[Kritavi]

From a recent interview.

You also refer to Art Pepper, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Oscar Peterson and Stan Getz in "Murder Most Foul." How has jazz inspired you as a songwriter and poet over your long career? Are there jazz artists you've been listening to lately?

Maybe Miles's early stuff on Capitol Records. But what's jazz? Dixieland, bebop, high-speed fusion? What do you call jazz? Is it Sonny Rollins? I like Sonny's calypso stuff but is that jazz? Jo Stafford, Joni James, Kay Starr - I think they were all jazz singers. King Pleasure, that's my idea of a jazz singer. I don't know, you can put anything into that category. Jazz goes back to the Roaring Twenties. Paul Whiteman was called the king of jazz. I'm sure if you asked Lester Young he wouldn't know what you're talking about.

Has any of it ever inspired me? Well yeah. Probably a lot. Ella Fitzgerald as a singer inspires me. Oscar Peterson as a piano player, absolutely. Has any of it inspired me as a songwriter? Yeah, "Ruby, My Dear" by Monk. That song set me off in some direction to do something along those lines. I remember listening to that over and over.

 

[soybean]

Surprised he knows anything about it.

 

[Kritavi]

I'm not.

 

[MLucky]

Dylan actually knows a lot about the history of American music--people have documented references to all kinds of obscure songs and musicians in his work--so it'd be surprising if he wasn't a lot more knowledgeable about jazz than the average person working in rock or pop music.

But the thing about Bob is that he's always been very self-aware about the image he projects through the media, so he almost never answers interview questions directly or clearly. It's totally in character for him to say, "Am I influenced by jazz? Well, I dunno, what is jazz?"

 

[notes_norton]

Dylan's answers, like his lyrics, are never quite direct.

I'm also not surprised. Who would have thought guys in Deep Purple would have written a 'classical' style concerto for group and orchestra, or Clint Black warming his band up on jazz tunes?

As a commercial musician people hear me playing mostly top40 songs from the 50s to the present. Years ago I included a lot of big band jazz but those listeners have died. Listening to what I play you wouldn't really know I love classical (Prokofiev, Shostakovitch, Dvorak, Suk, Saint Seans, etc.) and Jazz (Getz, Monk, Miles, Turrentine, etc.), and dozens of other genres.

We play what puts bread on the table, and that us often just a small slice of the entire music world that we love.

Insights and incites by Notes

 

[Kritavi]

Dylan was one of a few iconoclasts of his time, of course he knew others like Monk and of course with his probing mind he knew the history of American music in particular. If you listen to his extraordinary new recording Murder Most Foul you will learn a lot.

 

[dha]

Bob's rendition of Polka Dots and Moonbeams is great. He has a deep knowledge of American Folk music and that's where his musical roots lie.
I met Bob in Toronto while I was on the camera crew of the motion picture Hearts Of Fire which Bob was acting in, along with Rupert Everett and others. From what I observed he always hung around with the musicians, and at the wrap party, he only stayed a short time and cut out to go downtown to jam at guitarist Jeff Healey's club in downtown Toronto, Jeff sadly died at the age of 41.
Anyway, I still dig the music of Bob Dylan and I will listen to his new recording. I will say that I only saw him live once, and it was terrible. People actually walked out and I was pretty disappointed in the overall performance. Still, he wrote a lot of amazing songs and a lot of his recordings are beyond great. His singing voice tells it all.

 

[BH9]

He had some interesting things to say about Bluegrass as well. Probably not as surprising as his knowledge of jazz. Dylan is not an accident, everything he has done was done with intent.

 

[sonnymoon]

In one of Dylan's book's "Chronicles 1" I think, he speaks of meeting Monk in the Village when he was just starting out. I'm paraphrasing, but he recounts the conversation as going something like this, Dylan introduces himself as a "folk musician" and Monk says "All music is folk music".

 

[Tim Price]

I'm not.

AGREE 1000%....This is a wise man. I saw him years ago at " Fat Tuesdays" in NYC catching Stan Getz. He was listening to the music and very involved in
how great the band was. EG- He was having a great time. Another time I saw him and Micky Hart at a Charles Lloyd gig in Lincoln Center.

One of his " road techs"......went into Sam Ash on 48th St back in 2002 and bought a clarinet that Bob asked for, by brand. " Bob would like a Selmer clarinet"....etc etc...And instruction books.

I have high regard for what he's about...and how he got there.

 

[Kritavi]

He's raised the bar again with his recent work, some of the best of his amazing career. I've seen him live a bunch of times. Some shows were pretty awful but in a very compelling way. Others were phenomenal with tight intuitive bands and everything firing on all cylinders. Just read the lyrics of Murder Most Foul and even more of his jazz knowledge becomes evident. The guy has heard everything...

 

[MLucky]

In one of Dylan's book's "Chronicles 1" I think, he speaks of meeting Monk in the Village when he was just starting out. I'm paraphrasing, but he recounts the conversation as going something like this, Dylan introduces himself as a "folk musician" and Monk says "All music is folk music".

