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Just wondering what your opinions are. I've been on a total jazz binge lately; not playing so much guitar as piano, but I've been listening to a lot. I really like the bluesy-jazz (like Joe Bonomassa, for example) and the energetic "club scene" piano / sax / trumpet, etc type music. Not a big fan of the slow or "alt" jazz, but I've found lately that I've really got a thing for the genre in general. Currently watching a video playlist of the Monteal Jazz Festival on Youtube. I highly doubt this is going to convert me from Gibson, Marshall, Classic Rock, or Blues... but I am really, really enjoying the music.

 

So... anyone else? Or am I the only one here?

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I love jazz! There are so many great jazz guitar players. A lot of rockers don't care for jazz because there isn't enough distortion, but what you DO have is massive soloing. I'm a better lead player than rhythm and thats why I love instrumental jazz - it's nothing but one big solo with some hooks to keep it cohesive.

 

Check out some of these guitarests - some you've heard of and probably some you've not

 

Larry Carlton - Most here probably know him - played on early Steely Dan and a TON of studio stuff. Check out his solo stuff

 

Jeff Golub - used to be the guitarest in Billy Squire's band

Craig Chaquico (spelling?) used to play in Jefferson Starship - remember the video "We built this city" that's him

Joe Pass

Paul Jackson Jr

Paul Brown

Al DiMeola

Russel Malone

Grant Guiessman - check out "buisness as Usual" or "Time Will Tell" album

Stanley Jordan

George Benson

Four Play

Pat Martino

Jim Hall

 

This is only scratching the surface - hot guitar licks by all of these guys... if you dare to listen.

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I must not be sophisticated enough for Jazz' date=' I haven't found any that I really like. I've tried to listen to as many different types of jazz as I can find, but to me it sounds discordant and strange.

 

My .02[/quote']

 

i totaly agree, sometimes jazz can sound undirectional and very confusing, but thats what makes it the way it is, you know?

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i totaly agree' date=' sometimes jazz can sound undirectional and very confusing, but thats what makes it the way it is, you know?[/quote']

 

 

Yeah back the day (Charlie Parkers time) heroin was well known in jazz circles; I can't help but think that had an influence on the music.

 

Surf, I love monk too... not too crazy about miles though.

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When I listen to jazz' date=' it is never guitar players - Miles, Monk, and 'Trane for me.[/quote']

 

Ditto. I also listen to the Big Band Jazz greats. These guys' music just energizes the heck out of me (Buddy Rich Band, Count Basie and his Orchestra, Gene Krupa Band, Dave Brubeck). Buddy Rich, Gene Krupa, & Ed Shaughnessy were the best drummers to play for human ears.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmUbYiFXT_0

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Check out some of these guitarests - some you've heard of and probably some you've not

 

Larry Carlton - Most here probably know him - played on early Steely Dan and a TON of studio stuff. Check out his solo stuff

 

Jeff Golub - used to be the guitarest in Billy Squire's band

Craig Chaquico (spelling?) used to play in Jefferson Starship - remember the video "We built this city" that's him

Joe Pass

Paul Jackson Jr

Paul Brown

Al DiMeola

Russel Malone

Grant Guiessman - check out "buisness as Usual" or "Time Will Tell" album

Stanley Jordan

George Benson

Four Play

Pat Martino

Jim Hall

 

This is only scratching the surface - hot guitar licks by all of these guys... if you dare to listen.

 

I'd like to add Les Paul to the list :)

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I'm a jazz fan myself, and the Jazz guitarist off that list that is most needed is Wes Montgomery. My personal preferences for jazz are bop or cool jazz, preferably stripped down--not a jazz orchestra guy--I really like Sonny Rollins, the first Miles Davis Quintet (w/ Trane) and Monk, just to name a few. Jazz may not be my primary taste (bluesman myself) but I really do dig it and if you really get into it it can give you a new perspective on expression and general form of music

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When I decided to get serious about playing electric guitar about ten years ago (as opposed to owning one), I chose jazz - or rather, the teacher told me that's what he could teach aside from blues and rock - which I had pretty much left behind.

 

I found that jazz offered the student a lot of tools including:

 

- a whole new chord vocabulary that you need to understand, not just play, so you can move onto

- different ways of voicing and combining them

- how to analyse a chart in terms of tone centres and choose scales for soloing

- how to use the scales to best effect

- a set of musically interesting standards that you can play with a bunch of people you have never met before and sound pretty good

- through all this, build creativity so that you are not just copying somebody else's chops

 

Oddly enough, for the first year or so, I enjoyed learning jazz but not listening to it. This changed when I saw "Jazz on a Summer's Day" and realised that I was watching some of the great music of the 20th century. After that I latched onto Bird, Coltrane, Monk, Powell, Bill Evans etc. Who can say that the 50s were dull when this was happening??!!

 

RN

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my brother is taking the class as well, he gets some crap from all those artist liberal starbuck drinking jazz major students (im not saying all of them are) because he plays his guitar as low as jimmy paige. when all the other students have there classical guitars higher than there eyebrows.

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What list would be complete without Charlie Christian' date=' Django or Holdsworth ?[/quote']

 

Couldn't agree more.

 

I came to Charlie Christian quite late and regret the delay.

 

Anyone into Django should also check out Oscar Aleman. They were contemporaries and Oscar played in Paris, for a time, too.

 

One of the very first guitarists I started listening to (and he made me feel very inadequate) was Joe Pass. Scarily good.

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I grew up in the fifties. Jazz was a much larger part of the music then so I heard it all my life and still listen a lot of it. All kinds. Not only is it good listening, you can learn a lot about music in general, and all the ways music can be improvised.

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