AllenLowe

ahh, good. I'm glad we straightened that out - did they teach you that stuff in debate club?

I love Cleveland's playing - like Jimmy Knepper, though in a much different way, he managed to translate the bebop approach without sacrificing the rich sound of the horn - and he never shot anybody, which is an added bonus. As I recall he was also one of Gil Evans's favorites (somewhere there's an excellent Cadence interview with Cleveland that is a must-read) -

nonsense, Rachel - here's what I was responding to by Metheny: "The guitar for me is a translation device," he answered. "It's not a goal. And in some ways jazz isn't a destination for me. For me, jazz is a vehicle that takes you to the true destination - and here's what I wrote: "Metheny does what a lot of musicians do, which is say that it's not important what the instrument is, but that the instrument is merely a vessel through which to express the music. I think this is very wrong headed - each instrument has it's own qualities that ought to be exploited - now, Metheny is a great player, but his attitude does explain, to me, why I hate the SOUND of most jazz guitar - " quite a logical connection - you might disagree with my conclusions, but they make sense in the context of what Metheny said and what I wrote about it - and I have heard many musicians, partiuclarly jazz guitarists, talk this way. So the connection makes sense AND is logical - many jazz guitarists have spoken of how their inspiration has come from other instruments. I think this is a prime reason why many guitarists have ignored the sonic innovations of rock and roll and country music - and why those who HAVE paid attention to rock and roll and country have simply tended to make the connection through pedals and digital effects -

I like Sonny Sharrock -

she was married to that guy who makes all that boutique audiophile stuff - Mark Levinson - formerly a bass player from New Haven, did some work with Paul Bley -

well, my elf got the better of me last night - and he's still sleeping... to take this one step further, I do see Metheny and Frisell as countering the typical jazz guitar sound - yet replacing it with a kind of digital fog that has come to bore me as well - I'm not a conservative in my larger musical tastes but the best sounding guitars, to me, were probably in the 50's on those records by Sun, Chess and High - ultimately this gets into the realm of not only non-use of digital pedals but also the use of older amp speakers (less mids and upper mids, less power), lower powered amps, and certain kinds of pickups (not to mention real room sound). At this point it's just my opinion and probably more esoteric than something that would interest many people beyond myself, so I will let it go -

I'm not totally anti-digital myelf (wish I could find a good digital plate reverb) - but I would suggest that the things you find important in organ sound are similar to the things I find important relative to guitar sound -

I would like to ask you one question, B3, before you go to sleep - do you play a real B3 or one of those digital synthesized versions?

"I just listen to the music. If it sounds good, I like it. I don't worry about what pedal the guitarist is or isn't using or if his amp has tubes in it." I am in complete agreement -

B3 - I used those words - but not in that order! Come on, you're being disingenuous - you combined them out of context and in the wrong relationship to each other -

Hi Joe - yes, we probably are in much agreement - it's just that what Metheny said has become such a Mantra that I am put off by it - it's one of those homilys that sounds good and makes sense until you really consider it and look at it, and that is, ultimately, insufficient to describe the challenge facing the jazz player. The real enemy, anyway, is SOLID STATE -

"Jazz guitar (and bluegrass guitar) is boring and homogenous, yet pedals are synthetic and non-organic - " B3, you're really being unfair here - if we are going to discuss this, let's discuss it. I never said any such thing or made any such connection - I was speaking about very different points, and connecting them is really a kind of debater's trick -

B3 - I am not making those kind of judgements, you are - I am simply saying that, from an objective standpoint, I hate the sound of most jazz guitar - I am trying to explain it in terms that I feel are accurately expressive of the problem - these are not ideological judgements I am making, but aesthetic. Tube distortion sounds great to my ears because it sounds good - not because I idealize its connection to nature. However, if I try to analyze why it sounds so good, than the answer is probobaly, yes, because it has rich and organically guitar-like characteristics. I find bluegrass playing homogenous and a little dull, its true - but for other reasons (to much codification of the style) -

