be.jazz comments
OK, I guess he's been gone long enough that I can make a few negative comments, though I'll preface them by saying that he was one of my favorite players. Anyway, I've noticed that, although his rhythm and phrasing were extremely unpredictable, his note choices were just the opposite, if you've listened to him much - basically he was stringin licks together or running up and down scales in a very obvious way, though he managed to create the illusion of greater spontaneity by playing around with the rhythms. He reminds me of Cannonball in that way, although with very different results.
When he wanted to sound like a hep post-bopper, he'd either noodle around the whole tone scale for a bit, or else he's play that lick where you break up the diminished scale into arpeggiated dominant flat 5 chords (down a step, down a major 3rd, down a step, up a fourth and start again).
As a said, one of my favorite players, though, and I'm thankful that I had the opportunity to see him live.
...and I'll add, preemptively that, yes, everybody uses licks, but he was much more dependent on them than other player that you'd consider his peers.
Commenting by HaloScan
