Jazz Isn't Too Bad After All! Options

[Jesse]

Every teacher I had, said I should check out jazz playing. I was like.. BLEGH.. jazz... Now, I have to play it from my theory book which deals with diatonic 7ths chords and stuff. It sounds great!!!!!! I like it alot! It swings, but different! I got to check out jazz "standards"to learn more about the use of chords in songs. Do you lads know any "jazz standards?" I'm very eager to learn new styles and expand my musical vocabulary!LLame as I am. I forgot to check the GMC lessons. THERES EVEN A JAZZ SERIES... 2!!!!!!!!I'm starting practice with Muris' for chord knowledge!

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This post has been edited by Jesse: Nov 4 2008, 09:10 PM

[OrganisedConfusi...]

Jazz is my favourite genre I'd love to be able to play Jazz

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[JVM]

Jazz is awesome I love doing walking basslines, checkout the lessons on those.

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[chast]

Jazz is cool
Some stuff is a bit too spacy for my ears, but I like listening to some jazz from time to time.
What I really like is Gyspy Jazz, just a lot of fun to hear and also to listen to.
I'm always impressed by these Jazz improvisations, really cool.

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[BMcG]

Glad to hear you're liking jazz. Here's a list of ten "Standards" that you'd often hear played at a jazz jam session.

Autumn Leaves
There Will Never Be Another You
Softly, As In a Morning Sunrise
Blue Monk
All of Me
Oleo
Love For Sale
Song For My Father
Blue Bossa
Green Dolphin Street

There are literally hundreds of these that are played regularly, but this should be a start.

Also, check out the great players if you haven't already. They'll blow your mind.

Wes Montgomery
Joe Pass
Barney Kessel
Grant Green (my personal favorite)
Pat Martino
Jimmy Bruno
Charlie Christian
Tal Farlow
Jimmy Raney
Bill Frisell

Again, there are many, but it's a start.

Have fun!
Bryan


Sorry, forgot to mention John Scofield. If you're coming from more of a rock background his albums like 'A Go-Go', 'Up All Night', 'Uberjam', or the new one with Medeski, Martin and Wood (MSMW I think they call themselves) are probably great places to start.

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[Ivan Milenkovic]

Jazz is awesome, great guitar players already there, just to name a few more:

Kenny Burell
Laurindo Almeida
Raphael Fayos - gupsy jazz
Charlie Byrd

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[Paiva]

Glad to hear you're liking jazz. Here's a list of ten "Standards" that you'd often hear played at a jazz jam session.

Autumn Leaves
There Will Never Be Another You
Softly, As In a Morning Sunrise
Blue Monk
All of Me
Oleo
Love For Sale
Song For My Father
Blue Bossa
Green Dolphin Street

There are literally hundreds of these that are played regularly, but this should be a start.

Also, check out the great players if you haven't already. They'll blow your mind.

Wes Montgomery
Joe Pass
Barney Kessel
Grant Green (my personal favorite)
Pat Martino
Jimmy Bruno
Charlie Christian
Tal Farlow
Jimmy Raney
Bill Frisell

Again, there are many, but it's a start.

Have fun!
Bryan


Sorry, forgot to mention John Scofield. If you're coming from more of a rock background his albums like 'A Go-Go', 'Up All Night', 'Uberjam', or the new one with Medeski, Martin and Wood (MSMW I think they call themselves) are probably great places to start.

To add more guitar players to the list I recommend Kenny Burrel and Pat Metheny

And some musics I like to play are Freddie Freeloader and Bright Size Life and stuff like that but I don't if they are considered a standard or no (??).

I recommend maybe buying a loop station. I have one (boss rc-2) and it's great to practice improvisation. For example I record a simple chord progression like II V I in G for example and I improvise. I love to do this!

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[berko]

Great thread to know about jazz-players.

Until now I was only familiar with Scoefield and Wes. Surely jazz is a cool genre. I've been practicing Muris's neighbouring notes lesson and another lesson from Ivan.

Gonna check these people out right now!

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[Vasilije Vukmiro...]

I am always glad to hear someone is becoming interested in jazz, here is what you should play:

Blue Bossa
Summer time
Take 5
Autumn leaves
Mahna de carneval

Believe me, that is enough for now, those are beautiful melodic songs that are easy to play and once you know this stuff by heart you are pretty much ahead.

Here is what should you do:
Learn the melodies, and play them over backing track, or some recording.
Then, find somewhere chord progressions and learn them by heart. Yes, it will be technically difficult, but it's achievable.
Learn those chords, play them over, until you nail it. Now, it doesn't matter if you know theory behind it(that will come later), just learn it and play it, to get the feel. In those 5 standards you will find practically all important jazz chords, you will see them over and over in other standards as well. For example, in blue bossa you have min7-5, very important jazz chord, and it's beautiful, and it's easy to play. In take 5 you have typical(maybe the most important) progression called 2-5-1. But, for now, don't press your self to learn all that theory, just have fun and enjoy.

