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Steelin' away in the ozarks and life,
Scott
www.scottyhenderson.com

I have been using it ever since on faster songs, but I use my big BJS bar on the slower stuff for more sustain....al

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My Website..... www.cmedic.net/~almarcus/

Zappa called jazz "the soundtrack of poverty" and for most of us, that's too true! In the good ol' USA, birthplace of the music, people generally know nothing about this style, and just reject it out of hand. I actually heard a quote: "JAZZ? That's where no one knows the melody, and they just play whatever they want!!" In Europe and a few other places like Japan, people seem generally more exposed/educated to a variety of different music, and lots of jazz musicians are revered there and unknown here.

I know the first time I heard a jazz recording, I had no idea what was going on, and that's what drew me to it. I had to learn a few things before I could really appreciate it...just like anything else: don't you enjoy baseball more when you understand what the heck everyone is doing out there?

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http://www.johnmcgann.com
Info for musicians, transcribers, technique tips and fun stuff. Joaquin Murphey transcription book, Rhythm Tuneup DVD and more...

My good friend and teacher Russ Wever uses a light bar (smaller too) and sounds great on jazzy stuff.

At the risk of repeating myself, I think the steel's visibility in jazz would be greatly enhanced if more of the world-class guys we are talking about came to New York once in a while. This is one of the few places where the number of jazz musicians reaches the critical mass necessary for the creation of new currents -- plus it's a place with a lot of record and media companies.

One reason Robert Randolph is so well known is that he's from here. A lot of people from this area -- including a lot of jazz players -- have probably never heard another steel player, much less played with one, and certainly no one of the caliber of Jernigan or Emmons.

These kinds of cross-pollinations don't happen in a vacuum. There is no doubt that more than a few steelers are top-flight jazz players. But they need to be heard by people other than PSG conventiongoers.

I've been sitting in with some pretty good jazz men here in Central pennsylvania and they all are turned on to the steel.(of course you get the question "Who's the guy up there with the Sofa?"

As far as sound, I've been shooting for a good "trumpet" voice -using an old Emmons Push-Pull, single coils through tube Fender Vibrosonic Reverb.

Too minimize the whinyness, it helps to keep your picking hand about an octave above where your bar is. The manufacturers could help if they had a removable plate in the pickup area that would allow an optional neck pickup. Also, it would be nice to be able to angle the pickup away from the bridge on the high strings, and toward the bridge on the low strings. That would help us in dialing in a thick tone on the high strings, but maintain definition on the low strings.

I am slowly beginning to play some jazz. One of my bands, the Philadelphia Blues Messengers will be playing in the West Oak Lane Jazz Festival this June in Northwest Philly (http://www.westoaklanefestival.com/index.htm). We will be backing veteran avant garde saxist and flutist, Byard Lancaster, and Harold Smith, a drummer and vocalist who also plays didgerido and conch shells. We come into jazz from the direction of blues and Afro-primitive. There are many kinds of jazz. Big band, swing, standards, and bebob are only parts of the spectrum.

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Student of the Steel: Zum uni, Fender tube amps, squareneck and roundneck resos, tenor sax, keyboards

[This message was edited by David Doggett on 18 April 2006 at 05:07 PM.]

Robert Powell plays occasional pedal steel as well as 6-string, and the band, with Kit Walker, Celso Alberti, and Gary Brown, have heavy heavy jazz roots.