George's comment about Clapton in Get Back
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I wound up getting Disney+ yesterday as a result of a recent Verizon plan change and started watching Get Back for the first time. Totally blown away ... not only by the amazing footage and moments, but how it fills in the blanks (in a way that makes sense in the back of my mind) for an album I had listened to countless times.
This is probably "old news" for a lot of you who've already watched it, but I found it extremely interesting to hear George talk about Clapton's approach to improvisation as if it were a foreign concept. Imagine if he somehow convinced them all to adopt this approach to apply to the Beatles catalog in a live environment moving forward; might they have found a new path for future collaboration?
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https://www.youtube.com/watch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRc233A9qiY
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" Hey Eric, take my wife,,
" Hey Eric, take my wife,, please "
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: pride of cupertino
I find that moment a little
I find that moment a little sad for George. He is very self-effacing about it — “I could never play like Eric does”, basically — to where it seemed to feed into his low self-esteem at those Twickenham sessions. You can see John sitting behind the keyboard, just watching George making those comments about how great Eric is and all that, and John kind of has this look that says, “Man, you need to give yourself a little more credit.” It’s just an odd moment. But it’s good to see, because it reveals a lot.
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There was a relatively thread
There was a relatively thread on this site about Cream essentially learning to play long jams while they were performing at the Fillmore (if I remember correctly).
Can't find that thread at this time...
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I thought about this for a
I thought about this for a bit and my feeling is that if The Beatles went in the improv/jam lane they would cease to be the thing that made them so good in the first place. Except for a few songs, The Beatles elevated sonic song craft to a level that few, have ever came close to. On some songs, I don't think the addition of even one note would do anything but make the song worse. Would I have liked to have The Beatles continue? Of course I would have. As evidenced by songs in their solo careers, the best of them are cut from the same mold that they started with.
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> The Beatles elevated sonic
> The Beatles elevated sonic song craft
The Beatles and George Martin did this, and I don't think Martin would have had much patience for the uncertainty of jamming.
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^
^
I did not mean to leave out George Martin as he was an integral part of the mix.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: nevermind
Martin's influence cannot be
Martin's influence cannot be understated, and one of the things he brought to the party was knowledge of how to make hits, which are for the most part formulaic, and the antithesis of jamming. Martin was a genius is his own right, but I really can't see him getting on board with a jam approach.
Billy Preston, on the other hand, seemed to be no stranger to improv.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: 19.5 Degrees
I find that moment a little
I find that moment a little sad for George. He is very self-effacing about it — “I could never play like Eric does”, basically — to where it seemed to feed into his low self-esteem at those Twickenham sessions. You can see John sitting behind the keyboard, just watching George making those comments about how great Eric is and all that, and John kind of has this look that says, “Man, you need to give yourself a little more credit.” It’s just an odd moment. But it’s good to see, because it reveals a lot.<<<
I took it the same way ... and also found it to be very revealing. For that matter, the entire film (so far) is extraordinarily revealing to me. It's an enormous "data dump" of insight into their interpersonal relations as a band that I had mostly only read about in fragments here and there. I don't even know where to begin, other than to say that so far it's kind of like a humanistic Wizard of Oz (extended) moment.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: 19.5 Degrees
I thought about this for a
I thought about this for a bit and my feeling is that if The Beatles went in the improv/jam lane they would cease to be the thing that made them so good in the first place. Except for a few songs, The Beatles elevated sonic song craft to a level that few, have ever came close to. On some songs, I don't think the addition of even one note would do anything but make the song worse. Would I have liked to have The Beatles continue? Of course I would have. As evidenced by songs in their solo careers, the best of them are cut from the same mold that they started with.<<<<
You're absolutely right on one hand (everything IS "just exactly perfect"), but I still think there's an "alternate universe" where some of the arrangments have the potential for improvisational segments that could have added to their enjoyment of performing them in a live environment that elevated their interest in performing with one another ... especially at at age where they were still so young that their gifts/powers that resided within them were potent. I'm not suggesting there weren't other factors that would've put the kibosh on any such extension of the band, but perhaps they're intertwined & maybe this moment with George kind of exemplifies the issue at hand. What if George somehow took a more bold approach with Paul and better sold the idea to the others to at least give it a better go ... and subsequently, their natural musical relationship with one another simply took over and got them to that point where the improv clicked & brought them to a new "space" that was exceptionally exciting? Even if Paul's ego was nearly impenetrable, he was such a musical force that once he figured it out, he might have been "sold". Obviously, this is a bizzaro universe ... as evidenced by the way he just rattles through the numbers to this day. Bobby's sit in a few years ago didn't do much either on this front!
