Why does Watrous get such a bad rap on this site?

[Cmillar]

Watrous - the beautiful thing about his playing on a jazz standard is that it's SO musical. When he 'doodles' it's in service to the music (on 99% of his recordings except 4th Floor where he said he was 'showing off' a bit). Beautiful phrasing, etc. What's not to love?

Turre - heard him play when he was with Woody Shaw. Lost interest in his playing after that. With Shaw, he was really creating something new.

[Doug Elliott]

...
I mean linear vocabulary. Like the double time section from "Laura". elegantly chosen to be playable. It is not a negative.

I have heard that JJ was very meticulous and preferred to work out his solos in advance, at least on recordings, which would explain the compositional aspect and the "elegantly chosen to be playable." I talked with him a few times, and felt like he spoke the same way, choosing his words very carefully.

[jacobgarchik]

...
I mean linear vocabulary. Like the double time section from "Laura". elegantly chosen to be playable. It is not a negative.

I have heard that JJ was very meticulous and preferred to work out his solos in advance, which would explain the compositional aspect and the "elegantly chosen to be playable." I talked with him a few times, and felt like he spoke the same way, choosing his words very carefully.

Yes...not to get sidetracked but this is to some extent true about a lot of classic jazz...if you listen to alternate takes of Giant Steps for instance there is quite a bit that is worked out (as to be expected for a difficult up-tempo chord progression). Or compare Miles's solo on "No Blues" "Live at Carnegie Hall" with "No Blues" from "Live at the Blackhawk" recorded the previous month.

on the other hand there are plenty of live J.J. records and we can hear him being as spontaneous as anyone.

[Doug Elliott]

Yes, I never got that impression from his live performances that I heard.

But to get back to Watrous, he sounded the same on recordings and live. Improvising out of his linear vocabulary.

[GGJazz]

Hi all.

@ JacobGarchik : thanks for the clarification about the word "snakes" !

Regards
Giancarlo

[baileyman]

Hello all.


@JacobGarchik : in your essay , posted ( aug 08/2021) on the thread "WTF" ( Musicians section ,aug 08 2021) you wrote : 《......J. J. solution to this problem was to have an elegant style based on restraint , clarity , motivic development , an unprecedent technique , and when he needed it , a set of bebop "SNAKES" tailored to the trombone....》.
With the word SNAKES do you means some pre-packaged licks ?
I hope I have misunderstood ; If not , I think that you are pretty unfear concerning J. J. and his musical essence ...

No, by snakes, I mean linear vocabulary. Like the double time section from "Laura". elegantly chosen to be playable. It is not a negative.

re: tonguing, many musicians in different styles have chosen different techniques...J.J. said he also doodle-tongued. Carl Fontana did not "invent" doodle tonguing. I think there was another thread here where someone said that it appears in baroque recorder method books.
Steve Turre is not making a blanket statement about those who chose one technique or another. On the second syllable the "L" tongue shape obstructs the air cavity, but this can be overcome with practice or incorporated into the style.

Ok, there are two quotes by me in here. Regarding Fontana "inventing" and regarding recorder tonguing.

I use "invent" to mean a person independently and originally develops something, and for Fontana that was certainly true. No one could ever say his invention of it was first, especially me, since it's obvious recorder virtuosos also use the technique, and I have posted that. I also pointed out above that JJ's doodle preceded Carl's invention of it. There is no contradiction there.

After listening to a lot of Steve last night, never paying much attention before, I conclude I haven't missed much. I am curious about his motivation for these comments. Is he a bitter man? Is he jealous? The things he says as opinion are inscrutable to me, but I showed some of the things he states as facts are just plain wrong. I think he must mean that these other players didn't play in his anointed authentic tradition so they're not real. I wish he would explain, I hate attributing things to people reading between their lines.

But last night's Steve listening session, harsh articulation, overblowing, using time not creating it, sawing wood, bombast, he should address those things first.

[OneTon]

Do we have a trombone lawyer in the group? LOL!

Your Honor, obviously I am permitted to be argumentative in argument, and I submit that the very posts in this thread as compared with those in threads about other players constitute evidence that Watrous is analyzed and parsed and criticized in this forum in a manner that other trombonists generally are not. Every trombonist makes their choices, and every member likes different things, yet we do not see the kinds of comments about other players similarly critical of their choices.

