboppers started applying arbitrary mathematical formulas to superimposing triads, they sort of lost site of the point of making music that sounded good. All that formula stuff is supposed to be a means to an end, not an end in itself. There's a reason bebop was never very popular - why should somebody pay you to listen to your technical exercises on stage?

Mike Neer · Post by **Mike Neer** » 15 Jul 2006 7:45 am

What's the difference between "jazz" and "improvising over a chord progression"?

The language.

Stephen Gambrell · Post by **Stephen Gambrell** » 15 Jul 2006 9:15 am

"You country guys" sounds a little patronizing, but I'm willing to let the title slide.
Improvisation is the key to being ANY type of musician, as far as I'm concerned. I remember an interview with Bruce Foreman years ago, in which he stated that he played too many maj7ths and triplets to fill in on a rock gig. I doubt if Sid Vicious could have subbed for Charles Mingus.
What do you think of MUSIC, Bill???

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 15 Jul 2006 10:31 am

What's the difference between "jazz" and "improvising over a chord progression"?

IMO - in a word, the blues. To me, jazz is a logical and intellectual extension of the blues. Not that all jazz is blues, not by a long shot. But, IMO, jazz is imbued with an extended blues sensibility. There may be other influences - even lots of them - but if one completely takes that blues sensibility away, it is no longer jazz, to me. I'm sure I'll get lots of arguments, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Mitch Ellis · Post by **Mitch Ellis** » 15 Jul 2006 11:01 am

With some of the jazz that I've listened to,I can't hear a specific melody. all I can hear are chord changes.That's why I don't like it.
Mitch

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 15 Jul 2006 11:11 am

I agree with Dave M. that jazz is blues based. But discussing what jazz is, and what is good and bad jazz is getting off topic. Bill started this thread with this question.

You guys (and gals) who identify with country music as your primary identity, i.e. you think of your self as a country music person, your major source of musical enjoyment comes from country music: what do you think of jazz as a musical idiom.

He wasn't being patronizing, he was asking those who primarily consider themselves country musicians what they think about another genre, jazz. He seemed to specifically want to avoid a discussion by jazzers about jazz. I'm not primarily a country musician. Although I grew up in the South and always heard country music, it was just part of the background when I was younger. When I started playing music, I played classical, rockabilly, rock, blues, folk and jazz, before I went back to my roots and started playing some bluegrass and country. I've always been a little surprised at how much interest in jazz there is among country pickers. To me they are at opposite ends of the musical spectrum in so many ways. So like Bill, I am always interested to hear what country musicians think of jazz - positive or negative or neutral.

Bill McCloskey · Post by **Bill McCloskey** » 15 Jul 2006 11:13 am

Mitch,

Try listening to Coltrane's Ballads or Miles Davis Kind of Blue.