From organtec@charter.net Wed Feb 27 15:11:07 2013
Subject:RE: American news from KeyB

Do you bring him his morning coffee?



From: CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com [mailto:CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com] On
Behalf Of Dennis
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2013 3:21 PM
To: CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [CWSG] American news from KeyB





I'm going to weigh in on this and probably get in trouble! I had a chance to
interact with Joey and see him up close with a bunch of hammond enthusiasts
when diversi had their open house a while back, Joey had just bought into
Diversi. One of the first things I picked up was that "showboating" someone
else mentioned. THat kind of turned me off at first until I watched him for
a while. He was an extremely humble person once the night went on, and
actually very likeable. Keep in mind though, this was an event set up so
people could hear the diversi, after a lot of criticism (me included) on
this forum. SO you had a bunch of guys down there to "try" the organ, and
they all seemed to think this was their chance to "impress" Joey D. I
thought that was futile knowing my skills and being familiar with his, so
when it was my turn I just went note for note between the C3 they had and
the Diversi. However, most were kind of doing the alpha male thing. Joey
being Italian American wasn't going to let that go by. I don't mean this to
at all denigrate Italians, but it's part of the culture here in america. I
got the feeling that it was entirely cultural rather than him being in any
way conceited. THe guy had a humility to him that was able to override the
bravado in my opinion.
Now as far as the mindless riffing, I think it's the opposite. I think it's
mindful riffing, this guy knows more bebop stuff than any other organist
I've ever heard. I was taking jazz theory lessons from a guitarist, and he
was going to hear Joey. I told im I wasn't that much of a fan, and boy did I
get an earful! After his initial reaction he told me that most jazz organ
guys like McGriff, McDuff, Earland, etc. are more blues based in their
soloing but Joey is way ahead of that. SO I started listening a little
closer after that, and yea, his melodic and harmonic knowledge is immense.
But honestly, for it to impress me I have to slow it down and break it apart
in my head, it's just that far ahead of where I am musically. But the guitar
guy can follow it real time while it's happening, because he can play like
that. And having observed him in that informal setting at the diversi thing,
he doesn't play fast to impress for the most part, he plays fast because
that's how he thinks. It's quite natural for him. I've seen him play
soulfully, but it don't take long for the real him to let loose and him to
go into that world where he's at home. I think the natural inclination for
me and probably a lot of us is if we don't understand it we dismiss it
thinking the person doing it doesn't understand it, that's just human ego
maybe? I did that when I first got into organ jazz with Jimmy Smith. I loved
McGriff, because he played a lot of things I could approach on the organ,
and therefore understand. His music really resonated with me. But then I
started really listening to Jimmy Smith, and realized he did know what he
was doing. AS I grew harmonically, he started resonating with me more and
more. I still love listening to McGriff, but now I can listen to Jimmy at
Smalls and kind of understand where he's going and it's fascinating.
I can keep giving examples of this with different artists, but I now have
come to the point if I hear someone and it sounds like they are doing the
same kind of thing over and over, and everybody else I know who is ahead of
me is raving about them maybe I need to give them another listen and try and
understand what they are trying to say. And I remember giving a guitar
friend of mine a Sheryl Baylee CD, thinking he's going to love it. I really
liked the organ guy on that (Gary Versace) and was entranced at his use of
different outside pentatonics. I think I came as close to hearing CD's out
as I could as I did with the three CD's I had of him playing on Sheryl's
stuff. I asked the guitarist what he thought. This guy was a classic rock
guy, who struggled to capture riffs of some of the greats like aerosmith,
zeppelin, etc. and never ventured anywhere past that. His comment on the
Sheryl Baylee stuff was "they're just running scales". I was dumbfounded but
that's what he heard. And I have a feeling my theory teacher was dumbfounded
when I told him Joey didn't do much for me.
Am I a huge fan of joey? Well, when he's in town I try and get to hear him.
He came to the local casino with the Pat Bianchi show (He used my friend's
B3, Bianchi used a Nord Electro. My friend Craig Kastelnic opened for him. I
thought my friend had more fire than Joey did, and enjoyed him more than
Joey. But my friend who is the undisputed king of the hammond around here
with all us organ guys looks up to Joey as the king. I stuck around to hear
Joey, and he did things with the C/V and the start run switch that blew me
out of the water, and had I not known it was my friends completely stock B3
I would have sworn there was a synth in there. He also played a million
notes per second. I was lost, knew he was good, but it didn't do near as
much for me as my friend did. Craig is a world ahead of me, so if he's
totally impressed with Joey I know there's something there. I do have a few
Joey CD's, and listen to them a bit. But he's still a little unaccesable
with me, maybe down the road he won't be. I hated Medeski the first time I
heard one of his MMW CD's where he wasn't somewhat restrained by Schofield,
but now he's my favorite organist hands down. I thought Larry Young was
weird and now he's one of my favorites out of the legends. And it took me
listening to Scofield's Ray Charles CD with Larry Goldings which was real
accessable to me to make me want to check out his solo stuff which I now
love.
I've heard stories of Joey D being a bit snobbish and rude, and I could see
why the people thought that. But who knows what was going to that night,
maybe he was tired, or maybe that is a part of his personality. I do know
that I had a conversation with him about learning bass on organ and my
frustrations about it not going good, and not being sure I wanted to go that
way. The man listened to what I had to say, told me that he was playing
pedals since he was a kid, so it took a long time of a lot of playing to get
there. But he also named a bunch of organ guys that don't play bass, and
said they are great organists too. My impression was that he actually
listened to what I was struggling with, came up with some reassuring advice
and didn't think he was all that. The "I can top that" attitude I first
noticed seemed to be purely a "guy thing" but he was a pretty humble guy. I
remember hearing him discussing with another organist from the gospel end of
things how he is able to solo like he does. He said something to the effect
of when he hears things he played, he knows he can't do that and he can only
attribute it to the fact that God is somehow moving him to play it.
Regardless of your feelings about religion, the way he said it was pure
humility, like "hey it ain't me".
That's just my impression of him based on a limited personal interaction of
a few hours, and some serious listening time. But I think if we're gonna
dissect the guy here we need to make sure we ain't guessing motives by an
onstage persona we seem to think we see. Maybe I caught him on a good day,
and I'm sure others caught him on a bad day. And this isn't directed at
Craig here I just hit his reply button. We're all at different places
musically and there's nothing wrong with preferring Steven Stills holding a
few chords down that insanely fast Jazz. I look at where I've come as far as
my musical growth, and one of my favorite organ CD's is Bob Dyan's "Together
Through Life" CD. He's playing organ himself, and he's definitely not a
virtuoso! But the organ fits and sounds so good you can smell the oil!
However, it doesn't detract from Joy D's incredible skill on the organ.

--- In CloneWheel@yahoogroups.com , j
a wrote:
>
> I know what Bob is saying though... sometimes Defrancesco just seems to
overplay, and not just at a NAMM show. To me a constant display of
virtuosity just isn't musical. I love jazz and jazz organ, but I'd rather
listen to Steven Stills hold down a few simple chords than listen to an hour
of mindless riffing.
>

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