Thank you. The prosecution rests.



Objection: lacks foundation, calls for speculation, calls for expert opinion. Besides, my head is spinning trying to figure out what heck this means!

I am so sorry when people become flummoxed over the difference between “argument” and “argumentative.” It turns out that the way a question is framed is important if truth or value is to be gained. A poorly stated question leads to nothing or nothing of value. Perhaps truth was the first casualty when Andy Gore invented the internet. When processes in general and Socratic method in particular become weaponized, the results are predictably poor.

The college professor that gave the Bartok assignment was a good saxophonist and improviser. He understood that the value of some things could only be discovered and appreciated by study. Steve Turre stated it poorly but actually got it right. In jazz, “if it sounds good it is good,” and some cats just can’t swing.

I

[harrisonreed]

This Steve Weist solo is jazz:

[Doug Elliott]

Some players I enjoy listening to (JJ, Frank, Slide)
Some I ejoy because I want to play like them (Bill, Carl, Urbie)
That is neither.

[harrisonreed]

It was a joke.

I think the OP premise is unfounded. It should be "why isn't Bill the most popular trombonist here on the forum?"

To which we've established an answer.

[Cmillar]

Hah! I just picked up a copy of "Manhattan Wildlife Refuge" this afternoon at an awesome local vinyl shop! How can one go wrong for $3 for vinyl in pristine shape? (....they didn't know what they had on the shelves)

Left a copy of it behind in a move over 30 years ago and haven't heard it since.....but....could still hum along with every note of the whole album!

'Zip City Blues'. Wow....for that particular time, place, arrangement, band, style, etc, Watrous sure set the bar high with that tune in addition to the famous 'Fourth Floor Walkup'. It's just perfect. Iconic.

Damn musical, exciting, and plain beautiful, amazing trombone playing. So great to listen to again after many years.

And, the cool thing about 'Fourth Floor Walkup' is the actual tune and the arrangement itself. A musical journey.

[tbdana]

It was a joke.

I think the OP premise is unfounded. It should be "why isn't Bill the most popular trombonist here on the forum?"

To which we've established an answer.

Don't know if you're still joking, and you have a pattern of taking shots at me, but that actually isn't what the title should be.

[harrisonreed]

It doesn't seem that he really has been that harshly criticized here. Where are you getting that from, I guess? Guy could play like crazy. His mic technique is the same as the Weist clip, up above, but the difference is night and day in terms of sound. Smooth vs ... Whatever was happening in the video I posted. I'm sure Steve was just having a laugh with that one, though...

I am a bit bummed that you are saying I've taken shots at you. I definitely haven't. This has been an interesting thread so far. Stirring the pot is very different from dumping the pot on someone's head.

Actually, it would be cool to hear about your connection to Bill and the other big names. It seems like you have a lot of stories to tell and met some cool people. You should write a topic about it.

[jacobgarchik]

This Steve Weist solo is jazz:

Loud doodle!

[Mr412]

I thought it was actually pretty good scat-playing. I wouldn't want to listen to it all day, though. It would get very Charlie Parker-ish on my ears in a hurry. A tune or two like that from time-to-time is nice. Nice to hear Kai Winding get a little dirty, too. Not all trombone playing has to be "pretty-boy", or PBS worthy to have merit. Whether you liked Maynard or not, he had some decent people in and out of his groups.

Didn't Bill used to play on the Mike Douglas Show, in their house band? If so, that must have been before he was Bill Watrous, if you know what I mean.

I have always wondered when an icon became that person. Tommy Dorsey was a pretty good player in another genre before he became "Tommy Dorsey", the dance-band icon. So I wonder when Bill Watrous became "Bill Watrous". Maybe it was more incremental than epiphanic.

[Posaunus]

This Steve Weist solo is jazz:

Different strokes for different ...
Weist's solo got rave reviews on the YouTube channel. But t doesn't attract me (in spite of a sort of technical facility, which is impressive but does little for me musically).

I'd so much rather listen to Carl, Urbie, Bill, JJ, Frank, Andy,, Bob, ...

