Wes Montgomerey's solo on Grooveyard

Thanks to Pere Soto for this transcription

Grooveyard

You GOTTA BE ORIGINAL Part 2- by Tim Price

BOMBAY BAR WALKING-


The point here is to emphasize what Rilling calls the "architecture" of the music. For example, the way Pablo Casals varied the tempo according to what he was trying to convey. Indian music and jazz are much in the same.

Hopefully, what's going to be remembered, I hope, is going to be the intertwining of the present living person whoever it is, whether it's Casals or Tim Price, YOU ,Ray Pizzi, Claire Daly or Lester Young in the context of the art form, its tradition, its future, its present, and that whole mixture together. I have great respect for the "tradition," the rules, and playing it within context and everything, I think it's great, but…what are YOU creating as an offering.

Try to think the term "syntax" , which means a vernacular, a way of speaking. This music is speech and dialect. And there is a way of speaking. A common form and feeling. The vibe of a sax player who walks the bar and a guy cross legged in India in a trance blowing –It’s all the same- they BOTH are after the same thing. It’s…that THANG…that place the music goes.

Like that groove that exists in R &B AND Jazz and Indian ragas.In essence, we really have something called the language, the syntax, the vernacular, and it's immediately transferable to personal creation anyway. So in jazz, the art form itself says you're supposed to individualize it , that's the point . All that's understood, but your goal is not to repeat or to objectify this thing. It's to take it and have it be a living thing that you put your personality on. The goal sould be- to try to bring a spiritual dimension to the music.Be it some booty shaking funky jazz, a swinging standard or your agenda.


I feel that the music speaks absolutely louder than any dogma, any words can speak at all. And in the end, the music is connected- there's a great book by Hazrat Inayat Khan of the Sufis. <> It's about how music ties into the "realms" and everything like that. It's just an understood, it's a given.

In my thinking it is an artist's duty is to try to get in touch with that vibe through his work. It's the work and it's the art that will do. SO.. it's freedom, individual creativity !! Not button pushing nor trying to sound like the flavor of the month or the guy on a DownBeat cover.Nobody can be a better YOU than YOU. It is obviously possible, as many do, to improvise within certain stylistic or other constraints.<> While this is perfectly valid, and while it transcends such constraints, such as simplicity vs complexity, tonal vs atonal, intellectual vs intuitive, and so on. A step towards music-making where all possibilities can be genuinely embraced.There is a strong sense in which this really is playing music. Approached like this, it unlocks the natural, spontaneous creativity within each participant who lets the process flow deep and operates simultaneously on many levels. This is a very liberating experience and is often found to be therapeutic as well. It feels good to start from zero, or just be you.


So this is what's going on now, what I'm thinking about, kind of a PART 2, to last weeks rico blog;

I hope you enjoy it-

Peace and goodwill to you all, Tim Price
( Forum Admin for RICO REEDS )

Bill Anschell's Treatise on Careers in Jazz

Seattle pianist/humorist Bill Anschell just send me his newest treatise on Jazz. This one perfectly details every possible career path of a Jazz musician. Bill is painfully spot on and always hilarious. The world of the Jazz musician has never been more meticulously and accurately portrayed. You'll be laughing when you read this thing, but you'll really feel like crying.

Which one are you???

Career's in Jazz

Bill Anschell's web site

Jazz on the Tube- Jazz video search engine

Jazz on the Tube

Intuition and Imagination- Tim Price blogs for Rico

Tim Price has been blogging for Rico Reeds on MySpace and Facebook for a while now. He has written some very interesting stuff that is well worth a read. The article below is his most recent post about the higher states of consciousness reached by improvisers.

"Tim Price here for RICO REEDS, This is what is on my mind as we go into the end of August.

Using your intuition and feelings when improvising is most important be it at the most advanced level or just a basic beginner. To thoroughly approach this as an art form and something that has deep meaning is most important. The masters when they played, be it Johnny Dodds or Sidney Bechet or Bud Powell on through the greats like Wayne Shorter or Charlie Mariano all came from a very deep place. At times, this place is something that you must go to in a natural way. Nothing cosmic about it, it's almost like a trance. It's almost like when your telling someone a story and you close your eyes and you're taking them somewhere with you. Art Pepper wrote a song about this called "The Trip." Stan Getz called this frame of mind the "alpha state."

