Keith, Ernie & Frankie

[elmo]

I have been listening to my collection of classic records by the Who, a band I loved from my yoof and it struck what a great drummer Keith Moon was for that band. Dubious and/or limited technique but he sure as hell drove that band with a drive and fiery spirit that put more hallowed Rock drummers in the shade.

Similarly I think Ernie Henry another musician with what is considered a limited technique turned out some wonderful Alto playing before his early demise eg Monk's " Brilliant Corner" album.

Frankie Newton also a seriously underrated trumpeter - his work with Sidney Bechet was peerless and I don't think any trumpeter was a better match for Sidney.

Who would you put into this bracket of limited technique but a great musician nonetheless?

elmo

[Ian Thumwood]

For me the obvious example is blues musician Leroy Carr. I love his piano playing.

The question of technique is interesting because although under-rated musicians who are said to have had an amazing technique like Earl Bostic are legion, I do not know of any musicians who are considered to be "great" despite being considered to be poor technically. It is quite interesting to take other musician's opinions of this into consideration as they would probably have had a better grasp of these issues. The technique question probably peaked around the late 60's with a number of free-players, not whom all of which were technically accomplished with players like Giuseppe Logan struggling to make a living as a musician because of this issue, I believe. Otherwise, I would have thought the other peak would have been in the 1920's before the big bands forced musicians to get a grip of their technique and reading.

You could throw the question out wider and mention musicians who had poor sight reading ability as they would surely capture more names, the most obvious being Bix Beiderbecke.

[Quarky]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKL-RJDPH3w

--George Lewis.

I was going to say modern jazz valued technique above all else, but then there is the strange case of Ornette Colman.....

Thinking of Jazz singers, you might say a Jazz singer is by definition a singer of limited technique - Ella and Sarah being the exceptions that prove the rule.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

's "technique" in relation to what you can and need to do with it. It "serves". Jazz is "Personal" or nothing. Chuck Berry was actually quite a clunky and sloppy player, but the licks (albeit borrowed) are classics. Carl Perkins (jazz piano not blue shoes) had a malformed and limited left hand from childhood polio but made some great records. There's an interesting discussion arising from Lewis Porter's thoughts on why Art Tatum was "great", and not because he could play very fast improvisations on standards...

I too am a "fan" of Ernie Henry but when I praised him here about a very long loooong time ago I was "dismissed"....tsch tsch as they used to say in Biggles books. "Biggles bombs Birdland" (1956)

[Ian Thumwood]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKL-RJDPH3w

--George Lewis.

I was going to say modern jazz valued technique above all else, but then there is the strange case of Ornette Colman.....

Thinking of Jazz singers, you might say a Jazz singer is by definition a singer of limited technique - Ella and Sarah being the exceptions that prove the rule.

I knew that this would happen and that someone who post a thread making aspersions about a particular player's technique. I am a but surprised to see Ornette Coleman's name amongst this thread and there is nothing wanting with his alto playing even if the concept of what he was playing was so much more significant. The obvious statement would be to have derided his trumpet playing but I wonder if you had listened to the Jackie McLean album "New Gospel" where Ornette plays trumpet through out ? I was staggered by just how effectual he was as a player on this record. (Although Cecil Taylor was supposed to be the pianist on the session but declined to perform because Ornette was playing trumpet.) This is a surprisingly effective and little known Blue Note album.

I am also surprised to see singers derided as having limited technique. I am sure that this is a generalisation that should have been confined to the bin ages ago,

George Lewis's clarinet - got to say that the appeal of this musician is lost on me. Probably the best example of a musician enjoying a "reputation" that was probably not deserved. I don't mind hearing musicians who might be considered "naïve" but Lewis goes out of tune so often the experience of listening to his music is frequently uncomfortable.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Agree with you about Ornette with Jackie. I was expecting the (very) worst, but he is, as you say, in that context, a very good foil. Perhaps his very best trumpet outing.

BN.

[burning dog]

In my experience (and the reason I never got on with brass instruments) you have to play the trumpet every day to keep your technique, even if only for five minutes, unlike the saxophone or clarinet. May be significant

Very much enjoy the Jackie/Ornette record

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Trombones.... impossible for Joe average to make sense of them. No really, never trust sliding trumpets. Or trumpet sliders.

*I once spent a Saturday afternoon playing Nick Evan's (trombone).

[Serial_Apologist]

Miles to John McLaughlin (at the recording of "In A Silent Way" - McLaughlin relates this mitating Miles's broken growl): "Just play the geetar like you don't know how to play the geetar".

