About guitar rhythm.

[Valeriy]

Although there is already topic about rhythm guitarists on this forum, but I decided nevertheless to tell this story, in my opinion, interesting . As to how I played in a band of virtuosos of jazz in a provincial town. I myself was not a virtuoso and even improvised a very weak. They did not have any guitar player at the moment, however rather they took me into their group because of my 200 watts amplifiers .

 

At my suggestion to do some covers from rock, rock-n-roll, they just laughed and said that we would play Benny Goodman, Oscar Peterson etc. I did not mind and decided to try this jazz. They gave me a sheet with chords, but there was no concrete guitar part, I had to think out it from myself. A couple of days were usually between rehearsals and I had to prepare at least one thing. And these two evenings were almost completely in search of a rhythm .

Then I was a fan of the Beatles :) , as I noticed in the Beatles songs, besides to finding the right position (fingering), I understood that the rhythm guitar should not simply be repeated, and should be in some development from beginning to the end.

 

For example, in this well-known in the classic jazz thing I did not realize at first how to play the rhythm. The thing based on a single musical phrase repeated many times. But after, I realized that as the basis, my rhythm have to help for the rhythmic phrase of piano like tutti (all together) with the corresponding fingering and with some alternating variations. Otherwise…, piano was not Steinway, it was with name Red October ( in honor of October revolution of 17th year), i.e. that piano as alone was unlikely to be good in sound without the tutti.

And when I realized this and did a plan of playing the rhythm, may be it is hard to believe, but the thing just turned out from the first time on rehearsal with simultaneous recording (it’s a pity, at that time they had a simple tape recorder to record):

 

 

Similarly and the thing of Benny Goodman. Here the rhythm and the ton of guitar are like a scratch of banjo:

 

 

Of course they were masters of virtuoso (excepting maybe a bass player). An exercise for a piano of Oscar Peterson came as almost a separate composition. At 41st and 1.39 seconds I helped the pianist in a small solo insert (similarly a double solo of piano and guitar in Yes band):

 

 

Guys, you can not imagine how beautiful it sounded the main melodic line in unison the clarinet and guitar in flanger in this thing. There is a small remained piece of it in the end.

 

In general, quite quickly there were ready some serious things. Musicians from other clubs sometimes were coming at our rehearsals and they wondered how it was so well recorded (played). But six months later I went to another city and maybe I would have forgotten this story. But they found my phone and then asked how I was playing my rhythm, my chords etc. When I arrived on a visit to that town and went to see them I have understood that their fine records have ceased to turn out. Even it was horrible compared to how it was before. But what could I do? They were not even aware that I was previously thinking over the rhythm, often with different detail and nuances. I.e. they underestimated the role of rhythm guitar. And apparently they thought all the advances on account of their virtuosity. Such was the story .