None of what you're saying is anything i disagree with.Most of it is backing up what i was trying(probably poorly) to get at.
There are plenty of reasons and players to bring up as being absent in Palmer's playing if someone is arguing he is heavily jazz infulenced or even jazz capable, before getting to Dejohnette, who hit the scene in the latter portions of the 60s.That's no dig at Dejohnette.
I think you're taking that stance too far(though this is getting too off-topic really)I've dug and played with many jazz players who i didn't feel were great strict or steady timekeepers, but could certainly still swing.One of the generally agreed on greatest ever jazz drummers Tony Williams was not a particularly strong timekeeper by any standards jazz or rock- often rushing or dragging fills and patterns against the band's flow like palmer does, or randomly dropping the limb he was keeping time on out, and sometimes losing the beat momentarily with one limb when playing more complex figures with others.The latter was also because he was never the strongest of players from a four way independence point of view, but it never bothered me because he always had the overall feel down right and had plenty of strengths in other areas.
The spectrum is no different in jazz drumming than for rock\latin(even if the general level is higher) and i say that as someone who has been drumming in all those contexts since i was a child.You get your flawless timekeepers(some who are great players, some with not much in the way of ideas) and your less solid players with enough going on in other areas to make up for that in the eyes of many.Palmer would fall into the latter category, a divisive player where strict timekeeping was never his strength(and enough to annoy some), but it certainly wasn't dreadful, just unsteady at times.Dreadful timekeepers won't last in many groups regardless of genre.
I have to reply to this, and forgive me for quoting myself from another thread but I just don't feel like typing it all again.
I want to add that I'm in the camp that agrees his timing has issues but that ultimately it doesn't hurt the music. Rather, it helps the music to feel exciting to me. I will say, though, that his hi-hat playing is often pretty stiff. So no, he's not a perfect player but he still has other strengths which IMO absolutely do bring life and excitement to the music.
"I tah dah nur!" - Ike
Thanks...I did not know that....but it still doesn't change that his time overall sucks, that was always just the biggest example; his time is weak on pretty much everything he did with ELP.
To each their own, but as a musician who has had to play, on occasion, with drummers with bad time - and, in my early days, as a guitarist whose time needed considerable improvement - all I can tell you is it's hard to play with a guitarist, a keyboardist, a horn man, etc with bad time; it's brutal trying to play with a drummer with bad time. So when I hear one, all I can think of is how hard it must be to work with this guy.I want to add that I'm in the camp that agrees his timing has issues but that ultimately it doesn't hurt the music. Rather, it helps the music to feel exciting to me. I will say, though, that his hi-hat playing is often pretty stiff. So no, he's not a perfect player but he still has other strengths which IMO absolutely do bring life and excitement to the music.
...but thanks for the anecdotal correction; first I've heard of it, so many thanks! I'll not use it again
I agree totally with you, you may be surprised to hear. Actually, a little fluctuation is what makes us human (and what makes Peart, as technically gifted as he is, always sound so stiff. The question is degree. Some drummers, though, like Jim Keltner, play so far behind the beat as to make it sound to some as if he's dragging, but he's not; he's giving it a relaxed vibe, whereas someone like Stewart Copeland, who tends to play right on top of the beat, makes it feel a little rushed but exciting.
Guys like Steve Gadd do, indeed, fluctuate a little, but the key word is: little. A certain degree of rushing or pulling back can make the music feel laidback or exhilarating; too much just feels bad and is hard to play to. Palmer is, I'm afraid, just too much.
But I am, actually, in agreement with you.