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: 19.5 Degrees
Martin's influence cannot be
Martin's influence cannot be understated, and one of the things he brought to the party was knowledge of how to make hits, which are for the most part formulaic, and the antithesis of jamming. Martin was a genius is his own right, but I really can't see him getting on board with a jam approach.<<<
I don't know enough about Martin and his influence, but believe your take on things.
I did find it interesting to see how there was "the band" and then "the periphery" in the film; whereby sometimes the band was able to keep the process contained to their inner circle, but the periphery was always lurking on the edges seeking to influence matters ... some of whom were more obstrusive than others. I found it interesting that I wasn't the only one to find Michael Lindsay-Hogg to be "annoying":
https://www.salon.com/2021/12/01/if-the-beatles-get-back-has-a-villain-i...
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There's a documentary called
There's a documentary called Produced By George Martin that came out about 10 years ago. It looks like it's on Apple TV and Amazon. I might have to watch it again tonight now that I'm remembering it.
And yeah, Michael Lindsay-Hogg definitely comes across as a real tool.
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That is so interesting, to
That is so interesting, to think if George could have gotten them to improvise more. I wonder what part of it was Paul's frustration of how hard it was to get them all together, so he didn't want to add another piece to it, since their goal was to write 14 songs. George in Get Back makes me sad. He felt he was always corrected by Paul, and no one could play their best that way. I wonder why they had All Things Must Pass on their list of songs that John read/sang but it was never recorded with The Beatles. Also, all of their wives are at the rooftop concert except for Pattie, at least I think you don't see her anywhere. Maybe the other 142 hours have more information.
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George ended up being a
George ended up being a lonely guy in the band, kind of on the outside looking in, because John and Paul were still the dominant writers and there was very little room for other ideas, and George Martin didn’t help much with that either. They didn’t want to mess with the formula: John and Paul were the creators, George and Ringo were the sidemen. That didn’t matter to Ringo, he still wanted to be there. It mattered to George. He no longer wanted to be there.
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George did indeed get to jam
George did indeed get to jam out on one of the album sides from his first solo issue - "All Things Must Pass"
No credits on the liner notes to reveal who the players were beside George & Klaus Voorman on bass as far as I know. Anyone here know more details?
From Wiki:
<<<
Apple Jam
On the original LP's third disc, titled Apple Jam, four of the five tracks – "Out of the Blue", "Plug Me In", "I Remember Jeep" and "Thanks for the Pepperoni" – are improvised instrumentals built around minimal chord changes,[89] or in the case of "Out of the Blue", a single-chord riff.[90] The title for "I Remember Jeep" originated from the name of Clapton's dog, Jeep,[91] and "Thanks for the Pepperoni" came from a line on a Lenny Bruce comedy album.[92] In a December 2000 interview with Billboard magazine, Harrison explained: "For the jams, I didn't want to just throw [them] in the cupboard, and yet at the same time it wasn't part of the record; that's why I put it on a separate label to go in the package as a kind of bonus."[93][nb 5]
The only vocal selection on Apple Jam is "It's Johnny's Birthday", sung to the tune of Cliff Richard's 1968 hit "Congratulations", and recorded as a gift from Harrison to Lennon to mark the latter's 30th birthday.[95]
>>>
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George could have been
George could have been describing Jerry Garcia, if he had known at the time what Jerry was capable of. Clapton was like the British Garcia as far as being considered a rare rock player who could really improvise.
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Big dif. between Clapton and
Big dif. between Clapton and Garcia.
Clapton almost always improvised within the structure of the song.
Jerry's best moments were when he improvised outside and beyond the song.