JazzCore2/part five

                                                         JazzCore2/part five

 

 

Playing jazz is richly interactive, its vitality dependent on empowering relationships. In this last chorus of JazzCore2, we look at three varieties of that interaction.  For each of the three, you will read the pre-pandemic words of local musicians who play jazz and who have grown through their varied relationships with the music.  

 

First of the three relationships is the bond between players and the jazz tradition.  Learning by listening to other musicians is a vital option, as you will read in the blog’s opening set.

 

Among the most powerful opportunities for extending that learning is playing live with other musicians, the focus of the second set. For even richer potential, add a listening audience, the topic of the last set. Playing with and for others can teach and surprise with memorable moments of breakthrough and flow.  

 

For many musicians, the pandemic means that those learning (and earning) experiences with actual players and listeners have diminished or disappeared. Let us hope for their timely return.

 

In the meantime, plenty of jazz-centric readables here for these quieter pandemic days.  Take them at your own tempo.

 

Your interactive comments welcome below.

 

 

With readiness/August 2020. 

 

 

 

1/Listening to the Tradition

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Tim Garcia, piano

 

I have taught piano class for beginners, I’ve taught jazz piano at the different universities, I’ve taught music notation…, music appreciation, and I’ve taught composition classes, jazz theory, jazz combo—pretty much all the basic classes…. I put people in touch with the Jamey Abersold theories and hundreds of other books that are available.  

 

But I stress the records, because I believe that all the answers are on the records.  So we do a lot of listening, and we talk a lot about what is happening there, and I think that’s the oral tradition that I like to think that I’m a part of, because that’s how the masters learned.  They didn’t have these books.  They had people that they knew, and someone would show them—somebody says, ‘What are you doing?’  Guy says, ‘It goes like this’—[sings figure]—‘Like this?’—[sings figure]—‘No, like this’—[sings figure]—‘Oh, I see’—[sings figure].  And then you got it.  

 

That’s how I learned.  I feel like I’m part of that oral tradition passed down through recordings from themasters.  I laugh about it, but I might say to myself, ‘Okay, today I’m going to study with Sonny Rollins,’ and I’ll put on some Sonny Rollins, and off we go. 

 

 

Bob DeBoo, bass

 

The qualities needed to become a jazz musician?  Would depend on the person, but if they’re not already listening to jazz…, then obviously you would tell them to go listen—to put on Louis Armstrong or anywhere in between modern to early, early musics and let it build. And especially going out and being part of the community, going to shows, and, if there’s a jam session, even if you can’t play, to go and to be part of it, see how it’s put together, how people are growing, and to have understanding that it’s not an overnight or even a year goal to be a successful jazz musician—or a ten-year goal, I guess. It just doesn’t stop, at least for people who are serious about it.  So there needs to be that.  You can’t be too comfortable. 

 

 

Herb Drury, piano

 

I loved Errol Garner for a while.  And I started playing like him—‘I can do this!  I can get this style!’  It was pretty good--came out pretty well.  Shearing, of course—he was an easy one for me to copy because of the locked-hands style.  I kind of did that anyway, and once I heard him do it, so I went to that pretty easily. 

 

Every once in a while, I’d play on a gig…[and] I’d play a tune all the way through like Errol Garner…. I would say Errol Garner because he had the most distinctive style.  There’s no mistake about him.  And then, as I say, I was playing locked-hand—it was sort of integrated into my style already.  I never reached the heights of Oscar, but occasionally I’d get kind of close.  

 

 

Ben Wheeler, bass

 

There are definitely playing styles on the bass.  I like sixties jazz—I like Scott LaFaro, the bass player.  I like to play bebop, but I think a little more modern than that.  I mean, I’d like to consider myself more of a modern bass player, and I want to work towards that.  And that doesn’t mean throwing out the tradition.  It means using those things.  You listen to a lot of that, and you do these technical exercises, and then eventually a connection might happen…. I listen to music all the time, talk about it, and think about it, so it’s still there, and even when I’m not doing those things, it’s listening, too.

