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Are contemporary oud's players modernizing music??

zalzal - 12-17-2006 at 12:39 PM

In continuation to the last discussions posted on the thread "members clips" i would like to have yr views on the question whether contemporary oud's players modernizing Music or just opening traditional oud music to additions fm others musics.

I do not know who wrote this. I found it on a video n goolge video
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7376946862911199756&q=...

It ends saying...more or less: "it seems tha the tunisia man, remaining couched in his divan (couch) has gone farther than lot of jazz musiciens, occupied in searching new musics.... "

"Le calife El-Ouathek avait dit avec sagesse d'Al Mawsili, le maître de l'art vocal arabe: "j'ai l'impression chaque fois qu'il chante que mon royaume s'agrandit". A entendre jouer Anouar Brahem, je peux dire que le royaume de la musique s'agrandit [...] Musique prophétique : quand le tunisien Anouar Brahem joue du oud, les cultures musicales de l'Orient et de l'Occident se réconcilient[...] Il est si calme et souverain qu'il semble que l'homme de Tunisie, resté allongé sur son divan est allé beaucoup plus loin que bien des musiciens de jazz, affairés dans la quête de musiques nouvelles"

Maqam et Jazz

ALAMI - 12-17-2006 at 02:22 PM

Il est indeniable que des gens comme Anouar Brahem et Dhafer Youssef sont en train de faire les deux choses a la fois: moderniser la musique orientale et la sortir du cocon traditionnel et en faisant cela il sont en train de changer la Musique tout court.
Le Oud et plus generalement la musique Maqamia et donc modale offrent, une fois couplee a une culture de jazz, une liberte nouvelle qui etait insoupconnable avant.
Anouar Brahem est a ca facon un Coltrane.
Il l'a prouve en composant pour piano dans "Le pas du chat noir"
Ziad Al Rahbani a eu des experiences tres interessantes dans les annees 80 ainsi que Toufic Farroukh (Ali on Broadway)mais leurs experiences etaient plus une recherche du jazz oriental, Brahem va plus loin et en allant plus loin il s'approche plus d'autres cultures sans renier la sienne.
Liberer le oud de la prison d'accompagner le chant qui l'a limite pendant des siecles ne fait que commencer.
Je ne me passerai plus de mom oud a 7 cordes et le luthier Fadi Matta ne fait plus de Ouds a 6, il est en train d'experimenter avec Charbel Rouhana une 8 eme.
Anouar Brahem experimente a ca facon pour le bonheur de la Musique partout au monde

amine2 - 12-17-2006 at 11:57 PM

je ne suis pas tres d'accord avec alami sur certains points,
je ne crois que le fait qu'anouar brahem joue avec des musiciens de jazz veut dire qu'il est forcement en traine de jouer du jazz et moderniser l'hstoire de la musique.c'est vrai qu'il a joué avec palle danielson, john christenson, galliano,...mais ces musiciens là jouaient juste ce qu'il leur avait écrit. ils étaient au service de la musique ces jazzmen.
je trouve la musique d'anouar brahem tres simple, sans complexité, sans richesse, je n'irais pas dire que c'est du coltrane, car les deux sont dans un univers extrememnt different. je m'y connais en jazz, et je peux vous dire que l'innovation de coltrane depasse ce qu'est en train de faire brahem. coltrane a revolutionné l'histoire du jazz et de la musique avec son phrasé ses compositions son jeu rythmique...etc, qu'est ce qu'il fait de special brahem?
je suis d'accord que brahem compose une jolie musique agréable à l'ecoute, mais j'y insiste, que c'est une musique trestrestres simple et sans innovation.
il faut savoir aussi que anouar brahem est chez le label ECm, et c'est un label qui a le meileur son du monde...donc forcement c 'est agreable à l'ecoute.
je trouve que dhfer youseef innove plus, renouvelle plus, mais lui non plus ne s'proffondit pas dans la culture du jazz, il va eflleurer la musique electronique ou electroacoustiqe.
les deux ont joué avec des grands noms du jazz, et il y a des parties d'impro dans leurs cds, mais ce n'est pas parcequ'il y a des improvisation qu'on dira qu'il fusionnent le jazz. car le jazz n'est pas juste improviser, c'est toute une culture une technique de phraser, une harmonie...etc
et je ne suis pas nonplus d'accord avec alami quand il dit qu'ils ont libéré le oud de la prison ......
c'est avec cherif mheyddin haydar que ça a commencé et toute l'ecole irakienne ensuite.....jusqu'a nos jours.

le seul musicien que je connaisses qui a vraiment saisi la culture arabe et jazz est le pianiste tunisien wajdi cherif...mais c'est plus jazz qu'oriental.

a part ça je voulais vous remercier pour les informations.
amine

Microber - 12-18-2006 at 01:41 AM

I completely agree with you Amine.
Brahem makes nice music but certainly not revolutionary.
I also agree with what you say about Coltrane, ECM...
I don't know Wajdi Cherif.
I've just listened to a few sample on his website http://wajdi.chez-alice.fr/musique.htm
And it didn't convince me.
What I hear is simply jazz "gentil".
Very far from Coltrane or Mingus or Eric Dolphy... 40 years ago.
I'm still waiting or still searching.