Whether its experienced in dreams, altered states, or simply sitting in solitude, the artist must be aware of the visionary realm. In Buddhist culture and other forms of spiritual thought, this is called the "third eye." It is the sixth in the series of energy centers in the body known as Charka. The sixth Charka contains and controls knowledge, intuition, and perception. Inherent to any of these philosophies of the "third eye" is recognition and attention paid to the source of human creativity. This human creativity can be one of the deepest subconscious forms of communication in the world. Opening your thoughts to the unknown realms of your own imagination. Many times musicians inquest to unlock the force behind this theory of the eye has shadowed their colleagues throughout ancient history. In my humble opinion, the subconscious travel that one can take studying Buddhism or any of those particular forms runs a very strong parallel to the stunning body of work of many jazz saxophone players.

How many times have we witnessed a player deep in a trance way beyond the environment he is in, whether it's a club, or a concert or just in a corner practicing? He's in another space for sure! What I have experienced is a kind of network between the people improvising (a mental network you could say) where many are connected and there is a kind of dialogue going on without any words being spoken.Like the great bands of Miles Davis or Wayne Shorter or John Coltrane.

I'm pretty sure that many times, a person sitting cross-legged in deep meditation is in the same spiritual space as a tenor sax player behind a bar with a screaming organ trio and his eyes closed...playing from the deepest spot in his soul. What I'm getting at here is nothing cosmic or nothing too whacked out...what I'm trying to bring your attention is music needs all the imagination from an individual it can get. When unconscious-unspoken communication, traveling at the speed of thought, becomes the only or at least the truest form of communication, you just know everything is clicking just like it should ... the energy is like a ball and bounces around through glances and body comunication.It is awesome, it's the inner spirit of your mind in it's highest form.

At this point in time in jazz, everything seems to be published and everything seems to almost be written down. We are in a great educational state. But where are the people who are really reaching within and trusting themselves to their own creative muse? This is the element that I am addressing here. As a student of music, take some time to think about using your intuition. As Bird said, "First you master the music, then you master your horn, then you forget all that shit and just play!"

We need to keep that in the front part of our minds and make that a slogan similar to the many people who look to their "third eye." As you see, I'm trying to point out a parallel in creative paths. It's not easy. But it is easy when you bring it into your own consciousness and try to practice these aspects. Sure, licks, lines, inversions, and all that good stuff is of paramount importance. But let us not forget to keep the magic in the music.
Give all that you have and you shall receive more than you can imagine experiencing when playing jazz!

Your gratitude empowers others to play even better. Remember fear destroys the souls ability to create. So start now and use the power of love to encompass all your decisions so fear has no room to exist in your life. Remove fear from your thoughts and you remove and limitations. All is illusion and all illusion is yours to control. So be connected. Everything happens for a reason. Chance is limited to a coin. Decision is limited to free will. We are limited to our decisions.

So decide to burn and get down with the music you love. Decide to bring something to the music.

The word is ~ imagination !!

See you next week- and thanks."

Tim Price

Rico Reed Facebook page

Telling a Story- Joel Frahm Master Class

Last week I was in the Czech Republic teaching at the Prague International Summer Jazz Workshop. It was an amazing experience all the way around- teachers staff, students, the city; everything was fantastic. The two other saxophone teachers just happened to be two of my favorite saxophonists on the planet. The first, Joel Frahm, is a rising tenor star on the NYC scene. The first thing that attracted me about Joel's playing was his sound, which to me is the ideal tenor sound. The recordings that I'd heard of Joel before the workshop sounded very good, though a little tame. I wasn't prepared for the monstrous saxophonist that I head in person. Joel really has it all; huge warm sound, ridiculous technique, hard swinging feel, total awareness of tradition, melodic sense, expressive ability, and modern post-bop facility. He's also warm, generous and entertaining guy. Hanging with Joel, and the other teachers, for a week had quite an effect on my teaching style and on my musical concept in general.