[imsevimse]

In short. I have many Bill Watrous records and I still like to listen to them. Never get tired of that sound. One of the best in my book.

/Tom

[Matt K]

My morning ritual for driving my 4 year old to school… or really driving anywhere… involves him asking Siri for (usually in this order):

1. La Zorra (Bill Watrous)
2. In Walked Horace (usually JJ Johnson, but sometimes Capitol bones)
3. Next Time Take the Train (George Roberts)
4. Autumn Leaves (either the “Rawsoliio” as he pronounces it, or Capitol Bones)
5. “Shuffle sounds” (he means songs) by Urbie Green
6. Episode (Capitol Bones)

After listening to the first two eight MILLION times, I can report I haven’t gotten tired to listening to them!

[WGWTR180]

It was a joke.

I think the OP premise is unfounded. It should be "why isn't Bill the most popular trombonist here on the forum?"

To which we've established an answer.

Don't know if you're still joking, and you have a pattern of taking shots at me, but that actually isn't what the title should be.

Maybe you could post some actual Watrous “bad rap” content from this site. Disagreeing with someone is not taking shots unless it’s done in a disrespectful manner.

[tbdana]

I am a bit bummed that you are saying I've taken shots at you. I definitely haven't. This has been an interesting thread so far. Stirring the pot is very different from dumping the pot on someone's head.

I guess I've misunderstood and owe you an apology. Social media is sometimes difficult to interpret correctly. I'm sorry if I've misunderstood. I get stirring the pot for fun not being personal. I'll keep that in mind in the future.

[tbdana]

Maybe you could post some actual Watrous “bad rap” content from this site.

I thought about that, but I didn't want to hunt for posts to copy, and I believe it would have been impolite and improper to "call out" individuals. But I think in the body of this thread I've described the character of what I've observed. Maybe "bad rap" was a poor choice of words, but it certainly seems that Watrous is criticized for things other trombonists are not, and he is somehow polarizing and held to a higher standard (like I compared to social media content about LeBron James). If you don't agree, that's fine. I'm beginning to regret starting this thread. LOL

[EriKon]

This Steve Weist solo is jazz:

Different strokes for different ...
Weist's solo got rave reviews on the YouTube channel. But t doesn't attract me (in spite of a sort of technical facility, which is impressive but does little for me musically).

I'd so much rather listen to Carl, Urbie, Bill, JJ, Frank, Andy,, Bob, ...

Are we really comparing one solo by a person to those names? That would be an apples and oranges comparison.

First of all, it's a completely different style... Put Carl Fontana in to play that solo and it will be horrible. This is not swing or soft music, it's beat/groove music. You have to use a different approach playing that than playing a jazz ballad or even a bebop tune (although some bebop ideas might be cool). Still different choices you can make of course (and I would definitely do them too). No one has to like it.

And talking about things that don't do much musically to someone. Assuming you're talking about Bob Mcchesney when mentioning Bob (and not Bob Brookmeyer which I would agree with 1000%, does a lot to me), although the level of virtuousity is great, I barely heard records that did anything to me musically (not even in a trombonistic view). Maybe some of the earlier stuff where he played in bigbands, back when he wasn't necessarily known as the doodle guy who plays Bb major scale in lightspeed without moving the slide.

[Bach5G]

My favourite McChesney isn’t a doodle workout but rather, his version of The First Time I Ever etc.

Worth tracking down.

[VJOFan]

The two trombonists I have listened to the most have probably been J.J. Johnson and Bill Watrous (Watrous might be tied with Jimmy Knepper who I learned about later in life for hours listened, but Watrous is better to me.)

I hear the same thing in both players. Their solos always have a beginning, middle and end. I hear melodies in their playing. Even when Watrous is going a million miles an hour, what he is playing usually sounds like something that was composed and intentional and not just what lays well on the horn to go fast.

J.J. probably gets worse treatment from trombonists (cold, emotionless, cliched), but those are subjective opinions that people are free to have. I feel differently when I listen to his playing. The fact that his solos are melodic and have direction, I think, is pretty clear.

Both artists clearly have complete control of what they want to have come out of the end of their horns.

