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Ah, yes. I remember that. Bought KEYSCAPES shortly after seeing that improv. (Although I have to admit, I’d probably buy anything from Eric sight unheard even.)
Originally Posted by jazztpt
I have sung his praises on here before, must admit I prefer it when he does this:
The appreciation of Bach is a huge plus. Add the fact that he's actually hearing/perceiving the voice leading. But Jacob has many dimensions musically speaking. His grasp of polyrhythms for example.
Looks like I’m late to the Jacob Collier train, but love this Keyscape Sessions. I first heard of him on a vid with Cory Henry which led to some guy transposing and trying to explain what they did. Mind blowing. Thought I’d share.
code geekery: #failed at my coding attempts in preview so added the direct links below. I thought maybe it was the tinyurl the syntax didn’t like , but it won’t take the v id or full url either.
Interesting that you revived this thread Silverati. It gives me another opportunity for Jacob evangelism. For those who feel he's just fooling around and wish he would emulate their jazz piano heroes or whatever mold they wish he'd settle into. He won a Grammy for arranging "Moon River". He's also midway thru releasing a 4 album set called "Djesse" (I bought vol 2). He's too massive to box himself into a familiar box. Arnold Schoenberg in his musings in Theory of Harmony said that people cling to their cliches. Like sitting in a comfortable chair at the hearth. I read he got hissed on some occasions in Vienna.
I think he's probably an alien. How can he play so many instruments so well and effortlessly? And sing so well (check out his microtonal singing - geez). And be such an effective and personable communicator and teacher? Not to mention his mastery of the technology that he uses.
Having said all that, while I enjoy listening to most of his music, he's not near the top of my list of favorite artists. I guess his style (for lack of a better word) doesn't always fully connect with me.
I think he's probably an alien. How can he play so many instruments so well and effortlessly? And sing so well (check out his microtonal singing - geez). And be such an effective and personable communicator and teacher? Not to mention his mastery of the technology that he uses.
Having said all that, while I enjoy listening to most of his music, he's not near the top of my list of favorite artists. I guess his style (for lack of a better word) doesn't always fully connect with me.
My confession: I'm not fond of Keith Jarrett's solo improvised recordings. I've followed Keith for more than 40 years. I love his quartet recordings in the '70's. I like many of his odd little side recordings. Everyone develops preferences. This does not in any way lesson the quality of Jarrett's music.
As for Jacob, I've read some people say that they don't hear anything special. When I hear this assessment of his music - I have to assume that the folks hearing nothing special lack the developed ears to perceive the brilliance. Of course no one wants to hear that. You can listen and not really care for it, but it's doesn't lesson the brilliance.
I don't think anyone fail to recognise his talent. What I find problematic is that it that every video is a showcase of sorts. And that's the whole point of YouTube, but he doesn't need to do that anymore. He should just concentrate on a solid artistic statement instead and I would appreciate him much more.
My confession: I'm not fond of Keith Jarrett's solo improvised recordings. I've followed Keith for more than 40 years. I love his quartet recordings in the '70's. I like many of his odd little side recordings. Everyone develops preferences. This does not in any way lesson the quality of Jarrett's music.
As for Jacob, I've read some people say that they don't hear anything special. When I hear this assessment of his music - I have to assume that the folks hearing nothing special lack the developed ears to perceive the brilliance. Of course no one wants to hear that. You can listen and not really care for it, but it's doesn't lesson the brilliance.
Well said. What stirs one person's soul won't necessarily move another's. In my case, if I want to be amazed, I'll watch one of Jacob's videos. But if I want to feel my spirit soar, I'll listen to Beethoven's 7th (or The Köln Concert )
I'm one of those who find Jacob Collier music boring. Yes, no question he has amazing ears for playing and arranging microtonal music. Knows his way around a DAW and can create recordings with hundreds and hundreds of tracks. In long run his recorded music is too over processed and lacking life. To me I enjoy hearing Jacob more when he's in a stripped down environment of playing live or playing to other groups where he's not the whole show. Then the real Jacob starts to reveal himself.
It's like when playing an album for a non-musician friend. You are all excited and grinning and they are sitting there like that's nice, hey want to listen to some Herbie Hancock? If you have to explain to them why something is good, then maybe the music isn't doing it's job to move them.
Indigo_Dave - Like I said I ran into the transcription video and had to find out more about both Jacob Collier and Cory Henry. I’m always trying to find living people to listen to. I also feel the same about Keith Jarret. I saw him live once and blown A-WAY. Went to the local CD store and listened to something the owner suggested and hated it. Then again the first time I heard Straight No Chaser I didn’t like it either. I got turned on to Thelonious Monk via a book. In the book the main character plays Well You Needn’t and there are snippets of staff/musical notation in the book. I looked it up, and now love Monk.
KlinkKlonk- first killer name! As far at Jacob’s talent or lack of ... musicality, making something that sounds more like music vs. showing off cool things he’s learned. I think we all have to remember he’s what ...still in his twenties? His vids were made when he was a teen. Most “kids” are all about social media and taking lots of selfies so the self-absorbed nature I don’t blame him for; I think it’s partially due to his age. Also he may have a hard time finding others his age who understood what he was trying to do. He had to do ALL the parts. I think a lot of his videos are his testing things out, seeing if he can do it. Watch him teach a master class and you can see he’s playing, playing around, more than showing off I think. I algree with you we give him a a few more years and he’ll find his own way. Right now, he is trying EVERYTHING .
MR. Shed - totally agree, like said above I prefer him just at the piano. Liking his music... maybe it’s a matter of taste or combination of taste and understanding. I read he comes from a family that sung Bach for fun?!
