Horace Parlan playing is remarkable...

[Dan Gould]

While the single note style imitates the horns as to musical function it really struggles to reach the expressive level of the horns,

An exceptionally questionable assertion.

which is probably why in a quintet pianists get to go third (before the bass admittedly but lets not even GO there...),

But not nearly as ludicrous as this one when we simply remember that bebop was a music of alto sax and trumpet, and from the start, the horns soloed first almost always.

On the other hand, maybe Bird and Diz thought their pianists couldn't match their "expressive level" and told them to fuck off, you don't get to ruin the song by soloing before we do.

why early free jazz often dropped piano and maybe -

I'm not even a fan of the style but I thought it was understood that early free jazz played without pianists simply to open up the music and give the soloists more freedom instead of trying to interact with a pianist comping behind him and keeping the structure of the song out front.

and I am always saying we need to think about this - part of why most people don't care for jazz.

Single most ludicrous statement yet.

edit to elaborate:

Seriously, you think people listen to horn solos and think "this is pretty good music" and then get to a boring, technically unimpressive and emotionally neutered piano solo and say "this music sucks - I was wrong, I hate jazz!"

I guess its also why for some decades the top jazz or jazz-descended pianists have no longer played that way.

I stand corrected. Please name some "top jazz" pianists from the previous decades who "no longer play that way".

Because I can name dozens who are both top jazz pianists and who also play in that same technically limited, emotionally unexpressive style.

Edited April 17, 2011 by Dan Gould

[cymbalgroove]

Well, I don't agree. The bebop/bop style is a (dramatic) narrowing of the capabilites of the piano. It says it all that you don't need a fully functioning right hand to play the simple single-note doodles that pass for the substance of a 'piano solo'. Sorry to be blunt.

"...narrowing the capabilities of the piano." Huh? Bebop/bop requires the ability to improvise on the fly as well as provide accompaniment for those who are doing so. By its very nature this sort of playing demands full and complete control of the keyboard.

Mentally, but not physically. Even in comparison with playing Cherokee at breakneck speed in B major, an average Beethoven sonata places far more demands on both hands (especially the left). Are we really going to try and claim that comping behind yourself with the left hand maximizes the capability of the instrument as much as a Bach 3-part invention?

Uh uh. It takes a lot of physical stamina---on any instrument---to keep up those tempos, execute, etc. It's a discipline and this is why there are relatively few dedicated bebop pianists. There are hardly any chances to play that music in the purest sense. The term 'bebop' itself is bastardized and now means just 'mainstream' to a lot of people---or nothing at all. But it---the true, undiluted thing---is as technically exacting---physically---as music gets.

I'm not even touching the mental part. We'll be out of here next Thursday....

Agree 100%!! How many true bebop piano players are playing these days? REAL bebop not guys who everyone call bebop pianists when they come out of more of a McCoy influence than anything else. BTW I LOVE McCoy (early) and he could really play the stuff his way like on those early Freddie records like Goin Up and Open Sesame.

[cymbalgroove]

I've said this before and I'll say it again. I don't think much of bop piano solos which rely on sparse and usually fairly simple chording in the left hand and simple one-note picking in the right, usually all in the middle register of the instrument. All very pretty but hardly overwhelming. I can enjoy it but I will never be persuaded that it is a technical or musical miracle. I basically said that Parlan can play that style - sometimes by just playing melody in the left and not playing with the compromised right at all - because the technical demands are quite low compared to what is actually possible on a piano. While the single note style imitates the horns as to musical function it really struggles to reach the expressive level of the horns, which is probably why in a quintet pianists get to go third (before the bass admittedly but lets not even GO there...), why early free jazz often dropped piano and maybe - and I am always saying we need to think about this - part of why most people don't care for jazz. I guess its also why for some decades the top jazz or jazz-descended pianists have no longer played that way.

How bout Wynton Kelly? He didn't stay in the middle register and to me is one of the most exciting musicians of all time. I do think though as I always say this stuff boils down to personal tastes. I get the feeling you're really not a bebop fan and that's okay. Barry Harris still plays the way he did 40 yrs ago. Younger guys like Tardo Hammer and Sascha Perry come to mind as two guys that have stuck to that way of playing. I love piano players who play simple. Usually because each note they play means something. My question to you would be who are some of your favorite piano players out of curiosity? I'm not trying to be an ass here, I'm actually trying to understand your views more is all.

[fasstrack]

Well, I don't agree. The bebop/bop style is a (dramatic) narrowing of the capabilites of the piano. It says it all that you don't need a fully functioning right hand to play the simple single-note doodles that pass for the substance of a 'piano solo'. Sorry to be blunt.

