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I want to hear your controversial/iconoclastic positions. Is there a popular jazz player whose tone you really dislike?
I don't mean the poorly tracked sessions of wes and joe pass where their guitars sound super thin. I mean recordings where you feel you disagree with the majority opinion. Curious to hear peoples' thoughts.
I'm sure a lot of people will get upset when you attack their heros so please keep the attitude lighthearted.
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10-13-2023 07:54 PM
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Mine!???
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I hate the sound of the guys like Chuck Wayne, who turned their bass control all the way up so they could use their lousy sweep picking technique to play as fast as possible without any sound of the pick scraping against the strings.
You still hear it in guys like Adam Rogers, Mark Elf, Pasquale Grasso, Carl Barry, etc.. who either studied with Chuck or by one of his students.
I'm not alone in that; John Lewis said he was sick of that bassy jazz guitar sound, and he was getting to the point where he'd rather use a rocker who got a percussive sound out of the instrument than that bassy sound, which results in a sameness of sound due to lack of overt accents, that gets very monotonous after a while.
Is that controversial/iconoclastic enough for you?
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I will start. Bill Frisell, John Abercrombie, Mike Stern, Larry Carton at times. I have more I will add later. This is sure to get me some enemies.
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Has to be Tal Farlow. Could you even call it tone?
(His earlier stuff with the 350 was better).
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Chorus pedal
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Scofield
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Oddly, Jim Hall's rolled off two dimensional tone. One of my favorite players playing some of my favorite music. The stuff with Desmond is amazing. And yet.. that dull, lifeless tone. Probably not the same level of sonic aggravation achieved by some with their Ibanez thin lines and Gibson 335's. But if only Mr. Hall had embraced a more acoustic sound, the world would be a better place.
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Pat Martino on "Remember."
And any Joe Pass record on Pablo. Especially "Eximous."
And one more I blame completely on the producer-- Russell Malone on that Bluebird album where Benny Green stomps all over his accompanyment. What an awful ego driven jazz record where a wonderful guitarist gets buried.
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I enjoy a good controversy
Great posts all around. As it hasn't been mentioned yet - I can't abide the piezo nylon acoustic sound (and steel string piezo, for that matter). In general, the whole "tone knob rolled off" thing. I was listening to Pat Martino's Live at Yoshi's yesterday and thinking "man, turn that tone control up".
Last edited by m_d; 10-14-2023 at 06:12 AM.
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And Jim Hall had it all under his fingers to be an incredible player leaning towards an acoustic sound, it's very clear on the Bill Evans and Ron Carter duo albums.
Originally Posted by Spook410
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Love a lot of the playing, but I hate Pat Methenys tone.
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Not fond of the heavy reverb/delay sounds that was popular some years ago. It makes a wash of the guitar in a way I find wearing. Kreisberg or Moreno would be examples of remarkable players whose tone I would probably like better if it was drier.
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We have a winner! What happened on that session? Pat generally went for a dark tone but his guitar sounds like it was recorded underwater. I wish Blue Note would remaster the album as there's nothing wrong with the playing. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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Yup, very muffled. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
Come on, that's a great sounding strat. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
And how about NHOP's pee-ew-zo-electric sound there? Really something, eh? But the playing kills,
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Love his playing, but I hate that filtered sound Kurt Rosenwinkel has been using the last few years. It’s removing all the attack from the sound, and it’s not really sounding like a guitar anymore to me.
liked his old sound without the filter/swell effect much more.
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Even overly dark tones have their place and, if those are the preferences of artists I admire, I am bound to look for something good in them, in spite of my personal preferences. They still may not wash, but at least I'll take a listen, if that's what they like.
The biggest mystery for me is Metheny's switch from the gorgeous tone of the 90's albums to the darkest, dankest muffled tones imaginable. I really don't know what he's going for at this point and given his dedication to a wide variety of tones and instruments and overall production, it makes absolutely no sense to me. I understand his need to move on from his very early and heavily chorused ECM sound, but the tone on the live trio albums, and almost anything since is just so unflattering to the beautiful lines and chord voices he is so adept at spinning.