Robert

PS : for Amine and Alami
DONNE TE FORGUETTE ZE ANGLICHE SPIQUEUR

amine2 - 12-18-2006 at 05:35 AM

i saw wajdi cherif in concert solo piano, it was very interessting.
i find his group albums not realy good. :rolleyes:

i think that marcel khalife has added somethong else to arab music, i consider him as the only real arab artist nowadays. i mean artist with all the name's significatins.
thanks microber.
i think you like 60,70jazz, just i want to say that eric dolphy played with both coltrane and mingus, i like him a lot. but i am feeling more contemporary jazz. of course, those musicians are the source.
:cool:

amine

zou - 12-18-2006 at 07:42 AM

pour monsieur amine,
je ne partage pas ton opinion sur anouar brahem, peut importe les catégories musicales ; jazz, traditionnel, funk, rock... se sont là des catégories musicales au service d'une musique.. l'importance de anouar brahem (sans chercher à faire des podiums comme tu le fais) est d'avoir cette intimité telle avec son instrument (et je sais de quoi je parle parce que je l'ai vu au moins 10 fois) qui t'amene dans un autre monde, dans l'esprit peu de joueurs ont cette histoire avec le oud de l'aveu de son professeur le grand Ali sriti, alors après ... être jazz ou pas la question n'est pas très pertinente..d'ailleurs il ne l'a jamais prétendu, pour ce qui est de la simplicité de son jeu je ne suis pas très d'accord.. ce grand monsieur du oud fait ce qu'on peut appeler "du facile inaccéssible" dans son style... pour quel raison dis tu que c'est sans richesse ? je dis que pour avoir un jugement pareil sur la musique de anouar brahem il faut énormément d'écoute et de niveau.
amitiés
ziad

amine2 - 12-18-2006 at 08:12 AM

merci ziad,
j'ai enormément écouté anouar brahem, et d'ailleurs j'ai tous ses albums et je l'ai vu moi aussi en concert, il est souvent en france. quand je parlais d'abssence de richesse, je parlais de ses compositions dans l'album "le pas du chat noir" et d'autres albums, et je parlais surtout au niveau de la forme,et de l'harmonie....je ne sais pas si tu connais un peu l'harmonie, il utilise tres peu d'accord, ça reste tres tonal (ou modal selon les morceaux) et je disais que je ne pouvais pas comparer ça a du jazz contemporain, au niveau de la forme de ses compositions c'estpareil, j'ai relevé quelques thémes delui, et c'est tres tres simple.
je suis d'accord sur le fait qu'il a un tres joli phrasé, un bon touché et un bon jeurythmique dans ses improvisations, mais tout ce que je voulais dire, il n a rien de special a part ça. je suis aussi d'accord sur le fait que se soit du "facile innaccecible".
personellement, je trouve sa musique tres jolie, vraiment, mais ça ne m'impressionne pas.
j'ai parlé du label ecm, si tu connais quelques cds de ce label, tu comprendras mieux je crois, le son de ce label est tres artificiel, tres gonflé, mais tres beau.et agreable a entendre.

j'espere que tu es d'accord???
amine

ALAMI - 12-18-2006 at 05:07 PM

Salut a tous,
Avant tout je voudrais accorder a amine qu'il est toujours hasardeux de comparer deux musiciens d'autant plus qu'on parle de 2 mondes differents quoique Coltrane n'etait pas tellement apprecie a ses premieres annees.
Je lui accorde aussi que si on m'oblige a ne garder qu'un seul album que c'est entre un Bashir et un Coltrane que j'hesiterais.
La ou je ne suis pas d'accord c'est sur le fait de considerer la simplicite comme manque de richesse, je pense que plus un musicien murit plus il est capable de simplicite.
Un vieux Bluesman de New Orleans a dit une fois qu'il reve du jour ou il pourra faire un album avec une guitare a une seule corde.
Sayed Darwich de son vivant etait accuse de faire une musique pour enfants, il est sans doute le compositeur le plus repris avec des chansons immortelles.
Je n'ai pas de connaissances theoriques apprfondies en musique mais "le modal" c'est la nature meme de la composition musicale de l'orient par opposition a la musique harmonique du classique au jazz et si ca fait que tu ne veux pas qu'on l'appelle du jazz d'accord mais ca n'ote rien a sa valeur.
Toute creation artistique a l'aspiration de toucher les gens, de leur communiquer une emotion et cela la musique de Brahem le fait royalement et cela passe pour moi avant les considerations dogmatiques d'un manuel qui definit ce que c'est qu'une bonne musique. Ma femme n'aimait pas la musique que j'ecoute et c'est en ecoutant Brahem qu'elle a commence a apprecier les autres et maintenant elle m'a pique le dernier,excellent, Marcel Khalife : TAKASSIM.