 

 

Tom Byrne, guitar

 

Playing a guitar with a synthesizer pickup…opens up all kinds of possibilities…. My interest in synthesizer guitars stems at least partly from my love of Pat Metheny's music and his playing.  He was one of the first guitarists to use guitar synthesizers prominently, to put it on the map as early as like 1982.  I think that's the first time I can think of where he used guitar-synthesizer--on an album called "Off Ramp."  When it first came out in the early-to-mid-'80s…, I listened to it a lot. That had a big influence on me…. I just always loved the sound, expanding beyond just the sounds you associate with guitar into other realms.  

It is important to keep developing.

 

I also studied at NYU for a semester…. The school was great.  I enjoyed the coursework.  But the environment was probably the biggest.  Mostly going out and listening and hearing people that I had only had any contact with from recordings, such as Dave Liebman.  Jack Wilkins, the guitar-player.  I mean so many musicians…. That really had a huge influence on me--just hearing people doing it the way it was meant to be done.

 

It was really a way of setting a high standard for myself.  Understanding what it really encompassed to be a great musician.

 

 

Jim Manley, trumpet

 

I grew up not hearing jazz.  I grew up hearing Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.  My parents didn't have any jazz albums at all…. When I got into high school, I'd only been playing trumpet since 7th grade…. I had a free period the last two years I was there, and my band director would bring in recordings of different jazz people.  It was like instant love!  It instantly just spoke to my brain.

 

I can still remember him bringing in a little reel-to-reel tape of a famous trumpet player named Maynard Ferguson.  I'd never heard of him.  I can still in my brain go back to sitting there and hearing that after band and being stunned at what I heard.  

 

That was the first time I’d heard any sound like that come out of a trumpet. And it wasn't just because he could play extremely high; it was the sound that just locked into my brain…. Just like a smack in the head. So for the next 40-plus years, I've been trying to capture that sound.

 

But Maynard led me to other guys because my band director would bring me Maynard on one day and Chet Baker the next day.  Miles Davis another day.  And then some unknown guys--unknown to the normal populace—like Jack Sheldon.  

 

I just fell in love with recordings at that point.  And it's just never stopped….

 

Every day I listen to music.  You have to sit down and listen to the people who did it before you.  If I would've grown up listening to Clifford Brown and Freddie Hubbard and Miles Davis, I am sure my playing would be way different today than what I grew up with…. That doesn't stop me from going back now and figuring out what Clifford is doing.

 

 

Adaron Jackson, piano

 

For a show I did, I was handed a tune list that included ”Moanin’,” so for research or preparation I got a whole bunch of examples of that song from different people, including Wynton Kelly and Oscar Peterson. I listened to hear what this person did on it and that person did on it, and I just took from little pieces here and there.  I don’t necessarily write it out unless I would have to teach it or maybe give it to someone else for some kind of educational purpose.  But if it’s just for me, then I would just transcribe it and work it out at the piano, but I wouldn’t write it out.

 

I like re-listening to albums—you know, you hear different things. You’re slightly more mature than you were the last time, so you may have a different perspective.  It’s always good to re-visit because once again to me it means making yourself a student of the music.

 

 

Eric Slaughter, guitar

 

I think that to be a jazz musician you have to be focused on creating your own language—your own personal musical language—and always working on that, whether or not it’s applicable to the gig you’re doing at the time.Expanding it, expanding the things you can hear….

 

How? You have to always be learning vocabulary.  It’s just like vocabulary, like speaking….

 

But I think that that’s the process:  It’s like you’re constantly listening to other players and trying to pick out things that you can use, trying to understand why you like certain things that they do.  

 

In the beginning, that can be really specific, and as you go on, you can sort of get concepts, and it’s not like about copying so much as just trying to understand what the bigger picture is of what they’re doing and how you can use that and make it your own…do it your own way.  

 

 

Danny Campbell, trumpet

 

My jazz style as a player? Maybe more bop, because I listened to a lot of Clifford Brown, Freddie Hubbard, Kenny Dorham, Blue Mitchell--yeah, most of the bop guys.  The swing era, right after Louis Armstrong, I didn’t listen to as much of those guys.

 

I didn’t listen to a lot of Louis until later. Something about the bop guys that really sticks with a lot of us, I guess—being able to rip fast notes, you know, and play those lines like Charlie Parker…. Those are my main heroes.

