Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Jazz Study Group 2: Advanced Players

Jazzwee, your recording of Solar is nice. I agree with Beeboss that your lines are getting consistently better. I may have said this before but I personally don't even like playing fast most of the time. Even listening to fast tunes tends to make me nervous and agitated. Although, sometimes if I'm in the right mood it can be exciting so I still try to be able to do it. I decided to take a crack at Solar today and I made a recording of my attempt. This time I just played bass lines with my left hand, then overdubbed right hand lines and I left out comping all together. I just wanted to focus on the lines and see if I could keep the time solid. Scep mentioned how playing wrong notes and having to adjust the line causes the time to get messed up. I agree and I've been trying, especially when playing fast, to stop myself when I play something I didn't intend even if it's right in the middle of a phrase. If I do, I usually find that it doesn't sound incomplete anyway, particularly if I pick up the next phrase using a similar motive or from wherever the stopped phrase should have resolved. But I still don't stop when I mess up alot of the time. I just can't resist trying to get what I wanted to play to work. Aside from that, for me it has just been time practicing tunes that has enabled me to play them faster. I started playing Solar very early on in my jazz pursuits and I clearly remember trying to play it fast in those days and I couldn't do it at all. I remember when 140bpm or so was as fast as I could handle it. And later about 180 to 200 on a good day. Now I can handle it faster, albeit with some slop here and there. But a few years ago if I tried to play it as fast as I did today I would have just froze and ended up playing nothing but quarter notes.

Anyway here's my recording. Let me know what you guys think.
http://www.box.net/shared/9kudlqbn318lri83u6zg

Nice playing Scott, lots of motivic development going on in your lines. And I really like the contrapuntal approach, so refreshing to hear. I don't miss hearing the chords at all, all the harmony is there from just the bass and your lines. How I wish I could do walking bass and improvise on the top in real time. It is so hard especially at that speed.Even the walking bass by itself is hard at that speed and you do a great job keeping the bass movement interesting.

Wow Scott -- that was really good and definitely way better than mine. First you are very comfortable at this tempo. Your articulation was right on the money. And this is really good solid bop style. You are really comfortable with this tune.

BTW - I'm noted as not sounding like bebop. I have a style that's getting personal I think and there's a bit of searching to turn this into phrasing that conforms to bop tunes. My head isn't completely clear on this so there's a bit of wavering and has to do with choices at specific tempos.

I think I can do more bop sound but at a slower tempo. Otherwise I don't hear things necessarily in a bop style. Perhaps more intervallic and I think more in terms of melody. It's doesn't always work out but at least I'm starting to realize I sound different.

That was a great job Scott!

I just recorded Solar at 220bpm, and I see no significant change in my articulation or perception of the time. Interesting. I'll give it another try and so if I can clean up my articulation which is what suffers at the fast tempo.

Jeez, that was very cool! My only criticism is that you have a few notes that needed to be voiced on your piano.

I think you've got a lot of great things going for you as a player: you seem to have the bop vocabulary down, your technique is solid on the lines, and it sounded very listenable.

Ok, maybe one criticism--I was hoping for one or two triplets in there since I think they'd work well at that tempo, but hey, I'm just grasping at straws here.

I'd love to hear hands together soon, it kind of reminds me of Dave Frank's solo playing.

I also think I'll have to practice the tune a lot more now too!

It sure sounds like Dave Frank's style!

BTW Scott. Looks like with one hand the time is really solid so that really works.

Hi Scott
I loved your Solar. It was impressive and the sound was clean without chords. Your walking bass gave it a lot of momentum.

Thanks guys for your comments and support on Solar!

Beeboss, I too wish I could play that way both hands together. I was listening to Monk's Dream on Larry Young's album Unity the other day. I'd love to start playing organ someday and this style would be perfect for that. But it is taking everything I've got just to do the hands separate right now, so maybe in 20 years or so.

Jazzwee, I get what you're saying about your style being different than mine... not bop. And I definitely am hearing the intervallic/melodic sound beginning to come through in your playing.

Scep, I agree about the triplets... just not quite there yet I guess. When you say some notes need voiced, are you referring to the tone quality not being consistent with the other keys? Or do you think it's more of a tuning issue? I haven't really noticed it but I'd like to figure it out and have my piano tech fix it next time he's here.

Custard, glad you thought the bass lines gave it momentum... I actually got a little carried away at times and didn't think it felt quite right... maybe a little rushed here and there.

Overall, I still need work here to get as comfortable as I should be.

It's funny that you guys mentioned that it sounds like Dave Frank. I've always admired Lennie Tristano's approach which I guess is coming through here. I only wish I could play as well as Dave!

