Garritan Announces JAZZ & BIG BAND Collection

[Garritan]

Garritan Orchestral Libraries


Introduces New Jazz and Big Band Collection


NAMM 2005/Anaheim, CA – January 20, 2004 – At the NAMM 2005 show, Garritan Orchestral Libraries, award-winning developers of affordable and high-quality orchestral software libraries, introduced its new Jazz & Big Band collection. For $259, the Garritan Jazz & Big Band Library offers a complete package of jazz band instruments to create realistic-sounding jazz and big band arrangements quickly and easily.

Just like the award-winning Garritan Personal Orchestra, Garritan Jazz & Big Band is designed for all musicians ranging from entry-level to professional musicians. The program features trumpets, trombones, saxophones, a complete rhythm section and more. Key elements to Garritan Jazz & Big Band library are extended ranges, variety of mutes for brass (straight, cup, harmon, plunger open & closed) and a comprehensive collection of saxophones. Furthermore, it offers advanced programming for expressive control. It offers the Kontakt Sample Player and GPO Studio to work with notation programs. With Garritan Jazz & Big Band, users control dynamics, tongue/slur articulations, intonation, vibrato and more.

Garritan Jazz and Big Band will be available for $259 on both Macintosh and PC platforms Spring of 2005. More details will be available at www.garritan.com (http://www.garritan.com/).


http://www.garritan.com/images/jazz.gif

[Evan Gamble]

Yes!..I'm the first to say "I CAN"T WAIT!"

[js33]

Hi Gary,

When can we hear some demos?
I'm keeping an eye and ear on this one.

Cheers,
JS

[handz]

WOW!!! This is what I waiting for!!! Hope that demos will be Online soon...

[Mattias Henningson]

"variety of mutes for brass (straight, cup, harmon, plunger open & closed)"
Finally! I'm really looking forward to hearing this library in action.

/Mattias

[Frederick]

One of the cool things I really liked was the swishing snare brushes. I wish you the best success on this new project.

[Rich D]

Sounds Excellent!

Will it have a "Wah Wah" mute articulation for the trumpets for those james bondish scores?

Rich

[christopher]

Oh, that´s cool! Can´t wait to hear what this is capable of!

When can we expect to see/hear some demos?

[Jeff Beal]

I was a namm and heard some very early demos of some of the saxes and trumpets - the saxes were by far some of the best samples of these instruments I've heard to date, and the trumpets are awesome too - very much looking forward to this!
jb

[Joseph Burrell]

Good to hear Jeff! I'm particularly glad you commented on the sound of the saxes since I haven't heard them and of course, that's mainly what I'm interested in (not that everything else isn't important as well.)

[SWL]

I was a namm and heard some very early demos of some of the saxes and trumpets - the saxes were by far some of the best samples of these instruments I've heard to date, and the trumpets are awesome too - very much looking forward to this!
jb

That's a firm recommendation to me!!

Jeff, were you able to see it in action? I'm curious about the playability ... the expressive nature of the instruments per genre makes it cumbersome to write with samples using our current options. I'd rather spend $$ on samples than sessions guys (not for all things of course).

But, if it is a programming nightmare, i may stick with my current hybrid sample/live players combo.

Very glad this genre is getting some attention.

Oh BTW ... enjoying season 2 of Carnivale. Very nice work!!

-Scott

[JHanks]

Garritan Orchestral Libraries


Introduces New Jazz and Big Band Collection


Yessss, at last!
I'm waiting for this for years...

[Journeyman]

Can't wait to hear them!

[spettigrew]

and the trumpets are awesome too - very much looking forward to this!
jb

Wow! Coming from a trumpet player of Jeff's caliber, this is quite an endorsement.

[Alan Russell]

Gary Garritan,

Love to hear demos and who will be doing them for you. Keyswitching on the fly in real time rather than disecting the staff is my upmost concern.
Jazz is a spontaneous artform in itself and the only way to create it in the virtual community is to create it in real time with many takes over and over.
Hope to see on the fly real time key switching here.

Alan Russell

[kitekrazy]

Garritan Jazz and Big Band will be available for $259 on both Macintosh and PC platforms Spring of 2005.

I need it now.

[dcoscina]

Gary Garritan,

Love to hear demos and who will be doing them for you. Keyswitching on the fly in real time rather than disecting the staff is my upmost concern.
Jazz is a spontaneous artform in itself and the only way to create it in the virtual community is to create it in real time with many takes over and over.
Hope to see on the fly real time key switching here.

Alan Russell


Alan, I was wondering when you'd post something about this library. I agree that this plug-in has to be improv-friendly because of the nature of the form.

I cannot wait to hear the demos. I've pretty much resolved to buy this though. Unless it sounds like my old U-20 brass/saxes which I think isn't going to happen.

[Houston Haynes]

Gary rocks. Jeff rolls. Tom beats the band...

[Haydn]

Tom has the lips!!!

[Houston Haynes]

Tom has the lips!!!

That's "chops". :D

[Journeyman]

Here's an interesting question:

Would there be some way to integrate this with Finale, rather than using those lame soundfonts? That would be such a life saver....

[Joseph Burrell]

That's what GPO Studio is for.

[Journeyman]

Not if you want big band sounds. Gary, PLEASE consider doing whatever's necessary to allow purchasers to integrate this Big Band collection with Finale (Mac) 2005. It would be invaluable! Many thanks!

[Joseph Burrell]

Yes, but the Jazz/Big Band collection will be integrated into GPO Studio so that it will work in the same environment. Read the release.

[Journeyman]

So are you saying that I would have to purchase GPO Studio in addition to the Big Band Collection? I'm not clear on the wording in the release.

[Joseph Burrell]

No GPO Studio will be in the package. It will work with all the Garritan Personal libraries, to my knowledge.

[Journeyman]

If you're correct, I'm thrilled!

[Joseph Burrell]

That's my understanding of it. Gary would have to give a definite response.

[Hardy Heern]

If you're correct, I'm thrilled!

Just to be very clear....GPO studio is only a utility (albeit an important one)....it's not GPO (the orchestral samples!)

Frank

[Alan Russell]

Hi all,

I'd like to know when the demos are available.

BTW, Gary I cleaned out my PM..can you resend w/r to sax section sample..

Alan Russell

[Bruce A. Richardson]

The thought of a jazz piece constructed in Finale makes me shudder. The outcome seems so pre-destined.

[Journeyman]

Bruce,

I don't understand this statement. Why should it matter whether the piece was written with pen and paper or printed out from Finale?

[Bruce A. Richardson]

I would say that jazz generated on paper would be roughly equivalent to generated on paper.

Sure, jazz charts are written. But the performance itself of jazz is the jazz, not the chart. The chart isn't the jazz. The jazz is the interaction of human beings. Or in the case of a sequenced piece, perhaps the interaction of a single human being with himself.

Trust me, I know the logical dilema of this idea. If we reduce, reduce, reduce, then ultimately it boils down to this: Can a single person "program" something which actually is jazz?

If it's not played, it is not jazz. That much we know. It is a piece of jazzy music, maybe. But if there is no playing, there is no jazz, because the word "jazz" itself was a euphamism for "doing the horizontal mambo" in early 20th century black culture. When people were jazzin, moans and groans and screams and yelps ensued. Likewise "that jass music" as it was first called, then later formalized to the current "jazz" was a descriptive term about the PROCESS of a music, not the product of a genre. Jazz is not a product. Period. It is a process. Without the process, what you have isn't jazz. And the process of jazz is for a jazz player to approach a given structure improvisationally. Without that improvisational aspect, there is no jazz. Jazz is improvisation.

One can say composing itself is improvisation. They would be correct. The difference is the time. Jazz is realtime. There are other types of realtime improvisation, not necessarily jazz, because jazz follows certain other traditions. The most enduring being the borrowing, sometimes subversion, of pop culture itself. The first jazzers were society musicians who finished up their gigs, then gathered to "jam" in gin joints after hours. That's literally what a jam session is, these players jammed onto a stage after playing their money gigs. As we all know that only so many players may literally jam onto a stage at any given time, the structure evolved that using the tunes everyone knew as starting points, people would literally jam for a spot on the stage--cutting contests of a sort.

Musical screwing.

Show me a musician who is lousy in bed, and I will show you a crummy jazz player. No net. No safety. You and whoever is on stage, that's it. If you have one player who can't jam, who can't make every kitty in the closet pumped and soaked, then you've got a problem. If it's the drummer or keyboard player, you'd better go home early and save yourself. Jazz exists in an erased past, an erased future, in an exact moment in time in an exact place in the collective experience of a room.

All else is masturbation.

To be sure, I ain't knocking masturbation. Is anyone? Good, I think we'll move on from there...

You have to understand I'm a jazz player. That's the tradition I come from. I have two very distinct emotions about seeing this library announced. The excitement of its possibility in the right hands. And the mortal dread of hearing a unique artform that I have spent years of my life practicing bludgeoned to death by people who should never, never, never, never, never, NEVER play a note of jazz under penalty of death.

There should be some kind of license required to use this...some analysis engine which spits out a chord chart to which one must improvise a good realtime solo--or the program doesn't unlock.

[dcoscina]

I would say that jazz generated on paper would be roughly equivalent to generated on paper.

Sure, jazz charts are written. But the performance of jazz is the jazz, not the chart. The chart isn't the jazz. The jazz is the interaction of human beings.

If it's not played, it is not jazz. It is a piece of jazzy music, maybe. But if there is no playing, there is no jazz.

You have to understand I'm a jazz player. That's the tradition I come from. I have two very distinct emotions about seeing this library announced. The excitement of its possibility in the right hands. And the mortal dread of hearing a unique artform that I have spent years of my life practicing bludgeoned to death by people who should never, never, never, never, never, NEVER play a note of jazz under penalty of death.

There should be some kind of license required to use this...some analysis engine which spits out a chord chart to which one must improvise a good realtime solo--or the program doesn't unlock.


Bruce, I understand your concern- I studied jazz at York U with guys like Don Thompson, Dave Mott, and Pat Labarber. I love the sound and technique that's required for playing jazz. And you're right- jazz is about taking chord progressions and improvising over them through years of practice of scales, modes, etc. on one's given instrument. I've heard a lot of crap that supposedly passes for "jazz" but isn't.

I think having Finale play through this library would sound pretty stilted. I do think that one could write out the chart in Finale and play it into a sequencer in realtime to get a better idea of how the chart will sound.

I hope your last paragraph is on the humourous side. Anyone should be allowed to buy and use this library. I would hope that if the user didn't get the results they wanted, that they would go out, buy some Rob McConnel and Boss Brass CDs, go to live performances of jazz orchestras and study jazz arranging. I think some would. Others wouldn't. The same applies to orchestral music though mind you.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

The same applies to orchestral music though mind you.

To be sure. But if you talk about it there, you're an elitist, don't you know...

[Bruce A. Richardson]

I'm not particularly concerned by the way, except that Mr. Garritan should have tremendous success with his product, and that it might inspire people to please, please PLEASE undertake some study of jazz as a point of inspiration. Learn to play it.

And be very, very careful about making "jazzy" music.

Jazz needs both players and devotees. It's a fragile artform, no more fragile, ironically, than right here in the nation of its birth. It does not need anyone giving it a bad name. Careful with that axe, Eugene.

[EricRichmond]

hahahaha I love ya Bruce!

I'm a jazzer first as well, and I share lots of your viewpoints on this issue.

It's great to hear it on this forum, as sometimes I can feel a bit out of place because I have jazz sensibility first, world music sensibility second, and my classical training bringing up the rear.

But I think ultimately that will help me stand out *crosses fingers*

-Eric

[EricRichmond]

Jazz needs both players and devotees. It's a fragile artform, no more fragile, ironically, than right here in the nation of its birth.

Ain't that the truth. Its really shocking to me how often I'll meet people from Europe who are at least familiar with McCoy Tyner, Nina Simone, Miles Davis, <insert jazz musician here>. But if you try and have that same conversation with the general American (even in a city like Boston, trying to discuss a CD like Kind of Blue) how many blank stares one receives.

-Eric

[Bruce A. Richardson]

hahahaha I love ya Bruce!

I'm a jazzer first as well, and I share lots of your viewpoints on this issue.

It's great to hear it on this forum, as sometimes I can feel a bit out of place because I have jazz sensibility first, world music sensibility second, and my classical training bringing up the rear.

But I think ultimately that will help me stand out *crosses fingers*

-Eric

That's pretty much my background, except mine went classical (piano), trumpet, jazz, classical/jazz/electronic/comp study, jazz, marriage #1 go boom boom, Bruce go broke and starve, marriage #2, Bruce get the hell out of the clubs, quick, composer.

But I think that's what most of the people in the commercial music business have as a background, to some degree. The jazz is a huge plus, because you have a built-in income generator in just being able to pull it out of your behind and keep flinging till something sticks.

If I couldn't do a lot of just sitting and playing, I would be in deep doodoo, because I can't imagine actually slogging it out intellectuall bar for bar, and still hitting deadlines. I just let the brain stem do the work. All those years of changes and scales really come back to bless when deadlines approach.

But I think it makes me a little jaded, too. Obviously, haha.

[Journeyman]

Bruce, Dave and Eric,

I have to say that I'm disappointed in your narrow viewpoints.

You have to understand I'm a jazz player. That's the tradition I come from As am I. I eat, live and breathe jazz. I won't bore you with my credits here.


...the mortal dread of hearing a unique artform that I have spent years of my life practicing bludgeoned to death by people who should never, never, never, never, never, NEVER play a note of jazz under penalty of death. But the existance of this collection doesn't increase the ratio of bad jazz in the world. Whether the writer uses humans or this collection, bad jazz will unfortunately still exist, regardless. This collection will not suddenly enable bad musicians who were otherwise silent until now. They're already out there, whether we like it or not. Don't be such pessimists.


The excitement of its possibility in the right hands.Now you're talking! Reasons for using the Garritan Big Band Collection:

1) It's perfect for mock-ups prior to performance by humans.
2) Many will _never_ be able to either get access to or afford a human big band, so this is an alternative for them; albeit an inferior one.
3) It's great for experimenting at home. Both compositionally and orchestrationally.
4) Great replacment for the awful factory sounds that come with Finale. Playing the score back in Finale is very useful for finding wrong notes and other errors.

You all seem to be making the assumption that someone will create the song in Finale, play it back in Finale (as a sequencer) and burn the results to cd for sale to the public. Frankly, I don't see that happening. If anything, while orchestral collections can sort of simulate many orchestral pieces with a certain amount of "realism", I think it will be considerably harder to do so with this collection. Good luck getting REAL SWING from a sequencer. I know that they have SWING parameters, but any jazz player (and hopefully listener) can easily tell the difference.

If I were to follow your warped logic, should we take away all instruments from all people because some of them will play badly? Would you rather that Gary not release this collection to the public, so as to be useful to those who are truly talented? In my view anything that enables talented musicians to participate in what I feel to be a dying art form (big band jazz) is to be supported and commended.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

God forbid anyone actually follow my warped logic.

I need to start including a disclaimer.

[Journeyman]

So you have no actual intelligent response?

[Bruce A. Richardson]

As am I. I eat, live and breathe jazz


OK, man. Raise your right hand and SWEAR to us, right now, that you didn't feel just a little twinge of what I'm talking about. I know you did.

Hahaha...

[Journeyman]

LOL! Bruce, I know that bad jazz exists, and that those who create it should be sterlized ASAP. :D But let's not let our hatred of bad jazz reflect on a tool that would prove invaluable in the right hands...

[Bruce A. Richardson]

LOL! Bruce, I know that bad jazz exists, and that those who create it should be sterlized ASAP. :D But let's not let our hatred of bad jazz reflect on a tool that would prove invaluable in the right hands...

OK, I will amend my unlock idea:

Once a piece has been generated, an analysis tool will quickly determine if bad jazz has been made. If so, the end user receives a mild electronic shock. For each bad piece, the voltage increases tenfold.

[Journeyman]

Fair enough. And if we call it a Group Buy, we can actually make some money on it too....

[FredProgGH]

This lib will hopefully make it possible for me to mock up good sounding charts for horn sections. You little jazz guys can sleep at night, I'm not going to take it to the club and try to have a cutting session with the local Bird wanna-be. :D

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Fair enough. And if we call it a Group Buy, we can actually make some money on it too....

Four words: Black market organ sales.

[EricRichmond]

for the record, I'm about 6' 4" 260 pounds, "little" is pretty much the last adjective I think people would use to describe me :p :D

To clarify, I'm excited about this project, but I don't think the lib will help us realize the spirit of spontaneous improvisation/composition thru the sequencer.

But it WILL be very nice to map out some old school big band arrangements, which I'm super excited about.

[Journeyman]

To clarify, I'm excited about this project, but I don't think the lib will help us realize the spirit of spontaneous improvisation/composition thru the sequencer.It never claimed to. That will always have to come from the player.

But it WILL be very nice to map out some old school big band arrangements, which I'm super excited about. Agreed. That was the whole point, after all...

[Bruce A. Richardson]

[QUOTE=EricRichmond]
To clarify, I'm excited about this project, but I don't think the lib will help us realize the spirit of spontaneous improvisation/composition thru the sequencer.
[QUOTE]

That's where I'm a little different. I am practically dying for people to divert attention to enabling PLAYERS use computers in ways which expand the musical universe. Most technology is aimed at enabling non-players to approximate the work of players.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

For what it's worth, I agree about mapping out arrangements, and even using samples for finished product when it works.

You have to inject a little controversy into a thread to really get it hopping, you know? Otherwise they just turn into sloppy BJs. Hardly a spectator sport, that.

[Steve Rees]

Show me a musician who is lousy in bed, and I will show you a crummy jazz player.

Damn. That explains a lot.....................

[Jim Wright]

This lib will hopefully make it possible for me to mock up good sounding charts for horn sections. You little jazz guys can sleep at night, I'm not going to take it to the club and try to have a cutting session with the local Bird wanna-be. :D
If you include the cattle prod (and related software features), it would rapidly become a Gripe buy. Interesting product liability questions as well.....

I'd have to agree: there's way too much bad jazz in the world already (and rock, classical, what-have-you). Sturgeon's law: 95% of everything is cr*p. (And you wonder why you haven't heard any of my musical output yet ;) )

- Jim
"a realist, not an elitist"

[jazzbozo]

A couple of points:

1) Great jazz charts are often written by individuals who can't improvise their way out of a paper sack. Bruce is confusing jazz composers and arrangers with jazz soloists. They are not the same. Have many of you heard Billy Strayhorn play the piano? No. When was the last time you heard Sammy Nestico or Gil Evans soloing? That would be never. They knew where their talents lay, and that is on a score, written in pencil, with empty measures waiting for a soloist to fill in.

2) This product allows anyone to experiment with the sounds of a big band. Just like GPO, it doesn't guarantee that they'll produce anything remotely authentic or professional sounding, but the tools are there.

3) Jazz is owned by no-one. You can try and box it and label it all you want, but all that's really necessary to play jazz is the intent. It may suck, it may not sound like your PERSONAL idea of jazz, but better musicians than you have been criticized (Ornette Coleman, for one) for their concept of jazz, which has, over time, proven to be just as valid as the next. Wait a minute, you say, you can't just open it up to anyone; playing jazz makes me special; Kenny G isn't jazz; you have to swing, improvise, play it live, etc. before it qualifies as jazz. All I have to say to that is: who made you the hall monitor? Wynton?

Jazzbozo
The bebop clown

[Alan Russell]

Bruce,

I know where you are coming from and do agree 100% with your attestment.

1st off the Jazz collection must be flexible enough to play in real time.
To disect the staff (in post production) and perform surgical procedures, does not apply to what Jazz truly is. (it defeats what I'd like to do with it in the virtual community IMHO)

When I score a Jazz arrangement with solos included, the takes are enormous. This become a tedious process but as you stick with it providing the library accomodates the sounds your require, it does add up nicely.
During the process It saddens me to delete bass and drum parts to accomodate the solos but if need be they have to take on new midi tracks.

If this Jazz collection offers the 20's and 30's sounds, I truly have no interest for it. I'd rather have the sounds on par with (let's say) Buddy Rich's Jazz band or something close to Doc Sverenson's wind and brass ensembles.
This collection will have to have a 5 Sax sample to sell in my books. I'd be very interested to know who the musicians were that offered their sounds. I'm hoping they were real Jazz players rather than non-Jazz performers. this can have a huge impact on the collection.

I hope to here the demos ASAP to clarify all of the uncertainty for me and others while we guess and ponder over what kind of Jazz performance can be acheived.

Appreciate your expertise in this area of discussion Bruce..

Alan Russell

[Haydn]

The library uses real top notch jazz musicians. It is not a 20's & 30's jazz sound. Tom Hopkins, the programmer of the library, has played in jazz and big band environments for a good portion of life and understands the idiom. Wait until you hear the brush kit!!

There are many that will use the notation capability to do charts from smaller jazz ensembles to big band. There were quite a few folks that asked me about this capability at NAMM.

I agree with Jazzboxo's assesment. This is more for the jazz composer plus others who like to dabble with some jazz sounds. The sounds should also work great for pop arrangements.

[Jim Casella]

I was fortunate enough to hear some demos at NAMM of the library, and was impressed as well. The snare drum brushes were very cool!

[Bruce A. Richardson]

This is more for the jazz composer plus others who like to dabble with some jazz sounds.

Exactly my point. Anyone who dares "dabble" in jazz should have his nuts cut off and crammed up his poop chute.

Mind you, I'm in a mood. I just got through with a gig, and some bozo pulled out in front of me, hit my brand new mof-ikin car, ran me off the road, and didn't have any insurance to boot. I am about as livid as is possible to be at 2:41 a.m. And my beloved Element has a big booboo that I will likely end up ponying up for.

[Evan Gamble]

I'm sorry Bruce :(

[Houston Haynes]

I would say that jazz generated on paper would be roughly equivalent to generated on paper.

OK - I've had about as much of this BS as I can take. Bruce, in case you haven't noticed this isn't the GigaStudio forum. If you need to fulfill some urge to get other people to join in on some personal crusade - go to the GS forum and start a thread for your fan club. I don't care if your day has been good, bad or indifferent - don't even try to pretend that every note you've uttered has been a golden egg or that your "philosophy" applies to all jazz played everywhere - past, present and future.


That's where I'm a little different. I am practically dying for people to divert attention to enabling PLAYERS use computers in ways which expand the musical universe. Most technology is aimed at enabling non-players to approximate the work of players.

I know you've been asleep in front of the TV that's been tuned to the "GigaStudio Channel" for the past few years, so it's gratifying to finally see you wake up and reach for the remote and check out what everyone else has been doing. While you've been away, it as has been reiterated by many people in many forums here an elsewhere, GPO has done more to introduce "real" musicians -- on every level -- to the world of computer music than any other sound library concept. Period. Until GPO was introduced, learning to use a sample library was somewhat akin to going to get a driver's license and being forced to become an auto mechanic first. GigaStudio was the worst culprit for that - and still is - in my not-so-humble opinion. Garritan's Big Band sound set will build on what Personal Orchestra did for orchestral music.

On a broader point, let's set a few things straight: Not all improvised music is jazz (as any baroque organist worth their salt will tell you), and Not all jazz music is improvised (as anyone who's played a Glenn Miller chart will tell you).

