https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/acoustic-jazz/ Guitar Noise Discussion Board en-US Fri, 05 Jun 2026 01:12:07 +0000 wpForo 60 https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/acoustic-jazz/paged/2/#post-289349 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 01:38:38 +0000
Wes is an example of an artist who covers a variety of styles. In his Riverside Record days, Wes was a guitar tour-de-force in the jazz world. He moved to Verve and started doing more orchestral arranged stuff. Music with a "jazz" sound, but none of the trademarks of jazz music. He moved from Verve to A&M with producer Creed Taylor (who later started CTI) and arranger/conductor s Don Sebesky to do instrumental versions of pop songs. This was named "smooth jazz," but is decidedly not jazz -- it features no improvisation and no re-harmonizations, it was entirely arranged and conducted music, a production effort often with different parts recorded independently of the other musicians.

So when someone talks about making music like Wes, they might be talking about post-bop guitar work ala Jimmy Smith, or they may be talking about orchestral horn/guitar music, or they might be talking about doing mass-market pop. And one doesn't sound anything like the other.

Put on a track from Far Wes and compare it to a track from Boss Guitar to a track from A Day in the Life and you will hear 3 very different styles of guitar. Some things, like block chord choices and octaves for melodic riffs will give you an idea that the guitarist in each may be the same person. But once you look at the structure of the music, it's very clear these are different styles.

My take is that the original poster isn't interested in Jazz -- as he's referencing "smooth jazz," which almost always has on it's label the words "arranged and conducted by".]]> Opinions and Polls kingpatzer https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/acoustic-jazz/paged/2/#post-289349 https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/acoustic-jazz/paged/2/#post-289344 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 01:19:09 +0000
no probs, I'm glad my second post went cleared things up a bit. I agree that what is written and what is meant are often two completely different things (we need a good tube-forum, then we'll get some real tone to these convo's lol j/p)....I gotta confess, I do have a tendency to post-now-explain-later which may be my downfall.....

looking back at the thread, I was very out of line posting that way I did with no further explan in that post, so I'm sorry I caused offence, it wasn't intended that way. I'll try to exercise a bit more caution in future if I'm disagreeing with someone, or saying something that could be taken as flat-out disagreement.

I don't have yahoo music (dunno if I have access to it), but last.fm does a similar thing, and I use that fairly often. My problem is my tastes span so many different 'genres' there's no way of predicting what I'll like next, lol. Usually, I'm looking for something outta left-field, totally different to whatever I've been listening to at the time, so last.fm's recommends don't usually cut it, they're either stuff I already know of, or stuff too close to what I've been listening to. that's the kewl thing bout places like this, give it a week and someone will post with a link to something I'm not expecting. Even if I don't like it, it usually gives me something to think about.

I'm not a great fan of Wes either, although I respect it....I suppose that partly prompted my posting the way I did. I'm actually not very big on jazz guitar generally (although I do love Jim Hall and some random french bloke I found on youtube recently but forget his name), I much prefer horns or piano for that stuff, so I guess its a bit of a thorny topic for me - I wanna play jazz, but I'm not that keen on most jazz guitar I've heard.

Sara]]> Opinions and Polls Scrybe https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/acoustic-jazz/paged/2/#post-289344 https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/acoustic-jazz/paged/2/#post-289337 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:34:13 +0000
i think we basically agree (if you look at one of my posts you will see that i talk about genres overlapping and that what someone considers the genre of a song is not what someone else does). you're in england and i'm in canada, so i'm not sure if you have access to this but i subscribe to yahoo music. i can take an artist that i like and they will arrange a radio station with songs "like" this artist's song. i cannot tell you how many times i wonder how they come up with what they do and i disagree with their choices (or the database choices), but what we've been discussing is that it is very difficult (if not impossible) to type cast the music of a specific artist.

i'm not a fan of wes montgomery's music or jazz in general, which makes this discussion a little funny. i mentioned wes montgomery b/c an earlier post talked about his jazz as an example of jazz guitar. i listened a bit to one of his albums and although it is impressive i didn't like it at the time. now as my guitar skills are progressing i will probably have another listen. i am however a huge fan of smooth jazz guitar, however it is being defined :D

thanks for your post and your clarification. talk to you later,

paul]]> Opinions and Polls pab https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/acoustic-jazz/paged/2/#post-289337 https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/acoustic-jazz/#post-289332 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:11:31 +0000
I was just trying to point out that genres, as with most distinctions, while useful in the course of enquiry, often fail to stand up to serious scrutiny. I think that holds for pretty much any genre - there's a lot of overlap, the edges get blurred, and formulating a criteria by which you include everything you wish to include and no more, is a pretty tricky thing to do. Genres, in my experience, are often short-hand for personal preference, but that personal preference is often implicit, which can then lead to disagreement over what defines a genre, as witnessed in this thread.

