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Radio Cure on new Bad Plus album


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I saw them open for Wilco at the Walker Gallery a few years ago (I think LeRoy was still around so that was a few years indeed). Interesting, I like what they're doing, but I don't love em.

 

That was a great show. Great weather. LeRoy... And I got to see Glenn's wifey who was smokin'! I remember they played a really early and very different version of Less Than You Think.

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The idea of choosing songs for actually being music instead of all the snobbishness about using standards and excluding rock songs just for being rock - jazz needs that nowadays. I'm in a few educational type jazz bands and it seems like the goal most of the time is to just churn out John Coltrane clones or players that can play the changes but don't have any originality. It's totally against what jazz should be, imo.
I think that is the best part of the Bad Plus, that they do take chances and have expanded their market. I suppose we could also go on for pages about what jazz is supposed to be, but clearly some jazz education has gotten very stuck in the hard bop/modern era, since that was the artistic height of later jazz that is fairly accessable to the largest jazz audiences (avant material still leaves some folks cold.)

 

LouieB

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I think that is the best part of the Bad Plus, that they do take chances and have expanded their market. I suppose we could also go on for pages about what jazz is supposed to be, but clearly some jazz education has gotten very stuck in the hard bop/modern era, since that was the artistic height of later jazz that is fairly accessable to the largest jazz audiences (avant material still leaves some folks cold.)

 

LouieB

 

Being in a jazz ed college stuff right now, I kind of dislike what my fellow jazz students are doing. To me, the tone of pieces they performed or the style of their playing is to me: cheesy (I know that's a bad way to put it, but that's the best I can try to put down what I hear in my head right now).

 

And sorry about now taking this topic a different place from the original title thread.

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Which cheese are we talking about here, cheddar, muenster, brie?

 

The life blood of jazz has always been taking popular songs and turning them into something else, more complex and deeper. That is what the art of improvisation is all about. I have not heard this particular Bad Plus cut (I am waiting for a used copy to show up in some record bin sometime, I know that is unpatriotic and all...), but I particularly enjoy the other rock numbers they have done on other albums; their version of Life on Mars is particularly well done I think.

 

We have probably seen the last great flowering of mainstream jazz with Wynton Marsalis (and the rest of the clan), Kenny Garrett, Joe Lovano, Marcus Roberts, etc., who can still get some mileage out of the old standards. The next generation is going to have to do something else, although honestly there will always be some life in that material; it just needs to be renewed in ways today's musicians have not yet concieved.

 

There was a guitarist at the Jazz Showcase last weekend, who's name escapes me because I don't know who he is really, but the review of his show was interesting, in that it is clear he is not the usual type of act that ordinarily plays the Showcase. Even the Showcase needs to move on or it too will fail.

 

LouieB

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I think that is the best part of the Bad Plus, that they do take chances and have expanded their market. I suppose we could also go on for pages about what jazz is supposed to be, but clearly some jazz education has gotten very stuck in the hard bop/modern era, since that was the artistic height of later jazz that is fairly accessable to the largest jazz audiences (avant material still leaves some folks cold.)

 

LouieB

Yeah, I guess that's my main problem. We just learn scales for each chord, I guess it comes from modal jazz originally but I haven't learned about any of the cool bebop stuff from the 40s and that was only like 60 years ago now. It seems like I get glared at when I don't play the notes in the scale, it doesn't exactly encourage originality.

 

And yeah, I don't mind my thread being derailed as long as no one minds that this shows up on the Just a Fan forum.

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I studied jazz in college. Once my group did a graded performance in which we were recorded and an instructor made real time comments about the performance onto the recording. When I got a copy, I couldn't stop laughing. I was into some pretty out stuff at the time. When I started to solo on one tune, the instructor was like: "very interesting harmonic choices here . . . hmm . . . out of control . . . OUT OF CONTROL! OUT OF CONTROL! OUT OF CONTROL!" The guy was totally freaking out. Personally, I thought that was the best stuff I did on the recording and contined to develop that style.

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Yeah, I guess that's my main problem. We just learn scales for each chord, I guess it comes from modal jazz originally but I haven't learned about any of the cool bebop stuff from the 40s and that was only like 60 years ago now. It seems like I get glared at when I don't play the notes in the scale, it doesn't exactly encourage originality.

 

And yeah, I don't mind my thread being derailed as long as no one minds that this shows up on the Just a Fan forum.

 

I am not a huge fan of the idea of scales for each chord; instead, I just like the idea of hitting the chord tones, which is what essentially Charlie Parker did. For example, on a certain chord he would hit it's chord tones (say the 3rd and the 7th), and then encircle a chord tone of the next chord by hitting non-chord tones on the chord he is playing prior to the change of chord.

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I am not a huge fan of the idea of scales for each chord; instead, I just like the idea of hitting the chord tones, which is what essentially Charlie Parker did. For example, on a certain chord he would hit it's chord tones (say the 3rd and the 7th), and then encircle a chord tone of the next chord by hitting non-chord tones on the chord he is playing prior to the change of chord.