Once again, I am glad that you are interested in jazz, and that very beginning is the most beautiful part of learning. It will be so much fun, and excitement if you proceed and continue learning jazz.

When you learn all this 5 songs, you will have some insight, and you could post your recording so that we can review them. I am interested to help you with this so if you have some questions, or difficulties in progress send me an PM, or open topic whatever.

Again, all of those song I mentioned are pretty achievable, yes some chord shapes are difficult, but take that as a challenge.

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[Pedja Simovic]

Excellent topic !

Jazz is awesome without doubt my favorite style of music.

So many different genres of jazz available over different time period. Here are my recommendations:


- Learn Blues standards
Learn songs like Blue train, Mr Pc, Straight no chaser, Cousin Marry etc
Nail down the melodies and practice comping (playing chords and imrpovising with chords) over Blues

- Learn modal standards
Tunes like So What, Impressions, Mayden Voyage, Milestones etc
This will help you to improvise in a specific mode and expand your range of melodic ideas.
Apply the same as for blues


- Learn regular standards
Tunes that are very well known like All the things you are, Autumn leaves, There will never be another you etc
These tunes are great and you can analyze melody and harmony in them and learn a lot from it

- Learn BEBOP standards
Any Charlie Parker tune is awesome. So you can do - Confirmation , Ornithology, Anthropology, Blues for Alice, Night in Tunisia, Donna Lee etc
This tunes are essential if you really want to play jazz and understand the language. Approach patterns chromaticism arpeggios its all there!

- Learn Latin tunes
Carlos Jobim tunes are awesome. Girl from Ipanema is the most well known one perhaps. You can learn others like Yesterdays, How high the moon, How Insesitive, One note samba etc
This will teach you how to play straight vs swing eight notes and many more things.

- Learn Ballads
Body and soul, In a sentimental mood, Night and Day, Peace, My fanny valentine etc .
By doing this you will learn a lot about phrasing rhythms and melodic choices.

- Learn 3/4 tunes
My favorite things, Someday my prince will come, Waltz for Debby, Up jumped spring etc
This way you will learn to phrase in 3/4 which is another great time signature very useful

- Learn Rhythm changes
Oleo, Donna Lee, Anthropology etc
Very good for expanding your knowledge of harmony and improvisation skills. Jazz players love this one

- Learn tunes by great artists
Anything from Coltrane, Miles, Billy Evans, Freddie Hubbard, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, Clifford Brown etc is great and amazing stuff.


Conclusion

Jazz music will open up your ears. The sooner you start to hear it the more you will want to know about it. It has so many great genres and you can go from traditional all the way to modern jazz style playing with pentatonics and outside playing. Jazz music is great for that stuff. Also harmonies are the most complex ones along with classical music in certain periods and artists. Lots of modulations, pivot chords, modal interchange, chromaticism , chord subtitutions , modal centers etc. Excellent music for opening up your ears and expanding your songwriting and playing skills.
Melody wise it uses the most complex sounds scales modes arpeggios pentatonics etc.
So I suggest you dig in and enjoy the ride because this is going to be experience of your lifetime - if you are serious about it


Hope this was helpful.

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[Noangels]

Jazz isnt bad,but it isnt the holy grail of playing-no matter how many out of tune notes one plays

Classical music is WAY better

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[Emir Hot]

Very nice post Pedja. All you said I had to do for my exams. To be honest I hardly remember 10 jazz standards on the guitar but I will for sure sit down and learn them all again. I really didn't have time to explore it all in detail because I had 4 jobs at the same time when I was a student. Really stressful period of my life. What I understood from all those jazz lessons is that no matter how good technique you have and how good player you are, you are just not complete musician if you don't know at least 20-30 famous jazz standards to play. I love my hard/heavy melodic rock but it's very cool if you know some other stuff as well.

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[Ivan Milenkovic]

I think both classical and Jazz music are very much the farthest that man ever reached in creating musical forms, but jazz is IMO even better, cause unlike classical music where the composing part is left to the composer of the classical piece, it doesn't have strict rules to follow, and the focus is on the instrumentalist to compose the piece by improvising it. This IMO gives a far greater flexibility than classical music.

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[Pedja Simovic]

Very nice post Pedja. All you said I had to do for my exams. To be honest I hardly remember 10 jazz standards on the guitar but I will for sure sit down and learn them all again. I really didn't have time to explore it all in detail because I had 4 jobs at the same time when I was a student. Really stressful period of my life. What I understood from all those jazz lessons is that no matter how good technique you have and how good player you are, you are just not complete musician if you don't know at least 20-30 famous jazz standards to play. I love my hard/heavy melodic rock but it's very cool if you know some other stuff as well.

Thank you Emir
Regarding standards , you are right. You need to know them simply because they have great influence on your phrasing and melodic choices immediately. The more songs you know, the richer your vocabulary is , which in jazz is very essential tool and its what separates amateur from professional players.

