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fasstrack

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Everything posted by fasstrack

  1. I don't know, I never got much out of books. I'm bandstand-educated like most musicians. Find better players who are also nice people to kick your ass and inspire you. I approached Chuck Wayne when I was like 20 and Jimmy Raney a few years later. I'm sure glad I did. Also played, almost daily in the beginning with Eddie Diehl for over 20 years. That's how I learned, and i absorbed some of those guys' concepts (especially Jimmy and Eddie---they were much more what I wanted in my own playing, though Chuck was absolutely beautiful with me, completely giving and generous, and one of the greatest guitarists to pick up the instrument. He was involved after years of study and thought with the guitar as an end in itself. I just wanted to get into music and never minded taking the hit from guitarists who thought my technique less than stellar. Hell, I agree). Now I'm becoming my own man, or trying anyway. It takes a long time. I'm almost 50. However, as pedagogical materials go, there are some fine ones out there. Johnny Smith's comprehensive method is just that. It's a very good way to learn get around the instrument and harmony, too. Also, he's one of the few players thoughful and bright enough to see the obvious: guitar's lowest note is a concert E one ledger line below the bass clef---and as such, guitar music makes much more sense written on two staves. Also, there are some intermediate Aebersolds that are OK. The blues one sounds just on the level you need. But I recommend much more practicing with records. If you look at it right it's almost like communing with the spirits of the greats. Get something with a burning rhythm section. Put on a Basie record and Freddie Green along with Freddie Green. Trade 4s with Bird. Comp for Carmen. Best yet, I repeat: there's no substitute for human bandstand interaction. Find some good players. Pick their brains. Ask to sit in-----ONLY in situations where it's cool. (in other words, be sensitive to what's happening and what the musicians may be going through, and how deep the water is). Musicians, by and large, are among the most giving and generous people on earth---especiallyif they see you're talented, or even sincere. Just be humble. Hope it helped some. All the best.
  2. Hell, Nick looks like a geisha in that robe. A very confused geisha.
  3. Maybe that's what we should be talking about: how to milk that bad boy and get in on this and make some of those ducats. Hear that composers?javascript:emoticon('')
  4. Yeah, those are all good points. At this stage I still have to make my name. In terms of jazz composition, there's one well-known Grammy winning saxophone player that has played some of my pieces (and those of a friend who's also a good writer)----but hasn't recorded anything (which, obviously would be a big help). And I'm not gonna push him. He's a big boy, and staying in his face will only annoy, or even make an enemy out of him. He's a hero and getting the time of day from this guy, let alone him even reading through my things is important personal validation. I'm thrilled to have it, needless to say. But until somebody like that records something it's not professional validation, and I don't have to tell you there's a big difference. Those recording credits come in handy (though still are no guarantee of work). They're positives. So the plan is to keep developing material for myself and becoming a good interpreter of it playing, while continuing to cast a net over the people I would like to have play the things. But this was a watershed year for me personally in that I really found my voice, and that's songwriting (as opposed to writing 'jazz ditties', though I'll continue to do that). I really want to pursue that. Writing tunes is something I've just always been able to do. I love doing it, more than arranging, to tell you the truth. Writing lyrics was a rude awakening---very humbling. I got into it recently and got my ass kicked. Well, I knew going in that you don't suddenly become a lyricist. It takes as many years as doing anything well does. But I want to take the ball and run with it now, find some singers looking for material, showcase, do whatever it takes. I also feel strongly that there's a need for good songs in life. So there is a spiritual component to it, too. If that sounds corny or pretentious I don't think it really is. Good songs make life at least more bearable, and at best do a great deal more than that. The payoff, if there is one, will be down the road. And I figure people will be led to the playing through the writing. And I may get lucky with a tune. All it takes is one. Know what I mean? That's my plan, anyway. But generally, people have to know what resources are available. When I mentioned ASCAP I was talking not about their possibly ignoble royalty collection, but the programs they have for writers. All of us, regardless of where we are in the business, would be fools not to take full advantage of whichever PROs we're members of. And I still put the question to anyone to please come forward with info on SESPAC or any of the others. Even if they mostly suck, we need to find whatever good there is and run with it. Self-sufficiency is the stuff of survival, and in a brutal racket like composing we need all the help we can get.