It's the middle C. Maybe it was the placement of the mic, but that note is muffled (less harmonics, softer) than the other notes you're playing in the RH. So, not tuning, but could be just a misaligned hammer. There could be others, but that was the first one that I heard.

Saw Herbie Hancock solo last night. Pieces were: Footprints, Dolphin Dance, Sonrisa, Embraceable You, Cantaloupe Island, and an encore of Rockit (I think I'm forgetting one). Overall, I liked is a lot, although it wasn't transcendent, as he used too many electronic recorded tracks. When he played just solo piano it was fabulous. Here is my overall take on his playing:
1. It's all about harmony and texture, not linear melodic lines or rhythm. In Keith Jarrett, I hear an emphasis on the linear melodic line. In Brad Mehldau's recent solo recording, I hear the pulsing rhythm. Here, it's harmony and texture.
2. What I mean by harmony is that he played very rubabto in most tune, and you could see him improving incredible voicings. For Dolphin Dance, for example, most of the melody got block chords, and to my ear, they were different at differnt points in the piece.
3. Texture: like Ahmad Jamal, every piece had crashing chords and smashed bass notes, but also extremely quite moments. He was all about dynamics and contasting playing large chords with single notes.
4. Before he started using the electonic backing tracks, he used lots of rubato, enjoying the freedom from a band. I also think he was truly improsing as very little was planned out.

It's hard to describe music in words, but hopefully this gives some impression of what I learned by hearing this legend.

Great report, thanks:) I just got a ticket to see Chick and Herbie play duo at the Blue Note on Nov 23rd, anybody want to join me? The superhuman Chick is playing for a solid month with different combinations for his 70th. His longevity, consistency, incredible piano playing and balanced personality is an awesome
achievement, thoroughly transcendent!

Scott, you're burnin' man!

DF

Thanks Dave!

Excellent report jjo. Clearly you've identified the differences between Herbie, Mehldau, and Jarrett. Mehldau mixes the melodic too with rhythm but his not known for voicings. Mehldau's voicings are usually simple.

But what's interesting is that these are my THREE favorite jazz pianists. Each are so different and you can take characteristics from each.

Jjo, sounds like the Herbie Hancock concert was really interesting. Wish I could have been there. Have you heard this solo album: http://www.amazon.com/Piano-Herbie-...mp;ie=UTF8&qid=1320016185&sr=1-1
It's great. And it's interesting because the entire album was done direct to disc without editing of any kind, all in one sitting. Herbie even sat for the pauses between each track.

Hey Scott, I so admired your skill at bop that it made me think of the different styles. Is it bad that I don't really do bop? I can do it. But it's a switch in thinking. The phrasings I've learned are not bop by nature so it doesn't flow with bop.

I was practicing Giant Steps a moment ago and I probably play this more boppish than not though I can't really overstate that since I don't use as much chromatic moves, and back and forth shapes characteristic of bop. I use the most of it on Giant Steps since there's no time to think otherwise.

I've been taught to always involve melody (in some proportion) and the linearity of bebop is more about harmonic outlining. KJ is one to draw a good balance here since his harmonic embelishment side is really bop based.

Thanks Scep, I'll check it out.

Have you guys heard this before ?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...IKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1W7CM0GF5J10FN8A1HPV

Very cool record-a little hard to find without paying some dough.. I don't if any of you play that Benny Golson tune "Stablemates", but he does something cool at the end that he turns into a vamp. The tune has a |Ebm7 | Ab7 | Db Maj7 thing at the end but Herbie takes it up a half step so the vamp is:

[: Em7 | A7 | DMaj7 | /: | then goes back DOWN to Ebm7 | Ab7 | DbMa 7 | /: ||

So basically he turns this into an 8 bar vamp before finally ending on the 2/5/1 in Db. I use it (rip it off ) now when I play trio on that tune. I don't know if you guys play this but it's one of my favorites because it's a weird form and the changes are cool.

That's some pricey CD, Dave. Kinda shocked me a little!

you can get it off itunes for like 5 dollars

I like stablemates.

Personally I don't think it matters that much. University level jazz programs for the most part seem to focus on bebop as the foundation of modern jazz and base most course work on it, so I guess that's why I've absorbed so much of it. But I never really agreed with that approach. I do think it's important to absorb jazz history to shape your style, but which aspect of that history is in my opinion up to the individual. History continues to grow, and the more history there is the harder it becomes to absorb it all. If you're sensibility is for the melodic then learn from other players who's sensibility was the same. Over and over through school I was told to listen to this guy and that guy and another guy and try to play like them. But alot of those guys I just didn't feel a connection with and I said to heck with that. I'm going to do this my way. And I think that's what jazz is all about in the first place.