Re: post on jazz guitar buleting board

I saw your post. I believe you are already on the Tuning List,
if not, I've included subscription information here.

Modern jazz, even moreso than most modern classical music, is
very tied to 12tet. There is incidental use of microtones,
'blue notes' from the blues tradition, but the harmonic system
plays a lot of tricks with relations that don't hold in
other systems than 12tet.

Joe Maneri, a Boston based clarinetist is probably the only
known jazzer systematically employing microtones. You are
better off looking into the musics of Partch, Harrison, Tenney,
Ezra Sims, and other classical and electronic guys who are off
the beaten path.

Bob Valentine

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> [Bob Valentine, TD 734.13]
>
> Modern jazz, even moreso than most modern classical music, is
> very tied to 12tet. There is incidental use of microtones,
> 'blue notes' from the blues tradition, but the harmonic system
> plays a lot of tricks with relations that don't hold in
> other systems than 12tet.
>
> Joe Maneri, a Boston based clarinetist is probably the only
> known jazzer systematically employing microtones. You are
> better off looking into the musics of Partch, Harrison, Tenney,
> Ezra Sims, and other classical and electronic guys who are off
> the beaten path.

Hi Bob,

I would agree that what you say in the first paragraph
is generally true, especially the part about 'harmonic tricks'.

But there are a lot of classic jazz horn and bass players
who used microtones; how 'systematically', would probably take
a dissertation (or several) to determine, but to my ears
a least a few sound like they were using microtonal pitch
subtleties as an integral part of their overall 'sound'.

A few exaples who come to mind:

Ornette Coleman (most noticeable of any 'greats' I can think of)
John Coltrane
Miles Davis
Don Ellis
Charles Mingus
Richard Davis

And Jon Catler, a guitarist playing in many different styles
including jazz (especially influenced by Coleman, to my ears),
(and also a subscriber to this list), uses 'bent-fret' guitars
as has been discussed here in a current thread, tuned precisely
in just-intonation. See freenote.com for more info on his work.

Most likely, there are other jazz guitarists using microtones
of whom I'm not aware.

And if the Guitar-List poster is looking for a 'big name'
guitarist who was microtonal, he'll certainly find one in
the realm of rock: Jimi Hendrix had an absolute mastery of
pitch-bending, along with everything else about playing the
electric guitar.

-monz

Joseph L. Monzo San Diego monz@juno.com
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html
| 'I had broken thru the lattice barrier...' |
| -Erv Wilson |
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