Speaking of Jazz: Essays & Attitudes

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2 Speaking of Jazz: Essays & Attitudes

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4 Speaking of Jazz: Essays & Attitudes Ed Byrne

5 Copyright Ed Byrne 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For more information, contact the author at Ed@ByrneJazz.com.

6 TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface Introduction vii ix CHAPTER 1. Concepts 1 2. Improvisation Ear Training/Transcription Blues Practicing Jazz Improvisation Practicing Formulas Practicing Scales and Modes Rhythm Instruments Attitudes Theory Harmony Notation Analysis Composing/Arranging Band Leading Brass 265 v

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8 In an extemporaneous art form such as jazz, how one thinks has a direct and profound impact on performance. PREFACE This book constitutes my advice from a lifetime as jazz artist and educator on how to think and prepare for jazz performance. What follows is a series of essays written extemporaneously in response to students questions. Since no documentation is offered, they do not constitute scholarly dissertations. While topics have been grouped together in rough categorical sequence, this is not a text or method book; and they do not constitute complete studies. It is my hope, however, that this collection will inform, inspire, and provoke aspiring jazz performers and educators alike. \\ vii

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10 Know your story and be able to deliver it in a powerful personal style. INTRODUCTION We approach our practice regimens on two essential tiers. The first involves idiomatic formulas: the blues scale, ii7 V7 I cadential formulas, the twelve-bar blues, jazz rhythms, articulations, inflections, and vibratos all of which must be learned in all twelve keys throughout the entire range of your instrument. This is the traditional way in which jazz practitioners have learned their craft. The challenge is to then personalize these idioms and link them to the essential compositional material of specific tunes, which constitutes the second tier: the Linear Jazz Improvisation method. In an extemporaneous art form such as jazz, how one thinks has a direct and profound impact on performance. Jazz is a language; its practitioners are public speakers. When you learn to speak, you first learn by listening and picking up figures of speech; then you learn to use them in your own personal manner by combining them into sentences and paragraphs to tell your story. The process is the same when learning jazz. The public speaker must have stories to tell (a repertoire), know them (the compositions), and have the vocabulary necessary to tell them in a compelling manner. We therefore practice telling each story, work out the rough parts, and then learn how to vary it in a variety of ways: short versus long versions, various introductions and endings, substitute words, phrases, rhythms, moods, and pacing. As with public speakers, there are all kinds of jazz performers: insincere, slick, spontaneous, those who use easy-tounderstand vocabulary, those who use complex language, and those who deliver memorized statements. Moreover, jazz demands a different approach than that demanded by precomposed music. Most jazz practitioners regularly practice things that the classical musician does not. These skills can best be learned in a focused and systematic manner. ix

11 The aim of technique is to be able to play what you hear. Primary Activities of the Jazz Artist 1. Practice formulas all keys, in the instrument s entire range. 2. Learn vocabulary. 3. Sing to internalize. 4. Transcribe. 5. Learn functional keyboard harmony. 6. Analyze scores and lead sheets. 7. Build a repertoire and a book of lead sheets. 8. Compose and arrange. 9. Practice, play, rehearse, and perform. 10. Improvise on everything you practice. x

12 CHAPTER 1 CONCEPTS The only difference between jazz and any other spoken language is that you can't order a cup of coffee with it. Jazz as Language You have to have interesting stories to tell (a repertoire of tunes), which requires practice focused specifically on that goal. These skills can be learned in a focused manner. Since you can't count on more than one lifetime to master what you need in order to accomplish your goals, it s a question of priorities. If you wish to nurture the spontaneous in performance, you have to have a lot of different ways to tell your story. It's up to the individual to decide to what degree he wants to be spontaneous, and then develop and master it. Everything must be internalized by the time you perform. Do not, however, confuse the process of practicing with that of performance. There are many things to practice, and a lot of different ways of going about it. Don t limit yourself to any ideology, or any one way. When you feel the need to expand in one direction or another, adopt new strategies for the woodshed. Seek out new vocabulary, and do trial runs to incorporate it into your story. Having done this, go out and perform what you sing. View your practice activities as relatively exclusive of performance in the now. Leave the woodshed behind. Trust that practicing will demonstrate a meaningful effect on your performance as it is organically ready to do so as it evolves in your subconscious mind. 1

13 Chord Scale Theory is not the best starting point for jazz improvisation. Chord Scale Theory While all or most of the current jazz masters are well-versed in chord scale theory, they must also have a deep understanding of the composition from which their statements derive meaning. Scales and modes are now given prominence in jazz pedagogy to the point of being the primary focus. While chord scale theory can be useful, it is not the best starting point for the student. Many students are frustrated after years of that discipline, finding in the end that their playing just sounds like a bunch of scales. The very talented can overcome this and develop meaningful melodic styles, but all too many cannot. If you re thinking that you especially need chord scales to play modern jazz compositions such as Maiden Voyage, Dolphin Dance, and Naima, think again. There's a great deal of melodic and rhythmic motivic material to be mined in such themes, and if there weren t and you were improvising on a vamp, you could nonetheless create a few of your own and develop them. You can't begin to develop meaningful improvisations until you've narrowed the subject matter down. Lines based on development of the melody will work against any accompaniment style whatsoever. The most effective way to learn a tune is to first learn it without its chords. Practice paraphrasing the melody as though the chords were not an issue; they merely co-exist. In learning vocabulary, any and all approaches are good. The question is where best to start priorities. Scales can also be used to gain vocabulary without a rigid chord-equals-scale dogma, but incorporating the melody and its rhythms along with other compositional material is the best way to improvise the best starting point and the best focal point to bear in mind at any stage. Every other approach should be treated as adjunct to that. With regard to modern tunes with chord successions, there is no difference between the traditional developmental processes needed in improvising on such material and that of the music of today. While the harmony may be different, lines based on the melody, guide tone line, and root progression are just as relevant over any harmonic style; and lines developed in this manner will work over virtually any harmonic style. Miles Davis, for example, imitated Maurice Ravel's Concerto for the Left Hand to 2

14 create a kind of Impressionist jazz for over thirteen years. In the process, however, he never forgot to develop the exposition line and the composition's other salient characteristics in his improvisations. (See, for example, Filles de Kilimanjaro.) When you are struggling with a sophisticated Wayne Shorter composition, once the simplified melody, guide tone line, and root progression are reduced, you will suddenly get it: Your comprehension of the piece's essential elements and intent is clear in the very next run-through. 3

15 Song Forms A verse is a short introductory vocal musical passage, with lyrics intended to bridge the gap from a play or musical's action to the song proper, the chorus. The most common recurring traditional chorus forms are AABA and ABAB. These letters are analytical landmarks to designate what is usually an eight-measure melodic phrase. Therefore, on an AABA song form, A would be the primary eight-measure melody; the second A indicates that the first eight-measure phrase repeats; B indicates a new eight-measure melody, usually in another key (or two other keys, four measures each); the final A is another repeat of the first eight measures. A prime sign (as in AABA') is used to indicate a repeat that is slightly modified (for example, it modulates to another key, or it has a four-measure extension or a reharmonization of the phrase ending to make it sound more final). Blues take a variety of forms. The most common is the twelve-bar blues, which is performed in both major and minor keys. There are also sixteen, twenty-four, thirty-two-measure blues, and blues ballads. Summertime is a minor sixteen-bar blues; Watermelon Man is twenty-four; Angel Eyes, You Don't Know What Love Is, and Willow Weep for Me are thirty-two-bar blues ballads. I've Got Rhythm and Confirmation are thirty-two-bar forms of eightbar blues with common tonal bridges, put into AABA form. Since in the twentieth century anything goes, and contemporary composers also employ more-complex and less-common forms than in the past, some compositions are through-composed, often featuring irregular phrase lengths (five, nine, and ten measures) and no repeating sections. Such tunes are more difficult to perform, because players' licks fit most commonly over tonal cadences within four and eight measure phrases. In any of these formal styles, however, the answer still lies in the development of the essential elements found in the composition itself. 4

16 Jazz musicians practice what classical musicians do not. Approaching Improvisation from a Classical Background Most jazz practitioners regularly practice things that the classical musician does not, such as playing formulas (figures of speech) in all keys, and across the entire range of the instrument. Jazz also has the blues: Practice, for example, improvising on the blues scale (C, Eb, F, F#, G, Bb in the key of C) with a metronome at a given tempo in all twelve keys; then practice the twelve-bar blues that way. If you are addressing jazz from a classical (Western art music) background, you need to adopt a different mindset in order to play jazz effectively. Composition is frozen improvisation; improvisation, melted composition. If you compose an improvisation, however, you cannot then expect to be able to perform it in the same way in a jazz context that you would perform a written classical piece. It s not spontaneous and it will come off as such. Moreover, it will not allow for the essential group interplay; it must be different each time you perform it to be in the now. Your ideas must also contain the language of jazz: its phrases, rhythms, articulations, inflections, vibratos, and clichés. If they do not, you need to listen to jazz recordings of masters, sing and transcribe them. If your written ideas already speak the jazz language, translate them into a more spontaneous idiom. Begin by creating several ways to paraphrase each phrase. You don't have to recompose it drastically at first. Just leave a note out here and there, change a rhythm slightly, begin the phrase a half or whole beat later and adjust the rest of the phrase to make it fit within the meter and number of measures in each phrase. Do this without writing it out, by repeatedly singing and playing it spontaneously. In this way your original ideas will evolve organically into altered and then new ideas. This is the nature of improvisation, which begins with paraphrase. If you want to do this systematically, try Linear Jazz Improvisation, with which you would, for example, reduce a composition down to whole and half notes placed on the beat (by removing pick-ups, repeated notes and nonharmonic tones) and then apply chromatic modifiers to embellish the essential melody notes. Combine the reduced melody with the reduced 5

17 rhythms that can be found in the piece, and develop and permute both. This results in an ability to identify your basic ideas. Develop them. Above all, find ways of delivering your message in a spontaneous manner. Start by finding six solutions for each phrase. Since jazz requires a form of oral composition, write less and practice more at improvising. You have to run a lot of choruses, keep listening to what's coming out, and make adjustments until you like what you hear. Develop many different solutions for each phrase. 6

18 Ideology is the kiss of death to the artist. Ideological Preconceptions Ideology is the kiss of death to the artist, along with preconceived notions and over-stylization. Some jazz artists limit their music for various ideological reasons, such as the black artist clinging excessively to quartal voicings and avoiding the rest of the harmonic vocabulary presumably because it's white, or the white artist avoiding cliché jazz rhythms and blue notes because that's black and he wants to be original. With regard to over-stylization, as much as you strive for fresh vocabulary, it s still essential that you understand why, what, and to whom you are communicating. If you wish to be understood, you must be grounded in a language. Many scholars unrealistically believe that the best audience is one comprised of musicians following the score, but the real game is in how honestly and effectively the artist balances the fresh with the understandable and then puts it across. It s your responsibility to tell your story in a concise and clear manner, and to lead the listener from one point to the next, culminating in a clear and decisive climax. Since there is no blueprint in jazz comparable to a Beethoven score, one must have a clear understanding of intention and content and then be able to communicate it effectively in the moment. Jazz is about gaining your own voice within the language and tradition, while continuing to assimilate the harmonic advancements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Tell your own story honestly. Prepare to deliver it in your own personal voice. 7

19 It is the artist s responsibility to know what is appropriate for the occasion. Self Expression While there are no empirical rules for appropriateness in artistic selfexpression, and personal emotions and other life experiences are the stuff of all art, it is nonetheless the individual artist s responsibility to know what is appropriate for his audience. The public speaker must weigh the extent he wishes to express the darker, more negative corners of his experience and then decide what's right for public consumption especially for the occasion. These are, of course, personal choices that every artist must make, once informed by having found the answer to the question, What exactly do I want to communicate to my audience? The blues inform us in this regard: While this milieu is about unrequited love, sadness, and loss, the blues artist nonetheless refrains from wallowing in self-pity. Avoid the primal scream, pouting, weeping, and other such emotions in performance in favor of more subtle means. The implicit contract between you and your audience is that you share emotions which are somehow uplifting and insightful. It's not only about you the artist: Meaningful artistic communication is symbiotic. What is essential is the concept of delayed gratification and withholding of one's forces in view of gradually developing climaxes two-thirds of the way through, and so if the golden section is informed by a tinge of anger, so be it. Using jazz performance as a primal scream to your audience, however, is gratuitous self-gratification: Get a padded cell or tell it to your shrink which reminds me of a remark I once heard. In response to my query, What do you need a shrink for? Don't you have any friends?, a girlfriend said, How long can you dump on them? Dumping on your audience is even worse: They re paying to be there. 8

20 Impressing Musicians Impressing other musicians is meaningless: It's all about the audience and being honest and powerful. When you get the house through artistry, the musicians will notice that. In jazz we speak the language of the drums. We Are All Drummers Play the music of the drums in whatever rhythmic style a piece exhibits, as well as the specific rhythms of the melody itself. This is especially important when trading fours with a drummer, during which you either comment on the drummer s last rhythmic statement or suggest a different rhythm for the drummer to comment on. This percussive effect can be further emphasized by restricting yourself to one to three pitches in a given repeated and developed motive. Apply this organic rhythmic approach to your performance in all musical roles. 9

21 Take knowledge from anywhere you can get it. Rule nothing out. Talent and Pedagogy: Transcription and Methodology While transcription and performance experience are essential to learning jazz improvisation, for some students these basic activities are not enough. For many, transcriptions go extremely slowly and in stages at first. Even when they work for hours at a time at singing a Miles Davis solo, for example, it can be slow going, and it takes some students a long time to learn how to apply what they're learning. For example, many practice along with a metronome, yet don t know how to adhere to it and don't know when they aren t. Also, talent is a fickle thing. Some students learn quickly in the initial stages, and then slow down later or the opposite. It is therefore the teacher s responsibility to devise systematic methods with specific suggestions and techniques to get over hurdles, beginning with how to merely function in a jazz-playing situation. It would be irresponsible to limit the student to transcription alone, since it will take too long for her to develop enough transcription skill for it make a direct impact on her playing. To some the systematic approach may seem a technical and meaningless process, but it works well as long as the true path to art isn t lost along the way. Since such techniques really can be internalized and do coalesce into art, employ any activity that will help in the development of your improvisational skills. Avoid being limited to that which you already know. Learn all of the vocabulary in jazz and classical music. Paul Berliner, in Thinking In Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation, through in-depth interviews with a variety of practitioners, illustrates the large variety of strategies and systems in which jazz artists prepare for performance. Since one can only count on one lifetime in which to master the necessary skills for this daunting task, most practitioners work at these essential crafts doggedly and systematically but each only to the degree that it is useful. One needs to internalize the skills, idioms, and repertoire to be performed in advance, since only then will you be free of thinking about nuts and bolts during performance, in which the master concentrates only on such global issues as withholding of forces, building towards a climax, interplay with other musicians in the group, and above all how it is being received by the audience and he didn t get there by accident and inspiration alone. 10

22 Singing is the express to internalization: Think what you must then lose it. Melody Pitch Collections Don t allow the chords to dictate what you play. Too many pianists have their right and left hands locked in a chord voicing equals a specific scale paradigm that is boring and predicable. Begin by paraphrasing and developing the melody. There's a chapter in Linear Jazz Improvisation, Book I, called Pitch Collections, in which the melody itself reveals a useful pitch collection for improvisation. While these melody pitch collections often clash in a rigid chord-scale sense with the underlying local chords, due to the rephrasing process of improvisation, they nonetheless work because of the strong logic of the melody itself. This principle supersedes any deference to chords. The entire melody of the sixteen-bar minor blues Summertime, for example, is comprised of a seven-note pc (heptachord) consisting of A, B, C, D, D#, E, and G. It Ain t Necessarily So, comprised of C, Eb, E, F, F#, G, and Bb, is another type of blues scale. These melody pcs can be used throughout an improvised solo without regard to the accompaniment chords. In the two examples below we can see that the entire melody of Blue Sunday is comprised of a nine-note blues pc (nonachord): A, B, C, D, D#, E, F, G, and G#. This pc can be viewed as a form of the melody itself and used throughout an improvised solo without regard to the accompaniment chords. 11

23 Melody Reduction Byrne, Blue Sunday: 12

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26 Develop each composition s essentials in your improvisation. Linear Jazz Improvisation The most effective way to develop meaningful improvisations is to develop the melody and rhythms from the composition itself, while Chord Scale Theory requires an intellectual process unfriendly to performance. The four essential elements of tonal music are melody, which in LJI we reduce by eliminating repeated notes and nonharmonic tones (see the Blue Sunday example above); guide tone lines, the essence of the harmonic progression in the form of melodic lines; the root progression, itself a line; and the rhythms of the composition also reduced by eliminating motor rhythms (eighth notes that don't create rhythmic hits). Once we have identified and internalized these elements, we begin to systematically develop them. Linear Jazz Improvisation provides chromatic targeting groups with which to modify all of the above. For example, Type 1a approaches a target note from a semitone below (a leading tone). Type 1b is an approach from a semitone above, and so on. There are ten such groups, each in succession becoming incrementally more complex. This has been the basic stuff of development for traditional composers of all Western styles throughout history. Targeting of reduced melodies can be combined with rhythmic development. In the first measure of Melodious Funk's Blue Funk, for example (seen below), the rhythm is four eighth notes, with the fourth note tied to a half note (see the examples below). The essential rhythm, however, is the Charleston Rhythm (eighth-note on beat one, followed by quarter rest and eighth note tied to a half note). Once this reduced rhythm is identified, it can then be permutated and paraphrased in thousands of ways. For example, it can be offset by a half beat (started off beat one instead of on, and then begun on beat two). It could also be played twice as fast. We then combine this process with chromatic targeting. The result is that you quickly learn the most pertinent aspects of a composition, so that when you improvise it has meaning with regard to the piece you are playing, rather than merely employing scales, generic licks, and patterns. Linear Jazz Improvisation supplies a platform for meaningful improvisation. By running choruses on the pertinent material, the piece will begin to suggest ideas to you. In the process, you will intuitively develop the motivic and rhythmic ideas from the piece itself. The tune then starts to talk to you. 15

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33 Inflections and articulations are the most overlooked aspects of jazz education. Jazz Inflections, Articulations, Gestures, and Vibratos Jazz articulations, inflections, and vibratos are, in addition to African rhythm, the salient characteristics which distinguish it from the rest of Western art music. They are best learned through an ongoing process of transcription. They then must be internalized to the point where they are incorporated into the very fabric of your personal style. There are as many ways of using any of them as there are individuals to play them. These characteristic effects can be combined at will. Below is a short list: Bend Scoop Fall-Off: lip, half-valve, chromatic evaporating Rip Portamento/Glissando Tremolo, Shake, Trill Doodle Tongue Growl Flutter Tongue Grace Note Vibrato(s) 22

34 Music is meaningless without others. Starting Jam Sessions Musical activity must not be confined to one s solitude. Jazz must be played with and especially for others. It's not that the scene is worse than it used to be with regard to jamming, it's just that it's different: Outside of schools, jam sessions have largely moved from public to private. You just have to get started. 1. Go to the local clubs on open mike night. Meet the players, and then find out who seems to be like-minded and might want to jam. Setting this up in advance to meet once a week is best, since it sends the message that the activity will continue regardless of any individual s absence. It also minimizes the necessity for phone calls, which are convenient opportunities for participants to cancel under pressure from family. Most important, though, is that with a regular schedule it becomes part of the participants schedules. 2. Try posting an ad in the local papers' classifieds, something like: Beginning (intermediate?) jazz (fill in the instrument) looking to jam with others. While students often resist, when they do it, it changes their lives. It succeeds even in the most remote geographical areas. 3. Invite everyone who can play better and worse than you. Find out who is reliable and cool. Invite them back. Schedule it for every week at the same time and place regardless of who comes. Make music, learn, and have fun. The word will get out that there is playing going on. As far as more experienced guys with attitudes, they are no different than any other demographic: Some are jerks and some aren't. Find the ones who aren't, and ask them to your session. Some will show; others will not. 23

35 Tell your story; touch their hearts. Performance Priorities Do not demonstrate, teach, or dazzle: Just tell your story in your own way. If you do this mostly with your own compositions, they will provide the special moods you want to explore with your audience. Vocal quality is the greatest quality of the work of Coltrane, Miles, Monk, and Rollins. While styles change as the musicians of each successive generation progress, the music nonetheless does not get any realer than real that s its true power. Art doesn t get any better than Aboriginal art only different. The young person with prodigious skills still needs creative ability, potential for emoting, and a powerful and mature personal style. It still takes that rare person who's willing to do the work. Focus on aspirations and attitudes: a willingness to try out concepts, dogged determination, creativity, philosophic openness and heart. 24

36 The inspiration and addiction of playing jazz is in the audience's reaction and the group interplay. Maintain that image in the practice room. Guide Tone Lines Practitioners routinely use guide tone line technique for playing or writing melodic background lines, as well as for creating lines which move through the center of the chord changes. Guide tone lines constitute the essence of the harmonic movement in a chord progression in tonal music in the form of a line without having to think chord symbols. If you ferret out the thirds and sevenths of the chords in the progression, you will find two lines. Although they both tend to descend in stepwise fashion or remain on the same pitch before descending, one usually moves a bit more than the other. These two lines can also be combined and embellished (paraphrased). They can be mixed and/or embellished with other notes, either diatonic scale notes or chromatic non-harmonic tones. While melody is our primary focus in improvising, if you wish to make the changes, shape your lines around a guide tone line. Sing to internalize and then paraphrase it. It will evolve organically into an improvisation. This embellishment process can also be practiced systematically by applying chromatic targeting. You can also combine guide tone lines in a variety of ways for more complex results. For a background line, make a simple counter line. Don't be afraid to leave some notes sustained and on the beat. For best results, sing while writing. Add rhythm. 25

37 Guide Tone Lines on Twelve-Bar Blues Mixing Guide Tone Lines 26

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41 It s often easier for the musically illiterate to learn by ear than it is for the educated. Internalizing Tunes Learning tunes is accomplished by degree. The more you run choruses, the more ideas present themselves and your sonic fingerprint organically evolves, forming itself into the composition. The more you work on a tune in this fashion, and the more you perform it, the more it will grow; the composition will begin to speak to you. But some songs, such as Lush Life, take even a master a lifetime to internalize, so don't expect to gain intimacy upon one listening or practice session. Here's how to internalize a tune: 1. Reduce the melody down to whole or half notes (depending on the melodic rhythm of the particular tune) by placing every note on the beat and removing all repeated notes, pickups, and non-harmonic tones. You are left with the song's essentials. 2. Play the reduced melody on the piano. 3. Sing the entire song repeatedly. 4. Sing the first four measures repeatedly until it sinks in. 5. Sing the second four measures repeatedly until it sinks in. 6. Put the two phrases together. 7. Go through the entire tune in this manner: simply, so that it will stick in your memory. Do all of the above with a metronome. Since you want to program your subconscious mind to remember the exact melodic rhythm for further development, take care never to add or drop a beat. There are usually only two primary ideas in a given song. It helps to study recorded performances of the tune. After you finish with this preliminary process, you can then concentrate on developing your own personal phrasing style and improvisations on the piece without fear of forgetting its essentials or getting lost. 30