 

As far as my sound is concerned, I think one of my main influences would be Lee Morgan--Lee Morgan first, probably, because of his very bold, sassy, brassy sound.  Clifford had a smoother sound--I like Clifford a lot--Miles had a softer, more subdued sound.  I think I’m more like Lee Morgan.

 

Learning to improvise should be founded in listening to what the masters did and learning from that.

 

If you want to learn to speak Spanish, you’re not going to learn to speak Spanish by never listening to Spanish and ‘I’m just going to read a book.’ But when you listen to people speak the language, you internalize it, it’s something you feel, and it becomes more a part of you…. 

 

 

Jim Jeter, saxophone

 

Listening to other players is how a lot of people learn to improvise…. There are a lot of acolytes of Charlie Parker--like Jackie McLean and Phil Woods—and the way that they learned was listening to Bird records and picking up those licks and then putting the theoretical knowledge on top of that, maybe later.  

 

In terms of learning the music, go listen to it to hear it played properly, and that’ll make that easier. 

 

Willem von Hombracht, bass

 

If you're going to improvise and if sound is your medium…, most of the time we're improvising within the context of some kind of tradition.  If you’re improvising in a jazz idiom, then it's important to learn what are the characteristics of that idiom, traditionally.  That basically simply means, ‘What did some other musicians before us figure out that they liked to do?  What worked for them?’

 

If you want to play in a baroque style, you have to listen to how people play baroque music.  If you want to play bebop style, you have to listen to how people play bebop--a lot of listening to recordings as well as live music.  

 

But then also analyzing what are some of the characteristics and stylistic traits. Also, how the music is structured. What do the chords do and what do the scales do and how do they fit together with the groove?  And how do the rhythms and the phrases work?  All these aspects of music.

 

 

Paul DeMarinis, saxophone

 

I’ve been an avid listener as all players—all good players—are, I think. You fall in love with the music, and you fall in love with and get really interested in the way the music developed and how it sounds and how it sounded in different time periods.  And all the years offer something that you can utilize, maybe some language specifics that you can utilize, because, if you’re improvising with other players, there has to be a shared language if you’re going to be able to communicate well. Given the nature of what I‘m asked to do most of the time, and what I enjoy doing, I’m called on to do all kinds of different stuff, so I’ve got to be stylistically diverse. 

 

 

 

2/Playing with Others

 

 

Bob DeBoo, bass

 

It is about the community, getting out and interacting with other musicians.  That’s how it’s learned—not through the school. By interacting with other jazz musicians.  So playing standards from a book--no.  I wouldn’t consider that jazz.  That would be the idiom—like the standards are obviously the vehicle for jazz—but improvisation, yes, is key—absolutely. 

 

I like to be right up against that as far as interacting with people. I’m not talking about playing a bunch of notes, but I’m trying to be as aware of what is happening harmonically and rhythmically and having something to say with that as an accompanist—having a creative conversation with everybody that’s playing and really trying to push that harmonically and rhythmically as well.  If something is needing a little bit of a push or is already there, then being comfortable with it, interacting with purpose as opposed to just interacting and putting something out there.  

 

To play well with other musicians, they need to know how to listen, how to communicate with each other, even before they pick up their instruments. They obviously need to know their scales and their technique, their triads, their repertoire, and all that. It’s an interactive music. …What interests me is everybody being involved, leaving space, and asking questions. 

 

 

Don Cook, saxophone

 

My style can change completely depending on whom I’m playing with. The players or the occasion--or even the venue—will dictate where you go and what you do in your playing.  

 

I have a chance to play in venues other than just jazz clubs or events and with that I can often be freer with what I do, take more chances.  For example, I play in a church band, and when I play a solo I can do things that really allow me to stretch out with good musicians. They give me the space, and I have the chance to try things that I hear all of a sudden playing with them that I probably wouldn’t hear in a normal setting. 

 

 

Tim Garcia, piano

 

I get to play in a trio setting—a bass player and a drummer—and that’s a nice place for me to stretch out.  I can usually try my own tunes there and kind of work out some things. It’s very satisfying.  A lot of freedom with a trio….  

