Ulf Wakenius delivers his second lesson on how to incorporate Oscar Peterson style piano licks.
Swedish jazz great Ulf Wakenius looks at how Peterson adapted blues language for jazz piano, and how we can borrow these ideas for guitar.
Iwas very surprised the day that Oscar Peterson’s agent telephoned me out of the blue and asked if I’d consider joining his quartet. Almost speechless I managed to say, “Wow! Of course.” Then he spoke about getting me to Munich for the first event booked in the diary. I asked him, “What music do I need to learn?” but all he said was, “Forget about the music, just bring your tuxedo!” It was the start of an incredible 10 years together, during which time I was privileged to tour the world with this giant of jazz.
Oscar liked working with guitar players. I’m humbled by the fact that I was preceded by Barney Kessel, Herb Ellis and Joe Pass! And his playing rubbed off on us all. This series of four articles is dedicated to what we can learn from OP’s mastery of jazz. Over the coming months we’ll explore several different facets of his style and see how these ideas translate to jazz guitar. Here are some of the things we’ll look at: Peterson’s bluesy influence, with question and answer or vocal-style phrasing; developing motif-led phrases; bebop techniques such as enclosures, chromaticism and substitution ideas; modal motifs over one-chord vamps.
We’ll kick off by looking at how Oscar adapted the language of the blues to a jazz setting. It’s easy to grab people’s attention with flashy guitar licks and technique, but to really connect on an emotional level, a soulful, lyrical approach achieves so much more. The solos that people tend to remember are those that have strong melodies and vocal-like phrasing. No one leaves a gig humming the Symmetrical Diminished scale! The idea of call and response, or question and answer phrasing is at the heart of the blues. Let’s explore this idea in a series of licks.
One of the key skills a jazz musician learns is how to make lines swing. The element of swing is notoriously difficult to convey using notation, and instead has to be heard and absorbed into your consciousness over time.
Swing relies on having such a strong internal sense of time that you are able to play around with it, placing some notes in front of the beat, some dead on the beat, and some behind. When jazz soloists swing, they play in front and behind the beat to create a push-pull effect, while never losing sight of its ‘centre’.
Guitarists have a tendency to rush, but jazz demands a more laid-back approach. To practise swing, play with a metronome and initially focus only on playing a little behind the beat. Exaggerate this to begin with – even to the point where you feel you are too far behind. Leave some space between your phrases. Now try recording yourself and listen back. Often when we think we are playing with too much of a lazy feel, we’re actually spot on. Such sustained practice will help you to nail the right feel. Also practise playing along to some good quality backing tracks.
NEXT MONTH Ulf brings us lesson 2 on playing piano licks on guitar like Oscar Peterson
“Over the coming months we’ll explore several facets of Oscar Peterson’s style and see how these ideas translate to jazz guitar ”