Post What Jazz You're Listening To

Hey Jazz guys - serious question: I can’t get into Jazz guitarists. I’m not really a jazz enthusiast per se, but Coltranes Love Supreme is possibly my desert island album. Every listen feels electric to me, living, breathing, just incredible. Yet most jazz guitar seems to be so sleepy and lacking in those dynamic qualities.

Is there a guitar version of Coltrane, and who is it?
 
@Hodgo post some Coltrane, it doesn't have to be jazz guitarists in the thread.

You probably want to find some dynamic bebop style player. Perhaps Grant Green, for example. Or posted earlier in the thread, Emily Remler.
 
Hodgo said:
Hey Jazz guys - serious question: I can’t get into Jazz guitarists. I’m not really a jazz enthusiast per se, but Coltranes Love Supreme is possibly my desert island album. Every listen feels electric to me, living, breathing, just incredible. Yet most jazz guitar seems to be so sleepy and lacking in those dynamic qualities.

Is there a guitar version of Coltrane, and who is it?
Click to expand...
Check out this guy. Bill Frisell's playing is sort of in this vein as well.
 
Frank Gimbale...
There was a time when the album "The Light Beyond" was constantly on the play list.
Franks got some "stuff"!
 
Pat Metheny! What a force!!! I've been following him since "American Garage". When I turned my older brother, who lives for blues/rock, on to it he knew I had turned to the dark side. HAH! The concerned look in his eye. I can still see it today!
We have tickets to see Metheny solo next month at the Clyde in Ft.Wayne, Indiana next month.
WAHOOIE!
 
If you can't trace a line through McLaughlin to Coltrane, buddy, you ain't listenin'.

See also Jimmy Herring in his more adventuresome mode.
 
Hodgo said:
Hey Jazz guys - serious question: I can’t get into Jazz guitarists. I’m not really a jazz enthusiast per se, but Coltranes Love Supreme is possibly my desert island album. Every listen feels electric to me, living, breathing, just incredible. Yet most jazz guitar seems to be so sleepy and lacking in those dynamic qualities.

Is there a guitar version of Coltrane, and who is it?
Click to expand...

I think there are a lot of players who think copping the Wes Montgomery tone profile and emulating his style to whatever degree they are technically able is close enough for jazz, as the saying goes. I would submit that these guys are rewarded by listeners who want to be comforted by hearing more of what they already know they like. And there are a lot of listeners (and players) who don't really grok the difference between players who tend to hang out in that hollow-body-neck-pickup-tone-rolled-off soundscape, even when they are producing vastly disparate musical ideas.

But there are hordes of guitar players doing very interesting things out there. John Zorn, Bill Frisell, Julian Lage, Mary Halvorson, Pasquale Grasso, Wayne Krantz, Gilad Hekselman, etc., etc. You won't always find the fire you experience with A Love Supreme, but there's some decidedly fiery playing out there, and by "fiery" I don't just mean fast - I mean passionate, engaging, challenging.

Anyway, y'all have a nice day.
 
I remember when I first read the word Grok, in that Heilien book that everyone said was great (it was so great the only thing I remember about it is that it involved aliens) anyway, I'm like what is that grok business? But now I understand.
 
bagman67 said:
I think there are a lot of players who think copping the Wes Montgomery tone profile and emulating his style to whatever degree they are technically able is close enough for jazz, as the saying goes. I would submit that these guys are rewarded by listeners who want to be comforted by hearing more of what they already know they like. And there are a lot of listeners (and players) who don't really grok the difference between players who tend to hang out in that hollow-body-neck-pickup-tone-rolled-off soundscape, even when they are producing vastly disparate musical ideas.

But there are hordes of guitar players doing very interesting things out there. John Zorn, Bill Frisell, Julian Lage, Mary Halvorson, Pasquale Grasso, Wayne Krantz, Gilad Hekselman, etc., etc. You won't always find the fire you experience with A Love Supreme, but there's some decidedly fiery playing out there, and by "fiery" I don't just mean fast - I mean passionate, engaging, challenging.

Anyway, y'all have a nice day.
Click to expand...
Hey @bagman67, here is a fiery jazz player - who interestingly, as he has grown older, is probably one of those "hollow body neck pickup" guys you're talking about, and can sound a lot like George Benson (the two of whom are close friends, btw). But he sounds nothing like he's coming from that "tone rolled off soundscape" here. Take a listen to Henry Johnson, playing with Ramsey Lewis' band, in his earlier period. And I have to say, he does that "smooth jazz" thing better than just about anybody.
 
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Here's some more Henry Johnson, from a later "more mature" period. Once you get past the (long) piano part, there's some really good guitar for pretty much the rest of the song.
 
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