blues

Haverstick here...I just listened to BB King Live at the Regal, and as
it did many years ago, it blew my mind...it is a great record, and it
got me to wanting to say a few things about blues on this forum. Of
course, blues has always been "microtonal" because of the practice
of taking certain notes and bending them...as soon as you do this, all
the rules change. For example, Albert King was a master at moving
around in his bends from the flat 3rd of a scale up to the Ma.3rd;
from a 4th to a 5th; and from a b7th to the root. Albert stills kills
me, because he could take numerous choruses, using just a few notes,
but the many different ways that he subtly changed his pitch was a
real kick...he greatly influenced many of the great rock guitarists,
such as Clapton, Hendrix, and Stevie Ray Vaughn, so Albert was slippin'
them microtonal thingies to white kids 30 years ago. Needless to say,
this was all done by feel, and is a real natural part of many different
culture's musical expression. I mean, listen to Native American singing,
and it's not so easy to get a grasp on it...it's very "simple", but it
has absolutely nothing to do with such European concepts such as equal
temperament.

Blues players are IMPROVISORS; this is essential to the art itself, and
is where "academic" (sorry...the academics invented that word, not me)
music parts ways with not only blues, but much of the other musics
of the world as well. This tendancy to improvise is what makes blues
so difficult...you are really handed a sort of loose chordal and melodic
history, and it's up to you to stand on your own and come up with some-
thing in the tradition, yet yours. This is where 19 has freed me up to
take some standard American music cliches, and mess with them a bit.


I've always thought it interesting that much of the innovation in 1960's
heavy rock and jazz was from folks who had a real heavy grounding in the
blues, and then messed with it. Hendrix was a staple on the R&B circuit
before he hit it big, and was a killer blues player. Ornette Coleman
was a gutbucket tenor honker before he helped to pioneer "free" jazz;
Coltrane apprenticed with Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson before he went way
out there; and, I used to see a guy in Kansas City who was a great blues
player (still is...Ed Toler), but also was into free stuff in a real
organic way. The list is endless, but again, so called microtones have
really been a part of the mainstream sound for many years.

And talk about tone! Blues guys are the masters at using the pure sound
of a note for many different emotional reasons...eventually, guys like
Jeff Beck, Hendrix, and others got into letting their guitars feed back,
using the amplifier as a part of the sound chain, and I tell you all sorts
of neat frequencies and pitches would happen...listen to "Machine Gun"
by Hendrix, which is a real masterpiece of happenin' music.

Over the years, I've seen a lot of great musicians in various fields,
and I'll still say that a deep slow blues is probably one of life's
transcendent moments. When I hear the Wolf, Muddy, or BB and Albert
King lay it in there, it's as fresh as the first time I heard it. So,
I love the intellectual side of tunings, and the math and all of that
is intriguing, but my own humble roots of hanging out in blues bars
in St. Louis and KC have really payed off since I got into other systems.
Of course, forget tunings and such for a moment...it's REALLY the soul
we want in our art, and the blues got it, no problem. In fact, that's,
for me, why I don't like a lot of stuff by folks such as Schoenberg;
God help us he was a genius, but his serial stuff leaves me feeling
like a bad session at the analyst's.

Anyway, I want to talk more about this field later...when you get in there
and sort of musically analyze what's going with blues structures, it is
fascinating and totally unlike much of "traditional" western music...and,
it's relevant as hell (which is also seeming more relevant all the time),
since it's slimy little bends have been inspiring zillions of folks to
do all sorts of things for years. Yet, I still know some people who
think "classical" music is "superior" to blues; why, I don't know. But,
the form of the blues is strong and powerful, and can be bent is couln-
less ways...and, of course when I say blues, I also mean jazz as well.
My dear teacher George Keith used to say JS Bach and Charley Parker were
the greatest of all musicians, and to this day, I don't think he's too
far off the truth.


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