Across the Barline and Beyond (another Jimmy Raney book preview.. Still workin' on it!)

One of things that I must repeatedly emphasize about Jimmy Raney is his unique improvisational abilities as it relates to rhythm, and in particular his mastery of the more subtle and beautiful asymmetrical rhythm. It's mind boggling how his monumental achievements in this area could've gone so largely unnoticed.

I have noted in prior blogs his mastery of 6/4 and 5/4 phrases over 4/4.
See here:   Jimmy Raney's polyrhythmic concepts part1
and here:   Jimmy Raney's polyrhythmic concepts part 2

In this blog's example, 5/4 and 6/4 are used in combination, which is definitely more complex(!), but Jimmy Raney handled such things with ease. The example is a phrase from Jimmy's mind blowing solo on "Anthropology" from Live In Tokyo recorded in 1976. It occurs on the last 8 bar section (25-32) of the first solo chorus. This particular phrase seeims fairly simple on the surface but it really opens up pandora's box if you really look into it:



Taken in parts this part of the phrase clearly implies 6/4. The first starts on the 2nd beat of the bar and the second on 4th beat of the next measure. A third iteration of the phrase (if it were to occur) would start on the 2nd beat of the next bar. It's important to deal with each phrase from attack point to attack point. In other words, silence is also part of the count.

Interestingly enough however, the very beginning of the phrase starts with a phrase 5/4, then proceeds with one phrase in 6/4 and then (what I interpret) as an implied phrase of 6/4. If the 3rd phrase is interpreted as 5/4, then you still would have the interesting 5/4 6/4 5/4 combination (5+6+5=16beats=4); that would divide the 8 measures in half with the first measure (29) of the next 4 bars as a bar of silence.



The phrase in bar 30 to my ears has an implication of 6/4 given both it's length and shape. The ascending portion of the phrase is 2 beats and the descending portion is 4beats. My interpretation of meter has to do with direction. If there is a change in direction I hear a metrical implication. In the book, Jimmy talks about how certain types of accent are built into the grouping and phrase direction. So for example an 8th note scale built with 3 notes in sequence (e.g. 123, 234 etc) or arpeggios going up 3 notes and down 3notes (e.g. 135,642 etc) implies 3/8 meter. The last note (Db) I consider the downbeat of the next implied 6/4 phrase that completes the entire phrase and brings you to the next chorus.

In strict analysis some may debate my grouping and interpretation of silence. However the big picture is the division of the 8 measures into 2 units. To my ears, I hear the 3rd phrase as "spilling over" and finishing through measure 29. If that's the case, then the 8 measure phrase is divided asymmetrically into 5 + 3. In the original manuscript, Jimmy provides an example that does this very thing, 5+3. So this type of phrasing is clearly something that he has assimulated and uses consciously. In eighth note counts what this means is 20/8 followed by 12/8. Where the 20/8= 5+6+6+3 (or perhaps 11+9) and the 12/8 as 6+6. Even if you don't buy this, the first grouping: a 5/4 6/4 5/4 grouping is clearly not your garden variety rhythmic approach!

Man Vs. Machine

Do you have a love hate relationship with computers and technical gadgets? I know I do. At times it seems like the gadgets have their own spirit and intentions and in some cases (as in below story) openly defiant. And forget about the manuals. I want to constantly shoot the authors of them. And gadgets always screw up at the same time don't they? Which is contributing to my personal persecution theories...

Case in point. I bought a Motorola 2.4 ghz cordless phone w/ answering machine. I was happy with the purchase and got it for a good price. But for some reason it would not correctly update the day and time stamp for incoming messages: it was always one day behind the current one. What started out as a simple quest to reset and fix became an unwinnable war between man and machine.

To start off, we manually reset the date on the unit to Saturday 10am. We hear it. We're not hallucinating. The answering machine said "Sa-tur-day 10 ay-EM!" We call the phone and leave a test message : "Hello this is a test of the answering machine". We listen back to the message and the answering machine defiantly reports "New message sent Fri-day 10 ay-EM". We try it several times with the same result. Even setting it to Thursday. The machine, like a defiant child responds, "Wednesday, 10 ay-EM(?)" almost with an upturn in the voice to pose and interrogative as if to say, "Had enough, human?"We decide to trick the machine by setting it one day ahead since it insists on putting it one day behind. Makes sense right? Wrong. You know what the box said? You guessed it. "Fri-day, 10 ay-EM! Now I'm completely confused. Is time not relative for these little machines? If I tell it that it's Sunday, shouldn't the little demon accept my appraisal? Does it know I'm lying? Who's in charge here??

Anyway it became my theory that there was a bug in the machine and somehow had an internal calendar set for 2005 rather than 2006. I looked at my old calendar and confirmed in fact that January was one day behind in terms of numerical day of the month and its day of the week. Eureka! I thought. So I slog through the manual for some time (Again no love lost there to Mr. Manual writer) to find a way to reset the complete date including year for the phone. After achieving this I'm certain I've licked the problem. I reset the machine, the phone and leave a message. "New message....sent.......FRI-DAY, 10AY-EM! At this point it's about time I take the answering machine to the back alley and rough it up a bit. But like death and taxes I'd resigned myself to Mr. Motorola's wishes to remain in yesterdayville and focus on other things with the unit.

Well at least I can change that awful blaring default ring tone to another one more pleasing. After scrolling through the classics and testing them out, Mozart, Handel and others we decide on Lizst. Catchy and soothing. But when we call the phone we are somehow treated to the Motorola's perverse form of musical counterpoint: the base ringing the default tone and the handset ringing Lizst! And on top of that there is no way to control the volume level of the ring for the base. Once again I consult Mr. Manual and of course there is everything but practical function explanations on there. Troubleshooting? Well I'm sure you've seen the explanations. "Make sure the unit is plugged in.." and the like.