"...narrowing the capabilities of the piano." Huh? Bebop/bop requires the ability to improvise on the fly as well as provide accompaniment for those who are doing so. By its very nature this sort of playing demands full and complete control of the keyboard.

Mentally, but not physically. Even in comparison with playing Cherokee at breakneck speed in B major, an average Beethoven sonata places far more demands on both hands (especially the left). Are we really going to try and claim that comping behind yourself with the left hand maximizes the capability of the instrument as much as a Bach 3-part invention?

Uh uh. It takes a lot of physical stamina---on any instrument---to keep up those tempos, execute, etc. It's a discipline and this is why there are relatively few dedicated bebop pianists. There are hardly any chances to play that music in the purest sense. The term 'bebop' itself is bastardized and now means just 'mainstream' to a lot of people---or nothing at all. But it---the true, undiluted thing---is as technically exacting---physically---as music gets.

I'm not even touching the mental part. We'll be out of here next Thursday....

Agree 100%!! How many true bebop piano players are playing these days? REAL bebop not guys who everyone call bebop pianists when they come out of more of a McCoy influence than anything else. BTW I LOVE McCoy (early) and he could really play the stuff his way like on those early Freddie records like Goin Up and Open Sesame.

Aside from Barry Harris I can only think of a few (in NY): Tardo Hammer. If anyone gets the chance to hear him, run. He's a badass. Also Sascha Perry is very fine and Rodney Kendrick when he does that is also very good (meaning he has other influences but leans a lot to Barry--a teacher and mentor---and Bud). Fair disclosure: these guys are all my friends so maybe my objectivity is somewhat compromised. Listen and judge for yourselves.(I hope I'm wrong, BTW, and there are many more).

Edited April 18, 2011 by fasstrack

[AllenLowe]

Tardo can play - though the last time I saw him was like 1987, with Jamil Nasser - he had a very nice Hank Jones-ish touch.

[AllenLowe]

going back and reading David Ayers original stuff, which I missed before, I am truly shocked and dismayed - first of all, all of the great pianist I've known personally or met, from Barry Harris to Tommy Flanagan, Al Haig, Bill Evans, Hank Jones, Bob Neloms, Lennie Tristano, Duke Jordan etc could play all the keyboard with any hand - any reduction of style was by CHOICE - but who cares? The inventiveness (harmonic and linear) of a great bebop pianist is BEYOND any classical musician in the world - just ask Ursula Oppens, one of the greats in the classic/new music fieid, who said to me once "I cannot improvise."

Edited April 18, 2011 by AllenLowe

[Victor Christensen]

I have seen Horace Parlan live many times, he have been living in Denmark for quite a few years now, but he can't play anymore, he is in a home for elderly people and almost blind, so sad, he is a very nice person.

Vic

[Stereojack]

I have seen Horace Parlan live many times, he have been living in Denmark for quite a few years now, but he can't play anymore, he is in a home for elderly people and almost blind, so sad, he is a very nice person.

Vic

I'm sorry to hear this. Horace Parlan has given us a lot of great music over the years.

[T.D.]

Well, I don't agree. The bebop/bop style is a (dramatic) narrowing of the capabilites of the piano. It says it all that you don't need a fully functioning right hand to play the simple single-note doodles that pass for the substance of a 'piano solo'. Sorry to be blunt.

"...narrowing the capabilities of the piano." Huh? Bebop/bop requires the ability to improvise on the fly as well as provide accompaniment for those who are doing so. By its very nature this sort of playing demands full and complete control of the keyboard.

Mentally, but not physically. Even in comparison with playing Cherokee at breakneck speed in B major, an average Beethoven sonata places far more demands on both hands (especially the left). Are we really going to try and claim that comping behind yourself with the left hand maximizes the capability of the instrument as much as a Bach 3-part invention?

Uh uh. It takes a lot of physical stamina---on any instrument---to keep up those tempos, execute, etc. It's a discipline and this is why there are relatively few dedicated bebop pianists. There are hardly any chances to play that music in the purest sense. The term 'bebop' itself is bastardized and now means just 'mainstream' to a lot of people---or nothing at all. But it---the true, undiluted thing---is as technically exacting---physically---as music gets.

I'm not even touching the mental part. We'll be out of here next Thursday....

Agree 100%!! How many true bebop piano players are playing these days? REAL bebop not guys who everyone call bebop pianists when they come out of more of a McCoy influence than anything else. BTW I LOVE McCoy (early) and he could really play the stuff his way like on those early Freddie records like Goin Up and Open Sesame.