Got it? Are you sure? Because if not, the rest of us will be happy to wait as you go back and read that section again and let it sink in... you too, Bruce.

OK, let's move on...

At it's most abstract level, music typically falls into two categories from a listener/experiential viewpoint - that which engages with the listener, and that allows a level of disengagement. The *best* music (again, IMNSHO) has aspects with shades between those ends of the spectrum. This goes into fields of memory and perception that most folks are not really interested in understanding, but for your better-than-average musician there needs to be at least a perfunctory sense of that, even if it's completely intuitive and unspoken (i.e. gathered by listening to a lot of other players doing their job well and emulating that until something "clicks"). This kind of learning process takes place whether you're emulating Chopin or Charlie Parker - whether your in a conservatory or learning in the school of hard knocks.

In fact, I started Suzuki method piano when I was eight years old (actually I think I started earlier, but eight is easy to remember). I learned to play 16 pieces of classical music (such as Mozart's "Minuet in G" and Beethoven's "Fur Elise") and could run scales in all twelve keys with a perfunctory understanding of key changes before I was taught to read a single note of music. I remember the number 16 very well, because there were eight tunes on each side of the LP that I wore out while listening, mimicking and learning (sixteen tunes when I was eight years old - see - I told you it was a mnemonic device...).

Many "jazz players" make the mistaken assumption that they're the only ones to use their ears to pick up and reproduce musical cues - but as most people in this forum understand it's a matter of putting different emphasis on the same set of skills that all good musicians share. By the same token, I spent a great deal of time transcribing classic jazz solos while learning to play improvise both on keyboard and trombone. But I didn't just pick off licks from Chick Corea and Bill Watrous - everything was fodder for my half-speed tape player and staff paper notebook. Again, it is a way to have a "window" into what the musician was processing when they were in the moment - that "alpha-state" where they really worked their magic. Good transcriptions - and the act of transcribing - has a way of engaging a different part of the brain and gets more "moving parts" involved while the aspiring musician gets their head around the necessary set of tools required to emulate their favorite players. In the same way that you must learn the rules before you can break them in a way that makes sense, you must also study those who broke the rules the right way in order to break the rules for yourself and still communicate well with other musicians and listeners in the process.

This is where I think that Garritan's Jazz and Big Band Collection can come in and take things to a new level - not just technologically, but musically as well. Not only will it be a good "end" to the means of making convincing jazz music, but I also think it will help to foster the process by which musicians learn to perceive music at all layers of abstraction - the horizontal and the vertical, if you will - while they learn to use their own musical tools and gifts. Like GPO, where there was a swell of "new blood", plus a lot of "new music" that didn't pass muster at the first go - there will be a lot of people that will get into this genre that will not have a lot of skill at first but will compensate with their interest and enthusiasm. And like many examples of work from GPO, the Jazz and Big Band Set will probably give birth to as many "clunkers" as masterpieces. By he same token, we'll also see a lot of music "grow up" very quickly from some new entrants, which is to the credit of Garritan's work of providing a platform that can support that process. That's the powerful and interesting thing about Garritan's approach to musical instrument and sound design - to me it feels like it's the first library to provide a "transparent window" into the skill of the composer behind the music. It's doesn't have a bunch of stand-pat articulations that guide you into "can't miss" riffs that fall well under the fingers and sound good without the composer taking any real musical risk. It puts the control - and the onus - on the composer/musician on an instrument-by-instrument, note-by-note level. This - especially for jazz - is about as good as it gets. That's why I think that Garritan's work will continue to revolutionize sampling, virtual instrumentation, and the world of music in general.


Anyone who dares "dabble" in jazz should have his nuts cut off and crammed up his poop chute.

The only thing more annoying than good jazz played poorly is bad music excused as jazz. The only thing worse than that is to be stuck in a room while people attempt to appear cool while talking about jazz. I had dinner at the NAMM show with Deane Ogden (who pulled me in to help him score a feature a few months ago - Sharkskin 6 - which is now slated for Tribeca, Berlin, Milan, and pre-screening at Cannes Film Fests) and Brad Strickland of Ilio (who played guitar for many of the cues in Sharkskin 6) where the biggest laugh-line was when Brad said something to the effect of, "If I had a dollar for every time I heard some bozo walk up to a keyboard, play one chord and say 'I've got to have this for my own personal jazz' you and I wouldn't be talking, my friend. I'd be sipping Mai Tais on some island somewhere." :D

Bruce, I think that a lot of your straw man posturing is out of concern for the "double threat" that GJ&BB represents. It steals the thunder from your self-ascribed milieu *and* does it with a technological platform that you only grudgingly accept. Implying the expectation that GJ&BB should be able to create Charlie Parker-worthy solos is like saying GPO is worthless unless the solo violin makes Itzak Perlman sit down and take notice. Give us all a little bit more credit than that, please. Please. Thank you. I suspect that you also have some little tacit concern in the back of your mind that after this library is released that you'll not be able to distinguish yourself as "the jazz guy" of Northernsounds any more. My guess is that there have been plenty of folks reading (and perhaps even posting) in this forum that would have robbed you of that delusion a long time ago if they thought they could get through to you. Perhaps the GJ&BB Collection is just the thing to help you break free of yet another misperception, but I'm not holding my breath.

To everyone else, I'll be roaming about to answer questions - feel free to talk amongst yourselves... :cool:

[Bruce A. Richardson]

God, you're right. I'm such a hack. Now I see the light. Thank you so much for showing me the error of my ways. It takes a very big and special kind of human being to take such good care of one like me, who is so far removed from the realities of music and working. And to do so in so many words!

I cannot thank you enough. (sheds tear of gratitude).

[Rich Pell]

Man, the last half dozen post have be very entertaining. Bruce, sorry about your car/accident. :(
The ironic thing about this whole thing (programming via notation or triggering samples "live") is that 10 years ago the notion of performing jazz using samples at all was completely un-kosher in my circle of jazz musicians.
I havent noticed a ton of change in this department. Its still in the 'demo, mock-up" department to me. Horn shots, swells, piano and certain percussive elements work fairly well , but solo WW and horn lines as well as walking bass never sound convincing no matter how good the programmer.
Now we`re arguing about the validity of programming by playing it in vs. notating it in !
Don`t you all think that real players are the only thing that will do this style of music justice in the the 1st place? A BB lib. like this is only really good for testing or demo`ing you piece up anyways.
There are too many ideosyncratic things in jazz performance that highlight the shortcomings of using samples for "Traditional Jazz" to me.
Like many of you ,who`ve had the good fortune of making Jazz Albums(completely improvised and otherwise), you know how many performances it took to get that 1 great , magical take were everyone was finally on the same page and it obviously could never be played the same way twice.
I dont think that you get the same feeling interacting with samples anyways so whats the diff. if you notate it, or play it , its still going to come up short to the best way of creating it, which is : Sitting in a room with your friends and a couple mics and playing it in 1 take live!
Dont you all still think this is a realistic perspective or are using samples making us loose perspective..?!?!
A guy who still plays all his own solos with a real Hofner jazz guitar!! ;) Rich

[Journeyman]

Rich,

I agree wholeheartedly. However, evidentally none of this matters, as Bruce eventually fessed up to just being argumentative just to stir up controversy. Evidentally he's so bored that he's resorting to pissing people off just for the pure "fun" of it. Don't waste your time.....

[Houston Haynes]

Rich,

I agree wholeheartedly. However, evidentally none of this matters, as Bruce eventually fessed up to just being argumentative just to stir up controversy. Evidentally he's so bored that he's resorting to pissing people off just for the pure "fun" of it. Don't waste your time.....
He's just backpedaling by pretending that he was using hyperbole when he was consistently trying to stifle the thread by pretending to know more or care more about jazz than everyone else - and newbies need not apply - the kind of people that Garritan markets to and welcomes. Whether he intended to send this thread into the ditch or not - I hope we get a chance to put it back on track and talk about what matters - music.

I got to listen to the Jazz & Big Band demos at NAMM before the floor opened ot the general public, and state my claims about the quality of the library without qualification. The fact that they're going to sell it so cheap borders on criminally insane. The price/performance ratio of this library will blow folks away, and some will hear it as the best Big Band library at any price. It will be interesting to see what happens next. Perhaps Gary and crew will come up with a competition and have a Big Band play he winning entry live... Gary? :D

[Journeyman]

I guess every forum has it's troublemakers....

[dpasdernick]

If one piece of software and a bunch of us "jazz fakers" can bring down an institution like jazz then it seems like jazz has more problems than a piece of software that has some horn samples in it.

I can't wait to buy Gary's Jazz orcehestra and single handedly ruin jazz forever. ; )

Bruce, you usually make so much sense, but here you are coming off as paranoid and elitist.

All due respect,

Darren

[Houston Haynes]

God, you're right. I'm such a hack. Now I see the light. Thank you so much for showing me the error of my ways. It takes a very big and special kind of human being to take such good care of one like me, who is so far removed from the realities of music and working. And to do so in so many words!

I cannot thank you enough. (sheds tear of gratitude).

Here's what he originally posted in response to me.


Houston, I don't think I mentioned GigaStudio, and if you cannot abide a little hyperbole, you should probably ask your wife what a literary device is.

Bruce - the fact that you're changing your posts wholecloth just to seem even more snide tells me that you're not sincere in your motives. Every post from you in this thread seemed angled toward discussing jazz as more of an exclusive commodity, which is a sham.

It's funny that you pretended to instruct me on literary devices, yet missed the point I was making with GS completely. I only mentioned GigaStudio as a device to illustrate that you're stuggling to find relavence here. Maybe the next 3500 posts from you can be used to help those who could really benefit from your experience as a jazz musician. :rolleyes: Considering that no major sound library has been announced for GS3 at this year's NAMM, I'd imagine that you're struggling for a new topic to discuss.

As far as my wife goes, you'd do well to keep her out of it. She's smarter than both of us. ;) I've edited a huge space opera (The Infinity Grid) and three screenplays (and counting) for her, and we're collaborating on two more screenplays together. We both know very well how to use hyperbole as a literary device, and what you've been writing here ain't it.

[Steve Rees]

I think we can all recognise when someone is delivering a point with a degree of humour. I certainly haven't taken offence at anything anyone has said on this thread. On the contrary, it's been informative and entertaining.

As for the library, it's a really exciting release. No-one's done anything like this before. I think a lot of people, whether they be amateurs who love making music, or professionals who want to learn more about the big band sound, are going to get alot out of this.

Can't wait!

Steve

[dcoscina]

An interesting conversation came up last night. I was talking to a fellow who's been playing around with 3-D landscape programs and animation programs on his PC. He hasn't had any background in either field, but joyously explained how he'd sit at his PC for hours trying to perfect his scenes.

I think this little story has some relevance in this thread. Gary's products allows some people to compose orchestral pieces (and now jazz) who normally wouldn't have the resources to have their music played by these groups. I think this democratisation of music composition is, for the most part, great. I can see where novices will get hooked on composing and will begin working backwards to improve their music by buying arranging books, music theory or just simply listening to more orchestral and jazz music.

I don't think the point of Gary's products, or any other developers products, is to replace the real thing. Honestly, no library out there is as good as 100 musicians. Some get close but I still believe in acoustic musicians. The point of GPO, or Big Band is to allow us to have our compositions realized. Some of us may only get as far as these "approximations". Others will end up having their pieces performed by real groups.

Bruce's concerns over jazz have been raised by the film score community before. "If all these rock 'n rollers' infiltrate film composition, the art of this medium will decline" is a statement I've heard endlessly. But I often remind people that there was average orchestral composers going as far back as the days of Bach and Mozart. There are plenty of bad jazz artists who don't use samples.

Bruce, while I empathize on principle with your feelings, I wouldn't get so bent out of shape over this program. Who knows, the next Gershwin or Duke Ellington might pick this program up and knock our socks off. You never know!

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Houston, I opted not to engage with you for one single reason. Because doing so can easily get me banned if I were to start actually typing what I think of you. Please do me a favor and stop this.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

And for the record, I am not bent out of shape. I have already said I think this library could be terrific in the right hands.

[Houston Haynes]

As for the library, it's a really exciting release. No-one's done anything like this before. I think a lot of people, whether they be amateurs who love making music, or professionals who want to learn more about the big band sound, are going to get alot out of this.
Agreed. Not only will this bring a lot of people to big band and other forms of ensemble jazz, I think that it will foster a lot more original music, particularly arrangements. Let's face it, the pool of public domain works for this genre is limited, but there is a culture of permissiveness when it comes to pulling a popular lead sheet and building your own parts. I'm more focussed on composing from the ground up, but it will be interesting to see the "body of work" that the develops around mock-ups. There are a lot of beautiful and relatively obscure tunes out there that deserve a fresh hearing.

[Houston Haynes]

Houston, I opted not to engage with you for one single reason. Because doing so can easily get me banned if I were to start actually typing what I think of you. Please do me a favor and stop this.
Dude - you're the one that took things in this direction. After your last missive I could no longer contain myself. If you can't learn to engage someone without the risk of being excused from the forum, perhaps you should let things rest for a bit before the big push to 4,000.

Just keep pushing in one-line responses in an attempt to bury the correction you so richly deserved (http://northernsounds.com/forum/showthread.php?t=30249&page=7&pp=10) so that perhaps no one will notice. :rolleyes:

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Dude - you're the one that took things in this direction. After your last missive I could no longer contain myself. If you can't learn to engage someone without the risk of being excused from the forum, perhaps you should let things rest for a bit before the big push to 4,000. :rolleyes:

You are very wrong, sir. I said nothing to you or about you. On the other hand, you made very pointed attempts to discredit me in numerous ways--all ad hominem.

[Hans Adamson]

A couple of points:

1) Great jazz charts are often written by individuals who can't improvise their way out of a paper sack. Bruce is confusing jazz composers and arrangers with jazz soloists. They are not the same. Have many of you heard Billy Strayhorn play the piano? No. When was the last time you heard Sammy Nestico or Gil Evans soloing? That would be never. They knew where their talents lay, and that is on a score, written in pencil, with empty measures waiting for a soloist to fill in.

2) This product allows anyone to experiment with the sounds of a big band. Just like GPO, it doesn't guarantee that they'll produce anything remotely authentic or professional sounding, but the tools are there.

3) Jazz is owned by no-one. You can try and box it and label it all you want, but all that's really necessary to play jazz is the intent. It may suck, it may not sound like your PERSONAL idea of jazz, but better musicians than you have been criticized (Ornette Coleman, for one) for their concept of jazz, which has, over time, proven to be just as valid as the next. Wait a minute, you say, you can't just open it up to anyone; playing jazz makes me special; Kenny G isn't jazz; you have to swing, improvise, play it live, etc. before it qualifies as jazz. All I have to say to that is: who made you the hall monitor? Wynton?

Jazzbozo
The bebop clown


I'll sign this one too. Couldn't have said it better myself. Also, I guess MJQ is not really jazz in Bruce's world.

Hans

[Bruce A. Richardson]

I'll sign this one too. Couldn't have said it better myself. Also, I guess MJQ is not really jazz in Bruce's world.

Hans

Hans, MJQ did loads of improvisation. Jesus, you're talking about Milt Jackson, Kenny Clarke, Ray Brown and John Lewis.

Surely you're not going to bash me with points I didn't make.

By the way, Sammy Nestico plays (or played, don't know if he's still with us now) extremely well. Sammy took the Count's band after he passed, and I heard him a couple of different times. Mostly, he very tastefully kept it in the Count's frame of expression. But he would open up and really burn on a tune or two in each set. He could very much play.

I also never made any points relative to item #3 in that list. Other than saying that I really loathe listening to horrid jazz. Kenny G can, in fact, play his little white butt right off. When he was with Jeff Lorber, the guy burned down the house. I'm probably one of the only people in this stinking forum who has an Ornette Coleman album, or an Eric Dolphy album for that matter.

If people want to hate what I said earlier so badly that they have to stretch into things I never said, or arguments you KNOW I never made, in order to attempt to dismiss what I actually DID say outright...well, that is a little sad. I have my opinions. They're just my own. The fact that I could touch a nerve so easily my say more about the responses than about anything I could possibly have said. For God's sake, at least I take the trouble to be funny.

[Steelhed]

Whoaa Whoaa guys!!!! Jeezus, Did someone highjack Bruce Richardson's account here? i've never heard this kind of talk from Bruce, even though I have never talked to bruce here... I can't believe we're having this kind of conversation on a forum that has had nothing but respectable people... The fact that I had to log on and see 2 veterans that well know what maturity means, and see them fighting like we're on some video game forum, saddens the hell outta me..... I hope there will be no other exchanges other than some apologies.. I have recommended this site to many people, and i hope they have not seen this post.......

[Steelhed]

OK, reading some of the posts leading up to this, I am almost certain someone has hi-jacked Bruce's account here...

[Joseph Burrell]

This is no place for pot shots at each other really. It leaves a bad taste in newcommers to the forum and I'm not very kean on it myself.

Can we not have a discussion without it dribbling off into this every single time? There is a place for this, so if you must, utilize it please. That is what the Off Topic section is for.

There have been some comments that I felt distracted from the overall point of this post and were a bit abbrasive and unncecessary in the context of this thread. However, two wrongs never make a right.

Please, let's keep the discussion clear of personal distate of other forum members as well as personal distate of, well, just about anything really. If you have distate at the sample library, please feel free to aire it here. However, let's not let it drivel into meaningless nonsense that bears no real resemblance to the topic at hand. It amazes me how easily nice threads about good products are turned into meaningless/endless threads of nonsense and become rather useless. If you don't like the product, okay, post your concerns please. If you have a question about it, please post your questions. Please don't use this thread to lob shots at the others in the community or at the world in general.

And no, I'm not kean on people destroying any art form, but to assume that a simple libraries release will suddenly make a catastrophic impact on the world of jazz music is absurd.

And point of fact is this, Mr. Garritan releases his products in the intent of bringing music to as many people as possible. If that isn't a valliant reason for doing what he's doing, there isn't one. I applaud his efforts and I have a optimistic attitude that before long, the community will a larger more musician friendly place.

And before I go, this is the whole reason why some people never go anywhere or do anything. Because they can't get past the idea impressed upon them by others, that they can't. The purpose of this community (IMO) is so that musicians that come here and hang out here can grow as musicians. If it takes months and this community turns one lackluster wannabe musician into a freaking maestro, then we've all done our jobs as members of this community.

Let's keep it clean and on the point, guys, please. For the sake of your reputations and for the sake of everyone that comes here.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

It's healthy to discuss things that are controversial.

Calling something completely contrived of samples "jazz" is, like it or not, a reasonably controversial idea. I am not just coming from left field in this.

Jazz IS improvisation. This is why the chair in a big band section which gets the jazz changes is called "the jazz chair." I'm not making this stuff up. Whether or not one agrees with it, there are many thousands of jazz musicians in the world who do, wholeheartedly, agree that jazz is the rough of music. It is the net-free, no holds barred, realtime result of a PROCESS. It's not a PRODUCT. Jazz is a condition that exists at the time it is being played.

[Joseph Burrell]

And Bruce, I am all for healthy discussion, in the right place. But I knew this was going to happen because it always does. It just started careening into the abyss. So, let's nip it in the bud right now, if we can and get the topic cleaner, more gentlemanly, and in the right frame of mind, I think it'll be a nicer environment all around. And if you want to flame wannabe jazz fakes in the off topic board, go for it. Heck, I'll probably post my 2 cents there as well. But lets not let our personal opinions about the musical aptitude of others clog up a post about new product.

[Jeff Turner]

Does jazz have to be improvised?

Several years ago I worked on a CD that Daniel Barenboim put out. Barenboim is the conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and a monster piano player. But he can't improvise jazz. He loves Duke Ellington.

This CD consisted of all Ellington songs with Barenboim on piano, bass, drums and few horns. From what I understand the arranger made a midi mock-up of the tracks. He brought in a jazz pianist to improvise to these tracks. Playing several solos on each of the charts. The arranger then cut and pasted various parts of each solo into a master solo that he notated. His notation was flawless. And Barenboim's playing of these notated solos was flawless also. Listening to it, it sounds like jazz. Isn't that what matters?

Or doesn't it count because he read the notes off of the page? :confused:

Jeff

[Scott Speed]

Seriously guys, I loved Bruce's post. "Musical screwing" is going on my all time classic quotes list. If you don't get his humor, or his point, fine. Whatever. But I can't stand this whole burn-the-witch mob-mentality when someone has opposing viewpoints in here.

It's a lot easier to call someone a "troublemaker" than to try and actually understand and appreciate what kind of statement their trying to make. Unfortunately, it seems the path of least resistance is a common road taken in here with certain people, and it always leads to name calling, character assasination and mass chaos...dogs and cats sleeping together, snow in July, factual reporting on Fox news...the whole nine yards.

I'm also really excited to hear Gary's new library. With the guh-jillion string and piano libraries already out, we were way overdue for some diversity for a change, and hopefully this will help to fill the huge Jazz/Big Band void.

But don't go throwing rocks at someone just because they don't jump on the "sing allelujah" bandwagon everytime a new library is released. It's usually the people who blindingly praise rather than question that are the ones with the narrow viewpoints, not the other way around.

Every step forward raises new questions as to where the technology is taking us, and how it's redefining the way we approach the art of writing music. If you don't want to question it, fine...but don't try and invalidate the opinions of those who do. That kind of behavior is really disturbing.
Scott



I guess every forum has it's troublemakers....

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Does jazz have to be improvised?

Several years ago I worked on a CD that Daniel Barenboim put out. Barenboim is the conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and a monster piano player. But he can't improvise jazz. He loves Duke Ellington.

This CD consisted of all Ellington songs with Barenboim on piano, bass, drums and few horns. From what I understand the arranger made a midi mock-up of the tracks. He brought in a jazz pianist to improvise to these tracks. Playing several solos on each of the charts. The arranger then cut and pasted various parts of each solo into a master solo that he notated. His notation was flawless. And Barenboim's playing of these notated solos was flawless also. Listening to it, it sounds like jazz. Isn't that what matters?

Or doesn't it count because he read the notes off of the page? :confused:

Jeff

That's exactly what I am saying.

I would say, no, Barenboim was not playing jazz. The piano player who actually did the improvisation played the jazz. Barenboim did not play it. He just learned the "jazz" that someone else actually played and created--in that realtime, no-net environment. Barenboim had a net. It was no risk for him, because he was not actually being put on the line.

That's the difference. The playing of jazz is not just what you are playing, it is the condition under which you are playing it.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Every step forward raises new questions as to where the technology is taking us, and how it's redefining the way we approach the art of writing music. If you don't want to question it, fine...but don't try and invalidate the opinions of those who do. That kind of behavior is really disturbing.


Thank you for your post Scott. I really appreciate that you understand what it is I am saying, and don't attempt to take me apart for it.

[Houston Haynes]

Complain all you want fellas, but this thread was nearly dead - and it was Bruce that damn-near killed it. No on - NO ONE - was calling Bruce on his elitist nonsense until I did it. Period. Go back and read the thread, and quit acting like a bunch of pansies.

