Hal Leonard Artist Folios= good thing or no?

[Pharaohrock]

Is it just me or does it seem like Hal Leonard is releasing artist transcriptions for about every jazz artist imaginable??? In some cases, the guys they're documenting are barely out of their 20s, like Cyrus Chestnut and Brad Mehldau, who just had folios released.

Hal Leonard is obviously on a campaign to be quite THOROUGH and leave virtually no jazz artist without his accompanying HalLeonard folio.

qUESTION IS, are these Hal Leonard folios for lazy students who can't be bothered to go through the tedium of transcription, or do you see anything good in transcriptions being available on a mass scale like this??

I can tell you this- I bought the McCoy Tyner book and ended up playing out of it and really dealing with it far less than I did with a transcription of Passion Dance that I did myself...I like the instant gratification in these transcription folios, but have trouble respecting them....i end up playing a few choice bars of one tune and then turning to another tune and trying to pick out the highlight of that one.....these books lend to kind of a skimming, unsubstantial approach i think. maybe that's just my problem though...

Other question: how accurate do you feel these Hal Leonard folios are for the most part? I found a few flub-ups in the Tyner transcriptions, but not many...

[Jazz]

I assume you are talking about transcribed solos, though I've only seen Hal-Leonard books with head melodies and changes for play-alongs.

As far as transcribed solos from books, I think it is best to treat them as supplemental material, only to be looked at after you have transcribed it yourself. Even then it's only of use if you're a theory kind of person: it gives you the ability to analyze on paper what you may have missed with your ear.

[Pharaohrock]

I think some people are buying these books not as supplements but as ends in themselves. Learn Bird through Hal Leonard...

[BariMusix]

People do what they will. Frankly I don't care how people spend their money, but that is just me or should I say I speak for myself. Anyway, I will use the arguement why should people spend time learning Bird as we need to push forward like Metheny said. So if someone learns bird they will learn how to play bop which according to Metheny, isn't pushing us along. Why waste time learning bop not to play it, right? We need to push forward faster and faster and faster. Well that wasn't my arguement, but seriously, why worry about these transcriptions (Bird and the others before our time) if the music is old and not moving forward.
Musicians that recognized every time is going to have an aesthetic that speaks more of that time than anything else.....recognizing in turn that most music of the past is somewhat confined to the sensibilities and aesthetic of its time.
To suggest that music of the past is more compelling than that of today (in spite of the fact that it speaks to dated sensibilities) is to imply that the culture is somehow edevolving or regressing......and which may be true after all in a general sense but you always have your avatars like Steve Coleman operating on the periphery, speaking for the time even as people in the time haven't caught up to their own time, IF YOU DIG
Right, so why study Bird when we can stidy Steve Coleman? You said that he speaks more to our time.
I'm just making sure we are on the same page here. I appriciate all ideas and opinions and I'm glad we don't have to pretend to agree with something that we don't. That is a very decent thing and I thank all of you for that.

[markvi]

it can only be beneficial to study both bird and coleman. bird still has a lot to offer and playing and studying his solos cannot be a waste of time. coleman's solos are totally different. the more styles you study, the more tricks you have in your bag. it's never a waste of time to study one of the greats whether it's from 50 years ago or 50 days ago. the hal leonard folios are good if only to keep your chops. you can use these on two levels. studying to discover why and playing to discover how. besides, they're fun to play.

[Jazz]

Mark, I think Bari's point is that if Bird is old, and old music doesn't speak to today's age, then it is obsolete and should be thrown away.

I happen to know that Bari doesn't believe this, he is just following that argument to its logical conclusion. The very idea that Bird's music can be learned from at all speaks to its INHERENT musical value outside of the time in which it was created, which is what Bari was pointing out. Also, that musical value is renewed with each new person born, since a jazz musician does not genetically infuse his offspring with the knowledge of jazz that he has.

So the point becomes, why would anyone who actually believed that straight ahead jazz in a modern context is no longer jazz (because it isn't moving forward) EVER want to study the old stuff? It doesn't make sense to spend ANY time in the past with that view point.

I can hear the whistle of the debate train right now...

[BariMusix]

Thank you Jazz for responding in my behalf.
So the point becomes, why would anyone who actually believed that straight ahead jazz in a modern context is no longer jazz (because it isn't moving forward) EVER want to study the old stuff? It doesn't make sense to spend ANY time in the past with that view point.
Couldn't of said it better myself.