New to Jazz playing

I would suggest the companion disc to the PBS documentary Kenn Burns Jazz. You will get an overview of the history and the different genres along with the acknowledged most important artist up to the 1970s.

Thanks ! I'll check this out.
Cheers

Jazz is a huge genre -- basically 100 years old! Think how many different styles the term "Rock" encompasses, and it's only about half as old as Jazz!

Ken Burns is a great starting place, but he also doesn't really cover many of the great guitar players, and he stops with Miles Davis, if I recall correctly.

One thing I do to learn a new song is subscribe to Rhapsody -- it's a streaming music service.

Now, when I want to learn a tune, I pull up as many different versions of that song as I can find. Now I sit and listen to them over and over again and try to figure out for myself what is central to the song. What's the essence of the tune that everyone has? It's usually something more than merely the melody.

Thanks for the tip King. Well yes you are right, what I meant is to learn jazz standards so I could understand those fake books...and what jazz standards? I think it is a period that covers 30's to 50's if I'm not mistaken.
I will check also some Coltrane cd's and Charlie Christian music.
I have Wes MOntgomery and Joe Pass, but it would like to expand my jazz collection. I bought a Larry Carlton best of, but I found it quite mellow.

Now, when I want to learn a tune, I pull up as many different versions of that song as I can find. Now I sit and listen to them over and over again and try to figure out for myself what is central to the song. What's the essence of the tune that everyone has? It's usually something more than merely the melody.

I have more than a half dozen versions of 'Cry Me a River'. :)
I've consciously stayed away from Autumn Leaves for fear I'd be bankrupt!
:)

Roberto, don't forget to George Benson! :wink:

Now, when I want to learn a tune, I pull up as many different versions of that song as I can find. Now I sit and listen to them over and over again and try to figure out for myself what is central to the song. What's the essence of the tune that everyone has? It's usually something more than merely the melody.

I have more than a half dozen versions of 'Cry Me a River'. :)
I've consciously stayed away from Autumn Leaves for fear I'd be bankrupt!
:)

That's why I use a streaming service -- it's $15 a month no matter how many versions of "Georgia" I listen to :)

Thanks for the tip King. Well yes you are right, what I meant is to learn jazz standards so I could understand those fake books...and what jazz standards? I think it is a period that covers 30's to 50's if I'm not mistaken.
I will check also some Coltrane cd's and Charlie Christian music.
I have Wes MOntgomery and Joe Pass, but it would like to expand my jazz collection. I bought a Larry Carlton best of, but I found it quite mellow.

The thing about jazz "standards" is to remember before rock jazz was the pop music. Many standards are just an artist interpretation of a pop tune like Coltrane's My Favorite Things. Joe Pass made a few instructional videos I've seen them but it is still way above my level of play.

Larry Carlton is a new era player. Much of his stuff is post 70s fusion and its sucessor "smooth jazz" or as the jazz snoobs would call it instrumental pop.

George Benson's career is really in four phases. The 60s when he was a speed freak young lion. He will have the most "standards" on those early albums. The second phase he was the house guitarist foor the CTI albums, my personnal introduction to jazz was Freddie Hubbard's First Light, one of those albums. Then with This Masquerade he became a big singing star. Now as an elder he does whatever he wants to but can no longer do what he did in the 60s.

But learn jazz, not a particular instrument's approach. For most of its history what the horn and piano players were doing will give you a better understanding then the comping that the guitarist did until Christian.

But learn jazz, not a particular instrument's approach. For most of its history what the horn and piano players were doing will give you a better understanding then the comping that the guitarist did until Christian.

I think there's some truth in that to the extent that great jazz is great jazz, and understanding the genre is more than understanding one instrument . . . but I also think it's where a lot of young players go wrong.

The guitar is not a horn. It is an instrument with harmonic as well as melodic potential.

It's also not a piano -- a guitar's is laid out in fourths from string to string (slight simplification, but basically true) where a piano is laid out in 2nds (key to key). A guitar can have at most 6 notes playing at a time, while a piano can have up to 10. Piano's have greater dynamic and melodic range than a guitar as well. And guitars have the possibility to double up notes, do slides and pull offs, and a host of other guitar specific techniques.