Sorry for Zee Anglishe Speekeur

ALAMI - 12-18-2006 at 05:14 PM

Sorry microber,
We were carried away into an interesting discussion with the guys it is usually easer to disagree in french.
Zee nexte one wile bee in Anglishe

Brian Prunka - 12-18-2006 at 07:56 PM

Interesting discussion . . . I'm not convinced that objectively quantifiable innovations are necessarily the highest goal of musicianship. Coltrane is responsible for a number of hugely influential innovations which are easily objectified, yet in discussions with many jazz musicians (and speaking as a jazz musician myself), those innovations are not the primary reward of listening to Coltrane. Rather the intensity, honestly, spiritual/human connection, and depth of focus in his playing are what make his music infinitely rewarding to listen to.
Whether something is innovative or not is a modern western prejudice and a poor indicator of the value of a composition, improvisation or performer. Stan Getz is every bit as deep and musical a performer as Coltrane, but was responsible for no objective innovations (save the innovation of sounding like no one who came before him, and creating unique improvisations combining impeccable logic and beauty with boundless spontaneity and intensity, but that's not objective).
Incidentally, depth and simplicity are not opposites or contradictory principles. Simplicity is also a subjective quality; much great music is apparently simple, but hides an almost infinite complexity to the astute listener (listen to Bill Frisell sometime). To write compelling music that seems so simple that anyone could have thought of it is actually an impressive feat. Maybe anyone could have thought of it, but they didn't.
That said, name me another musician whose music sounds like Brahem's.

Microber - 12-19-2006 at 02:18 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Brian Prunka

That said, name me another musician whose music sounds like Brahem's.

Chamber music of Brahms... maybe

amine2 - 12-19-2006 at 03:49 AM

salut,
tout d'abord alami, j'ai pas essayé de comparé brahem a coltrane, c'était toi qui l'avait fait et justement je disais que c'était inutile. dons, ça prouve que tu n'as pas lu ce que j'ai ecrit...ou peut etre tu nas pas compris....bon, c'est pas grave a la limite.
par contre, je ne suis pas d'accord sur beaucoup de choses que tu dis. tu refuses de comparer les deux musiciens (moi aussi), mais tu argumentes apres avec une citation d'un bluesman, la non plus on ne pourrait comparer.....?
en fait, lidée que je veux defendre c'est anouar brahem n'est pas un grand innovateur ou un musicien révolutionnaire qui a inventé un langage particulier.
si tu n'es toujooours pas d'accord avec moi, je t'invite a écouter ou à decouvrir ds musiciens tels, marc copland, john taylor, keith jarrett, tomasz stanko, bobo stenson, kenny wheeler, eric watson, peter herbert, dave liebman, dave holland, wayne shorter....etc
je veux juste te dire que le jazz depuis les années 60, 70, 98% des musiciens, jouent d'une façon modale, je ne sais pas si tu connais le concept lydien de geoges russell, la plupart des jazmens l'appliquent depuis sa parrution.
et il y a aussi des piéces de musiqu classiques qui sont modales... pour ne pas citer beaucoup de noms, je te dis debussy, ravel, stravinsky, bartok....
mais la façon de voir la modalité dans le jazz ou la musique classiqueste tres differente de celle des musiques arabes ou turques.
amine

amine2 - 12-19-2006 at 03:54 AM

encore une fois je précise que quand j'ai dit que c'était une musique sans richesse, je parlais au sens de la forme musicale et de l'harmonie.
merci.
je m'exuse de ne pas parler anglais

David Parfitt - 12-19-2006 at 04:11 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Microber

Quote:

Originally posted by Brian Prunka

That said, name me another musician whose music sounds like Brahem's.