The spectrum is no different in jazz drumming than for rock\latin(even if the general level is higher) and i say that as someone who has been drumming in all those contexts since i was a child.You get your flawless timekeepers(some who are great players, some with not much in the way of ideas) and your less solid players with enough going on in other areas to make up for that in the eyes of many.Palmer would fall into the latter category, a divisive player where strict timekeeping was never his strength(and enough to annoy some), but it certainly wasn't dreadful, just unsteady at times.Dreadful timekeepers won't last in many groups regardless of genre.[/QUOTE]
I know it was no dig; just sayin' that Jack hit the scene mid-'60s, as i documented earlier. Those Lloyd records sold big numbers, thrusting him (along with Jarrett) into the spotlight very early - and very quickly. I've no issue with your overall comments, only about the timing.
Cheers!
Jon
I'm not talking about perfect meter; I'm talking about good meter. As for the attitude of the jazz players in your area, that's way too bad, because many of the big names, while having a clear predilection for jazz, are simply music lovers - I spend a lot of time talking to many of them, and we don't just talk jazz (these days, in fact, we're talking a lot about grateful dead, but prog comes up just as often). So it's a shame; it's that kind of elitism that hurts the music, that's for sure.
And that's fine. But I'm glad you've said that the drama lacking in jazz is for you; for me, as someone who listens to just about anything (not just jazz), I find drama can exist in any pretty much any genre of music. But clearly prog is your thing and that's cool. But whether the drums are higher in the mix or lower has nothing to do with time. Bruford's drums were often high in the mix with Yes, but his time was very good (not perfect). There are very few players who you could call perfect; but they've ot to be at a certain level of some base competencies: a drummer's got to have good time (well, really, everyone in a band should), while singers, violinists and other string instruments without frets need good intonation. These are base skills that are needed, when working in a band, as their lack makes the player's deficiencies all the more obvious.
Just my opinion, of course, but there are plenty of musicians - jazz or otherwise (why do you think Steven Wilson plays with guys like Marco Minnemann, Chad Wackerman and, in PT, Gavin Harrison?) - who'd support that belief.
But, when it comes to enjoying the music as a fan, absolutely to each their own...there is, after all, a reason(s) why Carl Palmer, for example, is so popular...
The material we are working on covering as a tribute to this era and genre, has our drummer very busy reproducing the work of drummers like Peart, Bruford, Collins, Palmer, Bonnam, Weathers, Mason, Bozzio, Gadd & Purdie, Copeland, Thompson, along with various drummers for Jethro Tull, Focus and Atomic Rooster depending on the songs. His opinion is very high when he speaks of John Weathers.... and when he has an opinion about a drummers work I take his word for it.
I hope we can do some of GG's material to John's liking. I hope he see's another generation taking up the torch. I hope the originals we write as a group are well recieved as well. There will always be those who will take notes and find fault I am sure.[/QUOTE]
I'm sorry for taking this off the rails, guys, but I need to answer this one more thing and I'll sto:
1. It went off the rails when, in discussing Weathers, someone brought up Palmer as a pinnacle; I wanted to rebut, since I totally disagree (and with supportable reasons);
2. Re DeJohnette, I simply wanted to correct the notion of when he emerged into the public eye.
However, this talk about a "jazz ego"? Seriously, you talk about its "small but dedicated group of followers." Why, then are there so many successful jazz festivals around the world (hundreds, for sure; maybe even thousands), when the number of prog festivals can almost be counted on two hands? If you want to talk about "small but dedicated group of followers," you need to look in the mirror, CP; I'm a huge prog fan, too, but while jazz doesn't have the audience it had when it was the pop music of the day (up until the mid-'50s), I assure you its audience is far from small. How would you explain All About Jazz having had anywhere between half a million and a million unique visitors (not hits; that's different) each and every month (last year, the annual total was 7.8 million)?
Size does not matter, though, so I am not using those numbers to say jazz is better than anything else.....and as per a previous reply, a great many of the artists I speak with who are largely jazz players, listen to and love all kinds of music outside its borders. For most of them, it's all music, and they love it all.