I think both classical and Jazz music are very much the farthest that man ever reached in creating musical forms, but jazz is IMO even better, cause unlike classical music where the composing part is left to the composer of the classical piece, it doesn't have strict rules to follow, and the focus is on the instrumentalist to compose the piece by improvising it. This IMO gives a far greater flexibility than classical music.

I agree
Classical music was there before Jazz so I have total respect for that. Also in classical music there was a lot of different styles and it evolved to whole other levels. Some classical stuff sounds like jazz so you can argue and say that they are connected

One thing that I don't like about classical music and performances is it doesn't have nor leave any space for personal creativity !
If you want to play in orchestra of any sort you will know up front what your role is and what you need to do exactly to follow it. That means perfection is required to play somebody else's music the way they want you to play it.

When you hear Jazz music you have one great advantage over that. Its the element of Improvising. Improvising in harmonic melodic and rhythmic sense. This is originality and energy in its purest sense. Just priceless, shows imediately how creative you are and what level you are at.
I would never trade off any Michael Brecker or John Coltrane solo for anything in the world. Everything is there - melody harmony development repetition sequences modulation motive trough composed question answer phrasing double time etc etc
This is why I love Jazz music.
Always when I hear great players I get immediately drawn to their playing and I know I can learn a lot from what I just heard.

No offense but classical music can play anybody who learns to read score well (dynamics especially).
Jazz music takes originality creativity and highest form and sense of energy to make improvising sound like composition - which is what great improvisers have.

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This post has been edited by Pedja Simovic: Nov 5 2008, 01:18 AM

[Ramiro Delforte]

I think what Ivan said is true but classical music is very flexible about interpretation.
Also I you could said that the complexity of classical music in form and structures is more than in jazz but I don't think that those qualities make classical music better.
Each "style" have good qualities to mention but does not make one better than the other.

*A little autopromotion
Jesse: You may want to check some of my lessons. They all have some topics related to jazz.

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[Muris Varajic]

Jazz isnt bad,but it isnt the holy grail of playing-no matter how many out of tune notes one plays

Classical music is WAY better

Well,the way I see things is that Jazz is actually final step in every musician's journey.
It almost has no boundaries at all since it has so many subgenres,
musician has all freedom of this world to expresses his creativity etc.
Speaking of Classical music,Jazz is full of it,specially early Jazz.
And Jazz has had evolution from its birth till today,
which means it consumes many modern music styles as well.
But it demands highly skilled players,both theory and technique
and creativity,creativity is probably major part of Jazz since
many tunes are almost fully improvised,at least solos.

We may like it or not,but it's finest music steam out there by many's opinions.

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[Pedja Simovic]

Well,the way I see things is that Jazz is actually final step in every musician's journey.
It almost has no boundaries at all since it has so many subgenres,
musician has all freedom of this world to expresses his creativity etc.
Speaking of Classical music,Jazz is full of it,specially early Jazz.
And Jazz has had evolution from its birth till today,
which means it consumes many modern music styles as well.
But it demands highly skilled players,both theory and technique
and creativity,creativity is probably major part of Jazz since
many tunes are almost fully improvised,at least solos.

We may like it or not,but it's finest music steam out there by many's opinions.

AMIN to that well put statement Muris

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[Muris Varajic]

AMIN to that well put statement Muris

Cheers mate.

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[Jesse]

I am always glad to hear someone is becoming interested in jazz, here is what you should play:

Blue Bossa
Summer time
Take 5
Autumn leaves
Mahna de carneval

Believe me, that is enough for now, those are beautiful melodic songs that are easy to play and once you know this stuff by heart you are pretty much ahead.

Here is what should you do:
Learn the melodies, and play them over backing track, or some recording.
Then, find somewhere chord progressions and learn them by heart. Yes, it will be technically difficult, but it's achievable.
Learn those chords, play them over, until you nail it. Now, it doesn't matter if you know theory behind it(that will come later), just learn it and play it, to get the feel. In those 5 standards you will find practically all important jazz chords, you will see them over and over in other standards as well. For example, in blue bossa you have min7-5, very important jazz chord, and it's beautiful, and it's easy to play. In take 5 you have typical(maybe the most important) progression called 2-5-1. But, for now, don't press your self to learn all that theory, just have fun and enjoy.

Once again, I am glad that you are interested in jazz, and that very beginning is the most beautiful part of learning. It will be so much fun, and excitement if you proceed and continue learning jazz.

When you learn all this 5 songs, you will have some insight, and you could post your recording so that we can review them. I am interested to help you with this so if you have some questions, or difficulties in progress send me an PM, or open topic whatever.

Again, all of those song I mentioned are pretty achievable, yes some chord shapes are difficult, but take that as a challenge.

Thank's man! Good posting right there, :X Could you tell me the artist 's from the original?

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[Nemanja Filipovi...]

I am yet to discover the magic of jazz.For the moment I am not so interested in this style .I most cases jazz and classical music is the kind"you haw to play it to understand it",in my case for shore is like that.But for shore it is complex music.You have a set of rules that you need to follow during an improvisation.That cant be easy.
But few of them caught my ear.Like Pat Matheney https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz7CylJg6yw.

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