The other saxophonist was a Hungarian alto saxophonist from Budapest named Kristof Basco. I had run across Kristof's MySpace page about a year or two ago. After listening to the pages of literally hundreds saxophonists from all over the world I found Kristof to be one of the most interesting alto players I had ever heard, easily my favorite cat in all of Europe. Kristof studied at Berklee about 10 years after I did, spent some time in NYC and then moved back home to Budapest. He thinks like a composer when constructing his solos, building them thoughtfully and slowly. He's one of the few players to really have a complete awareness of motivic development. His tone is dark and rich, one of the few guys with what I consider to be a real alto sound.

I plan on doing interviews in the future for this blog with both of these saxophonists, so keep checking back.

Joel gave a very inspiring master class during the workshop called Telling a Story. I think it was definitely one of the most interesting master classes I have ever attended. Angus Grundy, one of the students in my combo class, recorded it and then made detailed notes on time markings and topics.

Telling a Story- Joel Frahm's Master Class
Notes to Joel Frahm's Master Class

Joel Frahm's home page
Czech Jazz Society
Paval Wlosok photography.

Three-horn chart of Equinox (C minor)

Equinox

Three-horn chart of Black Narcissus

Black Narcissus

The Minutes Go Like Hours When You SIng

Here's a very funny song about that singer who always wants to sit in on the gig. This is a classic.

The Minutes Go Like Hours When You Sing

David McGillicuddy's guitar lessons on YouTube

Here are some nice guitar lessons that my buddy David just posted on YouTube:

McGillicuddy's guitar lessons

New Matt Otto album- download for donation

My old buddy Matt Otto just posted another entire album on his blog. Otto is a sideman on this project and the band leader is Josh Welchez. It's called Lost and Found.

He's doing another "download for donation" a la Radio Head. If you like the music you are invited to donate however much you feel it's worth to you, no pressure. I always love everything Matt does. I can't wait to listen to this stuff, maybe when everything calms down a little....

Lost and Found

Document for Prague International Summer Jazz Workshop

I put together a PDF document with a lot of my articles on harmony and improvisation, as well as key material from other books. This will be the material that I'll be having my students work from during the International Prague Summer Jazz Workshop, which begins this coming weekend.

I will continue to add to this document in the future, but there's a lot of useful material here already.

Casa Valdez Jazz Workshop Document

Friends, stress, moving and travelling

That's for all the great comments and friend requests on Facebook. I haven't had much time to respond to all of you because my life has been incredibly stressful lately. If you're thinking about buying or selling a house right now- DON'T. I've spent everyday on the phone over the last few months with real estate agents, mortgage brokers, roofers, painters, city planners, contractors, and window guys. It has been getting more and more insane and as we're getting closer to closing on the house we're selling and the house we're buying. All the regulations for appraisers and lenders has just recently changed and we're the first batch of people to get screwed by them. I never want to go through this hellish torture again for the rest of my life.

If everything goes as planned, and so far nothing has, I'll be signing papers and moving next Tuesday. Thursday I leave to teach at the Prague International Summer Jazz Workshop. No pressure or anything.

I've commissioned Dan Gaynor to arrange a bunch more three horn charts for me, which I'll be posting here for all of you, most of these new charts are Lawrence Williams originals. Keep checking back because I'll be posting this material soon.

The art of Lawrence Williams

The last few years of Lawrence Williams' life were fraught with health problems and financial setbacks, but he never let himself get discouraged or depressed by them. Even when he lost his leg and couldn't play the drums anymore he treated it as a minor setback (if that). His reaction was to just compose more music and to start working with pastels. I've never met anyone with as much inner strength as Lawrence possessed. He was always highly grateful for everything that he experienced, even things that most people would consider tragedies. To Lawrence, these life struggles were simply opportunities to take stock of his life and to learn to grow as a person. He always had another grand musical project planned, and though these sounded like grandiose fantasies at the time, more often than naught he actually pulled them off.

I hope you appreciate the Lawrence Williams charts that I've been posting here. You won't find this music anywhere else. It's really amazing stuff.

Here is a video clip of an interview I did with Lawrence in 2002.

Here's an album of Lawrence's beautiful pastels that I posted on Flikr.

Two horn chart of Warne Marsh's Background Music

Background Music