Jazz for aficionados

Ghosthouse, no offense taken.  The musician's community is a pretty small one.  Musicians that know each other and have any kind of history together know and follow what each other is doing musically in conversation or active research.  That is why I knew about the details of the SOTA project.  The particulars about that project that I described, and one of the reasons that it is interesting to me, make it a particularly interesting topic of coversation.  I would be surprised if you couldn't find some references to all that on line.

@alexatpos

I did have a vague notion that Blue Mitchell had more of jazz background. I guess the line between blues and jazz can get quite blurry.

Thank you for all those T-Bone Walker links. I checked them out. A couple of the songs were familiar...whether I’d heard his version or covers (more likely) years later...e.g., Last Clean Shirt. The clip I liked best was definitely Jazz at the Philharmonic. (Going to Chicago another familiar one). That’s quite a backing band T-Bone is working with. That hollow body of his is seems huge. Interesting way he has of holding it. Thanks for sharing.

Orpheus - I’ll be reading with interest replies to your "throw down" :-) about the Blues!

Only thing I’m going to chime in with (think of this like a course from Father Guido Sarducci’s Five Minute University) is...

1. Delta (Acoustic/Country-derived) Blues (Clarksdale, MS; Sonhouse & Robert Johnson) >>
2. Electric Blues (Chicago, Detroit; Muddy Waters & Howlin’ Wolf) >>
3. British Invasion (Yardbirds & Mayall’s Bluesbreakers...esp., Beck, Clapton, Green & Page). But domestically, can’t ignore Paul Butterfield & Mike Bloomfield.

It’s this 3rd gen iteration of the blues as played by a lot of Brits (don't forget the Rolling Stones) that introduced me and shaped my tastes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpG3ck9E1qE&ab_channel=ThePaulButterfieldBluesBand-Topic

It's too bad Rok is not still around, I considered him the authority in our circle on "The Blues".

Ghosthouse, with the Blues, you have to go by what you hear, instead of what you read. Roc said almost all singing Blues is Delta Blues, and he was right, because if you listen, so much of it is the same music with different words.

I imagine what you have posted is from some "authority" who probably knows less about the Blues than you. The people most responsible for "Guitar Blues", yelling, howling, screaming, crying blues, could, neither read nor write, and they go way back.

If we're going to talk about the blues, we should have a better definition of what we're talking about.


Enjoy the music, and I guess that includes, "Da Blues".

Blues, Jazz, Fusion; what shall it be? You guys decide. Here's a CD by Jean Luc Ponty that vaguely reminded me of "School of the Arts" but this is fusion all the way.



              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTC-OjgwLxg&list=PLcsnGklehnTt-jtFIpbkieC60qy9PuSkB



I suppose when it came to fusion, "The Mahavishnu Orchestra" was my favorite;



          https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lila%27s+dance

Orpheus - 
What I wrote was a real stripped down, simplified version of the far more complex history of the blues.  Written almost facetiously - though there's truth in it.  The roots of the "song form" date back to early on in the last century and probably well before that.  The blues absolutely derive from an oral tradition.  Thank God for Alan Lomax preserving some of that.  I don't find anything too profound in Rok's statement.  This is well-documented music history, not the product of some "authority" pontificating in a locked, ivory tower cell somewhere.  AND I was talking about what I hear(d) - my listening - that shaped a lot of my music preferences WAY before I even knew there was something called "the blues".  Jazz-wise, I defer to your knowledge.  Blues?  I will be guided by my own lights, thank you.     

"...so much of it is the same music with different words."  Yeah, it can be kind of formulaic (there's even a standard music theory structure for "a blues"!) but the blues don't have to always sound the same...and they DON'T.  I'm inclined to think some of the sameness reflects a kind of dumbing down and catering to a mass market (maybe).   Listen to enough B.B. King's Bluesville and it sometimes sounds like the same song on repeat.  Regardless, it's pretty clear to me jazz offers a lot more creative options...a bigger palette and more colors in the paint box.  Personal preference though?  Most days I'll be picking the blues 5 to 1.