  5. I'm a guitarist, actually. We've been known to accompany singers----though the lesser ones that are unfortunately in the majority on the work scene seem to think we're invisible on the stand when there's a piano player there. Regardless of the quality of said piano player. Such is life. As long as they pay me..... I don't think L.A. is for me. New York is tough enough. At least you can starve and play jazz here, though. If if moved it would be to a smaller city with less musicians where there's still a viable scene. People mention Portland a lot. I thought of Philly, Washington, or even Atlanta, since I'm an East Coaster. I guess I'll hunker down here for a while, though, and follow up on some things I've started. But here in NY ASCAP has a showcase for songwriters and you can go there and get stuff heard. They also have some other activities I want to look into, like a collaboration service (they find you lyricists). They distribute grant money, too---but within certain guidelines. I was curious if anyone was a member of SESPAC or any other performing arts assns.---and if they are worth joining. There's something called the Songwriter's guild that looks after royalties and also has a workshop. I tried it out and it wasn't for me, though I got some good constructive feedback. There's got to be a way people who are trying to write quality, non pop dreck music---that still has a market, even if small--- can help each other. I'm gonna keep hammering away at it on this thread and maybe eventually we will find each other.
  6. I read your bio, Phil. It's good you played for good singers. Probably wrote for them too, no doubt. That's a whole other part of the business and in my estimation can separate the men from the boys. I'd like to play for a good singer again. Last one (of the caliber I'm talking about) was Hadda Brooks, from the West coast. She died a few years ago, and was wonderful. I'll remember the way she did "The Thrill is Gone" for the rest of my life. I know it seems like I got off my own topic, but actually singers are great people to write for. It's something I want to do more and more. They're often looking for new material, and if you write tunes and lyrics (or work with a good lyricist) you can get stuff sung and make money from it. You just have to hang in, like with anything else.
  7. I'd watch out for #666, though. I heard he's a real pip.
  8. I bought Cubase in 1995 and never wound up using it. It wasn't very good back then as a dedicated scoring tool. You had to play things in and I just wanted to write lead sheets. Of all of them I like Sibelius best and will probably be getting that. I have to do something because my parts look less and less good the more I write and the tireder I get. Presentation is everything to me, playing or writing. If you hand someone a part that looks like crap they may play it like crap because they figure you don't care. But I'm much more interested in talking to composers about composing and songwriting itself, and which writers we admire and why. I've been more involved with writing tunes in recent years than pieces for larger ensembles (though I've been hearing music lately live that has been inspiring me to get off my ass and write for the big band after 15 or so years, and a friend has a nonet I'll probably write something for. They're such good players I can't resist). I love it and feel it's not easy to write good tunes. The world can't have too many. I think the good writers know who each other are and eventually find each other. That's what I was hoping to do here. I realize also it's a relatively small community. I also play (guitar) and take that as seriously, if not more, because you guys know what it's like to play----or not, and have your chops rot and your confidence head for a border town. Register this with the Bureau of the Obvious: Music is a lot of work. But I've been doing a bit of analysis lately of the great scribes of the last century, especially the great Broadway and film songwriters. I taped Oklahoma when it was on recently and really pulled apart Rodgers' use of delayed resolutions. For example, one of his favorite devices is writing a #5 against a major chord (let's say D# over a G chord) and waiting till the last possible second to resolve it to D against a D7, or whatever else he does. (This was also done to great effect in the tune "Ruby". I forget who wrote that one. Anybody?). An example of a #5 rubbing against a major chord from Oklahoma is "Out of my Dreams" (he really twists the intervals against the changes masterfully in that one). That tune is also a classic example of delayed resolution in the way he also uses a b5 and resolves to the 5th at the last half beat. (If anyone's interested, Alec Wilder discusses this tune in his chapter on Rodgers in the American Popular Song). Taken with lyrics this kind of thing creates suspense in the listener's ear. They don't realize it, but their ears are being bent and they're dying to hear how it turns out. That's what good writing is to me, getting the listener to go on your ride with you. And one way to do it is avoiding the obvious (delaying the inevitable?) like Rodgers does. You can say that this is tame stuff, and jazz or other type writers take it more out than a little alteration on a major chord, but to me that's not the point. Intervals have a pronounced psychological effect on listeners. I'm sure of this. In Baroque music Bach is master of this game. He'll have notes bumping into each other in counterpoint and you don't know what the hell is going on till it reckons out a few beats or a bar later. It's the kind of stuff that keeps me up nights! Anyway, those are the kinds of things I had in mind. Writing, writers, exchanging info on getting our stuff heard. Like that. Thanks for reading and participating.
