[Steve999]

Two different Impressions!

These are two of my favorite guitarists, Wes Montgomery and Pat Martino. This is Wes Montgomery playing "Impressions," live, in 1965, and then Pat Martino playing "Impressions" about ten years later. You can hear the Wes Montgomery influence in Pat Martino's playing but then how he took it in his own original direction.

Wes Montgomery died young of a heart attack in the mid-to-late 1960s, I think. This 1965 Belgian TV recording is similar to a recording that is on what is considered what of the better jazz recordings of all time, "Smokin' at the Half Note," which of course was recorded live in NYC. That recording is probably what influenced Pat Martino's directions in this song. The thing YouTube did for me was to get to see Wes Montgomery play in addition to listen to him. He was known (among many other things) for using his thumb instead of a flat pick. He said he practiced that way so he wouldn't disturb the neighbors. So the the below clip is him playing live on Belgian TV, rather than the incredible cut from Smokin' at the Half Note. I have seen many if not most of the jazz greats play live, but I am too young to have gotten to see Wes Montgomery play live. In Wes Montgomery's last few years he was controversial among jazz fans because he put out a series of very polished and highly produced but for his ability rather simplistic albums, and finally got to make some money.

Pat Martino had a brain aneurysm and brain surgery in the late 1970s, I think. Amazingly, in not too long a period of time, he learned to play again by learning off of his excellent earlier recordings. He was playing professionally again by about 1982 and he is still one of the best jazz guitarists today. It just goes to show you, there is not much you can do to make up the ground for the innate ability that some people have. I think I hear a little different personality in his pre-surgery and post-surgery recordings which makes it all the more fascinating, but Wes Montgomery continues to be a strong influence in his playing. This version of Impressions is a few years or maybe four or five years prior to Pat Martino's brain aneurysm.

This tune is a modal tune, shifting the same Dorian mode up and down a whole step throughout the song, similar to Miles Davis's recording of So What. Dorian mode is a sequence or scale of notes spaced apart as if you were playing all white keys on the piano from D to D. I think John Coltrane wrote Impressions and I think Miles Davis got a lot of help from Bill Evans in writing So What, though they are both harmonically and melodically simple tunes, quite a change from the ultra-complex acoustic jazz periods that preceded this new style. I think the chords are formed by "stacking fourths" instead of the conventional jazz and classical harmonies based on a foundation of major and minor scales and chords. This presented unique challenges to the soloist because instead of the chord changes forcing a layer of interest upon the soloing (if the soloist can keep up and stay within the chord changes harmonically), the soloist is challenged to come up with creative ideas against a relatively static harmonic background.

Enjoy!

 

[GearMe]

Did not know that story about Martino...thx!

Wes is an amazing musician. His sense of timing in songs is great doesn't matter whether he's playing a fast song like Impressions or swinging a bluesy tune like Monterey Blues, Bumpin', etc. or a haunting song like One for my Baby






Bonus video - Bireli Lagrene channels Wes every once in a while!
his solo is @ 4:35

He also plays very well with a pick in his hand @ 6:00

 

[Steve999]

"Isn't She Lovely" (above) has the same 10 chords over and over (I guess that's better than the same three chords over and over) but the chord sequence is fascinating. I never thought about it before. Stevie Wonder is extremely clever sometimes. I don't quite follow exactly what he was doing harmonically but it's pretty ingenious (if a little redundant, but hey, it's a pop song).

Here's another version of One for My Baby, one of my favorites. I love the mood and the tone of Kenny Burrell's guitar. Kenny Burrell & Wes Montgomery--contemporaries (until Wes Montgomery died) but in two separate worlds in terms of playing style. Duke Ellington reportedly said Kenny Burrell was his favorite guitarist.

 

[GearMe]

"Isn't She Lovely" (above) has the same 10 chords over and over (I guess that's better than the same three chords over and over) but the chord sequence is fascinating. I never thought about it before. Stevie Wonder is extremely clever sometimes. I don't quite follow exactly what he was doing harmonically but it's pretty ingenious (if a little redundant, but hey, it's a pop song).