4th Floor Walk Up was mentioned above. For me, that cadenza has always occupied the same place in trombone playing that Eddie Van Halen's Eruption solo does for guitar. That cadenza breaks down the limits of possibility on the trombone. And, for me, it still has logical development. "Not musical!" Is it any less musical than the Blue Bells variations? Argue as you like on that. The cadenza is a landmark in what can be done on the trombone. (With good micing?? )

For me, my two favourites in the bop/post bop category have been and will likely always be, Bill and JJ because they got more from their horns, within their chosen parameters, without sounding like crap most of the time, than anyone else using similar techniques.

[Bach5G]

“The cadenza is a landmark in what can be done on the trombone.”

It certainly was in 1970.

[tbdana]

“The cadenza is a landmark in what can be done on the trombone.”

It certainly was in 1970.

And also in 1974 when it was released.

The implication is that it no longer is today, right? I think it still is. Of course, back in '74 no one else could do that stuff, and today lots of us can do at least some of it. In the cadenza Bill actually plays exercises that I and lots of others now practice, like this bit:

Screen Shot 2024-02-16 at 10.03.58 AM.png

And this jazz pattern bit:

Screen Shot 2024-02-16 at 10.05.44 AM.png

And this flexibility bit:

Screen Shot 2024-02-16 at 10.07.06 AM.png

That cadenza may have lost some of its shock value over the decades, but IMHO it's still defining a standard of what can be done on the horn. I'd love to see something that goes beyond this cadenza in terms of technical possibilities. Please feel free to share it. It might inspire me to hit the woodshed again, the way Watrous' cadenza did back in the day.

[tbdana]

My favourite McChesney isn’t a doodle workout but rather, his version of The First Time I Ever etc.

Worth tracking down.

I'd like to track it down, but don't know what that is. Can you give more info?

[Bach5G]

My favourite McChesney isn’t a doodle workout but rather, his version of The First Time I Ever etc.

Worth tracking down.

I'd like to track it down, but don't know what that is. Can you give more info?

The most I could find is just a taste:


https://bobmcchesney.com/best-of-bob-mcchesney/

[brtnats]

...
I mean linear vocabulary. Like the double time section from "Laura". elegantly chosen to be playable. It is not a negative.

I have heard that JJ was very meticulous and preferred to work out his solos in advance, at least on recordings, which would explain the compositional aspect and the "elegantly chosen to be playable." I talked with him a few times, and felt like he spoke the same way, choosing his words very carefully.

Sam Burtis told me once that JJ used to plot field gun trajectories for the army, and that kind meticulousness and attention to detail carried over into other areas of his life.

[GGJazz]

Hello all .

About the Steve Weist solo : in this video , he is pretty young , I think about 25 , and it is a live performance in a Festival , so maybe he was not so "focused".

Anyway , I think that his solo is just a " blew into the horn" .
Everybody knows that this is a different style than Jazz or Ballads , but players like Wayne Henderson , Fred Wesley , Nils Landgren , etc , would have play it in a wonderful more musical way .

I do not think that , as Erikon wrote , 《 put Carl Fontana in to play that solo and it will be horrible》.
Of course , if he had to play a solo like this , he would have fit the genre , playing in a different way respect how he is playing on jazz standards..
This solo is an "Open Bb7" on that style , every pro jazz trombone player knows how to play things that fit on it .

Regards
Giancarlo

[EriKon]

This solo is an "Open Bb7" on that style , every pro jazz trombone player knows how to play things that fit on it

I'll disagree with that statement. I can think of many players who won't play something that fits the style at all. Not the challenge of playing over Bb7. But the style and the ideas that will fit to it.

But this is a Bill Watrous and not a Steve Weist thread

[tbdana]

This Steve Weist solo is jazz:

A perfect example of why Watrous plays softly into a mic.

[GGJazz]

Hi.

@Erikon : well , maybe not all the pro jazz players can deal with this , but the most surely can .

Of course this is a thread about BW .
Anyway , looking at what you wrote 11 replies above , I think there is a little room for talking about SW also.

Regards
Giancarlo

[Mr412]

...
I hear the same thing in both players. Their solos always have a beginning, middle and end. I hear melodies in their playing....

