Hi, I'm Marc from Jazz Guitar Lessons dot net, and you're listening to album Deep Dives.
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For today's episode, we will cover one of the pivotal works of the acclaimed guitarist Peter Bernstein. Peter is one of the most influential jazz guitar players of this generation, and if you don't believe me, simply believe the legendary Jim Hall who said that Peter Bernstein and I quote, has paid attention to the past as well as the future.
He is the most impressive guitarist I've ever heard. He plays the best of them all for swing, logic, feel and taste and quote. This pretty much sums it up as Peter Bernstein had such a trajectory playing with the likes of Sonny Rollins, Jimmy Cobb, Joshua Redman, Diana Krall, amongst others. His lyricism and melodic capability while soloing and comping is very impressive.
His solos are full of complex harmonic and rhythmic content, but they always make the utmost, utmost melodic sense. During an interview with Pablo Held, Peter Bernstein mentioned that one of the biggest lessons he took from Ted Dunbar actually, Ted was a recognized guitarist and professor is the way that he thinks about the notes inside of a scale. He looks at each individual note as a word, and then tries to find a way to build sentences around it, each word or note.
So Peter Bernstein describes describes this approach to soloing in a very similar way. He has trained his ears to recognize what note or notes each phrase is really about, and practice finding different ways to support those featured notes.
Earth tones, released in 1998 under the Criss-Cross jazz label, is Peter's first release as a leader of his famous trio with legendary organist Larry Goldings and drummer Bill Stewart. This group has played together since 1988, toured around the world several times, and is still releasing new materials to this day. You know, they've played together for more than 30 years now.
The album opens strong with one of Peter's own compositions, metamorphosis. And in case you're not familiar with organ trios, they are something special because there is no bass player and the organ takes the role of the bass and accompaniment for the other instruments. So guitar has a very special role in this type of group because it's register and sound quality.
You can find like fit right in the middle of the organists left hand or pedals and organists right hands. Listen here to how well the sounds of these two instruments organ and guitar blend together. It's such a cozy combination. Takes special attention of how Peter grabs the fourth interval motif of the melody, and then develops it. This is something that Jim Hall, of course, Peter's teacher when he studied at the New School in New York, was a true master of.
The next step is an other original tune of Peter Bernstein Sublime Indifference. This tune has a more traditional sound compared to The Metamorphosis. Both the melody and harmony are paying respects to tradition, and we can certainly hear in Peter's solo as well. It said that Jim Hall said Peter is a player that has paid attention to the past as well as the future, as in the quote.
So listen now to Peter's control over the bebop language and how he uses it to create more modern sounding lines by adding sidestepping across the bar line ideas, polyrhythms, and other modern resources.
Dragonfly, also written by Peter, has a very different sound from the previous two tunes on the record. Dragonfly features a long minor reverb followed by a series of very interesting dominant chord resolutions. It is a tune that sounds a lot more modern, and Peter's soloing still manages to keep its root or roots in into tradition by paying homage to the blues still, and, of course, a healthy dosage of more modern applications of pentatonic lines.
We can even hear a tinge of Pat Metheny influence vocabulary here and there.
The next track on the album is a standard Who Can I Turn To? This beautiful standard features Peter's melodic system at its best. We hear him solo gracefully through the form, making use of melodic motifs, fast bebop runs, and just pretty much every tool in the arsenal. But the real treat, in my opinion, is his chords, melody, introduction to the song.
He takes so much consideration into his phrasing it's almost magical. He really makes the melody stand out, and he harmonizes the tune on the go to create very interesting tension and resolution. Peter truly makes the instruments sing on this one.
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The trio's version of Berlin's How Deep Is the Ocean is refreshing, to say the least. We are so used to hearing this song. It, you know, medium upswing tempo. Especially on instrumental versions. you know, especially in a jam sessions, actually. And on this record here we hear it as a ballad. It starts with a beautiful, soulful organ introduction by Larry Goldings, which sets the mood perfectly.
Larry's solo is amazing and full of emotion, and Peter phrases the melody of the tune like only he can and his interpretation. We get the chance to see a different face from Bernstein. His phrasing is so soulful and bluesy, and he uses very different vocabulary than what we've heard previously in this record. I mean, soul blues and jazz are very related, but they have pretty different idiosyncrasies, which Peter shows.
He knows them very well.
On the track breakthrough, a Hank Mobley song, the trio gives us a masterclass in interaction and interplay, actually. So right from the start, the melody's played as a canon by Peter and Larry, which gives the tune a very interesting texture. During the solos, they both start blowing at the same time and interacting with each other in a phenomenal way, then slowly lay out, leaving one instrument soloing on its own.
It's such an an organic way to approach a tune, and it creates very memorable musical conversations between the three of them.