42 Use the same process to internalize the chords. Guitarists and pianists in particular must remember the chords in some fashion, since they will need to accompany as well as solo. Develop the ability to remember both the melody and the chords, but first learn the melody, then the chords, and then put them together in the manner cited above. As you get more practice at it, the process will become easier, and with practice you will eventually be able to do both at once. Transcribe and analyze many songs of different types. The more different tunes you examine, the easier it will be for you to recognize their various types. Gradually you will be able to adapt to new tunes rapidly, whether reading or hearing. Once you are capable of recognizing the various song styles, you will only need to remember those things that are different from its type. Try to get past the intellectual and analytical. After the tune is learned, forget all calculations and work by ear. Eventually, you ll be able to skip the intellectual process altogether. The talented and illiterate often develop the essential memory skills much faster than the literate, since the former have gotten into a habit of relying on their ears out of necessity. Intellectual skills, although helpful in many ways, are not essential to an extemporaneous art form such as jazz. Many masters have been musically illiterate. Moreover, no matter how intellectual and literate one becomes, one still needs to ultimately lose such thinking in order to tap into the most direct and spontaneous forms of improvisation. Therefore, internalize progressions by singing them in the form of arpeggios through the entire form, and sing the guide tone lines and root progressions. First you need to be able to sing arpeggios of each and every chord separately: the four triad types, the twelve seventh chords, and the various ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth chords. The more you develop and rely upon your tonal memory, the less you will need to intellectualize and analyze: You just know. This process begins with the blues and standard tunes, which are still the types of tunes most often used in jazz. Tunes containing late nineteenthcentury extended harmony and twentieth-century non-functional chord successions are more advanced and therefore more difficult at first to learn, yet they too can be memorized in this same manner. It just takes dogged determination, hard work, and time to develop. In transcribing chord changes, transcribe the lead line first, then the bass, and then ascertain the 31

43 chord quality (sing the thirds and sevenths). After enough such transcriptions, you will get to where you hear entire progressions as clichés. 32

44 Mixing Chromatic Targeting and Rhythm Reduction There are essentially two types of rhythms, motor and real (hits). In the Linear Jazz Improvisation method, we eliminate the former, since while running eighth notes produce a groove (or pulse) of sorts, they produce no true rhythm. If you examine the Blue Funk examples above, you will notice that I eliminated the eighth notes that occur off beat one and on beat two, leaving the real hits on beat one and off beat two. While it does take a great deal of practice time to do Linear Jazz Improvisation targeting exercises, take it philosophically in the knowledge that it is the most direct and focused way acquire the requisite improvisational skills. It requires a great deal of repetition, but the more of this type of work you do, it gets exponentially easier. When you are taking a break from your instrument, sing what you were just practicing: This is the best way to internalize. Read or write out whatever you need to write out and only that then lose it as soon as possible. First visualize and think about what you need to in order to get the process started; then, as you do each exercise or tune repeatedly, your semi-conscious mind will gradually emerge. At this point you have to re-learn it, since you are beginning to lose your intellectual security anchors that held you together. Once you have re-learned it in this way, you are on your way to where you need to be, since in performance you don't want to be thinking about details such as notes, chord symbols, and scales. 33

45 Rhythm Reduction Blue Funk Rhythm 1 Rhythm 2a Rhythm 3 Rhythm 4 Rhythm 2b 34

46 In the example above, we have eliminated the eighth notes off beat 1 and on beat 3 in measures 1, 2, 5, and 6, since they supply no rhythmic accents. Once these non-essential eighth notes are eliminated, we are left with the characteristic rhythm known as the Charleston Rhythm, one of the most ubiquitous of traditional jazz rhythms. In measures 3, 7, and 10 the nonessential eighth notes are again removed, leaving a strong rhythmic skeleton. Measure 4 with its anticipation is left intact, since all its notes contribute to the rhythmic figure. Beginning on beat 4 of measure 8 through measure 9 we find a fourth rhythm, which can be broken into two shorter rhythms, the eighth-note triplet and the two-note rhythm containing two attacks a half beat apart. This recurs in measure 12. Rhythm 2b, which begins on beat 2 of measure 11, is Rhythm 2a from the preceding measure, only displaced by one beat. We will systematically apply this kind of permutation below. 35

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48 The most direct path to meaningful improvisation is to address the essential elements of specific compositions. Easy Method for Deriving Scales While the Linear Jazz Improvisation method is not about scales and modes, there is a much easier means of deriving them than through the complicated chord scale theory. Begin by employing the scale of the key of the composition. When chords appear that contain notes which are chromatic (foreign) to that key, alter those pitches accordingly. For example, when a G7 appears in a progression in the key of F, use the F scale, only change the Bb to B (the third of the G7, which is chromatic to the key of F). While the results are often the same as with chord scale theory, they are sometimes profoundly different. For instance, the last chord of the A section of Desifinado in the key of F is a Gb. Berklee College would call for a Gb Lydian Mode, but with my approach you have: Gb, A, Bb, C, Db, E, and F. There are no Greek names, no theories necessary: simplicity itself. An added benefit of this approach is that, rather than thinking locally (from chord to chord), you are liberated to think more globally (through the key of the entire phrase). Incidentally, the scale cited above is actually called the Persian scale, but it just came up as a natural consequence of the progression. While chord scale theory is the prevailing pedagogy in jazz, it is not the most direct path to meaningful improvisation, which would be to address the essential elements of specific compositions. Moreover, seven-note scales often present too much meaningless information to the listener, especially when these scales are derived from chords rather than melodies. They also tend to be too conjunct. How often, for instance, do you hear a good melody or line that moves exclusively stepwise? Many artists agree: Joe Henderson, for example, used to say, I don't want to sound like the index of a book, meaning that the graduates of college jazz departments sounded to him like they were demonstrating their knowledge of scales out of a book, rather than improvising meaningful statements on the specific song. Good lines, moreover, are usually propelled forward by means of chromatic nonharmonic tones (as with Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Parker, Davis, et al), and chord scales don't address the blues, which can be played over virtually any harmony. 37

49 Reading Lead Sheets Reading lead sheets involves more and different strategies than those needed for merely reading lines. It involves recognition through rapid analysis and a quick understanding of the composition s construction, its song type, and harmonic clichés. Ultimately, when reading a lead sheet for the first time, you will think, that's like such and such, except for this fourmeasure extension or that chord substitution. Therefore, reading lead sheets requires song analysis skills. Basic Process of Song Analysis 1. Determine the primary and secondary keys. 2. Determine the recurring form of the tune its phrase and key progression. 3. Analyze the syntax of every chord in the progression (or succession). 4. Analyze the syntax to each and every melody note with regard to the key it's in, as well as the chord over which it resides. 5. Do this to many different types of tunes by a variety of different composers. Start with your own repertoire, then the various blues forms, and then all the standard song types. In practicing, it is always better to think globally (in the overall phrase and key) than locally (chord to chord, or chord-scale to chord-scale); the results will be more musical and logical. Once you have internalized a tune, begin running choruses while keeping the themes in mind. Learn to recognize the licks that you continually attempt to play, and when they are rough, stop and work them out; then continue the process, putting them back into context. As you internalize a tune, you will not have to think about any of these things in performance. 38

50 Modality and Tonality The modal system, with its Greek names, goes back to ancient Greece and before. It was later rediscovered in medieval Europe. However, historical treatises and descriptions by Aristotle and Plato in particular cast doubt as to the accuracy of the names of these church or ecclesiastical modes as they have been used from medieval times to today. Plato s descriptions of the Dorian mode, for example, don t seem to fit the name as it was used later when rediscovered in Europe. Modal music is essentially a melodic rather than harmonic concept. The major-minor system (tonal music) developed roughly from the late seventeenth century to the close of the nineteenth. In tonal music, both major and minor modes create cadential harmonic movement towards a resolution to a tonic chord. In minor, the melodies generally use the ascending melodic minor when ascending, and the pure minor when descending. Chord progressions in minor, however, were derived at first from the harmonic minor, hence the name. The harmonic minor scale was (and still is) mostly used only in its fifth inversion (on the V7-9 chord). 39

51 Modal jazz is an oxymoron. Modality in Jazz: Miles Davis To learn what Miles Davis thought of his music from his so-called modal period (circa ), the best source is his own account in Miles: The Autobiography, in which he states that he was prompted toward improvising on fewer chords by Gil Evans' arrangements of George Gershwin s Porgy and Bess, for which Evans in places wrote Davis only a single pentatonic scale on which to improvise. He also writes that George Russell recommended pianist Bill Evans (no relation to Gil) to Davis in 1958 for Davis s small group LP, Kind of Blue, on the strength of Evans' knowledge of the music of French Impressionist composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. Davis subsequently became infatuated with Ravel s Concerto for the Left Hand, and spent roughly the next thirteen years incorporating his musical devices from that particular piece into a distinctive Davis style of what some historians (Winthrop Sargeant, for example) aptly termed Impressionist Jazz, in which Davis used unresolved melodic tensions, quartal harmony, non-functional chord successions, extended pedal points, bi-tonality, and other salient characteristics of early twentieth-century Western art music. Jazz is not modal, however including Davis s music of the period in question. Jazz scholar Barry Kernfeld calls this music Davis s Vamp Style, explaining that it doesn t fulfill the musical characteristics which scholars attribute to modal music. In brief, modality is a medieval style based on melody not chords, unlike Mozart's music, whose melodies are guided by and even usually outline chord progressions which move forward through the circle of fifths towards tonal cadences. True modal music is a melodic, rather than a harmonic, concept. Even when harmony is introduced to modality, it does not guide its behavior; and the mere absence of chord progressions or the presence of pedal points does not constitute modality. Since Davis s music was beautiful by any standard, his misunderstanding of the term modal is irrelevant, but his belief that his music was modal does not make it so. This misunderstanding of modality has had a profound effect on jazz improvisation pedagogy. The prevailing approach in modern times is to arbitrarily assign modes (chord scales) to each chord in a tonal progression 40

52 that was designed to accompany a tonal melody. The problem with this procedure is that it fails to address the primary stuff of the tonal composition: melody, guide tone line, and root progression. Moreover, to assign three different Greek mode names to a tonal ii7 V7 I (D Dorian, G Mixolydian, and C Ionian) cadence, for example, is tedious and misleading, since it is in the key of C major; if you combine the three modes, you come up with the obvious: a C major scale. In the latter context, it is also less restricting to think globally through the key, rather than locally from chord to chord. To summarize: From 1958 on, Davis was searching for a way to play more motivically and to be less constricted to running chord changes while improvising. In the process, he became captivated by Ravel's various devices. While he thought that this constituted modality, he was in reality incorporating early twentieth-century Impressionist devices into jazz. 41

53 Keyboard Harmony It is extremely useful for the musician to have at least a minimal amount of keyboard harmony skills, since the best way to learn a new lead sheet, train your ear, or realize a score is to play it at a keyboard. It is useful also for transcription, for practicing and internalizing new vocabulary, and for composing and arranging music. There are many fine texts available which demonstrate all the best ways in which to learn keyboard harmony. But since many jazz students seem to have difficulty getting started, I offer here a basic voice-led two-handed block chord exercise on the most common tonal cadence in all fourteen jazz keys: ii7 V7 I. With this basic exercise and some suggested modifications you could play most everything in the Real Book. Block chords are comprised of four-way close voicings, doubled at the octave and played with both hands on the piano. Four-way close voicings are merely the four chord tones of each seventh chord, placed as close together as possible, and then voice-led to avoid unnecessary hand or finger movement. There are four positions a seventh chord can take: root position (chordal root in lowest voice), first inversion (chordal third in lowest voice), second inversion (chordal fifth in lowest voice), and third inversion (chordal seventh in lowest voice). The first and most common (root) position can be found below. However, once this one is learned, it can be extended by: 1. Learning it in all four positions; 2. Substituting in the right hand tension nine for the root (one), six for five, or sharp nine for three (on the dominant chord); 3. Playing the chords in the right hand and the root and fifth in the bass, as a bossa nova, funk, and so on; 4. Playing the chords in the left hand, while playing the melody in the right; 5. Playing the root progression in the left hand while playing the chords in the right. Note: I have put the exercise below in the fourteen common jazz keys: C, C#/Db, D, Eb, E, F, F#/Gb, G, Ab, A, Bb, and B. 42

54 Practicing These Exercises The piano is an instrument which lends itself to digital motor memory. In practicing the exercises below, keep the following points in mind: 1. First practice each hand separately, and then combine both hands. 2. When combining, practice rapidly arpeggiating each chord up (and then down, and then up and down) in both octaves between your two hands. Listen for the evenness of the attacks. 3. Practice vamping on each cadence in one key at a time, before running through all twelve keys, as block chords and also with a bass line in the left hand. 4. Do all of the above with a metronome. If it is too fast, slow it down, but do it in a tempo and in a specific rhythmic style, such as swing, bossa nova, and funk. 5. Do this in all minor keys as well: iiø V7-9 i7. 6. Do this on all of the cliché harmonic formulas and progressions found in Chapter 10: Theory. The notes in this exercise are all voice led smoothly from chord to chord, which is customary in chordal writing in order to minimize movement. Therefore if a given pitch class is repeated, it usually remains in the same finger. Movement of each finger is largely restricted to conjunct (step-wise) movement. On the ii7 V7 I and the iiø V7-9 i7 cadences, in moving from the ii to the V, the top two voices descend stepwise, while the bottom two notes repeat in the same finger positions. In moving from the V to I (or i), the top two voices remain stationary, while the bottom two descend stepwise. This oblique motion (a mixture of notes remaining in place while others move in step-wise fashion) is a common result of this standard voiceleading process. Once these exercises are internalized, your motor memory will lock into these finger patterns. 43

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60 CHAPTER 2 IMPROVISATION Improvisations based on melodies motives work with virtually any accompaniment. Improvising on the Melody Does playing off the melody necessitate that it be done explicitly? There are a great many ways of using the melody, and the more you tap into this, the more meaningful your story becomes. One can achieve both explicit and subtle development of the melody. For example, in working on extending improvisational statements on a tune with the (common) opening three-note melodic motive of C, Eb, and F, you could experiment with many of the recognizable (to the audience) references to the melody. However, some which are more subtle can be very effective employed, such as the following transposition: C, Eb, F; E, G, A; Ab, Cb, Db, C. Add to that all the possible rhythmic permutations of the melody's motive, and you might be doing something far less recognizable to the same audience. Both kinds are valuable. In medieval music, for example, the cantus firmus was often so sustained as to be virtually unrecognizable as the original popular phrase it quoted but it still supplied unity which could be felt to the composition. Great music is usually comprised of a minimum of ideas developed to the max. Ravel, for example, usually restricted himself to two themes, which he would re-harmonize, re-rhythmicize and ultimately combine in various ways. In analyses of his Concerto for the Left Hand, scholars differed on the number of themes, averaging around five. There are really only two, though, but they are so subtly developed that they give the impression of more. Actual recognition, however, is unnecessary for such references to be effective. Carry this developmental thinking into employing everything and anything you can find anywhere in the composition or arrangement into your improvisation. 49

61 Standard tunes sound as convincing as the artist s rendering of them. Standard Tunes and Signifying Standard tunes are standards because they are recognizable and conjure familiar common emotions and memories in the audience. They are not unique to jazz. Every society in every epoch has had its standard tunes. The traditional challenge for the performer is to personalize them. In the game, it's called signifyin. Most great musical artists in history made a practice of including in their performances such contemporary tunes as Variations on a Theme by... In medieval times it was The Armed Man or Summer Has Come. Even as ultra-modern an artist as Joe Henderson, whose club dates and recordings prominently featured his own individualistic and moody compositions, always included a few standards which he had made his own: Invitation, Night and Day, and Round About Midnight, for example. Miles Davis played many of his originals and others, but he too always played standards. Even in his late fusion phase he played standards only those standards were written by Prince, Cindy Lauper, and other contemporary pop singers. Standard tunes sound as convincing as the individual artist s rendering of them. There is a profound difference in intent between an artist exposing a new composition and signifying. Jazz musicians know the difference, and understand the immense appeal there is to audiences for reserving part of their performance time to interpreting the familiar. The jazz performer of a standard tune must be informed by a profound knowledge of the original song. One of the salient differences, though, between a Beethoven composition and a standard tune is that those that fall into the latter category were meant to be interpreted at least in a far looser manner than the former. While you should base most of your preparation for improvisation on learning the essential elements of any composition, it is excessive and pointless to treat a one-page lead sheet as an urtext in the sense of a lengthy and detailed Beethoven or Mozart score. Indeed, such lead sheets are intended as mere approximations as a starting point for the pop singer and artist alike. It s common practice for artists such as Davis to so disguise the melody during its exposition as to make it almost unrecognizable to the uninitiated 50

62 audience (listen to Miles Davis s live version of My Funny Valentine). The charm, however, is in the fact that this can be done and that the audience will still get it because of its familiarity. There are recorded examples of Stan Getz, for example, performing the entire exposition of Body and Soul, in which he never states any of the melody explicitly. This, of course, doesn't relieve the performer of the responsibility to be informed by a profound knowledge of the original melody. The challenge in performing meaningfully on a standard tune is that it requires one to be on intimate terms with the melody and its other essential compositional elements. While the simply generic will work on some level (chord scales), it is nonetheless unconvincing. When the tune is in a bad key for the melody, it's also bad for improvising. Finding the Right Key Since we base much of our improvisation on the composition s materials, when the tune is not in a good key for the melody, it's also not ideal for improvising. Find the best keys for your instrument especially with regard to register. Have your tone quality in mind when investigating alternate keys. In addition, it is effective to personalize standards by re-harmonizing them altering their rhythmic feels, adding hits and intros, and working out backgrounds (usually in the form of head arrangements that don't require rehearsing). 51

63 Stop your fingers from running amok. How to Learn to Improvise on a Tune The three primary elements of jazz (and all tonal music) are all lines: melody, guide tone lines, and root progression. Harmony, the result of these coinciding lines, is secondary. Internalize the entire composition by singing: 1. Reduce the melody by eliminating repeated notes and non-harmonic notes. 2. Learn the guide tone lines, based on the thirds and sevenths, which constitute the essence of the tune's harmonic progression. 3. Learn the song's root progression. 4. Develop these essential compositional elements by applying chromatic targeting. 5. Reduce the song's rhythms, and then develop them through permutation. 6. Combine all of these elements systematically and then ultimately intuitively. Solo lines developed in this fashion will work with any harmonization. Also: Learn a Bird blues line in all keys, and improvise on that. They are frozen improvisations, and have been paradigms for generations of jazz artists. The other important element is the rhythm of the composition at hand, which can be systematically permutated (developed). In the case of standards, which often don't come with pre-composed hip rhythms as do jazz compositions, you will first need to create rhythms for the exposition head, and then develop them in your improvisation. If you practice this way, you will gradually and naturally begin to shed the scales and runs naturally and organically; the composition will speak to you, suggesting ideas. The special challenge of playing the guitar, piano, and saxophone is that it's too easy for your fingers to run amuck, so sing everything you practice both with these instruments and without. This helps you get directly to the source of melodicism, since you will be disinclined to sing mindless scales and patterns. 52

64 Bird was above all a master of melody development. Parker s Lines Charlie Parker's mastery of standard melodies can be heard most obviously on his LP Bird with Strings. He owned a melody. He could rephrase and re-rhythmicize it in thousands of ways. One notable example is how he could control the metric placement of a song or line by playing it consistently a beat or half-beat ahead or behind the rhythm section. Even such jazz masters as Lee Konitz and Duke Jordan struggle with this Parker device alone. It is well known that Charlie Parker's lines contain a great deal of formulas: some his own, many idiomatic and generic. The most salient characteristic of his playing and writing is his head lines, which can be viewed as frozen improvisations based on the progressions of standard tunes, which in many cases he had embellished with additional secondary cadences (ii7 V7 I s). Analytical dissertations have been written that identify his most-used solutions to chord progressions, which he tended to recycle in various ways, creating a thousand formulas out of one. These are peppered with his copious usage of traditional chromatic non-harmonic tones that propel the lines forward. His lines evidence chromatic targeting of melodies and guide tone line tones, chromaticism used frequently in a traditional nonharmonic-tone manner. Parker also developed the complexity of jazz s rhythmic language. There is little difference, for example, between his rhythms and those of bebop drummers Kenny Clark or Max Roach. 53

65 There are as many approaches as there are public speakers. Formulas Equivalent to figures of speech, formulas are especially prominent in bebop, which is often performed at race-track tempos in which formulas help facilitate rapid release. Improvisation is usually largely comprised of things the improviser has said before, of what at a given moment in performance he chooses to say and what is left out out of the thousands of things that he could have said. The question then becomes which version of the formula is the paradigm, since when a wind player needs to breathe, for example, the formula will have to be modified. In this and other ways, one formula evolves into many formulas, however related. In spite of our systematic practice of these idioms in every key as a basic praxis, in the heat of performance they find a great many unique ways of coalescing, the end of one becoming the beginning of another, for instance. While this is true to some extent of all jazz styles, the relatively simple harmonic basis of bop (mostly modulated cadences) makes formulas even more functionally helpful. Besides using idiomatic licks, create your own. Work them out in all keys for vocabulary to keep in your back pocket for use at any future time. 54

66 Honesty is the true path to creating a personal style. Developing a Style Jazz books tend to suffer from an overabundance of hyperbole and misinformation: genius, influential, original, sheets of sound, avoid notes statements which misdirect, either implicitly or explicitly encouraging students to be original, for example. Says who, and why should we care? The primary traditional quality a jazz artist can possess is to have her own personal style. Just be true to your self. Learn every word in the dictionary without prejudice. For ideological reasons in a misguided quest for originality, some artists rule out certain musical elements because they have been done before. Never make such pre-determined judgments with regard to chords and scales or any other sound because whenever you do, you lose: It's all vocabulary. Even the vanilla flavor of the Mixolydian mode is perfect in the right circumstance. Dissonance and color are dramatically more effective following plainness; it is effective to precede a rich voicing with a simple triad. In learning one s craft it is never too soon to begin the process of developing a personal style. While imitation is a good way to begin, excessive imitation, at its worst a shortcut to impressing the uninitiated audience, ultimately causes musicians who overindulge in this practice to be redundant and irrelevant. Learn the basic skills and become educated as to the differences among the various masters styles. Conscious experimentation with musical elements in search of fresh results has always been essential. One need only look to jazz history for confirmation of this practice: Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, Coltrane and most other great jazz artists consciously experimented in order to expand their artistic vocabularies. Once you are in performance, though, disregard details such as chords and scales. Concentrate instead on the global climatic flow of the solo and on the rhythm section and especially the audience reaction. Tell your story, make your point, and get out. Regardless of your audience s demographics, you still have to come at them with confidence and attitude in all circumstances. You need also to pull it off in the end with a climax 55

67 Straight Ahead When a jazz musician says straight ahead, he usually means swing time in 4/4 meter usually medium to up-tempo. The term also usually implies playing inside the chord changes. The harmonic vocabulary and forms are generally straightforward (twelve-bar blues, AABA, ABAB, or sixteenmeasure song-form). The bass is usually walking (quarter notes) at least during the solos. One achieves music mastery not by talent, but by dint of hard work and dogged determination. Identifying and Fixing Limitations The most important factor in reaching music mastery isn't talent, it s consistency and hard work; and this is especially true for contemporary jazz musicians, since rehearsals are at an absolute minimum. People are now recording and performing a greater variety of styles than before, making it essential to be solid on fundamentals in order to be able to digest a great deal of sophisticated information in a hurry. Fixing your limitations relieves stress and gives you confidence as a player, but you have to put in the time, since being aware of your limitations and actually taking action to fix them are two very different things. It isn't easy to correct bad habits and add new skills, and many people are unwilling to put in the time and effort with the persistence and consistency needed to address the issues that affect their ability to express themselves on their instrument. Even with the knowledge of how to play something, you still must consistently sit down and do the kind of slow, painful, repetitive practice needed for improvement to occur. This isn't really about exercises or etudes, though, but rather about taking the time to work through each and every faulty phrase: Go back, slow it down, and reconsider your options; then persevere until it feels comfortable. Fix weaknesses by slowly working through a tune to find out what you really want to be playing, instead of just what your hands are comfortable finding. This kind of practicing is mentally draining, but it is necessary, direct, and effective. 56