If you are talking about "musicians advertizing to others" when the solo, jazz may have been, to some extent, a competitive sport when bebop emerged, but this idea that all jazzers are about chops and style over substance, you've just not been hearing the right folks. Bill Frisell, for example, is a player who never sacrifices the meaning of a tune to allow for his own virtuosity; ditto vibraphonist Joe Locke, one of the most melodic cats around. There are many, many more.
If there's a "jazz ego," it's something not shared by most of the good ones.
Ok, folks, I'm done.
John Weathers was a motherfucker with Giant, giving them the balls they needed to balance out their more esoteric nature.
Best!
John
Well as long as someone is done with the Jazz....was not trying to strike a nerve just saying it like I see it. You have good points.. And I must say your last sentence sums up the John Weathers topic quite well.... A little tough to quote it and put it in print, but to the point.
It seems the rest of all this is a debate I'd love to be a small part of, if I had the time and it was really worth ANYTHING....I think many of us have good points.... but who really cares. Perhaps in another life.
I set the Gentle Giant aside today we have our set choices for now. Playing the Game, and if our keyboardist can finish it.... "I Lost My Head"
I find myself going over what Focus material I have around here... I think we might add "Birth" to the lists..... that's a fun song. and not often heard anywhere.
If your a fan, listen to an old prog recording today..... it'll do you good. If your a musician try and learn a new trick! It keeps you young.
Randy
Done intentionally to protect my writing for copyright reason
That's a little easy out, don't you think? I mean, I'm sorry for participating in derailing the thread, but clearly people do really care, otherwise they'd not engage here or in any of the many threads on this forum, no? I know I do
On that we agree. One of the things I've been noticing, especially in jazz but elsewhere too, is that the players who don't rest on laurels and continue to try and move forward with their music seem to really just keep on until they can't keep on no mo'. I look at artists like Bill Frisell, John Scofield, Pat Metheny and others (just picking guitarists for convenience), and they've in many ways never been busier with more projects than they are now, even as they are in or fast approaching their 60s.
For me, it's actually very encouraging. I feel the same way about the writing I'm doing. I honestly don't see myself stopping what I'm doing until something forces me to...and hopefully doing this will help prevent it from actually happening.
Cheers!
John
OK
Funny because it's true.
Hey, there's no gauge to measure this by. Time/tempo is a deep subject. You can play in back, in front or in the middle of the beat while keeping the tempo steady. Trouble is, sometimes when a drummer is playing in back or in front, the bass player and/or other players might not "get" that that's his intent and they'll try to lock in to where he's at... and the whole tempo starts to drag (if he's playing in back) or rush (if he's playing in front).
As far as tempo elasticity is concerened: personally I don't expect or even necessarily want metronomic time from anybody, but I want them to understand "the big picture." What that means is that the general tempo of the tune should always be somewhere in the back of one's mind and should not be forgotten long enough to stray too far away from it. Some grooves that feel good in one tempo don't feel so good a couple of notches higher or lower on the metronome.
Yeah, it's really about feel- for the players and the listener. You can mess with the tempo and it feels right, and you can do it and it feels wrong. Conversely, there are guys that have millisecond precision that feel amazing, and those that do that feel terrible. I actually think Carl went too far back the other way- his timing is precise now, but he feels horribly stiff because I personally don't think he has dynamics. I miss the Carl of the first three ELP albums. That dude swung. He's an amazingly nice guy and he has chops I'll never have in this lifetime. But I really don't care for his playing post Trilogy. It's just a taste thing. John Weathers had X factor.
It's not empirical, it's absolutely a feel thing, but I guess all I can say is this: I've never heard anyone criticize Steve Gadd, Jim Keltner or Elvin Jones for having minor temporal fluctuations, but I'm not the only person (though it does seem so around here) who, over the years, has criticized Carl Palmer's time.
Sorry, can't be more definitive; maybe a drummer could pipe in and talk about how many clicks is too much, but I cannot quantify it for ya. What I do know is that when you are comparing the first three drummers i mentioned with the last one, we are talking substantial differences.
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