Jazz guitar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The term jazz guitar refers to several aspects of the guitar as it is used in jazz and jazz fusion music. The term may refer to a type of guitar or to the variety of jazz playing styles (e.g. chords, melodies, and improvised solo lines) performed by guitarists in different jazz genres. These jazz guitar styles were developed by decades of influential jazz guitarists. The guitar has a long history in jazz music, both as an ensemble instrument performing chordal accompaniment, and as a solo instrument.
In jazz ensembles of the 1920s, the banjo was the standard stringed, chord-playing rhythm instrument. Even as late as the early 1930s sophisticated jazz orchestras such as Duke Ellington's still used a banjo. In the late 1930s, guitar began being used in jazz ensembles to provide rhythmic chordal accompaniment, and by the 1940s, some guitarists began also playing a solo role. In the 1950s, jazz guitar became an important small combo instrument, a role that was continued in the 1960s and 1970s-era organ trios. In the 1970s and 1980s, a new language for jazz guitar was developed by the merging of jazz and rock styles in jazz fusion.
Contents |
[edit] Type of guitar
While jazz can be played on any type of guitar, from an acoustic instrument to a solid-bodied electric guitar such as a Fender Stratocaster, the archtop guitar has become known as the prototypical "jazz guitar." Archtop guitars are steel-string acoustic guitars with a big soundbox, arched top, violin-style "F" holes, a "floating bridge" and magnetic or piezoelectric pickups. Early makers of jazz guitars included Gibson, Epiphone, D'Angelico and Stromberg.
The earliest guitars used in jazz were acoustic. While acoustic guitars are still sometimes used in jazz, most jazz guitarists since the 1940s have performed on an amplified electric guitar, typically an archtop with a magnetic pickup. In the 1990s, there was a resurgence of interest among jazz guitarists in acoustic archtop guitars with floating pickups. Sitka spruce, European spruce, and Engelmann spruce are most often used for the resonant tops of archtop and flattop guitars, although some guitar builders use Adirondack Spruce (Red Spruce), or Western Red Cedar. Archtop guitars often have Curly Maple or Quilted Maple backs.
Mass-produced archtop guitars are made by several different manufacturers. There are also a smaller number of handmade archtop and flattop guitars made on a small scale. Builders of handmade guitars take about six months to make each jazz guitar. Builders have to spend time choosing the maples, spruces and exotic woods, building the instrument, adding decorative inlays and purfling, and applying a hand-rubbed lacquer finish. [1] The most expensive archtop guitars may have a range of high-end features, such as "boutique" pickups with hand-wound magnets, wooden volume and tone knobs, and built-in condenser microphones, piezoelectric pickups, and preamplifiers.
[edit] Playing styles
Jazz guitar playing styles include "comping" with jazz chord voicings (and in some cases , walking basslines) and "blowing" (improvising) over jazz chord progressions with jazz-style phrasing and ornaments.
[edit] Comping
When jazz guitarists play chords underneath a song's melody or another musician's solo improvisations, it is called "comping", a portmanteau of "accompanying" and complementing. The accompanying style in most jazz styles differs from the way chordal instruments accompany in many popular styles of music. In many popular styles of music, such as rock and pop, the rhythm guitarist usually performs the chords in rhythmic fashion which sets out the beat or groove of a tune. In contrast, in many modern jazz styles, the guitarist plays much more sparsely, interminging periodic chords and delicate voicings into pauses in the melody or solo, and using periods of silence.
Jazz guitarists use their knowledge of jazz theory and harmony to create jazz chord "voicings," which are usually rootless and which emphasize the 3rd and 7th notes of the chord. Some more sophisticated chord voicings also include the 9th, 11th, and 13th notes of the chord. In some modern jazz styles, dominant 7th chords in a tune may contain altered 9ths (either flattened by a semitone, which is called a "flat 9th", or sharpened by a semitone, which is called a "sharp 9th"); 11ths (sharpened by a semitone, which is called a "sharp 11th"); 13ths (typically flattened by a semitone, which is called a "flat 13th").
Jazz guitarists need to learn about a range of different chords, including Major 7th, Major 6th, minor 7th, minor (with Major 7th) dominant 7th, diminished, half-diminished, and augmented chords. As well, they need to learn about chord transformations (e.g., altered chords, such as "alt dominant chords" described above), chord substitutions, and re-harmonization techniques. Some jazz guitarists use their knowledge of jazz scales and chords to provide a walking bass-style accompaniment.
Jazz guitarists learn to perform these chords over the range of different chord progressions used in jazz, such as the II-V-I progression, the jazz-style blues progression, the minor jazz-style blues form, the "rhythm changes" progression, and the variety of chord progressions used in jazz ballads, and jazz standards. Guitarists may also learn to use the chord types, strumming styles, and effects used in 1970s-era jazz-latin, jazz-funk, and jazz-rock fusion music.
[edit] Improvising
When jazz guitar players improvise, they use the scales, modes, and arpeggios associated with the chords in a tune's chord progression. Jazz guitarists have to learn how to use scales (whole tone scale, chromatic scale, etc.) to solo over chord progressions. Jazz guitar improvising is not merely the recitation of jazz scales and rapid arpeggios. Jazz guitarists need to learn to use these basic building blocks of scales and arpeggio patterns and integrate them into balanced rhythmic and melodic phrases that make up a cohesive solo.
Jazz guitarists often try to imbue their melodic phrasing with the sense of natural breathing and legato phrasing used by horn players such as saxophone players. As well, a jazz guitarists' solo improvisations have to have a rhythmic drive and "timefeel" that creates a sense of "swing" and "groove." The most experienced jazz guitarists learn to play with different "timefeels" such as playing "ahead of the beat" or "behind the beat," to create or release tension.
Another aspect of the jazz guitar style is the use of stylistically appropriate ornaments, such as grace notes, slides, and muted notes. Each sub-genre or era of jazz has different ornaments that are part of the style of that sub-genre or era. Jazz guitarists usually learn the appropriate ornamenting styles by listening to prominent recordings from a given style or jazz era.
Some jazz guitarists also borrow ornamentation techniques from other jazz instruments, such as Wes Montgomery's borrowing of playing melodies in parallel octaves, which is a jazz piano technique. Jazz guitarists also have to learn how to add in passing tones, use "guide tones" and chord tones from the chord progression to structure their improvisations, and create "chord solos" by adding the song's melody on top of the chord voicings.
[edit] References
- ^ AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2004 51 50 INSIDE NORTHSIDE http://www.fosterguitars.com/Jimmy-Foster-ISNS.pdf
[edit] External links
- Yahoo Jazz Guitar Group - Jazz Guitar discussion group on Yahoo
- Jazz Guitar FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) site for the Yahoo Jazz Guitar discussion group
- Classic Jazz Guitar: a website about jazz guitarists and their music from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s.
- Jazz Guitar Forum: Jazz guitar forum with discussions on jazz guitar chords, improvisation, scales, arpeggios, chord-melodies, and music theory.
[edit] See also
- List of jazz guitarists - a list of notable jazz guitarists
- Jazz guitarists- a timeline of the most influential, widely-known jazz guitarists
- Swing (jazz performance style), a term of praise for playing that has a strong rhythmic "groove" or drive
|
||||||||||||||||