68 Improvisation and Preconception Improvisation is an imprecise term. If you look it up, there will be scores of pages of microscopic print on the subject, with many different definitions of the term. Also, jazz historical practice is different for vocalists and instrumentalists. Jazz trombonist J. J. Johnson adopted a basic twentiethcentury classical approach. He once made the statement that in jazz we create the illusion of spontaneity. For him it was a process of oral composition in advance that culminated in the same performance every time. Indeed, he took no chances in performance, and when he returned to the scene after a twenty-five-year-or-so retirement, he was playing the same improvisations he had recorded many years before. The Modern Jazz Quartet made a statement similar to Johnson s, in which they explained that the only time one truly improvises is the very first time one plays the tune. Therefore, they routinely recorded the first rehearsal run-through on a new tune, and then memorized the resultant version. It is far easier with this approach to focus on delivering flawlessly executed presentations than it is when you play in the moment. It allowed them to practice for consistency, rather than for playing in the now, the latter of which involves very different and more complex strategies. This preconception process can take a variety of forms. Maynard Ferguson, for example, would gradually work a solo out on the gigs on tour. When he got it together, he would deliver it in exactly the same manner each and every night. J. J., on the other hand, composed his solos in advance of the first performance and sounded great the first time out. There are many different degrees of spontaneity in improvisation, exemplified by players of the now such as Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Lee Morgan, Joe Henderson, and Sonny Rollins. Although they played the content of their lines before, there was a sense of immediacy and risk-taking in which it just might not work out which gave it meaning: You can smell the blood. The other prime element of improvising in the now is the spontaneity of the articulations, inflections, vibratos, and gestures one of the unspoken, yet salient characteristics of our peculiar extemporaneous art form. 57

69 There are, however, very prominent downsides to the spontaneous approach, in spite of the fact that this is the most powerful and truly exciting manner of performance: cracked notes, for instance, and phrases that don't quite work out. Many condemned Miles for this, but sitting on the edge of your seat, not sure if Trane is gonna make it, is great. You can get bored with Oscar Peterson: It is slick and inevitable, and you know he'll make it and make it easy. It's a demonstration. Freddie Hubbard made it sound easy, but he took a lot of chances, too. Other artists improvise on an unbelievable level, yet play preconceived articulations. You get all approaches in this big world of jazz improvisation. 58

70 Different song-types suggest different improvisational strategies. Sixteenth-Note Lines Some tempos don't easily allow for sixteenth-note lines, while others suggest more success with the Linear Jazz Improvisation simplified melody. For sixteenth notes, place all the original melody notes on the beat, which usually results mostly in quarter notes. Then apply targeting group Types 2a and 2b, and then connect these groups with chromatic passing tones. In performance, sing what you hear and then play that. There are no rules at that point, but in the practice room concentrate on one thing at a time, to the exclusion of other approaches and notes, to gain control of each. Then combine them all. On most instruments you have to reinvent the fingering and positioning patterns on your instrument, since it is an integral part of creating personal solutions. In the case of the guitar, for example, Andrés Segovia's solutions worked for what he was playing, but they won't work as well for your personal style. This is a major part of developing a personal sonic fingerprint in jazz. In practicing everything in every viable position combination, one first needs to divine whether a combination is inherently awkward or merely unfamiliar, and deal with it accordingly. Sixteenth-note chromatic targeting lines take a lot of playing and singing to become internalized; but the process gradually speeds up, and these figures instinctually integrate themselves into improvisations. Never try to force such solutions into performance: They appear in performance when appropriate instinctively and organically. To get used to how they feel within a fixed phrase length, begin by running sixteenth-note figurations on each reduced melody whole or half note. Then play any notes that you can get out at a slow tempo at first, before gradually accelerating the tempo. (Do all of this with a metronome.) Part of the process involves aurally composing lines in which one targeted note is connected to the next. Do this even if at first it all sounds like noodling. As you get more acquainted with the notes, your subconscious mind will refine your melodic and rhythmic solutions, and fill in the blanks. The examples below show the simplified melody of Blue Funk, and then targeted with Type 2a: 59

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73 Seven-note scales don't transpose as easily as smaller pcs. Bichordal Pitch Collections Linear Jazz Improvisation places primary importance on the composition s salient characteristics: melody, guide tone lines, and root progression. Improvisations based on these elements will work over virtually any harmonic style. The chord progression should not rule, but merely coexist with lines. While they should keep their hands independent of each other, pianists tend to play in a lockstep chord-scale paradigm in which each chord symbol equals one or more scale. Pitch collection technique is a means of acquiring vocabulary which will find its way into your playing naturally, as it is internalized, and these pitch collections will serve as color and added expression to these most important linear elements of the composition but without necessarily being locked into the chordal accompaniment sounding below. In their conjunct-ness, seven-note scales tend to be less melodic, while pitch collections which leave a gap or more, are more melodic. Seven-note scales are expedient in chord scale theory because all seven possible pitch classes are represented. Unfortunately, this encourages the inexperienced to habitually use them all, and seven-note scales tend to foster conjunct lines which do not breathe. Systematically omitting a note or more from a common scale or mode makes the collection profoundly different. Try, for example, improvising on the Lydian mode omitting its second degree, which will result in a very different effect than using the entire seven-note scale. To some, many of these pcs will appear like modes or other common scales, only missing notes; but the consistent absence of specific pitch classes creates something different, similar to the difference between the major and pentatonic scales. While these collections can be assigned to specific chordal situations in a progression, we ll leave that up to others, since we do not base improvisations on chord scale theory. The new Linear Jazz Improvisation book, Bichordal Pitch Collection Etudes, systematically combines every combination of major and minor triads into close position pcs: major with major, minor with minor, and minor with major. In the process, some very unusual pcs of tetrachords (four-note collections), pentachords (five), and hexachords (six) are achieved. All of these pcs can be played in any mode (inversion), and any 62

74 pitch class can be considered the priority note, or there can be no priority note. This yields twenty-four pcs, of which twelve are hexachords, nine are pentachords, and three are tetrachords. I was first immersed in bichords themselves for a year or more, practicing them in the form of real triads first. I started singing them in this new manner in an inspiration: One intuitively evolved organically out of the other. The pcs lend themselves to the creation of interesting lines that are easier to play than the actual triads. Pitch collection improvising involves a kind of oral composition, involving notes, rhythms, articulations, inflections, vibratos, and gestures, with a rhythmic style in mind. My attention has been focused only on lines for improvisation, since this is designed to be the next installment in my Linear Jazz Improvisation method. However, I use these pcs much of the time over standard chordal situations for their color. They work as vocabulary over any chords. When it comes to lines, do not concern yourself with orthodoxy only colorist enhancement of the melody. An example of its usage over a specific chord, however, is the pc for C/Db, in which I combine the two triads for the following composite scale: C, Db, E, F, G, Ab, C, which is on the list of the twenty-four. This particular pc will work over C7, Db, Cm7, Fm7, and many other chords. These pcs will also make good close position or cluster voicings with gaps. Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy treated a pc as a chord or a line in any combination. A good line also makes a good voicing and vice versa, since a line is a melted chord; a voicing, a frozen line. They can all be voiced in virtually any inversion, starting with any of the four, five, or six notes in the succession. Moreover, depending upon the tempo of a given piece, a six-note set may work better than an eight-note set to enable a comfortable run that adheres to the beat without getting into tuplets (like those septuplets you often see in string and woodwind parts to cover an octave. Most players play cleaner scalar passages if they're written in groupings of six and eight than as tuplets. This technique can be used to achieve a polytonal effect as well, for example, C E G; Ab C Eb; E G# B, and for a pantonal effect, such as is found in my composition Like It Is (see below). Bichordal Pitch Collection Etudes captures the interesting intervallic chromatic juxtapositions of the same pitch classes in a nutshell. The rhythms have been held mostly to eighth notes in order to enable us to: 63

75 1. Concentrate purely on the lines themselves. 2. Internalize each line and improvise on it with rhythms and articulations. 3. Avoid allowing rhythms to influence pitch choices. 4. Avoid confusion of a vocabulary learning vehicle with reading proficiency. While for expedience these pcs are mostly limited to a two-octave range in the book, practice them throughout your entire range. All of these etudes have a priority note, which of course need not be in practice; but without harmonic reference they could have lapsed into meaningless successions of notes, rather than lines. First listen to them at qn = 150 to get a sense of the lines, but they will have to be practiced repeatedly at a slower tempo at first, in all twelve keys throughout the entire range of your instrument. Then improvise on them. They will add a great deal to your musical vocabulary for jazz improvisation. 64

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80 CHAPTER 3 EAR TRAINING/TRANSCRIPTION Listening is the essential skill of the practitioner. Pay Attention Make yourself aware of the sounds around you by transcribing TV commercials, traffic jams, bird calls, and the cricket symphony in your back yard. Transcribe them in your head with solfeggio, which in a single syllable identifies the hierarchical relationship of each and every note in relation to the tonic (do) of the key. It is also the jazz practitioner's basic task to internalize the essential chordal vocabulary of the language, seen below. Sing all adjacent and non-adjacent intervals of each until no calculation is needed. By non-adjacent intervals, I mean those that are not immediate neighbors. For a major triad, for example, besides 1, 3, and 5, sing 1, 5; 3, 7; or 1, 7, etc. Improvise at length on each chord all over the range of your instrument. Sing the same. Do this in all keys, since they sound and feel different in different registers. With regard to learning the adjacent and non-adjacent intervals of every chord: When you move into a new house, you must plan how to get home. After you've gone home from every direction, you just go home without a thought, and you can recognize it immediately. 69

81 Four Triad Types Major (capital letter), e. g., C Minor (m) Augmented (+) Diminished (o) Twelve Basic Jazz Seventh Chords -5 m7 m ø 7 7sus o7 o These chords are the basic harmonic vocabulary of jazz. Linear Jazz Improvisation Books II and III will help you internalize them by applying ten different chromatic targeting patterns to each one. 70

82 Ear Training Internalizing Intervals Solfeggio is the best tool for internalizing intervals. The beauty of solfeggio is in its naming of the relationship of each and every note within the key in a single syllable. For example, Te says minor seventh of the key. Sing solos with it, too: Start with small phrases, whatever you can handle, and go from there. There are many different approaches to learning intervals, however, and most are worthwhile. One approach to reckoning two intervals is to sing up the major scale. For example, to hear the interval of C up to F, sing the four letter names up the major scale: C, D, E, and F to reach a perfect fourth, and then just sing the interval. If you have difficulty identifying augmented and diminished intervals, compare them to the perfect, major, or minor counterparts of the pitch class. Compare, for example, an augmented fourth to a perfect fourth or perfect fifth by repeatedly alternately singing and playing each interval. To reckon the seventh of a seventh chord in relation to its root, begin by dropping the seventh an octave and getting a grasp of it as a second, and then transpose the seventh up an octave. Sing both versions repeatedly and compare them until they are familiar. Another method is to concentrate on the sound quality of the interval, the way it rings and resonates its timbre. Yet another way is to identify intervals by using famous tunes you know. Maria, for example, is good for remembering the augmented fourth interval, since its melody begins with that interval. Practice singing at the keyboard or with the guitar, and carry a pitch pipe with you. Play the intervals up and down throughout the entire range of your instrument. Sing it and it will gradually become internalized. Do this with every interval. After a while you won't have to calculate at all. Apply this process to each of the four triad and twelve seventh-chord types; repeatedly sing each chordal arpeggio. Memorize how each sounds in every key. Learn the harmonic clichés in the same manner. 71

83 I will never be able to sing. Get Over It Singing will act directly as an adjunct in the service of your instrument, as should also the keyboard. Many believe they are incapable of it, because they haven't yet done it, or they had a bad vocal music teacher in school and it does take time to develop these skills. We all, however, must use our voices for tonal memory, learning vocabulary, and ultimately for communicating musical ideas to other musicians. Sight Singing 1. Practice sight-singing intervals and melodic passages from the Melodia Sight Singing book (with solfeggio syllables): Melodia Sight Singing is specifically designed for the development of sight-reading skills (don't allow yourself to stop, no matter what). 2. Practice rhythm sight-reading through Louie Bellson's rhythm book. 3. Practice sight reading standard tunes with solfeggio syllables: melody, guide tone lines, and root progression. 4. Consider putting together a group of friends to do these activities together. 72

84 Transcribe to learn the language of jazz. Transcription If you copy one artist too much you could become a clone, but most of us learn a great deal from this process by drawing from a variety of players. To get started, memorize Miles Davis s solos on So What and Someday My Prince Will Come, and Kenny Durham's solos on Recorda-Me and Blue Bossa improvisations which are melodic and do not contain too many fast passages. Learn also to sing their inflections, articulations, and vibratos. You could write them out, but that is more difficult and less to the point with regard to learning vocabulary, since the latter focuses on developing notational skills as well. Many ideas that you transcribe would never occur to you otherwise. Each phrase learned in this manner can be paraphrased and recomposed and combined in ways that bear your own sonic fingerprint. Listen to jazz recordings with particular attention to what rhythms are used. In this way you will learn the rhythmic language and also the particular rhythms found in the tunes you're working on. Study also recordings of traditional African music, as well as its Brazilian and Cuban relatives. 73

85 Look the music over then put it away. Transcribing and Internalizing Chords Solfegge the reduced melody, guide tone lines, and root progression of standard tunes. Memorize everything, unless time restrictions make it impossible. Minimize the symbols and reading as a step towards internalizing a song. Know all the basic song types. Be able to recognize and sing chord phrases (harmonic clichés such as I, vi, ii, V see list below). When sight-reading, first look over a lead sheet, and then put it away. In developing your musical memory, begin by playing a single recorded phrase back, and then stop and remember it; and then sing it back or write it out. If a slow-down tool helps at first, use it; but ultimately you need to be able to hear it all as you would transcribe a sentence in English. Get yourself to the level at which you need to rely on nothing but your ears, memory, and a pencil. Internalization follows an organic and gradual transformation from reading, to visualizing (ideating), to minimalization (visualizing only a few landmarks), to the point where once the tune begins you calculate nothing of that sort. It's easier to transcribe chord changes when you first know the basic formulas. Start with the lead voice, then the bass, then the second on down. You should be able to deduct some of it after you recognize its inner patterns. Try also writing down a tune you already can sing. 74

86 CHAPTER 4 BLUES Play an entire set with no reference to the blues and you ain t playin jazz. The blues is fundamental to jazz and its relatives, the salient characteristics of which are slurs and sliding pitches (blue notes), African polymetric rhythm, and a unique language of articulations, inflections, and vibratos married to Western art music. Blue notes, however, are essentially a melodic influence, in which specific non-harmonic tones are introduced over traditional progressions. They are characterized by their tendency to be fluid and unfixed in terms of the Western tempered scale. On the keyboard, which cannot achieve this sliding effect, it is necessary to add the notes to the chords, such as G7+9; but in jazz's earlier days, blue notes were played over triads and not included in the chords. While progressions, a European construct, all come from Western art music, jazz musicians have chosen their favorite cadences from among its most obvious possibilities, which nonetheless add to the creation of jazz style. The basic progression involves movement from I to IV, back to I; and then IV, V (or V, IV), back to I. The twelve-bar blues employs the basic chords of tonal music, only with flat three, five, and seven blue notes added as chordal sevenths. The twenty-four-measure blues can be viewed as an augmentation of the twelve, with each measure occupying two measures instead. In Watermelon Man, the V7 to IV7 progression in measures nine and ten get played three times instead of once. By using this basic formula as a template and substituting other chords that function in similar fashion or by adding additional ii7 V7s, you can easily find alternatives. Overall, there is a mood of sadness or hardship but not defeat or self pity. There are often chords in the progression that contain or suggest blue notes, such as an Ab7 appearing in the key of C or C minor, suggesting the flat three and flat five blue notes (a similar case can be found in You Don't Know What Love Is). I ve Got Rhythm is a thirty-two bar blues. In the post-bop period (1950s), one procedure was to create an eight- or twelve-measure blues as an AABA form, using a common blues progression for the A sections, with a tonal bridge to add relief to the blues every chorus 75

87 Blues Scale The blues effect is created through the superimposition of blue notes (minor third, flatted fifth, and minor seventh) over a diatonic (containing only notes which stay within a given key) major or minor key. There are two basic types of blues scale frequently in use: major and minor. The C minor blues scale is comprised of pitch classes 1, b3, 4, b5, 5, and b7: C, Eb, F, Gb, G, and Bb. You could think of this pc as a C minor pentatonic scale with the b5 (Gb) added: The C major blues scale consists of 1, 2, b3, 3, 5 and 6: C, D, Eb, E, G, A. Think of it as an Am pentatonic scale with the Eb added: Blue notes can be played over virtually any harmony. For example, try sounding the C minor blues scale over any C chord (C, Cm, Cm, C7, C #5, and so on). Practice improvising on both scales with a metronome at a given tempo in all twelve keys. 76

88 The Twelve-Bar Blues The twelve-bar blues is still perhaps the most common form in jazz today, and the kinds of things one plays on a blues are the same as what practitioners do on jazz standards. As stated above, the most basic blues uses only three European chords, those built on scale degrees I, IV, and V. While I functions as a tonic chord (T), IV subdominant (SD), and V dominant (D), the chords most commonly take the form of seventh chords, such as C7, F7, and G7. The sevenths frequently function as blue notes, however, rather than as part of the tritone, the characteristic augmented fourth (flatted fifth) interval between the seventh and third that defines the D function. 77

89 The guide tone line and the root progression of a basic blues can be seen below. The root progression consists of roots, of course, while the guide tone line consists of thirds and sevenths. Basic Blues with Root, Third and Seventh, LR Only three chords are used in the traditional blues progression above: I (T), IV (SD), and V (D). These are the most basic chords in tonal music, since T is at rest, SD is active, and D is the most active and in need of resolving to T. 78

90 Major Jazz Blues Unlike the basic blues progression above, the jazz blues will most often employ more than the three basic chords, with substitutions either replacing or enhancing the original blues chords. These substitutions are not made randomly; rather, they are related to the original chords. Common chord substitutes are secondary ii7 V7 I cadences, passing diminished chords, and turnarounds, or turnbacks such as I vi ii V, which is a cliché cadential device used to smoothly return to the first chord at the tune s beginning. Charlie Parker s Billie s Bounce is a good example of a tune in which this progression is used. When you play a blues in a jam session today, the following progression will most likely be used: 79

91 Jazz Blues with Substitutions 80

92 In the example above, the C7 in m.1 is the I chord; but rather than remaining on the I chord in m.2 as we did in the basic blues above, this example moves to F9, IV. M.3 returns to I, and in m.4 we find a secondary cadence, II/IV V/IV, instead of remaining on I. The F9 in m.5 is IV, while F#o7 (#IV07) in m.6 serves as a passing chord connecting F9 to C13/G. On the C13/G in m.7, the 5 th of the chord (G) is in the bass instead of the root. Since the G bass is the 5 th of the C13, this constitutes a chord inversion. Another secondary cadence, ii/ii to V/V, can be found in mm.8-9. Count up the scale from D to find the ii V I progression. In mm the I VI II V progression acts as a turnaround to the I chord. 81

93 The Minor Jazz Blues Here s a minor-scale blues type similar to John Coltrane s Equinox: 82

94 I ve Got Rhythm We tend to do all the same things to rhythm tunes that we do to a blues same blues licks (idioms), and same blues scales. It's an eight-measure blues in an AABA form. There are many other examples of eight-bar blues in thirty-two-measure form with common tonal bridges, such as You Don't Know What Love Is, Angel Eyes, and Confirmation. While we should make it our business to be able to blue any progression, some, like those mentioned above, are more blues-like than others, often containing blue melody notes and blues chords (chords containing blue notes). It's not so much a technical approach as an attitude. I ve Got Rhythm and its contrafacts are forms of the blues with a rhythm (secondary dominants moving directly through the circle of fourths) bridge. As jazz improvisers, we tend to do the same things to both. As with the other blues forms, it has endured to this day, since many original lines are still written on the tune s familiar chord progressions. In addition to blues figures of speech, however, it is effective also to develop the original song in your improvisation. The A section is comprised of a four-measure antecedent (question) phrase and a four-measure consequent (answer) phrase. The latter is a guide tone line (characteristically built on the thirds and sevenths of the chords) which typically descends in step-wise fashion. Use this also as a basis for development and this particular approach takes you to the center of the chord changes without having to think chords. Rhythm chord progressions are clichés of tonal harmony. While there are many reharmonization schemes for this progression, the first four measures of the A sections are built on the common I, vi, ii, V root progression, and then it is repeated in each A section. The consequent phrase of the A sections is also a harmonic cliché, since it begins with a secondary cadence to the IV chord; then goes to IV, to IVm, back to I vi ii V. The bridge is a succession of secondary dominants two measures each in length (again, there are many elaborations on this, such as employing ii Vs or ii SubVs, etc.): V7/vi; V7/ii; V7/V; V7. It is the strongest of root progressions in tonal music (which is one reason for its popularity among practitioners), before 83

95 smoothly returning to the I chord at the beginning of the concluding A section. The most basic line to hear in the back of your mind (as a sort of cantus firmus) is a half-note line: A Sections: : do la re sol do la re sol do te la le sol ti do do : B (Bridge) Section (in whole notes): mi mi me me re re ra ra Another good cantus firmus can be drawn from reducing the basic original melody of I ve Got Rhythm, which will work on any rhythm tune (in half notes): A Sections (half notes): sol la do re re do la sol sol la do fa me re do do B Section: mi mi mi mi mi fi fi fi re re re re mi sol sol sol Yet another suggestion for use in improvisation: Since the melody of the A section is comprised of the following hexachord (six-note pitch collection) do re me fa sol la do, four of which notes are pentatonic you could use that as a basis for improvisation as well. And since fa only appears as an upper neighbor, you could eliminate that and just play the pentatonic scale as a melody pc. 84

96 CHAPTER 5 PRACTICING JAZZ IMPROVISATION Don t get nervous: Get ready. Practicing versus Performance Systematically practice all vocabulary, and then strive to forget it entirely in performance, trusting in the process that such things will gradually and organically find their own way into performance when the time is right. Do not expect immediate results. Do not feel obliged to force these elements into performance. On the other hand, do not habitually perform your most comfortable licks, or your improvisation will degenerate into a slick straightjacket. Work consciously at bypassing these idioms in favor of taking chances that will put you into the now. Practice what you want, but if you want to be in the river in performance, you must accept the possibility that you might just drown. Above all, have attitude. Practicing gives you confidence and a heightened sense of control. If you are studying with a private teacher, give him responsibility for your musical development for the duration of your tutelage. Long term, however, each of us is responsible for his development. 85

97 Practice to learn your story and to acquire new vocabulary. Create. Then Edit. It always comes down to improvising on whatever you re working on, just singing and playing no longer calculating. As the performance nears, picture yourself in the very room with the audience and musicians, and ask yourself, Am I getting the house? You have to be free of the nuts and bolts to do that. The long-term plan can get quite anal. You could write books of exercises exploring the compositional elements in the piece, and then play them back in Finale and learn them by ear until you can sing and play them. It's like setting up little straightjackets of vocabulary, then exploring the hell out of them before letting it fly. When you go to the gig, it's an entirely different ballgame just you, the audience, and the musical interplay. Then the thinking is all about judging the roles you are in and, especially, withholding your forces in pacing your climaxes. Do not be too self critical when creating, because if you edit as you create, you can easily kill the muse. Create first. Edit later. 86

