Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Double Bass Jimmy Garrison bootleg
- Thread starter oliebrice
- Start date
- Apr 24, 2004
- 1,359
- 53
- Disclosures
- Designer Fodera Guitars/Michael Pope Design, Inc., Trickfish Amplification
I want to thank you all for this thread. I found it looking for some book by Ed Fuqua, and instead ended up learning so much more than I bargained for.
I listened to the track AFTER reading all ten pages and here's what happened to me. Disclaimer: I was walking the dog. No really, a pooch named Layla.
I heard the 2 beat displacement by the vibes, something I'm familiar with having pulled this trick of self-deception myself, as well as knowing a few drummers who tend to get off by a half bar sometimes. BUT I didn't catch where JG gets off. Sounded fine as rain all through the drum solo, bass solo, and out. Huh?
I listened to it again with just the left earpiece (bass side) in while Layla and I walked another loop around the block. There it was. Played the bridge too early, then weirdness ensues while he tried to get back on the hitch.
Flawless performance? No. Enjoyable Listening? Yes. A reminder of the fallibility of human perception, both of performer and listener? That's the real takeaway for me.
IMO, certain 'Free' thinkers slung a lot of letters in this thread suggesting most listeners were too "in the box" or "conservative" to accept the aforementioned musical event as something other than an error, however human or celebrity its origins may be. And I was reminded of an observation made recently that, sometimes, musicians in the 'free' category of music make so much effort getting outside the box that they tend to stay there, which then becomes just another box. I was also reminded of a few close friends who call what they play "free jazz" but really lack the harmonic theory, training and rigor to do otherwise.
I don't mean to accuse anyone here of such a musical malady, and there's nothing wrong with it, but this conversation did sometimes toe the line of WHAT is intent? WHAT is free? WHAT is musically appropriate for a song and WHAT is musical lazy thinking? CAN someone play inside AND outside? DO some musicians have the ability to choose? DO some musicians only hear what they want to hear, and, for better or for worse, play what they want to play instead of acknowledging the musical situation in which they find themselves?
One final thought, perhaps contradictory. Amidst the clamor of debate, there was a considerable amount of self-effacement. Come now, gentlemen. Have we not learned anything from the mistakes of greatness, or the greatness of mistakes? Give yourself more credit, methinks, and count yourself in the good company of masters such as Garrison, Mingus (DEFINITELY made form mistakes) et al. Until you do so, no one else will.
I need to go transcribe more Garrison.
I listened to the track AFTER reading all ten pages and here's what happened to me. Disclaimer: I was walking the dog. No really, a pooch named Layla.
I heard the 2 beat displacement by the vibes, something I'm familiar with having pulled this trick of self-deception myself, as well as knowing a few drummers who tend to get off by a half bar sometimes. BUT I didn't catch where JG gets off. Sounded fine as rain all through the drum solo, bass solo, and out. Huh?
I listened to it again with just the left earpiece (bass side) in while Layla and I walked another loop around the block. There it was. Played the bridge too early, then weirdness ensues while he tried to get back on the hitch.
Flawless performance? No. Enjoyable Listening? Yes. A reminder of the fallibility of human perception, both of performer and listener? That's the real takeaway for me.
IMO, certain 'Free' thinkers slung a lot of letters in this thread suggesting most listeners were too "in the box" or "conservative" to accept the aforementioned musical event as something other than an error, however human or celebrity its origins may be. And I was reminded of an observation made recently that, sometimes, musicians in the 'free' category of music make so much effort getting outside the box that they tend to stay there, which then becomes just another box. I was also reminded of a few close friends who call what they play "free jazz" but really lack the harmonic theory, training and rigor to do otherwise.
I don't mean to accuse anyone here of such a musical malady, and there's nothing wrong with it, but this conversation did sometimes toe the line of WHAT is intent? WHAT is free? WHAT is musically appropriate for a song and WHAT is musical lazy thinking? CAN someone play inside AND outside? DO some musicians have the ability to choose? DO some musicians only hear what they want to hear, and, for better or for worse, play what they want to play instead of acknowledging the musical situation in which they find themselves?
One final thought, perhaps contradictory. Amidst the clamor of debate, there was a considerable amount of self-effacement. Come now, gentlemen. Have we not learned anything from the mistakes of greatness, or the greatness of mistakes? Give yourself more credit, methinks, and count yourself in the good company of masters such as Garrison, Mingus (DEFINITELY made form mistakes) et al. Until you do so, no one else will.
I need to go transcribe more Garrison.
Wise words, delivered in a civilized way. Made me remember I sometimes forget my manners.
About your question if we have the ability to choose (to play free, outside, etc) I would say the answer is yes. I remember Jacky Terrason saying at a masterclass he was giving at the local conservatory that he took liberties with form when he wanted to. He would sometimes play only A's on a AABA form, or when coming to the bridge repeat the bridge instead of following the original form. And a couple of years ago I did a european and an australian tour with an (great) australian piano player, who did the same. He would also change key, even midtune, leave out bars on purpose, start playing another tune, slow down, speed up. Anything you can think of. And make it work. For me because he took tradition and, with respect, did his own thing with it.
I think the same thing goes for free playing. If you do that with respect for general musical values: listen, react (whether it be play along or play "against"), interact, you will be able to make it work. The only "restriction" for me is, when you play free jazz, you will have to use some form of jazz as a starting point. If you don't it can still be good, but it will be free improvised music, not free jazz.
To paraphrase the Stranger in opening remarks of the Lebowski: "I didn't find it to be that exactly".
I found the digs at the avant garde to be shallow and dated. My experience in this time period - examples I'd give are bassists like Reggie Workman, Mark Dresser & Barry Guy, are that more musicians working in free music are well versed in BOTH straight ahead jazz and various forms of avant garde music both composed and improvised than those working in straight jazz whose information tends to end at straight ahead jazz.
The issues I had in the discussion were that the conservatives could only fathom one reality, I am still open to few different explanations of the music at hand - including the 2 beats-off theories and Jim blowing the form.
I see your Stranger and raise you a Walter Sobchak: "Am I the only one who gives a **** about the rules?!?"
Nice. Am I wrong? I was never saying anyone was wrong, it was the sureness that was the issue.
If you can only fathom blue as the sky or water, then you are not going to process Yves Klein or Barnett Newmann's paintings at all.
Only being able to hear the material Jimmy plays as the bridge is not a great way to think about it.
When people deconstruct tunes (a practice am not really a fan of) they rearrange the material, so that is another possible way to hear it. I am not saying it is right or wrong, just that there are a lot of ways to take things out, and these were musicians who practiced those ways of taking things out.
Putting the entire bridge in the wrong place could be a really hip, cubist version of the song. So even with all the transcriptions and armchair quarter backing, I don't hear it in any one definitive way.
.....and the image Mr. Case put up is still very disturbing, but I guess it's really just a childish attempt at intelligent brevity.well, i guess a better question is what religion were you thinking of since you made the comment? im just trying to figure out how religious slurs made it into this thread
Perhaps the most revealing thread in TB history. First philosophy and psychology and now religion. I ascertain PC was merely joking but the Mormon reference is playing a little too loose for an online forum.
i kind of felt that may have been a mormon reference too, but thats just an assumption, and we all know where that gets us, so i figured i should ask exactly which religion he was insulting
Not a reference to that Church. And not joking either. Their are splinter sects/cults doing pretty awful things out there. The picture Mr. Case put is something that really happens in his area.