Now that you mention it, I remember reading in "Chronicles" about how one of the major turning points in Dylan's career came after he watched a lounge singer doing standards in a small club. I'm summarizing from memory here, but as I recall Dylan writes about how he was in the middle of making a new album, probably in the '80s, and and he's really struggling with all the expectations that he's feeling from the record company, the press, fans. To the point where he's kind of paralyzed: he can't decide how he wants to perform the songs, what direction he needs to go. So he leaves the studio, goes out for a drink, and sits watching some old guy performs standards in the bar. And he suddenly realizes that the guy has been there every night for years, playing the songs however he feels like playing them that particular night and accepting whatever audience shows up. And Dylan realizes that's how he wants to make music, without having to worry about selling a record or what the press is going to say about the "new Dylan." So, if I'm remembering that anecdote correctly, we could say jazz had a pretty profound impact on his music making for the past 40 years at least.

Of course, Dylan's always been pretty spontaneous. I think that's he so thoughtful and so self-conscious that it's difficult for him to settle on one idea or another, and so he's often at his best when he just wings it and lets things happen. Which means that he's going to be inconsistent as a live performer: when you're constantly changing your arrangements and fiddling with your vocal phrasing and surprising your band with songs they didn't expect to play, you're not going to have a slick performance that's consistent from night to night. I saw Dylan do a really bad show once, and I also saw one truly great one, and I've seen one in between. But I think what's important to him is to just to keep making music.

 

[Kritavi]

Hopefully he'll follow his hero Elvis and make an album like this. :headbang:

 

[soybean]

I’d buy that record!

 

[nvilletele]

Bob's rendition of Polka Dots and Moonbeams is great. He has a deep knowledge of American Folk music and that's where his musical roots lie.
I met Bob in Toronto while I was on the camera crew of the motion picture Hearts Of Fire which Bob was acting in, along with Rupert Everett and others. From what I observed he always hung around with the musicians, and at the wrap party, he only stayed a short time and cut out to go downtown to jam at guitarist Jeff Healey's club in downtown Toronto, Jeff sadly died at the age of 41.
Anyway, I still dig the music of Bob Dylan and I will listen to his new recording. I will say that I only saw him live once, and it was terrible. People actually walked out and I was pretty disappointed in the overall performance. Still, he wrote a lot of amazing songs and a lot of his recordings are beyond great. His singing voice tells it all.

When and where did you see him live? Though he can always be hit or miss (and I've seen a few of his "misses"), 91-93 in particular were not so good. More misses than hits. But starting around 94 he stopped drinking, apparently, and his shows kept improving. 95 started to get awesome, and kept on from there. Still, some bad shows, no doubt. I saw him twice the year he had Knopffler opening for him, and one show was great, the other no so much. But last fall he was amazingly great when I saw him.

The best Bob shows I've seen were November 1975, December 1995 and September 2019.

I'm clearly with Kritavi on the Bob side of things.

I'd see him anytime he came around again. Like he, or Sam Shepard, said about Gregory Peck, I'll see him in anything, so I'll stand in line.

 

[Kritavi]

I saw him in 1995 in Portland and it was the best show I saw him do. Everything came together and a lot of the audience was almost stunned into disbelief to finally be hearing a fantastic show by him.
I saw him on the Slow Train Coming tour and another with Tom Petty and one other, they all had their moments good and not good but in 95' he was smokin.

 

[nvilletele]

Yes, 95 was an excellent year, and it was truly smokin', consistently. I caught two shows in December, with Patti Smith.

The Portland show was June 6. Setlist is here.
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/bob-...nitzer-concert-hall-portland-or-33d50809.html

I may have a recording of that show, but if I do it's probably from an audience recording. I'll have to check my archives.

EDIT: I do have a recording of that show, and pretty decent quality for an audience recording. Let me know if you'd like a copy . . .

 

[Kritavi]

That would be great to hear, I'm back on a Dylan kick after a long hiatus. Murder Most Foul got me going again. I'll send you a PM, thanks.

 

[Lambros]

Dylan's answers, like his lyrics, are never quite direct.

I'm also not surprised. Who would have thought guys in Deep Purple would have written a 'classical' style concerto for group and orchestra, or Clint Black warming his band up on jazz tunes?

As a commercial musician people hear me playing mostly top40 songs from the 50s to the present. Years ago I included a lot of big band jazz but those listeners have died. Listening to what I play you wouldn't really know I love classical (Prokofiev, Shostakovitch, Dvorak, Suk, Saint Seans, etc.) and Jazz (Getz, Monk, Miles, Turrentine, etc.), and dozens of other genres.

We play what puts bread on the table, and that us often just a small slice of the entire music world that we love.

Insights and incites by Notes

I think you're referring to John Lord's & Ritchie Blackmore's concerto for Deep Purple & Orchestra. As for Dylan on jazz, not surprised in the least; he is truly wise as Tim Price points out. And the reason why there is no definitive answer to anything that inspires/inspired him, at least what I think the answer is, it's because he probably truly feels that the more you know, the less you know. inspiration is more open ended and it may be that knowledge is paradoxical in nature when the attempt is to qualify it for some narrow purpose.

 

[Kritavi]

I think you're referring to John Lord's & Ritchie Blackmore's concerto for Deep Purple & Orchestra. As for Dylan on jazz, not surprised in the least; he is truly wise as Tim Price points out. And the reason why there is no definitive answer to anything that inspires/inspired him, at least what I think the answer is, it's because he probably truly feels that the more you know, the less you know. inspiration is more open ended and it may be that knowledge is paradoxical in nature when the attempt is to qualify it for some narrow purpose.

Never heard that before. I'm sure Bob Dylan would agree that its pretty damn great.