98 Use common sense. Strain and Burnout Be mindful of strain, especially before important performances. It's hard to be rational sometimes when you are impatient to progress or to prepare, but a little common sense is called for on any instrument: Do not over do it and cause strain or burnout. Check your posture and positioning as you slowly warm up. Avoid excessive movement. Learn those temporary shutdowns of tension when playing rests. You can get caught up in what you need to get done, and it won't feel like you're doing anything wrong. Rather than stopping practice altogether when you re sore, do less and consciously take frequent breaks whether you feel like it or not. Breaks can be refreshing, and they help to refocus your attention. Most important to remember is this: If you take a bite out of what you need to prepare every day in a focused manner, you won't need to worry or strain. 87

99 Feel good that you did what you could. Practicing though Ruts Do not wait for inspiration to motivate you to practice: Make yourself do it. There's no other practical way. Become addicted to the power it gives you, in performance and to the constant improvement that comes with determination and hard, repetitive work. Do your nuts and bolts practicing first, the creative after. If you are in a rut, get to work on the right kinds of things no matter how inspired you are on any given day. While we all occasionally settle on plateaus before leaping to the next level, you have to know that if you keep practicing the things you most need, you will improve. Transition periods in which you must move on and practice something different are often hard psychologically, because it takes a few days to get into the next activity; you have to invent efficient ways of going about it. In the meantime, you may feel like you are wasting time, since the procedure isn't quite efficient and focused yet. It is nonetheless part of the process. Sometimes you ll have to skip all that and just improvise on a tune you've been working on: It's better than lying out. Expect nothing, but know that if you keep at it in a focused manner you will get there. Feel good each day that you did what you could. Keep an instrument set up on a stand, ready to go for practicing. Especially on those hurried or tired days, it's psychologically easier to get started. 88

100 Soft and Silent Practicing 1. Analyze. 2. Transcribe. 3. Compose: Start with the various blues forms; create your own versions. 4. Sing (softly or silently): Transcriptions; Internalize a new tune; Practice singing improvisations; Learn your own licks, etc. 5. Silent practicing: Hear lines in your head; then finger them on the instrument. Use many approaches in preparation for performance. It s Compositional, Not Technical A common misconception is to assume technical shortcomings when improvised phrases don't work out, when it is most often caused by an incompletion of the aural composition process the phrase is only half baked. For example, you may need one or more eighth note to finish a phrase and have it work out by step into beat one of the next phrase. You have to identify the lick and the specific causes of the problem, and then fix it before resuming the running of choruses and incorporation of it into the overall improvisation. The magic is in the music itself: Mixing paints and living with the music make the conditions rife for the magic to happen. Don t rely on play-alongs. Band in a Box and Play-Along CDs While Band in a Box and play-along CDs are valuable tools to help one get started on the improvisation process to hear the chord changes, perhaps don t over-rely on them. Ultimately, we must wean ourselves off these crutches, since the only way to be truly independent in group interplay is be able to play by oneself and hear the rest. Go out and play with others or the entire enterprise is meaningless. 89

101 90

102 CHAPTER 6 PRACTICING FORMULAS Since a basic skill needed in playing jazz is to be able to play everything in all keys, we often move up or down the Circle of Fifths, which is the harmonic foundation upon which tonal music is based. Circle of Fifths 91

103 Harmonic Formulas ii7 V7 I Cadence Major Since the ii7 V7 I cadence is the most ubiquitous harmonic cliché in tonal music, frequently occurring in several keys in a single passage, jazz practitioners work this out in its various forms in all twelve keys. C Major Scale Harmonized To arrive at this cadence, select the chords based on the ii (Dm7), V (G7), and I (C ) scale degrees from the diagram above, whose chords are shown in close position, in which chord tones are positioned as close as possible (the opposite of open position). 92

104 Due to the nature of the guitar s construction, close voicings are difficult to play. Guitarists, therefore, tend to favor open or semi-open position chords, in which the notes span a wider range: ii V I Progression, Using Common Drop Two Guitar Voicing Drop Two Voicing: When starting with four-way close position, drop the second voice from the top down an octave. 93

105 Playing ii V I The examples below demonstrate guitar fingering concepts introduced above, in both the lower register (LR) and upper (UR). LR: Major ii7 V7 I Root, 3 rd, 6 th /7 th UR: 94

106 Diatonic Four-Note Chords LR: UR: 95

107 In the following ii V I progressions, we will use a different voice leading concept. The roots will still be played on the 5 th and 6 th strings, but the 3 rd and 6 th /7 th of the chord will now be located on any of the top strings. LR: ii7 V7-9 I UR: 96

108 Minor The ii V I cadence works in a similar way in minor keys as in the major, but with two differences: The cadence has changed to iiø, V7 and i7. The basic V7 chord is usually the same in major and minor. C Minor Scale Harmonized LR: Root, 3 rd, 6 th /7th UR: 97

109 LR: Four Notes UR: LR: ii7 V7-9 i UR: 98

110 LR: UR: LR: iiø bii7 i UR: 99

111 Combining Major and Minor ii V I It is not uncommon to combine minor iiø, V7 resolving to major I, and major ii7, V7 resolving to i. Below are a few examples: LR: Minor iiø V7 to Major I UR: LR: UR: 100

112 Major ii7 V7 i LR: UR: Major ii7 V7 i LR: UR: 101

113 Melodic Formula on ii7 V7 I in Major and Minor All Keys: Below is a melodic formula based on ii V I, presented in both the major and minor modes: C Cm F Fm 102

114 Bb Bbm Eb Ebm 103

115 Ab Abm Db Dbm 104

116 Gb Gbm F# F#m 105

117 B Bm E Em 106

118 A Am D Dm 107

119 G Gm 108

120 CHAPTER 7 PRACTICING SCALES AND MODES Don t overuse scales: You can only take them so far before it becomes absurd. Major and Minor Modes As tonal music evolved, it needed more devices in order to supply elements of surprise and color. From its origins in tonal music, there has been a two-fold relationship between the major and minor modes: relative and parallel. They are often used interchangeably, such as in Wave, Alone Together, Lament, and many other tunes. The mixture of major and minor modes within cadences reflects that. The traditional origin of chords in minor is from the harmonic minor scale, hence the name. The iiø and V7-9 are diatonic to the harmonic minor mode. This can progress to any version of a tonic chord: Cm, Cm7, Cm6, Cm69, Cm (the traditional version is melodic minor for tonic minor). The version of the tonic that is employed usually depends on its context. The i6 (tonic minor chord with an added major sixth) usually comes at the end of an eight-measure phrase in Duke's music, for example. Today, however, everything and anything goes. For surprise, expectations are often thwarted: ii7 V7 i7 or iiø V7-9 I, for example. SubV7s are treated in similar manner. The easiest way to think scales is as follows: harmonic minor for the first two chords, Dorian (for i7), melodic minor (for m ), and the pentachord itself for m69 (Cm69 = C, D, Eb, G, A). There are, however, many other solutions, and a great many other alterations can also be employed mostly for their color qualities. It should be kept in mind, however, that the more pitch classes one includes in the harmony, the more restricted the soloist becomes. In addition, approach those alt fake book symbols with skepticism, since they are often there unnecessarily. Practice scales through all keys, the entire range of the instrument, with a metronome. After learning scales, improvise on them one at a time until they are internalized. There are also sequences you should practice. For example, start on the first note; play up stepwise to the fifth note; come back to the 109

121 second note in the same way; then, starting on the third note, move up to the seventh, and so on. Another useful sequence: Start on scale one, skip to three, down to two, up to four, and so on. Any sequence can be done in retrograde: To come back down, reverse what you did going up. Below is a short list of the most common scales. Regardless of the mode, or the number of notes in that scale, they should all be practiced in all inversions (modes). Blues (6 notes; 6 modes; 12 keys) Major (7 notes; 7 modes; 12 keys) Harmonic Minor (7 notes; 7 modes; 12 keys) Melodic Minor (7 notes; 7 modes; 12 keys) Anhemitonic Pentatonic (5 notes; 5 modes; 12 keys) Diminished (Octatonic) (8 notes; 2 modes; 3 transpositions) Whole-Tone (6 notes; 0 modes; 2 transpositions) Six-Note Symmetric (C, D#, E, G, G#, B: 6 notes; 2 modes; 4 transpositions) If we use the C scale as our example, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C would be Ionian, D to D (D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D) would be D Dorian; E-E, E Phrygian; F-F, F Lydian; G-G, G Mixolydian; A-A, A Aeolian, B-B, B Locrian (B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B). Dorian mode is spelled starting from the second degree of a major (M) scale. D Dorian would be a C scale, only beginning and ending on D (D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D). C Dorian would be spelled like a Bb scale beginning on C: C, D, Eb, F, G, A, Bb, C (still one octave). These, of course, can be spelled and played in more than one octave. Work this out in all twelve keys. There is always a hierarchy of notes in both tonal and modal music, centered on do. To establish one of these pitch collections as a mode, as the priority note (for example, D in D Dorian), you need to establish its ascendancy by: (1) quantitative emphasis, playing it more often than the other pitch classes (notes), and/or (2) by qualitative emphasis, putting it in prominent places (phrase beginnings and endings). It helps to be able to identify the priority note in a mode, and to be familiar with the characteristic harmonic signature (color note) present in each mode: 110

122 Ionian scale 4 Dorian scale 6 Phrygian scale b2 Lydian scale +4th Mixolydian scale m7 Aeolian scale b6 Locrian scale b2 and b5 As a practical matter, fingerings for any or all of the modes based on the C scale, for example, will be the same, regardless of which mode it is, since they are all inversions of the same seven-note gamut. In practicing these scales, keep track of all the keys and inversions you do, to ensure you cover it all. Try to get all to a similar level at first, and then return repeatedly to all of it again at later times at increasingly faster tempos. You could stay on each key for longer periods of time, or you could try to get through a given scale in all keys (or transpositions) in a given day. Both ways are beneficial, yet have somewhat different results. Therefore, do them both ways. After learning each mode, add non-harmonic tones to each, starting with leading tones; then improvise frequently, both vocally and instrumentally, on each mode especially to get used to hearing one note at a time as the priority note. Modes of Major I C ~ Ionian ii7 Dm7 ~ Dorian iii7 Em7 ~ Phrygian IV F ~ Lydian V7 G7 ~ Mixolydian vi7 Am7 ~ Aeolian viiø Bø ~ Locrian 111

123 Modes of Melodic Minor Im Cm ~ Real Melodic Minor ii7 Dm7(-9) ~ Dorian-9 iii7 Eb+ ~ Lydian Augmented IV7+11 F7+11 ~ Lydian b7 (Overtone Scale, Lydian Dominant) V7-13 G7-13 ~ Mixolydian b6 viø9 Aø9 ~ Aeolian b5 VII7-9, +9, -5, +5, B+7 ~ Altered Dominant (Superlocrian) Modes of the Harmonic Minor Im Cm ~ Harmonic Minor iiø Dø(-9) iii7 Eb+ ivø (iv7) Fø (Fm7) V G (most common) bvi -5 Ab (+9) VII-5, -9, +9, -5, +5 All of the modes of the major and melodic minor are used often, especially the former. The harmonic minor, however, is usually preserved for its fifth inversion (V7-9 in minor key areas). Other symbols could be added, and they are numerous. In most cases, however, it's best to ascertain which scale is involved without all the extensions, since they are not usually all needed in the voicing itself. Each example involves the same scale, regardless of the chord or inversion in terms of fingering and dexterity. However, if you want the root to sound as a priority note, then the inversion will cause a different hierarchy of notes; the notes will want to behave differently, due to the re-arranging of the scalar intervals. Learn to sing and play improvisations on each and every mode while maintaining each mode s priority note as do. Do this in different registers, since they sound and feel different when transposed more than a third. Learn each of them in all twelve transpositions. Learn them throughout entire tunes, changing modes from chord to chord. Sing each of them repeatedly until they are internalized. Sing all adjacent and non-adjacent 112

124 intervals of each. In addition, all their chords and all chordal voicings can be memorized in the same fashion as with scales. Do the same with virtually everything you are learning then lose the visual and mental intellectual thinking. Chords of Modes of Major I C, C, CMA9, C6, C69, CMA13(no11), Am11/C ~ Ionian ii7 Dm, Dm7, Dm9, Dm11, Dm13, C /D ~ Dorian iii7 Em, Em7, Em11(no9), F /E, F -5/E, E7sus4-9, Bø/E ~ Phrygian IV F, F, F 9, F +11, F -5, FMA13, G/F ~ Lydian V7 G, G7, G7sus4, G9sus4, G13sus4, F /G, G9, G13, F -5/G ~ Mixolydian vi7 Am, Am7, Am9, Am11 ~ Aeolian viiø Bø, Bø11(no9) ~ Locrian While we have added six and six/nine to the list for major, they usually take pentatonic forms. Tension eleven works well in the bass of any m7 or ø chord. Since there are three different m7 chords and two chords, in order to know which mode to apply, you need to understand how each chord is functioning within the progression (since, for example, ii7 takes Dorian, while iii7 takes Phrygian, and vi7 takes Aeolian). This can sometimes be important in certain secondary cadences, keys of the moment, for example, in the key of C: F#ø B7-9 Em7 is ii7/iii7 V7-9/iii7 iii7 (F# Locrian, E harmonic minor over B, Em7 Phrygian usually not Dorian). There are always exceptions, however. Analyze many tunes of different types at the piano. 113

125 Chords of Modes of Melodic Minor Im : Cm, Cm, Cm6, Cm69, Cm 9, Cm, 9, 11, 13 ~ Melodic Minor ii7: Dm7, Dm, Dm6, Dm11(no9) ~ Dorian-9 iii7: Eb+ ~ Lydian Augmented IV7+11: F7+11, F9+11, F13, F7-5, F9-5 ~ Lydian b7, Overtone Scale, Lydian Dominant V7-13: G7-13, G9, G7sus4, G9sus4, G7-13, G9-13 ~ Mixolydian-13 viø9: Aø9, Aø, Aø11 ~ Aeolian-5 VII7-9, +9, -5, +5: B7-5, -9, B+7, B7-9, +9, +11, -13 ~ B+7 ~ Altered (Superlocrian) Due to the resultant minor ninth interval, avoid -9 in any minor chord voicing, even when it is in the scale. Avoid 5 and -5 (or 5 and #11) in the same voicing on dominant chords. In the melodic minor mode, some use 7sus4-9 as a form of ii7 chord. This is misleading and illogical, though, because that symbol would indicate a dominant type chord, implying a major third (F#) in the collection (if there were one). The A7sus4-9 chord is in reality a V7-9, only with its fourth degree sustained and not resolved to chord tone major three. The pitch collection would implicitly be D, Eb, (F#), G, A, C, with the B pitch class unspecified. A better solution, perhaps, would be to call it instead a Cm69/D. Chords of Modes of the Harmonic Minor Im : Cm, Cm, Cm 9, Cm11 ~ Harmonic Minor iiø: Dø, Dø11 (no9) iii7 Eb+ ivø Fø, Fm7, 9 V G (most common), G7sus4-9, -13 bvi -5: Ab (+9), Ab -5 (+9) VII-5(-9, +9, -5, +5) 114

126 Seven-note scales are often too much information. Practicing Pentatonics As the Greek term suggests, a pentatonic scale is a pentachord, a fivenote pitch collection. There are many different kinds of pentatonic scales. The most ubiquitous type is termed the anhemitonic pentatonic (AP): C, D, E, G, A and C, commonly known as pentatonic. The AP seems to have been the basic scale of all ancient cultures throughout world history, although each culture tended to make those same five notes behave differently. It has five modes, or inversions, all of which can be transposed into twelve keys. The most common blues scale is comprised of the AP, but with one (blue) note added (A, C, D, D# (Eb), E, G), making it a hexachord (six-note pc). When transposed in line playing, the AP is capable of rapidly coalescing into the tonality of the moment, due to the fact that, when compared to the major scale, it lacks its two most active notes, scale four and the leading tone, whose most active of pitches comprise the tritone that establishes the dominant to tonic (active to passive) resolution needed to create tonal music. Regarding the rapid transposition of the AP, a common example is to drop the fifth note and transpose the resulting tetrachord at the tritone relationship: C, D, E, G; Gb, Ab, Bb, Db; C, and so on (this works over C7, Gb7 and other chords); there are many such examples. Dominant seventh-type chords have the most options for pentatonics. On C7, for example, the most inside choice is C pentatonic; Db pentatonic gives you b9, +9, 4, b6 (b13), and b7; Eb pentatonic yields +9, 4, 5, b7, 1; F: 4 (11), 5, 13 (6), 1, 9; F#: b5 (+11), b6 (b13), b7, b9, +9; Ab: b6 (b13), b7, 1, +9, 4 (11); Bb: b7, 1, 9, 4 (11), 5. These can also be used in combinations. Any others can be used in passing as a sort of harmonized side-slipping. Work this out for all twelve seventh chord types. Below is a chart of the APs which normally go with the various seventh chords from the most to the least inside. In each case we are referring to the first mode: C, D, E, G, A (on C), so when a D pentatonic is called for, for example, it would have the same interval relationship of 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 (D, E, F#, A, B). It s unnecessary to distinguish between the various inversions (modes) of these scales when merely applying them to chords, since in these contexts there is no priority note for the pentatonic scale in question. While 115

127 the above examples stay fairly inside, in playing outside of the prevailing chord sound or key, anything goes. Pentatonic Applied to Seventh Chords C : G, C, D, Bb, Eb (last two are blues relationships) Cm7: Eb, Bb, F Cø: Gb, Ab Cm : F, Bb, Eb (last two are blues relationships) C7: C, Bb, F, Eb, Gb, Ab, Db C7sus4: Bb, F, C, Eb, Ab, Db C7-5: Gb, C, Eb, Ab C+7: Gb, Ab C+ : E C -5: D There is no inside solution for applying pentatonics to the diminished seventh chords Co7 and Co, hence their omission from the above list. It is a matter of personal tastes which and how you apply APs. There are a great many more choices available in addition to these if you drop the fifth note of these pentatonic scales in their various inversions, which is the most common manner in which they are used, since most phrases are built in fournote groupings, rather than five. 116

128 Diminished collections are chromatic to all keys. Diminished The diminished (symmetric diminished) scale, termed octatonic by Western art music theorists, is, as the latter term suggests, an eight-note pc (octachord). It is constructed symmetrically as whole step, half step, whole, half, and so on. It can also be reversed as half, whole, half, whole. The latter form is often used on dominant seventh-type chords, creating the following melodic tensions over that chord: b9, +9, +11 (-5), 13. The first form of this scale is most often used on diminished seventh chords, but not always, depending on how a particular diminished chord functions in a progression. Diminished scales and chords are not diatonic to any key, and are employed in three forms: auxiliary diminished (e.g., C Co7 C) for color alone, passing (C C#o7 Dm7), and the incomplete dominant, which is used either in passing or as an alternative to a V7-9 chord (a diminished seventh chord built on the third of the dominant seventh chord). Some jazz musicians use the diminished scale almost exclusively, such as David Leibman, who often purposely ignores the ii7 chord in a ii7 V7 cadence, and plays the diminished scale through the entire ii7 V7. Since it is constructed symmetrically, this scale has only three transpositions: Co7 (Co7, C#o7, and Do7). It reproduces itself after three half-steps: Ebo7 is the same as Co7, only inverted. One of Duke Ellington's notable voicings on a dominant seventh chord was the double-diminished, in which he would voice an Ao7 chord over a Bbo7 (each in close position) for a C7, thereby creating prime dissonance with no fewer than four major seven intervals in one voicing. There is the later Thad Jones version of this combination voicing, in which the upper diminished seventh chord (Co7 spelled down from high C in close position (C, A, F#, D#) was placed over Eo7 in drop-two (semi-open) position spelled down from middle (G, Db, Bb, E). This type of voicing is more resonant, due to the spacing, yet it still has very pungent sound quality. Also, this spacing places the anchor notes of a C7 voicing at the base of the chord. When placed atop one another in close position, the Co7 and Bbo7 form the C half/whole diminished scale ascending, and the whole/half descending diminished scale. 117

129 The whole-tone scale is a symmetrical hexachord built in whole steps. Whole Tone Scale Since the whole tone (WT) scale is constructed in whole steps, there are only six notes in this symmetrical pc, and therefore only one transposition. For increased mileage on this (limited) pc, add chromatic non-harmonic tones to target scale members. Also try side-slipping WT motives up and down in half steps, a process which quickly produces the entire chromatic scale. It is easy for this scale to sound corny, since it has been greatly overused in movies and commercial music. Claude Debussy s signature was to employ a whole tone passage to signify mystery or danger, a rather charming adaptation of which can be found in Bix Beiderbecke s six published solo piano compositions In a Mist in particular. 118

130 The six-note symmetric is a window to outgoing improvisation. Six-Note Symmetric The augmented (or double-augmented) scale is termed by theorists the six-note symmetric. This hexachord has only four transpositions. The notes can be arranged in any order, and due to its symmetrical quality its intervallic formula of augmented second, semitone, augmented second, semitone the scale cannot have a priority note. On C, it is as follows: C, D#, E, G, G#, B, C. Six-note symmetric can be treated in several ways: Treat all semitones as leading tones, from either above or below, and then mix them. 1. Improvise over your entire range, restricted to these notes alone. 2. Treat the pc in two ways, one way at a time at first: a. Make everything resolve to a C triad (B to C, D# to E, Ab down to G, and B to C whether ascending or descending the notes will resolve in the same manner. b. Do the opposite (C goes to B, E goes to Eb, G goes to G#). 3. Mix it all up. 4. Do this in all four transpositions. This works at very least over C or Am chords (of several kinds), but it also can be a platform for outgoing playing, since it is key-less (no priority note or tonic), and motives drawn from it can be rapidly transposed for effect and development. Here s another, different symmetrical six-note scale: 1/2step, MA3, 1/2, 1/2, MA3, 1/2. 119

131 On the gig, play what you know. Changing Up When changing up your fundamental technical approach to your instrument, you just have to go at it in the practice room. Meanwhile, on the gig, forget it and play how and what you know. Eventually the two will merge. Bebop Scales and Non-Harmonic Tones Bebop scales are really scales which supply the extra note needed to fill out a measure of eighth-note lines in 4/4; but they are merely traditional nonharmonic tones, rather than scales. Non-harmonic tones have been used extensively in Western art music in virtually every style for thousands of years even in true modal music. The Linear Jazz Improvisation books address this by systematically applying ten chromatic non-harmonic-tone groupings to reduced melodies, guide tone lines, and root progressions of specific compositions. Don t be anal about making chord changes. Soloing on Blues Chords in All Blues Since there is little melody to grab onto in All Blues, especially in the +9 segment that has the D7+9 moving up to Eb+9 and then back down, it would in this case be useful to consider pitch collections. The most inside scales are: for the D7+9 use the Eb Diminished scale (D, D#, F, F#, G#, A, B, C); for the Eb7+9 take it up a semitone (Eb, E, F#, G, A, Bb, C, Db). Eb7+9, however, is merely a form of harmonic side-slipping, and can (at least on some passes) be ignored while improvising on the D7+9 chord, since the chord resolves back down to the D7+9 anyway. You can also combine the D7+9 and Eb7+9 Pentachords (five-note chords) to create one nonachord (nine-note composite scale): D, Eb, F, F#, G, A, Bb, C, C#, D. Then you needn't concern yourself with oscillating up and down between the two chords, and it's an interesting pitch collection. 120

