Has anyone tried this?
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Topic: Has anyone tried this?
Posted By: A.Kuan
Subject: Has anyone tried this?
Date Posted: 21 Sep 2019 at 3:02am
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As a jazz musician who strives to connect with the audience, I've always found the ''head-solo-solo...-head'' structure somewhat problematic to the common ear. The audience only get to hear the head once as a semi-intro, then they're forced to move on to the excruciatingly long solos; when the head finally returns, it's only functioning as a semi-outro (that the players don't take seriously at this point). So here's the problem: first of all, just stating the theme once isn't even remotely going to get the human brain to ''soak it up''; that means the audience isn't psychologically ready to hear all the solos after just one head. Secondly, placing the head at the beginning and the end not just reduces its own importance (as they've become semi-intros/outros), but it also reduces the solos as well due to lack of sufficient contrast. But when I started to study rap music, the most important thing that I figured out was that rap works a lot like jazz--there's a theme and everyone takes a solo around it--yet the difference is that in rap, the hook (the equivalent of a jazz head) is sandwiched between every single verse (the equivalent of a jazz solo). This creates a whole lot more ''layers'' to a rap performance than a typical jazz one. It's not just you can give the audience a clearer sense of what this song is about, the ''element of surprise'' can be utilized even better just by constantly switching between theme and variation, group and solo, etc. Now imagine a rap song who's hook only appears at the beginning and the end, with 6-minute-long verses in between. How dull would that be? Unfortunately, that's what most jazz performances have been and are like. (No wonder people say that ''don't understand jazz''--well you can't understand a genre if you can't even understand a given song. The truth is, most humans are song-based instead of genre-based; that is, as long as they love a song, they'll love the genre that the song belongs to. ) In short, I'm thinking of adopting the rap structure in jazz performances so that it goes ''head-solo-head-solo-head-solo...-head'' instead of ''head-solo-solo-solo...-head''. This sounds heretic, yes, but don't get me wrong: jazz is really all about improvisation and freedom, so that's exactly why it'll work even better if there's more stability and predictability serving as a contrast. Last but not least, Chick Corea's Spain roughly follows the same sense (with a memorable ''hook'' between every solo), which is exactly why it's so memorable. I'm surprised that this method hasn't been more widely adopted. I believe this is crucial to the future of jazz and I look forward to your opinion. |
Replies:
Posted By: js
Date Posted: 21 Sep 2019 at 5:19am
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I think you have some good ideas. I have also heard improvisations where the theme keeps being stated by the soloist during their solo. Ornette Coleman does that, especially in his fusion music, and also Branford Marsalis in his funk group, and Miles too, for instance "Black Satin". Also Wayne Shorter's "Nefertiti".
Now for something that gets too predictable, I'm sure you have seen bands where everyone solos on every song and in the same order of solos on each song, in other words, first sax, then gtr, then piano in that order on every song. Its always horns first and then down the line in order of decreasing volume until you get to the bass player which is a cue for the audience to talk.
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Posted By: A.Kuan
Date Posted: 21 Sep 2019 at 11:18am
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Indeed. Last time I went to a Charles Loyd concert with a friend (a classical musician just starting to learn jazz), and she found that the songs sounded the same because the solo orders were the same, and that the solos were so excruciatingly long that the songs weren't even memorable. To me, the lack of stage banter (and fashionable attire) took even more points away. Now aside from adopting the ''rap structure'', I've also wondered why excruciatingly long solos are a thing. It's not just that they kill the audience's attention, but taking shorter solos is a better artistic choice anyway--you can choose to use just a few ideas on this song then use other ideas on the next song so that they're distinct from each other.
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Posted By: js
Date Posted: 21 Sep 2019 at 11:30am
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Although I always keep up with and appreciate new things as they happen, there is a lot to be said for the era when short records made for short songs. What is better than fast and sassy tracks by Fletcher Henderson or Parker/Gillespie. Early 80s hardcore punk had a similar appeal. In my own bands I try to mix up the solos and pretty much never have everyone solo on any one song. Depending on the song, we may have very short solos, or even no solo until the repeating chorus ride out. We are not really a jazz band, more like instrumental RnB. We get to go off on some songs but we still get appreciated by people who know little about jazz. Thats how you get gigs.
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