Martin
635 posts
Mar 18, 2014
5:20 PM
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From another recent thread I know that I´m not the only one fascinated by that primitive, often one-chord, type of blues.
I tried to do something along those lines last year, but I never finished it (that´s my usual modus operandi ...). Now here is another really rough draft. "Primitive."
Maybe it´s more slide guitar than harmonica -- and the guitar is a joke, a toy from the 60´s, best at producing background noise. (It only works with this heavily distorted sound.)
I´m also a joke as guitarist and there are times here when I´m laughably un-tight. Still, it´s just for fun.
Anyway, soon with little help from a friend, I may make another one (this week in fact), so this is just for ... well, fun.
"Why the rain and Chester B?" It´s "atmosphere" ... And I´m proving, with child-like pride, that I can manage the rudiments of Audacity ("production values"!)-- that took some doing, I must say.
(Now if I can embed this thing is another matter ...)
https://soundcloud.com/martin-oldsberg/really-primitive-blues
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Martin
636 posts
Mar 18, 2014
5:21 PM
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Second attempt:
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Jehosaphat
716 posts
Mar 18, 2014
5:30 PM
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Luv it.
My 20$ cigar box guitar that i made is the same in that it only sounds good playing through a nasty amp fed by a RP 200 on max gain with a shitload of reverb.
Lotta fun though.
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BronzeWailer
1234 posts
Mar 18, 2014
5:34 PM
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Martin, I know (that is, I think I know)you have high standards but you are too harsh on yourself. I really enjoyed this. Primitive works! Atmospheric. It brought to mind that scene from Black Snake Moan. Looking forward to the next one.
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BronzeWailer's YouTube
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Old newbie
11 posts
Mar 18, 2014
5:36 PM
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I like it
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Old newbie
12 posts
Mar 18, 2014
5:36 PM
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I like it
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Martin
637 posts
Mar 18, 2014
6:07 PM
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Thank you guys.
@Jehosaphat: Yes, it´s an RP here as well. Without that patch no 73 called "L.A. Greaser" I and my guitar would be dead in the water.
@Bronzewailer: You are kind, sir. And yes, there are some passages in the "Black Snake Moan" soundtrack that have the exact atmospheric quality what I´m after.
Let´s just say that they are a bit more -- elaborated. Which is a good thing. Fabulous sound, first class musicians and probably a written score helps a bit as well ...
But on Thursday I´m meeting a guitar guy and we´ll try to lay some sort of foundation like this for a spoken word performance, could be interesting.
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jbone
1544 posts
Mar 18, 2014
8:34 PM
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Cool stuff man. It's the stuff I'd be all over in 3rd. The G in 2nd is great though!
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http://www.reverbnation.com/jawboneandjolene
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000386839482
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa7La7yYYeE
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DoubleJ
52 posts
Mar 18, 2014
10:18 PM
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It's cinematic. So many cable shows are looking for sounds like this.
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Rubes
818 posts
Mar 19, 2014
3:22 AM
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I'm digging it !
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Old Man Rubes at Reverbnation
Dads in Space at Reverbnation
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didjcripey
729 posts
Mar 19, 2014
4:11 AM
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Big thumbs up from me.
Wish I was that much of a 'joke' on guitar.
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Lucky Lester
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The Iceman
1537 posts
Mar 19, 2014
8:07 AM
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That one chord thing has a lot of challenges to it.
How to keep interest and ideas flowing without chords changing to guarantee freshness.
As a matter of fact, this was exactly what Miles Davis was exploring when he entered his electric phase in his search towards simplification.
Miles heard Michael Henderson play bass w/Stevie Wonder. Back stage, he went up to Stevie and said "I'm stealing your bass player".
He had Michael join the band ... the first non-jazz musician he hired. The reason was that Michael's immersion in funk and soul made him very comfortable at staying on the one chord for very long periods of time, something that jazz bass players found somewhat uncomfortable.
He even told Michael at first that, even though the rest of the musicians would push the music in different directions, his job was to remain firmly on the I chord and not follow them.
The result was a new direction in jazz music.
In blues, that I chord sustain may have been promoted by Delta Style and John Lee Hooker in his boogie tunes (those with better knowledge of blues history may be able to correct me on this).
No doubt staying on the one chord may be both limiting in one sense and liberating in another.
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The Iceman
Last Edited by The Iceman on Mar 19, 2014 8:08 AM
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isaacullah
2686 posts
Mar 19, 2014
8:37 AM
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I like this style, and I like your offerings too. I find that staying on the I chord is very liberating.
@Iceman: Hooker was certainly famous for doing this, but you also had guys like Mississippi Fred McDowell, RL Burnside, Jr. Kimbrough, etc., doing this too. I agree that Hooker may have been the most famous/popularized of that group.
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YouTube! Soundcloud!
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CWinter
149 posts
Mar 19, 2014
9:05 AM
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Chester Burnett is the man I think of whenever the subject of staying on the one chord comes up. So hypnotic.....
Moanin' at Midnight
No Place To Go
Smokestack Lightnin'
I Asked For Water
......just to name a few.
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CWinter
151 posts
Mar 19, 2014
9:23 AM
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@Iceman
I love any and all stories about Miles. Maybe we should start a Miles Davis thread?
When did this happen in Miles' career?
I was thinking that In A Silent Way, is a study in the one chord for the most part. The first track, Shhhh.....Peaceful stays on the D chord....doesn't it? I don't have my iPod with me to check, but I think that's the structure. I saw an interview with John McLaughlin where he was saying that Miles told the musicians not to play the D. Another challenge, staying on the one chord but only hinting at it.