132 It is simplistic to view So What merely as Dorian. So What In improvising on So What, begin with the melody, which is in the bass. It is comprised of the following melody pitch collection: D, E, F, G, A, a pentachord. In addition, its salient intervals (gestures) are perfect fourths (up and down), down a major third, and stepwise diatonic movement up a perfect fourth. On measure seventeen, the A section is transposed up a half step for eight measures, which serves as a bridge. There are also rhythmic motives that can be mined, such as the Charleston Rhythm beginning on beat three of the horn response to the bass line. Develop these. The players on Davis s recording seem to treat this piece merely as a traditional D minor (especially Paul Chambers on double bass but not pianist Bill Evans), only sans a chord progression in favor of an oscillation between two modified quartal voicings; and they pepper it with the normal chromatic non-harmonic tones (especially saxophonist Cannonball Adderly). Using quartal harmony (voicings in fourths) for comping on So What is the norm. The So What voicing is a modified voicing in fourths, with a third between the top two voices constituting the modified. The voicing appears as two voicings that oscillate between the first (B, G, D, A, E from the top down) and the second (A, F, C, G, D). (While chords are properly spelled from the bottom up, voicings are spelled from the lead down.) The So What voicing can be planed, moved up and down the D Dorian (C major) scale in similar motion (there are two ways of planeing: diatonic as in this case and chromatic, in which you keep all of the same exact intervals while planeing). You could also plane a first inversion triad up and down the scale to good effect, for example: F, D, and A up to G, E, and B, and so on. In soloing on So What, it is a bit simplistic to view this merely as D Dorian, as novices do. Miles Davis and his sidemen did not limit themselves to a seven-note scale, since the entire chromatic scale is available. Practice vamping on D minor with a metronome with all its implied scales: melodic minor, harmonic minor, and pure minor. Stressing the melodic minor (with its C#, for example), gives a bright lift to your sound material. Base your improvisations on the melody: Memorize the lines and practice running choruses, developing the composition in the process. 121

133 Once a tune is counted off, intellectualize nothing. Nuts and Bolts In performance, lose the intellectual nuts and bolts thinking and rely on your feelings and judgment in the moment. In preparing for performance in the practice room, however, it is an entirely different matter. Put an exercise into Finale, and then sing and practice along with the playback. This process requires a great deal of repetition, but it is direct and effective. Use your ears and tonal memory, and listen. While useful, theory and analysis are ultimately non-essential to performance. As jazz musicians, we study, research, analyze, and intellectualize; but in the end the real challenge is to have the process gradually evolve to the intuitive brain for performance. Once you have learned a piece of music, wean yourself off all its symbols and forget any and all understandings you have of it. It's not easy, since in the internalization process you begin to lose the thinking and there will be a short period when you have to relearn it; your intellectual landmarks (positions, note names) are no longer available as a conscious crutch. This condition doesn't last long, but it happens every time. At that point you may even want to practice in front of the television to totally distract your intellectual faculties. By the time you perform a piece, you shouldn t even know the tune s key, chords, and notes. Then you will be free to concentrate on emoting, pacing your climaxes, the interplay with the other musicians, and above all communicating with the audience. 122

134 Swing eighths are written as such as an expedience. Practicing Swing Feel The swing era was a big-band arranger s medium, requiring much sightreading. It was commonly felt that if the musicians learned to interpret written eighths as eighth-note triplets, it would be less difficult to both notate and to sight read. Swing rhythm is the traditional regional rhythmic style of the continental United States. Although written in 4/4 meter as an expedience, swing rhythm is in reality in 12/8 meter, a compound duple meter containing four groups of three eighth notes occurring within each measure of 4/4 meter. The slower the tempo, the more marked this subdivision is felt. A prerequisite to creating swing feel is that every attack be placed metronomically within this 12/8 continuum. We can see below how a chromatic targeting group is normally notated vis-à-vis how it should be interpreted. Written in 4/4, the above figure will be interpreted as follows: To practice playing swing feel, start by running choruses in which you improvise swing eighth-note lines with a metronome. Imagine a 12/8 continuum. Accent the first eighth note of each triplet subdivision, then shift your accents off the beat to the third eighth note in each triplet subdivision; then practice mixing accents. Learn to control these accents by improvising 123

135 within the 12/8 rhythmic continuum while applying the basic targeting examples to the reduced melody of a standard tune. The faster the tempo, the more swing eighths tend to flatten out and become even. The swing feel is really a long-short, long-short pattern; the first note is a quarter, while the second is an eighth in an eighth-note triplet. The faster the tempo, the less time there is to articulate this, and practitioners then tend to play closer to even eighths. Start with dead center time and go from there. Practicing Time Placement Time-placement is learned by listening to the masters, and they don't always play dead-center metronomic time. Instead, they often focus on locking into the drummer's ride cymbal, for example. Individual artists rhythmic stylistic approaches vary greatly. Some Harlem black bands horn players consistently play even eighth-note feel over a swing rhythm section style. On the other hand, Joe Henderson and Kenny Durham would often use a swing feel over an even eighth-note rhythm section feel. All other variant approaches in between are done as well often within a given phrase by a single player. There are also a variety of styles in which you lay back a bit, or play slightly on top of the time. However, in your practicing, start with dead center time and go from there. If you can do this consistently, you can then more easily learn to increase your placement control by placing lines ahead or behind the time at will. Placement consistency can be improved systematically in the woodshed in a relatively short time with a little metronome treatment in swing subdivision. Jazz rhythm shares an important characteristic with African rhythm: duple against or within triple meters. There are always several such dualities co-existing in any master jazz performance. It matters little how these rhythms are written, since that is arbitrary, inaccurate, and nonessential. In improvising lines, we place notes dependent upon which of these dualities we wish to be in at a given moment, which can change on a dime. 124

136 Feel swing rhythm on two and four. Feeling Swing Rhythm Feel 4/4 straight-ahead swing time on beats two and four unless it's real fast, and then think in a normal half-time (on beats one and three). Notice that the very count-off by the band-leader involves finger-snapping on beats two and four. This is because in swing feel the strong beats are reversed from the normal Western 4/4 meter (beats one and three are the normal strong beats). It only takes a little getting used to once you have this understanding. This turned-around effect is not present, however, in most other rhythmic styles, such as samba and funk, which tend to maintain the usual hierarchy of metric stress. If you must tap your foot, do it inside your shoe so it can't be seen or heard and a mike will pick it up. 125

137 Practicing in Odd Meters To transform a 4/4 tune into 5/4, add one beat to each measure. The question is how it is to be broken down. The most common way is 3+2, but 2+3 also works. To change a waltz to 5/4, drop beat three of every even measure (mm. 2, 4, 6, 8), or the other way around (mm. 1, 3, 5, 7). Sing the song until you get a feel for how it best swings. This can be done in any rhythmic feel. In practicing a tune in an odd meter, it helps if you have a metronome that gives you an accent on one of each measure, since this really helps tell you when you get off the meter which will undoubtedly happen at first. Vamp on it until you are beyond counting and the feel sinks in. It takes time, at least on your first such tune, but it eventually becomes second nature to you. Practicing a song in 5/4 meter: 1. First, learn it in 6/4 (or 3/4) or 4/4. After you know that, drop the last beat of each measure. In playing most meters you will find that it's usually a normal phrase, only with a beat dropped somewhere. After you are accustomed to creating phrases on the simplified composition, it will be far easier to adjust to the odd meter. 2. When improvising, there are a lot of motives you can develop information in your head waiting to be mined so start by paraphrasing the hell out of it: Re-phrase it by changing the phrase lengths and rhythms to fit the new meter. 126

138 You have to pull it off in the end with a climax, or the audience won't get it, and there won't have been a point. Practicing Climaxes You must reach climaxes to get a response from an audience. There are several ways to turn up the heat at the end of solos: You could, for example, play sixteenth-note lines, or use rhythmic chord attacks; but whatever means you choose, a certain amount of drama is called for. Audiences react to a strong climax at the conclusion of a solo, and they respond to this kind of decisive control. It tells them, There you have it. The end. Most of the time, an improvisation is mainly comprised of things stated before. The trick is in knowing that improvisation is a series of spontaneous decisions as to what, from the great many things you could say, you choose to say at that given moment and what you choose to leave out. Thus, you need in your back pocket much more to say on a tune than you would ever perform in a single performance. This takes judgment, practice, time, and experience to develop. The classic climax is usually reached about two-thirds through the solo (the golden section). Withhold your forces at the beginning. It is not enough to play eighth-note lines either, so don t overuse them, and they should be placed squarely on the beat most of the time neither floating over the beat nor behind the time. Be able to swing by yourself without relying on the bassist and the drummer to do it for you (can t be done, anyway). 127

139 If you only have a couple of convincing choruses to offer, play them and get out: It will have been enough. Choruses You can practice each of the devices below systematically. Run many choruses in which you concentrate on one device at a time: 1. Place your eighth notes in the center of the time. Then if you choose to lay back in performance, you know it's your choice, rather than a lack of control. 2. Play rhythmic chord punctuations. 3. Play sixteenth-note lines placed in the center of the time. 4. Practice the above in sequence: o First chorus: Play the head. o Second chorus: Paraphrase it. o Third chorus: Play eighth-note lines. o Fourth chorus: Play sixteenth-note lines. o Fifth chorus: Play strong rhythmic chord punctuations throughout the entire chorus (This will get the attention of your drummer and your audience). The above is but one solution. Try many different combinations, but each should lead to a strong and unambiguous climax. In the absence of that, what's the point? Tell your story; make your point; get out. Once you are in performance, forget any of these specifics and concentrate on the global climatic flow of the solo, and how it is being reacted to by the rhythm section and especially by the audience. You can't choose your audience, and no matter what its makeup, you still have to come at them with confidence and attitude regardless of the circumstance. You need also to pull it off in the end with a climax, or they won't get it, and there won't have been a point to the performance. 128

140 Pitch Class and Time Dimension Exercises Pitch Class Exercise Take each pitch class one at a time (C, D, E, F, G, A, B) and play and sing repeated choruses of whole-note improvisations through an entire chord progression. For example, start with some form of C (either C or C#) and stay on that same pitch class throughout the entire chorus, adjusting with the sharp only when necessary. After that do the same with D, and then the rest. In this manner you will get into your ears how each note works through the entire progression, or at any place within it. Then, in performance you will be able to land on any note for a length of time with authority. In this exercise, the note can function in any relationship that sounds good with respect to any chord: It can be any chord tone or tension. While the most common type of pedal point is in the bass, this technique could be a window into using pedal point in other voices as well. Time Dimensions Exercise To ensure that you can improvise confidently in each and every time dimension, systematically practice in each, beginning with running choruses of whole notes, then half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, and sixteenth notes, including the various triplet dimensions. It will cause you to aurally compose different solutions in order to be effective in each time feel. Do this in different tempos also. 129

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142 CHAPTER 8 RHYTHM INSTRUMENTS Comping Transcription is the best way to extend your accompanying (comping) vocabulary. Take your three favorite guitarists and compare how each comps on similar tunes a bossa, for example at the same tempo. Pretend you recorded each track many years ago and you've forgotten what happened. Take note of what surprises you, what you wouldn't have done. Figure out why it works. Learn how to do it. Learn the entire comp at least by just singing or tapping the rhythms out. Some principles you will find include: 1. Withholding of forces: Don't comp on the head in the same way as you would the solo sections. Play fewer attacks, and place more of them on the beat than off. Use the compositional elements in your accompaniment, as Herbie Hancock does best. 2. While the head is often about creating tension with hits, the developmental sections (solos) should level off and swing with fewer interruptions. It should also make you dance. Use rhythmic repetition in your accompaniments, and when you play that common Freddie Green strumming device do it long enough that the recurring quarter-note groove can be felt at least for eight measures. It has to be felt physically in order to be effective. On a guitar or piano solo, accompany yourself. Since lines should not become redundant, sounding as filler to keep it all going, allow them to breathe. 3. Supporting parts build in intensity behind the soloist in a variety of ways as he builds towards a climax. 131

143 Freddie Green Strum Comping Style Freddie Green, who contributed greatly to the successful swing feel and drive of the Count Basie Big Band, played an unamplified hollow-body guitar, so his sound was felt more than it was heard, especially since he rhythmically doubled the double bassist s quarter-note walking bass line. In this style, the guitarist strums quarter notes on all four beats in 4/4 meter (see example below). To approximate Green s unamplified sound on an electric guitar, turn the volume all the way down when strumming. On most electric guitars, you can approximate this sound by switching to the neck pickup, playing at a low volume, and using chords consisting of root, 3 rd, 6 th /7 th. Strum beats one and three closer to the neck; for extra drive, play close to the bridge on beats two and four. As always when playing with a bass player, omit chordal roots. Release the tension in the left hand slightly after each quarter note to keep the notes short. Don t accent beats two and four (a common misconception of this style) Moving your right hand in a circular motion helps to promote strong tempo, drive, and feel. Vary the number of notes you sound from each chord. To get a sense of the correct interpretation of this, listen to Green s rhythm playing on Shiny Stockings from April in Paris, Verve, 1955, with the Count Basie Orchestra. 132

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145 Joe Pass s Comping Style Guitarist Joe Pass developed another strong swing jazz guitar comping style, in which hits (rhythmic punctuations, accents) are played off of beats one and three. These attacks can be played either long or short. For an example of this playing, listen to him with singer Ella Fitzgerald in That Old Feeling from the album Fitzgerald and Pass Again, Fantasy Records, Written Played In the example below, the rhythmic pattern above is applied to the ii7 V7 I69 cadence. Since this example employs both chords and bass notes, it s especially suitable for guitar duos in which there is no bassist: 134

146 Pianist Red Garland s Comping Style Pianist Red Garland s comping style consisted of short chord punctuations rather than long sustained chords, an approach that promotes swing and leaves space for the soloist by creating a yin and yang between the piano s anticipations and the bass quarter-note walking. Written Played For variety, place an occasional chord on the beat instead of anticipating it but not too often, or the hypnotic swing groove will be lost. 135

147 Charleston Rhythm Charleston, a prominent African rhythm which became a popular social dance style in the 1920s named after the famous Eubie Blake song, is another important swing rhythmic comping pattern. The examples below show the basic rhythm with three of its variants: Applied 136

148 Killer Joe Benny Golson s jazz classic, Killer Joe, prominently employs the Charleston Rhythm as its basic comping pattern: This can also be displaced in a variety of ways. Below are a few examples of the pattern in which it is placed on beats 3 and 4: Displaced Applied 137

149 Bossa Nova and Samba Comping The bossa nova, which emerged in the U.S. in the 1950s, is an American jazz version of the Brazilian samba. While the samba is most often played in cut time (2/4 or 2/2 meter), the basic two-measure 3 2 rhythmic pattern (clave) is put into common time (4/4 meter) at a moderate tempo in the bossa nova. Below we will explore a few basic comping rhythms of this style. Bossa-Nova Clave 138

150 As an introduction to bossa nova comping rhythms we will use a comping rhythm of guitarist João Gilberto as an example, as heard on his recording of The Girl From Ipanema: Applied to ii V I 139

151 Variant Applied to II V I João Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim both often harmonize chords with the chordal fifth in the bass instead of the root: 140

152 Allow your lines to breathe AABA Form While it can be really helpful for rhythm section accompanists to outline the song form to support soloists and especially the head, it s not their job to single-handedly hold things together. It is, rather, the job of each and every instrumentalist. Indeed, some of the very finest creative jazz drummers, such as Charlie Persip and George Brown, never turn a phrase over in the (normally) right place. To prepare yourself to play whatever role might be needed within the composition's basic formal parameters, practice all performance materials with a metronome and your instrument alone. Learn to hear and play within its rhythmic style, since only when you've mastered this will you be free to interact with the rhythm section and address the audience directly. What confuses people in learning AABA recurring form is that the final A is the same as the beginning A but not really: The final A is or should be more final in feel in the way you play it, in the manner in which you set the next chorus up. Until you have this form completely internalized, you have to say to yourself while practicing, now I'm at the top, second eight, bridge, last eight TOP. You may even have to count out measures and phrases. It's very distracting to your creativity, but there are times when there is no other way around it until it becomes instinctive. Sing the melody while playing: Keep doing it out loud, with a metronome and your instrument alone. Record yourself doing so, to later certify that you're doing it right. You need to program yourself through habit to be able to play freely within this formal template. 141

153 The Emergence of the Jazz Guitar Since its evolutionary origins in history, the most prominent role played by the lute and guitar was as vocal accompanist. This is largely because it had to wait for electronic technology to develop and mature in order for the guitarist s lines to be heard in a jazz group context. Indeed, guitar was the last instrument to develop as a major soloist in jazz. It was not a prominent soloist in early styles. The cornet dominated in early jazz, because it could be heard (could project) playing the melody over the rest of the group, which usually included drums. The guitarist, therefore, had to strum quarter-note chords on banjo just to cut through the rhythm section. Guitar, therefore, was usually out of the question and so was any sophisticated kind of soloing on either instrument. And when the guitarist did solo, he employed the same limited finger positions he used for strumming his accompaniment. The guitar has not been looked down upon in jazz. Horns were simply the instruments which were available to New Orleans blacks after the Civil War and the culture and logistics of gigs in the late nineteenth century were such that mobility was essential (they played outside on the street much of the time), and they needed to be able to project their sound as big as possible in an era which preceded electronic amplification. Moreover, lacking the models horn players had of earlier great performers to emulate, guitarists took a bit longer, once electronically equipped, to develop their individual and personal styles which of course had to be adapted to the special qualities of the guitar family, especially the new sound effect and vibrato choices offered by the newly developed electric guitar. Now the most popular instrument of the entire West, guitar has more than caught up. In coming to grips with ever-expanding electronic developments, however, the key to artistic integrity and success (not necessarily economic success) is to honestly follow and develop your taste, vocabulary, and sonic fingerprint. Forget about expectations, because in real artistic performance, honesty is the true path to communication. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, however, and there will always be some who will not like the choices you make. They are not your audience, that's all. 142

154 Find another dimension in which to create background interest. Guitar and Piano Comping Together When playing in a group that includes both guitar and piano, some basic accommodations are needed. Since jazz pianists usually take over the comping role, leaving the guitarist to find another dimension in which to create background interest, guitarists should bear the following suggestions in mind: 1. Work out ahead of time which of you will comp for which soloists. One can comp while the other rests. 2. Let the pianist comp while the guitarist plays guide tone lines (primarily thirds and sevenths). The guitarist can, in this way, supply the essential harmonic movement in a melodic and rhythmic fashion, while the pianist does the bulk of the chording. 3. Play bits of the reduced melody (reduced to whole or half notes placed on the beat). 4. Play a soft, repetitive rhythm guitar part behind the pianist. 5. Have the guitarist supply effects that do not interfere with the piano comp rhythmic, motivic, and electronic. 6. Listen to experienced musicians such as Jim Hall, John Abercrombie, Mick Goodrick, John Scofield, and Kirt Rosenwinkel. Accompanists should avoid chasing the soloist down, repeating every phrase or constantly employing two-fisted block chords containing six pitches with prime dissonance without variety, especially with constant motor rhythms, such as running eighth-note chords which become merely a pulse which saturates the sonic spectrum without supplying specific rhythmic support or interplay. 143

155 Play music: Don't compete. Guitarists Backing Singers with Piano Don't play roots. If there's a pianist, don't compete he'll most likely take over the comping role anyway: Most do. Don't comp chords at the same time as the pianist. It's all about the singer, so find other ways of supporting her, such as: 1. Play guide tone lines, but not too much while she's singing. 2. When she breathes add subtle comments on the phrase just completed. It's mostly about a call and response of sorts. Singers don't like to be crowded, so when in doubt, lay out. 3. Behind the singer, reduce the melody and play it in half or whole notes, mostly on the beat to help the singer stay in tune and know her place. It's not only guitarists and pianists who back singers. Horn players do it all the time, and they use all the devices and approaches cited above: It's a very creative art form. Listen to the Lester Young/Billie Holiday recordings. Chord Voicing Improvisation While we build improvisations primarily on the composition itself, a guitarist or pianist can also base lines on accompaniment voicings. An interesting voicing, when arpeggiated, usually makes an interesting line (and vise versa). On solos, early jazz guitarists improvised by arpeggiating their accompaniment chords. With today s more sophisticated voicings, this basic idea can reap more profitable results, and it will help liberate you from the tyranny of chord-scales. 144

156 Learn each hand separately before combining them. Combining Different Rhythms When combining different rhythms with two hands on the piano, first play each hand separately, and then combine the parts in one, two, or fourmeasure segments. Vamp on each segment until it begins to groove. After you learn one figure, do the next, and then combine the two figures. Then combine the two hands. Even when called upon to do different rhythms, if they are good, they will usually work together in a yin and yang fashion, so there's usually a motor back and forth motion that you will feel in your hands and arms as you start to absorb such combining of figures. Don t expect too much progress at once. Be systematic and patient. Seek independence. Pianist Hand Independence Many pianists expect written lines to use the spelling of the chord tones or chord scales, since they tend to link the thinking of the two together in a sort of joint response; and when they are notated with accidentals that are based on the logic of the line, pianists are often confused, since they see a chord symbol and have automatic chord scale digital responses to them, as sort of fused units. This is, however, unnecessary. Pianists should stop the right hand s reliance upon the left to automatically prescribe scale choice. They can co-exist, and the lines should rule not the reverse. Any and all thirteenth-chord voicings, for example, will work under any lines based upon the melody, guide tone-line or root progression. The resultant melodic dissonance is great and it can't be wrong vis-à-vis the chords, since everything in the line resolves around essential melodic compositional elements. Learn to make both your thinking and your two hands co-incidental and as independent as possible. 145

157 Bass Talk Bass players should create lines from the composition. Jazz Ostinato Bass Playing The jazz bassist should be able to incorporate elements of the actual composition into his lines far beyond merely interpreting chord symbols and supplying chordal roots and fifths. Even in playing swing walking bass lines, Paul Chambers often included the melody itself, which he simplified down to quarter notes. On melodic ostinato lines (in the style of Horace Silver), however, a jazz bassist should be able to do the following: 1. Read the lines as written. 2. Understand the phrasing implicit in the (specific) line and interpret it accurately. 3. Understand the implicit articulations of those lines to achieve the intended meaning. 4. Skillfully and artfully develop such lines subtly through paraphrase and development without losing the sense of repetition and physical intensity. This is important, because it is easy for bassists to do too much, vary too much, and lose the meaning in the process (a thin line). 5. Understand the significance of the registers in which he plays with regard to building intensity in support of the soloist. 6. Know the various devices employed by master jazz bassists, with regard to increasing or decreasing intensity, such as: beginning and ending the accompaniment of a soloist with references to the original line, and developing lines out of the motives of the original. 7. Be a strong soloist with a powerful personal style in his own right. In a typical Horace Silver ostinato bass line, there is a world of both motivic and rhythmic material to be found and mined, any part of which is 146

