Finally! Some objective discussion when it comes to Prince's musical abilities. Except for 2 posts, this has been a very enjoyable thread. It's so hard for non-musicians to actually accept the fact that Prince can't read music or isn't a complete virtuoso.

I spent a lot of time on housequake.com last week involved in a discussion/debate concerning Prince's guitar improvisational abilities. It seemed so hard for some folks to believe that Prince is mainly a pentatonic player with an adventurous set of ears, so to speak. I'm sure if banishedone is reading this, he'll come with an example from Small Club as proof of P's jazz/improv abilities...

As someone mentioned earlier, Prince is a good "dabbler". He can ape styles, adding enough flavor to suggest that perhaps he could release an album in that genre. Thomas Dolby once said something to the effect of Prince plays just enough to make you think he's a genius, but not enough to substantiate it...

As far as jazz guitar, there are many aspects of it, including reharmonization of a given tune, Larry Carlton's chord-theory approach to soloing, Pat Martino's system, Tuck Andress' harmonic concepts, just to name a few.

I love Prince's playing - he's a big influence on my own playing - and I love the fact that he takes chances and ventures out of his comfort zone. I would classify his jazz-influenced playing as just that - jazz influenced, not jazz.

Interesting thread.
Nice to see people who actually know somethin' about music discussing things for a change.

FuNkeNsteiN said:

and look ma, no pics posted.

I think you sell some of us "lay" Prince fans short. Most ardent fans know the man can't read music. We also know that there are scores of musicians who are more proficient at their chosen instrument.

prince once said about funk: "if you can describe it, then it ain't funky!." well feeling the same about him in terms of all that he does, he can do funk ... he can do jazz.

Miles Davis always thought so, as do many other jazz artist.

I think of Prince as music's answer to Magic Johnson. He's not a "pure" positional player, but he can play all five positions on the floor in the same night and dominate the game as a result.

namepeace said:

Have u read some of the threads this week?

namepeace said:

Interesting point!

But you also have to remember that Prince, like any major pop "act", always controls the conditions and circumstances under which he works. He chooses which songs to perform, which arrangements, which musicians to play with, what they're supposed to play like, etc.

This is very seldom the case for a jazz musician. Instead, you always find yourself in different musical situations (new band members, new repertoire, new musical approaches) that you have to adapt and respond to. Just like a basketball player - you might know your teammates, but you never know what the opponent's gonna do!

And that's really the true test of your abilities - how you deal with unprepared situations. Otherwise, you're just a Harlem Globetrotter...

JesseDezz said:

I've seen them for years. Prince is the greatest musician that ever walked the earth, et cetera, et cetera. They're always around. I was one of them. When I was in high school. Then I started exploring Prince's influences -- and, incidentally, began paying attention to jazz -- in college, and my love for music in general expanded. I have Prince to thank for part of that, since he really got me interested in listening to interesting, challenging music. But the net result of that is that, while Prince is my all-time favorite musician, and I consider him to be the greatest popular music artist since Stevie, I know that he's immensely talented but not all-powerful. Others here are basically the same way.

Hence, the qualifier "some of" in my original post.

U don't have to explain/clarify. I was the same way. For all of us objective Prince listeners, there are still a bunch of Prince fans (in the past month or two a lot) who can't see the forest for the trees when it comes to Prince. Hence, my "have you read some of the posts this week" in my post.

In fact, I actually wrote to Guitar World magazine in the early '90s (around '90, '91) lamenting the fact that there was never any mention of Prince in their magazine. I was such an angry young man

JesseDezz said:

Yeah, they'll always be here. I love'em because they love Prince even more than I do.

We're to though.

also jazz is in his blood ,his father was great jazz pianist.

thebanishedone said:

Yeah, so they say... But we don't know that, really. Sure, John L. Nelson might have been a jazz musician, but he wasn't a particularly famous one. And I doubt that there's anyone here who's actually heard him play... I certainly haven't.

I mean I wonder if he is well accqaunted with the Jazz Idom like the great masters.

I'm mainly talking about being able to play jazz standards on his Guitar first and then the piano.

I'm quite sure he would be able to play tunes like autumn leaves etc, but i wonder how wide his Jazz repertoire is?


Any clues?




JV'


[Edited 6/27/07 3:58am]

namepeace said:

Have u read some of the threads this week?

As I mentioned earlier, the jazz "language" consists of many different parameters. Which ones are the easiest to master, depends a lot on which instrument you play.

For a guitarist or pianist, it's not that hard to learn a couple of "jazzy" chord voicings and incorporate them into your own music.

A better test of your harmonic skills would be: having to play a given chord progression, complete with detailed extensions (like Gm9b5-C13#11b9-F6/9#11 etc). A really good jazz musician would not only be able to execute the right chords, but also know several different voicings for each one, to use for variation.

But the real challenge, however, is still the ability to improvise over the same chord changes. That's much, much harder than to just play the chords...

So if you look at "Do U Lie" for example, it actually has some chord changes that are clearly jazz-derived (chromatically moving II-V-I patterns). Now, Prince can obviously play those chords. It's possible that he would also be able to name them if he had to.

But if you wrote down the chord progression, and said "Here, Prince, I want you to play these chords", I'm not so sure he could do it, without needing a moment to figure it out. And I'm almost certain that he wouldn't be able to improvise on it, in a stylistically convincing way.

christ this thread reeks of pretentiousness..

christ this thread reeks of pretentiousness..

JesseDezz said:

I've seen them for years. Prince is the greatest musician that ever walked the earth, et cetera, et cetera. They're always around. I was one of them. When I was in high school. Then I started exploring Prince's influences -- and, incidentally, began paying attention to jazz -- in college, and my love for music in general expanded. I have Prince to thank for part of that, since he really got me interested in listening to interesting, challenging music. But the net result of that is that, while Prince is my all-time favorite musician, and I consider him to be the greatest popular music artist since Stevie, I know that he's immensely talented but not all-powerful. Others here are basically the same way.

Hence, the qualifier "some of" in my original post.

I should perhaps also add that the only Prince band member - past or present - that has displayed a convincing mastery of jazz language, to me, is Eric Leeds. (Maybe also, to a lesser extent, Atlanta Bliss and Levi Seacer)

Then I'm talking about sound, phrasing, rhythmic and melodic ideas, harmonic understanding, improvisational approaches. Think of music as a spoken language, where "jazz" represents a certain accent. You can learn to fake that accent in a phrase or two - but in the long run, you can always tell...

Maceo, for instance, has a somewhat "jazzy" approach in his phrasing, but the notes he plays are usually not that jazz-related...he has kind of the same melodic language as Prince has on guitar. The same goes for Candy. Greg Boyer, I don't know what he's doing...I assume he's a great ensemble player, but improvisation-wise, it sounds to me like he's faking it a lot...

Renato Neto has great harmonic and melodic language, but his timing and phrasing doesn't really sound like jazz to me.