  9. I'd like to alert people to Brookmeyer's current activities: I watched him rehearse the Germany-based New Art Orchestra last Tuesday and heard them perform Sat. at the IAJE. They'll be hitting at the Vanguard in a few minutes. For me, as a composer, Brook's mastery of orchestral color, his surging swing figures, his pastel and slowly unfolding ballad writing, and so many more things (especially the low-key yet intensely focussed way he conducts and corrects) were a revelation and very inspiring. He tries and brings off so many things. And the guys are crackerjack, walking through demanding doubling as in a park. And Brook himself sounds like wine. His sound gets darker and deeper all the time and he still gets up for it. Naturally enough, he's one of the more compositional improvisors out there but also one of the best at wrapping his sound around a melody. If they should pass through your town, pounce. The guy's a visionary. At 72 (73?) he's one of the youngest people in music.
  10. Bad bass player might be worse---though it's neck-in-neck for the lamest music-killer acievement awards. Bad drummers can bang all all the possiblity of music into a jerry-built coffin of cacophony (hey---that's not bad, alliteration and all!) and be pushy and leading without being 'asked' (by what's going on in the music), play busy or rush or drag. But they can't also screw up the harmony (except metaphorically speaking). Bass players overplaying and playing wrong chords or bad time---the geometric possibilities for ruining an evening are limitless. But whatever.
  11. What's a Alby Cullaz? Never heard of "The Flip". Whazzat?
  12. Well, 'a bass player is death' can be true----'cause the suckers cancel on you a lot! Ha! Yeah, it's murder when the fuckup is in the rhythm section. As was pointed out, you can bring along a bad singer or single note player. You can try to establish the time or hold someone back (or push them forward) by simply indicating it, but if someone won't listen all you get are ulcers. Also, unfortunately, overplaying goes together with rushing because nervous players do both. Sometimes if you feel out the person and they are cool and can take constructive criticism you can have a talk on break. Yelling at someone is no good and only hurts and creates resentment. But talking should be doable with reasonable people when it's to help the gig. I remember one time I was playing a gig and the bass player actually had to leave before the job ended. The drummer was bit of a nervous player who picked up tempos and played a lot of unnecessary things around the drums like triplets that weren't called for by the music. So the bass player split and since there was no piano I was playing bass on the guitar with chords. But this drummer didn't change his playing to the new situation, like a seasoned cat would. Left a big hole. Everything was top-heavy, no bottom to speak of. Just loud, rushy triplets from the drum chair. So I asked him politely if he wouldn't mind playing some simple time on the ride cymbal to work with me and center the thing. He did seem hurt, but he adjusted and it worked out OK. Sometimes you can straighten someone out the way you've been straightened out by better players than you when you're the one fucking up.
  13. I never heard the recording, but Coleman used to play with Pat Patrick (bari----but he considered himself a tenor player, and was a good one) some. I think I vaguely remember that group playing around town circa '84-'85. Musta sounded good. Who wrote for them?
  14. fasstrack

    Red Rodney

    That's the group with Ira Sullivan, right? That's worth a listen. Also very good is a date he did toward the end, where he revisited bebop tunes he did with Bird and others. Bob Belden did the charts. I can't remember the name just now, but it was recorded in '91, I think. Good stuff.
  15. People have observed similarities in A.C. Jobim's composing and Chopin's. They generally cite "Insensatavez" (How Insensitive) as being derived from the E minor Prelude (#4). I was taking Jobim's tune Retrato Em Branco E Petro (Picture in Black and White) off the recording Elis & Tom today and saw that it was the same chord sequence, at least in the beginning. People have been talking from way back about how "pop" composers have ripped off and cheapened classical music and themes. I think Jobim is a superior writer, and one that Ellington would have called "beyond category". But I think a key to his harmonic sophistication and smooth voice-leading is his understanding of classical music, and especially the Chopin influence. He uses German and Neapolitan 6ths (can't cite chapter and verse----it's been years since I studied theory, and I fell asleep then! But I know them when I hear them) like he was giving out candy. He also, like the great craftsman he was, excised all the Romantic excess---emotional and actual notes---leaving the essence. I can see where some people would even consider Jobim overly Romantic and weepy. I don't. I think he was the opposite of at least the worst of Romanticism: very terse and with every brick and mortar in there meaning something. Regarding Chopin, he seemed to have put him through a prism and combined it with American and African influences like blues and pentatonic scales, and jazz harmony. The final ingredient comes in performance: that one-of-a-kind ahead of the beat phrasing only Brazilians (and Warne Marsh!) seem to be able to pull off. Some scholar should really write a book on this, or at least an essay. Meanwhile, I'd like to hear what you musical wags have to say.
  16. I recommend it, too. Carisi was such a good writer any assignment he did sounded good, even 'hack work'. The 'guitar choir' did a good job. Great players in there, including Barry Galbraith and Jimmy Raney (who got a couple of solos). And Woods played his ass off and really sang out those melodies. If you want to hear some great lesser-known writing by Johnny try a guitar-trumpet duet called "Counterpoise #1". He performed it on a now-defunct radio show, "Around New York" with James Chirillo on guitar in '89 and that airshot made it to Chirillo's CD Sultry Serenade (also a distinctive recording with very good writing and playing).