158 rife for development throughout an entire performance. As an exercise, take one motive at a time and apply it to the entire form, occasionally leaving a note out or changing an octave. Do that with all of the motives; and when you let it fly, they ll mix and coalesce in wonderful ways you couldn t have consciously created. With regard to the more subjective aspect of building intensity, published transcriptions of Ray Brown, Ron Carter, and others demonstrate this beautifully. There's one of Ray Brown developing an entire track of Killer Joe, in which he demonstrates his masterful building of intensity by gradually adding notes and going higher in register all while maintaining the same vamp. The art in this is to trick the listener into physically feeling the repetition, while subtly adding development often by adding or omitting a single note or rhythm. Bassists have a profound effect upon the development of the mood of a performance. For a listener to actually perceive this is unusual, though. Nonetheless, it is more about the art of paraphrase, since the ostinato line itself is usually suggested, if not exactly pre-determined, by the composer. 147

159 Bass Lines and the Harmonic Series The greatest challenge to single-line creation in the bass register is in projecting lines, since they sound muddy in the lower register. This is one reason why many bassists exclusively use their upper registers for line playing. If, however, you employ the harmonic series, the chord of nature, you can create voicings and lines from any three adjacent partials in the series for starters. Do them in all keys, on all chord types. For maximum sonority and projection, try sometimes basing your bass solos on the harmonic series. This will greatly increase the sonority of your sounds with regard to brilliance and projection, because the series reflects how humans hear (perceive) music. Get a chart of the harmonic series and you will see that the largest intervals are on the bottom, and they get gradually smaller as you rise in register. For example, the bottom interval is an octave; the next is a perfect fifth, then a perfect fourth, major third, minor third, flatted (small) minor third, and seconds. Bass Lines Instinctive playing is what you should focus on in performance. However, if you don't work systematically at vocabulary in preparing for performance, you ll never know if your statements are mere affectations or not; and your statements may be repetitious and limited in scope. It's always useful to have a variety of approaches at your disposal. Even among traditional bass-line approaches there are many types and variants to learn. You can also play a simplified version of the melody by playing the melody in quarter notes, as Paul Chambers often did. There are also bass line styles which employ long chromatic lines that travel for up to eight measures in length at a time before resolving to a root or other target note, a style which Ron Carter uses frequently. The LJI approach is to start with the root progression alone, as a kind of cantus firmus, and create quarter-note-lines around that. Learn each and every type; transcribe, sing, memorize, create, internalize, and target them. Then, in performance forget all of your studies and just play. Your subconscious will put them together in ways which your intellectual mind could never conceive. You can figure out later what happened, if you like. 148

160 Counterpoint and Jazz Bass Line Creation Develop linear aspects of your playing as they directly apply to your bass roles. Reduce the root progression down to half and whole notes, throw out the chord symbols and put them out of mind, and practice creating the inbetween notes based entirely on how melodic the resultant lines sound to you. This sounds simple, but when, for example, the first chord is a whole note, you have a single quarter note on the root as your starting point with three other notes needed to get you to the next target note in as melodic a means as possible. In this context, pick notes based entirely on their linear qualities. This aural composition will develop your contrapuntal skills while remaining focused directly on the skills you seek in order to expand your bass story. Begin this process by singing the compressed root progression at different rates of melodic rhythm (twice as fast, four times as fast), until it's a melody to you. Then slow it back down to the intended tempo and compose the connections. Once you have several solutions, they evolve organically into many others as you run choruses. You could then target notes other than just roots, replacing some roots with other chord members and targeting them instead. Sing all of this. After this is internalized, reduce the number of roots you target until you are thinking in eight-measure phrases in which the specific notes are not all of necessity linked directly to chord functions, but instead adhere to your sense of line integrity. Then you'll be able to sing and play with no thought necessary. When you do this with the added aim of hearing the other two essential lines, you are creating counterpoint in no uncertain terms, and you are doing it while developing your personal style on the bass role. 149

161 Creative Counterpoint Bass Exercises 1. Play back the reduced root progression files in Finale Notepad. By rote, create a bass line through it. 2. Run choruses and subtly paraphrase and develop them. 3. Play back each of the three different roles and create counterpoint to each of them. 4. Develop lines on each role exclusively, but in view of the others. 5. Apply all of this to your entire repertoire. There are publications which offer transcriptions of recorded performances of Ray Brown, Ron Carter, and others. Analyze those. Check out how they are similar and how they differ and why, how they build climaxes by changing registers, how they paraphrase (what changes and what stays the same). Target beat one at the beginnings of phrases with a mind more to key than to nailing each chord locally. This will free your thinking to create longer, more melodic lines, instead of always looking to play the roots or to reharmonize in order to gain more roots. 150

162 CHAPTER 9 ATTITUDES Choosing a College Jazz Program Here are a few things to consider as priorities in choosing a college: 1. Degree with highest accreditation rating. 2. Degree which offers viable career (job). 3. Best opportunity to learn from great practitioners alongside top-notch fellow students. 4. Best opportunity to perform in excellent student groups coached by great musicians. 5. Best town to live in. 6. Best place to make connects for future work. Boston, for instance, is a great town to live in, and it is a great college town. For Boston jazz students, the two clear choices are Berklee and the New England Conservatory of Music. Both have their pluses and minuses and are quite different from each other in style and substance. NEC is loose with no guiding principles; each teacher is unique and free to go his/her own way. There are, however, fewer good ensembles and student players who excel in the NEC jazz department than at Berklee. Berklee, on the other hand, is a giant factory, mired with dead wood in the first semester. There is, however, always a plethora of great players school-wide. It is essentially a chord scale factory with one essential approach to improvisation: translating chords into scales (CST). You can, however, meet a great many contacts for future work. You can jam all day and all night. You can get in touch with whatever information you seek. Berklee has a far more structured program than NEC, but it's mostly about arranging; and they have many rules, while NEC has none. 151

163 Start with knowledge and experience and add empathy. Teaching Jazz In preparation for teaching classes, write a syllabus first before preparing lesson plans. Map out what you want to cover over the entire semester on a calendar, a process which will help you to establish your priorities. You'll have a better idea of what lessons you want to teach the most, and how to pace them. Then work out the details of each lesson. Include a few basic business ground rules as well, such as test dates, report deadlines, cut policy, and office hours. Give each student a copy. It will serve as a contract between you and the student, as well as an outline. When it comes to private lessons, however, such plans are not as useful, since you first need to know what the student s background is, what his aspirations and influences are, what and in what style he/she wants to learn especially strengths and weaknesses. Listen to her play and go from there. Of course, you have certain skills you want to get across and certain activities you want students to address; but at first you will be most effective when you follow the student's lead. Even from lesson to lesson, what you can effectively cover depends in large part on what she has managed to get done in the practice room, which is often not much, since many are managing a family and a full-time career. Therefore, you often have to go to plans B and C, and do things that you didn't particularly plan for that lesson. But those are also skills which need to be covered, such as analyzing tunes or getting started at singing a phrase, or learning swing feel, or keyboard harmony, or learning to transcribe. Mentor every private student you teach. Discuss the related thought processes in depth with students when teaching improvisational skills. The basics are: how and what practice, ear training, keyboard facility, song analysis, learning vocabulary, playing the blues, and more. Your primary goal should always be to get the student out playing and performing in one form or another as soon as possible, a process that among other benefits supplies an immediate reason and inspiration for him to practice. This means that, rather than requiring the student to rigidly learn your personal method, you must also address such basic idiomatic and generic skills as the blues, cadences, comping rhythms, the various rhythmic feels, a basic repertoire, and much more. To be successful at private teaching, you have to improvise a great deal. Above all, always leave the student with his self-esteem intact. 152

164 Teaching College Jazz While many enjoy it, the majority of heavy musicians teach in some form because they have to, since: 1. Students demand jazz courses. 2. Jazz musicians need work (money). Schools are complicit in this, and they are totally without conscience in selling the lie about a jazz career for their own greed; teachers buy into the lie for the security of the paycheck. Let's be realistic: Most, if not all great performers also teach in order to make a decent living. It's hard to get away from it. Even people at the level of Seiji Ozawa and Wynton Marsalis teach, whether it s in clinics, private lessons, colleges, writing pedagogy, administration, or making DVDs. 153

165 Lightweights and Heavyweights While most people say, he's a heavyweight (or lightweight as the case may be), Chet Baker would say, He sounds good sometimes or (in the case of Stan Getz) He sounds good all the time. Translation: World-class jazz artists sound good all the time. It's consistency that matters in the end. Don't imagine your review while performing. I played a quartet concert with Chet Baker where leading critic Leonard Feather, dressed in tuxedo, was intently writing in a notebook throughout the entire performance. The band was killin'. The next day we read the review it was of another group. A performance takes as long as it takes to get it done in a meaningful manner. Performance Length Performance length is subjective. It depends on who is talkin' and how powerful her statement is on that particular subject on that particular day. A performance takes as long as it takes to get it done in a meaningful manner. For some, even one minute is too long; for others, in the right circumstance it could be considerably longer. It also depends on the particular style. Bird, for example, made a conscious decision to keep the improvisations short. Trane made the opposite choice. Both approaches worked equally well for these individuals (very different) styles. 154

166 Ya can t play it forwards until ya can play it backwards. Mick and the Bobby Orr Hockey Game This short story will perhaps give you a window into guitarist Mick Goodrick s musical mind: Since Mick and I worked together on a very steady basis in the Brass Menagerie in Boston in the late 1960s, and we lived a couple of doors away on the same street, Mick arrived one night at my doorstep unannounced with a still-wrapped package that turned out to be a new and as-yet-unopened Bobby Orr Hockey Game. Wearing a look of determination, he demanded my immediate attention at the christening ceremony in my living room. We battled it out as equals throughout the noisy night, with my ear-plugged wife ensconced in an adjacent room. Exhausted from playing through the night, he went home with the game in tow. I didn t go out and buy the game: It was his thing. The next night I noticed the faint remnants of the now-erased ink markings that had indicated each player s range. He was now formidable, and two nights later, having worked out every possible double and triple bank shot as licks, he demonstrated his mastery from every ball position on the court I was out of the game. A week later he showed up without the game, insisting I accompany him to his place down the street, which I did. He then gathered up all his wire clothes hangers and spare wires even resorting to pipe cleaners to rig the game in such a way that we played it backwards, with each player working the other s team from across the table. I had a revelation, and said, That s how you practice the guitar! He smiled and said, Ya can t play it forwards until ya can play it backwards. In 1970, Mick spent the entire year practicing everything in only one key per month, explaining that it was natural and logical to complete the twelvekey cycle within the twelve-month year. I took his suggestion at the same time and found that you climb deeply into each key that way. Along similar lines of thinking is Carl Schroeder s octave: 155

167 Carl Schroeder s Octave Hanging out with pianist Carl Schroeder years ago in Boston, I walked into his apartment and noticed that he had a big piece of cardboard covering his piano keyboard with the exception of one octave. He demonstrated how he would practice improvising within that range, moving the octave cardboard from time to time to a different place on the keyboard. Joe Fonda Practicing Gig Weaknesses After a long three-set jazz gig a few years ago with double bassist Joe Fonda, I crashed at his pad, where he was practicing (at 3:00 a.m.) everything that he was dissatisfied with on the gig, from a pocket recording he had made. I thought about how little I felt like doing something like that after a gig when tired, but he made the most of it while it was still fresh in his mind. Consonance and Dissonance The concept of consonance and dissonance is complex, since the two were viewed differently from epoch to epoch. Pythagoras codified the consonant intervals as perfect fourths, fifths, and octaves. They alone were at rest among harmonies. The most common cadence in medieval times was the double leading-tone cadence, in which raised fourth scale degree (fi) and the leading tone resolved upwards to five and one (eight) respectively, while two in the bottom (re) resolved down to one (do). This gives a typical priority (I) chord of one, five, and eight. Western medieval church music is the same in this regard, with thirds and sixths considered unstable dissonances, instead of consonances as they are viewed today. Thirds and sixths gradually became felt as consonances with the gradual push towards tonal music. Twelve-tone and serial music were early twentieth-century attempts to democratize consonance and dissonance and other hierarchical tonal relationships by negating the need for resolution of traditional tonal tendencies. 156

168 Good baggage is still baggage. Re-Capturing Great Moments Never attempt to recapture a moment or a feeling in performance. Such thinking will kill your muse. Take those great moments and savor them, but never try to re-capture them or have those kinds of expectations, since they are behind you no longer in the now. You can take the fact that it happened, put the experience in your confidence bank, and know that it will happen again in different ways; but don't try to re-capture anything, since the feelings and circumstances that allowed that to happen will only happen that way when similar circumstances occur which you won't fully understand in the moment anyway. Go with no expectations except that you're as prepared as possible, open to the interplay, and ready for anything to happen. This means being willing to take chances. Tell your story: Do not demonstrate. Your Finest Hour For any performance, pick material on which you can sound your personal best. Nothing else matters. Forget all other mindsets and calculations. Even an audition isn't the place to demonstrate something some just think so. Jazz improvisation is public speaking: Tell the best story you have in a compelling, honest manner. Reach a climax; finish up; take a bow and get out. 157

169 You Do What You Do In the old NYC studio days, the scene was such that you recorded jingles on weekdays, usually at 9:00 in the morning. On one particular Don Sebeski-arranged American Express television commercial, the usual New York Philharmonic string section was in attendance, along with a percussion section and six jazz studio horn players, including Jon Faddis, Randy Brecker, and me. Arguably the best lead trumpet player in the business, Faddis is also a virtuoso trumpet soloist, playing Dizzy Gillespie licks more accurately than the master himself. Brecker is also a fine trumpet player but no virtuoso. He is, however, one of the finest jazz trumpet stylists in the world. While I can identify Faddis on recordings due only to this similarity to Diz, I can pick Randy s artistry out in a single measure. When I arrived at the studio at 8:30, Faddis was already in a corner rapidly tonguing pianissimo double high Ds. As the orchestra filed in, everyone noticed, thinking how he must get up at 5:00 in the morning to be this warmed-up. When Randy arrived, he surveyed the scene, noticing everyone s eyes in anticipation of his reaction. He sat down, put his trumpet together, and played a low C. Everyone laughed, because you only do what you do. 158

170 Know who you are, why you perform, and how to go about it; and be strong enough to lead musicians and audiences alike through personal example and the strength of your story. Disrespecting Your Audience On both professional and philosophic levels, if you don't respect the venue's audience, you have no business taking the gig. But if you take the job, do not allow yourself to be ignored. You don't have to compromise yourself or your art to do this, especially if you have chosen appropriate material. Never ignore or otherwise disrespect your audience. The bottom line is that they are paying to be there, and as such they deserve your best and most honest performance. You have to know the venue in advance, of course, so that if it requires show biz or what you would otherwise perceive as compromise, you can turn it down. Disrespecting the audience, however, disrespects the musicians and yourself the most. If you don t wish to talk to yourself, and you have a story to tell in your music, this requires an audience. The world is what it is; the overall scene is not ideal. If you are an artist, you deal with it and do what you have to do to be in the river or you drop out. You do this because you have to, and have a responsibility to your art. You have to find your way or perish spiritually. We've all been through many negative assessments of the scene, such as it is, the state of the art, as it were. It's suicidal, since if you have to play, you must. Rather than fight it, we need to find our own meaningful paths to jazz performance. The music rewards you for such honesty, and audiences sense it. You have to know who you are, why you must perform, and how to go about it, and then be strong enough to lead musicians and audiences alike through personal example and the strength of your story. Don't pigeonhole audiences. First know where and for whom you are to perform. If your music is in the now, however, specifics will vary and things happen, and individual self-expression is built into the music. As with any effective storyteller, you have to grab the audience, get its attention, carry the participants through your story, and pull it off effectively with climaxes all of which has nothing to do with selling out. Rather, it is the primary goal of the artist: To experience the magic of those great moments when you've got the house all night, you must be willing to be spontaneous, as well as to be prepared. 159

171 Show me a genius and I'll show you someone who worked harder than others at the right things. Genius and Talent Versus Hard Work We've all known talented people who seemed to get things more quickly than the rest of us people with perfect pitch, photographic memories, and total recall, people such as Stan Getz. Since it s so easy for such individuals to secure initial skills, however, they often find it impossible to do the work required to become masters (Getz notwithstanding). These remarks merely address the necessary skills and not the art which is quite another matter, since one could have all the skills needed and still have nothing substantive to say no artistic talent. Most people agree that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a genius. However, he grew up in an environment extremely friendly to his musical development. His father was the most famous and astute music instructor in all of Europe, and he began teaching Wolfgang at the age of three. The father took his musical family on the road, touring the great royal courts when Wolfgang was six. This involved long coach rides during which Wolfgang was tutored in counterpoint and violin throughout the day. Wherever he went, his father would introduce Wolfgang to the greatest musicians in Europe, including Franz Joseph Haydn and Alessandro Scarlatti, with whom Wolfgang stayed behind to study for protracted periods of time. In the process, he learned through experience, study, and opportunity the various skills and cultural styles. Therefore, besides a great deal of natural talent, Wolfgang had the ideal training, performance experience, and mentoring in addition to dedicated, dogged determination and hard work. 160

172 How could jazz possibly be as good as classical music? It s not written down! Jazz as Viewed by the Classical Music Establishment The classical music establishment and a great many of its practitioners hold and have always held jazz in low regard. Indeed, the only reason jazz exists in the schools at all is because of enrollment: Students demand it. In another ten years at best, though, Gen Ed students will demand pop courses instead jazz history, courses such as History of Classic Rock, and it will make no difference to the establishment whatsoever. One reason that they accepted Wynton Marsalis work as the new jazz canon, by the way, was because he had proven to them that he could play their music first. If you read statements by classical critics, composers, scholars, and conductors (Gunther Schuller notwithstanding), they rail against jazz's perceived lack of self restraint (the concept of delayed gratification and withholding of one s forces), primitive reliance upon metronomic time and dance rhythms, lack of long-term planning, overindulgence in gratuitous dissonance, and self gratification. Need I go on? And friends such as Gunther Schuller are jazz s worst enemies, forever attempting to prove to colleagues that jazz has grown up, employing motivic development and other such unlikely European qualities, because its true extemporaneous greatness couldn t possibly be as good as Western art music. How could it be? It s not written down! In schools, we aren t allowed to use the grand piano in concert because all those jazzers just bang on the piano, and scheduling anything for a matriculated jazz ensemble always takes a back seat to their classical equivalents. Even at the New England Conservatory, where they make an effort to appear liberal, it isn't so: The jazz department, last time I looked, is still cramped in their dingy basement. The word that best describes NEC s attitude is contempt. We ve all heard of jazz's influence on classical composers but to be influenced by or to crib jazz influences does not constitute respect. They think they re legitimizing (improving upon) jazz by incorporating it into their superior music same as when Haydn and Mozart incorporated English, Spanish, and Mexican dances into their suites. Moreover, such jazz-influenced Western art music doesn't sound much like jazz at all except as caricature. 161

173 Beauty is in the ears of the beholder. Technical Ability Limits While dogged determination and a good private teacher are the most important factors in an individual s development in jazz improvisation, there are additional considerations to consider, such as differences between instrument families and between the demands of jazz versus traditional classical music. All instruments are not equal in difficulty in gaining the specific skills needed to effectively be able to play jazz on a high level. A saxophonist or guitarist, for example (depending on the individual s talents and level of experience), can often accomplish in an afternoon what would take a trombonist or double bassist a month of hard work. There are also many differences between traditional skills needed to perform traditional Western art music and the skills needed for jazz. As a result, the jazz artist must develop, through experimentation, experience, and necessity, his own unique fingering and position solutions in order to cope with the differences in technical demands made on jazz players, because the roles demanded by jazz are different from those of classical music. The bottom line, however, is that technical limitations in specific areas do not ultimately have to limit one s artistic output. Jazz musicians have always capitalized or at least adjusted their individual styles on their strengths and weaknesses. Miles Davis, for example, developed different skills, and therefore a different kind of style than his predecessor with Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, arguably because Davis lacked Diz s range and other flashy technical skills. 162

174 The bigger the star you're performing with, the more sharks you draw. Cutting I have been dogged for protracted periods of time by nasty overcompetitive players while on the gig, performing with Chet Baker, Joe Henderson, Herbie Hancock, Don Sebesky, and Charles Mingus, among many others. While you may be able to ignore such competition at a jam session, a gig presents more pressing challenges. Bebop stars in particular love competition on the gig, and therefore allow others to sit in with this in mind. The bigger the name you're performing with, the more sharks you will draw. The goal of the predatory sitter-in is to either attempt to get your sideman gig or to impress the club owner in order to book his own gig. These individuals often view jazz performance as a prize fight. They are not afraid of stacking the deck in their favor, either, often arriving with their own entourage to act as a cheering section to influence the outcome of their musical assault. If you are the sideman, you have no alternative in these situations but to destroy their attempts to publicly outdo you on your gig. The sitter-in will often resort to such circus tricks as excessive high notes, loud effects, and millions of meaningless notes usually flying in the face of the group's musical style, degrading the group's musical depth, and causing the audience to sink into the lowest common denominator in the process. With experience you can see them coming. Bells go off, and you say, here we go again: There goes the evening's music. (Chet Baker would remark after these occasions, You play good when you're mad.) You often have to go to the same pyrotechnical places, while outclassing the competition at the same time. As far as learning is concerned, while one can sometimes learn from such negative experiences, it is nonetheless unnecessary and ugly. There are always better ways to learn, such as constructive criticism and encouragement. Indeed, the best lesson is in merely taking notice of what kind of applause you earn for a solo, especially when following an international star performing for his audience. But that's not competition it's the real deal! 163

175 Nasty competition can also occur between band members, if the bandleader encourages it. There's a famous story about Miles' sextet with Trane and Cannonball. When Cannon was soloing, Miles would whisper to Coltrane, Why's he playing all that old Bird stuff? When Trane was soloing, he d say to Cannon, Why's he playing all those notes? Why does he have to play so long? He loved the competitive tension (he had been similarly abused by Bird). Bassist Billy Kronk was playing with Louis Armstrong downstairs in a New Orleans double jazz club where Miles was about to begin a week's stint in the upstairs room. Since Paul Chambers couldn't do the gig, Miles asked Billy (at the club, on sight) to do both Miles' and Armstrong's gigs on alternate sets. Surprised, Billy told Miles that he was an old-style player and didn't think Miles would like his playing and admitted that he didn't know Davis s repertoire. Miles insisted, and then, for the entire week Miles would only play the heads and then sit down at the front table with friends and goof on Billy. He paid Billy full salary for an entire week to ruin his (Miles ) own music, just so he and his friends could have a laugh at Billy s expense. I have another example, regarding my first rehearsal with Joe Henderson: Without any pleasantries or introductions, Joe stomps off his most complex composition, Shade of Jade, which contains lots of changes of rhythmic styles and tempos, and many complex chord changes. After the exposition, Joe looks to me to take the first solo. Bassist Junie Booth, however, proceeds to continuously get lost and play wrong bass roots. I played through his distraction, and when we were through with the tune, I asked him why he was lost. While he didn t respond, altoist Pete Yellin said later, Hey man, he's been playing that tune for years: He was doing that on purpose to try to make you look bad. Happily, Cecil McBee ended up on the gig. 164

176 Playing Fast Tempos Learning to play at fast tempos involves doing so regularly. Most important is that you know the kinds of ideas and phrases that work at up tempos. To be effective it s also necessary to devise special strategies such as withholding your forces by playing fewer notes at first and placing them more on the beat than usual, and then gradually building towards a climax. If you begin with eighth-note lines right away, you ll have nowhere to go. Practice everything at different tempos, since a given idea will not work as well at different tempos, and therefore will need to either be reworked or replaced for those phrases and rhythms to be effective at fast tempos. The most effective way to practice up tempo playing is to run choruses of lines on a specific tune, periodically moving the metronome up one notch at a time. This can be tedious and redundant, but much of the learning process is just that, when learning your licks. And the faster the tempo, the more you have to connect entire phrases each to the next, rather than thinking from note to note. Once you've done this thoroughly to one tune, the skills gained in this manner carry over into the next. 165