Chamber music of Brahms... maybe

He said "whose music sounds like Brahem's", not " whose name sounds like Brahem's".

zou - 12-19-2006 at 05:56 AM

je suis absoluement d'accord avec brian, l'un des éléménts définissant un grand joueur c'est que l'en soit capable de le reconnaitre en quelques notes...peu de joueurs peuvent avoir son itinéraire musical, et son évolution... entre "qaws" (classisisme absolu) et thimar beaucoup plus ouvert à d'autres influence il faut de la maturité musical, les regles de l'harmonie telles qu'elles sont conçues dans la musique occidentale n'est qu'un plaqage et une juxtaposition s'agissant des microtonalités orientales, les deux musiques ont choisis des chemins esthétiques différents (beaucoup de savant arabes ont essayé de trouver des voies pour théoriser sur une polyphonie "orientale" qui s'adapterait aux quarts de tons (kitab al adwar d'elkindi) mais l'évolution de notre musique est deumeuré linéaire, en creusant le potentiel émotionel d'une note, peut-être qu'il faut trouver des regles qui nous spécifique et faire des parallèles avec la musique occidentale sans forcément tomber dans le mimétisme... , je suis d'accord avec toi amine s'agissant du label ECM il nétoit trop les musiques, mais tu pourra donner le son le plus pourri ainsi que le oud le plus pourri à anouar brahem il réussira à sortir un son hors du commun...il est simplement un mélodiste génial, il est par raport à la musique ce qu'a été "taha hussein' à la littérature (si j'ose la parallèle).

je m'excuse auprès de la communauté angloph, mon aglais est incompréhensible.
ziad

Microber - 12-19-2006 at 10:03 AM

For David
Are we sure that Brahem is his real name.
Maybe one day he heard beautiful western classical music.
Then he wanted to know the name of the composer.
And he simply take the name of Brahms as a nick name.
Or if Brahem is his real name, maybe the similitude is not a coincidence.

Robert

ALAMI - 12-19-2006 at 12:41 PM

Cher amine
Dans la limite du francais que je pratique, et qu'il m'arrive meme ocasionellement de comprendre, "accorder a" veut dire "donner raison" et non "attribuer a", ce que j'ai dit veut dire que je ne tiens pas, Moi, a la comparaison que j'ai faite, Moi, et qui t'as froisse, Toi.
D'un autre cote tu m'a dis: "ça prouve que tu n'as pas lu ce que j'ai ecrit...ou peut etre tu nas pas compris....bon, c'est pas grave a la limite."
Je crois que cette phrase est le signe d'un peu trop de moutarde qui monte au nez. Je t'assure que ce n'est pas la peine.
Si tout le monde avait le meme gout, la musique serait un monde bien ennuyeux.
Je te remercie pour la liste de musiciens, il y en a que je connais pas du tout et je me ferai un plaisir de les decouvrir.
On n'a pas les memes criteres de jugement et ce n'est pas grave, ca fait vivre des musiciens (et malheureusement enrichir leur producteurs).
alors copains?

Brian Prunka - 12-19-2006 at 03:54 PM

Brahem's music sounds like Brahms?
I disagree. However, I am open-minded. Perhaps you can cite specific similarities, using actual examples.

I can cite several clear dissimilarities:
1. Improvisation: Brahms' music contains none, Brahem's contains extensive improvisation, often well over 50%.
2. Harmony: Brahms music is not "modal" in the sense that Brahem's is; rather, it is highly developed functional chromatic harmony in a Romantic style.
3. Harmony: Brahms makes extensive use of modulations, Brahem does not. There are mode changes and temporary tonicizations, but that's generally it.
4. Rhythm: A completely different concept of the following:
a. relationship between pulse, meter, and feel (e.g., iqa'at, accents, durations, etc.)
b. syncopation
5. Ornamentation: not part of Brahms style (except some explicit flourishes)

Although Brahms music may contain some similarities as well, I didn't ask for someone whose music had similarities, but for one whose music Brahem's "sounded like". As in "could have been created by".

Amine: I'm not sure if I understand your post correctly, but you seem to be saying that the majority of modern jazz musicians, especially on the ECM label employ a "modal" style. If I misunderstood, my apologies.
If this is what you intended, the artists you cite clearly do not empoly a "modal" style as it is commonly defined (e.g., compositions that employ few modes, sustain modes for extended lengths of time, do not have functional relationships between the modal structures employed, etc.), or do so only occasionally. Specifically, Kenny Wheeler, Keith Jarret, Dave Holland, Marc Copland, and Wayne Shorter are primarily performing and composing in a modern chromatic jazz style, which includes modal elements but is primarily pan-modal and tonal. It is largely harmonically functional in the sense of clear harmonic motion between tension/dissonance and rest/resolution, just not limited to traditional functions, chord structures, modulations and key centers.
Brahem's music is "modal" in this sense. Keith Jarret does perform some modal music, in addition to a lot of standards (traditional functional harmony), classical music, atonal music, baroque music, bitonal music and combinations of various styles.
Of course, maybe you weren't calling their music modal in which case I apologize for repeating things you already know.