Yeah, see - that right there, more useful than like 5 weeks of sessions. :D

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I am not a huge fan of the idea of scales for each chord; instead, I just like the idea of hitting the chord tones, which is what essentially Charlie Parker did. For example, on a certain chord he would hit it's chord tones (say the 3rd and the 7th), and then encircle a chord tone of the next chord by hitting non-chord tones on the chord he is playing prior to the change of chord.
Yeah, see - that right there, more useful than like 5 weeks of sessions. :D
And why Bird was a genuis....

 

LouieB

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I studied jazz guitar at Manhattan School of Music and then studied privately with Rodney Jones. This was back in the late '80's and I would say there was a definite appreciation for broadening of one's horizons beyond just standards. Rodney also taught Vernon Reid at the same time he was teaching me. Rodney used to tell me that Vernon wanted sooo badly to be a jazz guitarist and he told him that he shouldn't limit himself to what he thought he should be, but rather be what he is. All very zen, I know, but it was true then and it's true now. I see people like Brad Mehldau covering Radiohead and Bill Frisell doing ... everything... and John Scofield playing avant garde jazz, funk and Ray Charles and I think: this is a golden age of jazz where, just like "rock," there are few barriers. So I guess I just think you guys -- and the guy from the Bad Plus -- are just finding bad teachers. Meanwhile, the standards are alive and well. I thought that, while an "all star" Supernatural type of album, McCoy Tyner put out an excellent album of standards just this past year. They sounded fresh and alive on that album to my ears.

 

I could write pages of rants on the issue of scales and scale boxes, but I'll save that for another time. Suffice it to say, all scales are chords and all chords are scales.

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I studied jazz guitar at Manhattan School of Music and then studied privately with Rodney Jones. This was back in the late '80's and I would say there was a definite appreciation for broadening of one's horizons beyond just standards. Rodney also taught Vernon Reid at the same time he was teaching me. Rodney used to tell me that Vernon wanted sooo badly to be a jazz guitarist and he told him that he shouldn't limit himself to what he thought he should be, but rather be what he is. All very zen, I know, but it was true then and it's true now. I see people like Brad Mehldau covering Radiohead and Bill Frisell doing ... everything... and John Scofield playing avant garde jazz, funk and Ray Charles and I think: this is a golden age of jazz where, just like "rock," there are few barriers. So I guess I just think you guys -- and the guy from the Bad Plus -- are just finding bad teachers. Meanwhile, the standards are alive and well. I thought that, while an "all star" Supernatural type of album, McCoy Tyner put out an excellent album of standards just this past year. They sounded fresh and alive on that album to my ears.

 

I could write pages of rants on the issue of scales and scale boxes, but I'll save that for another time. Suffice it to say, all scales are chords and all chords are scales.

 

I couldn't agree more. But I love my teacher, he plays guitar in the Milwaukee scene, and he can basically play anything. His whole idea is to learn the style of be-bop so that one at least has some tradition, and then he'll go with you wherever you want to go after that. I mean the guy is pretty open to anything since he made "Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden into a pretty killer jazz tune.

 

And Lou, I couldn't agree with you more about Parker.

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And Lou, I couldn't agree with you more about Parker.
Not being much of a musician myself (in other words barely at all although I did play plenty of scales in my time), I think the one thing that always stuck with me about the Charlie Parker story is that when he was humiliated as a teen he went back and learned the changes to every scale, even though other jazz musicans of his time, even the great ones like Lester Young, only played in a handful of keys and were not fluent in the more unusual keys. Having learned how to play everything, Parker was armed with the ability to switch up things in ways other musicans were not, not to mention the fact that he could play incredibly fast. Since most musicians of the time (1940s and before) were not trained in music schools, they played just what they needed to get by. Now you guys in music schools are required to play all those changes as a matter of course, giving you a huge leg up from the get go. Many musicians can now do what Bird had to figure out for himself. Bird had to sneak around to hear the music of his time, musicians now can download practically any piece and even slow it down or repeat it to learn how someone played a tune. It is no wonder musicians are far better now than in the past.

 

LouieB

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I happened to notice this while I was searching for Wilco shows:

 

Link (bt.etree.org)

 

The Bad Plus

Soiled Dove Underground, Denver, CO

March 9th, 2009

 

Apollo (I. Stravinsky)

The Empire Strikes Backwards (D. King)

Introductions

Anthem For The Earnest (D. King)

Metal (G. Ligeti)

Old Money (E. Iverson)

Big Eater (R. Anderson)

Lithium (K. Cobain)

Radio Cure (J. Bennet, J. Tweedy)

Blue Velvet (T. Bennett)

New Years Day (U2)

How Deep Is Your Love (B. Gibb, M. Gibb, R. Gibb)

Comfortably Numb (D. Gilmour, R. Waters)

Barracuda (M. Derosier, R. Fisher, A. Wilson, N. Wilson)

~encore~

Heart Of Gold (N. Young)

Feeling Yourself Disintegrate (W. Coyne, S. Drozd, M. Ivins)

 

Reid Anderson (bass/vocals)

Ethan Iverson (piano)

David King (drums)

Wendy Lewis (vocals)

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