 

I also want to say that it’s important to be aware that it works in a positive way, not just a negative way--maybe in thinking a wrong note or a wrong rhythm.  But there are moments that I really felt like I let the music flow and things happened that I didn’t intend but on hindsight I really was glad they were there because they sounded right for the time and for the music.  They were really contributing to the moment.  And I think that because it’s jazz, you really get that spontaneity in ways that you don’t get that with other art forms.  

 

 

Ben Wheeler, bass

 

You know, if the conditions are right with other people—if they’re playing in a way that allows me to feel free to improvise and feel like I’m creating something--then that makes it worth it. If I can play something and they respond, ‘Oooh, I hear that’ because it’s fresh and spontaneous, then that makes it worth it, even just for my own edification…. 

 

I guess the most satisfying is when conditions are right for me to feel free…where they’re supporting me, lifting me up to where I can be my best. And vice versa:  If I’m the supporting guy, and, for example, if the saxophone player takes another chorus and another chorus, that makes me know I’m doing the right thing and also, if I feel that, too—if it is the right thing—then that’s a great feeling, too. Then I know that I’m helping the whole thing—that’s satisfying, too. 

 

 

Tom Byrne, guitar

 

How important are the other musicians you're playing with?  Really important.  If you're playing jazz, especially.  It’s an interactive form of music where the players around you are interacting with you and you're interacting with them.  It's not predetermined so much what's going to happen.  So yes, it's really super-important to have musicians—ideally-- who will provide you with that springboard, and that you provide them with that springboard.

 

Some of the gigs…don't pay a whole lot of money.  A lot of times we're doing this because we love the music and we love to do it.  The pleasure of playing…the enjoyment of playing together, having a rapport with someone…, that interaction that creates the sound of the group and that’s greater than the sum of the individual parts.  When things come together like that, it's very gratifying.

 

It's a never-ending learning experience, playing music.

 

 

Adaron Jackson, piano

 

Play out more?  Less? I don’t ask myself that question. For me it’s not a question of playing out more or less. I want to create music with a specific group of people with a specific mindset.  I’d like to do that more.  Which means we are all on the same page and we’re looking to create this musical experience.  We’re all working together, we’re all competent, we’re looking to elevate the experience collectively, between us.  So I’m looking for that experience more and more.

 

I believe my job as a piano player…is to help people sound the best that they can, to contribute in a positive way to the overall goal of whatever the music is or whatever the situation or the setting is.  So I hope when people play with me or the feeling that they have after they play with me is that I have contributed in a positive way to the performance….

 

If I’m improvising…within the chord structure of the song, I’m seeking to express an idea and so then I’m creating melodies to do that…and take it as far out or in as I want to.  It’s not autonomous, you know.  You want to play with the people you’re playing with…. You don’t want to not include people in the conversation that you’re having with them.

 

 

Paul DeMarinis, saxophone

 

The best performances are absolutely the ones…where it seems like you’re not in control of what’s happening.   

 

I specifically remember…this was years ago, it was a duo gig I did…, it was on a weeknight, there was almost nobody there—hard surfaces, you know, acoustically it was a bad room:  One of the best gigs I’ve ever played, for the reason that there were just two of us, there was almost nobody there, it was on a weeknight, it was on a school night, too, so that I was kind of wiped out—it was one of these situations where I had taught all day, and this gig started late and ran later…. 

 

But the level of communication between the two of us seemed effortless.  It was just like a conversation with somebody where all of a sudden you look at your watch and like three hours have gone by, and it has seemed just like a delightful exchange, and everything’s fluid.  It was just like that—effortless—and that’s the best…, when everything’s working well.

 

To me, the performances that are most notable are the ones that involve the greatest amount of flow where--I mean improvised, but it doesn’t have to be improvised—but if we’re talking about improvisation, the ones where it seems like it’s not work—you don’t have to work—you don’t have to search for the next note.  Where, whoever you’re playing with—it could be one person, it could be five people, a trio, whatever—where the sense is that everyone is listening and very, very attuned to the flow of the music…everyone in the group.  

