Minimalism

[Hardbopjazz]

Last night I saw Lee Konitz and Dan Tepfer at the Jazz Standard in NYC. Lee is not a player that uses a ton of notes in his playing, and the ones he does select always just correct notes and amount.

Other musicians that like this to me are

Count Basie. There is a lot of spacing between notes. The silence is just as important as the notes played.

Thelonious Monk and BB King are two another musicians who also use spacing between notes.

Any others?

Edited March 22, 2012 by Hardbopjazz

[Rooster_Ties]

I think Joe Henderson used a fair bit of space in his solos, at times.

What do you guys think? - should Joe be included here? - or am I just being spacey?

Oh, and Miles -- no doubts there.

[Hardbopjazz]

How could forget Miles.

I have to give a listen to Joe Henderson now. I don't recall spacing with his playing.

[Joe]

Ahmad Jamal

Ben Webster (IMO)

[Simon8]

I'm all for the understatement school...

Bill Evans, certainly (those lingering, melancholic notes on ballads).

Art Farmer always shows tasteful restraint.

Jim Hall on guitar.

Lester Young, Jack Teagarden ?

Edited March 22, 2012 by Simon8

[mjzee]

John Lewis, though some might say he leans towards the simplistic rather than the simple.

Sonny Clark, Grant Green, Horace Parlan, Kenny Dorham, George Lewis (trombone) come to mind.

[Pete C]

Since this was in Misc. Music I thought it was going to be about Glass, Reich, Riley, etc.

But for jazz minimalists, Paul Bley at times, Mal Waldron (not as much space as repetition), some of Lacy's solo stuff is minimalist in an analytic/deconstructive way. Check out Keith Jarrett's Vienna Concert--it's the antithesis of most of his solo concerts.

[Hardbopjazz]

Drums I would say Tony Oxley.

Paul Motian on drums also spaced his playing out, at least in his later career.

Edited March 22, 2012 by Hardbopjazz

[Rooster_Ties]

I have to give a listen to Joe Henderson now. I don't recall spacing with his playing.

It's not tons of space in all of Joe's solos, but I seem to remember he pepper's a fair number of his solos with space here and there (for longer than you might have been expecting) amid what is otherwise (arguably) a flurry of notes. Or at least that's how I remember hearing Joe's playing.

But, he's definitely not a "minimalistic" continuously. Although, come to think of it, he is rather fond of taking a small cell and repeating it over and over in a sort of "minimalistic" way -- so I think he fits in that regard too (in the "classical music" sense/definition of Minimalism).

Edited March 22, 2012 by Rooster_Ties

[JohnS]

Masabumi Kikuchi on the Tethered Moon recordings

[J.A.W.]

I have to give a listen to Joe Henderson now. I don't recall spacing with his playing.

It's not tons of space in all of Joe's solos, but I seem to remember he pepper's a fair number of his solos with space here and there (for longer than you might have been expecting) amid what is otherwise (arguably) a flurry of notes. Or at least that's how I remember hearing Joe's playing.

But, he's definitely not a "minimalistic" continuously. Although, come to think of it, he is rather fond of taking a small cell and repeating it over and over in a sort of "minimalistic" way -- so I think he fits in that regard too (in the "classical music" sense/definition of Minimalism).

"he pepper's"?

Sorry, couldn't resist...

[AllenLowe]

Miles hasn't played a note in years.

[JSngry]

I was listening to some live Lester Young the other day, mid-50s stuff, and not only did he use few notes and keen silences, but his time was, like, standing still. The rhythm section was moving, but he himself was just...suspended over it.. That goes beyond "space" into SPACE.

[Peter Friedman]

Jimmy Rowles & Ben Webster

[John L]

Mal Waldon deserves mention here.

[JSngry]

Maybe in the "classical" sense of repetition of a basic set of materials with subtle, evolving variations, Chico Hamilton's drumming from the 60s onwards.

Early Anthony Davis was working in that same area too, roughly.

[AllenLowe]

on MIngus' Blues and Roots, there one cut where the pianist plays the same phrase over and over in a "pre-minimalist" way, I would say; when I was a kid and first heard this on LP I always thought the record was skipping and used to try to advance it (was it Horace Parlan?).

[JSngry]

It was Mal Waldron. "Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting"

I first heard that cut on a beat-up radio station promo Atlantic 45 when I was 14 (don't ask...) and I knew the record was stuck. But I dug it and let it go, Sure enough, it resolved itself, as those type things occasionally do.

It took a while before the realization hit that the record wasn't stuck...

Edited March 22, 2012 by JSngry

[Rooster_Ties]

I love those late, late 60's / early 70's Mal trio things that just dig in with an off-kilter riff, and almost never give up (until they finally do). Just love 'em!

[Simon8]

On Miles' My Funny Valentine (the concert album), there's some long, audacious silences in Tony Williams playing.

[Pete C]

Mal Waldon deserves mention here.

That's why I mentioned him!

[B. Clugston]

Leo Smith.

[Chuck Nessa]

We seem to have multiple versions/definitions of minimalism working here.

[Larry Kart]

[johnlitweiler]

There are people like the group Polwechsel who push the silence-improvisation thing into obsessive silliness. On the other hand, the master of making musical lines out of sound and silence in tension is Roscoe Mitchell. For example, McIntyre's and Bowie's great solos in "Sound," Roscoe in some of the Nessa CD improvisations and later pieces like "A Lovely Day at the Point," etc.