Here's another version of One for My Baby, one of my favorites. I love the mood and the tone of Kenny Burrell's guitar. Kenny Burrell & Wes Montgomery--contemporaries (until Wes Montgomery died) but in two separate worlds in terms of playing style. Duke Ellington reportedly said Kenny Burrell was his favorite guitarist.

Nice version of a great song!

Yeah...pop songs can be simplistic to a fault; can be interesting though when someone improvises on them.

 

[taffy2207]

Mike Farris.

I'm a big fan of the band Screamin' Cheetah Wheelies Music :-



But I read that Mike Farris (Lead Singer) had a solo Album out and decided to check it out. He has several as it turns out and even won a Grammy for 'Shine for all the people' in 2015. That was news to an ignorant Brit. although my personal favourite is 'Salvation in Lights'. He was involved in Drugs, found God and started singing Gospel Music that even an Atheist like me finds hard to resist. I think he has one of those 'voice of a generation' things going on, either that or I'm "seeing the light". Either way I'm quickly becoming a huge fan, I saw the Video below and insta-bought his back Catalogue :-

 

[bigshot]

I may be the only person who still buys CDs, but I thought I'd alert you to a new 5CD box set called Complete Cuban Jam Sessions. In the late 50s and early 60s, there was a state of the art record label in Cuba that specialized in gathering together the best musicians for jams. It all ended when Castro took over, but in that short space of time, they got some incredible music down on record. If you like Latin Jazz and still buy CDs like me, you might want to look into it.



https://amzn.to/2lnzvZP

 

[GearMe]

I may be the only person who still buys CDs, but I thought I'd alert you to a new 5CD box set called Complete Cuban Jam Sessions. In the late 50s and early 60s, there was a state of the art record label in Cuba that specialized in gathering together the best musicians for jams. It all ended when Castro took over, but in that short space of time, they got some incredible music down on record. If you like Latin Jazz and still buy CDs like me, you might want to look into it.



https://amzn.to/2lnzvZP

Thanks!

 

[Steve999]

I may be the only person who still buys CDs, but I thought I'd alert you to a new 5CD box set called Complete Cuban Jam Sessions. In the late 50s and early 60s, there was a state of the art record label in Cuba that specialized in gathering together the best musicians for jams. It all ended when Castro took over, but in that short space of time, they got some incredible music down on record. If you like Latin Jazz and still buy CDs like me, you might want to look into it.



https://amzn.to/2lnzvZP

I buy CDs for stuff that is really precious to me from the LP and tape days that is nowhere to be found in a streaming service when I look for it. Maybe 3 or 4 a year. It usually turns out to be a Japanese import or a used CD or something like that.

I found the Cuban Jam Sessions music on Spotify and Apple Music streaming services. Spotify didn’t have the 5 disc set itself but someone had taken the trouble to get the underlying music from other albums and arrange the 5 disc set song for song on a playlist. I’m listening to it on Apple Music right now. Fascinating. I think a lot of people don’t realize what a significant part Latin rhythms played in what was to become jazz swing, and now people are intentionally infusing the more pure Latin rhythms into jazz, so it’s kind of come full circle. There is some really good trumpet and some excellent flute and some riveting rhythms on the song “Cimarron.” There’s some Charlie Christian style guitar too, fascinatingly enough. Great percussion, as you would expect. And that’s all on one track. They are trading fours between the flute and trumpet. Cool. I’m giving you a real time account. Great great track though. Should be the 4th track in the set?

Definitely, thanks!!!!

 

[bigshot]

The new 5 disc set is restored at Capitol by by Blue Note's lead engineer. It was the last project he worked on before he retired. It blows away previous releases. The sound quality is phenomenal.

And actually Jazz swing influenced Latin, not the other way around. It started in New York in the early 40s with Cab Calloway's arranger Mario Bauza and the bandleader Machito. It was a big thing there because of the Good Neighbor Policy during WWII, and found its way back to Cuba where it fused with traditional Latin music into the Cuban Conjunto movement in the late 40s. fter the revolution in Cuba, it moved back to the US again, but by then it had spread all over the world.

 

[Steve999]

The new 5 disc set is restored at Capitol by by Blue Note's lead engineer. It was the last project he worked on before he retired. It blows away previous releases. The sound quality is phenomenal.