To add insult to injury, the valid points that I attempted to make about jazz pedagogy got completely buried (which I don't think was an accident) while Bruce rattled off a bunch of one-liner missives that amount to so much backpedalling and spin-doctoring. For those that might have missed my post at first reading (and to those that simply skimmed) I'd like to repost to cojent points minus the call-outs to Bruce and his babblings.


On a broader point, let's set a few things straight: Not all improvised music is jazz (as any baroque organist worth their salt will tell you), and Not all jazz music is improvised (as anyone who's played a Glenn Miller chart will tell you).

Got it? Are you sure? Because if not, the rest of us will be happy to wait as you go back and read that section again and let it sink in...

OK, let's move on...

At it's most abstract level, music typically falls into two categories from a listener/experiential viewpoint - that which engages with the listener, and that allows a level of disengagement. The *best* music (again, IMNSHO) has aspects with shades between those ends of the spectrum. This goes into fields of memory and perception that most folks are not really interested in understanding, but for your better-than-average musician there needs to be at least a perfunctory sense of that, even if it's completely intuitive and unspoken (i.e. gathered by listening to a lot of other players doing their job well and emulating that until something "clicks"). This kind of learning process takes place whether you're emulating Chopin or Charlie Parker - whether your in a conservatory or learning in the school of hard knocks.

In fact, I started Suzuki method piano when I was eight years old (actually I think I started earlier, but eight is easy to remember). I learned to play 16 pieces of classical music (such as Mozart's "Minuet in G" and Beethoven's "Fur Elise") and could run scales in all twelve keys with a perfunctory understanding of key changes before I was taught to read a single note of music. I remember the number 16 very well, because there were eight tunes on each side of the LP that I wore out while listening, mimicking and learning (sixteen tunes when I was eight years old - see - I told you it was a mnemonic device...).

Many "jazz players" make the mistaken assumption that they're the only ones to use their ears to pick up and reproduce musical cues - but as most people in this forum understand it's a matter of putting different emphasis on the same set of skills that all good musicians share. By the same token, I spent a great deal of time transcribing classic jazz solos while learning to play improvise both on keyboard and trombone. But I didn't just pick off licks from Chick Corea and Bill Watrous - everything was fodder for my half-speed tape player and staff paper notebook. Again, it is a way to have a "window" into what the musician was processing when they were in the moment - that "alpha-state" where they really worked their magic. Good transcriptions - and the act of transcribing - has a way of engaging a different part of the brain and gets more "moving parts" involved while the aspiring musician gets their head around the necessary set of tools required to emulate their favorite players. In the same way that you must learn the rules before you can break them in a way that makes sense, you must also study those who broke the rules the right way in order to break the rules for yourself and still communicate well with other musicians and listeners in the process.

This is where I think that Garritan's Jazz and Big Band Collection can come in and take things to a new level - not just technologically, but musically as well. Not only will it be a good "end" to the means of making convincing jazz music, but I also think it will help to foster the process by which musicians learn to perceive music at all layers of abstraction - the horizontal and the vertical, if you will - while they learn to use their own musical tools and gifts. Like GPO, where there was a swell of "new blood", plus a lot of "new music" that didn't pass muster at the first go - there will be a lot of people that will get into this genre that will not have a lot of skill at first but will compensate with their interest and enthusiasm. And like many examples of work from GPO, the Jazz and Big Band Set will probably give birth to as many "clunkers" as masterpieces. By he same token, we'll also see a lot of music "grow up" very quickly from some new entrants, which is to the credit of Garritan's work of providing a platform that can support that process. That's the powerful and interesting thing about Garritan's approach to musical instrument and sound design - to me it feels like it's the first library to provide a "transparent window" into the skill of the composer behind the music. It's doesn't have a bunch of stand-pat articulations that guide you into "can't miss" riffs that fall well under the fingers and sound good without the composer taking any real musical risk. It puts the control - and the onus - on the composer/musician on an instrument-by-instrument, note-by-note level. This - especially for jazz - is about as good as it gets. That's why I think that Garritan's work will continue to revolutionize sampling, virtual instrumentation, and the world of music in general.



The only thing more annoying than good jazz played poorly is bad music excused as jazz. The only thing worse than that is to be stuck in a room while people attempt to appear cool while talking about jazz. I had dinner at the NAMM show with Deane Ogden (who pulled me in to help him score a feature a few months ago - Sharkskin 6 - which is now slated for Tribeca, Berlin, Milan, and pre-screening at Cannes Film Fests) and Brad Strickland of Ilio (who played guitar for many of the cues in Sharkskin 6) where the biggest laugh-line was when Brad said something to the effect of, "If I had a dollar for every time I heard some bozo walk up to a keyboard, play one chord and say 'I've got to have this for my own personal jazz' you and I wouldn't be talking, my friend. I'd be sipping Mai Tais on some island somewhere." :D

Implying the expectation that GJ&BB should be able to create Charlie Parker-worthy solos is like saying GPO is worthless unless the solo violin makes Itzak Perlman sit down and take notice.

I find it interesting that no one here seems to have any trouble divining "the finer points of humor" from posts that are tantamount to commercial disparagement, while a post with a great deal of relavent, cogent information is ignored nearly in full. C'mon guys - you can't be that easily distracted by a few block paragraphs of real info, can you?

[Houston Haynes]

Thank you for your post Scott. I really appreciate that you understand what it is I am saying, and don't attempt to take me apart for it.
Making a controversial post in order to proffer a conversation is one thing - making a comment in order to stifle it is another. Constantly badgering about the ineffible qualities of jazz is no way to have a conversation about jazz in a discussion forum. Sorry, not buying it. Try again.

Spin-doctor all you want, but unless you're offering more than sexual references and allusions to mutilation in compensation for "getting it wrong" then you're not really trying to have an open, fresh conversation with right-thinking people.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

unless you're offering more than sexual references and allusions to mutilation in compensation for "getting it wrong" then you're not really trying to have an open, fresh conversation with right-thinking people.

The playing of jazz and are extremely similar practices.

Both are environments where being in the exact pinpoint moment are the conditions under which they exist.

Being on stage with a bad jazz player is very much like having with someone who is just awful at it. There's none of the exhileration of no mistakes possible, of locking minds, breath, every type of synchronization of the human mind and body.

On the other hand, get on stage with people who can really, really go, and there is no right or wrong. There is no up or down. There's only the instant, where the jazz is actually happening. Any great jazz performance you have ever heard in your life happened as a result of that condition, of that jumping into the abyss knowing that it was safe to do so, that there would be no bottom, only the bliss of falling.

It is when fear comes into play, and one forgets he is safe and grabs for that support that things usually fall apart. And if you have someone on stage with you who cannot let go, for whatever reason, you generally have a train wreck.

[Hans Adamson]

I dont subscribe to the idea that jazz is different from "classical" music. Dots and lines on a piece of paper is just a method of archiving the music outside of its existence as a performance in the real world. What is happening in the moment of recreation of a classical piece is the same as when jazz is performed. If you think "classical" music is "ok" to recreate with midi, but not jazz, then I think you are deceiving yourself.

Hans

[Hardy Heern]

The playing of jazz and are extremely similar practices.

Both are environments where being in the exact pinpoint moment are the conditions under which they exist.

Being on stage with a bad jazz player is very much like having with someone who is just awful at it. There's none of the exhileration of no mistakes possible, of locking minds, breath, every type of synchronization of the human mind and body.

On the other hand, get on stage with people who can really, really go, and there is no right or wrong. There is no up or down. There's only the instant, where the jazz is actually happening. Any great jazz performance you have ever heard in your life happened as a result of that condition, of that jumping into the abyss knowing that it was safe to do so, that there would be no bottom, only the bliss of falling.

It is when fear comes into play, and one forgets he is safe and grabs for that support that things usually fall apart. And if you have someone on stage with you who cannot let go, for whatever reason, you generally have a train wreck.

But isn't the home player with his software and keyboard in a similar boat....say like solo ! Not as good as the real thing but not that bad either!http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Frank

[Bruce A. Richardson]

I dont subscribe to the idea that jazz is different from "classical" music. Dots and lines on a piece of paper is just a method of archiving the music outside of its existence as a performance in the real world. What is happening in the moment of recreation of a classical piece is the same as when jazz is performed. If you think "classical" music is "ok" to recreate with midi, but not jazz, then I think you are deceiving yourself.

Hans

But I didn't say that. You should know me better than that Hans.

I don't, however, agree with you that Jazz performance is no different than classical performance. I have training and much experience in both. It is quite, quite different to go play something that is notated, which you rehearsed (or even are just reading down on the spot), versus playing jazz.

In jazz, you don't have any notes. You don't have a way to really rehearse, besides just doing what you do in order to prepare yourself as a player. You are completely on the spot to create it all in the moment.

Does it matter in terms of mocking up with MIDI? I don't really know. I have an opinion. That's all it is, but it is based in the actual experience of playing all the forms of music we're talking about here at a fairly high level of professional responsibility at times, so I certainly feel comfortable venturing into the discussion of it.

[Scott Speed]

It stood out to me, too, because no one was criticizing the actual library, kinda pointless since it hasn't even been released yet. I read it as a I criticism on how it could potentially affect a person's perception of Jazz and how it's created. Agree or disagree, that seems like a conversation which needs to be discussed. It's a shame the point got lost in the initial grand standing.
Scott


Criticism of libraries is somewhat rare in this forum, given the make up of the participants. That's why it really stands out. I think we all do some self editing, knowing that most of the people who are responsible for creating these libraries are also participants here.

Lee Blaske

[Bruce A. Richardson]

But isn't the home player with his software and keyboard in a similar boat....say like solo ! Not as good as the real thing but not that bad either!http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Frank

I actually said pretty much that same thing several pages back. I think it is possible to "play with one's self" and have it still be a somewhat improvisational expereince. Really, it's the only way I could make any money in this business. I would just curl up and die if I had to slog out every note intellectually before I made a piece of music.

I generally try to create an environment for myself where I can improvise as much as possible, and I clean that up and detail it out to finish off the work. I posted a jazzy-sounding piece here not very long ago, where I was mostly recreating a derivative work based on other people's performances--not my own--and I don't consider that piece Jazz at all. It is decidedly NOT jazz, because I did not play any jazz in creating it...although I played it in realtime right into the system for the most part. Still, I was not actually standing there playing jazz...although the fact that I do play it certainly helps me cop the parts quickly and play them in with good style and authenticity.

As much of an atmosphere for improvisation as I can set up at home, and where I do think that is somewhat creating a condition where I can play some jazz as part of my workaday routine, it is not even a reasonably close approximation of what it feels like to be on stage, playing in the key of who the hell knows, having a ball.

[Houston Haynes]

actually a soundbite of you playing would be preferable, or maybe not. A few notes in this case is more important than a few thousand words.
Craig - you have even less credibility than Bruce. You were at Gary's booth chewing on his ear for 1/2 or more one day at NAMM and you haven't had a kind word to say about what he had on display since your return to the forum. I know this because I was working the Arturia booth and went by two or three times running errands and kept saying to myself "is he still talking to Gary?" I will not comment on Gary's expression, but I don't think I was the only one on the NAMM show floor was thinking that. Everyone should know that you're cozy with Sonic Implants who also has a big band library coming out, so it might be best if you come through with some full disclosure before you chime in here.

As to my work with jazz, you'll be hearing some short "rat pack" cues (and a techno-raga tune that's part of a convenience store robbery scene) from me in the feature film "Sharkskin 6" (http://www.sharkskin6.com/), so you might not have to wait too long. You'll be able to check out screenings at Tribeca, Berlin, Madrid, and Cannes Film Festivals. Although I didn't use Garritan's library in the cues, it still qualifies to you request.

While we're talking about NAMM, I'd like to mention a "hidden" benefit that people will see that could make jazz scoring a more approachable task. Don Williams of Geniesoft (http://www.geniesoft.com/) did a demo of Overture 4 for me, where he showed some really amazing new features that included an embedded VST host behind the notaton program. He also showed how you can quickly mock up a performed articulation by simply added the right score mark to a note. The first example is a feature that he's had in there since Overture 3, which was to take a half note and place a "tr" sign over it and have the MIDI part play it correctly note for note, with selectible turns as the trill rolls out. Nice. He also showed how to notate a harp gliss by dropping in a series of static 32nd (or was it 64th?) notes with the last note landing on the right spot - then hiding the intervening notes between the first and last and selecting the range an inserting a gliss figure, then it's a matter of setting the pedal setting and the MIDI that resides behind the scenes matches the scale set by that pedal figure. This all took about three mouse moves and a handful of repeated mouse clicks to push onto the score with the proper MIDI response in the background.

What's REALLY interesting, is that he has some really nice tools for taking MIDI gestures and intelligently interpreting them as static musical score figures. So, a performed trill might look like a series of 32nd notes, but a select-right click and you instantly have a part that looks correct without changing the underlying performance. This will be *critical* when scoring a jazz part where the player performs first and notates later. Overture can compensate for swing and interpret loads of jazz articulations correctly - and put them on the page in a way that a jazz musician will understand and perform correctly.

So, there's a lot more to this equation that simply looking at the sample set. Garritan has teamed up with some really smart people to produce and end-to-end solution that will allow a manageable point of entry for anyone brave enough to venture into the torrid world of jazz. :cool:

[Hans Adamson]

Bruce, I understand your point, and there is something to it. I just thought your remarks were a little "broad". I agree that unless the improvised parts of a jazz piece are actually improvised (into a sequencer, or live) it will not sound "right". But the rest of the problems with midi performances is universal in my point of view.

For me jazz is not only the improvisation, but also the tone language, "phraseology", and more than anything: a certain harmonic language that sets it apart from other music. These elements will transcend the midi process.

Hans

[Lux]

geeez...let the gpo guardians into their tanks. No war here :rolleyes: .

I see Bruce's opinion, nothing strange, just he thinks Jazz as a human breath more than other people think it as a brain product. This applies to most music, its an historical subject for discussion.

I cant see the trouble. Or you agree or you disagree. I partly agree.

where's the problem?


Luca

btw...I'm a bezsdklewsy and Thompson Jazz method graduate.
...The problem is that I dont know who they are...

[Bela D Media]

OMG!!!!!!!!! THE WIFE IS LAUGHING SO HARD RIGHT NOW!! That is the funniest thing I have EVER seen posted!!!!!!

LMAO!! :D



With all this talk of equating jazz with , perhaps those aspiring to create jazz using sample libraries simply need to use a more streamlined keyboard with their workstations. ;)

http://homepage.mac.com/leeblaske/.Pictures/Photo%20Album%20Pictures/2005-01-30%2010.40.20%20-0800/Image-4558DB8672EE11D9.jpg

Lee Blaske

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Well, I for one don't appreciate Lee posting unauthorized photos of my studio.

[Herman Witkam]

Nice monitoring. Is that the new Genelec on the right? ;-)

[Houston Haynes]

Yeah - I'm glad to see that a thread on a company's product announcement has done so well to get back on track. :rolleyes:

Let's see, so far we have "nuts cut off and crammed up his poop chute", "Musical screwing", "All else is masturbation", "Black market organ sales", "sloppy BJs", " generated on paper". This isn't hyperbole, this is something else entirely.

I stopped acting like a high-schooler - well - back in high school. Again, I plead with you to take this nonsense elsewhere. If you want to talk about how music relates to for you, there's an Off Topic forum. This is discussion about Garritan's sound library announcement.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Houston. Sweetie. Please. For God's sake, stop.

[Houston Haynes]

Houston. Sweetie. Please. For God's sake, stop.
What should I stop for? I'm the ONLY one in this thread who's tried to get this thread back on topic by actually talking about the product, its integration with other tools - and how they can accomplish valuable tasks for folks that are looking into composing and scoring for jazz and big band ensembles.

What have you done to add to this company's product announcement? Nothing constructive, that's for sure. The only thing you showing people is what *not* to do - and the smart ones will look at what you're doing and make that the first thing to avoid.

The person who should go away is you. You're the person that put this thread on a side-track and dragged it into the gutter. You should take some time to become comfortable with your complete and total, utter wrongness in your manner and approach and go back to whatever cave you learned your manners at and pout for a while. Don't come back until you've learned how to have intelligent discussion with adults.

[Bela D Media]

:eek: I should stay out of this, eh?

H3, sorry man. my only comment was about Lee's funny picture. I meant no disrespect to you or Gary as I am sure you know.


This is another amazing Garritan release and it should be celebrated!

[janila]

Is it really such a terrible thing if people have an off-topic discussion if there isn't much about the topic to discuss? I bet that there will be an active conversation about the library after more demos or the actual product are released. The sidetracks are often the most enjoyable parts of a discussion, it isn't the same if you just go to the off-topic part of the forum and write "lets have a silly discussion." A little bit of harmless fun, right? :)

[amb]

I will just throw in a "Tony Rice can shred any jazz guitarist alive" comment and see where things go .....

We need a bluegrass library !!!!!




PS - This looks like it will be a neat collection and best wishes for success .

[PaulR]

Seriously entertaining thread. Wish I knew the first thing about jazz.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Seriously entertaining thread. Wish I knew the first thing about jazz.

You should study it. I think there are 1000 good things about a library like this one, including the fact that people might actually get in touch with jazz and want to know more about it.

It's really the most engaging, challenging music I have ever played. You have to be so in the instant, and fully connected. It is extremely intimate. You are really bared to the core, more so than in any other genre. There are only so many licks and scales you can hide behind, and the people playing with you, and listening to you, are aware when you're "phoning in" a bunch of licks vs. being really lost to judgement and in that magical place where the combined creative flow of the participants is creating something larger. Sure, that is a part of any performance, but jazz is at the top of that scale.

And jazz is a highly sexually-charged music. It just is. That is absolutely where it came from. It is about engaging that root chakra and giving it a good darn workout. Rob McConnell wrote a big band chart called Runaway Hormones once. Runaway Hormones...Runaway Whore Moans. If you heard the piece, you'd know exactly what he was saying!!

You can't separate it. The effectiveness of any jazz performance is going to exist in the actual playing of it. In that samples are a way to play the stuff, it's really all back to the witch/wand thing. Even with sample libraries coming out like this one, which will provide an extended set of articulations and idiomatic approaches to the instrument, if you do want to leverage something like this--GET INTO JAZZ!! I think any musician is made one-hundred fold richer by playing improvisationally, and jazz is one of the most emotionally and physically charged ways to do that.

[Hardy Heern]

Serioulsly Guys, that's hilarious stuff. Where can I get hold of one of those two, big button, keyboards?:D

Frank

[Ouch that hurts]

Complain all you want fellas, but this thread was nearly dead - and it was Bruce that damn-near killed it. No on - NO ONE - was calling Bruce on his elitist nonsense until I did it. Period. Go back and read the thread, and quit acting like a bunch of pansies.

To add insult to injury, the valid points that I attempted to make about jazz pedagogy got completely buried (which I don't think was an accident) while Bruce rattled off a bunch of one-liner missives that amount to so much backpedalling and spin-doctoring. For those that might have missed my post at first reading (and to those that simply skimmed) I'd like to repost to cojent points minus the call-outs to Bruce and his babblings...

I find it interesting that no one here seems to have any trouble divining "the finer points of humor" from posts that are tantamount to commercial disparagement, while a post with a great deal of relavent, cogent information is ignored nearly in full.

Houston, it's great to know you have such a high opinion of your own words that you're willing to post them twice for us! It must be hard being so cogent.

Anyway, just one point stood out to me:


On a broader point, let's set a few things straight:
1. Not all improvised music is jazz (as any baroque organist worth their salt will tell you), and
2. Not all jazz music is improvised (as anyone who's played a Glenn Miller chart will tell you).

The first point is self-evident: there are of course many traditions of improvised music.

But I'd disagree on the second. I'd say all jazz has some element of improvisation. Even Glenn Miller's recordings had improvised solos within them, and the rhythm section would be playing from chord charts, with the piano player for example making up his own voicings which would change from night to night (just like the baroque organist you mention). All of this is improvisation, and sets jazz apart from most classical music which is totally notated in detail.

But on a more contraversial, subjective note, I think there would be a case for saying Glenn Miller ISN'T jazz. To me, it sounds predictable, light, easy and innocent. It's the dance music of the happy, secure, white middle class of its time. It may have a few flattened sevenths and thirds in (not TOO many, mind!) but it's a universe away from the raw, threatening sexual energy of those early Ellington recordings, or the spontaneity and flirtation with danger of bebop.

I can't speak for Bruce's personal musical preferences, but I think this was what he was trying to get at. You can say what you like about the musical and technical elements of jazz, you can teach them on a college course till people have them coming out of their ears. But jazz is a tradition that came out of a particular cultural experience, of a disempowered people who found empowerment through a particular ability to live and play "in the moment" - something which came both out of the sheer desparation of their social circumstances and out of the traditions of African music that fed into blues and jazz.

Glenn Miller is more an example of something that has happened ad nauseum through the history of popular music. That is, black people invent a style, it catches on because it's new, interesting and a bit dangerous, but most white people can't let their daughters listen to it because it's a bit TOO dangerous. So they come up with a diluted version instead, played in a nice safe way by nice safe white guys. The same thing happened with rock and roll and is happening now with rap and hip hop.

Of course even Ellington used notation, and most jazz has always inhabited a kind of grey area between notation and improvisation, using elements of both. Also time has moved on and the music has broadened - I'm certainly not one to say that "white people can't play jazz" or any of those stupid cliches. But I think there is a valid point behind all Bruce's poetry and metaphor - that regardless of the techniques and structures used, whether notational or non-notational in whatever proportion, there is a particular state of mind in playing jazz that IS quite different from that of fully notated classical music, that reaches back to and pays homage to its roots. These days a lot of different people play jazz, and each individual has to find that state of mind within himself, in his own way. Each player, as part of their own development, has to find the part of their own musical makeup that resonates with the experience of 1920s New Orleans. Some people are just more emotionally attuned to that than others, in music as in life. Some are better at "living dangerously" while others are better at being in the kind of total control that you need to give a note-perfect replication of a Beethoven concerto. And Bruce is right that some guys just ain't got it, no matter how well they know their scales.

[SWL]

Oh great, Houston's verbal diarrhea has returned .... good lord :rolleyes:

I truely hope Gary distances himself from this crackpot - definately bad for business.

[PaulR]

You should study it. I think there are 1000 good things about a library like this one, including the fact that people might actually get in touch with jazz and want to know more about it.

It's really the most engaging, challenging music I have ever played.



Oh yeah, I agree Bruce, but unfortunately, I just don't understand it. I tried a few times over the years, but I just don't understand the chord progressions and all the other technicalities. That's not to say I haven't listened to quite a bit of jazz over time. Especially Jimmy Smith.

No time to start studying jazz now. Too many factors regarding the genre I need to mostly deal with alas. I can just about manage to do a track that would be regarded as a sort of 'false' jazz - but it's not really jazz in the pure sense.

Yes, a 1000 good things - I wonder if there'll be 1000 good demos? Oh hello - whoops - little bit of controversy - look out! Haahaa!

Nice talking to you Bruce

Later

PR

[Haydn]

Gary's new library is a Jazz and BIG BAND Library. Big Band playing may not be jazz in the same sense as a jazz quartet would be. Big Band music is usually more composition with solo breaks. It has jazzy sounding licks versus classical or pop sounding ones. The library is designed for more than one style of playing. That is why it is "Jazz and Big Band" not just Jazz or Big Band.

