Playing the saxophone Jazz Snobs...

[chrisshaw]

I really enjoyed that video, thanks for posting

 

[chrisshaw]

Talking of Pink Floyd,

"You, yes you behind the Real Book, stand still laddie!"

 

[tris]

Lee,

touchet!

bop..... In the rehearsal room mostly... how about that for a frank answer! 😉 totally validates the point you were making!

Think that says it all.... :laugh:

At the moment I am not playing out at all.. resting my shoulder and back. It sucks and is frustrating that is why I have started to paint. I should be physically fit again by the end of the year.... hopefully :erm:

Versitlity is great... I have never been in the situation where I could pick and choose what gigs I could afford not to play..

 

[Throckmorten]

is it better to be a snob than a mouldy fig?
I suppose you could be both

How come people who like heavy metal, think it's the best thing since mohawks, and won't listen to anything else are not called snobs

personally it's not that I'm a snob, I just can find much else to like as much
:S

 

[Pete Thomas]

Throckmorten wrote:
personally it's not that I'm a snob, I just can find much else to like as much
:S

As much as what?, heavy metal or jazz?

😉

 

[chrisshaw]

This "jazz snob" is phrase going to haunt me, I'm never drinking again....

At the time of casting conviction (4:40am), I wasn't calling people who play jazz 'snobs', because I am a bebop player and I have plenty of jazz gigs myself.

What I was ranting about was the snobbery that I feel exists in jazz. I find myself bored to tears with people who make a meal out of the level of intellect and theory.

When I sobbered up, I remembered that the snobbery mainly existed more in the unexperienced players and thus saw the errors of my drunken ramblings.

 

[tris]

To be fair to Chris...

I was a snob... like he described.... never mind making a meal, I used to make a banquet!!

I still come out with a lot of rubbish (as you all know...)

It all stems from ego problems.. well it did for me.

 

[chrisshaw]

I dunno, no matter what I write I can't rectify this error without sounding like a yobbo, vain or even a snob myself. I'll get my coat...........

 

[Throckmorten]

Throckmorten wrote:
personally it's not that I'm a snob, I just can find much else to like as much

As much as what?, heavy metal or jazz?
----


Snobbery itself

:laugh:

 

[lee_]

Over here, the term is "jazz *******". I been guilty of that some, at least in what I listen to. However, I try to remain a member of the "It's All Good" club.

I take an occasional jazz gig, but I can't say I'm very good at it. Most of what comes outta my horn is fairly blue.

The "jazz" hires around here are basically dinner music for old, wealthy private club members. The rule of thumb is "not too loud, and nothing faster than an eighth note". (That's the gospel truth).

Wasn't trying to embarass you, Tris, ol' bean. I was hoping you'd say you had a cool nightly bebop gig in some smoky club like you see in the very old movies. There is no gig like that around here. Might still be in New York City, I guess, but it gets harder and harder to find ANY venue for live music here (Texas), and jazz is way down the list (unfortunately).

 

[tris]

Lee... I was not embarrassed.

Believe it or not there are regular gigs around me like that. Where you can play Parker tunes all night, get rapturous applause and a bit of cash in your back pocket! It is a select audience though and you play for the same cats week in week out. (I have sat in with the sax as I basically have not touch a guitar in over a year now and I have been invited back so... who knows.)

Where I live in Lancashire near Manchester there are a surprising number of music lovers whose taste extends beyond lounge music. They tend to be older guys and if you are playing bop it has to be bop, harmonically and rhythmically, they know their stuff. This is a gig like the one you described only on a different level. They don't want to hear you play odd note group polyrhythms all over the shop. Well, they don't mind as long as you don't do it all night long. But there are a few guys who love to hear you really stretch and bring in ideas from outside the regular bop vocabulary I tend to play for these guys, they ones who can dig what your doing even if it is not quite their taste.

I used to play some fusion (Mainly late Miles and Mahanavisu stuff) and we got bookings and were turned away when the bar owner noticed that the bass was of the electric (ie bad) variety! Jazz snobbery at work.