Joe - I don't disagree with much of what you said, I only felt you were too quick to dismiss my point - I just feel that there is a lot that can be done with tube technology and a good tube amp, a lot that can be done with the instrument and the hands, and I miss the direct SOUND of the tube-amplified guitar. Metheny is a great player, I agree - I just really do not like the sound of it all except in passing. I must say I prefer analog synthesis (is the B3 not an example of this?) and I really do believe a large part of the probelm with digital effects is the various stages of conversion and re-conversion - the truth is, the way many jazz guitarists use effects, they might as well be playing any instrument - I think this is problematic -

well, it's getting late - I'll do my best - it's not ignorance of the physical capabiities but ignorance of the physical LIMITATIONS of an instrument that leads to innovation - that's a much differnt thing, I think - as to jazz guitarists whose sounds and playing I like - well lets go back: 1) Eddie Lang - beautiful sound, great technique - love him - 2) Snoozer Quinn - an obscure one, from New Orleans, played with Whiteman and with others - not a great "line" player but swung and had a great acoustic sound - 3) Barney Kessell - straight ahead but very rich and full sound - 4) Jimmy Raney - probably the greatest improvisor of them all, almost did not sound amplified - 5) Joe Puma - beautiful, rich sound, lyrical plaer - 6) Al Casey (of Fats Waller) - great player, I saw him a lot in NYC in the 1970s - big sound, fluid player - 7) Charlie Christian - how can you not llike C.C.? 8) Nick Lucas - one of the great unsung - playing very swinging acoustic solos as early as 1923, before he became a crooner -

by synthetic I mean lacking in organic sound, sounding as though it were something created from essentially non-musical elements - not necessarily a bad thing. I just hate a lot of the effects and pedal that jazz (and other guitarists) use -

it's as though Sonny Rollins were to say, well, the saxophone is unimportant, it's only the vessel for my expression. Well, in reality, everything Rollins plays is related to the instrument's physical capabilities as well as its expressive range - the idea of embouchore, location of the keys, the interaction of mouthpiece and reed, of volume and timbre. I just felt that Metheny was expressing something of a cliche and ignoring the importance of the direct physical capabilities of the guitar - as most jazz guitarists do - I found it a bit annoying for Rachel and Joe to simply dismiss my argument as "making no sense" because they disagreed. In this they were, I think, expressing a typical jazz-person's myopia. You're an organist - you know its not just another keyboard but a very specific kind of keyboard with very specific physical capabilities - if it wasn't, well, than any pianist could sit down at it and become an instant organist -

you're ignoring, first of all, the substance of the argument - which is simply, as I said, that jazz guitar sound tends to be homogenous, synthetic, and boring - and that most fans of the music tend to like it that way. That's what I'm saying -

that shoots nothing down, does not even address the point I am making, that jazz guitar sound is boring and homogenous (as is bluegrass, btw) - and metal is about as stylized and synthetic as you can get - the relationship of the sound of metal guitar to guitar is like the relationship of professional wrestling is to actual wrestling -

and just to add, jazz musicians are just as narrow in their prefeences - if not narrower - than non-musicians - and, yes, I am a cultural leader of America today (if not THE cultural leader - that's Phil Schaap) -

emphasis was meant to be JAZZ fans - my point was that, in my experience, jazz people rarely like the rougher side of guitar sound - yes I'm a fan, but probably not typical in my preferences -

so he's not a jazz fan just because he's a musician?

haven't tried those - but I have tried other highly touted current production tubes and they almost all suffer by comparison to NOS - the only new tube I like is the TAD 6L6, which sounds as good as my old GE's -

of course it makes no sense to you, Rachel, and Joe...you guys are jazz fans. Rarely in jazz guitar playing do I hear the sound of the guitar in the same way as I hear it with certain rock guitarists - going back: Link Wray, Carl Perkins, Hendrix (of course), Buddy Holly, (early) Jeff Beck, (early) Jimmy Page, Mike Bloomfield, Robbie Robertson, many many more. Jazz guitarists are either afraid of true, direct amplification (meaning natural tube distortion) or use so many stages of analog to digital to analog to digital to analog conversion that their tone achieves a kind of digital sheen or, in the case of even guitarists that I like very much like Metheny and Bill Frisell, becomes a wash of digitally distancing effects. Occasionally some jazz guy who thinks he's hip will use an overdrive PEDAL, but that's why it all sounds (in jazz AND rock today) like so much synthetic excitement -

I dont hate the sound of his guitar but I don't particularly like it -