Mascun - 12-20-2006 at 12:58 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ALAMI
Il est indeniable que des gens comme Anouar Brahem et Dhafer Youssef sont en train de faire les deux choses a la fois: moderniser la musique orientale et la sortir du cocon traditionnel et en faisant cela il sont en train de changer la Musique tout court.
Le Oud et plus generalement la musique Maqamia et donc modale offrent, une fois couplee a une culture de jazz, une liberte nouvelle qui etait insoupconnable avant.
Anouar Brahem est a ca facon un Coltrane.
Il l'a prouve en composant pour piano dans "Le pas du chat noir"
Ziad Al Rahbani a eu des experiences tres interessantes dans les annees 80 ainsi que Toufic Farroukh (Ali on Broadway)mais leurs experiences etaient plus une recherche du jazz oriental, Brahem va plus loin et en allant plus loin il s'approche plus d'autres cultures sans renier la sienne.
Liberer le oud de la prison d'accompagner le chant qui l'a limite pendant des siecles ne fait que commencer.
Je ne me passerai plus de mom oud a 7 cordes et le luthier Fadi Matta ne fait plus de Ouds a 6, il est en train d'experimenter avec Charbel Rouhana une 8 eme.
Anouar Brahem experimente a ca facon pour le bonheur de la Musique partout au monde

Mascun - 12-20-2006 at 01:25 AM

Sorry all, my original message got mixed up when I first posted it it, and the complete quotation of ALMAMI's post came out instead :shrug:

Quote:

For non-French speakers : "People like Anwar Brahem and Dhafer Yusef are undoubtedly engaged in two simultaneous actions : modernizing eastern music, and bringing it out of its traditional cocoon, and as a result they are changing Music as a whole" (j'espère que je traduis bien ta pensée ALAMI !)

I would like to post my own feelings on this oft-debated subject.

First : a couple of decades ago, I played the baroque and renaissance lutes with various professional early music ensembles in France. In those days, it was fashionable to say in those circles that music became degenerate after Bach...

So, an old debate !

Personally I enjoy listening to Brahem's records, when I'm in the mood for them, and I don't expect more from him than what he delivers, viz. good music, well played and nice to listen to. Nor can I believe that one musician can be held responsible - or guilty - for wide-sweeping changes in music. On the other hand, I agree with ALAMI who suggests that artists like Anwar are contributing to these changes : but surely these changes work both ways.

I remember in the late fifties and early sixties when people here in Europe would sneer at, and despise music from North Africa and the Middle East, as "primitive", boring, repetitive and totally unworthy of any serious attention. What other attitude could one expect from the former colonialists ?

Now things have changed, and surely people like Brahem are a part of it.

When Indian classical music began coming into peoples' homes, thanks in part to Ravi Shankar, critics charged that he was debasing his own musical traditions.

Notwithstanding, this has opened up concert and teaching opportunities in the West for talented Indian artists, and growing respect and recognition for their art.

I would like to think that the same thing is happening for the arts of the Middle East and North Africa.

And possibly many of us members of this Forum were won over to playing the 'oud after listening to the music of the great oriental lute players, including Anwar Brahem ?

Music is fun to play, to listen to, and should bring people and cultures together

Alan

amine2 - 12-20-2006 at 02:19 AM

je suis d'accord avec brian sur ce qu'il dit sur le jazz, mais je crois qu'il n a pas compris ce que j'ai ecrit... je suis desolé de ne pas pouvoir ecrire en anglais. mais j'ai précisé que les jazzmens appliquaient un concept modal tres different, et ça s'ppalle le concept chromatic lydien....
j'espere que alami decouvrira une musique qu'il aimerait bien
amine

zalzal - 12-20-2006 at 01:38 PM

Thank you all for yr interesting comments. I have learned a lot. It help to have each other views so we do not remain oneeyed.

Amine is precising that jazzmen were applying a very different modal concept, which is called lydian chromatic

Through the poss you all seems discussing whether certain contemporary oud players (in fact almost all is focused on Brahem) are innovating WITHIN THE, say, ORIENTAL OUD MUSIC.
But can we say that contemporary oud's players are modernizing Music (as a whole) not just oriental oud music.
How are they contributing to the developpement of XXIst century (global) music??

