Metheny-Mehldau in the NYTimes

[etherbored]

cj; these are good albums, not great albums.

[Joe G]

this reminds me, too, why, doesn't Pat ever use FUZZ or does he sometimes & i missed it? it's the plinky-dink cleanliness of jazz gtr that drives a lot of people batshit. now you can say effects/distortion were over, poorly used in rock but still... tho' Frissell annoys me most of the time these days (bc he's gone way candyass), thee great contribution he made to "jazz" guitar concept is to reclaim the pop/rock spectrum as sound source.

edc

He uses full distortion here and there: most notably on Gary Thomas' 'Till We Have Faces; occasionally with the PMG (Half Life of Absolution from Live in Europe), one track on the new M/M, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting. He's not known for that type of tone, though, clearly. I think the synth is his answer to it... take it from me - distortion is a wild and crazy animal, hard to control. It often seems to be "not quite right", especially for jazz-type lines.

You might check out Frisell's contribution to Cuong Vu's It's Mostly Residual. Nothing candyass about it, and a great fuzztone.

[AllenLowe]

well, I don't think any jazz guitarists use real distortion - more likley digitally modeled distortion - and this is one of my biggest complaints about jazz guitar in general, but not just jazz guitar, also most rock guitar as well - players have lost the direct sonic connection between string pressure, pickups, tube compression, and speaker, have lost that wonderfully varied sound of people like Pat Hare and Junior Barnard. It just ain't the same thing anymore, unless you are me and - sorry no freebies you'll haved to buy the cd - and recording with nice low powered tube amp circuits -

Edited April 13, 2007 by AllenLowe

[Jim Alfredson]

Allen, you must not be listening to a lot of blues guys. For them, it's all about the tube amp.

[7/4]

this reminds me, too, why, doesn't Pat ever use FUZZ or does he sometimes & i missed it? it's the plinky-dink cleanliness of jazz gtr that drives a lot of people batshit. now you can say effects/distortion were over, poorly used in rock but still... tho' Frissell annoys me most of the time these days (bc he's gone way candyass), thee great contribution he made to "jazz" guitar concept is to reclaim the pop/rock spectrum as sound source.

edc

He uses full distortion here and there: most notably on Gary Thomas' 'Till We Have Faces; occasionally with the PMG (Half Life of Absolution from Live in Europe), one track on the new M/M, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting. He's not known for that type of tone, though, clearly. I think the synth is his answer to it... take it from me - distortion is a wild and crazy animal, hard to control. It often seems to be "not quite right", especially for jazz-type lines.

You might check out Frisell's contribution to Cuong Vu's It's Mostly Residual. Nothing candyass about it, and a great fuzztone.

Does Zero Tolerance for Silence fit the bill? For some reason I can't find the energy to pull it out and listen to it and find out how fuzzy it is.

Is it even Jazz?

[CJ Shearn]

when Pat uses distortion these days its usually on the GR300 with the regular guitar tone.

[Joe G]

Does Zero Tolerance for Silence fit the bill? For some reason I can't find the energy to pull it out and listen to it and find out how fuzzy it is.

Is it even Jazz?

Can't comment on that, as I've never heard it. I think that's the record Clem was talking about here:

(i'm just making this up but there is something to it; the problem w/Pat's "noise" record is he was NOT really simpatico, i don't think, or as well versed in pre-Hendrix electric avant- ism-- often by goofball kids or weirdo eccentrics on an accidental JOE MEEK kick as he could be so he needlessly went way to other side. i'd listen if he made another try at it!)

[AllenLowe]

jim -

it's the tube amp but not just the tube amp - add the the volume boost in front of the amp, the mulitple gain stages, the use of master volumes - and tube-screamer like distortion pedals so they can distort at low volumes - the results are glossy all-sound-the-same tones caused by bad conversions from analog to digital and back again, not to mention bad new production vacuume tubes that are harsh and and have too much gain -

Edited April 13, 2007 by AllenLowe

[Alexander Hawkins]

bc Melhdau is a fucking simp = simpleton. waaaaaay more chops than idea (or concepts) & even granting he came up a not-great time in the music's economic history... why? why? why? WHAT is ya'll's fascination w/him compared to x # of others presently & a whole lot of people past? bill evans without angst? & fuck all of Brad's attempt to disown the influence, it's bullshit.

[7/4]

jim -

it's the tube amp but not just the tube amp - add the the volume boost in front of the amp, the mulitple gain stages, the use of master volumes - and tube-screamer like distortion pedals so they can distort at low volumes - the results are glossy all-sound-the-same tones caused by bad conversions from analog to digital and back again, not to mention bad new production vacuume tubes that are harsh and and have too much gain -

I like power amp tube sounds. Nothin' like a good warm clean sound for jazz.

[RDK]

bc Melhdau is a fucking simp = simpleton. waaaaaay more chops than idea (or concepts) & even granting he came up a not-great time in the music's economic history... why? why? why? WHAT is ya'll's fascination w/him compared to x # of others presently & a whole lot of people past? bill evans without angst? & fuck all of Brad's attempt to disown the influence, it's bullshit.

What's wrong with digging Meldhau as well as others? Since when is it an either/or deal?

[7/4]

I'm planning on attending Torn @ Joe's Pub, I just purchased my ticket. I haven't heard the album yet.

[Simon Weil]

this reminds me, too, why, doesn't Pat ever use FUZZ or does he sometimes & i missed it? it's the plinky-dink cleanliness of jazz gtr that drives a lot of people batshit. now you can say effects/distortion were over, poorly used in rock but still... tho' Frissell annoys me most of the time these days (bc he's gone way candyass), thee great contribution he made to "jazz" guitar concept is to reclaim the pop/rock spectrum as sound source.

edc

He uses full distortion here and there: most notably on Gary Thomas' 'Till We Have Faces; occasionally with the PMG (Half Life of Absolution from Live in Europe), one track on the new M/M, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting. He's not known for that type of tone, though, clearly. I think the synth is his answer to it... take it from me - distortion is a wild and crazy animal, hard to control. It often seems to be "not quite right", especially for jazz-type lines.

You might check out Frisell's contribution to Cuong Vu's It's Mostly Residual. Nothing candyass about it, and a great fuzztone.

Does Zero Tolerance for Silence fit the bill? For some reason I can't find the energy to pull it out and listen to it and find out how fuzzy it is.

Is it even Jazz?

Zero Tolerance is his noise record. To compare with fuzz guitar in rock really kind of misses the point. In the sense that fuzz guitar fuzzes something, then you still have the something under there and you can hear it. Here there's just pure fuzz with nothing underneath.

I have a rather strange relationship with this record, in that, in my narrative of Pat Metheny, this is where he lost it. It isn't that it's a bad record - or a dishonest one. It's just that, in going into pure noise, he totally loses contact with himself. When you say "is it even Jazz", you're on the right lines. No, it isn't. If you want to argue that Jazz is in some sense about personal voice, there is no personal voice here. I defy anybody to say this record is by Metheny on the strength of listening to it. It's just an anonymous fairly interesting noise record.

My argument is that from then on, he somehow loses contact with himself - as exemplified by his next, terrible, record We Live Here - and he never really gets it back. Now I know he's had over a decade of putting out records since then, and people will doubtless be angry with me for abusing their hero. But I think he's fallen into pretension and convolution on his own stuff (which mind you I've given up on) as though he has his own myth to live up to. It's when he plays with others that I can still listen to him.

I'm someone who gets accused of pretension when I do my intellectual stuff - but I kind of think Metheny/Meldhau is likely to be "pretentious, nous?".

Without hearing it.

Simon Weil