I enjoyed all of your comments, but please forgive me if I am sharpshooting. Someone stated that JJ was a plotter in the military and so was I; for four-deuce mortars, so we at least have THAT much in common (lol). The standards I play have a melody line beginning, a bridge and a melody line re-statement to end it. There are probably musical terms for that layout. Anyway, it seems logical to me that when I solo over a chorus, my solos have a beginning, middle and end as well - I mean, if I'm following the script at all - and I expect a listener to be able to pick out at least fragments of the original melody as I go along. I don't consider this to be a profound thing that only the best of the best players do. I consider it to be fundamental. Just sayin'... Thanks.

[CaptEquinox]

Broadly speaking — Bill Watrous gets a bad rap (not here, necessarily) for a few different reasons. One is that, in his younger days, he was known as something of a hellion, at least potentially. That reputation eventually ended up preceding him to some degree when he’d go off to be a guest artist. On the playing side of things, some people were apt to feel that his amazing abilities on the horn could cross the border into gratuitousness. Importantly, though, a not small amount of virtuosos get stuck with that criticism, even including Oscar Peterson, a musician with no small amount of musical taste. Bill’s live performances could end up being a little bit of vaudeville, but my take is that (remembering back to high school), he enjoyed telling stories and doing different things to “get over” with the audiences, eg., playing the trombone backwards, etc. …

[Trombo]

The two trombonists I have listened to the most have probably been J.J. Johnson and Bill Watrous.

Me too.
But these are two completely opposite directions in modern jazz trombone. Watrous leads the jazz trombone virtuosos, while JJ leads the bebopper trombonists.

I don't know a single professional trombonist in our country who doesn't admire Watrous' playing. Bill Watrous has pushed the boundaries of how the trombone can be played. He was the greatest trombone jazz virtuoso (IMHO).
On the contrary, our academic trombonists have a less enthusiastic attitude towards JJ, because his technique does not amaze them, and they do not understand anything about bebop.

But jazz critics and journalists have a completely different attitude. They consider the number one jazz trombonist of all time to be JJ because his improvisations were perfect in the context of bebop.
Jazz critics consider Watrous to be some kind of trombone magician or circus performer. In their opinion, Watrous was not a serious bebopper. Therefore, Watrous rarely appeared on DownBeat magazine's lists of the best trombonists, and JJ often topped the list of the best trombonists, even in years when he was not recording.

[Cmillar]

The wonderful thing about Watrous is that he helped put the trombone in a 'new light' with his virtuosity, and not just to trombone players.

The only troubling side is that now we have thousands of 'circus-freak' jazz trombone players that are all trying to play rings around each other and trying to lay claim to "Most virtuosic technical trombone freak" of all time.

(....no wonder so many non-trombone audience members just tune out at the mention of trombone players playing jazz gigs....we're our own worst enemies!)

Makes one just want to hear Watrous playing on a ballad....and listening to more Urbie Green again!

[jacobgarchik]

I don't know...trombone virtuosity was not new...here's Britt Woodman doing a double Eb in 1959.

[tbdana]

Bill Watrous...was known as something of a hellion, at least potentially.

Heh! Yeah, that's kinda true.

...some people were apt to feel that his amazing abilities on the horn could cross the border into gratuitousness. ...Bill’s live performances could end up being a little bit of vaudeville, but my take is that (remembering back to high school), he enjoyed telling stories and doing different things to “get over” with the audiences.

Again true. Very accurate observations. Bill, deep in his "hellion" soul, was an entertainer first. He loved having a relationship with the audience. And if he had been born earlier and without trombone, he would have been right at home as a vaudevillian master of ceremonies, or juggling, or sawing a woman in half. In addition to playing, he loved telling jokes and stories (usually very bad ones), and singing (see previous parentheses), and doing gimmicks like spending excessive time playing multiphonics (is there an appropriate amount of multiphonics?). He wasn't a "serious artist" ("How dare you sneeze during my performance!!"), he just wanted to have a good time and for you to have a good time too.

[GGJazz]

Hello again.

In my opinion , BW virtuosity was much more than hitting high notes .
His total control of the horn showed a way of playing pretty out-of-this-world .