Brian Prunka - 12-21-2006 at 11:52 AM

The Lydian Chromatic concept is an (IMO obtuse) theoretical system which was conceived/elaborated by George Russell. It is one way of approaching an improvisational framework, but it is not one used by many modern jazz musicians. It has nothing to do with modal jazz as a style; in fact quite the opposite--its function was to be a unifying system for organizing harmonic movement. It is not a particularly significant system, except for being one of the earliest attempts at a theory of jazz imporvisation. It is not the basis for any style of jazz music, except perhaps George Russell's style.

Zalzal makes an interesting distinction about modernization.
I find the whole concept of modernization largely irrelevant, however, so I don't have a particular opinion about this aspect of it.

amine2 - 12-22-2006 at 03:44 AM

hi brian,
i have trancribed many chosuses of modern jazz players, and i have seen others. i can say that 98% play lydian chromatic. i don't know if you play jazz music, but when you play lydian chromatic it sounds more modal , more modern.
of course there are other conceptions, as dave liebman approach, or mark levine
one's. but most, really most plays lydian chromatic, chromatic means that they can use other modes attached to the lydian accorded to some rules.
miles davis second quintet is the perfect exemple of the perfect application of this concept. eric dolphy, lee konitz, keith jarret trio, chick corea, herbie...
have ever red the lydian chromatic concept? or have you ever tried to applic it?
exuse my bad english.

Brian Prunka - 12-22-2006 at 08:09 AM

Yes Amine, I also have transcribed many jazz solos. I have a master's degree in jazz performance and have been performing jazz professionally for over 10 years.
While the Lydian Chromatic concept can be a useful way of describing things that you hear/play/transcribe, it is largely NOT the way that the performers themselves are conceiving the music. To say that 98% of players play that way is absurd.
It's true that George Russell had an influence on many musicians, but it was more the general influence of creating a theoretical framework for understanding harmony outside of traditional western functions.
Miles was interested in the LCC, and was inspired by it to write some modally-oriented compositions, but it didn't singificantly alter the way he improvised. Bill Evans played with George Russell and was a pioneering "modal" player, but he clearly stated that the concept had interesting ideas but wasn't very useful to him as an approach. Other theorists developed a more cohesive and versatile theoretical approach which more closely parallels the way we hear music. Calling a major scale a lydian scale is a gross misrepresentation--when Keith Jarret playes major, he's playing major, not Lydian. (or Lydian b4 or whatever). It was an influental concept, but is not actually reflected in the way most artists conceive their music.
Lee Konitz studied with Lennie Tristano, who had a completely different theory and was definitely not the Russell concept.
Eric Dolphy was impressed by the system and tried to incorporate it into is playing, but it had a relatively minor role.
You could analyze Benny Goodman and Louis Armstrong according to the LCC if you wanted to, but it hadn't even been invented yet!
And if you really study the improvisations closely, it's obvious that the music is not originating in the LCC.
I've read enough of the LCC to realize that it's an interesting viewpoint, with some useful insights. But as a SYSTEM, it's a stilted, limited way of thinking about music. In fact, this whole early-mid 20th century obession with having a single musical "system" seems to me a bizarre fetish that limits the possibilities in music. Olivier Messiaen's "Technique of my Musical Language" was also very influental (probably influenced Russell, since there are a number of similar concepts). Schoenberg's 12-tone system, Ornette Coleman's Harmolodics, the Arab attempts to systematize the maqamat, etc. all reflect this desire to set limits on music (despite being also attempts to break free of existing limits).
Any system is just one person's way of relating to music. It is interesting and often influental to others, but all serious musicians develop their own personal way of relating to and understanding music. Anyone whose playing is based on someone else's system is doing themselves a tremendous disservice.
The exstension of Gödel's incompleteness theorem is that no complex formal system can be both Complete and also Consistent. The formal musical systems sacrifice completeness for consistency (although the actual originators of these systems were prefectly willing to sacrifice consistency in their application when they deemed completeness more important). Great improvisers strive for completeness.
Anyway, this is an interesting discussion.

