I never developed the ear for the saxophonist’s individuality as you describe it, but I do have that ear for the electric guitar masters…Clapton, Beck, Page, Green, Bloomfield or Hendrix…a few notes is all it takes. Same for Harmonica players. Cotton, Wells, Little or Big, etc….
A blowing session????
I’m a pretty big jazz fan.I truly enjoy Bop and jazz from this era. Question, and perhaps this is not truly accurate/appropriate, is ----how much of this stuff is simply a ’blowin’ session from the artists who are playing the brass instruments, particularly the sax??
IOW, if you have heard one great blowing session, maybe you have heard them all?
Listening to ’Trane, Miles, Parlan, Vick,et al, what are your thoughts?
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Yes, it depends on what you spend a lot of time listening to. I could not do that with rock guitarists as you can. Jazz guitarists? I could pretty easily. Jim Hall, Wes, Kenny Burrell, Kessel, Pass etc. No doubt that our ear-brain pathway can be trained to recognize musician’s uniqueness. Charles |
That’s one of the great things about Miles -- there’s something to please just about any Jazz fan!
It’s purely a matter of exposure/repeated listening. If you can tell the difference between P. Green and D. Kirwan, between EC and Duane on "Layla", between Andy Powell and Ted Turner on "Argus", you can learn to tell the difference between Sonny Rollins and Dexter Gordon. Of course, you have to like the music enough to begin with, otherwise you won't have any reason to put in the time for this process to occur. |
@stuartk - and I'm not even a jazz fan! I like those records because they don't sound like what I think of as 'jazz'; they're more like Grateful Dead space jams. The only other 'jazz' album I have is the newly released Rhino hi-fi version of Herbie Hancock's 'Crossings', which I like for the same reason as those Miles ones.... |
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