The Steel Guitar Forum

John, very well put.

Richard, good luck with the harmonic sabbatical!

John...in Europe and Japan they even rever great unknown country artists. We live in a Walmart/McDonalds cultural void for the most part here in the U.S....Anybody who's played music in either of those places knows what I'm talking about. I am really proud that jazz AND country were born here though! I'm just getting tired of playing "Sweet Home Alabama" when I'm hearing "Lush Life" in my head.

Interesting point -- I guess the lower pitch of the C6 makes it easier to choke the notes with a heavier bar.

My good friend and teacher Russ Wever uses a light bar (smaller too) and sounds great on jazzy stuff.

At the risk of repeating myself, I think the steel's visibility in jazz would be greatly enhanced if more of the world-class guys we are talking about came to New York once in a while. This is one of the few places where the number of jazz musicians reaches the critical mass necessary for the creation of new currents -- plus it's a place with a lot of record and media companies.

One reason Robert Randolph is so well known is that he's from here. A lot of people from this area -- including a lot of jazz players -- have probably never heard another steel player, much less played with one, and certainly no one of the caliber of Jernigan or Emmons.

These kinds of cross-pollinations don't happen in a vacuum. There is no doubt that more than a few steelers are top-flight jazz players. But they need to be heard by people other than PSG conventiongoers.

I hope some day to fill that gap, but don't hold your breath...

I don't think I saw Steve Palousek's name mentioned in this post but it seems I've heard some good jazz out of him.

I've been sitting in with some pretty good jazz men here in Central pennsylvania and they all are turned on to the steel.(of course you get the question "Who's the guy up there with the Sofa?"

As far as sound, I've been shooting for a good "trumpet" voice -using an old Emmons Push-Pull, single coils through tube Fender Vibrosonic Reverb.

Three areas of discipline -learn to read music/and chord charts and apply it to steel and learn the scales and how they relate to the chords, third learn to transcribe solos note for note(from any instrument). I no longer sleep nights!

There are some vintage cuts by Maurice Anderson that for me represent very nice jazz on the pedal steel.

Wow, an old thread coming to life for the third time. I agree we are all searching for good jazz tone. Bill Stafford on his 14-string uni has some of the best jazz tone I have heard. A uni is a very good choice for jazz - you have the whole spectrum of 6th neck and 9th neck chords. And you can get mellow on the low strings. More than piano, I hear jazz steel as a cross between vibraphone, organ and guitar tones. Also, fusion and jazz-rock have opened up the whole spectrum of fuzz and distortion for jazz steel. The mellow archtop smooth jazz tone is not the only guitar tone out there for jazz.

Too minimize the whinyness, it helps to keep your picking hand about an octave above where your bar is. The manufacturers could help if they had a removable plate in the pickup area that would allow an optional neck pickup. Also, it would be nice to be able to angle the pickup away from the bridge on the high strings, and toward the bridge on the low strings. That would help us in dialing in a thick tone on the high strings, but maintain definition on the low strings.

I am slowly beginning to play some jazz. One of my bands, the Philadelphia Blues Messengers will be playing in the West Oak Lane Jazz Festival this June in Northwest Philly (http://www.westoaklanefestival.com/index.htm). We will be backing veteran avant garde saxist and flutist, Byard Lancaster, and Harold Smith, a drummer and vocalist who also plays didgerido and conch shells. We come into jazz from the direction of blues and Afro-primitive. There are many kinds of jazz. Big band, swing, standards, and bebob are only parts of the spectrum.

------------------
<font size="1">Student of the Steel: Zum uni, Fender tube amps, squareneck and roundneck resos, tenor sax, keyboards

<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by David Doggett on 18 April 2006 at 05:07 PM.]</p></FONT>

I would suggest you check out "Kundalini Jukebox' at http://www.kundaliniboombox.com/main.html

Robert Powell plays occasional pedal steel as well as 6-string, and the band, with Kit Walker, Celso Alberti, and Gary Brown, have heavy heavy jazz roots.

You wanbt cutting edge jazz with pedal steel, this is it.

It's all cool

oops. Sorry Jim. You're definitely right up there with the "heavyweights", IMO.

------------------
<img align=left src="http://b0b.com/b0bxicon.gif" border="0"><small> Bobby Lee</small>
-b0b- <small> quasar@b0b.com </small>
System Administrator <span style="text-align: right; font-size: 0.75em; font-variant: small-caps">
My Blog</span>

Don't worry, b0b, I'm not insulted, even though you waited one full year to the day to notice the error of your ways and post your feeble apology.

But you still haven't explained what a "Bug Gun" is!