And actually Jazz swing influenced Latin, not the other way around. It started in New York in the early 40s with Cab Calloway's arranger Mario Bauza and the bandleader Machito. It was a big thing there because of the Good Neighbor Policy during WWII, and found its way back to Cuba where it fused with traditional Latin music into the Cuban Conjunto movement in the late 40s. fter the revolution in Cuba, it moved back to the US again, but by then it had spread all over the world.

Au contraire. The fusion began between the precursors to jazz and Latin began in the 1800s, and the relationship has continued since then. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_jazz

The new 5 disc set is up for streaming on Apple Music. It is great.

 

[bigshot]

That wasn't jazz yet. The first elements of jazz were ragtime, military band music and tin pan alley- no latin influences. Machito was the first to blend the two. That was in New York.

 

[Steve999]

That wasn't jazz yet. The first elements of jazz were ragtime, military band music and tin pan alley- no latin influences. Machito was the first to blend the two. That was in New York.

You can learn or you can argue. Now you’re being willfully ignorant.

Now in one of my earliest tunes, “New Orleans Blues,” you can notice the Spanish tinge. In fact, if you can’t manage to put tinges of Spanish in your tunes, you will never be able to get the right seasoning, I call it, for jazz—Morton (1938: Library of Congress Recording).[8]

New Orleans Blues was composed by Jelly Roll Morton in 1902. Or maybe 1905.

https://imslp.org/wiki/New_Orleans_Blues_(Morton,_Jelly_Roll)

 

[old tech]

If you're into Louis Armstrong, I can vouch for the 2000 CD box set as recommended by Samthesham on this thread below.

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/your-25-best-sounding-cds.549103/page-21#post-21646388

 

[bigshot]

If it's plays Handy and plays Fats, I will definitely agree. Those albums have always sounded great. Can't see the link without logging in though.

https://americanhistory.si.edu/smithsonian-jazz/collections-and-archives/latin-jazz
1940s That's when the mambo, cha cha and bolero came in.

 

[Steve999]

If it's plays Handy and plays Fats, I will definitely agree. Those albums have always sounded great. Can't see the link without logging in though.

https://americanhistory.si.edu/smithsonian-jazz/collections-and-archives/latin-jazz
1940s That's when the mambo, cha cha and bolero came in.

The Smithsonian thing looks like liner notes. So it jumps straight from Jelly Roll Morton (arguably, or at least by his account, the inventor of jazz, in a brothel in New Orleans during his teenage years) (interestingly Brahms had a similar early life experience) to Machito. Jumping from Jelly Roll Morton to Machito is a very big jump. If you read through this Wikipedia article

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_jazz

which I did last night, it talks about the period you were talking about and the period I was talking about and stuff before, in the middle and after. I had never read it before, it is extremely well-sourced.

I saw Machito’s big band in my teenage years but didn’t get the historical context of it. I just saw that everyone was very excited and then heard a wall of sound coming at me. I had a one-year student pass so I could wander in and out of there (Ronnie Scott’s in London) for free on any weekday, and most of the greatest jazz musicians did pass through there at one time or another.

So in reading it seems that what Machito did was to apply complex jazz harmonies and emphasize individual soloing in Latin music, which is quite a big step.

For example if you listen to your five disc set you’ll here the chords are very static—not like Machito. They repeat two or three chords over and over again to the Latin rhythms but with strong strains of jazz. But it works because of the musicianship and the Latin Rhythms. It looks like some have noted that what they were doing was employing modal harmony (see the post about the song Impressions above) before Miles Davis and other American jazz musicians got there independently.

It appears that Machito and his big band won a Grammy right around the time I saw him and then he died two or three years later. I honestly never got the historical context of it so now I can appreciate that better. I do remember the excitement.

But jazz at its conception was Latin plus African plus European and the original creators were around long enough to tell us that. The combinations of influences were making their way around the world much earlier than one might guess. The swing came in part from the Latin rhythms, part of that unique driving force, but it got smoothed out and some say anglicized in the long run. But you can listen to nearly any jazz and juxtapose a Latin rhythm on it and you’ll here the ghost of it in there. IMHO.

The Wikipedia article linked above is an extremely good and pretty brief and well-sourced and documented read and really conveys a lot of knowledge very quickly, though some of the rhythmic notations and descriptions are a little dense to parse out.