TurquoiseB wrote: > > One of the things it took me some time to "get" > about Dylan is *how* he stays so flexible and > keeps growing. He calls his life "the endless > tour." The man keeps performing, and is often > on the road 200+ nights a year, standing in > front of audiences and doing the same old songs, > but *never the same way*. > > It's pretty fascinating to be in the audience > and hear him rip into a song that you know all > the words to by heart and have it take you until > well into the third verse before you recognize > the song. He changes the tempo, the melody, and > sometimes even the lyrics. The folks in his > bands are chosen for their flexibility, because > there is never a "set list" (they don't know > what he's going to play next) and they also > don't know *how* he's going to play whatever > he feels like playing next. They just have to > keep up with him, wherever he goes. > > Think of the alternative...playing the same old > set list over and over, and playing each song > the same way every time. That just makes you old, > and Dylan refuses to get old. He may have advanced > in age, but he's never gotten old. > > Similarly, if you're on a Dylan kick, a fun > exercise is to scour the Web and find *outtakes* > of your favorite Dylan songs. Sometimes you can > find six or seven of them, from the same record- > ing session. And each one of them is as different > from one another as night and day...hardly the > same song at all. After a few sessions of this, > you realize that with Dylan there is no such > thing as the "definitive version" of a particular > song. There is only the take that was chosen to > be on the album, that's all. He probably did 20 > different versions of that song in the same > session, all of them as good as the one we think > of as "definitive," but in different ways. His approach is the same as a jazz musician as we never play the tune the same way twice. Even many classical performers don't believe you should interpret a piece the same way each time. It would not be unusual for Dylan to adopt this though as even folk and true country musicians never do a piece the same way twice. Only "commercial" music tries to perform a piece the same way each time. When I was playing in rock groups in high school as a jazz musician doing so I would frequently piss off the bands I was playing in because I would not play my part the same way every time and they were essentially "cover artists" who were doing often a note for note copy of the record. They thought that the audience wanted it that way but I always found that the audience didn't care that much at all as long as they could dance to it.
My approach worked well in the 60's and 70's groups I played in which were original material groups (trying to get a good record contract) and always exploring their tunes. Unfortunately I found a generation of young jazz musicians who only wanted to do "covers" of some artist's recording. I remember a jam where the rest of the stage was filled with these and they were pissed because I wasn't playing the tune the way the drummer on the record did. My friend whose group was host group for the evening then jumped on stage and we did an improv on an old standard something which the "youngsters" were a bit clueless about.