amine2 - 12-22-2006 at 11:47 AM

hello brian, it seems tht you don't agree with me.
i wan just to say that koonitz is the saxophonist typical lydian, he always find a way to introduce a lydian scale in a 2,5,1 cadence, or other...
eric dolphy has melanged bop phrases with LCC, and his albums with g.russell are really fantastic.
keith jarrett is a modal pianist, and he plays lydian most of times, you can't make standars sounding like he does if you don't play modal.
bill evans is a special case, because he is, i think a pianist between tonal jazz and modal jazz, he made a innovating cds applicating LCC (kind of blue), and plays with georges russsell (a 2pianos CDs), but he isn't a modal pianist like will be chick corea mc coy or kenny baron... he said that applicating the concept, "isn't lyrrical"...
i think that you didn't understod my bad english, and i should say that every jazz musicien knows this LCC, knows bop, and different others concepts, and then try to prouve his own personnality with all that and go more far... of course you can't play modern jazz is you don't play bop and don't know what is this LCC.
i should also say that applicating LCC means playing not only lydian scale, but about 60ones...and the mesiaen scales, shoenberg, debussy ...are there.
i find that dave liebmann concept is completes g.russel's. do you agree? applicating this two concepts, means playing modal jazz as it should be played.
i think that marc copland plays with difernent systems, and i am so in love with his music. do you know somes of his ideas???
amine

amine2 - 12-22-2006 at 11:51 AM

i want also to say, that most of modern jazzmens play demidiminished scale, (brecker, jarrett, coleman...) and it is a scale wich exist in the scales table of LCC. messian pretended to invent it... and when i say that someone plays lydian it meens that he's playing majority of those scales repertoried on this table.

Brian Prunka - 12-22-2006 at 01:13 PM

Hey Amine,

I think we have a misunderstanding.

I'm not saying that the scales and concepts in Russell's book don't reflect some of what jazz musicians do, or that he didn't influence people's thinking. But as a system, it is not how people are approaching the music. At best, it is a description of certain results.
Konitz is a case in point. He uses the #4 a lot, but if you listen carefully to his lines it's clear that it's coming from either a V7/V or bII7/V (i.e., tonal origins) and not from a lydian scale/mode in most instances.
Russell did not invent these scales, so their use alone does not indicate that people are specifically appying his concepts. Nicolas Slonimsky's Thesaurus of Scales and Melodc Patterns is arguably more influential in regard to octatonic (i.e., diminished) scales etc.
Moreover, Russell's justification for the importance of Lydian (it is the scale that derives from 7 successive P5ths, the 5th being the first overtone besides the octave) lacks a genuine understanding of how overtones and intonational relationships relate to music. By his own logic, the Mixolydian and Dorian should have more primacy, since the tonic is the center of 7 stacked 5ths, making the notes more harmonically related (i.e., F C G D A E B make all the notes most closely related to the tonic if the tonic is G or D).
Furthermore, Pythagorean tuning (i.e., all 5th-derived) is not the primary system of western music (though, interestingly enough it is very influential in Turkish and Arabic music). Much of western harmony is 3rd-based, known as 5-limit just intonation (the 3rd being the next note in overtone series, bring the total # of overtones
involved to 5).

Liebmans's concepts are interesting as well, but I still don't think they apply as a system (unless you happen to be David Liebman).
I think being an improviser eventually means moving beyond systems and connecting your instrument directly to your ears.

I know the sense in which you're using the word modal, but the terminology can be confusing since "modal jazz" means something different from "modal concepts". All the musicians you mentioned employ modal concepts (Chick Corea and McCoy Tyner being extreme examples), but I think they've moved beyond mental concepts in the way they approach music.

I like what I've heard from Marc Copland; what are your favorites?

by the way, I appreciate you making the effort to respond in English.

amine2 - 12-22-2006 at 01:51 PM

thank you brian, i didn't know about nicolas slonimsky, i will serach for his books.
i said that liebman's concepts is intereseting beacause it completes russell's one, and go more far, and it is clear that it is very difficult to sound it like he does.
i call modal jazz all jazz music after kind of blue, (there is some musiciens who stick to old swing and bop jazz of course).

i like the duets of copland with bill carothers "no choice", gary pea<b>rooster</b> "what it says", greg osby"nigth call", dave liebman"bookends", his trio albums "haunted hearts and other ballds....and solo albums "poetic motion", "time within time".
i find he've very poetic playing, and a big knowledge in jazz , modern classical harmny...etc. i've seen him in concert 05december, here in paris, with liebman, it was fantastic, huge, enorme.
besides i like tomasz stanko, john taylor, kenny wheller, keith jarrett, mc coy tyner ....and many others. i like also double bass player peter herbert, i find that he's best bass player nowadays. (itis a subjective viewpoint).
i've a teacher who have worked for his master about marc copland, he's transcribed many of his work.

but i am still thinking that russells concept was important, as it was the first one, it made jazz progress more, and all musicins who come after had to know it as it was the first one. maybe it it has some useless ideas, as everything, but it has opened many doors for a lot of musicians and for me as a student.

what about your favorite musicians?

Brian Prunka - 12-22-2006 at 02:49 PM

Sure, I agree it is important as the first theoretical jazz system and it influenced a lot of people. I was just saying that it's not directly responsible for the way the way modern players compose/improvise, which is what I thought you were saying.