Many future jazz musicians get their start playing big band type charts. They then start learning improvisation from here. This can start down in the junior high or high school level here in the United States. The jazz student has to start somewhere. Gary's library is designed to help students even down to this level. It is not just designed for the more elite players. Gary is much into the education aspect of music which most other sample library developers avoid totally.

Bruce, unfortunately there are many of us who are not the elite jazz musician as you are. I 'dabble' in it from time to time but I'm mostly I'm a prog rocker wih a classical background. I can see this libraries' use for me as sounds for some sections where I want these kinds of sounds and maybe a jazz feel. It gives me more possibilities. I don't think this will dilute the jazz community.

[Journeyman]

Two points:

1) Regarding whether or not written jazz is actually jazz:

If the written piece in question was derived from an improvisation, that would make the piece a jazz piece. For instance, very often a sax soli or a full band shout chorus is a notated improvised solo that was harmonised after the fact. So it was jazz improvistaion at the time it was created, and then embellished after the fact. It would be considered "the composers solo". Hence, it became jazz the moment the composer improvised it.

Also, jazz does not necessarily require the interaction of more than one musician. If that were the case, you'd have to discount every solo record ever created. Of course you've still got one way communication between the player and the listener (hopefully).

2) I think much of this arguing stems from the fact that for some reason this has become two-threads-in one: The discussion of the new Garritan Big Band Collection (remember that?), and the discussion of "what real jazz is". Why Bruce felt it necessary to discuss his definitions of "real jazz" in a thread on this new product is beyond me. This product can help to attract people to get more involved in the real challenges that define "real jazz"; an artform that IMHO needs all the help it can get.

You can take either Bruce's or Houston's side in their argument; but what it has to do with the introduction of this potentially great new product is beyond me. And THAT my friends, is what this thread was originally about. If you have any doubt, just look up at the original title of the thread.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

I don't think this will dilute the jazz community.

Especially with the electrical shock feature!! You will become a good jazzer or we will sell your organs on the black market. There will be a locator feature to ensure we have those puppies sliced out of you upon the instant you play a bad solo. Future generations of prog-rockers will have an opportunity to destroy your liver.

Surely you guys know by now that I like to have a good time, and that I don't really think that people shouldn't play, produce, love, butcher, or burn on any kind of music they wish.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Journeyman,

The case I thought was really interesting was the one Jeff Turner raised, whether Daniel Barenboim, who can't play jazz, was playing jazz on the album where they hired a jazz player to come actually play the solos, then transcribed them so that Barenboim could in turn "play jazz" on the record.

Jeff said, "Barenboim's playing of these notated solos was flawless also. Listening to it, it sounds like jazz. Isn't that what matters?"

I'm curious if you agree with my assessment, that the hired gun had actually played the jazz, and that Barenboim was not playing jazz by learning and playing back those solos from notation. He was playing. He was playing in the jazz style. But was he playing jazz? Or was it the unnamed (unheard) session player?

The more I thought about that situation, the more it intrigued me, actually. I don't know if Jeff is still tuned in, but it would be interesting to know if the session guy got credited. You have to admit, that would be a very weird call to get...wanting you to come throw down so that someone who is very musically famous, but who can't play jazz, could "appear" to be playing jazz by means of your own creation. It is certainly an odd situation.

[FredProgGH]

Who cares? Honestly? If it floats your boat great, but if you lock 1,000,000 Bruces (or anyone else, it's not like I'm trying to pile on here) with saxamophones in a room playing jazz for 1,000,000 years they will still never produce one of my compositions, so- so what? Bruce does his thing, good, I do mine, you do yours, he does his and that's all I actually care about.

And the thing- puuhhleeeze :D Nothing is more pathetic than someone who thinks everyone should screw like he does :D :D

Now, am I the greatest musician on the planet?? Of course not. I'm weak in many areas, for many reasons, so don't come at me that way; I'll just agree with you. Everybody chill out *lol*

BTW-- is Rhapsody In Blue jazz?? I actually say no- but the influence is there and that's valid for the idiom Gershwin was working in- and again, who cares, it's the end result that counts...

[mathis]

Hilarious thread.

I just want to add my two cents to the Jazz/ comparison. As someone who worked both with Jazz and classical players and studied at conservatories who host both communities I can tell you: Jazz players don´t have , they just smoke, drink and usually have a lousy mood. Not very sexy.
It´s in the youth orchestras where the most sensual, open and intimate body 'confrontations' happen. Never have I observed so much sexual activity like in the orchestra workshops.
If you want to have , don´t play Jazz.

[ed hamilton]

two cents worth.

This Lib will be a beautiful thing for aspiring jazz composers/arrangers.
How cool to be able to hear a mock up of a piece before printing charts and having to face the guys in the big band.?

Sebesky ain't gonna need it.
But the next gen of sebeskys will do great things with it.

It will be abused by hacks as all libs since the dawn of the Kurz K250 have been.
It will put a musician or two out of work.

It may, at times, be just as detrimental to "jazz" as the mediocre lounge piano player was/is.
Jazz will survive. It always does.

It survived jazz/rock fusion done badly by big haired rock guys.
It survived the bebop faciasts (who still lurk but are easily spoted by the blue lights on top of their cars since they are the official jazz police)
It survived early entombment by Wynton.
Most of the "young lions" are MIA. (thank god)
Better days are ahead.

Someone earlier posted that Tony Rice could kick most jazz guitarists bums.
Probably so.
Until the changes got too deep. But then 99% of ALL guitarists are in trouble at that point.
Besides - bluegrass is really the origins of jazz (and today at least cousins).
Which leads to the following digression.

Jazz history 101 - the untold hidden story.

It all started with the polka. (I -IV -V in MANY variations!)
the polka made its way to appalachia.
The lack of accordians was made up for with banjos, guitars and a fiddle.
Free from the accordian the music got a little funkier and as all guitarists do - they overplayed and to facilitate the overplaying they improvised more.
The banjo players simply played everything the guitar players came up with faster and better.
This was the birth of early bluegrass or 'roots' music as labeled these days.

This music migrated to the south and west and on its way it was picked up by men who were forced to get on boats, travel a few thousand miles and become farmers in the good old u s of a. No pay was involved.
Thus began the "fusion" of this roots music with the music in their hearts and souls that fortunately made the boat trip with them. No ipods were available so singing was the best downloadable medium.

Around this time, in white america, john sillips phousa was all the rage. Concert bands and parade bands ruled the day.
But musicians know when a new music is COOL and when they heard this polka-roots-spiritual-slave music (da early blues to all who want to do well on the test).
The concert band guys (down south) who dug this new music tried to merge it into the concert band thing.
thank god this "fusion" didn't last long but its the birth of ragtime.

Ragtime/early swing...... well..... it almost swung..... as best it could with the damn bass drum player (yup kids no drum kits yet) was playing on every single beat.
Sort of the origins of the disco/dance bass drum pattern.

Once again the African gentleman took back this music.
ONE drummer somewhere had enough of the freakin bass drum player - took it away from him - kicked him out of the band and put the bass drum on the floor and kicked it.
This was not easy so he hit it less often and the music started to swing more.

Trust me - I am getting back to Garritan - hold on.

Now the 20's were roaring. Everyone was young beautiful and rich (at least up till 1929). there were TOO MANY GIGS so combos picked up this music.
Piano players really kicked butt at this style especially with stride. They could replace Bass players and even a guitarist.
Wonder what the unions said? oh yeah.... no unions yet.

Stock market crashed.
Everybody is broke.
Musicians will work for food.
Economics allow for larger bands. If people are going to spend their last penny on a night out they want a BIG band. (I doubt if Ashly simpson would have been a big draw in those days).

God did music get good for awhile.
My dad had the best big band record collection ever.
I grew up on this.

War-
Half of everybody is drafted or enlisted.
The economy is down the drain again.
Musicians are really hurting.

When musicians have no gigs the following things happen.
1) They still play music.
2) they play WHAT THEY WANT TO PLAY (we only play stupid drivel when $$ is involved.

And here freinds is what happens when geniuses have no work and sit around playing what they want to.
They break ground.

Jazz is born.
The official "jazz police approved" jazz.

Herbie, wayne and ron (yeah the trumpet player too) climbed a summit that is seldom visted ever since.

Really trust me - this is getting back to Garritan.

In the passing years guitar players finally learned how to play and this coincided with marshal stacks so a new fusion happened for awhile.
But really - how much ground has been broken since?
I mean really!??

Herbie took it to this level and few have built much higher.
(although Lyle has something going on that is being overlooked right now)

Music as a career and business have been in steady decline for decaded now.
I'd put the peak of the art in the late 70's
The peak of making a living as a working musician in the early 80's. (those LA session guys had a good life for awhile).
But its been getting harder to make a living and fewer are able to do so through creating quality music.
Popular music has been in steady decline along with things.

We are almost at the turning point (and finally the point to this mess of a post)

All this is leading to the day when musicians have such little work that they sit around and play what THEY WANT TO PLAY.
Since no one will pay them to play anything at all. (were are almost there)
This time when they do...... they have tools beyond anything imaginable only a few years ago.
Logic/DP/Pro Tools - everyone has a studio in their house - everyone can burn a CD - the WEB!!! - Giga libs - soft synths - and beyond.

Garritan's concept of pricing his libs were novices can afford them will have an important impact of the music that comes next.
Think of the kid in 9th grade working on his first jazz band arrangement.
When that was me - it was paper and pencil and a lot of white out and A LOT of copying.
How many more ideas can this kid try AND HEAR!.
How many "rules" can he learn - HEAR and then Break and HEAR!.

I am telling you all - there is a quantum leap (sorry doug) in music brewing. It may take a decade or two for it to come to fruition but its on its way.

Kid's ears are so big today. So much music coming at them.

I peaked at my 14 year old daughters itunes list the other day.
Earth wind and fire
Led zepplin
temptations
mozart
bela fleck
usher
kansas
stevie wonder
aretha franklin

And she is not a musician at all! Just a more well rounded kid (than those of us who hang in this forum - clearly!)

Imagine what the next genius musicains are listening to.

And high school kids are hip to reason, acid, sibelius, GPO etc.

One thing will be certain - it won't be jazz as we know it.
Thanks god.

Hopefully most of the jazz police will be in retirement homes throughout florida and arizona by then.

IMHO - bruce was pretty much dead on with his ealier posts and concerns.
This lib will be abused for certain.
It will be at dinner theaters nationwide soon.
This can't be stopped.

I just can't wait to hear what the next generation is going to do with this stuff.

I will be old by then and probably hate it - and proclaim it NOT JAZZ and not good and rant and rave that its just NOISE.
But only because I am old by then.

It will be pretty amazing. And gary garritan's name will be on a lot of liner notes.

[Alan Russell]

Let's have a link to the demos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I want to hear this collection NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

anybody interested?



Alan Russell

[ed hamilton]

Hilarious thread.
It´s in the youth orchestras where the most sensual, open and intimate body 'confrontations' happen. Never have I observed so much sexual activity like in the orchestra workshops.
If you want to have , don´t play Jazz.

This is one of the truest statement ever made in NS history.
And the entire reason i doubled on double bass.
district orchestra- regional orchestra- summer workshops- youth orchestras....

The only thing better was being a young straight musician working in summer stock theater.

Actually I should take that back - that's how I ended up married and having kids.

New great universal truth - don't date actresses! you will have much more money for giga libs. ;) :D

[Journeyman]

Journeyman,I'm curious if you agree with my assessment, that the hired gun had actually played the jazz, and that Barenboim was not playing jazz by learning and playing back those solos from notation. He was playing. He was playing in the jazz style. But was he playing jazz? Or was it the unnamed (unheard) session player? Bruce,

It seems to come down to the distinction between the "IDIOM OF JAZZ" vs. the definition of the phrase, "LIVE JAZZ". It's all about the chronology. The actual jazz took place when the hired gun played his solos; not when Barenboim played them back. So the answer is that yes, jazz was taking place, but being re-enacted by Barenboim in for the benefit of an audience. Just as in the case of a sax soli or shout chorus where the actual improv took place prior to the performance of the chart. But in the case of a big band chart, the drums are swinging in real time, the rhythm section is still improvising their parts from chord symbols while simultaneously interacting with each other, and actual improvised solos are still taking place in the chart, also with the rhythm section interaction. So the composed parts are in the "IDIOM OF JAZZ" in addition to the "LIVE JAZZ" that is still taking place.

What about this scenario: Let's say that there was a very deep, complex big band chart that had no improvised solos in it, but used tons of jazz vocabulary in the melody, tons of jazz harmony and voicings, and obvious jazz horn writing techniques. Despite the lack of solos, wouldn't this qualify as jazz because of the exclusive use of the jazz vocabulary and jazz techniques by the composer? Does it necessarily follow that just because the jazz was composed and not "improvised in real time", that it's not real jazz? What if there was one improvised solo in the piece? Would that mean that the only jazz that took place in the whole piece was during the solo? That's why I think that in this case, the scenario falls under the heading of "THE IDIOM OF JAZZ".

Bruce, now that I've given you a straight answer, you please give me one:

What was the point of bringing up your discussion of "real jazz" in a thread about the Garittan J&BBC? Be honest; if you were just having fun and trying to get a rise out of people for your own amusement, say so. Is there any reason this discussion however interesting, couldn't have taken place in it's own separate topic?

[Steelhed]

Nothing says you can't improvise when recording! Especially Jazz.... Jazz is one of the best types of music to improvise on.. It also doesn't mean everything you play is perfect! Improvisation comes with it's imperfections, And maybe I'm talking out my azz!, But, that's what good jazz is, and you can make it sound just as live, when you use a library... Aren't all musicians improv until they put together the "perfect" performance.... Flame away if I'm being shallow...LoL Variations are a sort of improv aren't they?

[peter269]

Jazz IS improvisation.

Not quite. Jazz is a feel. Historically, those who studied counterpoint as it was originally intended to be studied, learned to improvise at the same time. This was as true for instrumentalists as it was for vocalists.

Today we don't teach music that way, and so as a result, improvisational teaching is mostly limited to jazz, and of course, rock.

Feel (eg performance) WITH harmony defines the style. What makes for jazz is the swing aspect, which can be in any time signature, even 3 & 2/3 4, 11/8, 7/4, 5/4 as Don Ellis, Stan Kenton and others so ably demonstrated. It can be free as Miles Davis (see Bitches Brew) and others performed it.

[Tomke]

Come on guys, there is really no reason to get so upset.

Ever since Soundfonts and the earliest computerbased sampling-systems came into the picture, most people have been using great sound-samples to create horrible compositions with no understanding of the instruments in use, or understanding of even the most basic of subtle elements in musical composition and performance and summing it up with a terrible mixing work. It's like someone got themselves a state of the art $$$ movie theater, only to watch the news in it - in 22 khz mono :D.

I was into drums and guess my surprise when my performance was exchanged for the latest super-ultra $$$$$$$$ drum samples on their mac .. only to find that the guys who used it had no comprehension what so ever about how a drummer works, or how drums work at all. Sure, make something that just kinda sounds cool, and I'm fine with that. But they tried to make it sound like a real drummer playing, and it was .. :rolleyes: .. I just laughed at it, right in front of them. I couldn't help myself. Did they even understand how far out they were? no way :o but who could hear it? well mostly drummers and certain number of musicians - not many others, not the common man. But sure enough their crappy stuff got played around alot. People mostly judge how good something sounds by asking for the retail price of the equipment used you know. If you have $10000 guitar, then it just cannot sound bad :rolleyes:

And now comes the first rather complete big band library I've heard of. I've got no problem with that, actually I'm kinda thrilled :) But will people abuse it? Will they use it to make "jazz" that makes one throw up and ask for mercy? Will they use phrase utilities and make strictly 16-note solos with only one articulation in just one dynamical level? Absolutely, and it will get them credits as well: "This guy knows jazz too, what a man". :rolleyes: You can count on it.

So, as I see it, this is a phenomenon that will always exist, and it probably always has existed as well. My way of dealing with it is just staying out of its way and avoid getting too upset about it. I don't judge mockup music by how realistic it sounds. I listen to it like I listen to all music and if it makes me feel good about it and it's good music, then I'll go for it - mostly. As for myself, I've used GM sounds and gotten more realistic sounding music then what some people get from using VSL only stuff. That's not to say I'm the man or anything, It's just a reflection.

[handz]

two cents worth.

This Lib will be a beautiful thing for aspiring jazz composers/arrangers.
How cool to be able to hear a mock up of a piece before printing charts and having to face the guys in the big band.?

Sebesky ain't gonna need it.
But the next gen of sebeskys will do great things with it.

It will be abused by hacks as all libs since the dawn of the Kurz K250 have been.
It will put a musician or two out of work.

It may, at times, be just as detrimental to "jazz" as the mediocre lounge piano player was/is.
Jazz will survive. It always does.

It survived jazz/rock fusion done badly by big haired rock guys.
It survived the bebop faciasts (who still lurk but are easily spoted by the blue lights on top of their cars since they are the official jazz police)
It survived early entombment by Wynton.
Most of the "young lions" are MIA. (thank god)
Better days are ahead.

Someone earlier posted that Tony Rice could kick most jazz guitarists bums.
Probably so.
Until the changes got too deep. But then 99% of ALL guitarists are in trouble at that point.
Besides - bluegrass is really the origins of jazz (and today at least cousins).
Which leads to the following digression.

Jazz history 101 - the untold hidden story.

It all started with the polka. (I -IV -V in MANY variations!)
the polka made its way to appalachia.
The lack of accordians was made up for with banjos, guitars and a fiddle.
Free from the accordian the music got a little funkier and as all guitarists do - they overplayed and to facilitate the overplaying they improvised more.
The banjo players simply played everything the guitar players came up with faster and better.
This was the birth of early bluegrass or 'roots' music as labeled these days.

This music migrated to the south and west and on its way it was picked up by men who were forced to get on boats, travel a few thousand miles and become farmers in the good old u s of a. No pay was involved.
Thus began the "fusion" of this roots music with the music in their hearts and souls that fortunately made the boat trip with them. No ipods were available so singing was the best downloadable medium.

Around this time, in white america, john sillips phousa was all the rage. Concert bands and parade bands ruled the day.
But musicians know when a new music is COOL and when they heard this polka-roots-spiritual-slave music (da early blues to all who want to do well on the test).
The concert band guys (down south) who dug this new music tried to merge it into the concert band thing.
thank god this "fusion" didn't last long but its the birth of ragtime.

Ragtime/early swing...... well..... it almost swung..... as best it could with the damn bass drum player (yup kids no drum kits yet) was playing on every single beat.
Sort of the origins of the disco/dance bass drum pattern.

Once again the African gentleman took back this music.
ONE drummer somewhere had enough of the freakin bass drum player - took it away from him - kicked him out of the band and put the bass drum on the floor and kicked it.
This was not easy so he hit it less often and the music started to swing more.

Trust me - I am getting back to Garritan - hold on.

Now the 20's were roaring. Everyone was young beautiful and rich (at least up till 1929). there were TOO MANY GIGS so combos picked up this music.
Piano players really kicked butt at this style especially with stride. They could replace Bass players and even a guitarist.
Wonder what the unions said? oh yeah.... no unions yet.

Stock market crashed.
Everybody is broke.
Musicians will work for food.
Economics allow for larger bands. If people are going to spend their last penny on a night out they want a BIG band. (I doubt if Ashly simpson would have been a big draw in those days).

God did music get good for awhile.
My dad had the best big band record collection ever.
I grew up on this.

War-
Half of everybody is drafted or enlisted.
The economy is down the drain again.
Musicians are really hurting.

When musicians have no gigs the following things happen.
1) They still play music.
2) they play WHAT THEY WANT TO PLAY (we only play stupid drivel when $$ is involved.

And here freinds is what happens when geniuses have no work and sit around playing what they want to.
They break ground.

Jazz is born.
The official "jazz police approved" jazz.

Herbie, wayne and ron (yeah the trumpet player too) climbed a summit that is seldom visted ever since.

Really trust me - this is getting back to Garritan.

In the passing years guitar players finally learned how to play and this coincided with marshal stacks so a new fusion happened for awhile.
But really - how much ground has been broken since?
I mean really!??

Herbie took it to this level and few have built much higher.
(although Lyle has something going on that is being overlooked right now)

Music as a career and business have been in steady decline for decaded now.
I'd put the peak of the art in the late 70's
The peak of making a living as a working musician in the early 80's. (those LA session guys had a good life for awhile).
But its been getting harder to make a living and fewer are able to do so through creating quality music.
Popular music has been in steady decline along with things.

We are almost at the turning point (and finally the point to this mess of a post)

All this is leading to the day when musicians have such little work that they sit around and play what THEY WANT TO PLAY.
Since no one will pay them to play anything at all. (were are almost there)
This time when they do...... they have tools beyond anything imaginable only a few years ago.
Logic/DP/Pro Tools - everyone has a studio in their house - everyone can burn a CD - the WEB!!! - Giga libs - soft synths - and beyond.

Garritan's concept of pricing his libs were novices can afford them will have an important impact of the music that comes next.
Think of the kid in 9th grade working on his first jazz band arrangement.
When that was me - it was paper and pencil and a lot of white out and A LOT of copying.
How many more ideas can this kid try AND HEAR!.
How many "rules" can he learn - HEAR and then Break and HEAR!.

I am telling you all - there is a quantum leap (sorry doug) in music brewing. It may take a decade or two for it to come to fruition but its on its way.

Kid's ears are so big today. So much music coming at them.

I peaked at my 14 year old daughters itunes list the other day.
Earth wind and fire
Led zepplin
temptations
mozart
bela fleck
usher
kansas
stevie wonder
aretha franklin

And she is not a musician at all! Just a more well rounded kid (than those of us who hang in this forum - clearly!)

Imagine what the next genius musicains are listening to.

And high school kids are hip to reason, acid, sibelius, GPO etc.

One thing will be certain - it won't be jazz as we know it.
Thanks god.

Hopefully most of the jazz police will be in retirement homes throughout florida and arizona by then.

IMHO - bruce was pretty much dead on with his ealier posts and concerns.
This lib will be abused for certain.
It will be at dinner theaters nationwide soon.
This can't be stopped.

I just can't wait to hear what the next generation is going to do with this stuff.

I will be old by then and probably hate it - and proclaim it NOT JAZZ and not good and rant and rave that its just NOISE.
But only because I am old by then.

It will be pretty amazing. And gary garritan's name will be on a lot of liner notes.


LONGEST POST EVER!!!

[ed hamilton]

While I may have gotten worked up and created a completely pointless off topic useless post .........

did you have to quote the whole thing?????

sheesh ;) :D

[Ray Lindsley]

Wow, I wasn't nervous before about this collection getting into the hands of the wrong players, but I am now- it is so obvious that many people here really don't know what jazz is. Jazz really is all about the improvisation. I see a lot of people like to whip out the term elitist in order to excuse their ignorance, but if you don't think that jazz is all about improvisation, then you just don't know what you're talking about. You may be able to get some equally clueless people to agree with you and buy into your view, but that gives it no more credibility. And just because something sounds like jazz to you, doesn't make it jazz. I know a lot of people that hear just about anything with brass and ninth chords, and label it jazz.