[Ian Thumwood]

It is interesting with piano players to see the number of musicians who were less elaborate than Tatum being derided as having a poor technique. The most obvious examples are Count Basie and Thelonious Monk , two names that get trotted out quite regularly in this context. Granted that Monk's technique was unorthodox, it is probably worthwhile looking at the leadsheets of tunes like "Skippy" or "Four in one" before writing off Monk's piano playing abilty. Both tunes are frighteningly difficult to play. In the case of Basie, his earliest recordings show he was a decent stride pianist but he was savvy enough to realise that he needed to simplify his style to accommodate the more "modern" approach to rhythm he had worked out from the early thirties onwards. I don't think he was harmonically advanced but I don't doubt he was instrumental in the development of comping.

I would have to nail my colours to the mast with players like Monk insofar that the procession of an "unorthodox" style unique to jazz is something that rates highly whenever I consider the merits of jazz musicians. I love the idea that jazz musicians come up with an approach that has nothing to do with Western Classical music in timbre and this is why I love players like Tricky Sam Nanton, Thelonious Monk, Cootie Williams, Stuff Smith, Ray Nance, etc. I often wonder what people who listen to Classical music would make of Billy Bang, my favourite violinist.

[Serial_Apologist]

It is interesting with piano players to see the number of musicians who were less elaborate than Tatum being derided as having a poor technique. The most obvious examples are Count Basie and Thelonious Monk , two names that get trotted out quite regularly in this context. Granted that Monk's technique was unorthodox, it is probably worthwhile looking at the leadsheets of tunes like "Skippy" or "Four in one" before writing off Monk's piano playing abilty. Both tunes are frighteningly difficult to play. In the case of Basie, his earliest recordings show he was a decent stride pianist but he was savvy enough to realise that he needed to simplify his style to accommodate the more "modern" approach to rhythm he had worked out from the early thirties onwards. I don't think he was harmonically advanced but I don't doubt he was instrumental in the development of comping.

I would have to nail my colours to the mast with players like Monk insofar that the procession of an "unorthodox" style unique to jazz is something that rates highly whenever I consider the merits of jazz musicians. I love the idea that jazz musicians come up with an approach that has nothing to do with Western Classical music in timbre and this is why I love players like Tricky Sam Nanton, Thelonious Monk, Cootie Williams, Stuff Smith, Ray Nance, etc. I often wonder what people who listen to Classical music would make of Billy Bang, my favourite violinist.

Check out those tracks (Swing to Bop etc) recorded by Charlie Christian at Mintons in '41 with Monk, Diz, Flip Phillips and Klook, and you'll hear Monk playing in a stride style as fluid as Teddy Wilson's. He seems to have evolved his characteristric style in the late 'forties, though it's noticeable he was still in the Bud Powell mould on faster numbers, including his own. Later the Monk style seems to have reached fruition in association with the slow to medium tempos he came to prefer from the mid-1950s on, where obviously it would be more effective - faster tempos being harder to punctuate. It's noticeable that Monk reverts more often to combining his characteristic approach with the earlier stride approach, even bringing in boogie-woogie left-hand vamps, in his later work.

[Quarky]

Miles to John McLaughlin (at the recording of "In A Silent Way" - McLaughlin relates this mitating Miles's broken growl): "Just play the geetar like you don't know how to play the geetar".

A similar situation with Frank Zappa and Ian Motorhead Underwood. When Motorhead joined Zappa, apparently, he did not know how to play a horn. He was told "you blow in one end, and wiggle your fingers on the keys". That is what he did, and King Kong made no. 4 in the Downbeat charts. Which lead to his conclusion "so much for avant-garde Jazz" (see Jazz File - Jazz from Hell - fifteen minutes in).

I have to announce the demise of Oddball (2011-2017). Very fortunately french frank worked tirelessly (she really is irreplaceable) to arrange a decent burial and to ensure that his successor Vespare takes over Oddball's estate (whatever that may amount to). Many thanks again, ff!!

[burning dog]

Monk seemed pretty keen on Fats Waller tunes, he's a stride pianist at heart.

[burning dog]

amazing

[Ian Thumwood]

In the old days of "Jazz on 3" there was a "straight ahead" session by Anthony Braxton where he led a quartet that looked at standard repertoire. I seem to recall that there was a lot of negative comment on this board at the time with Calum being particularly unimpressed. I must admit that whilst I can appreciate Braxton's ability as an avant garde composer without liking what he produces, he distinctly underwhelmed in a normal jazz context. There were some responses along the lines that he was not approaching the repertoire from a normal "jazz perspective" yet my ears strongly told me this was right, plum centre in the jazz tradition. This is probably the only time I have heard a "major" jazz musician produce something that I felt most soloists could have matched on a local, semi-pro scene. It was interesting to hear him "exposed" in this fashion although I have heard other tracks where he has dabbled in the straight ahead field with far more success. One of the least rewarding gigs from the days when Jez referred to a radio presenter and not a grizzled political leader with an obsession for manhole covers and Elvis.