Reccomend some trio-based jazz music for me...please!

[Aaron Saunders]

I'm in a jazz quartet with one of my teachers (also the bandleader for the school jazz band), and two other students. It follows as myself on bass, the teacher (Greg Runions, if anyone here might recognize the name) on vibes, and a piano and drums. There's a music competition that the school jazz band music enters every year, but you can also enter small ensembles, and I really, really want to enter the quartet. Unfortunately, we can't compete with a teacher playing with us, so we'd have to do it as a trio.

I've got two Oscar Peterson Trio albums (Night Train [Special Edition] on CD, and Night Train Vol. 2 on vinyl) that I really love and I think Night Train and Band Call might be possibilities.

General skill levels -- the pianist, Cavan, is spectacular. Amazing. I've seen him tear off Chopin and Mozart like it's nothing, and he can do some pretty nasty jazz too. The drummer will be able to handle anything we throw at him. Myself...the Jane Monheit version of Honeysuckle Rose is about where it gets "way too hard" for me right now. Given the sheets, and time, I could be able to do the Ray Brown bass solo in the album version of Night Train.

Any suggestions? I've got a set of 14 fake books in PDF format, so I've probably got the charts to anything y'all can suggest, and if I can't, Mr. Runions can make 'em.

(I'm not playing upright yet, by the by -- this is all gonna be on a 4 banger fretless).


Final note: I am playing a four stringer, and loathe doing Eb chords. Loathe.

[DaveBeny]

There was a thread on jazz trios recently:

60's jazz

[Dynna]

Check out "It's only Music" by Gary Willis.

Heck, find a cool tune that you all like, and chart the chords andlead line, and go nuts. My gtr/bass duo does Gentle Ways by Steve Vai, we also do Lover's Leap by the Flecktones, and it takes the Flecktones 8, count 'em, EIGHT, players to do what it takes us a bass and gtr. Okay, I'm kidding about the 8 part and us, but I think we do a pretty cool interpretation of the tune.

Respect tradition, SCREW convention.

[XavierG]

How about some Brian Melvin Trio (with Jaco) stuff. My trio does their version of "So What" as well as "Fire Water" ... bass, piano and drums.

[Passinwind]

We do Night Train in my sextet, and will probably add it to the trio's list soon. For some reason, I'm not soloing on it in the sextet (I already do maybe 15 solos a gig), but the Brown solo is pretty attainable, and very cool.

How about Bill Evans' take on Alice In Wonderland? Someday My Prince Will Come has worked well for us in the trio format too. We don't use drums in our trio though, we have a female singer who doubles on flute. If these are too tough, Ellington's Caravan is another one where it's pretty easy to come up with a cool sounding bass solo.

Oh, yeah: get after your upright playing ASAP, I delayed it for way too long. I only play EUB these days, but the difference in reaction it provokes compared to my fretless BG playing is huge.

[Pacman]

Trios are all about the piano players, IMO.

Dave Kikowski and Brad Mehldau are two of my favorites. Bill Evans and Oscar Peterson of course. Herbie Hancock did some great trio records (with Ron Carter and Tony Williams), Fred Hersch is great and I think Chick has at least a few.

[Bruce Lindfield]

Originally Posted by Govithoy

Given the sheets, and time, I could be able to do the Ray Brown bass solo in the album version of Night Train.

Doesn't anybody else find this a strange idea /concept?

So OK - transcribing solos is a good way to get to learn and play Jazz - but I can't imagine anybody actually "doing" a whole solo, exactly as it was done before! I mean - Ray Brown would never have played it the same way twice and the whole idea of this music is to create your own solos.

Jazz is a living,breathing music, where you inject your own personality and ideas - as soon as it becomes just "repertoire" then it is dead! (IMO of course)

[XavierG]

Originally Posted by Bruce Lindfield

Jazz is a living,breathing music, where you inject your own personality and ideas - as soon as it becomes just "repertoire" then it is dead! (IMO of course)

I agree with this statement as it applies to solos. A note for note "cover" is just that... it lacks the sponataneity, or the "improvisational" aspect that makes jazz what it is.

I don't see how this detracts from anything Govi has said.

(now I'll go take cover in the foxhole together with Bruce - or maybe I'll dig my own)

[Bruce Lindfield]

Well I may have got the wrong impression, but they way I read it, when I was posting earlier, was that he was going to "do" (?) the Ray Brown solo on Night Train...?

My view was that although transcription is a useful process, it would have been far better to spend some of that time on trying to work on playing spontaneous, improvised solos....?

That's what Jazz is all about, to me...

[XavierG]

I guess it's a matter of interpretation. I imagine he meant that he'd keep to the "general theme" of the original solo while injecting a little bit of his "soul" into it. Nothing wrong with that.

[Timbo]

Try some music from "The Bad Plus" awesome jazz band.. They actually did a cover of smells like teen spirit w/ piano, upright bass, and drums. Def. worth checking out.

[Aaron Saunders]

Thanks for all the reccomendations guys. I went to a jazz show last night and got a laundry list of albums from a couple of the musicians there too -- the Bill Evans trio album "Sunday at the Village Vanguard" is on my immediate to-buy list right now .

Bruce, I totally agree. I'd like to learn the Ray Brown solo not so I can play it when we play the tune, but rather, so I have a better concept of soloing overall. I'm always going to improv the solo, but it'd be great to have a kind of...I'd hate to say lick or riff, but...you know, that people would recognize in the solo. Kind of like "Hey, that's a neat way to use a melodic mi--hey, I know that part!". I learned Portrait of Tracy, but I'm not going to perform with it -- just the same as I'd like to learn the Ray Brown Night Train solo.

[JimK]

Originally Posted by Govithoy

Thanks for all the reccomendations guys. I went to a jazz show last night and got a laundry list of albums from a couple of the musicians there too -- the Bill Evans trio album "Sunday at the Village Vanguard" is on my immediate to-buy list right now .

...hope KungFu doesn't read this.
We all assumed you already owned that disc.

[JimK]

Originally Posted by Timbo

Try some music from "The Bad Plus" awesome jazz band.. They actually did a cover of smells like teen spirit w/ piano, upright bass, and drums. Def. worth checking out.

They also covered "Iron Man".
...would like to hear 'em attempt "Frankenstein" on their next release.

[peteroberts]

go get more Bill Evans!!! I like Live at Town Hall and Everybody Digs Bill Evans (this should be at the top of your list!)

The Oscar Peterson record 'We Get Requests' has cool stuff