Just Jazz Guitar Interview with Earl Klugh

[richb2]

This month they interview Klugh. He talks about soloing over All The Things You Are. He says that he often plays up or down half a step from the chord. "instead the G7 to C7 I would play a Dbm going to an F". Now from my study of the melodic minor and Emily Remler's DVD, she talks about playing the MM up half a step if resolving 5 to one. C7 to F is a 5 to one resolution. But shouldn't he be using a Db MM , not a Dbm arp? I know that the MM has a major 6 and a major 7 that the regular minor doesn;'t have. Would it be OK just to play a Dbm arp in that situation?

he then says "i would also play something like f minor to Bb minor then to Em instead of the Eb7". Does anyone understand why he is saying this? Is he saying that since Bb to E does not resolve 5 to 1, we can play the mm up a fifth which would make it a f mm. This also fits. Does he mean a MM or is he actually talking about a minor?

[Carl Craven]

I'm a bit lost over exactly what you say he is playing. Is he playing a Dbminor scale or an apreggio because you certainly couldn't make an Fmaj arpeggio sound that great over a C7 unless you missed out the F and then you'd more likely be playing an Aminor arpeggio.

I think it's important to consider that the 'rules' of music, such as what scale works over what chord under what context are only guidelines and are very subjective.

Disonant sounds that jazz musicians and fans are used to only sound like noise to some people and makes no sense, and within the jazz idiom there are varying degrees of disonance depending on what style you listen to or play the most.

Disonant use of the altered scale (aka melodic minors) doesn't sound great used in early jazz pre 1930s nor are they particularly good in modal jazz where the tension is derived by placing tonal centers in different places.

I think what earl K is alluding to is basically an outside to inside sound. You can play almost anything over anything so long as you can put some logic into it musically speaking. It's your own language you develop.

The basic concept is that when a chord moves 5 - 1 such as C7 to F when the tension builds over the C7, you can step outside and find altered tones that resolve to chord tones of the F or that enable you to step smoothly in that direction. To me Db minor arpeggio would sit over a C7 quite nicely.

Over a C7 a Dbminor arpeggio would look like this

Db( b9 of C7 ) resolving down to C ( 5 of Fmaj)
Fb ( maj3 of C7 ) resovling up to F (1 of F )
Ab (#5 of C7 ) resloving up to A (3 of F )
Cbb (min7 of C7) resolving down to A (3 of F)

Looking at it like that you can see the tritone E Bb, the essence of the C7 that moves logically to the Fmaj and two altered tones, b9 and #5. Looks perfect to me, perhaps it's just his way of thinking the movement to make it easier.

First four bars of All the Things You Are:

|Fminor7 / / / |Bbminor7 / / / |Eb7 / / /|Abmajor7 / / / |

I am going to guess that he means he plays Fmin, Bbmin and instead of Eb7, he plays an Eminor idea that resolves to the Abmajor in the same way I described above.

Let me know what you think.

[richb2]

Originally Posted by Carl Craven

I'm a bit lost over exactly what you say he is playing. Is he playing a Dbminor scale or an apreggio because you certainly couldn't make an Fmaj arpeggio sound that great over a C7 unless you missed out the F and then you'd more likely be playing an Aminor arpeggio.

Your guess is as good as mine. I am thinking he is playing a Db mm scale over the c7, which according to some, leads VERY strongly back to the to the one, F.

The Eb7 resolves to an Ab which again is 5 to 1 resolution. Therefore, Remler would tell us to use an E melodic minor.

Bottom line, if you substitute his use of the term minor scale for melodic minor scale, his comments fit the "remler method" perfectly.

[hydra]

Db MM is a common scale over a C7 used as a V chord #9 b9 sound
i wonder what joe pass would have said about the above read