Ghosthouse, I certainly did not mean to offend with my comments about Eldar’s playing. As always, I commend you for your inquisitiveness and open-mindedness about this music and I believe that, at the core, our musical sensibilities are similar and I suspect that you have a fairly good idea of where I am coming from when it comes to judging music. I would like to offer some further thoughts as to why Eldar’s playing doesn’t do it for me; not to sway your opinions in any way, but to clarify my previous comments.
You mention Eldar’s pop culture darling status as a negative for you. One negative for me and one which goes to the feeling of lack of substance is the fade-outs at the end of some of those clips. FADEOUTS?! Really? In jazz tunes? For me, this goes hand in hand with that pop culture sensibility. Fade outs are a common technique in pop music; very rare or inexistent in jazz. Why fade out? Can he not end the tune in a musically logical way? It cheapens the performance, imo. On a deeper level, his time feel is rushed; another deal breaker for me. No matter how fast the tempo, for me, a jazz performance has to have a feeling of control and relaxation; I don’t hear that in his playing. His improvisations don’t have, for me, the requisite sense that they have shape and direction: development of a musical idea within the framework established by the tune and its harmony.
My feelings about his playing have nothing to do with any feeling that he doesn’t adhere to some sort of unwritten rule or deviation from a traditional way of playing the tune "Moanin’". In fact, part of the problem for me is that he’s not doing anything really new. There’s nothing new about his harmonic vocabulary. He does have his own unique rhythmic flavor and phrasingand and perhaps that is what resonates with you as well as the very impressive technique that I recognize also. I don’t like that unique rhythmic flavor and makes me uncomfortable with its sense of urgency. A personal call. Regards.