I'm a big fan of blues (as well as jazz) and someone posted recently asking for listening suggestions similar to Buddy Guy. I offered some suggestions, based on what I considered Guy's main 'musical features' to be. Someone else posted with suggestions that were very definitely blues, and good blues at that, but not what I would have immediately linked to Buddy Guy's playing. Not ragging on that poster, like I said the recommendations were of musicians I seriously respect. But, as someone who grew up on the blues and has studied the history of it quite a lot (for someone of my age anyway, I'm 24, for the record), I just wasn't seeing the clear connections there.

What I'm trying to say, however ill-phrased I might be formulating it, is that music, being inherently subjective, doesn't lend itself well to labels, at least not genre-level labels. Categorising by technique, chord progressions, instrumentation, etc., is at least pretty objective. But wider, or vaguer, labels aren't.

My point regarding the Wes Montgomery comment was an attempt to convey that, although I now realise I didn't explain myself fully - when I think Wes Montgomery, I think (and this is undoubtedly based on the section of his music I have thus far heard) fairly uptempo, guitar-driven octave-based melodies (or harmonies, I suppose, since an octave involves two notes). To my ears, the arrangements are fairly 'fat' as well. That's a million miles away from what I hear on records like Kind of Blue, or Coltrne Plays the Blues, where the laid-back vibe and understated mastery are given prominence, and the sense of space in the music (the whole "its not what you play, but what you don't play" ethos) is central. There's no way I say, e.g. that Miles Davis and Wes Montgomery fall into the same category. But you would (from what I interpreted from your post). I hope this conveys my point less antagonistically, I was just trying to hint that if there's a dispute over genres/labels as there seems to be in this thread, then its probably best to try to be as clear as possible with any further distinctions. I obviously failed to satisfy my own point though.]]> Opinions and Polls Scrybe https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/acoustic-jazz/#post-289332 https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/acoustic-jazz/#post-289319 Fri, 18 Apr 2008 22:46:25 +0000
paul]]> Opinions and Polls pab https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/acoustic-jazz/#post-289319 https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/acoustic-jazz/#post-289308 Fri, 18 Apr 2008 21:58:01 +0000
No intention of starting a huge argument here, I just think we often find ways of genrelising (or generalising) way to easily.]]> Opinions and Polls Scrybe https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/acoustic-jazz/#post-289308 https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/acoustic-jazz/#post-289306 Fri, 18 Apr 2008 21:40:09 +0000 That's not a bad description :)

I've always thought that '70s classic rock just became modern country :)]]> Opinions and Polls kingpatzer https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/acoustic-jazz/#post-289306 https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/acoustic-jazz/#post-289184 Fri, 18 Apr 2008 02:47:13 +0000 Opinions and Polls Hyperborea https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/acoustic-jazz/#post-289184 https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/acoustic-jazz/#post-289153 Thu, 17 Apr 2008 21:06:09 +0000 As for the field of Jazz generally, the most important steel string acoustic players have been folks in the Gypsy jazz / Hot Club genre and flaminco. Folks like Django Reinhard Jason don't feel you are alone, cauz I found another one. :mrgreen:]]> Opinions and Polls Rahul https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/acoustic-jazz/#post-289153 https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/acoustic-jazz/#post-289149 Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:06:52 +0000
it was guitar player magazine that indicated that george benson's breezin is often credited with starting the genre. i am not knowledgeable enough on the history of music to agree or disagree, but it has also been considered a "blue print" for smooth jazz by others. as far as your information about creed taylor, it sounds like you really know what you're talking about here.

Kenny G. is often grouped into this category but he has so many people who do not respect his music (you for one :-) )
that i usually use other talented musicians that stay or have many songs in this genre to represent it, such as the ones i mentioned in my previous post. i do like some of his music but he is, imo, not as sophisticated as the others that i've mentioned. however, that boils down to taste and i don't want to disrespect anyone who feels otherwise. i do find that improvisation works its way into the albums and music of the above people, but whether or not it is improvised or well planned out i cannot answer that. as far as differences between this form of music and jazz, i mentioned in my previous post that i can certainly hear it.

the problem with genres, in many cases, is that it is difficult to define and there are so many different ones that overlap. people can spend hours arguing about this and in my opinion it doesn't matter. when i go to my bestbuy or a more sophisticated music store (not hard to find), the anne murrays and neil diamond are in the category of easy listening. i don't dispute with you that many also consider them pop or soft rock, and i'm assuming you will acknowledge that they have often been called easy listening too. there are some people today that consider all modern music to be borrowed from the blues.

paul]]> Opinions and Polls pab https://guitarnoise.forum/opinions-and-polls/acoustic-jazz/#post-289149