Aside from Barry Harris I can only think of a few (in NY): Tardo Hammer. If anyone gets the chance to hear him, run. He's a badass. Also Sascha Perry is very fine and Rodney Kendrick when he does that is also very good (meaning he has other influences but leans a lot to Barry--a teacher and mentor---and Bud). Fair disclosure: these guys are all my friends so maybe my objectivity is somewhat compromised. Listen and judge for yourselves.(I hope I'm wrong, BTW, and there are many more).

What about Hod O'Brien?

[Hardbopjazz]

I have seen Horace Parlan live many times, he have been living in Denmark for quite a few years now, but he can't play anymore, he is in a home for elderly people and almost blind, so sad, he is a very nice person.

Vic

Very sad to hear this.

[fasstrack]

Well, I don't agree. The bebop/bop style is a (dramatic) narrowing of the capabilites of the piano. It says it all that you don't need a fully functioning right hand to play the simple single-note doodles that pass for the substance of a 'piano solo'. Sorry to be blunt.

"...narrowing the capabilities of the piano." Huh? Bebop/bop requires the ability to improvise on the fly as well as provide accompaniment for those who are doing so. By its very nature this sort of playing demands full and complete control of the keyboard.

Mentally, but not physically. Even in comparison with playing Cherokee at breakneck speed in B major, an average Beethoven sonata places far more demands on both hands (especially the left). Are we really going to try and claim that comping behind yourself with the left hand maximizes the capability of the instrument as much as a Bach 3-part invention?

Uh uh. It takes a lot of physical stamina---on any instrument---to keep up those tempos, execute, etc. It's a discipline and this is why there are relatively few dedicated bebop pianists. There are hardly any chances to play that music in the purest sense. The term 'bebop' itself is bastardized and now means just 'mainstream' to a lot of people---or nothing at all. But it---the true, undiluted thing---is as technically exacting---physically---as music gets.

I'm not even touching the mental part. We'll be out of here next Thursday....

Agree 100%!! How many true bebop piano players are playing these days? REAL bebop not guys who everyone call bebop pianists when they come out of more of a McCoy influence than anything else. BTW I LOVE McCoy (early) and he could really play the stuff his way like on those early Freddie records like Goin Up and Open Sesame.

Aside from Barry Harris I can only think of a few (in NY): Tardo Hammer. If anyone gets the chance to hear him, run. He's a badass. Also Sascha Perry is very fine and Rodney Kendrick when he does that is also very good (meaning he has other influences but leans a lot to Barry--a teacher and mentor---and Bud). Fair disclosure: these guys are all my friends so maybe my objectivity is somewhat compromised. Listen and judge for yourselves.(I hope I'm wrong, BTW, and there are many more).

What about Hod O'Brien?

Yes, Hod. Thank you. He lives in Virginia now, so he slipped my mind. I knew him in NY and we played in Marshall Brown's Wednesday 'workshop'. I also used to hear him regularly with Joe Puma at Gregory's here in NY

A bebopper to his socks. He can swing, too.

[AllenLowe]

Bill Triglia, who just died, was, in his prime (1950s), IMHO the most interesting bebopper after Bud and Haig -

[fasstrack]

Bill Triglia, who just died, was, in his prime (1950s), IMHO the most interesting bebopper after Bud and Haig -

I was just talking to Eddie Diehl about Triglia. Those two crazy MFs called me once many years ago in the wee hours---waking up my dad to boot---to tell me they were digging a recording Eddie, me, and Jared Bernstein (yes, the economist, then a bass player) had made.

Also a guy named Dave Elson told me some funny stories about Triglia---how he came in the open door to his house and there was a session going on. He didn't want to make the younger guys nervous so he laid down on the couch---where Elson found him 'sawing wood' many hours later.

Allen, you might remember Triglia from Gregory's if you hung there. I heard him there in the '70s, around the time you were hanging with Haig and me with Chuck Wayne. I'm pretty sure he was playing with Wayne. He was real interesting to hear, struggling a bit at first because it definitely seemed he had laid off a while and was trying to get his chops back. I remember his ideas were really interesting, mixing in 4ths and stuff with the regular bebop fare.

Edited April 20, 2011 by fasstrack

[cymbalgroove]

I forgot to say how much I love Horace Parlan's playing. His Blue Note On The Spur Of The Moment is a great one!

[Justin V]

Horace Parlan is 83 today. I don't have any of his leader dates, but I always enjoy his sideman appearances. I was thinking about him earlier today after finding Lou Donaldson's Sunny Side Up yesterday in a shop. Here's wishing him a happy and healthy birthday.