Far too many guitarists go wrong, I think, precisely in that they don't learn what is unique about a guitar compared to a piano or a horn and bring that uniqueness of the instrument to their playing. I actually have a book that has the stated purpose of teaching a guitarist how to play jazz solos just like the great horn players. I can hardly think of a greater waste of a good guitarist than their trying to be a horn substitute!

Hi Rgalvez,

I tend to think of Jazz as more of an attitude to playing, rather than a specific style or set of techniques or chord progressions. However, this is quite possibly just to cover the fact that I still have a lamentable poor range of style and technique. But I do like Jazz, so I can still enjoy myself by faking a bit of jazzy attitude now and then..... :oops: :wink:

I hope that your enjoy your flirtation, and that it develops into an ongoing love affair. 8)

Chris

Flirtation, how's that for a word ? :lol:

Even I have been listening to some Django Reinhardt lately and found his guitar very soothing.

I love the tune 'Don't Know Why' by Norah Jones. Some jazz listening is nice. Thought provoking and intense...

BTW, I bought the CD Guitares Jazz some weeks ago. It seems it do not available on Amazon. I bought it in a local store. The link is in Fnac France.

It is a double compilation CD with one or two tracks of "almost" every jazz guitar player.

JazzJazzJazzJazzJazzz
I love it, but it's so misunderstood. So many (not here but those I have tried to jam with) think it's a note for note, complicated chord progression, intricate timing kind of thing. Jazz is improv, and you can jazz up anything. I don't like to use movies as reference points for music, but in Collateral, Tom Cruise's charecter sums it up quite beautifully. "You know the melody, and get lost in it" (or something like that). Also, even though it's more blues than jazz, the movie "The Departed" continually plays Patsy Cline's "Sweet Dreams", then ends with Roy Buchannon playing the piece with so much ummmppphhh......

Good way to learn the basis of jazz, in my opinion, is the best jazz album ever: Vince Guaraldi's "Charlie Brown Christmas", christmas songs that everyone is familiar with done as jazz standards. I love lots of jazz, and have around 30 Miles Davis cds and 30+ Keith Jarrett cds. Lots' of Brubeck, Return to Forever, Passport, Oscar Peterson, ....

Jazz guitar? I saw George Benson once and he was so incredible live that I haven't been able to buy a cd of his because I know it will be a let down. Al Dimeola will make your head spin, and John Mahavishnu McLaughlin will make you return to learning AC/DC songs. A really good jazz guitar cd is "Jazz Samba" by Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd. But you gotta think, do you wanna lay back and groove with some cool jazz, or do you wanna bang your head against a brick wall and try play morebetterfaster! morebetterfaster! I'm not critisizing either, because there are times when I can't lay back and groove and end up trying to play morebetterfaster! (an expression I learned from a fast food job).

I will throw this out for discussion, though. After years of trying to figure out Stranglers songs, I found that they were quite simple if I learned the basic progression and melodies, and then laid back and jammed with it. Does that make them a punk/jazz band?

8)

Thanks a lot to you folks for your input and advice!
Well I know jazz is such a complex word . When I was a kid I loved Dixieland and Louis Armstrong, and the female vocalists (Billy Holiday, Ella, Dinah) then of course I loved all those jazz rock (Zappa, Mc Laughlin , Corea, Di Meola) then I started to dig some Oscar Peterson, Coltrane..but as I said in the infamous 'I don't like these band' thread, I never could grasp Miles Davis much.Maybe it's because his trumpet sound, his lack of emotion, I don't know....
Now I'm into Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass..I love this stuff! that's why I'm more interested into 'standards' and these fake-books in order to follow them with the guitar playing.(I know Cole Porter Gershwin and Berlin, but I know there are much more to explore).

Talking about compilations I found this one in amazon and it looks like quite comprehensive, but I heard the tracks and there are too many of the early stuff, when the comping was made in a banjo-style.

http://www.amazon.com/Progressions-100-Years-Jazz-Guitar/dp/B000AP2Z62/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-8203593-8122208?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1185402097&sr=8-1

I would like to hear you guys what do you think about: George Van Eps, Johhny Smith, Pat Martino, Scott Henderson, Gabor Zsabo, also I'm particularly interested in John Scofield and Bill Frisell.