What Blues Needs…

[telemnemonics]

Good example of Bloomfield's tendency to overplay and ramble. I love his playing on The Electric Flag's first album, though...

Yeah not my favorite Bloomfield cut.
Very messed up brilliant player though.

 

[telemnemonics]

There seems to be a misconception here, and on other guitar forums, that the Blues must be dominated by Blues guitar players playing pentatonic scales. Blues are a sub-genre of jazz, and both developed at about the same time. It's not important to me that bands with Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Lester Young, etc. even had bands with guitars. If the only Blues I knew were Robert Johnson, Elmore James, and Howlin' Wolf, I'd probably think Kenny Burrell, Wes Montgomery, and Grant Green were playing something else.

Hmmm, IMO Jazz is a sub genre of Blues, because Blues came first.
Blues recordings we refer to when being scholarly, those didnt happen at the beginnings of Blues though, took quite a while before us white folks noticed and assigned legitimacy?
Jazz AFAIK was not born until Blues grew up to at least old enough to get around on its own.
Unless you count certain regional Blues as Jazz?

We modern day after the fact scholarly types assign historic facts to events we did not witness, events set in motion by folks we did not associate with.

 

[Fiesta Red]

There seems to be a misconception here, and on other guitar forums, that the Blues must be dominated by Blues guitar players playing pentatonic scales. Blues are a sub-genre of jazz, and both developed at about the same time. It's not important to me that Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Lester Young, etc. even had bands with guitars. If the only Blues I knew were Robert Johnson, Elmore James, and Howlin' Wolf, I'd probably think Kenny Burrell, Wes Montgomery, and Grant Green were playing something else.

Jazz and Blues have multiple familial connections, and there are Blues Players who reference jazz in their playing (T-Bone Walker, BB King, even SRV on occasion) and Jazz Players who throw some blues in their stew (Kenny Burrell, Grant Green, Nat King Cole—who also threw the pop stylings of his era in there)…

Then you have people who defy a single descriptor for their style…Fats Domino was called Rock and Roll, but there was plenty of NOLA Jazz influence…Ray Charles was called “Jazz” overall, but the soul, blues, gospel and even country & western he injected into his music made that classification incomplete…Danny Gatton called his playing “Redneck Jazz”, but his gumbo amalgamation was much deeper than that.

The line between Jazz and Blues is squiggly, blurry and at times non-existent.

 

[Fiesta Red]

We modern day after the fact scholarly types assign historic facts to events we did not witness, events set in motion by folks we did not associate with.

And by classifying it and applying scholarly disciplines to it, those folks often ruin the enjoyment of the art itself.

There are two types of music:

Good and Bad.

 

[DekeDog]

Yes. I guess my point is music evolves, and genres lose definition. What music in general needs is good musicians.

 

[Eddiebaby1]

There are two types of music:

Good and Bad.

Actually there are two types of music. Those you like and those you don't.

 

[telemnemonics]

And by classifying it and applying scholarly disciplines to it, those folks often ruin the enjoyment of the art itself.

There are two types of music:

Good and Bad.

Oddly i think some of the worst is the best!

 

[DekeDog]

Hmmm, IMO Jazz is a sub genre of Blues, because Blues came first.

I guess the point is moot, but just for the sake of scholarly discussion, you could say that Blues evolved from from gospel music and from call and response field chants, etc. You might also say that jazz evolved from honky tonks and ragtime. My point is that Jazz, even in its infancy, seemed to encompass a wider range of influences, rely more heavily on improvisation, and have a broader interpretation. Blues in its infancy was simpler, Jazz had more complexity. You could say Blues is Jazz, but Jazz is not necessary Blues.

 

[telemnemonics]

I guess the point is moot, but just for the sake of scholarly discussion, you could say that Blues evolved from from gospel music and from call and response field chants, etc. You might also say that jazz evolved from honky tonks and ragtime. My point is that Jazz, even in its infancy, seemed to encompass a wider range of influences, rely more heavily on improvisation, and have a broader interpretation. Blues in its infancy was simpler, Jazz had more complexity. You could say Blues is Jazz, but Jazz is not necessary Blues.

For the sake of discussion maybe its fine to say we are both correct.
But in my personal study of all the musics you mention, I see Blues in the roots of all Jazz.
And really almost all modern popular music has some Blues roots.

Outside of popular music we can see ethnic or national music styles that predate Blues and had no Blues roots.
Those all joined Americana and Jazz, but early Jazz serms to me at least, to have cery clear Blues roots.

Again though, published scholars may arrange the ducks as they see them.

Certainly some ethnic music styles artived in US or colonial seaports before the explosion if slavery here and before clear Blues emerged.

So many views of how music in what is now the US congealed into American Folk can be assembled like dinosaur bones from multiple dig sites.
I think its cool that we got Afro Caribbean pirates settling in the colonies before the industrial slavery began.
Trade for our furs gained us culture too.

 

[deytookerjaabs]

Yeah, if you don't think what we consider the godfather's of Jazz now didn't use the form, instrumentation, space for improvisation and swing (although campy in it's infancy) that they learned from show tune bands you're off base IMO. For a good number of decades starting with Duke, then Mingus up into hard bop era jazz got rootsier in it's more down home blues influence, not vice versa. It didn't start with one guy in New Orleans or Harlem suddenly figuring out how to make field songs more complex. In it's earliest forms it was arguably near identical to the smaller travelling show tune outfits.

 

[aging_rocker]

Someone mentioned Peter Green. He understood the blues.

 

[2HBStrat]

What did SRV and Hendrix have that no one else did? A supreme mastery of the guitar and their own language for communicating it...

Nobody else had that? Not Guthrie Govan, Andres Segovia, Tommy Emmanuel or Billy Strings?

 

[DekeDog]

Nobody else had that? Not Guthrie Govan, Andres Segovia, Tommy Emmanuel or Billy Strings?

As much as I like all of those guys, IMO, no, not with nearly the same expressivity, though I cannot say that about Segovia, because I'm not very familiar with his work.

 

[Dik Ellis]

Everything runs in cycles. You just never know where the next big thing is going to emerge from.

 

[Dik Ellis]

I pretty certain this was partly due to do the drug use of Stevie and his entourage (including his wife), who he brought with him to rehearsals.

SRV had something already before the Bowie gig. I would have done the same thing.

 

[blowtorch]

 

[jumpnblues]

Jazz and Blues have multiple familial connections, and there are Blues Players who reference jazz in their playing (T-Bone Walker, BB King, even SRV on occasion) and Jazz Players who throw some blues in their stew (Kenny Burrell, Grant Green, Nat King Cole—who also threw the pop stylings of his era in there)…

Then you have people who defy a single descriptor for their style…Fats Domino was called Rock and Roll, but there was plenty of NOLA Jazz influence…Ray Charles was called “Jazz” overall, but the soul, blues, gospel and even country & western he injected into his music made that classification incomplete…Danny Gatton called his playing “Redneck Jazz”, but his gumbo amalgamation was much deeper than that.

The line between Jazz and Blues is squiggly, blurry and at times non-existent.

Very well put.

 

[Fiesta Red]

We recently added that song to our repertoire…cool 90’s pop-rock

 

[blowtorch]

We recently added that song to our repertoire…cool 90’s pop-rock

Awesome song. I love how the intro coulda totally worked for some kickass AC/DC tune

 

[Rowdyman]

And by classifying it and applying scholarly disciplines to it, those folks often ruin the enjoyment of the art itself.

There are two types of music:

Good and Bad.

"Country and Western" Lol, RM