Apart the famous cadenza played in 4th Floor Walk Up , all of you know for sure his small group performances , as this "Straight no chaser" , recorded live in London in 1982 in jazz 4et :



Again , my favorite players are J.J. , Slide Hampton , Dickie Wells , Big Chief Russel Moore , Jimmy Harrison , etc . But I like a lot BW playing , as well as Urbie Green , etc .
Totally different kind of orientation about Music , but I need to listen to all players .

Anyway , how a trbn player can criticize a guy playing this way ... and then pick up his horn and blow on it ??

Regards
Giancarlo

[Burgerbob]

I think we can all agree it was just his hair.

[jacobgarchik]

I think we can all agree it was just his hair.

What about the denim jacket with the giant "Bach" logo on the back?

[tbdana]

I think we can all agree it was just his hair.

[Burgerbob]

I think we can all agree it was just his hair.

What about the denim jacket with the giant "Bach" logo on the back?

That comes around so far that it's very, very cool. The hair... perhaps not

[jacobgarchik]

I don't know about that...look at these guys.

MV5BZDFkNjc2YmMtN2U4OC00YTk3LTliMTUtNzJkYzFhNDUzYmExXkEyXkFqcGdeQWpnYW1i._V1_.jpg

[EriKon]

This is not meant as critics at all. But the thing I'm wondering with everyone saying that his playing was ground-breaking, what exactly is it that hasn't been done before already? We heard players hitting high notes like fire (in Ellingtons band, Phil Wilson, Urbie Green, Rosolino) before. We heard players with crazy speed before (Tommy Turk, to some extent JJ, Slide Hampton, Carl, Eje Thelin). We heard players playing the sweet style incredibly tasteful before (Dorsey, Urbie, Dick Nash (not sure about the timeline there tho)). We heard players with insane solo performances in the very early 70s (George Lewis, Albert! (don't forget that Albert recorded his first solo record Trombirds in 1972), Eje Thelin to some extent, Conrad Bauer).

Many of those listed could belong to many categories. I might be mistaken, but those things all happened earlier. Is it that Watrous combined all of that and didn't belong to one style of playing? I mostly enjoy listening to Bill Watrous stuff, but I actually never thought of it as being ground-breaking or setting a bar that wasn't reached until then (I know the cadenza of '4th floor').

[GGJazz]

Hello.
I think that every great musician is that level because of the previous great musicians who were there before him . He do not come from nowhere . Music is a tradition , so the new one develop what was done before . Charlie Parker do exist because Lester Young do existed before him.

Anyway , I guess that is exactly what Erikon wrote above which is amazing : the fact that Bill Watrous COMBINED (and improved) all , or at least many, of the previous players characteristics ( hitting super high notes , playing at crazy speed , improvising over chords progressions , playing lovely soft ballads , using new techniques as multiphonics and circular breathing , etc , etc) , . That made him a special guy , in my opinion . Who else did a "mix" like that ?

Regards
Giancarlo

[Digidog]

This discussion about trombonists has passed me by entirely!!

Growing up in rural Sweden, there weren't many trombonists's records to find, so the influences for my trombone playing were trumpeters like Lee Morgan, Clifford Brown and Fats Navarro. In the LP collection of the twelwe year old me there were only one trombonist record; a collection of Tommy Dorsey's "Best Of" - but three Morgan, one Navarro and three Brown. During a visit to Stockholm when I was fifteen, I finally stumbled on a record with J.J. and Nat Adderly, which I bought because of Nat, not J.J. since I'd never heard of him.

I was about twenty, twenty three when I first heard Rosolino, in my mid twenties when I heard Watrous and Fontana, so even if I am a through and through trombonist, my inner hearing is founded in the trumpet idiom.

So: Yay for Watrous, but I remain a Lee Morgan fanboy.

[bassclef]

I think we can all agree it was just his hair.

Back in high school, when my friends and I discovered his playing and his 1970's photos especially, we referred to him as Darth Watrous.

[JohnL]

After really thinking about it for a while, I think I may have an inkling of what tbdana is talking about. I don't see a lot of really negative things being said about Bill Watrous' playing, but I think I see a tendency towards "qualified praise" (usually including words like "however" or "but") and "damning with faint praise". When you praise an artist for their technical skills without mentioning their artistic talent, that can sometimes be interpreted as an implication that their technical skills are the only thing that merits any praise at all.