  17. He was a section mate, that's all. Got a few solos, though. Everyone did.
  18. Jeez, I lost all track of that guy. He used to do subs with Jaki Byard's Apollo Stompers, circa 1984-5. (the NY version, not Boston----and the whole band was subs, just about anyway, except us chickens in the rhythm section). I remember he had a beautiful sound. Ralph Hamperian, the bass player told me he thought he was a great player. I just remember his sound on tenor, and that he was a nice guy. What's he into musically? Does he do any straight ahead playing (not to offend anyone with the question, I just don't know. Haven't seen or heard him in all that time, but read reviews in the NY Times periodically that mention him)?
  19. Not sure how it compares, Ubu. Don't have it and can't comment. I only know that he was pretty incredible in the early 60s----different than the player he became later (though that was great, too---all of it). Sounds of Synanon----that's some beautiful, happy, non-cerebral, un-premeditated, swinging playing. Catch Me is great, too, as is the live date with Mike Wofford, Joyspring. Ditto the stuff with Gerald Wilson and his own date, For Django. For anyone interested, there's also a video (probably DVD now, too) called '"The Genius of Joe Pass", where some nice solo and duo playing with NHOP is preceded by an old TV show from the Synanon period. I think the piano player was Arnold Ross, based on what I read in Art Pepper's Straight Life----but I could be way wrong. Also, could be Albert Stinson, a West Coast bass player who died very young. There's not enough of him on recording, but a solo he played on the video made me think maybe it's him. (No credits given---big drag. I hate shoddy research). Anyway, Synanon guys, and baby-faced yet already bald Pass plays his ass off on The Song is You and Sonnymoon for Two.
  20. Right. In the legend and lore of me as a musician of (ahem, choke...sputter....hock-a-lugie...) world renown*, it's been rumored that patience is not among the forefront of my core attributes. Ha! Let me try practicing again: OOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM. Shit, it almost worked this time! I emailed you, Joe. Did you ever get it? *Think of me as the Jewish Les Brown. C'mon composers. Come out, come out, wherever you are. Pretty please? Cherries, etc.? I'm seriously reaching out here. We're a small community and it would be good to know who we are and what we're trying to do. Like Mammy Yokum 'I has spoken'.
  21. To everyone who mentioned Joe Pass: a resounding yeah! He played his ass off on that date, and generally in the Pacific Jazz days. Wonderful, joyful feeling, so clean, every note a pearl---and that control and time feel! Getting out of Synanon and burning with energy to play may have had something to do with it. He's an inspiration to all us white boy guitarists! Not to slight Groove and the group. They sound great and do the blues, swing, and ballads proud. I used to practice to this CD. Maybe I'll break it out again. Happy listening. Joel
  22. Is that it? I'm pretty disappointed. Maybe I'll start my own forum for writers. There's stuff that's important to talk about. Well, I did try.
  23. I think Wes borrowed that bass-guitar hybrid from Irving Ashby. Yes, he's in great form, he and Clay were a good hook-up, and the rhythm section was empathetic and swinging. And Wes's instincts were right, bass guitar and flute is a hell of a sound. I remember the sound as much as the playing. Joel
  24. He's 75 and still sounds great. Plus, he's such a down-to-earth, unassuming guy. (But he has to know how good he is. Just doesn't talk about it.) I try to get him on gigs any chance I get. Wish I was leading more jobs so I could play with Richard more.
  25. Yeah. Complete picture first, dig that. That reminds me of the stories you always hear about the great classical masters being able to improvise fully realized cadenzas and such. You just figure they had to 'see' the whole thing first---not that they didn't improvise and add on the fly. Your comment also reminds me of something Mozart was quoted as saying, about how he gets the germ of an idea first and then it cooks in his head til he sees the whole thing. Then he'd write it down. So what better validation do you need? I've heard Jim Hall talk about 'seeing' the outline of a solo as he plays it. He's such a compositional thinker and a good composer that the proof's in the playing. The purpose and forethought comes out, but he's still spontaneous, and that's one reason it's jazz. Forethought is also why a lot of people are graceful players, at least some of the time. But you still have to be in the moment, playing or writing. The difference between us and classical guys (including the heavyweight composers) is they don't interact and bounce off each other like we do. So even when we bring our reflection and compositional expertise to a (jazz) gig, we still have to be able to listen, respond, turn on a dime. Good food for thought. Thanks. Joel
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