Artists whose style of playing changed over their career.

[Hardbopjazz]

Last week I saw Pat Martino live. Then next day I pulled out my Pat Martino recordings. Pat's style of playing changed so much from the 60s to today. In fact if you didn't know it was Martino you would believe it was two different guitar players. Those that listen to Martino, due you agree that his playing style is so different today then it was in his early career?

Can anyone think of any other musicians that their styles changed dramatically?

Edited July 28, 2011 by Hardbopjazz

[J.A.W.]

Martino had brain surgery in 1980 and as a result completely forgot how to play. He had to learn it all over again, which led to a change of style.

Edited July 28, 2011 by J.A.W.

[mikeweil]

Harold Land - compare his playing as a member the Brown-Roach Quintet with the late 1960's in the Hutcherson-Land groups.

[Guy Berger]

John Coltrane - a lifetime of radical changes crammed into 12 years

Miles Davis - I know it's a cliche to say that his playing didn't change, just the setting for his playing - but it's just plain false.

Honestly, I think it'd be interesting to think about players whose style did NOT change over their careers!

[JSngry]

Are we distinguishing between "changing" and "evolving"?

[BillF]

Harold Land was one of very many saxophonists whose styles were established pre-Coltrane and who modified their approach after Trane emerged as a dominant force.

The advent of bebop in the 40s was such a sea change that many players couldn't or didn't want to modify their approach. One who did was Coleman Hawkins, whose constant evolution during his very long career (around 1920 till the 1960s) was a marvel to behold.

Edited July 28, 2011 by BillF

[Hardbopjazz]

Martino had brain surgery in 1980 and as a result completely forgot how to play. He had to learn it all over again, which led to a change of style.

I knew he had surgery but didn't know he needed to learn to play all over again. That explains his style change.

Are we distinguishing between "changing" and "evolving"?

It could be either.

[BillF]

Last week I saw Pat Martino live. Then next day I pulled out my Pat Martino recordings. Pat's style of playing changed so much from the 60s today. In fact if you didn't know it was Martino you would believe it was two different guitar players. Those that listen to Martino, due you agree that his playing style is so different today then it was in his early career?

Can anyone think of any other musicians that their styles changed dramatically?

You speak of "dramatic change". This might apply to career changes on the part of jazz musicians who altered what they were doing so as to appeal to a different (and larger) audience. Nat Cole and George Benson would fall into this category. I'll reserve judgment on Miles' change c.1969.

Edited July 29, 2011 by BillF

[jlhoots]

Art Pepper (maybe).

[Neal Pomea]

Didn't Benny Goodman have to relearn how to play?

Henry Red Allen could play a range of musical styles.

[Swinging Swede]

Martino had brain surgery in 1980 and as a result completely forgot how to play. He had to learn it all over again, which led to a change of style.

I knew he had surgery but didn't know he needed to learn to play all over again. That explains his style change.

As I have understood it, he lost not only his memory of how to play but of pretty much everything. So I think Martino is a special case; he could practically be seen as a different guitarist now.

In unusual cases the memory can apparently be permanently lost without the mental capabilities otherwise being noticeably impaired. I saw a TV programme once about a guy who in his teens had been involved in a minor car accident and seemed unscathed. But the connection in his brain to his memory had been damaged somehow and he never regained it. He had to learn everything again: walking, talking etc. He ended up a normal person, but with a different personality than before the accident.

[Swinging Swede]

Harold Land was one of very many saxophonists whose styles were established pre-Coltrane and who modified their approach after Trane emerged as a dominant force.

The advent of bebop in the 40s was such a sea change

Yes, there are scores of musicians who took their first recorded solos during the Swing Era and later adopted the bop language, resulting in a very different style. Too many to mention really. Something similar happened when Coltrane came along, as you mention.

[Ted O'Reilly]

Harold Land was one of very many saxophonists whose styles were established pre-Coltrane and who modified their approach after Trane emerged as a dominant force.

The advent of bebop in the 40s was such a sea change

Yes, there are scores of musicians who took their first recorded solos during the Swing Era and later adopted the bop language, resulting in a very different style. Too many to mention really. Something similar happened when Coltrane came along, as you mention.

Trane changed Benny Golson's playing, I'd say, especially his tone...

[Christiern]

Dizzy Gillespie used to sound like Roy Eldridge. and Betty Carter like Sarah Vaughan.

Of course they all probably sounded like hell at the onset.

Edited July 28, 2011 by Christiern

[BillF]

Dizzy Gillespie used to sound like Roy Eldridge.

That was the very young Dizzy, before he matured into what we now think of as his style, another sort of "change". Similarly the Four Brothers tenormen all sounded vaguely Lesterish as young musicians in the Herman band, before they established their distinctive Getz or Sims or Cohn styles - not to say that each didn't go on evolving in these styles over the rest of their careers.

[Larry Kart]

Bill Evans -- at least three, maybe four or more fairly distinct periods. 1) New Jazz Conceptions/Everybody Digs; 2) Explorations/Village Vanguard; 3) early '60s, and then things get blurry for me; 4) the second batch of Vanguard recordings and on out. I have a musician friend, an admirer-scholar of Evans, who refers to his various periods as heroin, methadone, and cocaine.

[Ted O'Reilly]

.....his various periods as heroin, methadone, and cocaine.

OOOH...cold. But right.

[JSngry]

If I'm going to use "change" to mean that if you play two records by the same person back-to-back and you'd never guess they were by the same person based on tone and proclivities of phrasing, one of the first names that comes to my mind is Benny Golson. Comparing how he went into his Hollywood-writing-and-not-regularly-playing-for-public-consumption period and how he came out of it, I really had a hard time hearing it as the same guy. It wasn't atypical case of shedding youthful influences in the cause of getting a personal voice, it was more like a wholesale reevaluation of what he wanted to do and be as a player.

Also, maybe, Hampton Hawes, especially in the 70s. some pretty basic reconsiderations going on there.

For that matter, Henry Grimes.

[jazztrain]

Goodman changed his embouchure at some point when studying with Reginald Kell. Stylistically, outside of a brief flirtation with bebop, he didn't change notably throughout his career.

Didn't Benny Goodman have to relearn how to play?

Henry Red Allen could play a range of musical styles.

[papsrus]

Oscar Peterson

[Unk]

Roswell Rudd apparently lived simultaneously in two worlds (Dixieland and avant garde, though I hate both of those terms). And Ornette played R&B, as I understand it, one upon a time.

Edited July 28, 2011 by Unk

[Larry Kart]

The Artie Shaw of the Swing Era and the Shaw of his 1949 big band and his small combo of the '50s were pretty different.

And, though his name has come up in regard to his influence on Land and Golson, how could we forget Coltrane?

Also, I hear a lot of change-evolution over Coleman Hawkins' long career. Rollins' too.

[J.A.W.]

And, though his name has come up in regard to his influence on Land and Golson, how could we forget Coltrane?

See post #4

Edited July 28, 2011 by J.A.W.

[J.A.W.]

Mary Lou Williams

[fasstrack]

Also, maybe, Hampton Hawes, especially in the 70s. some pretty basic reconsiderations going on there.

Right on to that! I think it was an improvement, too. Meaning he was great before, but he never shut his ears down, but rather absorbed the best of what was happening (harmonically, especially)and kept that blues sensibility he had before. My favorite example of this evolution was the duet recording with Charlie Haden (As Long As There's Music). A real growth spurt there especailly in voicings.

Hamp moved on where some other pianists of the bebop era didn't, whatever their reasons. And good for him.