--- dangelico603 <jpcombs@...> wrote:
Hey John,
I'll agree with you that it is incredibly
difficult to communicate
how swing feels. However, I would say trying to get
a student to
contour a phrase a particular way is just as
difficult.
Jason,
There is one exception I have to take with my own
statement about classically trained guitarists having
a problem with "swing" feel. And that player is Gene
Bertoncini -- he just slipped my mind is a
wonnderfully gifted jazz guitarist and can "swing" an
1/8 (or 1/16) with the best of them ....
...Jason, what I have found with my students over many
years when trying to teach the swing feel is this ...
There is really no technical exercise other than what
hhas already been published on the notational
expression which is inadeqaute IMHO....
I would tell them to listen to the recordings of Benny
Goodman, Glen Miller, Artie Shaw, Count Basie, Duke
Elligton, Gene Cooper, Max Roach, Cab Calloway, Gene
Kupra, Lionel Hampton, et. al. I would even play some
of those recordings at a lesson and would have them
point certain things out about articulation and feel.
(I would make cassette tapes with exceprts from big
bands and small units for them to listen to ... same
as some of my teachers did for me ... ) ... I believe
that as jazz educators this is in the fashion of
carrying on the legacy ...
Then I would suggest they move on to Gil Evans,
Maynard Ferguson, Bill Watrous, even Chuck Mangione
...
The point being that they get a wholistic approach to
"swing" from it early roots to today NOT JUST ON THE
GUITAR ... but how every instrument in Jazz executes
the "swing" feel...
...that is how I learned...by listening to where
"swing" came from ... as it graduated from Blues going
on up the muddy Mississippi ... and got educated when
it reached Chicago and high bred (iformally)
instructed musicians like Benny Goodman, the Dorsey's,
and travelled eastward and merged with the "stride"
piano pioneers, et. al ....
I mean, I learned "swing" by listening to cats likie
Bix, Jimmy Clayton, Paul Gonzavalez, the Prez, Zoot
Sims, and others who made their names and bands known
in the 40s ...
I seriously thing that a jazz guitaris has to listen
to how other instrument articulate swing in order to
analyze and re-examine (internalize) for themselves
howthey can execute "swing" on their ax so that it
feels good to them -- IN ORDER FOR THEM TO "SWING" as
if they own the concept ....
John Amato
Music blows the dust off your soul...
Isa.55:11
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