177 How Many Songs Do You Know? This question reminds me of an interview in which Cecil Taylor was asked how many tunes he'd written, to which he responded: I've only written one, but it's different every day. By the way, how many instruments do you play? Fancy Instruments Some younger practitioners place far too much emphasis on instrument quality and accessories, while at their stage of development instrument quality it is far less a factor in their performance than it is for a master. To be obsessed with equipment when you haven't yet mastered the craft, and when all you really need is a good basic instrument that doesn't hinder your development, is to be off the mark with your priorities. Since masters are great even on a second-rate instrument, this tells us where our priorities should be. Artistic Maturity Who s old? Frank Foster and Jim Hall, for example? They never stop practicing and growing. Continued artistic relevance depends on attitude, physical shape, lifestyle, and ability to continue to put the work and time in the practice room, and willingness to take chances on the gig. Work and experience reward you by making your story more powerful and interesting to your audience. 166

178 While we learn from experience, it is sometimes wiser to cut your losses. Cutting Your Losses In spite of the fact that a performer needs to record to become known, it s still sometimes wiser to quit a band for lousy presentation or material or players, once a recording is impending, since dates like that can come back to haunt you. Better not to be heard at all than to be heard in an embarrassing light on record. You can even sometimes respond to a contractor for a commercial date for, say, Vanguard records, where you merely double-track some written parts and it (and you) later get reviewed as a serious jazz effort. Pacing Yourself On Tour 1. Catnap, shut down whenever possible. 2. Go to bed instead of partying to cool down after the gig. 3. Avoid junk foods and hangovers. 4. Save your energy for essential activities. 5. Bear in mind that you are there for the music. 6. Practice yoga or go to a gym. 7. Read a good novel. 8. Take a warm bath. 167

179 Ideology and over-stylization are the twin kisses of death to the artist. Innovation and the Human Dimension Listening to Elliot Carter has caused me to wonder if European composition has become so intoxicated by innovation and technological development that the developments themselves became confused with creativity and originality. Now that everything under the sun has been explored, have we lost our connection with art's necessary relationship with nature and the human experience within it? Maybe, after all, we can only take music so far, since, for any art to be meaningful to human beings it has to have a human dimension, as does the Parthenon (scaled to the then-human dimensions, and to human optical perceptions). Western art music, especially during the Romantic period, got caught up in both orchestrational and instrument development, which in turn became associated with originality. Moreover, before Beethoven, composers wrote for the gig rather than for all time. When Mozart wrote a symphony in one day, he was mostly transcribing how he would have improvised on that piece that day. The same is true with Chopin and the others. The future of jazz is in continuing the historical process of fusing all of this European formal development and technology with African rhythm and inflections. Much has yet to be done in that regard, but twentieth-century Western art music techniques should be internalized and given new meaning by translating them to jazz language. All such devices as twelve-tone technique can be incorporated at will and not exclusively, either, but rather mixed into whatever device is meaningful for the moment. The challenge is to find and develop your own style by learning new vocabulary and writing compositions that stretch your improvisational scope and mood expression. It is the powerful personal story performed with honesty and confidence that communicates best. Jazz is the antidote to nihilism: Mix in the blues and stir heartily. Theory for its own sake is of little use to the improviser unless it suggests new vocabulary and approaches, but to digest and internalize such vocabulary is a long and repetitive process. Go instead to the gig, or to a score or recording, to find new vocabulary, rather than the math lab. 168

180 Ideological Preconceptions As much as we strive for fresh vocabulary, it is still essential that we understand why, what, and to whom we are communicating. If you wish to be understood, you must be grounded in a specific language. The game is in how honestly and effectively the artist balances the fresh with the understandable. As an artist, you have a responsibility to make your statements in a clear and concise manner, and to lead the audience from one point to the next, culminating in a clear and decisive climax. Since there is no blueprint in jazz comparable to a Beethoven score, one must have a clear understanding of intention and content and then be able to put it across effectively in the now. Jazz is about gaining your own voice within the jazz language and tradition, while continuing to assimilate the harmonic advancements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Is there virtue in avoiding clichés, rather than developing and personalizing them (blues and jazz rhythm and phrasing) in order to be original? Never reject vocabulary for ideological reasons; be inclusive, not exclusive. There exists a tendency among some to make an artistic sacrifice for the sake of originality, something that Keith Jarrett speaks of in an interview about Miles. Jarrett said that it was Davis s supreme sacrifice to reject what he knew best and loved most (ballads) for the sake of creating new art (fusion). A few years ago, a friend gave me a recently released CD of a contemporary of mine, because he had used my rhythm section. Throughout the entire CD, he demonstrated his mastery of all scale and harmonic relationships, and he swung at all times. He is a great player, but I was shocked at the conspicuous absence of all reference to blues, jazz cliché rhythms, and the tradition. Since he is astute and thoroughly trained, I am left to conclude that he had made an ideological decision to avoid idioms in order to be original. Ideology is the kiss of death to the artist, for he always loses by placing any such limitations. McCoy Tyner did that also. Where did the rest of the chord spectrum go, after he went exclusively quartal? 169

181 Improvisation, Composition Extemporaneous music can't possibly be in the same class as 'art music'; after all, it's not written out, so how could it be? I ve heard this repeatedly in academia and it is racist and elitist not to mention plain wrong. There are only great and honest artists and phonies, regardless of style. Miles said, I don't care if he's green and has red breath, as long as he can play. Along similar lines, Mick Goodrick told me that he had a genius guitar graduate student at the New England Conservatory who had to write a new, original twentieth century-style composition and perform it in recital. Goodrick, who was present at the recital, reports that his student merely got up and improvised the entire recital. The professors went crazy with admiration: Genius! Phenom! Brilliant! Groundbreaking! When it later became known that he had extemporized the entire performance, however, they were scandalized and embarrassed as hell. That's because, after all, it's not written down, so

182 Stan Getz In my freshman year in college, I went to an All Star Concert in the West Chester State College gymnasium. I went to see tenor saxophonist Stan Getz. Stan had recently released Sweet Rain, and in the group were pianist Chick Corea, whose tunes they were playing, Grady Tate on drums, and Ron Carter on double bass. The hall was packed with college students. Scheduled to precede Stan was the Motown group The Four Tops and a trumpet-playing comedian named Jackie Vernon not the best type of entertainment to set the mood for Stan s music. Stan s group was subtle and intense, and Stan was at the height of his career. He went on stage that night, following the other acts, wearing sunglasses, which he lifted up a bit to study the audience. He then picked up his tenor saxophone and let loose with a primal scream fit for Albert Ayler, Pharaoh Saunders or David Murray. It was outrageous especially for 1964 and totally unexpected of such a lyrical stylist as Getz. It caused all of those in the audience whom Stan knew would trickle out of the gym while he was playing to leave before he started to perform seriously. After his outburst, Stan ostentatiously lifted his un-needed sunglasses to scrutinize the audience to witness the fact that a great many had left. Only then did he launch into a beautiful rendition of Corea's Sweet Rain. I still think about what audacity it took for him to do such a thing, but it was nonetheless effective. Years later I had a conversation with Gary Burton about Getz, and he related a different story about Getz's understanding of the emotional performance demands of a major artist. Burton said that when he first joined the band, on the road and performing daily, Stan would sometimes sound lackluster and unemotional for an entire evening, and that the band felt that they had outplayed him. It had taken Burton a few weeks to realize that Getz would save himself emotionally the day before an especially important concert. Have you ever blown everyone away at the sound check, with nowhere to go for the performance? 171

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184 CHAPTER 10 THEORY Jazz theory is an oxymoron. A Little Music History Jazz is a style of Western art music. All jazz harmony comes from that tradition, while the rhythms come from Africa. The vast bulk of the jazz repertoire employs European instruments, harmonic progressions and forms. Jazz is a unique marriage of these European characteristics with African rhythm and Afro-American inflections, articulations, gestures, and vibratos. The only pc used in jazz that is unique to Western art music is the blues scale (C: C, Eb, F, F#, G, Bb, C), which is the result of African-American fusing of slurs and sliding pitches (also a characteristic of African music) onto the tempered major/minor European tonal system. There are also similar pcs in some African tribal music. Since jazz has traditionally evolved from a fusion of the salient characteristics of these two cultures and the harmony comes from Europe, it is therefore misleading to describe anything as jazz theory or jazz harmony. Even the twelve-bar blues is comprised of a tonal European chord progression (I, IV, and V). Jazz texts merely codify what jazz composers stylistically choose to use from the entirety of the European palette; and much has unfortunately been left out, or rather not yet assimilated (most twentieth-century developments). Therefore, go to the source, which is to classical recordings, harmony texts, and scores. French composer and theorist Jean-Philippe Rameau published the first definitive harmony text in Read that and go from there. Books, however, will only prepare you for the real business of score analysis, which is where you will find the most pertinent information: in practice where it is the most revealing. In order to better understand the various styles that emerged within the jazz tradition, it s helpful to understand a little music history. In the West, music was modal until the late seventeenth century, at which time it evolved into tonality, based on chord progressions aimed at culminating in a cadence to the tonic chord. The tonal system dominated until the twentieth century, when music began to tend towards atonality. In atonality, harmonies are 173

185 arranged in successions that have no tonal functionality or hierarchical relationships, and are instead used solely for their color and interest. Jazz, however, is still basically rooted in the harmonic practices of the Classical and Romantic periods (eighteenth- and nineteenth-century harmony). In the twentieth century, European composers began to write chord successions that did not necessarily have a primary key (atonality), but this has not been prominently incorporated into the jazz style as yet, since jazz musicians and their audiences are mired in old European harmonic practices and forms. Indeed, jazz hasn t yet even fully digested the music of French Impressionist composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. Mark Levine's popular book, Jazz Theory, is a good illustration of jazz pedagogists limited understanding of music history. In it, Levine reiterates the Berklee College Chord Scale Theory system of applying chord scales and modes to chord progressions, making it necessary for one to theorize and intellectualize in order to arrive at which of these arbitrary modes are applied to a tonal system that isn t modal. In writing my doctoral dissertation, I interviewed Jerry Coker, who was the first to hold a full-time position as professor of jazz in a college or university. He admitted that he used this modal system with its Greek names to impress the classical administrators that dominated his music department, so that they might take jazz education seriously (they have been in the colleges for well over a hundred years, while jazz education was only grudgingly admitted fewer than fifty years ago). Coker explained that, had he taught a more direct, common-sense traditional approach to this extemporaneous art form, it would have gone right over their heads. They don't like us: The only reason jazz exists in higher education is because of enrollment: Students demand jazz courses. A voicing is a voicing; a chord is a chord; a progression is a progression. In tonal music, there are only so many ways to make a progression, since the musical elements adhere to rather strict organizational concepts. But these jazz theory books imply that major 7th b5 (#11) chords, or a dominant 7th +9 chord, for example, are jazz chords. They are not and there are additional problems. For example, Levine instructs the reader to, among other things, avoid (or at least to be careful of) using the perfect fourth degree of a scale when playing on a dominant or major-type chord, which makes a perfectly fine and traditional diatonic melodic tension in either case (a four-three suspension). Indeed, the V7sus4 chord evolved from the practice of sustaining the fourth degree to create melodic dissonance before 174

186 resolving to the third. Eventually it became accepted as a chord type of its own without resolving at all. Levine probably got that idea from a misunderstanding of Herb Pomeroy's line writing concept, but Herb offers avoid notes only with regard to voicings not lines, and at least his approach is logical. In the end, however, he too is still legislating personal taste. Avoid notes are in reality melodic tensions, non-harmonic tones. Every composer of value in every style and period in Western history used them to great effect, and their duration only increases or decreases tension. Study scores, starting perhaps with Chopin, for modern musical theoretical understanding. There are also many fine harmony texts available that trace and examine the various developments in Western harmony. Indeed, if you consult the reference source, Music Analysis, you can find detailed analyses of most compositions, to see what others say about a piece that you are analyzing. Loving jazz is no excuse to be unrealistic. 175

187 Why Use Key Signatures? A key signature tells the reader what do (the tonic) is, after you determine whether it is in the relative major or minor key. Without a key signature, the experienced musician will not know what key the piece is in. Phrases are mostly constructed in duples (two, four, and eight measures). Tonal phrases contain progressions which essentially move through the cycle of fifths to a cadence (ii V I) in a specific key. While standard tunes, for example, usually also contain one or two brief modulations (usually in the bridge), there is always a primary key (usually found at least at the composition s beginning and ending). The standard tune takes the key signature of the primary key, with accidentals used to accommodate the modulated key areas. While each section could have its own key signature, it isn't usually done that way in (jazz) practice. Any tune can contain a great many chromatic non-harmonic tones and chords as well, however, without necessarily affecting the supremacy of the primary key. A hierarchy is present in spite of nonharmonic tones, which essentially modify the diatonic notes, and propel the line forward in the process. Western ears have become accustomed to a great deal of chromaticism within the tonal spectrum (especially since the late sixteenth century). Indeed, the limited diatonic possibilities became predicable very early on. 176

188 Chords evolved from coinciding lines. Progressions as Lines View chord progressions and successions themselves as thickened and colored lead and root progression lines. Therefore, the chordal fifths are less significant in this mindset, since the outer lines are the most important (heard most prominently). While the tenor-voice guide tone lines in the inner voices are somewhat less important, they supply the color of the progression in the form of a line. It s easy to lose sight of the fact that chords evolved from coinciding lines, given a predominant jazz pedagogical mindset which derives scales for improvisation from static recurring accompaniment chords, rather than from the melodic line that spawned the composition. A good way of harmonizing a new melody is to compose a bass line and then fill the middle voices in (also a good way for getting priorities sorted). In filling it in, you needn't even consider every bottom note as the root, since it could be an inversion or have any one of several relationships to the resulting harmony. Then voice the most important hits and phrase endings and cadences first, before connecting them (in between the voicings) with lines. 177

189 Modulation In tonal music, which jazz mostly constitutes, there is always a primary key, which is established by a cadence. Cadences drive towards a resolution to a tonic chord, a point of rest. They involve movement from an active chord (subdominant) inv, to the most active (dominant), to tonic (at rest). Subdominant involves key notes two and four; dominant, the tritone (augmented fourth interval) between scale four and the leading tone (scale seven); and tonic (one and three). Most compositions modulate once or twice in the bridge, which is usually the song s middle section. In order for something to constitute a modulation, depending on tempo it usually has to last for at least three or four measures in order to establish itself as a new key. However, there are often secondary key areas. All cadences other than the primary cadence are secondary. This is a frequent occurrence. In the early days of tonal music, most modulations went to closely related keys: key of IV (C to F) or V (C to G); or to the relative major and minor (C to Am, Am to C); or to the parallel major or minor (C to Cm; Cm to C). From the Romantic period (circa 1820) on, however, modulations and secondary relationships traveled to more-distant keys (C to A, C to F#, etc). In most AABA-form standard tunes, a modulation occurs in the seventeenth measure, then again in the two first, before modulating back to the primary key with the return to the last A section in measure twenty-five of a thirtytwo measure tune. Modulations are usually prepared with a ii7 V7 cadence, constituting transitory modulations (smooth, prepared). Abrupt modulations, which move to new keys without ii Vs, are called direct modulations. 178

190 CHAPTER 11 HARMONY Harmonic Terms Prime, Unison 1 note Dyad 2 Trichord 3 Tetrachord 4 Pentachord 5 Hexachord 6 Heptachord 7 Octachord 8 Nonachord 9 Dectachord 10 Four Triad Types Major (capital letter), e. g., C Minor (m or -) Augmented (+) Diminished (o) Twelve Basic Jazz Seventh Chords -5 m7 m ø 7 7sus o7 o 179

191 Unresolved Melodic Tensions A salient characteristic of twentieth-century Western art music is unresolved melodic tensions. 13 (9, #11) m13 (9, 11) m (9, 11) ø11 (9) 13 (-9, 9, +11) -13 (-9, 9, +11) +7(9, or -9) 13sus4 (-9, 9, 11) o (9) + (#9) Basic Jazz Ninth, Eleventh, and Thirteenth Chords All +11s are interchangeable with -5; some composers don t like -9 in the lead, or 5 and -5 in the same voicing. Basic Harmonizing Possibilities for C Lead as Unresolved Tension -9 = B7-9, B7sus4-9, or B = Bb 9, Bbm 9, Bbm9, Bb9, Bb+9, Bbo 9 +9 = A7+9 or A = Gm11, Gø (11 works well in the bass as well) +11 = F#7+11 (Gb7-5) 13 = Eb13-13 = E7-13 (E+7) 180

192 Rather than listing all possibilities, the above are restricted to those tensions used in jazz and pop music. For example, while the eleventh is clearly possible on a dominant seventh chord and is used sometimes in twentieth-century classical music, it is shunned by jazz. An exception is made for the 7sus4 chord, though, but only because it is: 1. derived from melodic suspension of the fourth resolving, and 2. commonly employed. Take a melody note and make it some kind of ninth, eleventh, or thirteenth. Go for the color of the chord succession, and for what the chords do to the melody. Of course, if you write a lot of eighth notes, you'll have to group melodic motives over a given chord. Try all different types and qualities of chords, rather than constant structures (groupings of the same quality chord); and be mindful of the root progression, which should also make a good line. Voicing Styles by Period 1910s and 1920s: seventh chords and added sixth chords; 1930s and swing era and 1940s bebop: some extended harmony ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth chords are often added (late-nineteenth-century harmony). During the Swing-era epoch of arrangers, there was much common usage of parallel block chords and modified block chords in which, in the right hand, nine replaced one and six replaced five. There were also more adventuresome bands such as the Claude Thornhill band, which employed such great arrangers as Gil Evans, who experimented with extended harmonies and Impressionist devices, in addition to other orchestrational devices new to jazz. Late 1950s to the present: quartal harmony, bitonality, major and minor triads over dissonant bass notes (C/Db). With the advent of Bill Evans, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, et al, such harmonic exploration expanded to include early twentieth-century harmonies borrowed from Western art music Impressionism in particular. Some pianists were more progressive than others, but in general the orchestration trends were mirrored by the small groups. 181

193 Chords of the Melodic Minor The traditional source of chords in the minor mode is the harmonic minor, hence the name. As tonal music developed over time, however, various other combinations have evolved, such as those below. Since chords have traditionally been constructed in thirds, the diatonic chords of the ascending melodic minor would be as follows: i ( ), ii7 (-9 in scale), biii+, IV7-5 (+11), V+7 (9-13), viø (9), VII+7 (with any of the following, in any combination: -9, +9, -5 (+11), +5 (-13). Triads are also employed. The ii rarely has a -9 in the chord itself, since it would sound like a biii 13 (no 3 or 5) in third inversion; and it creates a minor ninth interval between the chordal root and the flat nine, which is usually reserved for a dominant chord. 1, -3, 5, 7, 9 can be found in several other scales as well, most notably the harmonic minor. In a minor cadence such as iiø, V7, i7, use Locrian on the iiø. The melodic minor mode suggests a major ninth, which is a good option at times, creating a momentary major third of the key in a minor key. The V7 usually takes the harmonic minor (-9 only). The i chord could imply any minor scale, depending on context. Don't use the alt symbol, because it isn't a chord symbol, but rather, a prescription for a scale. Be specific: VII+7 (with any of the following, in any combination: -9, +9, -5 (+11), +5 (-13) and only use the tensions which you specifically want to be sounded. The remaining notes should be left to the players disgression. 182

194 Secondary Key Areas (Cadences) Early in the tonal period, it became obvious that the seven diatonic chords were predictable, and that secondary key areas (cadences borrowed from keys other than the primary key) were needed for variety, movement, and interest. By having a dominant of a diatonic chord, you increase the need for resolution and further propel the progression forward to the primary cadence. Since secondary cadences do not last long enough (usually fewer than four measures) to establish true modulations, they merely suggest temporary chromatic key relationships that enhance the primary key; but the tritones (augmented fourth intervals) of the secondary dominants dramatically increase the need for resolution into momentary secondary keys. This form of harmonic enhancement is commonly applied to any chord in a progression. 183

195 Harmony evolved as a result of coinciding lines. Tritone Substitutions The Tritone Substitute (bii7-5) is used interchangeably with V7. By extension this relationship exists not only with the primary V7, but also with any secondary dominant chord. While the ubiquitous ii V I cadence offers the strongest possible root progression (through the cycle of fifths), ii bii7 I is the second strongest root progression: descending in minor seconds. The reason these two chords are similar is that they share the same tritone, the characteristic interval which defines the dominant function, since the tritone wants to resolve to tonic. For example, in the key of C the F leans towards E, while B, the leading tone, leads to the tonic, C. These notes retain the same tendencies regardless if they appear in G7 or Db7. Incidentally, both G7-5 and Db7-5 share the same four notes: They differ primarily in the aspect that D moves up a perfect fourth (or down a perfect fifth) to the root of the tonic chord, while cadences involving SubV descend chromatically. Chord Progression Versus Chord Succession Chord progression, the cornerstone of tonal music, is movement essentially through the cycle of fifths, culminating in a cadence (SD, D, T). A chord succession, a late nineteenth-early twentieth-century development, avoids tonal functionality. It is a series of chords that merely supplies melodic movement and color. 184

196 Chord Substitution Chord substitution involves the replacing of one chord with another. The simplest form of this would be to replace a diatonic chord (having only notes within the key) with another of the same or similar function. For example, in the key of C you could use any of the following tonic chords (at rest) relatively interchangeably: Tonic: I ; iii7, vi7 Subdominant: ii7, IV, bvii Dominant: V7 and viiø The next most common type is the substitute dominant (SubV7), a dominant chord whose root is an augmented fourth away from V7, and resolves down a minor second instead of up a perfect fourth: G7 = Db7. As with secondary dominants, there are also secondary substitute dominants. 185

197 Harmonic Clichés Chords gradually evolved by being constructed up in thirds. Tonal music of the West is based on progressions that travel through the circle of fifths, culminating in a cadence based upon a subdominant (active) chord to a dominant chord (most active), and resolving to a tonic chord (at rest). Subdominant is characterized by two and four, dominant by the tritone (augmented fourth) interval between the leading tone and the fourth degree, and tonic by scale degrees one and three. Dominant is called such because it has the strongest need to resolve. The V7 is the dominant chord in all major and minor tonal progressions. The SubV7 (bii7) chord, however, shares the same tritone. In addition, just as there are secondary Ds, there are also secondary SubV7s. ii7 (iiø), V7, I (m7, m6, m69, m ) ii7 (iiø), Sub V7 (bii7), I (m7, m6, m69, m ) bvi7, bii7, I (m7, m6, m69, m ) bvi7, V7, I (m7, m6, m69, m ) Any component of a major or minor cadence can be employed in any combination, for example, ii7 V7 i7 and iiø V7-9 I. On the SubV7 chords, b5 (#11) is an option. Learn these in all keys: Note: For convenience of reading, all examples are in C. All major or minor chords can take the form of a triad, 6, 69, 7, or. 186