 

 

Danny Campbell, trumpet

 

When everything is right, that’s a wonderful experience to have…. Being right in the zone and focused like that is what we want all the time. And I think that’s what we try to achieve.  I try to have that whenever I play.  It doesn’t always happen.  I sometimes get that voice, that critical voice that comes, but it’s not always there. And when it’s not there, it’s wonderful.  The band is playing together, your tone is together.  At that point, you’re just saying to yourself, ‘Okay, what do I want to play?  I can play anything.  Okay, I’m going to take a chance.’ You want to take chances.  That’s when you find yourself putting yourself out there. ‘I’m going to play…I’m just going to play something.’  It doesn’t matter, because I can make it happen and own it then.  I can own whatever it is I play.

 

 

 

Willem von Hombracht, bass

 

Listening to the other musicians is the majority of what we do when we're playing. Well, if we're in a good [playing] situation.

 

The best music I've played has been with groups of people in which we don't really have to think about what we're going to play or talk too much about what we're going to play.  Because everybody's listening.

 

I've found I become more and more aware of that element.  I've found that really, when we're playing, if we're playing at our best, something around 90% of what we're doing is listening.  And I've found that if you're in a group where everybody is listening that intensely, you don't need to think about what to play. Because the act of listening draws out the right things from each of the musicians.

 

Listening to the musicians around you makes you play the right thing.  It only starts getting messed up when you start thinking about ‘I know that this is going to work well with that’ or ‘Last night when I played this tune I did this thing, and it worked really well.  Let me do that again.’

 

As soon as you start thinking about those things, you're not listening as well. Then you start trying to super-impose things that aren't relative to what's happening.  It takes you away from listening.  And it takes you out of the moment of your best playing. 

 

Listening is a guide.  Yes, you can't completely not think at all.  You have to have some awareness of what's going on and what you're doing. But really, I think listening is way up there at about 90%.  Unfortunately, it doesn't happen all that often, but I do sometimes get to play in those situations.  But much more often, I'm playing in situations where people aren't quite listening as intently.  We still play good music, but it's not at the same level of creativity. 

 

It's giving up your ego for the group.  That gives you the most intense and most pure music. When it's done well and when I'm playing with good musicians, it is pleasurable.  It's fun.  It's exciting and beautiful. 

 

 

Dawn Weber, trumpet and voice

 

I’m getting to work with people I haven’t worked with before, and every time that you work with someone different, you learn because you gather knowledge from all these different people and you share knowledge and you share sounds…. When you get to play with different people, you’re learning and growing. 

 

 

Jim Jeter, saxophone

 

One of the things people don’t like about jazz is that it’s different every time, which is the great thing about it, in my estimation. Improvisation is a key to it.  And then playing in the big band environment--particularly in a sax section--you have to be able to play, but then you have be able to shape the music in a way that it sounds good within a section, and it’s a great skill…. A jazz musician has to be able to play with others, he has to be able to solo…. The really good ones have to be able to read well, they have to understand the theory and all the elements that go into the music.

 

 

 

3/Playing for Others

 

 

Tim Garcia, piano

 

Playing out as giving me a sense of being worth listening to?  I guess it does.  I think there’s a sharing that I feel compelled to do.  Also there’s some satisfactionof feeling there’s a job well done.  I mean if I spend hours and hours and days and weeks and months and years on something, and I’m out performing it, it is nice to be recognized.  I won’t deny that. But I don’t think it’s my driving force…. I feel like this is a calling for me.  I feel like had I been…had I studied medicine or law, I’d be a doctor or as lawyer right now or a priest.  But this is what I am:  a musician. 

 

Usually people like what I’m doing.  And they’re verbal about it.  So, often whenever I play, someone will come up to me and say something nice about what I played or how I played it or the song I played.  It’s recognition on kind of a smaller scale, not on a worldwide level, but I’m not going for that anyway.

 

 

Herb Drury, piano

 

Audience and venue definitely affect playing.  This is why you become a pretty well-rounded, experienced player after you’ve done so many professional gigs…. 

 

I can remember when I used to play with a group called Jazz Central years ago…. We would play these concerts, and almost every solo I would take, I would get, somewhere in the solo, after I sort of built it up a little bit, a round of applause while I’m playing.  That’s recognition, you know…. I don’t know how important the recognition was, but it certainly was fulfilling that I got to my listeners somehow.

