Jazz Improv I

This is Victor Wooten playing a solo medley while on tour with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. He starts with Norwegian Wood by the Beatles, before moving on to a series of Christmas songs that includes an excerpt from The Nutcracker, and The Christmas Song. Victor is, in my opinion, the best at forming chord-melody arrangements on the electric bass.  He uses several techniques to achieve this sound on an instrument that has traditionally been confined to the rhythm section. By tapping on the fretboard, he is able to have chords in one hand while playing the melody with the other hand.  He also uses a lot of harmonics, both natural and false, to expand the range of the instrument.

This is Herbie Hancock’s Watermelon Man. I think it’s a pretty good performance of the tune. The bari solo and and first alto solo were super virtuosic. I feel like they were all playing off each other really well. For example, the alto sax mirrored some of the bari sax’s playing. (1:58 similar to 1:21) The trumpet solos had some great phrasing. The third sax soloist definitely was really getting into his licks. I feel like the trombone player was good, but his solo lacked the energy of the other players. He had an interesting sound/technique at 3:36. Overall I think they did a great job on the piece.

This is a performance of Billie’s Bounce by Charlie parker by Andreas Oberg.  He is very influenced by George benson, reflected by the bluesy sound in his licks & also how he sings with his improvisation.  This is particularly impressive considering the highly chromatic and bebop nature of his licks.  I really like the repeated licks in his solo at 2:54, the bass’ repeated lick at 3:57.  I also liked the trading section and Oberg’s lick at 4:35.  Oberg’s ability to balance combining the major and minor pentatonics in various keys and contrasting them with his chromatic lines gives his sound a lot more appeal and interest.

This is “Seven Minute Mind” by The Bad Plus, an avant-garde jazz band that I’ve been listening to a lot over the last few years. This piece is a cool experiment with time signatures. It changes meter every measure for the A section.  The layout is  6/4, 3/4, 6/4, 3/4, 7/8, 5/8, 7/8, 5/8, 5/4. The bassist composed the entire A section before notating any of it, then went back and notated it all in the appropriate time signatures. I can’t imagine trying to count while playing this piece. I think it’d very difficult to play this piece without having this memorized.

I knew I’d post odd time signature stuff at some point, and what better place to start than the Mahavishnu Orchestra… This performance is crazy, it seems like all of the musicians were at their peak at this time, and has a lot of 60s-70s era influence on it.  John Mclaughlin is using an iconic doubleneck guitar with a phaser like effect, and Billy Cobham is tearing through this piece with explosive drum fills throughout.  I always liked how this piece starts with a chordal 10/8 intro then goes into the 20/8 blues-rock riff.  I found it interesting the violin played this riff at like 2:38, even though its a typical guitar riff.  The musicians all keep time perfectly even when Billy Cobham isn’t playing during the solos, which is very impressive.  When Cobham comes in at 4:25, the entire dynamic is shifted and tension is built, until 4:43 when he returns to his normal playing.  Jan Hammer also has a killer tone out of his keyboard, and I love how this tune overlays the intro 10/8 over the 20/8 section at 11:10, so a lot of different metrical subdivisions happen at once, but overall line up together.  The only thing I didn’t like was Mclaughlin revealing the time signature at the beginning of the performance as I find a lot of fun in listening to odd-time music by figuring it out myself.

This is a video of Bill Frisell playing the jazz standard “The Days of Wine and Roses” Frisell is one of the most accomplished guitarists on the jazz scene today.  He has distinguished himself by playing in a lush style that is often hard to achieve on the guitar as notes have a tendency to decay quickly.  Part of what allows him to play this way is his the equipment that he uses.  By playing a solid body guitar through a series of chorus, reverb, and filter effects, Frisell is able to play notes that sustain much longer than a guitarist with a hollow body instrument straight into an amplifier. In many of his original songs, he also uses looper pedals or very fast delay pedals to provide a full harmonic accompaniment behind the melody he is playing.

This is a video of Cory Henry playing a unique interpretation of John Coltrane’s Giant Steps. This piece is known for its unique harmonic structure and I really enjoy hearing artists try to give these changes a unique feel. Cory Henry and his band definitely approached the piece with a funk perspective. I’m incredibly impressed by the entire band’s ability to keep time without either the bassist or the drummer playing straight rhythms.  I also really like the interlude in 7 and the way that fits with their interpretation of the original melody.

Soulive is definitely one of my favorite jazz/funk groups, and “outrage” is one of my favorite tunes by them.  It has a very cool rock oriented feel with the pentatonic-y guitar riff.  I believe theres also the hendrix- dominant-sharp9 chord used as a big part of the riff which emphasizes the rock roots of the tune.  Eric Krasno is also one of my favorite guitarists because he manages to combine bebop blues and rock styles seamlessly in his solos.  For example, his run at 3:13 is very typical of modal tunes, but his run at 3:21 is very typical of the blues idiom.  Neal Evans is also an amazing keyboard player but he unfortunately did not take a solo in this clip.   However, the really cool bass-grooves all courtesy of him as this group is technically an organ trio, so the organ player has to play all the bass parts also.

This is a video of the Buddy Rich Big band performing Count Basie’s One O’ Clock Jump.  I find it particularly amusing that Buddy Rich appears to be performing in a bath robe.  As far as musicianship goes, this is the only group I know to feature a drummer, and I find that interesting as rhythm section players in big bands are usually overshadowed by the horn players.  My favorite part of this particular clip is the pianist and his lines.  Like at 1:53, he repeats a particular motif on various scale degrees with the same rhythm and diatonic intervals, which reminds me of Oscar Peterson’s playing.  It’s also interesting that he plays slightly behind the beat on certain motifs to make them feel more laid back.  I also liked his solo at 5:30.   There is a very clear direction in his phrasing, and he keeps to relatively tame blues licks that aren’t technically challenging but his use of motifs and repeated licks throughout the solo really tie everything together and make the solo enjoyable to listen to.  Buddy Rich is also killing throughout.  A cool interaction I saw was when Buddy switched to a triplet motif around 6:25 which the pianist incorporated into his solo.

This is a video of one of my favorite drummers, Mark Guiliana, playing with Donny McCaslin on their original composition, “Stadium Jazz.”  As always, I am very impressed with the with Mark’s speed and precision while playing very fast and complicated rhythms.  I especially appreciate this piece because of how well all of the musicians function together in a song that changes meter and feel multiple times.  A couple of things that I though were especially cool were the pianist muting the piano wire to give the piano a more percussive function around 3:06 and the band coming in together at full dynamics at 4:58 after Mark gives a soft visual signal to his bandmates.