Long Melodic Lines

[Teasing the Korean]

I know a lot of jazz listeners tend to go for long lines, but for me one of the interesting aspects of melody is the beats on which phrases begin and end.  While I can intrinsically appreciate an artist's ability to play an endless string of eighth notes over changing chords, such lines for me are not particularly compelling because they lack the rhythmic push and pull.  

I once heard a solo performance by a fairly highly regarded pianist and his solos were all endless strings of eighth notes.  Everything started to sound identical by the third tune.  

What are your thought?  

[JSngry]

Not sure why rhythmic push and pull and long lines of eight notes are mutually exclusive?

[danasgoodstuff]

If a player is really playing, long and short aren't necessarily mutually exclusive - they can make the individual licks stand out and connect 'em up at the same time, if you know what I'm saying.  But the 'long lines' thing as a critical cliche, yeah that gets a little overworked sometimes.

[Larry Kart]

Tristano's "Line-Up" -- good grief! Also (less well known) Warne Marsh's solo on "Subconscious-Lee" on "All Music" (Nessa) -- almost two choruses worth of what is more or less a single linear thought that's extended and extended and extended. Afterwards IIRC Warne said that it was the best he'd ever played on that piece/that chord sequence ("What Is This Thing Called Love?"), which he must have played on at least a thousand times, maybe many more than that.

Edited July 14, 2015 by Larry Kart

[JSngry]

What kind of long lines and what kind of eight notes are we talking about, anyway? If it's the basic running of changes and their extrapolations that seem to be the, for lack of a more ready reference, "post-Brecker" norm, then yeah, that gets old in a hurry. But if we're talking kind of a Tristano thing, no, I don't find that boring at all, becuae there's all sort of harmonic and rhythmic/metric variations going on within those eight notes.

[Teasing the Korean]

What kind of long lines and what kind of eight notes are we talking about, anyway? If it's the basic running of changes and their extrapolations that seem to be the, for lack of a more ready reference, "post-Brecker" norm, then yeah, that gets old in a hurry. But if we're talking kind of a Tristano thing, no, I don't find that boring at all, becuae there's all sort of harmonic and rhythmic/metric variations going on within those eight notes.

I did not mean to imply that the two were mutually exclusive.  Bud Powell played very long lines that created lots of compelling rhythms through accents, harmonic emphases, and alternating between straight 8ths and swing 8ths.  He also broke them up with shorter phrases between.

The type that I'm discussing seem to be of a more recent-ish vintage, beginning maybe in the 1970s. if that decade can even remotely be characterized as "recent-ish."  I sometimes hear it in Bill Evans' late-career playing.  Naturally, pianists and guitarists seem to be more prone to this, as horn and reed players have to breathe.

Edited July 14, 2015 by Teasing