Jazz is about spontaneous creation, experimantation, and taking musical risks- usually in front of a live audience. I'm not talking about just running scales or piecing together a few prememorized phrases (although most jazz players will have favorite phrases that they will use on occasion in different contexts). The great ones would often strive to get past the limitations of scales and harmonies, but still have it sound good (Bruce mentioned Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy- these guys were great at this). The real jazz greats are always looking to expand the language- to introduce new elements and take it to new level. It means altering the song structure vertically as well as horizontally at times, to reharmonize in a way that fits with the rest of the structure. It's not even about just the solos- good jazz players make spontaneous alterations to the melody that make it unique, yet still recognizable.

Jazz players are like restless explorers that are always looking for new territory. They never play the same song the same way twice. There is a great deal of risk involved because they are doing this live without a net and it is not always going to work. It takes courage, imagination, and a facility on your instrument to be able to get the sound in your head to become reality without having to think about the mechanics. Call me elitist if you want, but if you don't understand this, you can't possibily contribute to a serious discussion about jazz.

I speak about this, not because it is something that I have been able to accomplish with success, but from recognizing my own limitations to acheive this on a consistent basis. And I think that is what makes me so passionate about it- because I can appreciate those that can do it night after night and still manage to make songs that have been played thousands of times sound new and fresh.

This is not to say that jazz is better than any other music- to me THAT would be elitist. Whatever you hear that appeals to you is good music. Not having improvisation involved is not a bad thing, it's just not jazz. It is also true that not all improvisation is jazz, but that is irrelevant to the discussion of what jazz is.

A lot of non-jazz players have made great contributions to jazz by writing great songs and/or arrangements that were later used by jazz players as a foundation for their explorations, but they were not the ones that made it jazz. It was the improvisor that put his own stamp on the song that, in so doing, made it a jazz song.

[Ray Lindsley]

Not quite. Jazz is a feel. Historically, those who studied counterpoint as it was originally intended to be studied, learned to improvise at the same time. This was as true for instrumentalists as it was for vocalists.

Today we don't teach music that way, and so as a result, improvisational teaching is mostly limited to jazz, and of course, rock.

Feel (eg performance) WITH harmony defines the style. What makes for jazz is the swing aspect, which can be in any time signature, even 3 & 2/3 4, 11/8, 7/4, 5/4 as Don Ellis, Stan Kenton and others so ably demonstrated. It can be free as Miles Davis (see Bitches Brew) and others performed it.

Absolutely wrong- there is a lot of jazz, including Be Bop and Hard Bop that is not played with swing, but played with straight eighths, usually with triplet feel.

[Journeyman]

Ray,

Perhaps you should either quote the people whom you are disagreeing with, or at least address them by name. Other than the one post above this, I'm not quite sure whom you're disagreeing with. Many of us have had a lot to say.

[Rich Pell]

Absolutely wrong- there is a lot of jazz, including Be Bop and Hard Bop that is not played with swing, but played with straight eighths, usually with triplet feel.
Sorry, been tryng to stay out of this but i cant let this one go. Ray, i know what your saying and on the surface thats true, but even though some hard bop is played with straight-eights (usually in the drummers ride ) the underlying feel no matter how fast the tempo is swing. Even when my drummer staightens out the ride, one of us (the bassist or soloist )will instinctively pickup on it and swing through it by walking or changing our syncopation. Nothing feels worse than a drummer who straightens out the eights without compensating with a need for an underlying swing feel by mixing it up or feeling the swing underneath the straight ride.
I used to think that jazz was just improvising but these days i feel closer to what Peter A. was trying to explain.
Jazz has (not is..) improvising . Because improvising doesnt need jazz.
The nature of improvisation is inherent in Baroque, most Rock solos, Bluegrass, all ECM styles, and now alot of cutting edge electonica (check out Flanger). Where as although we call Big band "Jazz or Swing" usually only a handfull of soloist are improvizing on a tune. The rest of the guys are just reading charts and many of them never get to improvise the entire night. Duke Ellington liked to refer to his music as "good music" not jazz. He felt it was too limiting a term. ;) Rich

[FredProgGH]

Wow, I wasn't nervous before about this collection getting into the hands of the wrong players, but I am now- it is so obvious that many people here really don't know what jazz is. Jazz really is all about [yadda yadda yadda for six paragraphs]

This is just a tool, guys. The people who blaspheme jazz in your opinions are already doing it with whatever tools they currently have and will continue. Those who don't will likewise continue.

[Journeyman]

Agreed. Jazz is in no more danger with this tool than without it. As I said earlier, should we just take away everyone's instruments because some of them will be misused?

[Ray Lindsley]

Ray,

Perhaps you should either quote the people whom you are disagreeing with, or at least address them by name. Other than the one post above this, I'm not quite sure whom you're disagreeing with. Many of us have had a lot to say.

I didn't want to make this personal and there were just too many people involved, I just wanted to make the statement that if it doesn't involve improvisation, it's not jazz. Period.

However, I need to apologize to Peter and back away from my statement about swing. As Rich so astutely pointed out, there is always an element of swing involved, even if the soloist isn't. I was recalling that when, as a tenor sax player, I was taking jazz lessons at The New School in NYC, I was constantly told that I was swinging the eighths too much in a solo when I was in a Bop combo. But, now that you reminded me, there was always somebody swinging in the band. :o

So I would say Peter is right that the swing feel is an important ingredient in jazz, but I maintain that improvisation is equally important.

I would also agree that improvisation is not exclusive to jazz, but would argue that that does not make it less of a factor in defining the jazz idiom. Not all improvisation is jazz, but all jazz has improvisation. The same can be said of swing, it is not exclusive to jazz- I would never say that any song that had a swing feel was jazz, nor would I say that any song with improvisation was a jazz performance.

I guess that's why I tried to limit my assertion to say that if there's no improv, it's not jazz, rahter than trying to define with any certainty what jazz is. I think if you were to ask any jazz musician, critic, or real jazz buff what jazz was, you may get different answers, but it would always include improvisation and, yes, swing.

I also don't think I would go so far as to say users of the Jazz Big Band Orchestra to true jazz players- surely the instruments are very usable for other genre, as well. I just feared seeing a bunch of people posting pop tunes made with the library with the title: "Listen to my new jazz song."

[Ray Lindsley]

Agreed. Jazz is in no more danger with this tool than without it. As I said earlier, should we just take away everyone's instruments because some of them will be misused?

Valid point.

[Journeyman]

I just wanted to make the statement that if it doesn't involve improvisation, it's not jazz. Period. Ray,

No offense taken. So, according to you a Toshiko Akiyoshi arrangement or Thad Jones and Mel Lewis arrangement or Don Sebesky arrangment isn't jazz until someone takes a solo? If so, I wholeheartedly disagree.

[Journeyman]

Jeff Beal, (if you're listening),

You're an accomplished jazz composer as well as a jazz instrumentalist. What are your feelings on this issue? Just curious...

[SWL]

How do you make a million bucks playing Jazz ???








--Start with two million!

**Cue drum flams-cymbal crash**

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Ray,

No offense taken. So, according to you a Toshiko Akiyoshi arrangement or Thad Jones and Mel Lewis arrangement or Don Sebesky arrangment isn't jazz until someone takes a solo? If so, I wholeheartedly disagree.

You're putting an interesting qualification into the equation, though. Sure, nobody is going to listen to Thad and Mel, et. al., and think, "that isn't jazz."

Of course, you will immediately recognize it as jazz, because is sounds jazzy. For all the reasons mentioned to date. AND, for the reason that even "A Child is Born," has plenty of improvisation in it. If you put it in front of a group of the best orchestra players in the universe, and said go, what would you get? Not jazz. It would be horrible. Many of them wouldn't even be able to start, because their parts would have a lot of measures that looked like this: / / / / | / / / / | / / / /

And they would have funny letters over them, that didn't seem to tell these people what to play...

I think it's interesting that there was just a semantic discussion of "swing." Not all jazz swings in the sense of swung 8ths. But swing isn't a vital component of jazz. Improvisation is.

I thought Ray expressed it very well. I agree with his assessment. Remove every stylistic quality of jazz. No one wants to say a music is limited to style, right? We'd have to subcategorize the entire Western concept of music quite a bit if we were going to hold jazz to that standard.

What is different about jazz? Jeff Turner contributed the most telling example. Why did Daniel Barenboim need a hired jazz player to conceive the solos for his album? Why--if Daniel Barenboim CAN play jazz piano--was this additional production step required? The hiring of a jazz player and the notating of his part for Barenboim indicates one thing. It required a jazz player to produce whatever "jazz" was in the album. These people were astute enough to get that--to understand that the album would have been nothing without the contribution of that individual to the process of allowing Daniel Barenboim, a man who can play no jazz, to release an album displaying his passion for the music itself. The album was a loving tribute to jazz, but Daniel Barenboim did not play any jazz.

None of the big band pieces anyone has mentioned to date LACKS jazz. Big band charts have jazz playing in them, especially those of the post-swing era. I guess what deserves to be brought into the discussion is that "swing era jazz," usually contains a very tiny amount of jazz, and a very large amount of pop. It was the pop music of its day, and like any other pop music (referenced well by Mr. Hamilton) had POPularity as its main appeal. The corners were sanded. It WAS a recognizable style, as Peter mentions, but its style was very specifically swing. Dance. It was not the no-net expression of jazz that created the genre, not by a long shot, even though it contained elements of jazz and employed jazz players to actually play some jazz in its creation.

I'm not sure why the improvisational component is in any doubt. What is the standard upon which we judge any jazz musician? It is his improvisation. It is, in fact, the only standard upon which jazz has ever been based...the players we consider the milestones of the music's development were not known for their technique, or even their interpretation. It is what they do, emptyhanded and stripped to the core in real time, which determines how the jazz listening population views them.

Ray hit a huge resonance with me. I would like to share it. He said that his opinion in the matter was not based so much in his stellar playing quality, but in understanding the amazing quality in those who do have it. God, what a horrible, devastating truth it was to me to understand that I would never have as many albums as Freddie Hubbard, I wouldn't be Miles.

The jazz is what you do in real time, really playing something. That is what it is. You know, people have asked me publically here, and even privately....why did I jump into this thread and say the things I have said?

I don't know. I just have thoughts. I share them here. We're a community. I guess I didn't know that there was some unwritten rule about what is comfortable to talk about and what isn't in what context. Nuts and poop chute aren't exactly profane or pornographic expressions, are they? Heck, there's more in a cartoon than I have discussed. And doggone it, I meant what I said about jazz being that intimate an exchange with a human being. If we cannot discuss matters of musical intimacy with some degree of professional understanding, then what can we talk about? Has it come to that?

I couldn't affect this product's sales if I wanted to, and why on earth would I want to? I'm trying to kill a thread by talking? Oh. My. God.

The idea--expressed in this thread more than once--that there would be some sort of alignment or allegience to some other sample producer, and that this would somehow affect the way people discuss things is quite insulting to me. Or that one would be concerned about his relevance in a community of musicians based upon what particular technology he might be epressing himself through?

I would suggest that people examine their own hearts if they are truly having feelings like this...where does such a thought come from? Are we such jellyfish that as musicians we'd speak about our art based on such nonsense? Not me. Christ. I am what I am. I can't see how my input or behavior in this thread is anything for discussion. Kll the thread indeed. I'm talking about things that are important for me, and then pages and pages of nattering about what I said, or how or where I said it is somehow actually moving conversation forward?

Am I dead? Tell me, please. Have I woken up dead, and this is somehow a slightly different reality from reality. It's OK. I can take it. I'm dead, right. Oh christ, I'm dead. I DIDN'T MEAN IT JESUS, HONEST>>>>OH PLEEEEASSEEE SPARE MEEEEEEEEEEE......

We're musicians, not a bunch of goofballs. We talk straight with each other, right? We're fearless, right? We take our lives with a good dose of humor and some sharp edges, right? Right?

Heck, if a discussion group is going to become the battle of the tribes of pygmy sycophants, then please let me know so I can get a bead on the door. I come here for the challenging exchange, not for some mamby pamby mutual admiration society meeting. I'd rather burn.

[Jeff Turner]

Bruce,

In answer to a question you posted earlier, the hired gun was not given an album credit.

Here's a review of the CD in question:
http://www.classical-music-review.org/reviews/Ellington.htm

I want to be clear though, that no misrepresentation was made about Barenboim's playing. It has never been stated that he improvised his solos. Only that the played piano on these tracks.

Taking this to the next level, if McCoy Tyner transcribed a specific Ellington solo and played it, would he be playing jazz?

Was Supersax playing jazz when they played orchestrated Charlie Parker solos?

Is the qualification that the performance is considered jazz if it's performed by a musician considered to be a jazzer?

Interesting discussion,
Jeff

[Bruce A. Richardson]

OK, now I can't stay and be called names and debate all day, but I would like to put another expansion of the basic idea in.

Another really huge aspect of jazz, and of creating it and making it what it is would be the by-product of improvisation. Chance.

Ray touched on it, and so did a couple of other people. But I would like to go as far as to say that this byproduct of chance is another proof of improvisation's necessary role in the process of creating jazz. I would love for other musicians to comment on this, too. With players, a gig is never a just a gig, right? Lee had an interesting observation to share, that he was driving home with his hands literally pounding because of the volatility of the group he's gigging with.

That is such a huge part of this thing called jazz. The fact that you don't know what is going to hit you from everyone else there, too. It's not just the one guy taking the solo, and everyone else is going to be nice and predictable. On the contrary, if you get on the bandstand with a bunch of guys you have managed to piss off, then God save you. They sure won't. But outside the human dynamic factor in that sense, if you look at it in the most pure light it is once again that realtime phenomenon of having only the wisp of a skeleton holding jazz together in terms of its structure. The rest happens in the instant, and is a byproduct of that moment in every way...from a solo player who hears a streetcar pass, or an audience member yell "right on," to a guy burning in a trio or quartet, right on the edge of the tune completely dissolving, yet from the almost disintegrated soup suddenly emerges a split second, perfect dash to the next level.

How would you have jazz without that?

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Bruce,

In answer to a question you posted earlier, the hired gun was not given an album credit.

Here's a review of the CD in question:
http://www.classical-music-review.org/reviews/Ellington.htm

I want to be clear though, that no misrepresentation was made about Barenboim's playing. It has never been stated that he improvised his solos. Only that the played piano on these tracks.

Taking this to the next level, if McCoy Tyner transcribed a specific Ellington solo and played it, would he be playing jazz?

Was Supersax playing jazz when they played orchestrated Charlie Parker solos?

Is the qualification that the performance is considered jazz if it's performed by a musician considered to be a jazzer?

Interesting discussion,
Jeff

Hey, that last post wasn't a reply to you, by the way.

I'll hit edit and finish this post

EDIT: Good questions.

You know, I wouldn't judge in the case of this Barenboim album. It's interesting that the reviewer said he sounds ,"truly inspired."

Would he have said that if he were a jazz reviewer, and knew that Barenboim was essentially pulling one over (even though as you say the album doesn't specifically make the claim)?

If we found out that Miles Davis had actually written every trumpet solo that Wynton Marsalis played, and that Wynton had learned them note by note, with no improvisation--would Wynton Marsails be considered an inspired player?

I agree with you that it gets more sticky the farther it goes. Some of what you're touching on I think I opined about in the lengthy post above.

I guess I would have to say yes, that one generally needs to be a jazz player to play jazz. Despite the ridiculous look of that phrase on paper. But if you were to take a typical Thad and Mel chart that Journeyman uses as an example, for sure, the rhythm section parts are not notated. If you didn't know the chords, plus the idiomatic landscape, plus the tradition involved, it would really ring very far from true to hear a classical player attempt that. In several of Thad's charts, even the horn parts have large stretches of changes interspersed with notation, with the idea that the ensemble will drift out then lock back into place. You have to be actually quite an astute player of jazz to play some writers' charts, for that very reason. They know they are writing them for people who can play jazz, and the improvisational element is written right into the score very specifically (much like the counterpoint Peter mentioned earlier).

I guess what I have consistently held as my bottom line idea is that jazz is process, not product. In order for something to be jazz, it follows style to be sure, but additionally, there is a process, and that process is improvisation and chance. Without it, I think you only have style, and that's pop, not jazz.

[Rich Pell]

This is a great discussion (even though its got very little to do with samples anymore. :) The problem i have with quantifing jazz as : "Jazz is chance" and "Jazz is Improvisation' is that while true, good jazz often has both those qualities..so do other genres just as equally. Chopin was an excellent improviser, on par with Charle Parker. Some John Cage compositions use as much chance as an Eric Dolphy or Anthony Braxton solo. Generally no one catagorizes Cage or Chopin as Jazz artists.
But one thing all jazz artists from Zawinul to Basie Ornette to Bruce Richardson have in common is they all can swing and use swing elements in there playing. Even when Miles plays Hiphop (listen to Doowop) he still swings against the sometime static breakbeats.
I improvise cues everyday but it doesnt nessesarily sound like jazz. Maybe "jazzy", but no one would cal it the genre of jazz.
I think the most common element in Jazz in the swing factor. t would be hard not to call a Buddy Rich track without solos or fills not a jazz performance. Would it not?
And i agree, this BB lib. isnt going to determine the fate of jazz.. :rolleyes: :) Rich

[Houston Haynes]

I think this thread has migrated from an area of "THIS is jazz becuase I say so" to "THIS is what's important about jazz to ME" - which is a very, very good thing. I *don't* think it's particularly constructive to say that something *isn't* jazz without hearing and experiencing it. I also think that the term jazz is applied to WAY too many forms of commercial music (new age jazz anyone? :rolleyes: )

One of the things that everyone must remember is that there are many skills and pedagogical approaches that span across all musical genres. If you only focus on and care about the things that make jazz unique to you, then you're not going to be of benefit to people that are interested in the Garritan Jazz & Big Band Collection. People that alredy have a well-defined idea of what they consider to be jazz may not find this tool kit useful, but then again they might. The point is that Garritan has provided a point of entry for those that have interest but might have not developed a preference for style and approach as of yet.

I think that there are a lot of players out there that would love to have a solution like this to roll their own "Music Minus One" tracks to play over. And in that regard, I think there are lots of opportunities to preserve what is generic across musical expression while allowing the soloist room to roam without having to hire a dozen players **AND** get them to show up on time for rehearsal. ;)

One last thing - a question: What do Leonard Bernstein, Frank Zappa and John Coltrane have in common?

Answer: They both used Slonimsky's "Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns" for study and inspiration...

So again, I think that the right kind of tool can span genres, and Garritan has done a decent job for something rather specific in form and function. This is a good time to be alive, and to be a musician. :D

[Mike Greene]

This is a very entertaining thread, but unless I'm misunderstanding the library, I don't think anyone is going to buy it thinking it's a "Jazz Made Easy!" collection, converting musical klutzes into Miles Davis.

I assume the reason for the word "Jazz" in the product title is really more of a guide as to mic positions and what instruments are included. Works for me because I could use a good big band set (as opposed to orchestral mikings), whether or not anyone would call the music I make with it "jazz."

In fact, I dare say using it in a context NOT considered jazz may even be more CREATIVE than yet another straightforward, lots of chords with numbers, true jazz arrangement! After all, what HASN'T already been done a zillion times with jazz big bands?!? That anyone would want to listen to?

Let's face it, many (if not most) guys who buy this are hacks like me who will be buying it mainly in hopes of saving a few bucks on live players when scoring a scene on old Chicago gangsters. Or a scene about Grandma reminiscing about "the big dance." Or a casino commercial. Genuine "I won't get the shock" jazz, but not high art. ;)

- Mike Greene

[Pingu]

It seems to me that this is an extremely odd place to be having this argument, given that a large percentage of people here make their living out of writing music for films/tv/theatre etc. Film and TV are about laying down a permanent record of a performance, which is completely at odds with the whole concept of being in the moment.

YES jazz is about improvising something, but the only people who care about whether this is spontaneous and in the moment are live audiences. For a film audience it makes little difference whether the composer captures his 'mental' improvisation and this is then very skillfully executed by great 'straight' performers, or whether the performers are improvising. Obviously a trained listener can spot the difference in the degree of interplay between individuals who are bouncing off each other and the intellectualised 'business' of a single imagination, but I think there has to be room for both. Take 'The Night Bus' from Harry Potter 3. I would argue that this lies on the border. It could have been created by an extremely tight bunch of performers with a chord chart and a few written out cues. Or it could have been, and almost certainly was, improvised in the head of a very, very good composer with jazz experience....

....so, for me as listener, the difference is almost indiscernible. Not only that, but it is completely irrelevant which way the result was arrived at, because it's going to be exactly the same next time I watch the film. Even if it was actually improvised by the hottest soloists on the planet, I'm afraid it's lost on me because THERE IS NO MOMENT. They won't get to do it again in different circumstances, or when one of them has just ticked off the rest of the group, or with a different rhythm section, etc, etc..

Film has altered EVERY type of music, and many of the jazz purists complaining here are responsible for trampling all over other types of music, or, as Bruce put it, 'dabbling.' Those of us who have other sensibilities before jazz, though, have had the good grace to let this 'dabbling' coexist with our treasured art-forms, rather than getting all uptight about it.

I'm a classical musician first, and this was the first music to be bastardised by film. There are many composers here on the forum who write fantastic neo-romantic passages, with textures and sounds that Mahler and Strauss would have been envious of. But they could no more write a whole piece of neo-Romantic music than they could walk on water, because writing soundtracks hasn't required them to develop the ability to argue-out a musical idea for 50 minutes at a time. If anyone were to suggest that Danny Elfman could be a great composer in what is left of the classical tradition I would have to laugh. But do I listen to his music? Of course I do, because he's very good at taking SOME of the elements of my favourite art-form and doing something novel with them.

World music is another area. Last week everyone here was drooling over RA. Does anyone here really have the sensibilities of the musicians who play any of those instruments, or do we really just think of them as cool new sounds? For instance, can anyone here really feel a 512 beat Balungan as it weaves through a piece of Karawitan and structure a meaningful improvisation on any one of the non-Balungan instruments, which takes the shape of the Balungan into account? Didn't think so. Yet the first group to listen to anything we do with Gamelan instruments will be the Javanese, because they are genuinely interested in new ideas on their culture. And they aren't precious about having even the very guts - THE PARTS THAT THEY REGARD AS THE VERY ESSENCE OF THEIR ART - ripped out of it.

So I guess what I'm saying is, I understand the depth of feeling. I understand that many of you jazz musicians are trying to get over to us that we will never experience what you do when you're in the moment. But I'm afraid that doesn't give you ownership over jazz, or the right to define its boundaries. Once upon a time, maybe, jazz was just about improvising, about the process not the product. But since then it has accumulated to itself a 'sound'; a common language of chords and rhythms. If others take this sound and show what they can do with it, why is that so bad? Even if they rip the very essence of improvisation out of it, who are you to say this is bad. They aren't claiming to do the same thing as you. I agree that the kind of idiot who rattles off a few lerned chords on a bar-room piano, and then spends the rest of the time talking cool, should be shot without trial. But I think there are also some great musicians doing things with the language that jazz has created, which jazz musicians themselves couldn't do.