What I had first viewed as an attractive, stylish machine with it's silver lines and umber/orange LCD, now struck me as a kind silver metal armadillo in sunglasses that wanted to do its own thing. "Screw you, anthro". Needless to say I boxed the little dickens in a generic container with lots of bubble rap and now it's on its way back to the merchant and eventually to its next unsuspecting owner looking for a good deal on a refurb. Perhaps it will encounter talking Chucky somewhere in the gadget warehouse in need of an answering machine , who won't be quite as civil or forgiving as I.

(This story was first published in 2006 on the somewhat useless portal & blogspace, Yahoo 360)

When At a Loss for Words...Post Pictures

In the absence of any substantial thoughts/ideas on my part, click below MySpace link where pics were posted recently: Jon Raney MySpace page. Guess which ones are camera phone shots...uggh. Some great old photos of Dad as though. They are snapshots of the originals which were auctioned off by EBay. Read prior blog about EBay.

Click the "pics" link below the sidebar photo when you get to MySpace page.

(Sorry, you need to login or sign up for MySpace in order to see the photos)

Communication in the Internet Age

The pre-e-mail and Internet world is difficult to imagine now after years of its entrenchment in our daily lives. I was musing about when the first rudimentary email was launched at my former employ, the now defunct Guggenheim Museum Soho. E-mail and Internet communication occupies this vast space between mailing written letters and yakking it up on the telephone, along with everything in between: chatting, both written and voice enabled, message boards and... oh yeah blogs with reader commentary.

With the addition of graphics, audio and live hyperlinks to other sources of related interest, electronic correspondence is a whole new accelerated communication paradigm. It's simply different when you "speak" to someone and have the ability to backspace an incomplete thought or retract and reforumulate and throw in a picture and a hyperlink. You "occur" differently to someone else. You can develop an entirely different personality. Personally I like to appear more intelligent than I actually am:) If we could all edit the way we spoke and not say, "Er, um.. what I meant was...etc" and offer cogent detailed examples of our opinions without missing a beat in live discussions, we would truly create different impressions.

But with this form of communication comes wierdness, too. Trolls are an odd lot of people, they land on a message board, crown themselves king of the board, insult people, incite a riot and have themselves banned. What makes these people tick? Or fail to tick? I have no idea. Here's one example on Talkbass occurring on a topic of walking bass line roots: Talkbass trolls A banned poster called nothinggod is the troll in this little drama.

It's peculiar how quickly people can get their hackles up over dumb comments. Here's a recent example at MySpace (I decided to let the aspiring bassist and record collector duke it out). I mean I love jazz but is this endless back and forth worth this kind of an effort? Not sure. Unfortunately, e-correspondence can also bring out some of our worst traits. People can become emboldened and curiously insensitive through the Internet cloak and friendships can end easily over an Internet argument.

Yet another new thing was invented by accident: "the endless discussion". And no one will ever give up on making their point if someone else disagrees. No one wants to appear to be an idiot and will try their best to "save face" to the personal exhaustion of others. Below link is to another Talkbass thread that is bordering on a "flaming war" (now a closed thread). It was probably one of the longest I have ever seen. But aside from a few bruised egos, if was also probably one of the most interesting discussions I've ever participated in: Anybody want my SF gig? See if you can plow through it.

One positive is I am getting messages from people I hadn't heard from in years because of my presence on the Internet. An old flame, an ex-student who resumed studies, someone I met in a jazz clinic 26 years ago, and a ex-roomate/college buddy from the early 90s who wants to hook up and do a recording. Also people looking for Jimmy Raney landing here (I mentioned how I met Christian Egeskov). Finding people, especially professionals is easier now given the necessity of having one's own "Myname.com" for self-promotion. You simply type someone's name in Google or where applicable, put a dot.com or dot.net on the end of their name and see if you get a bite. This is obviously easier than making directory assistance calls to national 411. And people find me by "Googling". I might even get the Google spider bots started by Googling myself. Maybe vanity is not such a vice after all. In the end it could be good marketing:)

The Recording

Tne J-maan... makin' records...
The Rainster... playin' tunes
Of his own..
with a band...
the BAND-maan
Havin a hard time
makin' records
playin tunes..
of his own...
with a band...
He's a complainster
The J-maan...

90's SNL characters aside. I was discussing on my forum (in my usual self-critical fashion) a recording done with bassist, Ed Fuqua and drummer, Eliot Zigmund. Sax and trumpet were added on 3 tunes: father and son team Dan & Tatum Greenblatt. (See also Charles Monteiro video snippet of session). I also enlisted old pals, bassist, Mario Rodriguez, drummer, Todd Isler and guitarist Billy Newman on a couple of more latin oriented cuts.

So how did it go? For starters let me say this: I was more organized than I ever had been in my life:). I booked 2 separate dates. Nearly every peace of music was written in Sibelius. I uploaded all the parts as .tif files and accompanying mp3s to my share site for the musicians to review and learn. (there was no rehearsal for band#1, 2 rehearsals for band#2) This is a partial score of the Sibelius file for my guajira type tune Sumbate:



For myself, I bought an easel and put down all the tunes with a day by day worksheet study: level of difficulty, parts needed, what to practice. I practiced diligently every night after work and on the weekend. With all the preparation and practice, regretfully I would have to say I learned these hard lessons:

• Don't do a recording without rehearsing.


• Don't put rhythm section musicians together who haven't played together. Even if you have played individually with each of them and given them the music in advance.


• Don't expect miracles on new material. Especially harmonically complex music.


• Take control of your own music. Otherwise it's chaos.


• Take care of yourself physically. Don't assault your physical well-being for the sake of getting that last lick worked out.

More tomorrow...