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The Iceman
1538 posts
Mar 19, 2014
9:51 AM
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Having studied Miles Davis exclusively for a number of years, I have a lot of info on this man and his concepts.
Michael joined Miles' band in either very late 1969 or 1970. He can be heard on albums that were released after Bitches Brew.
Miles would take a fragment of an idea or a bass line and ask his musicians to play off of that. He was a Zen master, as he never told anyone what he wanted in detail.
He would say things like "Don't play what you know, but play above what you know".
He also did not want to hear any of his musicians practicing licks. If he walked by your hotel room and heard you practicing a lick and then heard it that night on the bandstand, you were fired.
He told them "I am paying you to practice on the bandstand".
"In a Silent Way" is a great story. Joe Zawinul brought this tune to Miles. Miles looked at it, eliminated all the chord changes and kept the melody. He may have even simplified that melody. He sketched it on a piece of paper, gave it to the musicians at the session, suggested a key, and away they went.
A lot of his music at that time was long jams in the studio. Teo Macero, Miles' producer, would then take these long tapes, listen to them, and cut and paste together a finished product.
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The Iceman
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CWinter
152 posts
Mar 19, 2014
11:23 AM
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Have you adapted any of Miles' tunes for harp?
If so, which ones?
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laurent2015
645 posts
Mar 19, 2014
12:10 PM
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Got thrills!
It makes me think about what Deak Harp does, besides his using of stomp thing and his singing.
His style is pulsating, yours is haunting, hypnotic.
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The Iceman
1540 posts
Mar 19, 2014
12:40 PM
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CWinter...
I dug into "All Blues" in 1998 and made an arrangement for three harmonicas along w/rhythm section.
What I did was transcribe the verse/chorus parts for Miles, John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley. I played the Miles part while I taught the other two parts to two other harmonica players...
First performance was at Augusta Heritage Center Blues Week..Grant Dermody was one of the other players and I can't remember who was the third one.
I resurrected it for the legendary SPAH 1998 convention. Grant was there and Filisko was the third player.
(My memory is foggy, so hope I got all the usual suspects right).
The arrangement sounded great.
The performance exists on the video set from SPAH 1998. Don't know if anyone uploaded it to youtube. My copy is on VCR and sits in a dusty old box, as I don't have a VCR player any longer.
Perhaps Winslow has access to these and they (hopefully) have been transferred to DVD. Lotsa great stuff on those old SPAH tapes.
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The Iceman
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CWinter
155 posts
Mar 19, 2014
1:08 PM
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I would love to hear and/or see that video sometime. That sounds cool as hell.
So, when you were playing Miles' part, the other two harmonica players were playing the rhythm parts? Is that correct? And then, when the Coltrane part came around, you and the Cannonball harmonica player would play the rhythm, etc.....? Is that how you worked it out?
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nacoran
7627 posts
Mar 19, 2014
1:25 PM
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I listened to this last night and was about to comment when I got a phone call and didn't get back to it.
I like it a lot. And now, I'll listen again. :)
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Nate
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The Iceman
1542 posts
Mar 19, 2014
1:27 PM
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I wouldn't call those parts the rhythm parts. They were harmonies. If you listen within the tune, you will hear the complete simplicity as well as the elegant harmonic effect they create as those notes move.
Miles composed the piece along with the harmonies used to surround the melody. He was a minimalist and every note he chose was purposeful.
Whenever I hear a remake or a harmonica player playing this tune, my ears quickly pick out either the wrong note in the melodic line or the harmonies that just are a bit off of the original.
So the tune starts off w/bass and drums. Next enters the two part harmonies from the saxophones which start off playing major or minor third moving intervals.
Finally, the trumpet plays the head or theme of the tune while the saxes continue their moving intervals.
At the end of the head, there is that beautiful chord change up 1/2 step and back down on the V chord. Pay careful attention to what the saxes play.
During the solos, no harmonic accompaniment was used in my arrangement...just bass, drums and harmonica.
As I've stated in another post, bass and harmonica together leave all the space in the world to explore.
Simple and elegant.
Great song to study.
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The Iceman
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Komuso
294 posts
Mar 19, 2014
5:37 PM
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Ostinato or repetition is a heavily used music tradition across many cultures and genres.
Boogie woogie piano, trance blues, etc etc all use this long before EDM (electronic dance music)
Despite the snobbery against it from "elite" music producers and listeners in some quarters, there's starting to be some good neuroscience studies around recently on how our sensory filter cum pattern recognition machine aka brain works so well at this and how it ties into our other sensory motor systems.
This is a great read on repetition:
Repetition defines music
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Paul Cohen aka Komuso Tokugawa
HarpNinja - Your harmonica Mojo Dojo
Bringing the Boogie to the Bitstream
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The Iceman
1544 posts
Mar 19, 2014
7:22 PM
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Repetition defines music...scroll down to the funk and James Brown section...
This is exactly why Miles Davis added Michael Henderson to his band.
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The Iceman
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Komuso
296 posts
Mar 19, 2014
9:30 PM
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Last Edited by Komuso on Mar 19, 2014 9:30 PM
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BronzeWailer
1237 posts
Mar 19, 2014
10:15 PM
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I liked that article, Komuso.
Like like liked it, liked it, liked it!
Komuso, Komuso, KOmuso.
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BronzeWailer's YouTube
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