[Haydn]

Gary,

Look at what you've started this time!! :D

Gary and Tom are just creating tools for musicians. How you use the tools is up to the individual. The name of the library just reflects the kind of instruments and sounds that are used in Jazz and Big Band. The sounds may not sound good if used in a classical style of music. They will probably sound good in pop styles. They will sound good and bad in jazz depending on the musicians' jazz knowledge and skill. To create convincing jazz with this library, you will need to understand jazz.

I doubt that this library will put any jazz musicians out of work but it may cause more competition as more musicians learn about jazz.

[Ouch that hurts]

I guess what I have consistently held as my bottom line idea is that jazz is process, not product. In order for something to be jazz, it follows style to be sure, but additionally, there is a process, and that process is improvisation and chance. Without it, I think you only have style, and that's pop, not jazz.

I agree - I think this was what I was trying to get at with the Glenn Miller example. It has stylistic elements of jazz, but not the heart or soul of jazz (IMO).

The problem here is that the experiencing of the chance element, the spontaneity and danger, on the part of the audience is a very subjective thing. It's impossible for anybody to "prove" objectively that it does or doesn't exist. When I read about the Barenboim example, my first reaction was that I'd want to sit down and listen to it. Then, if it captures the spirit of jazz, I'd call it jazz, and if it doesn't, I wouldn't.

Then I shuddered at the thought of all of us giving each other "blind tests", and trying to tell whether we could really hear whether somebody is improvising or playing from notation. A bit like trying to tell whether we can REALLY hear the difference between 44.1 and 96khz sample rate. Whoops! Caught you out! . . .

And THAT then raises the question that, if jazz is process, as Bruce says, how much of that process can really live in a recording? Given the incredibly subtle and mysterious nature of the alchemy that happens when a bunch of real jazzers play, reading each others' minds and synchronizing souls and heartbeats, does the "Jazz" only exist in that moment, for those who are there at that moment, breathing the smoke and drinking the gin? By the time it's recorded, has enough of the "jazz" gone out of it that it might as well be fully notated anyway?

I think the main thing this brings up for me is how much samples can make us forget about the elements of interpersonal interplay, spontaneity and being "in the moment" in ALL music. The idea of samples finally colliding with the genre in which these aspects are most crucial - jazz - seems to have brought this home to Bruce, and I can see where he's coming from. There are so many ways in which technology has led us away from these things - samples, click tracks, editing...

But it remains to be seen how GJ&BB will work. I for example play brass parts on the keyboard in my soul band, and while they're samples, they're still PLAYED in real time, as I co-ordinate with the rest of the band. I accept certain limitations, and that I can't get everything out of them that a "real" brass section would get, but it's still a musically flexible experience. I'm hoping that GJ&BB will simply give me some better quality, and more varied, sounds to do this with.

[Hans Adamson]

Ray,

Basically you are saying that recordings, with Billie Holiday, for example, whith no solo improvisation, is not "jazz"? Even though performed by musicians that otherwise would be considered jazz musicians.

P.S. If Duke Ellington really said the quote above, he was a very wise man. That way no one could exclude him or include him in their "value system".

I would like everyone to make their music any way it comes to them, and not care about labels.

Hans

[Tomke]

One describtion of jazz that hasn't been mentioned yet (that I've seen) that I think is helpful, is that jazz is sort of a musical Dialect, an accent if you will.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Everything always comes out OK in the end, doesn't it?

[Ouch that hurts]

Ray,

Basically you are saying that recordings, with Billie Holiday, for example, whith no solo improvisation, is not "jazz"? Even though performed by musicians that otherwise would be considered jazz musicians.

I think you're missing the point, and it's an important one because it's been made many times, by Ray, Bruce and myself, and people keep missing it: the "improvisation" that we say is at the root of jazz is not JUST soloistic improvisation, ie the way a sax player or trumpeter improvises solos over a 32-bar chord chart.

I'm glad you used the example of Billie Holiday's recordings, because in those recording EVERYBODY is improvising! Everybody is playing from a chord pattern, not from a fully (or even mostly) notated part. The pianist is improvising the chord voicings. The bassist is improvising the walking bass lines. The drummer is improvising the drum patterns. And as for Billie herself - ever compared the way she sings "Lover Man" or "Ain't Nobody's Business" with the written, published melodies? Whoaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!

In fact this kind of proves the point: Improvisation is so deeply entwined within the roots of jazz that we can easily forget that most of it IS improvisation, and only think of the flashy trumpet solo as the "improvised bit".


I would like everyone to make their music any way it comes to them, and not care about labels.

Aye, there's something in that!

[Hans Adamson]

I'm glad you used the example of Billie Holiday's recordings, because in those recording EVERYBODY is improvising! Everybody is playing from a chord pattern, not from a fully (or even mostly) notated part. The pianist is improvising the chord voicings. The bassist is improvising the walking bass lines. The drummer is improvising the drum patterns. And as for Billie herself - ever compared the way she sings "Lover Man" or "Ain't Nobody's Business" with the written, published melodies? Whoaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!


Ouch,
I guess all pop music is jazz too then.
Have you heard about that great jazz band "Led Zeppelin" by the way?

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Ray,

Basically you are saying that recordings, with Billie Holiday, for example, whith no solo improvisation, is not "jazz"? Even though performed by musicians that otherwise would be considered jazz musicians.

P.S. If Duke Ellington really said the quote above, he was a very wise man. That way no one could exclude him or include him in their "value system".

I would like everyone to make their music any way it comes to them, and not care about labels.

Hans

Duke Ellington said a lot of smart things, including the ever-popular "If it sounds good, it is good."

But I have never heard a Billie Holiday tune which didn't have oodles of jazz being played in it. The rhythm section definitely plays.

I completely agree about labels. To a degree, haha. I think a musical world without labels is kind of like a musical world without walls. With no walls, things just mush out in every direction. Sometimes it's good to knock down a wall or two. But if one knocks down all the walls, it's pretty hard to get any verticality, any scale.

I think it's the same with jazz. If there are no walls, no labels, then anything can be jazz. OK, we know that can't be true. Minuet in G is not jazz. Carmen is not jazz. But turn that phrase around just a tiny bit, establish a wall, a label or two, and from there, you can say "jazz can be anything." As long as it is "this." And without belaboring a point (HA!!!), I would say that the most simplified thing you can say that jazz must contain is to say it must contain improvisation. From there, it can swing, it can bop, squeal, grunt, salsa, or anything else it wants to do. As long as it is a process, not a product...not a style, but a way of creating.

I don't think Schuller was saying much different. But God save us from some of the drek that poured out of academia on Schuller's lead. Some really horrible music has been conceived with the idea of "expanding" jazz. I find that the older I get, the more appreciate reducing things...stripping away what is extraneous about them to reveal the core idea that cannot be further stripped. And I think that if you follow that with jazz, and strip everything away from it that you can, until nothing else can be removed, what you have is improvisation.

[Ouch that hurts]

Ouch,
I guess all pop music is jazz too then.
Have you heard about that great jazz band "Led Zeppelin" by the way?

That comes down to the other side of the equation: All jazz is improvised (to some extent) but not all improvised music is jazz!

I certainly never said that ANYTHING improvised is jazz. I merely said that improvisation is a necessary element of jazz.

This then of course raises the question of what sets jazz apart from other forms of improvised music (like pop, as you mention). And that's where elements of style come in: the melodic roots of the blues scale, expanded through mixture with the scales and tonalities of western art music; the distinctive harmonies; the swing rhythm and syncopation; walking bass etc.

All these are part of the *idiom* or *dialect* that is jazz. They each come and go, making more or less of an appearance in different eras and situations. But the concept of improvisation itself is at the very core of jazz, throughout its history. Because the core is not about musical technicalities, it's about the fundamental IMPULSE that drove people to make the music, in a way that was different from other forms of music. In the case of jazz, this had to do with an attitude to time that was more about a kind of ecstasy that comes from being "in the moment" than about pre-conceived developmental narrative; with sexuality being very much at the surface; with the joy and humour of spontaneous invention; and with the particular kind of concentration of the mind and emotions that happens when one "lives dangerously". These things are intimately bound up with the process of improvising, and become stifled when that process is taken out of the equation.

[Hans Adamson]

Let me sum it then: There is no way anyone is gonna make any "jazz" with a jazz library; there are no jazz compositions; there are no jazz arrangements; there are no jazz interpretations; there are no jazz styles in harmonic progressions. It ain't jazz unless you are the performer of a live physical instrument in the moment you are doing it. Nothing else qualifies. Right?

My parents would say that "jazz" - that's music you dance to.

I am glad "jazz" is just another four-letter word.

Hans

[FredProgGH]

That comes down to the other side of the equation: All jazz is improvised (to some extent) but not all improvised music is jazz!

I certainly never said that ANYTHING improvised is jazz. I merely said that improvisation is a necessary element of jazz.

This then of course raises the question of what sets jazz apart from other forms of improvised music (like pop, as you mention). And that's where elements of style come in: the melodic roots of the blues scale, expanded through mixture with the scales and tonalities of western art music; the distinctive harmonies; the swing rhythm and syncopation; walking bass etc.

All these are part of the *idiom* or *dialect* that is jazz. They each come and go, making more or less of an appearance in different eras and situations. But the concept of improvisation itself is at the very core of jazz, throughout its history. Because the core is not about musical technicalities, it's about the fundamental IMPULSE that drove people to make the music, in a way that was different from other forms of music. In the case of jazz, this had to do with an attitude to time that was more about a kind of ecstasy that comes from being "in the moment" than about pre-conceived developmental narrative; with sexuality being very much at the surface; with the joy and humour of spontaneous invention; and with the particular kind of concentration of the mind and emotions that happens when one "lives dangerously". These things are intimately bound up with the process of improvising, and become stifled when that process is taken out of the equation.


I think jazz definitely has to be, to some dergree, defined as a sound. King Crimson plays totally improvised music at every gig. They start with no definied parameters and compose in real time based on what the whole group is doing. The process mirrors that which I've seen layed down in this thread as the jazz process but the result is certainly not jazz. It's prog rock guys improvising. So there's a jazz sound that's misssing. Chicago is often called a "jazz/rock" band, and they have elements of their sound that most people do consider jazzy, but it doesn't fit the improv model (apart from solos. There's the Glenn Miller example. George Gershwin. Steely Dan To some degree jazz is a "I can't define it, but I know it when i here it" sort of thing, at least as a musical idiom. If you want to get into jazz as a philosophy, well, that's a new can of worms.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Let me sum it then: There is no way anyone is gonna make any "jazz" with a jazz library; there are no jazz compositions; there are no jazz arrangements; there are no jazz interpretations; there are no jazz styles in harmonic progressions. It ain't jazz unless you are the performer of a live physical instrument in the moment you are doing it. Nothing else qualifies. Right?

My parents would say that "jazz" - that's music you dance to.

I am glad "jazz" is just another four-letter word.

Hans

I'm not sure why you're dismissive, Hans.

I have played plenty of jazz with a library you are intimate with, the Malmsjo Acoustic Grand. Who said anything about jazz being impossible to create with samples? Who said it couldn't be recorded and documented? I've been doing nothing but trying to strip all these extraneous arguments off the discussion, and to attempt to reveal some truths of the essence of this music. What is so offensive to you that you take a dismissive tone on a very heartfelt discussion?

As far as I am concerned, this is the most interesting discussion that has taken place on this board in months. We're actually talking about music, not the damn library of the month or some Group Buy BS.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

King Crimson plays totally improvised music at every gig. They start with no definied parameters and compose in real time based on what the whole group is doing. The process mirrors that which I've seen layed down in this thread as the jazz process but the result is certainly not jazz. It's prog rock guys improvising. So there's a jazz sound that's misssing.

I would call what those guys do live very much jazz in that sense. Ditto for The Grateful Dead. I've even heard the latter actually get into things which we'd idiomatically identify as "jazzy." King Crimson, too, for that matter, if you're being inclusive of post-Bitches Brew jazz. I play in a free jazz group which rarely plays anything remotely swung in the ding dinga ding dinga ding sort of expression of swing. Much of it comes out more like prog rock, to tell you the truth.

And to get more to the point of samples and jazz, I certainly think it is possible to perform jazz with samples. I've performed jazz on samples for years. Pianos, etc., are a no-brainer. I've played the VSL performance Soprano Sax on my wind controller on gigs, and had a blast with it.

[Nick Batzdorf]

Okay, let's summarize:

[removed because I don't want to offend anyone]

Lee has an extra button on his keyboard (the Music one).

[removed because I don't want to offend anyone]

Bruce has live on stage - or at least he used to until his first wife got mad and left him for doing that.

Kenny G. had a white ~~~ until he played it off.

Have I left anything out?

***

By the way, I say that jazz is a state of mind. I think you can program it without anybody knowing that's what you did, and it would still be jazz.

[Journeyman]

As far as I am concerned, this is the most interesting discussion that has taken place on this board in months. We're actually talking about music, not the damn library of the month or some Group Buy BS.Bruce,

I'm not the person that you addressed this question to, but I'd like to give my own answer; speaking on my own behalf of course:

Perhaps the reason you're hearing some of the "tone" you refer to is because you're patting yourself on the back, taking credit for a discussion that you're evidentally quite proud of, which is complete deviation from the original topic. Other people are still trying to figure out the corrolation between the two subjects. Remember the original topic? THE GARITTAN J&BBC? What this has to do with your discussion of the definition of jazz is beyond me. I'm glad that you've enjoyed the pointless banter, but when will you own up to the fact that you hijacked a thread for your own personal enjoyment?

[Ouch that hurts]

I would call what those guys do live very much jazz in that sense. Ditto for The Grateful Dead. I've even heard the latter actually get into things which we'd idiomatically identify as "jazzy." King Crimson, too, for that matter, if you're being inclusive of post-Bitches Brew jazz.

Hmmm . . . I think then you'd have a very different idea of what "jazz" is to most listeners.

For all I've agreed with you about the central importance of improvisation, I'd also agree with Fred that there is a definite range of style or idiom that people call "jazz". I don't think this is just confined to swing - most people would probably call Ornette Coleman jazz. But there is a definite recognition of the difference between jazz and rock rhythm, for example. Something about how, even in 70s free jazz, the drums are often light and airy, around the beat rather than always on it, and the bass is melodic as well as being a rhythmic foundation and chord roots. Once the drums settle into pounding out the kick on 1 & 3 and the snare on 2 & 4, and the bass goes right on the beat and loses its sense of melodic independence, you're into what most people would call rock.

Then of course there's jazz-rock, which maybe the people you mention here do verge towards at times. But the fact that people felt it necessary to combine the two words does in itself show that they recognise a difference between them.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

But the term "jazz-rock" has been dead since the late 1970's!!!

Journeyman, why on earth are you ragging me about what we are talking about? Here. I'll do a little repair post and fix it all up:

WOW!!!! :D :D :D This is totally, totally amazing. Everything I have ever wanted or waited for in my whole life. I can't wait for a Group Buy on this?:D :D :D

Better?

Sorry, man. I have no regrets. Gary is going to sell a million of these libraries. If someone wants to jump in and actually say something about the library which is fact, and not some bunch of sycophant drivel, then that would be really cool. But I don't see anyone providing any hard information, do you? At least we're keeping the thread going, and the conversation is genuinely interesting and clearly passionate. This is exactly what a discussion group SHOULD be!!

[Ouch that hurts]

Let me sum it then: There is no way anyone is gonna make any "jazz" with a jazz library;
Didn't say that.


there are no jazz compositions;
Didn't say that.


there are no jazz arrangements;
Didn't say that.


there are no jazz interpretations;
Didn't say that.


there are no jazz styles in harmonic progressions.
Didn't say that.


It ain't jazz unless you are the performer of a live physical instrument in the moment you are doing it. Nothing else qualifies. Right?

The sense of "live" and "moment" have something to them, but you could equally be the audience, and nobody said that the instrument could not be a sample library or anything else. In fact both Bruce and I have said, in this thread, that we DO play samples live.

Wow, what a stunning catalogue of misinterpretation. It must be willful: you are again mistaking the proposition "improvisation is central to jazz" with the one "improvisation is all there is to jazz". Of course there are jazz compositions, for example. They are ones in jazz idiom that tend to leave room for improvisation.

But I explained all this in my last reply. Why are you determined to ignore it and come out with this preposterous twisting of my words?

Strange.

[FredProgGH]

I would call what those guys do live very much jazz in that sense. Ditto for The Grateful Dead. I've even heard the latter actually get into things which we'd idiomatically identify as "jazzy." King Crimson, too, for that matter, if you're being inclusive of post-Bitches Brew jazz. I play in a free jazz group which rarely plays anything remotely swung in the ding dinga ding dinga ding sort of expression of swing. Much of it comes out more like prog rock, to tell you the truth.


Huh... well, you're consistent though. I'd say you think more along the "jazz as philosophy" than "jazz as sound/style" lines. That sort of does make all improve jazz regardless of how it sounds at the end... which is weird to me because then is the second movment of the Third Brandenberg Concerto a jazz piece?? :D

[Bruce A. Richardson]

I am, if nothing else, consistent.

[Ouch that hurts]

Or all Indian music?

[Hans Adamson]

Well, I didn't mean to be dismissive. But we are talking about a word that means different things to different people obviously. If someone makes a big band library their "voice" of artistic expression, I'll accept that as jazz if I perceive it as "jazz". And if someone tells me it isn't jazz because the way it was recorded, that's fine. Because it is just a word. Good music moves me. I don't care what it is called.

[Gamera]

I am practically dying for people to divert attention to enabling PLAYERS use computers in ways which expand the musical universe. Most technology is aimed at enabling non-players to approximate the work of players.

There's a whole lot of market truth to this short statement buried amidst the bluster here. It's not about one sampler vs. another or one library vs. another. It's about what certain classes of software can do these days.

Can a non-player make music with Sonar or Reason? Yes.
Can a non-player make music with a couple ADATs and a mixer? No.

A successful product is one that appeals to a wide market. It's easy to see the direction this is going with products like Garage Band. Anybody see an ADAT lately? Any kind of recorder that only records a performance?

As you were...

G

[Hans Adamson]

I read through some of this discussion again and noticed how it went way off track. Looking back to the beginning I see for instance that Bruce's comments weren't so rigid as the discussion appeared to me towards the end. I have respect for all views expressed, and I am a poor jazz musician myself.

I don't know where that itch to write something comes from sometimes??

[FredProgGH]

Can a non-player make music with Sonar or Reason? Yes.
Can a non-player make music with a couple ADATs and a mixer? No.

G

That's a pretty big can'o'worms there. SONAR isn't going to compose any music for you. Anybody who sits down with it and has music to show for it at the end of the day whether they did it with a keyboard, a mouse or whistled it into a pitch-to-MIDI converter is a musician gets the same respect as a guitar player recording himself into an ADAT as far as I'm concerned.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

I'm glad you commented on that. I'm not proposing we go back. I'm certainly proposing that we don't stop where we are. How do we finally get past the idea of a computer-music rig being mainly there to mock what other things do, and push into a place where there can be some actual progress towards programming (and human interface) which would allow the mastery of a player to be expressed?

Right now, the player's mastery of performance is fairly moot. It becomes intellectualized and virtualized--because I CAN play, I can tweak this stuff until it sounds like the kind of playing I know how to do. So how do we get DIRECTLY there?

I think it's a good place to bring that up, because Mr. Garritan IS actually pushing on some boundaries with the morphing/phase alignment ideas on the solo instruments. One could easily say that it's the MIDI controllers themselves that are holding us back, but when you really think about it, we have plenty of controller technology which has not even been close to exploited? Anyone remember the Buchla Thunder? A wickedly cool box.

But even standard keys and wheels have much to offer. We musicians can express an extreme level of subtlety into those very well-worn controller archetypes. What is lacking is the artificial intelligence just beginning to be seen in Performance Tool, etc., types of software which intercede in the MIDI stream and redirect gestures to specific downstream events.

One day I was having a discussion with Jim Van Buskirk. He asked me what I would like to see in GigaStudio in the future. I told him that I thought it was completely great that a piece of software could emulate all the instruments in an orchestra, including the room they're playing in. But I would sure like to see all the power spent doing that redirected alternately into one single instrument with all that power applied to simply tracking the human expression. To me, that would be a dream come true.

There is so much talk of "leveling" the playing field. Pardon me for saying, but I think a lot of this technology UN-levels the playing field. It allows really mediocre musicians to compete with great ones in some cases, and to actually take work from people who can actually play and produce music at a very high level. I'd like to see the field RE-leveled, where the technology was so good at actually tracking human performance technique that the men would be separated from the boys, so to speak. It seems to me that a lifetime of work devoted to learning and praciting an artform should have some distinction. And I realize it does, that sort of 10,000 monkeys at 10,000 typewriters thing. But in a way, what today's sampling technology actually does is hamstring the most facile players in an assembly-line type tedium. What perfection they've attained in their expression must be intellectualized and tweaked into being.

Hopefully, these advances will once again make the act of having sacrificed to learn to really play actually make a difference in the bottom line.

[FredProgGH]

I read through some of this discussion again and noticed how it went way off track. Looking back to the beginning I see for instance that Bruce's comments weren't so rigid as the discussion appeared to me towards the end. I have respect for all views expressed, and I am a poor jazz musician myself.

I don't know where that itch to write something comes from sometimes??

Me too- sometimes I just get a confrontation bug and I'm not even like that usually in "the real world" :D :D
BTW your post before last summed things up pretty well I thought.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

I read through some of this discussion again and noticed how it went way off track. Looking back to the beginning I see for instance that Bruce's comments weren't so rigid as the discussion appeared to me towards the end. I have respect for all views expressed, and I am a poor jazz musician myself.

I don't know where that itch to write something comes from sometimes??

Hey Hans, I really appreciate you saying that. I was actually quite amazed to be so challenged (for so many stinking pages) for something that I wrote which was very much NOT rigid. I actually got more rigid as it went because I was getting so pissed off at having words put in my mouth.

I sure know about that itch to write!!!

[Gamera]

That's a pretty big can'o'worms there. SONAR isn't going to compose any music for you. Anybody who sits down with it and has music to show for it at the end of the day whether they did it with a keyboard, a mouse or whistled it into a pitch-to-MIDI converter is a musician gets the same respect as a guitar player recording himself into an ADAT as far as I'm concerned.

Sonar wasn't the best example because it's also a recorder/sequencer. Perhaps a better example would be Acid. With a few (or one) CD's worth of samples, something can be pasted together that sounds pretty good. Sure, the person would have to have some kind of ear to paste something together that sounds good, but they don't have to be able to play an instrument. That's a big difference.

G

[FredProgGH]

Sonar wasn't the best example because it's also a recorder/sequencer. Perhaps a better example would be Acid. With a few (or one) CD's worth of samples, something can be pasted together that sounds pretty good. Sure, the person would have to have some kind of ear to paste something together that sounds good, but they don't have to be able to play an instrument. That's a big difference.

G

Sure, but at the end of the day if they have something cool to show, give them credit for it. They excercised some form of talent, you said so yourself. It's unlikely anyone will confuse anything written on a loop-based program with Beethoven or Mingus (and if someone did pul that off, again, hats off to them). Everyone still gets whatever karma they deserve. Why piss on the parade of some guy who uses Acid just because he gets to create without taking lessons for 10 years?? That's sort of sour grapes to me.