It kills me he can tell how out tune most pianos are, due to relative tuning. That’s beyond having perfect pitch to me, but I have Zero ear.. is there a thing called having reverse pitch? hehe
He is alien, but we’ve seen this alien before. Not my taste but doesn’t the singer from Maroon 5 also play a bunch of instruments? My grandfather could hear a song once, and replicate the melody on piano, guitar, clarinet and the violin. I’m not saying if he had access to lots of instruments and the time and dedication to learn them all my grandfathers would have been a Jacob, but I think money and access has a lot to do with it also Who’s parents can or even will buy their kid a guitar and a bass, drum set, more than one keyboard at a time?
Here’s a quote from 2016 article about his room. “ It’s an Aladdin’s cave of musical instruments. Ukuleles, basses, tenor guitars, bouzoukis, banjos and mandolins hang from the ceiling. A Bengali ektara and a balafon stand atop an upright piano. A drum kit and a double bass are surrounded by tablas and djembeles. Synthesisers are piled on top of synthesisers.”
Yes, you could give me that room and I’d still only pluck out a version of Stairway to Heaven that would make even the most patient Guitar Center employee cringe, but I think there are more aliens. They just may not all have the time, money and high speed internet required.
As somebody who pushed back a bit against the accolades for Collier, I came across this video with his take on Billy Joel's Just The Way You Are: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TusGgD89hLw
It's terrific. His harmonic accompaniment to the vocal is so complex and yet subtle.
His ability to accurately reproduce someone's sound is simply amazing:
At 3:25, he accurately mimics Norah Jones. Such hearing and memory is a blessing, but also a curse. The music turns into a sequence of brilliant fragments, as if J.C. admires what's in his pocket. A real jazz kaleidoscope. As a result, it periodically overloads both harmony and overly long passages; jumps from sound to sound, and from style to style. From the point of view of an active jazz musician, what in JC's music makes you want to transcribe? For me: rhythmic turns, harmony, piano arrangements. Not his melodic line. I don't know who is familiar with Keith Jarrett's solo in Soviet Union in 1967, which I consider to be the greatest piano solo of the late 1960s.
Four choruses in one breath! Jarrett grabs you and pulls with him from first to last note. In J.C. it is missing.
I'd not heard that particular Jarrett solo, or the record it's from. It doesn't sound that amazing to me now. But I've been spoilt listening to him over the last 30 years or so. Mainly on record (I own about 20 of his albums) and I'm lucky enough to have seen him twice in concert in the UK, once solo, and once with the standards trio.
When I saw him solo at the Royal Festival Hall in 1991 the Piano was only about 10 or 15 feet from me, as I was in the choir seats behind the stage. An amazing experience.... It goes without saying he had a tantrum about somebody coughing! Happily the BBC broadcast the concert a few days later, so I have a recording of the concert I was at.
Dave Frank has stated he considers Jarrett the greatest Pianist of the 20th Century. Whether Dave meant just as a Jazz Pianist I'm not sure. But if you consider all his talents, you could certainly make a case for him.
Completely unrelated, yesterday, 220 years late (!) I listened to, and watched Beethoven's 3rd Piano Concerto, conducted by Leonard Bernstein. Quite staggeringly good. Sorry off thread.
As for Jacob Collier I sit on the fence. An amazing musician, absolutely no doubt about that. When he's playing solo Piano, terrific, but some of his other 'creations' I'm less enthused with. But's it's a matter of personal taste in the end.
I'd not heard that particular Jarrett solo, or the record it's from. It doesn't sound that amazing to me now. Cheers
Hi Simon! In your statement, I put the emphasis on now. That day I could not attend the concert because I was in the army, but all my colleagues and friends were in the concert hall; and said that the audience was shocked - in a positive sense, and people literally cried with tears. This solo stands on the same rung with H. Hancock's solo in "My Funny Valentine". By the way, the impact of commercial advertising: if this album was not widely advertised, then its rating was low. Ask your colleagues how many of them have heard this album.
On the other hand, I saw Jarrett's duet with Gary Burton in 1974 at Carnegie Hall, accompanied by New York Philharmonic's string group. It was just a botch!
Yes, I put the word "now" there for that reason, and indeed nearly put it in capitals. The album is available on Amazon. Mostly, but not all, copies are quite pricey.
I've probably listened to hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours of Jarrett's recordings (many repeatedly), so hearing something 'new' now doesn't have the same impact. The 6 CD set at the Blue Note club in 1994 is quite extraordinary. There again so are many others....
I meant "in recorded history") taking into consideration WHAT he is doing (total improvisation at all times) and HOW he is doing it (utterly perfect). He's just perfection at every level, something kind of inhuman impossible person, a Bach or Beethoven. But where is he? He's got to be seriously ill (stroke, etc) or he feels that this world is not deserving of his music anymore since Trump. I think it's the former (just intuition), and he doesn't want the world to see him as his is now, although the last time I did see him he spent half of the concert railing against the Orange Man..
Jazz piano Instructor. Technical Editor for Mark Levine's "The Jazz Theory Book". Studied with Mark Levine, Art Lande & Mark Isham (1981-1990). Also: Barry Harris and Monty Alexander (1993-present)
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As far at Jacob’s talent or lack of ... musicality, making something that sounds more like music vs. showing off cool things he’s learned. I think we all have to remember he’s what ...still in his twenties? His vids were made when he was a teen. Most “kids” are all about social media and taking lots of selfies so the self-absorbed nature I don’t blame him for; I think it’s partially due to his age. Also he may have a hard time finding others his age who understood what he was trying to do. He had to do ALL the parts. I think a lot of his videos are his testing things out, seeing if he can do it. Watch him teach a master class and you can see he’s playing, playing around, more than showing off I think. I algree with you we give him a a few more years and he’ll find his own way. Right now, he is trying EVERYTHING . 
