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cb ... VERY NICE life experiences! thanx for sharing ....
.. for the rite was thinking actually of solo (rather than duo) piano transcriptions as a great source of stuff for pianists ... melody, harmony, rhythm , etc ...
I did go to a concert last year with this group though. I, er, can't say I really enjoyed as much as I thought I would. I guess I was hoping for more of 'something' and less of what I heard. Amazing players, all, but for me it bordered into the 'free jazz' territory too much. (yes, yes, I know, I don't need a lecture...haha)
scept! check out what happened to this guy for saying the "wrong" thing about wayne shorter!
Go to the 'recent posts' section, then click 'see all'
And printer1, yes, the guy said something a bit harsh, and the responses were equally as harsh.
I think when people haven't heard an artist live before, and are expecting to hear something similar to what they've become accustomed to through older recordings there is going to a bit of cognitive dissonance probably resulting in anger or disappointment at the musicians if they are not playing in the same style as on the recordings.
Maybe in Alex's case he just doesn't like what Wayne is doing anymore and has seen him taking this direction for the past 10 years. I don't really know. But, for my tastes and current listening tolerances, what Wayne is doing is too far removed for me.
I'm sure that if I went to hear Beethoven and he started playing like Schoenberg I'd feel the same.
Recordings of my recent solo piano and piano/keyboard trio jazz standards.
As I said some pages back, I'm intending on adding Night Dreamer to my set list. Awesome tune and awesome solo. Kurt Elling took his solo here and actually made it the melody of his lyrics. Can you imagine the entire solo being immortalized as the actual melody? That shows the awesomeness of it. Wayne Shorter is amazing.
I do wish to hear some of these older tunes when I watch him but I guess he's hearing things differently nowadays.
That is a great tune Printer, I especially love the version on 'etcetera' as Herbie is on fire on his solo. The Gil Evans arrangement is amazing though.
I do wish to hear some of these older tunes when I watch him but I guess he's hearing things differently nowadays.
He has been revisiting al lot of the old tunes in the last years although with a fresh new approach. Orbits and Plaza real are both on the new cd and footprints (live) is virtually a retrospective with tunes from every part of his long career. They always sound like new imaginings though becasue the band have the freedom to take the tunes to new places every time they play them.
Hey Prints I've just listened to Paul Bley play Closer. Thanks for the transcription, now that was an extremely difficult one to notate, being so free.
Hey Chris You have some very nice heritage, useful too !
It will be a different kind of music from what we've been talking about for sure. I have no idea what to expect.
So this means I'm seeing Wayne twice. I have tickets for May (with Herbie). That will be more of the free jazz thing I'm sure.
Tonight will likely be compositions. Obviously since there's the LA Phil playing with him. Disney Hall is an awesome venue for listening to music. Every time I watch/listen, it makes me want to throw all my MP3 players away, like I'm only hearing HALF.
It was Wayne's Quartet (Perez, Patittuci, Blade) + Spalding as a guest vocalist for a couple of tunes and then backed by the LA Philharmonic Orchestra.
Now it's not completely jazz but it showed off Shorter's composing talent and I have to say it was quite impressive. I believe the LAPhil Foundation funded Shorter to compose this performance tonight. Except for 2 tunes done by the quartet for the first 10 minutes (Myrrh followed by Orbits -- which were done exactly like the latest Album), the rest of the show as composed and played with the orchestra. Everything was written out including the drum hits by Brian Blade. It was weird seeing a jazz drummer read music to determine a hit on the tom, snare, bass drum or ride. Spalding's role was a vocal instrument. On the first long piece, she was saying some words that weren't understood anyway. The next time she came up, she was singing tones without words (not scat) like a solo instrument.
Shorter hardly played. It was more about watching his vision being performed. Since there's minimal improvisation and most everything is written out, it's not really jazz (although this is billed as part of the LA Phil Jazz program). The compositions themselves floated in the region of being classical to something with a groove. Most of the time, the orchestra was in strict time like jazz. So that's different from a classical symphony. But that was it was: a symphony. It was unique from the rhythmic point of view. We don't normally associate a groove with symphonic music but many a time, the pulse was strong with Brian Blade's drumming.
I was amazed at the quality of the symphony. His composition skills are outstanding. This is not some Schoenberg 12 tone thing. You can see the roots in his other compositions like Orbit. His melodic creations are atypical of regular western music. But totally memorable. Large intervals. Resolving in a different key. That kind of thing.
Again, this wasn't jazz per se past the first 10 minutes.
I'm seeing him again in May as I said, with Herbie. Apparently, this year, the theme is a Miles Tribute so that will be more traditional I expect. I had to pull out my Miles Smiles CD and listen to their version of Orbits on that.
Brad Mehldau did the symphony thing with jazz and his was more jazz since the rhythm section played constantly. This was different and Shorter's compositions are much more sonically complex. This attempt to bridge jazz and written symphonic music sounds like a continuation of the Gil Evans days. And there's obvious similarities between what Shorter did and Gil Evans, though it seemed to be taken to a more serious symphonic level.