[Ray Lindsley]

Wow, this continues to be an interesting discussion- I wish I hadn't been occupied elsewhere last night and could have participated more. I just want to add one more thing about the importance of improvisation in jazz and then move on to discuss the Garritan library. There is a little record label in Connecticut called Mosaic Records that makes limited edition box sets for serious jazz collectors. They offer one collection of Charlie Parker recordings called "The Complete Benedetti Recordings of Charlie Parker". This is a 7 CD collection that is considered the Holy Grail for Parker fans. Dean Benedetti was a fanatic Parker addict that followed him from club to club with a tape recorder in 1947 in order to try to preserve Charlie's performances. Blank tape was pretty expensive back then so, in order to conserve the tape, he would only turn on the recorder when Parker soloed and didn't record the actual melody of the song. In other words, the song didn't matter so much as the solo. Here are all these Parker fans willing to pay good money for a box set that doesn't even have the song- just the solo. Why? Because you can get plenty of recordings of the written song by Parker and hundreds, if not thousands of others. What makes Parker great, what makes him unique, is his ability improvise- the song is only the platform from which he jumps. When you think about it, there are so many jazz standards that have been recorded by just about every jazz musician that ever lived. Why would people keep buying the same song if it was just played as written. There is no point in recording a song that has already been recorded by someone else, unless you can add something to it. 'Nuff said.

Now, about the Jazz & Big Band Library. I think this will be a great tool and I definitely plan to get it. I think there are a number of people on this forum that are going to produce some good jazz (and other styles of music) with this tool. Not only do I look forward to playing the instruments on the keyboard, but I intend to use this in conjunction with Sibelius to study orchestration. My jazz experience has been limited to small combos. I have several good books on jazz orchestration, but have never had the ability to put the theory to practice with all of the instruments. Rather than just writing out the exercises on manuscript paper, I can enter into Sibelius and play it on this library and experiment until I get the sound I like- how great is that? If I am inspired to use any of the arrangements to make a recording, I can then print out the score and play it into Cubase with my keyboard, one instrument at a time. I do think using this with a notation program makes a great deal of sense but, in the end, I think the results will be much better if the midi output is not used in the recording. I can't wait to get my hands on it.

[bye]

"There is no point in recording a song that has already been recorded by someone else, unless you can add something to it. 'Nuff said."

How can one NOT add something to it? :) yeah I know what you meant...

I don't really understand why there is arguement about "ADAT" vs. "ACID". Seems to me these 'programs' are just as much deserving the title of 'instrument' as a guitar or piano. Sure it might not be fair, but... that's all IMHO :)

[Rich Pell]

Wow, this continues to be an interesting discussion- I wish I hadn't been occupied elsewhere last night and could have participated more. I just want to add one more thing about the importance of improvisation in jazz and then move on to discuss the Garritan library. There is a little record label in Connecticut called Mosaic Records that makes limited edition box sets for serious jazz collectors. They offer one collection of Charlie Parker recordings called "The Complete Benedetti Recordings of Charlie Parker". This is a 7 CD collection that is considered the Holy Grail for Parker fans. Dean Benedetti was a fanatic Parker addict that followed him from club to club with a tape recorder in 1947 in order to try to preserve Charlie's performances. Blank tape was pretty expensive back then so, in order to conserve the tape, he would only turn on the recorder when Parker soloed and didn't record the actual melody of the song. In other words, the song didn't matter so much as the solo. Here are all these Parker fans willing to pay good money for a box set that doesn't even have the song- just the solo. Why? Because you can get plenty of recordings of the written song by Parker and hundreds, if not thousands of others. What makes Parker great, what makes him unique, is his ability improvise- the song is only the platform from which he jumps. When you think about it, there are so many jazz standards that have been recorded by just about every jazz musician that ever lived. Why would people keep buying the same song if it was just played as written. There is no point in recording a song that has already been recorded by someone else, unless you can add something to it. 'Nuff said.

Now, about the Jazz & Big Band Library. I think this will be a great tool and I definitely plan to get it. I think there are a number of people on this forum that are going to produce some good jazz (and other styles of music) with this tool. Not only do I look forward to playing the instruments on the keyboard, but I intend to use this in conjunction with Sibelius to study orchestration. My jazz experience has been limited to small combos. I have several good books on jazz orchestration, but have never had the ability to put the theory to practice with all of the instruments. Rather than just writing out the exercises on manuscript paper, I can enter into Sibelius and play it on this library and experiment until I get the sound I like- how great is that? If I am inspired to use any of the arrangements to make a recording, I can then print out the score and play it into Cubase with my keyboard, one instrument at a time. I do think using this with a notation program makes a great deal of sense but, in the end, I think the results will be much better if the midi output is not used in the recording. I can't wait to get my hands on it.
My God!!! Then if you create yor arrangement in sibelius, its wont be improvised and it will cease to be jazz!! :eek: Just Kidding... :D :)
"It dont mean a thing if it aint got that swing "... wasnt it Ellington who said that? Scrapling from the Apple, ;) Rich

[Lunatique]

I'd like to see the field RE-leveled, where the technology was so good at actually tracking human performance technique that the men would be separated from the boys, so to speak. It seems to me that a lifetime of work devoted to learning and praciting an artform should have some distinction. And I realize it does, that sort of 10,000 monkeys at 10,000 typewriters thing. But in a way, what today's sampling technology actually does is hamstring the most facile players in an assembly-line type tedium. What perfection they've attained in their expression must be intellectualized and tweaked into being.

Hopefully, these advances will once again make the act of having sacrificed to learn to really play actually make a difference in the bottom line.

Actually, this is highly subjective, since some people place emphasis on mastering instruments, while others place emphasis on composition/arrangement. There are great instrument players out there that can't compose/arrange a decent tune, yet there are people out there who can't perform any instrument at a high level, but are great at composition/arrangement. I believe some of the famous composers in history weren't very good instrument players, but devoted far more energy to composition--ones that only skilled players could play, but not the composer himself.

[Journeyman]

It seems to me that a lifetime of work devoted to learning and praciting an artform should have some distinctionIt seems to me that you're talking about both recognition (ego gratification), and the nature of the Music Business. How you've reached the conclusion that sampling is the obstacle to that recognition, I don't know.
...what today's sampling technology actually does is hamstring the most facile players in an assembly-line type tedium I don't see sampling as hamstringing anything; it's just another tool. You either use it efficiently or you dont. You choose to use it or you dont. Nothing's stopping you from doing it the old fashioned way using humans.

[Journeyman]

I don't see sampling as hurting Jeff Beal's success, do you?

[JonP]

Actually, this is highly subjective, since some people place emphasis on mastering instruments, while others place emphasis on composition/arrangement. There are great instrument players out there that can't compose/arrange a decent tune, yet there are people out there who can't perform any instrument at a high level, but are great at composition/arrangement. I believe some of the famous composers in history weren't very good instrument players, but devoted far more energy to composition--ones that only skilled players could play, but not the composer himself.

Go back and look at the great composers. From Bach to Brahms to Prokofiev and beyond - they were mostly masters of an instrument (or conducting). They understood performance and all the years of effort and detail it requires to be an expert performer. Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin, Shostakovitch....all of them were the top of their field as improvisers.

I honestly don't know many good composers personally who are not capable performers. They might not be virtuosos or even seasoned pros, but they can play to a high standard.

With Jazz, you HAVE to be a performer, no getting out of it. You've got to be 'at one' with your instrument. You need to understand your part in the big structure, read the other players, read scores, extemporise, improvise.....you can't really call yourself a jazz musician unless you can do all these things.

Point: unless you can really perform on an instrument then I don't think you know what 7/8ths of music is really about, whatever you call yourself.

Back to Gary's library - I can't wait to hear it in action. If its anything like his new violin one then there's no reason to doubt its going to be a must for mocking-up.

[XanaX]

I'm sure jazz purists were up in arms when it came out that John Coltrane overdubbed his solo on "Someday My Prince Will Come," or when it became known that Miles' producer Teo Macero was splicing together different pieces of different takes to achieve the "performances" that today we regard as classic jazz.

As the technology has evolved, so has jazz. I hope it continues.

[Ray Lindsley]

Actually, this is highly subjective, since some people place emphasis on mastering instruments, while others place emphasis on composition/arrangement. There are great instrument players out there that can't compose/arrange a decent tune, yet there are people out there who can't perform any instrument at a high level, but are great at composition/arrangement. I believe some of the famous composers in history weren't very good instrument players, but devoted far more energy to composition--ones that only skilled players could play, but not the composer himself.

A valid point- these are separate skills/talents. Some are lucky (or work hard enough) to have both, but both are valid in their own right. I pretty much gave up on being a great jazz tenor player when I realized I could never be even a shadow of a Coltrane or a Rollins. Perhaps if I had practiced 12 hurs a day for a few years, I might have gotten closer, but who knows. I take solace in the fact that I can still express myself through the creation of new compositions or new arrangements of existing songs. This technology gives me the ability to do that and to hear the results in a reasonable facsimile of a group performance. I may never create a masterpiece, or have my recordings heard by more than a handful of people, but that doesn't diminish the joy I get from the process or in hearing the results myself.

Having said that, I agree that the sacrifice that one makes to learn to play an instrument should count for something. Many great musicians have put in unimaginable hours and lived in poverty while perfecting their technique, and I have a great deal of respect for musicians. However, it is also true that many composers have sacrificed a great deal for their art, as well.

[Journeyman]

Having said that, I agree that the sacrifice that one makes to learn to play an instrument should count for something.It does count for something. It brings gratification to you for being able to reach the musical goals that you set for yourself. It also brings gratification to those who enjoy hearing you play. Beyond that, it's all just wishful thinking, no different than all the "hopefuls" that try out for American Idol. I really hate the massive ego componant that so many musicians have. "Hey, everyone; I'm a musician! Notice me and pay homage; I'm cool! I've suffered for my art! Buy my cd and check me out!" What a bunch of immature posturing.
Many great musicians have put in unimaginable hours and lived in poverty while perfecting their technique, Yes, by their own choice. It doesn't mean that they're owed anything for their sacrifice. This sense of entitlement is a load of crap. Whatever happened to being an artist for art's sake? BTW, I know plenty of very famous musicians whom we've all heard of that "have put in unimaginable hours" and never spent a minute in poverty. Let's not get so melodramatic.

[Nick Batzdorf]

With Jazz, you HAVE to be a performer, no getting out of it.

That's true of music in general, in my opinion, otherwise you can't possibly have the musical depth to do anything more than stringing together a bunch of loops.

But you don't have to be a very good performer, you just need a background with an instrument or two or six. I'm hopelessly out of practice on all the instruments I play, and I certainly wouldn't perform on keyboards (beyond playing the "teacher" part at my daughter's piano recital a couple of years ago). Yet someone like me can easily sequence parts that sound like they were played by great players.

It all comes down to the ears, really.

[JonP]

Yet someone like me can easily sequence parts that sound like they were played by great players.

It all comes down to the ears, really.

H'Ok Nick, here's the challenge: Take the library/libraries of your choice and sequence up the first movement of the Sibelius violin concerto. Here's the rub: its got to sound like Vengerov & the Berlin Phil playing. Then I'll believe you.

[FredProgGH]

But you don't have to be a very good performer, you just need a background with an instrument or two or six. I'm hopelessly out of practice on all the instruments I play, and I certainly wouldn't perform on keyboards (beyond playing the "teacher" part at my daughter's piano recital a couple of years ago). Yet someone like me can easily sequence parts that sound like they were played by great players.

It all comes down to the ears, really.

Same here. I have to practice like a feind to be able to play like I once could- because it's now not required for me to accomplish what I have to in a studio setting. I wholeheartedly agree that it's about the ears.

[JonP]

Same here. I have to practice like a feind to be able to play like I once could- because it's now not required for me to accomplish what I have to in a studio setting. I wholeheartedly agree that it's about the ears.

Yeah, but you're missing the point. I mean older Beethoven couldn't have been up to much compared to his younger self but he'd still reached a level on his instrument. He understood what it meant to be a performer, to live, breathe and play music.

I was directing my arguement more at people who've never played an instrument to a decent standard.

Speaking personally, music is all about performance. You become both subjective participant and (hopefully) objective listener. Its a whole other level from just listening and non-realtime tweaking.

[Ray Lindsley]

It does count for something. It brings gratification to you for being able to reach the musical goals that you set for yourself. It also brings gratification to those who enjoy hearing you play. Beyond that, it's all just wishful thinking, no different than all the "hopefuls" that try out for American Idol. I really hate the massive ego componant that so many musicians have. "Hey, everyone; I'm a musician! Notice me and pay homage; I'm cool! I've suffered for my art! Buy my cd and check me out!" What a bunch of immature posturing. Yes, by their own choice. It doesn't mean that they're owed anything for their sacrifice. This sense of entitlement is a load of crap. Whatever happened to being an artist for art's sake? BTW, I know plenty of very famous musicians whom we've all heard of that "have put in unimaginable hours" and never spent a minute in poverty. Let's not get so melodramatic.

Do you hate musicians with huge egos more than non-musicians with huge egos? Do you think these musicians that spend 6 to 12 hours at a clip holed up in their room practicing the same thing over and over aren't doing it for the sake of their art? I'm sorry, but I don't believe that someone can make that kind of commitment to something for the amount of time it takes to become a real virtuoso (I'm not talking about your average musician here) because they're in it for the money, or to get girls.

Sure there are musicians that never had to scrape to get by, but those are the exception. I don't know what musicians you've been hanging out with, but I've spent a number of years here in NYC hanging out at jazz clubs, and the musicians couldn't possibly be more dedicated to their art and down-to-earth to talk to, especially about jazz. I've been to a lot of benefit shows for musicians that have played on legendary recordings that are now in their 70's or 80's and have no retirement plan or health insurance and have trouble getting by.

The kind of dedication I am talking about is that of a John Coltrane to after his gig goes back to his hotel room to practice for a few hours more while the rest of the band goes to get drunk. I'm talking about an Eric Dolphy that keeps a 50 pound sack of rice and beans in his closet in order to make sure he has enough to eat (he was diabetic) so he has the strength to practice 8 hours a day and play the kind of avant garde jazz that he prefers, but knows that he won't make much money playing it. How can you not respect that dedication?

I appreciate the joy I get from listening to a highly skilled musician, whether it's in a jazz club or concert hall. Sure they made their own choice, but I get to appreciate the fruits of their labor. You sound like the kind of person who would say the guy that goes into a burning building to rescue someone isn't a hero because he did so of his own free will and he did it for the recognition.

[Journeyman]

Do you hate musicians with huge egos more than non-musicians with huge egos? I hate huge egos in everyone, regardless of their profession.
Do you think these musicians that spend 6 to 12 hours at a clip holed up in their room practicing the same thing over and over aren't doing it for the sake of their art? I'm sorry, but I don't believe that someone can make that kind of commitment to something for the amount of time it takes to become a real virtuoso (I'm not talking about your average musician here) because they're in it for the money, or to get girls. First of all, no one knew whom you were talking about. Now you're talking about jazz legends who didn't have enough money to scape by. Okay, at least now we have a clue what you're subject matter is.No one said that their music wasn't appreciated. What exactly are you proposing that society do for them?
Sure there are musicians that never had to scrape to get by, but those are the exception.Don't assume that your experience is in the majority just because you experienced it. No one is saying that they're not dedicated. But again, what is it that you want done about this?

The kind of dedication I am talking about is that of a John Coltrane to after his gig goes back to his hotel room to practice for a few hours more while the rest of the band goes to get drunk. I'm talking about an Eric Dolphy that keeps a 50 pound sack of rice and beans in his closet in order to make sure he has enough to eat (he was diabetic) so he has the strength to practice 8 hours a day and play the kind of avant garde jazz that he prefers, but knows that he won't make much money playing it. How can you not respect that dedication?Who says that I don't? Again, the way you originally phrased your argument was so vague that it left a lot of room for misunderstanding.
You sound like the kind of person who would say the guy that goes into a burning building to rescue someone isn't a hero because he did so of his own free will and he did it for the recognition. First of all, you sound like someone who's looking for an argument. I don't see that we necesssarily disagree, so be careful when you start sentences with, "You sound like the kind of person who..." In your original statement there was no way to distinguish whether you were talking about Coltrane or Brecker. Try decaf....

[Ouch that hurts]

Do you hate musicians with huge egos more than non-musicians with huge egos? Do you think these musicians that spend 6 to 12 hours at a clip holed up in their room practicing the same thing over and over aren't doing it for the sake of their art? I'm sorry, but I don't believe that someone can make that kind of commitment to something for the amount of time it takes to become a real virtuoso (I'm not talking about your average musician here) because they're in it for the money, or to get girls.

Oh I dunno - you'd be surprised what some guys would go through to get girls.

[peter269]

How do you make a million bucks playing Jazz ???

Doing back-ups for Tony Orlando and Dawn on the side....

[Scott Alexander]

Oh I dunno - you'd be surprised what some guys would go through to get girls.

Ah…The literal and figurative birthplace of the ego. It all seems to come back to that, in ways sometimes less abstract than others.

[Ray Lindsley]

Journeyman,
I'm not looking for an argument, it's just your post came across as anti-musician. I think you and I are just looking at two different extremes. Not every musician spends 8 to 12 hours a day practicing a day, but those who do and stick with it for years usually develop into really good musicians and I believe they deserve respect for that. That's what I was talking about, and stated as much- I used jazz greats as an example, but you could easily list classical or rock musicians (Steve Vai and Joe Satriani come to mind) who fit the mold. They are certainly more dedicated than I am!

If you think that most musicians haven't spent some part of their career on a steady diet of Ramon Noodles and Mac and Cheese, I'm sure there's plenty of people on this forum that would tell you otherwise, but what you choose to believe is no concern of mine. I never said I wanted anything done about it. Again, I just said I think they deserve some credit for their dedication.

This really isn't worth spending a lot of time on- I think I've restated my opinions enough and I have no beef with you, so get the chip off your shoulder.

[Journeyman]

'm not looking for an argument, it's just your post came across as anti-musician. Where you got that from is beyond me, I'm not anti-musician, I'm just anti-egomaniac that's all. There's nothing more refreshing than talking to a musician who can exhibit some humility. Ever have a conversation with Mike Brecker? The man is the nicest, most humble, self-depricating guy I've ever met. And this from a man who could probably get away with showing some ego. On the other hand, there was Art Blakey, may he RIP....
those who do and stick with it for years usually develop into really good musicians and I believe they deserve respect for that. I just said I think they deserve some credit for their dedication. I agree completely and still have no idea what got you so worked up.
I think I've restated my opinions enough and I have no beef with you,Same here.
so get the chip off your shoulder.I'll lose mine if you lose yours...

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Journeyman, do you have an actual name? I feel so weird calling people by handles, like I'm playing Dungeons and Dragons or something. No disrespect.

Ego strength is something that all musicians have. Some express it only on the horn, some in interpersonal relations. But without some serious ego, how does one take the stand? I am not speaking so much of just the simplistic phenomenon of stage fright, but to be a player among peers? Surely those of us who have played this music, including you, have some wisdom to impart that actually pertains to this library--something to pass on to folks who may not play jazz at all, but who may end up with this tool in their hands, looking for clues on how to make the next move.

After all, I think what all of us have agreed, despite our numerous takes on what jazz actually is, is that we would be loathe to hear the air profaned with faintly jazzy excrement. Agreed?

Here's my list.

1) Listen to the greats

2) Listen to the greats

3) Listen to the greats

4) Find some group of players you trust, and put yourself into live improvising situations.

5) Remember that the "frills" of articulation like falls, doits, shakes, etc., are condiments with the strength of cayenne pepper. Sprinkle them very lightly. Concentrate more on the vocalizing of lines, and upon their shape. Jazz is far less jazzy than most people realize. You don't want to make cliches.

6) Breathe.

7) Do what the listener expects at least 90% of the time. Do something phenomenally unexpected the other 10%

8) Jazz solos are thematically developed like anything else. On the clock.

9) "Quoting" is best done in the most miniscule doses, and best when only enough of a melodic fragment is there that it takes a true devotee to know what you're doing. But never quote "A tisket a tasket," unless you are extremely gay and looking for a hookup.

10) Always keep 10% of your power in reserve, even when the playing is full out. You will always find the perfect place to ramp up...and you'll be glad you saved the energy

11) Swing does not mean setting your sequencer at 66% swing quantization. Swing is not triplets. Swing is a continuum between straight eighths and triplet feel, which involves not only the "tuplet" but the intervening downbeat as well.

12) Forget everything anyone ever taught you about laying back, and listen to the Basie Band very, very carefully. You'll find they're not playing behind the beat. They're playing with the tuplet and downbeat relationships. They're almost never behind the beat...at least not for long. College professors who have never played a note of jazz in front of non-academics are usually the worst at profaning the Basie legacy by simiplistically making people play behind the beat as a substitute for the complex time-bending which is ACTUALLY occurring.

13) Note that most players have followed the Basie phrasing model above, ever since...the Count ran arguably the most progressive band of its time, even though the tunes themselves were deceptively traditional sounding.

14) If you have the inclination to do something cute or idiomatic, stop. Do something angular instead. Cute jazz was never jazz, it was pop music using jazz styles. Jazz is by definition not cute.

15) If it doesn't make your butt move, erase it.

16) If it doesn't make your butt move, erase it.

17) If it still doesn't make your butt move, get help.

18) Imagine the sounds of really steaming you know what. Emulate.

19) Watch beautiful women dance. Emulate

20) Read the Lydian Chromatic Concept, by George Russell. If you don't understand it, read it again. If you still don't understand it, read David Baker's books, then try again. If you still don't understand it, read Dan Hearle's voicings book, then read Baker again, then read Russell again. If you still don't understand it, put on a Jamey Abersold album and persuade someone to have with you. Listen carefully. Then read all books again. If you still don't understand, stop playing jazz before you hurt somebody.

[Alan Russell]

Hi Ray,

can't wait to hear a demo with this collection...how about you?

Alan Russell

[Journeyman]

But without some serious ego, how does one take the stand?By having confidence in one's own abilities; by having confidence and delight in those whom you share the stage with, and a genuine desire to communicate through music with both your fellow musicians as well as the audience. A live jazz performance is a journey worth being genuinely excited about, and I seek that outlook from those I choose to share the stage with. For me, when I refer to the word ego, I usually think of someone who holds themselves in higher regard than anyone else. A built-in condescencion that pervades their behavior both on and offstage. A player who exudes this attitude will never find themselves on my stand.
Surely those of us who have played this music, including you, have some wisdom to impart1) You have to learn the rules before you can break them. There's nothing more annoying than someone who thinks that everything that they don't understand fits under the umbrella category of "jazz".
2) Transcribe and analyse. CD's are your textbooks. Devour them and endeavor to understand them. Thousands of them.
3) Ear training courses are invaluable.
4) If you can't sing your solo, you're probably wasting you're time.
5) When you've reached a level of confidence playing with a "regular group of guys", try playing with someone a little bit better that you are. Sometimes they can "kick yer butt" into areas of inspiration that you wouldn't have previously been brave enough to explore.
6) "Licks" are a learning device. Know that for other than practice purposes, licks are frowned upon and should be avoided and are considered to be a crutch.
7) In live performance, listening is crucial. Jazz is a team sport, and your ability to respond to others playing hinges on your ability to listen to other's playing and instantly respond.
8) Learn what it means to play "in the pocket" at all times. Learn to play behind the beat, on the beat or ahead of the beat when appropriate.
9) Be open to listening to other types of music other than your main focus. The possibilites will rock your world.
10) Never be afraid to seek help. Take lessons, classes and speak to those whom you respect.