 

Most exciting for me:  Playing a gig where…you’re playing for them to listen, but you know that what they want to hear is what you want to play.  My 10-year Ritz gig was basically like that:  trying to do your best with the way you played, so they would enjoy it. 

 

 

Ben Wheeler, bass

 

What we care about is something that the vast majority of people don’t care about—like the interesting solo, you know, or the interesting performance that most people might blow off or not listen to or not pay attention to.  

 

Given the apathy, how do you stay connected to the music? Well, there are a few people that might know, so you never know who’s listening in the audience or on the bandstands.  It has nothing to do with age--some of the people that I respect the most are a decade younger than me.  But if I can play something and they respond, ‘Oooh, I hear that’ because it is fresh and spontaneous, then that kind of makes it worth it.

 

 

Tom Byrne, guitar

 

Jazz is often thought of as dinner music.  It does make good dinner music, no doubt.  Then you have--if you're playing a private event --a lot of times after dinner, people will want to dance and get into a little party mode. That's when you break out the funk and the rock-and-roll and the R&B and Motown and all that sort of thing. That's definitely proven to be very valuable over the years, to have that versatility….

 

But I really enjoy playing jazz.  I get a lot out of improvising on and playing jazz in its various forms.  I get a lot from it personally. It's almost spiritual. Well, it is spiritual, I think. It's kind of therapeutic.  I think it's good for me.  It feels real to me when I'm playing jazz over some standard. It just feels true to my nature to play that.

 

Another reason that I like to play and continue to play jazz is that I love the music. I want to be part of letting more people know about it.  Spreading it. I want to be part of the continuation, of perpetuating the music.

 

 

Danny Campbell, trumpet

 

I love salsa…. Love jazz music, but salsa is…it’s living, it’s breathing, because people are still dancing to it.  People don’t really dance to jazz any more like they used to. 

 

On a jazz gig, the audience is sitting down, listening…. Sometimes musicians are in the audience, somehow the most intimidating people to play for because not only are they listening to the music, they know exactly what you’re playing and when you’re not playing…. But jazz music is great, because people are there.… People have this feeling that ‘jazz relaxes’, but, you know, it makes some people excited. They’re not dancing, but that’s okay.  As long as they’re snapping their fingers and bobbing their heads.

 

If you ever play for people who…you get no response from, that’s hard.  You have to figure out, ’Well, what’s going on? Is it what we’re playing, or how I’m playing, or are we playing the wrong music in the wrong place?’

 

 

Dawn Weber, trumpet and voice

 

Definitely, the connection with the other musicians…that’s a really nice experience.  It’s fun when that happens, because then we’re just having fun.  But then with the audience, like if they’re really enjoying…just getting something out of it and you’re touching them, like where they’re feeling something and it means something to them, you know that’s the real purpose of us as musicians or songwriters, that’s what I think we feel is our main purpose.  That’s why we’re here.  And so, that just kind of gives you like your reason that you were created the way you were created--to be a musician or a songwriter.  And it’s just nice to have people get it and appreciate you. 

 

 

Willem von Hombracht, bass

 

No matter how good the recording techniques are and no matter how good the playback equipment is, listening to a CD or some kind of recording is always just a pale representation of what goes on in a concert setting.

 

When you're present at the creation of the music, it's really exciting.  Not only that, but what a lot of people don't realize--musicians and audience members don't really realize this --that the audience is part of the creative act.  There's energy and a response going back-and-forth between the musicians and the audience.

With the audience's response, it has a direct impact on how you play.  The way that the music is created changes depending on the way that the audience responds.

 

It could be something as simple as someone in the audience smiling at something they heard.  That means, ‘I like that!’  Maybe you'll just continue that train of thought a little longer.  That doesn't mean we're trying to play for that effect.

 

But it's nice if you have some kind of interaction there.  That's something that you don't have when you're listening to a recording.  As much as I enjoy listening to recordings, and I'm really glad that we have recordings so that we can at least hear a little impression of what people sounded like that aren't here anymore, I know that it's really not the same thing as what was actually going on.