198 Cliché Cadences ii7 V7 I Dm7 G7 C iiø V7-9 i Dø G7-9 Cm ii7 V7 i Dm7 G7 Cm iiø V7-9 I Dø G7-9 C ii7 bii7 (subv7) I Dm7 Db7 C ii7 bii7 i Dm7 Db7 Cm iiø bii7 I Dø Db7 C iiø bii7 i Dø Db7 Cm bvi7 bii7 I Abm7 Db7 C bvi7 bii7 i Abm7 Db7 Cm bviø bii7 I Abø Db7 C bviø bii7 i Abø Db7 Cm 187

199 bvi7 V7 I Abm7 G7 C bvi7 V7 i Abm7 G7 Cm bviø V7 I Abø G7 C bviø V7 i Abø G7 Cm IV V I F G C IV V i F G Cm iv V i Fm, G, Cm iv V I Fm G C ii7/iii V7/iii I F#m7 B7 C ii7/iii V7/iii i F#m7 B7 Cm iiø/iii V7/iii I F#ø B7 C iiø/iii V7/iii i F#ø B7 Cm 188

200 Cliché Progressions I vi7 ii7 V7 I IV C Am7 Dm7 G7 F I VI7 (V7/ii7) II7 (V7/V7) V7 I IV C A7 D7 G7 C F I #i 7 ii7 V7 C C#o7 Dm7 G7 I biii 7 ii7 V7 C Ebo7 Dm7 G7 iv iv7/biii iiø V7-9 Fm Fm/Eb Dø G7b9 IV iv7 iii7 biiio7 ii7 V7 I F Fm7 Em7 Ebo7 Dm7 G7 C I biii bvi bii C Eb Ab Db I IV bvii III VI ii7 V7 C F Bb E A Dm7 G7 bvø iv7 iii7 biiio7 ii7 V7 I Gbø Fm7 Em7 Ebo7 Dm7 G7 i bii Cm Db I bii C Db I #io7 ii7 #iio7 I/3, III7 IV #ivo7 C C#o7 D-7 D#o7 C/E E7 FM7 F#o7 189

201 I iiø/iii7 V7/iii7 (iiiø) iiø/ii7 V7/ii7 iiø V7 I C F#ø B7 Eø A7 Dø G7 CM7 I iiø/iii7 V7/iii7 (iv11) ii11/biii7 V7/biii7 ii11/ii11 V7/ii11 ii11/bii V7/bII ii11, V7 I C F#ø B7 Fm11 Bb7 Em11 A7 Ebm11 Ab7 Dm11 G7 C Cycle 5: C7 F7 Bb7 Eb7, etc Dm7 G7 C; Gm7 C7 F; Cm7 F7 Bb, etc. Down in Major seconds: Dm7 G7 C; Cm7 F7 Bb ; Bbm7 Eb7 Ab, etc. Dø G7-9 Cm; Cø F7-9 Bbm; Bbø Eb7-9 Abm; etc. Down in SubV7s (1/2 steps): C7 B7 Bb7 A7, etc. 190

202 Line Cliché Line cliché, a harmonic commonplace, is used to achieving melodic movement over accompaniment harmonic stasis, as with In a Sentimental Mood, which has various versions of Dm: (Dm) Dm, Dm, Dm7, and Dm6. Contrapuntal Elaboration of Static Harmony (CESH) is the pedantic term for this. Some Line Clichés: i, I, i7, i6, bvi Cm, Cm, Cm7, Cm6, Ab i, bvi/3rd, i6, bvi/3rd Cm, Ab/C, Cm6, Ab/C In the Bass Voice: (VI7 over b2 bass) V7/II, (II7 over 1 bass) V7/V7, (V7 over leading-tone bass) V7, (I7/b7 bass) V7/IV, etc. A7/C#, D7/C, G7/B, C7/Bb, etc. 191

203 Pedal Point A pedal point is a repetitive pitch class with or without different chords suspended over it, often containing a repetitive rhythmic motive, such as is found in Herbie Hancock s Maiden Voyage. Trane's use of pedal point on Equinox features a twelve-measure ostinato throughout. Herbie's Dolphin Dance, over which he suspends non-functional chord successions in a very personal Impressionist manner, is a sophisticated example. The Naima pedal point is on scale five in the first eight measures, before moving to scale two for eight measures (with a kind of Phrygian sound), back to five for seven measures before resolving to the tonic in measure twenty-four. Jazz musicians often use the terms pedal point and ostinato interchangeably, though: While pedal point is a sustained note with changing harmonies, we usually make them rhythmic as well, and I think in practice either could appear with or without harmonic movement. In jazz reality, the effect is one of relative stasis in either case. Joe Henderson does this effect often, usually on a single note that goes dissonant against the prevailing harmonies. While it creates an outness and tension it still constitutes stasis on his part. Bassist Ron Carter not infrequently creates a pedal with a daydreaming effect, when he seems to go off into another world during intense groove passages, far from his role or function, to break up the forward motion, almost musing in another dimension. It is a gesture, and a means to affect the forward motion and drive to the climax in some way (which often follows his effect). Another interesting example of pedal point is the famous bassoon introduction to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Restricted to his extreme upper register, the bassoon gives off few harmonics to contrast the violent tutti chords that follow, which blacken the spectrographic screen. There are many kinds of pedal point. In Debussy's Nuages, for example, the clouds (the orchestration) keep moving and gathering while the English horn's middle C melody is the ground throughout the entire work. The horn s C in its middle register is almost a perfect sine wave, giving off virtually no harmonics (like the bassoon in the extreme upper register). Spectrographic analysis, in which one takes a recording and displays a graphic image of the entire harmonic spectrum as it sounds, can graphically depict this. Debussy's idea apparently was to make that C the unchanging fulcrum around which 192

204 the clouds would gather. You can literally see the screen darken, but whenever it returns to the C there's a stationary line, indicating the sine wave. There are a few flourishes, but it nonetheless constitutes a pedal point in the lead, especially since it has the only melodic content in the entire work, which took Debussy ten years to compose or more accurately, to orchestrate. It wasn't a composition in the normal sense; it was an impression of cloud movement expressed in orchestration. The English horn is the observer on the ground, a fixed reference point from which the movement can to take place around him. But in a different, larger sense, could a sort of reverse pedal point be implied when Debussy or Ravel, for example, willfully withhold a certain pitch class (or classes) for an entire movement, only to hit you with it big time in the next? 193

205 Sus Chords Developed in the early twentieth century from a prolongation (or denial of the resolution) of the traditional four-three suspension, suspended chords are a form of quartal harmony, and as such obscure tonal gravity, since the resolution of the tritone of the normal dominant-tonic cadence is the essential element in tonal music. Jazz musicians such as McCoy Tyner tend to interpret sus4 chords as a form of pentatonicism, which they view as African, since most traditional African tribal music employs pentatonic scales (as does all tribal music throughout the world). Since quartal harmony is a voicing style, a dominant seventh chord can be voiced in clusters (secundal harmony), tertial, quartal, or quintal harmony or a mixture of intervals (mixed voicing). A quartal voicing containing a single third interval is called a modified voicing in fourths, as found in the So What Voicing all fourths, but with one third between the top two voices. Modal Interchange From the earliest days of tonal music, composers have observed a close relationship between the relative major and minor modes in key interchanges within a given progression or overall composition, since they share the same key signature. There is a similar close relationship between the parallel major and minor modes, since they share the same tonic (but with different key signatures). These are used as color additions to the composer s palette. By extension, any of the diatonic major and minor mode chords in a given key can be interchanged, and are often found juxtaposed in successive passages. 194

206 Six-Note Symmetric Scale The augmented scale (or double-augmented, lydian augmented), dubbed by theorists the six-note symmetric, works well on + chords. Since the pc cannot have a priority note, they are listed here in an arbitrary order: C, D#, E, G, G#, B, C. It is based on the interval formula of +2, 1/2, +2, 1/2, and so on. Only four transpositions are possible. It can be treated in several ways: Treat all semitones as leading tones, from either above or below, and then mix them. To Practice: 1. Improvise over your entire range, restricted to these notes alone. 2. Treat the pc in two ways, one way at a time at first: a. Make everything resolve to a C triad (B to C, D# to E, Ab down to G, B to C); whether ascending or descending, the notes will resolve in the same manner. b. Do the opposite (C goes to B, E goes to Eb, G goes to G#). 3. Mix it all up. 4. Do this in all four transpositions. 195

207 Melodic Dissonance Flatted ninths work well on major seventh chords as non-harmonic tones to create forward motion, color, and tension in lines. As in Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, one can sustain such non-harmonic tones to create glaring melodic tension before resolving them even indirectly, or at the last split second. Moreover, if the listener can perceive the intended resolution, you often don't need to resolve them at all like Charlie Mariano playing Secret Love, in which he plays the seventh note on love as a lower chromatic nonharmonic tone (A instead of Bb); and in the next phrase, E instead of F. It can actually be funny, too. Sonny Rollins plays some nice examples of this, especially on sequences in which he leaves the non-harmonic tones hanging for the listener to resolve. There are so many ways in which a line can be developed without referring to chords, such as Bird's statement of the melody a beat early. Try that against the normal accompaniment it's not easy, yet it's a great form of melodic development. 196

208 Major and Minor Triads over Chords Major and minor triads have the most sonority of the four types (augmented and diminished chords have less, but can also be useful). Below are the triads that work superimposed over a C7: Major Triads: D, which gives you 9, +11, and 13 as tensions Eb, +9 F#, +11 and -9 (the C#) Ab, -13 and +9 (the Eb) A, 13 and -9 (the C#) Minor Triads: Dbm, which gives you b9 and b13 (the Ab) Ebm, +9 and +11 (the Gb) F#m, +11, 13, and -9 Gm, 9 (the D) Am, 13 Experiment with applying various major and minor triads to all twelve seventh-chord types. There are many good solutions that work either harmonically on chordal instruments, or in melodic lines. There are also advanced techniques for employing these triads in a pantonal manner by rapidly transposing them in various combinations and inversions. 197

209 Bichord: E /D D 13-9, or E D D# +15 (-9) B 13 G# +11 E 9 C# A 5 F# 3 D 1 There are many ways of voicing a chord, and great composers such as Ravel, Debussy, Stravinsky, and Gil Evans create voicings with specific orchestration in mind. In the example above, Al Cone voiced the -9 in the lead on a weaker instrument (flute) to assuage the blatant dissonance of the minor ninth interval between the D and D#, with a mixed voicing of French horns and other brass and woodwinds below. The weight and color of the orchestration have a very real importance with regard to the effect and feel of the voicing. The -9 (D#) mostly works in this instance because it is an upper partial in the D harmonic series. 198

210 Major and Minor Triads Over Dissonant Bass A rich triadic voicing type is created by placing a major or minor triad over a note or notes that create a major seventh or minor ninth dissonance below one of the chord tones. For example, under a G triad, use F#, Ab, A#, C, C# or D# bass. This creates a good jarring effect, made even more effective when following a consonance or unison line. Try starting a phrase with a consonant major or minor triad, and then gradually increase the dissonance up to a climax, culminating in a succession of the kind of fournote structures as mentioned above; or have an un-harmonized rapid chromatic line culminate in one of these sustained four-note structures. Placing a major or minor triad separated by more than a fourth from the bass note creates a different effect than any equivalent seventh chord. Major Triads: C/B, C/C#; C/D#, C/F; C/F#, C/G# Minor Triads: Cm/B, Cm/C#; Cm/D, Cm/E; Cm/F#, Cm/G# You can also move from one rich triad to another over the same bass note (C#/C, B/C) to good effect, and you can mix them with plainer types, such as Bb/C, etc. In addition, you can side-slip, vary inversions, and mix major with minor triads. However, you could, depending on the context, gradually go further out from there, since once you've established this triadic milieu you can get increasingly more pan-tonal. The longer the harmony resides in stasis, the more of an invitation there is to do this. 199

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212 CHAPTER 12 NOTATION Your goal is to supply the essentials. Jazz Gig Books and Lead Sheets Jazz artists tend to perform their own tunes on gigs these days, along with a mix of standard tunes. The latter are usually put in special keys, since the standard keys often place the melody in a poor register to be effective, especially for tenor instruments. Since we base our improvisations primarily on the melody, if a key is too low for the melody, it will be too low for the improvisation as well. In addition, we often re-harmonize standards to create subtle moods. Try to have all the music memorized whenever possible, since only then are the tunes truly internalized. You don't want to have a music stand separating you from your audience. When working for someone else, get the music ahead of time and memorize it whenever possible. It is also expedient to have another kind of repertoire: contrafacts, original lines written on such commonly known changes as Confirmation, Solar, What Is This Thing Called Love?, Stella by Starlight, There Will Never Be Another You, All Blues, and others (bebop). Contrafacts are great for gigs, since the rhythm section can play to their experience on the original forms, while you come out with your own line, supplying a different twist to the performance. These tunes rarely have to be rehearsed or even run down in advance, even when you do them in different feels or meters than the original version. However, since due to time restraints it is not always possible to memorize all the music in advance of a performance, you should have written lead sheets and even instrumental parts for your musicians on those occasions. Carry a separate book for each instrument in your band, scrupulously notated in Finale or similar state-of-the-art computer software. Boil each written part down to essentials, which is one page with the exception of the occasional grand staff piano part with ostinato bass in left hand. Even when writing for players of the first rank, though, if the parts are too fussy and complicated, you ve created a straightjacket. Your goal is to 201

213 supply the essentials, and then allow the player to bring his own experience and style to the music. A lead sheet should indicate notes and chords as a mere starting point. Do not offer a harmonic analysis: It isn't the function of a lead sheet. Guitar, in spite of its tab notational origins, has to read music like the rest of us in the real world. Quartal harmony is nothing but a voicing style, which should always be left to the accompanist in jazz practice. Avoid anything that: 1. can't practically be read on a gig or sound check, such as: a. voicings b. articulations for rhythm instruments c. lead lines for rhythm instruments d. written instructions, such as play first two measures the second time e. six-measure repeats. 2. doesn't need to be there, such as: a. chord-scale indications b. voicing style indications c. specific drum parts (other than basic hits) d. indication for other parts, which are not specific to the part you are notating e. indications of forms, such as A, A, B, A or Intro (which all should be self-evident). The things listed above are either unfamiliar or too inhibiting to be practical. If there are to be rehearsals, and you are really picky, work it out in rehearsal, because in all practicality the musicians will not be able to read this stuff on the gig, or will prefer to do it their own way. If they have the time to study it, they find their own solutions. Keep in mind that there is a difference between an arrangement and a lead sheet. While the latter is intended as basic information to be interpreted, the former is often more specific and assumes rehearsal time. An arrangement therefore can often be more than one page in length, and it assumes a more specific compositional style than an extemporaneous small jazz group. 202

214 What notation will be most easily understood by the player? Notation Issues Notation is an extremely important factor in the success or failure of your performance. Notation is a matter of expedience, since it requires that logic and preference be tempered by practicality. Write to the experience of the musician who is to perform it, which always begs the question, Will this prompt unnecessary discussion? This is to be avoided at all costs, which is why new notation styles always take a great deal of time to become established. For example, Stravinsky invented a circular form of score in which all rests are omitted: Only those playing were included in the score at any given point. So unfamiliar is this to this day, that it still isn t used, in spite of its supreme logic. Strike a balance between logic and the commonplace. Music notation is always a judgment call, and the pragmatic composer avoids the most innovative notation in favor of writing to the professional musician's experience. Practical notation also requires an awareness of context. For example, in the key of Am, a chord with A, C, E, F# would probably be an Am6, while in E minor it would be more logical to notate it as F#ø. Nonetheless, practitioners differ widely in music notation. Work your music out from the perspective of each individual instrumental part in advance. After you know what the essentials of your composition or arrangement are, edit it to be as easy to play as possible. Basic rule: If you want someone to play a virtuoso part, play it yourself. What you should put into a lead sheet depends on what you expect from a lead sheet. Don t prescribe scales. Write the chords in as simple fashion as possible. Modal notation is especially problematic. A7alt (an altered scale) could be better written as A+7-9 (include whichever tension you need most). Allow the musicians to interpret it or they ll dislike playing your music. Pick one version of the chord (not A7sus 2nd time, etc): Make a decision. Otherwise you will confuse the players and cause unnecessary talk at rehearsals and sound checks and even the heaviest players will still screw it up (will forget the discussion in heat of performance). While the dilemma of wanting two versions of the same chord is understandable, this bit of 203

215 fussiness will be a thorn in your side every time you play the piece. It's not worth it. Find the solution you like the most and go with that. Write chords based on the sound you desire; you don't have to include every possible melodic tension in the symbol. Don t give every player the same chord symbols. Simplify them for the non-chord players (more than they need to know). Leave the chord interpretation for their solos up to the soloists: It's never your job to dictate what scales or modes they should use, and they will ignore you anyway and play what they hear which is as it should be. Simpler chordal forms leave the soloist more flexibility, which is why Bird, et al kept mostly to seventh chords. In this way, you can choose either altered or natural (chromatic or diatonic) tensions. Once you specify alterations, natural tensions will clash with them. On the other hand, if you want to establish a specific mood, such extended harmony can supply the perfect vehicle. The composer must weigh the pros and cons in view of the desired result. Notate voicings only as a last resort, and only when you feel you must have something specific. But there is always a price to pay for that in extra rehearsal time. Write the essentials in as basic a form as possible, so that you can free the individual artists in the group to relax and create themselves into the music. Sing and play each part you write. If you want a virtuoso part, play it yourself, for as Joe Henderson used to say, Like I know I'll be in town. Less is more. Fake books such as the Real Book tend to over-notate harmonies especially by including every linear non-chord-tone into the chord symbols. This causes the inexperienced to conclude that we must worry such details in performance. Indeed, Charlie Parker used basic notation, which allowed musicians the freedom to interpret his chords as either natural chords in the key, or as altered, or whatever. When altered notes are frozen into the chord, however, they tend to dramatically limit your choices. Avoid notating big chords unless you absolutely need them for a special mood; but even then you can sometimes eliminate those elaborations for the blowing changes. Intellectual and analytical thinking is done in lessons and in research and in the practice room. Put it aside when you perform. We first need to interpret a lead sheet, then internalize it, then improvise on it with specific strategies of oral composition, then go to the gig and forget all that and address the audience and the band interplay. The symbols out there are sufficient if used judiciously, since they are only a temporary thing anyway or should be. If a professional is sight reading on a gig, he's not 204

216 going to read extras, such as word phrases, voicings, or complicated lead lines. If there's time, he's going to want to analyze, sing-play at the piano, develop motivic and other strategies, and above all memorize it. Inconsistencies in Jazz Chordal Notation Jazz s chord notation system is imperfect. There are many inconsistencies. One example is the inconsistency in inclusion or exclusion of elevenths when notating thirteenth chords. Sharp eleven is assumed in a dominant thirteenth chord, yet perfect eleven is ruled out. Eleven on a dominant chord is not commonly used in jazz, and it is usually reserved for V7sus4, 9, 13. In jazz, neither a perfect or augmented eleventh is employed as a normal chord tone on a tonic chord. The perfect eleven is not usually used on, and #11 is not a common option, except on a IV chord or in a modal interchange. It is understood that m11-5 has no 9, while m11 does. We also assume some form of 9 or 11 in any thirteenth chord. Therefore, write C13(no5) to get C, E, Bb, D, F#, A. C13 alone would get the G as well F#. All scale b9s are avoided in voicings because scale b9 gives a minor ninth interval, but major 9 is used sometimes on ø chords. It s indicated in an uncharacteristic manner: Bø11(9). Or leave the eleven out for clarity: Bø9. Bm11 is commonly used, and therefore m11 chords assume a major 9 but not a flat 9. We don t usually use Bm13 or Bm-13 symbols, except in. Since most jazz musicians do not like -9 in minor and ø voicings (on most minor situations), they are ruled out. We rarely notate any sort of 13 on any kind of minor or half-diminished chord in a tonal context. When we do, it is notated as a slash chord. Regarding 13 or b13 on minor or half-diminished chords, a major 13 (unlike the added 6 or 69) creates a tritone with the minor third chord tone, resulting in a G7 in inversion, rather than the notated Dm13, for example. Therefore, we rule that out also, except in non-functional chord successions. The b13 on Am7 (vi7) would produce in reality a F 9/A (first inversion F 9 chord), and Dm-13-5 = Bb9/D. Since jazz musicians do not usually use perfect eleven in dominant chords, while you will see a Gm11, you won't often see a G11. G7sus4 is spelled G, C, D and F. Even on a G13, the eleventh is assumed to be a sharp eleven in jazz. Twentieth-century classical composers do use this, 205

217 however. Assuming that a dominant 13th chord excludes a perfect 11, we call a 13 that does have a natural 11 a D13(sus4). If D13sus4 were to have both 3 and 11, it would be extremely unusual. The third would be tension ten. The voicing works mainly because the tension ten is a major seventh interval above the eleventh (with a note in between to assuage the dissonance), rather than its inversion, a minor ninth interval. 206

218 Slash Chords There are three kinds of slash chords: inverted chords, bichords (chords over chords), and triads over bass notes. Any chord can be inverted. C7/Bb, for example indicates that the seventh, Bb, will be placed in the bass: third inversion. An example of a bichord is a C triad voiced over a Bb7. The C would be nine; the E would be sharp eleven, and the G, thirteen. The correct notation would incorporate a horizontal line underneath the C triad and above the Bb7, while a slanted line is usually reserved for a chord over a bass note, such as Bb/B, which would indicate a Bb triad over a B bass note. Some composers, such as Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea, prefer the slash notation of AbMA7/Bb for sus4 chords, since it specifies a close position major seventh chord in the top four voices, assuring a certain kind of sonority for the voicing regardless of how it's inverted (root position, first and second inversion), without being overly specific. Jazz Drum Notation Focus on the rhythms and grooves themselves, rather than on notating specific choices. Get a drummer who can understand the forms and the feels in your music and then set him loose rather than writing out a complicated drum part. Specific guidelines and advice on drum notation can be found in any good orchestration book, but if you have to write a proper drum part for a jazz drummer, especially in a small group, you've got the wrong drummer, since a good jazz drummer will create a much better part than any composer will write. Moreover, most of the best jazz drummers are not good at such reading, and written parts create a straightjacket for them. Give him a lead sheet so he can recognize which tune it is and be reminded of the basic form, hits, and breaks of the tune before it starts. It should include the basic rhythmic feel(s), the recurring form, and any important hits and breaks and little else. Big band is a somewhat different circumstance, and is a specialty; but while more information is needed for longer, more structured arrangements with horn backgrounds, rhythmic hits, and shout choruses, most arrangers still overwrite for the drums and they fill such drum parts with repetitive generic solutions which will inevitably be ignored. 207

219 Enharmonic Chromatic Spelling In general, use sharps and naturals for ascending lines, and flats and naturals to descend. In the example below, from the Linear Jazz Improvisation Songbook Series, we can see this principle at work in chromatic targeting in the bass clef. In measure one, for example, the F and D# are exchange tones (double chromatic approaches), modifying the target note, E. Accidentals are employed solely based upon movement and resolution direction without regard to harmonic function. Most lines correctly contain both sharps and flats in the same passage. Double sharps are avoided in jazz. A double sharp, however, means that a specific pitch class is doubly raised (by a whole step), so that FX sounds the same as G). The double sharp is specific to the letter name, not the key signature. They occur mostly in sharp keys, and especially in the form of chromatic non-harmonic tones most often involving the two notes of the scale that have natural half steps: scale four and the leading-tone, when they are already sharp in the key signature. Don t write double sharps in descending passages or in flat keys. A basic rule of notation is to never use F and C flats or E and B sharps. However, to minimize the number of accidentals needed in a given line, they can be appropriate at times. Like analysis, notation is not an exact science, and different composers will treat this principle differently. 208

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