He was here a couple of years ago to play with one of the college bands doing arrangements of his tunes and apparently went FOH with something, (Kemper?) as he had a cord leading off stage with no visible amp presence. It was absolutely the worst tone I had ever heard from him, and made me long for the days of the earlier live group tones, which were as lush and three-dimensional as one could imagine (early 80s.).. almost like the Grateful Dead Alembic era live productions, only my kind of music. I really miss that experience.
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I disagree on all the Pablo, but I totally agree that the tone on Eximious is bad. It's recorded quite skillfully, it's clean, etc. but it's totally dry and lifeless, which is too bad because the playing is superb. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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I went through a period i which I didn't like Lenny Breaux's tone. It struck me as sterile. But I've grown into it over time, I have to admit. But Stanley Jordan's sort of "harp like" (?) tone I have never found compelling.
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Not enough iconoclasm or controversy. Yall are picking out tones EVERYONE hates. Some of you are even picking out poorly recorded/mastered albums - that's not the point of the assignment.
I'll give it a whack.
Joe Pass Joy Spring has got to be the dumbest sounding guitar tone. I have nothing iconoclastic to say about the solo. But the way he plays the head is "Flud flud dud duuuudd". Absolutely hate the sound of those wound strings; they sound like a series of little farts. Very nicely recorded by the studio, so you can't blame them for the fact that the guitar sounds like it had been soaking in the tub for an hour before the session (Next to Tal's ES 350).
Ed Bickert and Jim Hall are great listening when you don't want the music in the way of your cocktail party. But that "mood music" really could benefit from a shot of testosterone. Why are they so afraid of attacking the strings?
I share the hatred of the washed out reverb NYC "cool guy" sound of players like moreno, hekselman, but sounds like that's less controversial.
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Some musicians I find wonderful, in some of their albums and performance, really don't have a tone I like much, for the reasons already mentioned here... Kurt Rosenwinkel, Yotam Silberstein, Adam Rogers, and others... I think I miss the dynamics in their sound, perhaps caused by too many effects and compression or by a very closed tone... and dynamics not is all, but is 100%! :sorriso-novo:
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I didn’t know Adam was one of the Chuck Wayne school. He is a directional picker although his pick grip is certainly not the one recommended by the school and I always thought that school was very strict on that. Originally Posted by sgcim
I hate the sound of the guys like Chuck Wayne, who turned their bass control all the way up so they could use their lousy sweep picking technique to play as fast as possible without any sound of the pick scraping against the strings.
You still hear it in guys like Adam Rogers, Mark Elf, Pasquale Grasso, Carl Barry, etc.. who either studied with Chuck or by one of his students.
I'm not alone in that; John Lewis said he was sick of that bassy jazz guitar sound, and he was getting to the point where he'd rather use a rocker who got a percussive sound out of the instrument than that bassy sound, which results in a sameness of sound due to lack of overt accents, that gets very monotonous after a while.
Is that controversial/iconoclastic enough for you?
Anyway I won’t hear a word against AR but his straight-ahead jazz tone always seemed very dull and characterless to me. But now, I like it. It’s dry. On the album R’n’B it’s a little more open in places and even a tiny bit hairy.
AR can also bring the blues rock vibes…
I don’t really think of having treble on the amp as a problem regarding string scrape exactly. If you have that problem you may be able to solve it by changing your pick and maybe adjusting the pick angle. It’s been most noticeable for me when using benson style picking (like AR), but it really varies with pick. One effect of edge picking is it sort of rolls off the onset and treble a little without having to change your amp settings.
for myself i sometimes roll off a little treble on the guitar (no lower than 8 if I do) and leave my amp settings flat.
A bigger problem to me is that a bright fender amp can make it harder to achieve a legato connection between the notes when you are turned up a little.
So many jazz players who have a brighter tone can sound a bit choppy and ‘picky’ to me. Swings and roundabouts.
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I doubt AR uses any effects when playing straightahead. I think it’s just a 335 into an amp. He is just that even. Originally Posted by caue amaral
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I don’t really want to negative tbh. There are players whose tone I don’t really care for, but I don’t want to post it up here just in case!
sorry
one thing I don’t like is poorly set delay. When the delay trials interfere with the main sound. A few big names do this imo.
another thing is a weak basic sound. I like it when players produce a strong sound. Some players just sound a bit anaemic. It’s hard to pin down or define but I know it when I hear it.
I would say like dynamic range, but I do like some players who don’t really use dynamics much, so….
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