Essays-Thoughts

Bill Evans passed away 30 years ago today, on September 15, 1980. I've been listening to his music, which is not unusual, and I'd like to toss out some ideas I've been thinking about expanding on for a blog on my site.

You often hear about Bill Evan's influence on pianists. No surprise there, but I'm thinking that a majority of 4-mallet vibes players would also have him at the top of the list of musicians that have influenced them the most too. I think there are a number of factors at work here. One is timing.

I have been away for a few days, came back to the workshop and watched the Branford Marsalis video and it still moves me. I read through all the posts and had the feeling that it is time to open up a new thread as too many topics are tumbling through oneanother within the original post...
Before covering the actual topic of my post, I'd like to say, that I am 90% behind Marsalis! Okay, he is being very provocative here, but hey I think he has a point.

I gig a couple nights a week with a quartet loosely modeled after the great MJQ. However, the piano play of the group plays nothing like the great John Lewis. His playing is erratic, he is all over the harmony, melody, and the bass. During my solos he often plays "counter melodies" that disrupt my thinking and my lines. At times I'll pause in order to leave some space and he fills it. If I start of slow, with whole or half notes, he fills up the space with some kind of scalar run. It seems odd to me and I'm thinking that this isn't what the music is supposed to sound like.

Man in general tries to break complex concepts into smaller bite size pieces.
Because of time the results and impact of the proposed breakdown is often not apparent.
I think how we have broken down the chromatic scale causes the learning experience to be longer than needed.

The result of the current system is an overly complex language which impedes reaching the goal(to be able to improvise) more than it should.(I'm not saying it doesn't work.)

I have a challenge for you if you’re game for it.

It’s developing the “Anything But That” method.

Hi vibes players!

One day I was practicing scales and I thought: "all the work with scales, areas, voicings, etc, in vibes is about making pictures in the keyboard!" then I said: "If I know the picture well all the rest is easy", ergo "I can study scales with the pictures!".

This next file is collection of most scales, for practicing in vibes without vibes (train, night, library...) or to have near the vibes when you are practicing.

I don't know if it really works, at least is an experiment, hope is helpfull!

Marcel

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

I think it is very hip what Ty says here about playing, especially the part at the end about life experience.

That's his new quartet playing in the background. Germaine's tap dance is integrated into the music as a drum. She also sings, but when she is tapping, it's two drummers, bass and vibes. ..and the other drummer is Doc Gibbs, who is totally awesome!

I cannot begin to say who I am without saying where I am from, where I grew up, and what kind of no-background I had. I was born Dec. 1941 in a place called Quimper, in that part of France known as Brittany, the bit that sticks out into the Atlantic Ocean. Brittany is one of the Celtic nations (part of the “Celtic Fringe”, as it is termed in the U.K.), together with Ireland, Scotland, Cornwall, Wales, and the Isle of Man. It has a language of its own, very similar to Welsh. Incidentally, I speak it.

Did anyone see today's Dilbert?

I don't know whether to laugh or cry :-).

Tom P.

Hi All,

In Newsweek online, there's an article call "Jazz is Dead. Long Live Jazz" (see http://www.newsweek.com/id/226331). I'm not sure I can decode a coherent message from the article, but one of the comments seems to be about the friction between jazz's pop/dance music roots and it's art music present (and arguably last 40-50 years or so), and judging the quality of today's jazz vs. yesterday's on the basis of popularity is the wrong approach. It also seems to me that the article does better with "Jazz is Dead" than it does with "Long Live Jazz".

Hi All,

The recent discussion around Tony's post about Jason "Mallet Man" Taylor has me wondering what people here really think about the balance between letting the music speak for itself and showmanship.

In "check this out" I've put three performances with contrasting levels of showmanship and art. Two are way on the showy side -- Jason Taylor and the Ian Finkel performance on "History of Mallet Instruments". The third, Elio Villafanca, is what I would consider to be the standard "here's the music" style.