No joke! No Pun! No arguing intended, OK?

I seriously want to know if anyone on the forum here can play like this, or do you know of someone here on the forum who can play like this? A forum member only qualifies, OK? I know the Hank Jones guys, the McCoy Tyner and Bill Evans' guys too, so on and so forth.

Please do not include anyone who can play 10 choruses of the melody perfect. After 30 years of playing the same melody over and over, I probably could play 10 choruses of the melody perfect too. Ha ha!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7JAA71x92I I'm talking about the first tune speciffically,, and particularly the improvisonal section after the melody!

"DIKI" gave this as an example on one of his post on the other topic asking "Who gets your vote for OMB performance?"

I didn't see a reply box on the other post! That is why I started this as a "New Topic."

Well, bottom line is, the OP who put them up didn't call them OMB's...just 'famous musicians', and to be fair, many of them play like they are used to comping for real bands, just having fun with an arranger for the first time. None of them do much other than change variations and call up the odd ending. But chops....?

Yes, indeed!

Mad skills on that #1 'Have you met Miss Jones?', the Rogers and Hart standard.

However, nobody is claiming these guys actually go out and GIG like that. So that OMB title still lays open!

Diki,
I just would like to know if we have just one player of that calibre or maybe even half of the improvisational skills that he possesses, who is a member of this forum. If so, he'd be someone I could learn a lot from by picking his brain. I'd just like to chat and hang with him, her through email are whatever.
Thanks for any info friends,
Boo

Who's the best. Mmmm...Tough and IMO very subjective. Also, IMHO, some of the best players don't or can't teach their skills....teaching is very different from playing.

I'm a recently converted (approx. 1 yr.) OMB jazz/ big band trumpet player and have studied (trumpet performance/jazz-degree) and played improv for decades. My current OMB gigs are about 95% instrumental with improv as my 'thing'. I'm working on adding more vocals into my repertoire to open my market.

I'm still learning to operate the arranger/workstation and don't consider myself an expert on this instrument and certainly NOT "The Best".

I don't know where you are but at the risk of being obvious; improv, as I learned & implement, requires a complete mastery of ALL 12 Major & 12 Harmonic minor scales at a minimum. Hopefully @ 200 BPM & flawless. This is the starting point, just the starting point, as I was taught. A basic understanding of seeing and recognizing II, V7, I, - II, V, etc. progressions is also a must IMO. Those are progressions that the root major scale will be your basic 'beginning' for improv.

There are some methods, Jamey Aebersold, etc., that a lot of schools use to help teach improv. I know of jazz professors that teach on-line using Skype, YouTube, and just email with attached audio &/or video attachments.

I've had people ask me over the years but it usually ends when the amount of preparation and commitment wains. Adults are especially difficult to teach because their 'lives' get in the way of the commitment to practice scales. There is an advantage and exception to mastery of all scales on the arrgr/wkstn if you use the transpose option of your keyboard. I have trouble with that because of my years of playing in the key, maybe a handicap with today's technology.

This is all just my experience and opinion! Please be kind, there are other opinions!!

Drop me a PM or email if you want. Considering I'm a relative newbie to this forum you might as well ignore me anyway.

SpclEd,

After a couple of years of learning music in High School, I've always been able to improvise to a degree due to my strong interest in wanting to know every chord of every tune that I played. Especially after deciding that I wanted to learn about the great jazz standards. This to me knowing the chords is a must. Dexter Gordon went as far as to insist that you learn the lyrics also to get the emotional feel for a song.

I've played with bands and didn't have a clue of a particular song. I'd let someone else play the melody and I'd have the Guitar or Piano player just say the chord right before the change came and I would solo. If you know the chords on your horn you can do this.

I want to say that I quit music in 1975. I started back around 2001 or there about. I'm telling you the thing that greatly improved my skills was the day I discovered the solo feature of BIAB. The folks here are only interest in what the keyboard sounds like.

BIAB is capable of creating an improvised solo differently each time you tell it to do so. Many of the licks at the turn arounds and at the 4th bar of a blues that indicates that you have to move to another chord is amazing. I learned a bunch from this feature. I could care less about the sound! I'm interested in the ideas and licks played over chords. Like trying to figure out how in the hell does that note fit in with the chord there that sounds so cool.

Watching the chords go by on the screen and slowing everything down so as to be able to figure it all out is a lot of fun to me. Most people I worked with in bands around New Orleans, to a degree, were always more interested in impressing the ladies and getting the adoration then actually being an accomplished musician.

For most (not all entertainers) this adoration is what it's all about. Just look at what happened to some of the most famous entertainers when they got old and fat. That's their bag and that's fine. But they will never learn to improvise. There are no ladies to help you practice improvisation. Ha ha! For the most part this theory is true.

However, this topic is about me wanting to know if there is a real swinging jazz improvisor keyboard player on this forum, I want to get to know him, her better. Really!

I'm guessing Captain Russ is the best jazz player. He's the real deal.
DonM

Yes, Don, I would have said Russ and chas - wherever he might be ...

Just the word BEST made me go right past this post.

SpeclEd ... welcome ...
I have a friend -Frank - (a solid alto sax jazz player)- whose 9 year old grandson is taking bass lessons ... Frank has told me his grandson knows more scales on the bass than he does on sax ! ...

And SpeclEd ... very few go ignored on this forum ...

Donny ... I agree ... first of all the BEST of anything/person/place is just TOO subjective ... and then there are TOO many parameters ... but when it comes to 'jazz' on this forum from what I have heard I would say Russ and chas - but NEITHER OF THEM IS A OMB PERFORMER ...

WAIT - if I am going to mention people who are not OMB performers, I have to put Rory and the top of the list and add Randy on sax - BTW - where are YOU Randy ???

boo ... I hope this doesn't hi-jack your thread ...