Avishai Cohen and Standard Jazz Questions

rhydianjlewis

Senior Member
Ok, this may have been asked before in a different context, but I am a bit of a jazz newbie, listening to a lot of modern jazz at the moment - such as Avishai Cohen Trio.

Obviously playing along to these guys is sorta jumping in at the deep end, but my question is: Should i be trying to work out the parts, or just attempting to feel the pulse of the music? Currently I'm just improvising and trying to listen, getting lost at points, and then finding the groove again after a while. Is this technique going to yield progress, or should I attempt to break down the beats and learn them slowly?
 
I think you should focus more on the pulse and the subdivisions, for example Eleven Wives is in 11/4, from there figure out how the pulse is divided (it escapes me at the moment) and then you can feel it and play along to it. You can certainly try to figure out the drum parts, as a good exercise in transcribing and to see how the drummer approaches the song and the odd time sigs, but learning the part defeats the whole point of jazz IMO.

Also if you're a newbie, I recommend you check out some of the old stuff as well, Max Roach, Art Blakey and Elvin Jones should be on your "play-along" list for sure.
 
Playing along with difficult tracks completely blind isn't a bad idea, but you should actually learn the tune at some point. In jazz you don't learn a tune by learning a beat- you learn the melody and form of the tune, as well as any rhythm section figures that are part of the arrangement. Cohen's music (which I'm not that familiar with) contains a lot of vamps- you should at the very least figure out what's going on rhythmically with those. Copying people as exactly as you are able is traditionally one of the ways of learning jazz, so don't worry about over-studying the drummer.
 
Thanks guys. I guess I'm so used to being able to stick on a track that i've never heard before and work out the pulse almost instantly, as rock and many other genres follow such a similar formula. Hopefully by just listening to the music a lot I can sync my mind into a different groove. I'm starting to see a lot of similar patterns in Avishai Cohen's music to grasp hold of.

What do you mean by vamps toddbishop?

One of the things I'm enjoying most about the Jazz i'm listening to is the crazy rhythms created by the other instruments, particularly the piano, thats what's giving me kicks.
 
My advice( you asked for it) is don't play along to any records. Practice improvising and eat that stuff for breakfast(listen) and try to imitate those sounds when you practice....I played along to records when I was a teenager but doesn't really make you any better at improvising, and that's where those guys live, IMO.
 
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