I like Kenny Wheeler and Jarrett, too. I like John Taylor, I think he's on Mark Feldman's new ECM disc, which I hear is excellent.
Also Dave Douglas, Bill Frisell, Mark Turner, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Erik Friedlander, Mehldau, Lee Konitz, Wayne Shorter, Tim Berne, Misha Mengelberg, Herbie, Ron Miles, Marilyn Crispell, and of course Miles Davis, Coltrane, Evans, Tristano, Getz, Cannonball, Booker Little, Mingus, Monk, Ornette, etc.

amine2 - 12-23-2006 at 01:51 AM

what do you think about peter herbert? and tomasz stanko?
john taylor is on feldman's last cd, but i prefer him as a leader with his trio or on solo, and also is duo with wheeler.
there are some albums of dave douglas not really good, but i like an album with chris potter playing bass clarinet. kurt rusenwinkel, i think is one of better jazzgguitarist players. metheny too. :buttrock:

there are some french jazzmusicien not bad, like stephan oliva, jean philllipe viret, thomas savey, daniel humair, baptiste trotignon....

i found nicolas slonimsky's book on the net, i'll reed it.
amine

zalzal - 1-1-2007 at 04:22 AM

Fwg article is coming fm this link
http://insonewsletter.blogspot.com/2006/07/inso-e-newsletters-episo...

It is not very conclusive for me, still the question is good. Are there arab influences contributing to the arise of jazz and blues in north america ??
Behind this question lay another one, how arab music reached africa and west africa and fm there with slavery trade north america.

While reading that "oud is a primarily banjo" i imagined deported african people in north america trying to reproduce oud which they might have seen or used or even have in their imaginaries, provided oud reached west africa during slavery trade.

3. Jazz & Blues -- Arab Influences
by Wafaa' Al-Natheema

The resemblance is close enough to suggest directinfluence, especially in view of the importance of the Gold Coast in the North American slave trade. The famous hollers, those rhapsodic forerunners of the early blues, seem to have derived as much from the Savannah as from the coastal style. At the end of the nineteenth century, Jeannette Robinson Murphy gave an account ofthe black American singing style which leaves no doubtabout its Near Eastern character. Beginning with the most solid pieces of evidence, the instruments.

Mesopotamia seems to have been the birthplace of the bow harp, roughly described as a bent stick with a sound-box at one end and several strings strung between this on the other end. Another very early Mesopotamian invention was the lyre. Later on the oud (lute), which made its appearance in the same area. Lute is the conventional designation of the instrument, but in fact it would be more accurate to describe this ancestor of the whole guitar and fiddle family as a primary banjo, with the sound-box and the strings played with a plectrum, tied onto the broomstick-like finger board.

The reed pipe was another Mesopotamian development. A silver pipe from Ur has actually come down to us from about 2500 BCE, its shape is debatable whether it was single or double. The harps, lyres, lutes and pipes of Mesopotamia spread into Egypt, and later into Greece and mainly through the Greek influence to Rome. Via the Roman empire, they then made their way into northern Europe. From Egypt the same instruments spread south and westward into Africa, where some of them survive to this day: the lyre family in East Africa, and the lute, in its original form, in the more northerly parts of West Africa.

Along with the instruments went the Near Eastern singingstyle. In Africa it can be found in approximately the sameareas at the Near Eastern instruments, and there is everyindication that it prevailed in medieval Europe as well, at least among the upper classes. No sooner had the Islamicinfluence reached its height, around 1300 CE, than it began to recede with the first stirrings of the Renaissance. In one way, the Renaissance was itself the outcome of Oriental influences. Europeans, and especially Italians, took Arab science, culture and financial methods, andwith them started a train of developments which have gone on to this day.

Writing of the United States, Alan Lomax describes 'Southern backwoods singing' as "mostly unaccompanied, rubato, highly ornamented and solo; the voice oriental, high-pitched and nasal, produced out of a tense body and throat".

A. M. Jones gives much the same description of the Afro-Arab style: "The Islamic tradition can at once be recognized by the very nasal and string quality of voice that is invariably used. But added to the nasal vocalization there is the very frequent use of mordents to embellish the melody notes. "The African style, too, was taken across the Atlantic. Latenineteenth century commentators remarked on it.

jazzchiss - 1-8-2007 at 03:25 AM

Interesting information about Brahem and the european jazz

http://vagos.es/70459-anouar-brahem-john-surman-dave-holland-thimar...

zalzal - 1-8-2007 at 03:30 AM

Ha ha
vagos means lazy people in spanish