As far as playing REAL jazz is concerned I am getting a project together with a DJ, female vocalist etc... it is more a Jazz / Hip-hop thing... but for me THAT is playing jazz, something current and up to date, taking the music somewhere new, not another rehash of Donna Lee. Jazz has been shaped as much by the need to make the cash as well as the artists vision. I feel it is the kind of project where we can get gigs in modern bars...

The girl who is the vocalist... well I was playing her "Ascension" and she turned to me and I quote.

".. that is not music! It sounds like a bad saxophonist practicing, badly."

Says a lot..... especially about my record collection... full of very "difficult" material. cough cough

Chris I know what you mean about Jazz players and fans... a lot of them are unbearable. Been on the receiving and the giving end. I try not to give these days though.

 

[peter_fitton]

Lee wrote:
Over here, the term is "jazz *******". I been guilty of that some, at least in what I listen to. However, I try to remain a member of the "It's All Good" club.

The Jazz Poofters.... now that would make a great name for a band, eh?

It's funny but when I first saw Chris's post I nearly replied by saying that I didn't think there was a single contributor to this forum who came across as a jazz snob. And I still think that's the case, really. The open-mindedness and tolerance of people on this board (except perhaps where Kenny G is involved lol) is part of what makes it such a good place.

Peter

 

[Bobby G]

Can I just say that playing like Phil Woods on that NRBQ clip is why I love the alto saxophone? I didn't care too much for the tune, it was ok but not really my thing. Those changes were just too bland, obvious, and simple

Cheers, Bob

 

[mfox]

is a beginer jazz snob a "snoob"?

 

[chrisshaw]

What you play Parker? I doubt it, give it a few years.........

Tris, you only bought that sax not even a year ago. Your negative comments on the gitar seemed odd. Come on mate, sort it out. Get them guitar vamping in order, does it matter what you play? No, I still play the acoustic on the Carlos standards and the alto on the Shorter standards (as much as I hate that sax), so just play jazz fella and muck in...........

 

[mfox]

most parker heads are dead easy.. what makes him stand out are the solos..check the omnibooks.. once your past the head anything can happen..(chord progression are simple in the main)

 

[chrisshaw]

[message deleted by admin]

 

[tris]

Chris...

Did not say I was any good LOL... I only played Straight no Chaser which is a pretty easy set of changes... I used very little articulation... not great... but my fingers could do the work.

Can't really play the guitar at the moment... reaching over it with my right shoulder being so weak is not great... I have a Tyler, it had a slab front, I bastardized it.. sadly. If I do play anthing with strings on at the moment is it bass... I am far more into that at the moment.


mFox, has the omibook for 8 years or so now.. learnt and analyzed many moons ago... so I has been a matter of just finding the notes on the sax.

Parker's solos are amazing... like classical music.. stunningly perfect.

I was and still am a big King Crimson fan and when I was 17 or so I read an interview where Fripp talked about Bartok.... So I bought a load of his stuff and got into playing some Bartok. Bird copped a lot from this Bela.. so it made learning his stuff that bit smoother...

 

[Linky Lee]

I don't quite get Charlie's genius.

I've got the omnibook and the solos are pretty crazy and are very clever but it all seems the same to me. Playing through it I find the same patterns over and over again and almost every tune is in concert Eb.
It seems to me he could play stunningly and really understand the changes well, but only in one or two keys.

This makes it get a boring after a while and the only tunes that stand up are the ones that have the strongest heads i.e for me Ornithology, Moose the mooche, Chasing the Bird etc. etc. I find tunes like Confirmation and most others in the omnibook just don't have it.

I think I'm missing something here. Please inlighten (enlighten?).

 

[saxismyaxe]

Hi Lee,
My advice? Get your nose out of the book, and listen to his live recordings of those same tunes. Charlie was FLUENT in all 12 keys, and was nothing less than a wizard, both as a saxophonist and as a musician in general. He could compose on the spot (IE improvise) with greater clarity and creativity than any other single musician I can summon up.

A Major component to Be Bop is the variety and lines of rhythm, which is high near impossible to translate exactly, or effectively, via music notation.

Still, some don't "Get" Be Bop, and like any other musical genre, it comes down to personal taste and preference.

There are certainly Jazz artists of the present and past, with whom I don't understand the public hoopla lauded on them either. Bird for me, ISN'T one of those.8)

Cheers.