Regards,
-Mark

[Journeyman]

11) Understand that a musician is forever a work in progress. No matter how good you get, they'll ALWAYS be more to learn. Jazz is a lifelong journey that is always taking you someplace new, if you'll let yourself remain open to the possiblities. Separate yourself from those that would demean or impede your progress. We all learn at our own pace.

-Mark

[charles]

Music is Philosophy

Everyone has to seek their own unique path

A book for everyone a book for no one

[FredProgGH]

Yeah, but you're missing the point. I mean older Beethoven couldn't have been up to much compared to his younger self but he'd still reached a level on his instrument. He understood what it meant to be a performer, to live, breathe and play music.

I was directing my arguement more at people who've never played an instrument to a decent standard.

Speaking personally, music is all about performance. You become both subjective participant and (hopefully) objective listener. Its a whole other level from just listening and non-realtime tweaking.

I agree that it is highly unlikely that someone without any practical experience in music will wind up accomplishing what someone who is can, whatever tools they use. But, what is an instrument? It's a tool for making music. If the instrument winds up being a mouse and sampler, or even Garageband, talent is talent and I won't begrudge anyone who creates art in whatever fashion.

BUT, again, I think you are quite right in the sense that some punk with Acid and no real musical training probably isn't going to achieve a whle lot. But, then again, look at DJ's. Some of those cats have a way of looking at producing that I would never think of, and it comes from being in a whole different discipline in regard to sound and what to do with it. I hesitate to crap on what they do because they don't play traditional instruments...

My head hurts... :D

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Hey Mark,

Excellent stuff. Probably what I'm calling good ego strength is what you're describing. The right amount, where you're not intimidated...certainly not overly egotistical where you imagine you have nothing to learn. I would describe you as having good ego strength, in a purely positive way, from what I know of speaking with you here.

I like your point about finding people better than you to play with. Man, that is so true. When I was first getting my legs, I played with a rhythm section that left a bit to be desired. I knew from listening that this was so, but was young and didn't know much about helping out. All I knew was these guys didn't sound like the guys on records.

I asked the drummer what kind of players he listened to. He said, "drum and bugle corps." Wasn't into anyone. The only jazz drummer he'd listened to some Buddy Rich so he was all about that thing--which no one but Buddy sounds even remotely good doing. The bass player practiced his fingers off, but was one of those guys that would never get it. The piano player was just so stoned he was thinking at about 1/100th speed. If he was even remotely in the vicinity of the changes, which was hardly ever, it was in an approximate way at best.

The first time I played with a really good piano player, I was so freaked out. Suddenly things I'd tried to play so many times before, only to have them fail completely, were working. I would try something else, and it was working. It was effortless. As if I were in the air listening to myself play, and darn if it didn't sound really great. I would try to play something that didn't work, and in a split second, it was working. Everything worked. It made me sound like a different player, and instantly, it dawned on me how this music worked. It was that once in a lifetime experience, the first acid trip, the first kiss. There have been moments of elation all through life, but that one was the crystal clear time freeze moment of all.

I remember it like it was ten minutes ago. It was mystical and apocalyptic feeling at the time. I wore this poor guy out, sitting on the bench with him playing flugel. As soon as we'd finish one tune, I'd ask for another. Closed the place down.

Now, of course, I know that the guy just knew how to play and listen, and he voiced chords in a way that didn't box me in. And probably I wasn't half as brilliant as I remember. Or maybe I was. Whatever the case, in that moment, it just felt like everything I'd ever felt while playing before was a lie, and suddenly this was the truth...and in this truth I could play.

[charles]

well we all have different life experiences and Journey mans advice sounds like the American Jazz educators that came to Australia when i was a teenager and guess what i wish they had gone to fiji instead.

No offense for all i know your advise under certain life situations works and for all i know you are a great jazz muscian , but this doesnt change my views of your advise which i would stay clear off, Jamey Abersold Dave Baker, no thanks, give me mother nature any day.

[Lunatique]

...They might not be virtuosos or even seasoned pros, but they can play to a high standard.


And just where do you draw that line for "high standard?" Isn't that subjective also? For example, there are plenty of written music out there that requires a virtuoso or a seasoned player to play--and I'd think someone who plays at a high standard but isn't up to that higher level will no be able to play those pieces. But let's say this person is still capable of composing pieces that require virtuosos or seasonsed players--are you ok with that?



Point: unless you can really perform on an instrument then I don't think you know what 7/8ths of music is really about, whatever you call yourself.


Although I agree with the gist of your point, I don't agree with the intensity of it. I'm one of those people who's constantly preaching to non-instrument playing music-makers (I hesitate to call them musicians) that they should really learn an instrument. I don't feel that clicking notes into the pianoroll is anywhere near the freedom of expression one gets from actually inputing the notes by playing an instrument. HOWEVER, I'd say 7/8 is a bit too severe--as performing instruments is not the end all be all of music. Although I love classical and jazz, I also love electronic music, and that's a genre where playing instruments isn't really required--all you need is a good ear and a willingness to dive into a different way of expression with MIDI controllers, use of envelops, filters, effects, clever audio/MIDI manipulation.

Having a good ear is the only really essential quality we need--because if it sounds good, that's all that matters. Making music isn't a pissing contest to see who's the most superhuman with their performing skills--it's about creating something beautiful or captivating that will resonate within people. If anything, learning music theory is more important than mastering an instrument IMHO. Music theory is the most potent weapon one can have for broadening his musical palette. While performing skill is beneficial, it really isn't as necessary as it used to be before the age of computers and MIDI and sample libraries. Now, we can input the notes and then tweak the velocity, modulation, volume..etc, and that's a valid way of making music as well.

I really think that performing music and making music are two different kinds of disciplines--although they are related, one doesn't HAVE to master the other in order to do one of them.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Whoo. Now we're opening the can of worms, for sure.

I'd say if one were going to aspire to master musician status, playing is part of that game. Although I guess if we wanted to introduce a dichotomy, we could have separate master music makers.

I have worked with turntablist's that I'd call players, that's for sure. A turntable is no more or less contraption than a trumpet. Less smelly water, oil, sticky lunch goo, etc. Sorry, that's gross. But true. Lung. Haha.

But I guess the holy grail is to be as masterful as possible of all aspects of music, if one wants to have the maximum understanding. Mastery seems a big thing to me, something which encompasses huge amounts by definition.

I wish we were getting software that concentrated totally on making the computer a live-playable thing in its own right, not something that people use to emulate the sound of people playing. I enjoy that, but mainly for the convenience in making money with commercial stuff. It's kind of hard to get your rocks off on a sampler. Pianos and some things feel like an instrument, but many things don't. It has been proposed to me that this or that technology can change that at any time, but honestly, I wish there were more emphasis on giving the computer its own voice. Not trying to have the voice of something else. I don't want to play the nearly so perfect you can't really tell trumpet part on a computer as much as I'd like to be playing the "Oh my god, I don't know what that is but it is certainly amazing" sound. Those are the things that get me going.

A trumpet is a nightmare of plumbing and spit. Simple as a bucket of hair. But you can express for all the world on it. Why can't a computer, with all the various controller technologies available right now, today, be analyzing the incoming data stream with MUCH MUCH more intelligence as to what it does with that sampling of human expression?

If you are a real Poindexter at heart, you can create some fairly innovative stuff in Reaktor. It sure takes more circuitry and electronic knowledge than I have to do it solo, although I can usually figure out how to rip guts from different things in the library and string them together. The interface for programming tends to be designed by people who think like programmers (obviously) so sometimes there's a real gap between the way a musician thinks vs. how the tools are designed to be leveraged. Especially Reaktor, which is so open ended, really the only tool of its kind right now. Sampling based stuff tends to be more simplistic, even the best and newest of it is working on a fairly granular level when it comes to tracking a player's physical input vs. what is being triggered.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

re: superhuman performing skills

I agree. Superhuman listening skills trump all.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Is Tom ever going to come talk about his library? We can't vamp forever, you know.

[jazzbozo]

well we all have different life experiences and Journey mans advice sounds like the American Jazz educators that came to Australia when i was a teenager and guess what i wish they had gone to fiji instead.

no offense for all i know your advise under certain life situations works and for all i know you are a great jazz muscian , but this doesnt change my views of your advise which i would stay clear off Jame abersold Dave Baker cliche as hell

I've known and played with Jamey since I was in college, and he'll be the first to tell you that everything you actually need to study jazz is on record. His jazz aids are merely short cuts to get people who would otherwise NEVER be able to improvise (lack of time, discipline, ear or any combination therein) playing a music he loves. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this. One can be a snob about it and say anyone who doesn't eat, breathe, and sleep jazz shouldn't attempt to play it, but that's just not realistic or fair. Jamey's books and techniques are not for those with real talent and ambition; they are for normal, everyday people to "get by" when it's time to take a solo.

Jazzbozo

[Tom Hopkins]

Is Tom ever going to come talk about his library? We can't vamp forever, you know.
Tom who?:) I got back a couple of days ago and am just catching up on things. I've read part of this (rather extended) thread and you guys seem to be entertaining yourselves just fine without me. Vamp away!

Tom

[Paul Blankenau]

Defining jazz is difficult, and no definition satisfies everyone, just as there are different ideas on what belongs in the Sample Libraries Discussion. I'm with Ellington: If it reads good, it is good, and this is good. Is what Gary wrote jazz? That's hard to say, but it sure is art. Look at the economy of structure he employed. A library announcement with no demos practically forces improvising. Gary knows this forum pretty well, so with the library being geared toward jazz he had to know the verbal improv was going to be about jazz improv soon enough. Gary didn't know about the details of our lives over the past few days, and didn't need to, because his structure was so open. Some uninsured @#^***> had a strong influence on the performance. Had the thread appeared on some other day, it would have been quite different, but probably still recognizable as the same tune.

In the next few days I'll go to the record store and listen to some of the names I've never seen before this thread. I suspect at least one will expand my world a bit, as this thread has done.

[Journeyman]

well we all have different life experiences and Journey mans advice sounds like the American Jazz educators that came to Australia when i was a teenager and guess what i wish they had gone to fiji instead.

No offense for all i know your advise under certain life situations works and for all i know you are a great jazz muscian , but this doesnt change my views of your advise which i would stay clear off, Jamey Abersold Dave Baker, no thanks, give me mother nature any day.Charles,

Fair enough; you've got me curious. Please explain the above statement.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Jamey Abersold's stuff is great as far as I am concerned. I am very curious why you would think it wasn't, Charles. Like any other tool, it's all about what you put into it. When you're just starting out as a player, it's invaluable to have those rhythm section tracks at your disposal. Most of the people around you won't play that well. It gives you a chance to play tunes over and over and over again, which is what you need to do after you've listened over, and over, and over again. Learning to play tunes is one of the most crucial elements, if you are going to be able to gig, and therefore to afford the luxury of keeping yourself working with players. You have to know tunes. Nobody is going to rehearse for a $100-200 gig. If you can't show up and play tunes, you're not going to work. And if you can't work, it's hard to get people to just hang around and play with you.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Interesting perspective on it, Paul. And the uninsured @#$%@!#$% will be costing me $968, I just learned. Now I have to figure out whether to just buck up and pay it, or file the uninsured motorist claim. Needless to say, I made a little less on the gig, so the night turned out to be something of a loss.

But this discussion has been a blast, sans the icky interlude.

Tom, that's all we get? Take a ride, baby, let us know what you're doing.

[charles]

Charles,

Fair enough; you've got me curious. Please explain the above statement.

Well a big topic!!

But where to start, Louise Armstrong, Charlie Parker , John Coltrane, Duke Ellington etc where just responding to life, in other words their ear was their philosophy so to speak it was their way of making sense of their existense which again is philosophy. You can still listen to Parker and think wow, with all the copying Parker is still there fresh as ever.
Now we could look at the reasons for why the above muscians had the ability to find a voice and i guess we would again have to come to discussions about philosophy, Religion,Sociology or any discipline that helps us understand.

Now to the American Jazz Educators.
Compare Duke Ellington and Jamey Abersold!! yikes
Duke Ellingotns Orchestra was a familly, Duke Ellington understood all his muscians not just the fact that one played a saxophone it was Johny who was playing a saxophone.
By comparison Abersold was on an expediton of colonising the Australian scene ok he might disagree, but so would most religious zealots who came to Australia and screwed the indigenous populations maybe i am being harsh, but my point is again about philosophy. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with your advise but the ear is connected to every aspect of your being, for example i would say the best ear training is John Cages 4 min 33 secs

To me Jazz is about union its about making sense of everything around you, that includes your family, neighbours and wider society, the architecture in the place you live etc. American jazz is just that, when it is great it is communion with those aspects of America, i mean, could Coltrane have come from anywhere else!!! The speed of life of America is his Solos i mean Mozart just had no reason to go so fast or put so much emotion or density into his playing, just look at 18th century Salzburg and 20th century New york.

Now Australia is a big country and the real Australia is smack in the middle that is where you will find the life blood of Australia, the coasts are where all the settlers live the europeans etc This is the problem as i see it, Abersold and co tapped into the european aspects of Australia but that isnt really Australia, Our inspiration should always be the land the Architecture of what surrounds us that is our life that is our music and that is what we are transcribing.

Now Parker Ellington etc to me were examples of Artists who found their voice and found some kind of union with time and place. Transporting that to another time and place requires great sensitivity.
So thats why i said in certain lifes circumstances your advise will be appropriate but as i was reading it i thought hold on!!! something much more powerful needs to be taken into account for authenticity of Music and Philosophy to be in union

[Journeyman]

(Ah, so you weren't responding to my "list of advice" at all. You must've had me confused with those who mentioned Aebersol and Baker.)

But that aside, of course our daily lives and environments will be rolled into our playing; I thought that went without saying. But first one has to learn to "speak the basic language" to communicate that life, and Aebersol and Baker's tools are a huge help in that regard. I have no idea what the relationship between Austrailia and Aebersol are, but that doesn't change the fact that his tools give a practicing musician use of a professional rhythm section to practice with, regardless of what country they reside in. What could possibly be so wrong with that? No, Bird & Trane didn't benefit from these tools, but that certainly doesn't make them of any less value. Or am I not understanding your point?

[Ouch that hurts]

On the need for playing skills:

Fundamentally, people are right that the main thing you need to be a good composer is a good ear. But how does one GET a good ear?

Some would say that some people are just born with it and some aren't, but I'd disagree with that. Some certainly seem to have a bigger quotient of natural ability than others, but that natural ability don't mean diddly squat until it's developed through exploration of the musical language itself.

And here's the thing: you can take all the solfege and ear training classes you want, but none of that actually falls into place, in a practical way, unless you can relate it to how music works in REAL TIME. And that means listening, and playing. Listening can only go so far (crucial as it obviously is), playing goes to a whole other level because when you're doing it you're "inside" the music, especially with something like jazz where you're improvising.

One of the main reasons why so much bad concert music was written in the twentieth century is because of the rise of academic composers, who made their living working out pitch relationships on blackboards without ever playing a note of music in their lives. Composers' whose musical "development" is focused this way often make a lot of typical errors, from the point of view of how music actually sounds. They don't understand the crucial relationship between harmonic change (or pitch in general) and TIME. The fact that it takes a certain amount of time for particular gestures to "breath", to be properly articulated by a player and properly digested by an audience. They don't understand how to manipulate this naturally and typically cram too much into too short a space. They don't understand that in complex counterpoint, there needs to be something predominating for the audience to "hook onto", and the complexity of the lines has to be carefully weighed, so that their brilliant ideas can actually be HEARD, and not just look good on the page.

A lot of generalising I know, But believe me I've known a lot of people like this. Now I'm no great virtuoso, but I did violin to Grade 8 and piano to degree level, and have played in amateur orchestras and professional bands. That's what really trained my ear (and continues to do so).

There have been a very few great composers who hardly played at all. Berlioz is the example that springs to mind, but then he did play to a degree, and did a lot of conducting. And was probably just such a genius that he could become great despite it. But maybe he's the exception that proves the rule.

I wouldn't include "playing" reaktor etc as sufficient training in this, at least not yet. The "playing technique" of such things just doesn't offer enough real time control to come anywhere near what a brass player or string player learns through having to master intonation, precision and flexibility of phrasing, ensemble skills etc. Maybe when Bruce gets his dream of the all-singing all-dancing "computer instrument" it will. That'd be cool. But then it would take jut as long to master as a "real instrument" anyway. That's kind of the point.

[Tom Hopkins]

Tom, that's all we get? Take a ride, baby, let us know what you're doing.
Gary decides the amount of information he wishes to release at any given time. The three brief demos taken to NAMM were quick ones I did the night before I caught the plane. They show a work in progress. I believe Gary would prefer to wait until the library nears completion and larger-scale, more carefully prepared demos can be offered - but like I said, that's up to Gary.

Now, generally about the library: I'm trying to program it to be as consistent with GPO as possible (conventions, controllers, core philosophy). What I have in mind is a library that will allow the user to get a reasonable idea during the compositional process of what the music will sound like when later put in front of real players. The key word here is "reasonable." As far as the apparently controversial word "Jazz" goes, this has more to do with the obvious application of this particular selection of instruments and the type of players used in the recording sessions. I hope that, at the very least, I will succeed in building some "attitude" into these instruments - an attitude very different from orchestral. What I won't do is dive into the bottomless pit of trying to supply every subtle possibility of every instrument available to players in a Jazz context. For one thing, that would be completely counter to the already-established GPO concepts. For another, I would die trying. Instead, I will attempt to supply as many useful expressive controls to the user as I can - it will be up to them to apply them appropriately. I intend to make things as playable as possible, given technological limitations.

In the final analysis these instruments are just tools - to be used in any context the user desires, even though, stylistically, they imply Jazz-flavored applications.

Tom

[charles]

(Ah, so you weren't responding to my "list of advice" at all. You must've had me confused with those who mentioned Aebersol and Baker.)

Well i came to the thread quite late, and your response just triggered of my memory of my own experiences i guess i was indirectly responding to your list.
The advise you were giving was very solid!! but still, i was trying to place it within a larger Macro perspective of Society and Philosophy.


But that aside, of course our daily lives and environments will be rolled into our playing; I thought that went without saying. But first one has to learn to "speak the basic language" to communicate that life, and Aebersol and Baker's tools are a huge help in that regard. I have no idea what the relationship between Austrailia and Aebersol are, but that doesn't change the fact that his tools give a practicing musician use of a professional rhythm section to practice with, regardless of what country they reside in. What could possibly be so wrong with that?

well this is a heavy issue with me and my response to you has nothing to do with you on a personal level, but in a nutshell if the language you are teaching is part of your cultural heritage and if you are not being forced, fine i agree with you, the jazz tradition is fantastic.

But this issue has a deeper significance for me on a very, very personal level and that is why i mentioned something about my feelings of Australia etc This is an issue i have spent my life thinking about so sometime its hard to transmit that experience. But an extreme case is happening right now in Iraq and the so called spreading of freedom whether anybody wants it or not, its about cultural imperialism etc Jazz in its earlier days was always a very open music, for eg it absorbed latin influences etc but this was an organic growth, so we have two extremes 1- Cultural imperialism, Iraq, Australia etc and 2 - a natural give and take with mutual respect, so when you say learn to speak the language these are the parameters i gauge the authenticity that is being used to teach that language.



No, Bird & Trane didn't benefit from these tools, but that certainly doesn't make them of any less value. Or am I not understanding your point?

Well again for Bird and Trane they were involved in the real thing, the real life experience and taking part in discovery and that is why we still look to them for inspiration because they were the REAL THING
now the issue of the tools again to me falls into this whole process of Cultural authenticity and discovery. I have no problem with the tools, but the tools have to be a geniune expression of our intrinsic needs founded on our culture and our place in the world (philosophy)

[Journeyman]

Oy!

[charles]

Jamey Abersold's stuff is great as far as I am concerned. I am very curious why you would think it wasn't, Charles. Like any other tool, it's all about what you put into it. When you're just starting out as a player, it's invaluable to have those rhythm section tracks at your disposal. Most of the people around you won't play that well. It gives you a chance to play tunes over and over and over again, which is what you need to do after you've listened over, and over, and over again. Learning to play tunes is one of the most crucial elements, if you are going to be able to gig, and therefore to afford the luxury of keeping yourself working with players. You have to know tunes. Nobody is going to rehearse for a $100-200 gig. If you can't show up and play tunes, you're not going to work. And if you can't work, it's hard to get people to just hang around and play with you.

I dont really have a problem with the Abersold disc's etc, they are certainly well done and if your conception of Jazz, that is the philosophy that underlies it is not in conflict with your own philosophy i can see no problem.
But here is where i differ the music Jazz for me has a different meaning than what i think you are ascribing to it.
My response to Mark is what Jazz means to me. Its a way of life, and that way of life is part of other factors that determines that way of life. So for me it definetly is improvisation, but improvisation based on the things i disscussed with Mark

[Nick Batzdorf]

Originally Posted by Nick Batzdorf

Yet someone like me can easily sequence parts that sound like they were played by great players.

It all comes down to the ears, really.

JonP:

H'Ok Nick, here's the challenge: Take the library/libraries of your choice and sequence up the first movement of the Sibelius violin concerto. Here's the rub: its got to sound like Vengerov & the Berlin Phil playing. Then I'll believe you.

Hey, reductio ad absurdum is cheating! No fair using Latin crap!

[JonP]

Hey, reductio ad absurdum is cheating! No fair using Latin crap!

:D

Ok, use Vocaloid to grunt like George Foreman in the jungle. Gloves off....gauntlet....and all that

Nick, I get what you meant. Its just the pedantic twat in me ice skating across the rink of absurdity to fashion a piss-poor figure-of-8.

[Nick Batzdorf]

That's quite an image! :)

[Journeyman]

Charles,

Now that I've had some time to digest your personal vision of jazz, you've got me curious. Could you post a sample of your jazz music that reflects your aformentioned criteria? I'd be fascinated to hear it as you've described it!

[charles]

Charles,

Now that I've had some time to digest your personal vision of jazz, you've got me curious. Could you post a sample of your jazz music that reflects your aformentioned criteria? I'd be fascinated to hear it as you've described it!


You ask a fair question Mark, but sorry to say, while music is my passion and i have a great affection for Jazz, i would consider myself a failed jazz musican, maybe this would seem incompatible to everything i have been saying, but in this area it is purely speculative, i would like it to be otherwise.
I enjoy speculating about the nature of things and music is right at the centre.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

I think if we all weren't failed jazz musicians to one degree or another, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Hard truth, haha. I can only speak for me, but I am happy I gave it the best try I could. Not that I'm non-functional, but no one is mentioning me in the same breath as Miles and Herbie.

[thesoundsmith]

Bruce, that's not necessarily bad - they mention my name with Herbie's a lot - as in, "He sure doesn't sound anywhere near as good as..." :rolleyes: