How would you think about this Wes Montgomery lick?

[dingusmingus]

Hi All,
This ii-V-I from Wes caught my ear. How would you think about what he's doing over the G7 (the E, F#, D#, B)? That D# to B to D is pretty common, I guess, but add in the E and F#, and it makes me wonder what he was thinking? It's almost like a B major lick? (This is from Body & Soul, on Movin' Wes.)

[christianm77]

Nice find.

Fmaj7 going to B triad going to a bebop resolution on the 9th and 7th of Cmaj7

In the Barry Harris understanding we reduce the Dm7 G7 Cmaj7 to the function G7 --> Cmaj7.

bVII subs of dominants - Wes's favourite sub I think for a dominant.

The F maj7 can be understood as a bVII sub for G7
The B triad can be understood as bVII sub of Db7 - the tritone sub of G7.

Barry Harris talks about the latter sub on his DVD, it's a cool movement to come under the C chord, and BH identifies the F# on G7 as a nice feature of this progression.

Of course the mode books will tell you F# over G7 is wrong :-) I think it sounds hip.

[rpjazzguitar]

Hi All,
This ii-V-I from Wes caught my ear. How would you think about what he's doing over the G7 (the E, F#, D#, B)? That D# to B to D is pretty common, I guess, but add in the E and F#, and it makes me wonder what he was thinking? It's almost like a B major lick? (This is from Body & Soul, on Movin' Wes.)

Wild guess is that he's thinking Fmaj7, then, for the G7, he drops the Fmaj7 to Emaj9. Just sliding down a fret. Then, he drops another fret, with some adjustment, to the Cmaj9.

[Jonah]

bVII subs of dominants

Christian, could you explain a bit more what you mean here?

From your following line

The F maj7 can be understood as a bVII sub for G7
The B triad can be understood as bVII sub of Db7 - the tritone sub of G7.

it looks like it's bVII of dominant... I mean scale-wise... what is the root?
as I understand it when we say something like 'bVII is sub of dominant' we mean dominant as V (so it will be Bb and G7 - in realation to C as a root)

[Jonah]

About Wes lick... if you look at it without chord symbols - it looks just as A-7 D7b9 G (ii-v-i in G major)

[JonR]

The F maj7 can be understood as a bVII sub for G7

That works..

The B triad can be understood as bVII sub of Db7 - the tritone sub of G7.

...but that doesn't, IMO. The F# on the B triad sticks out against the function of both Db7 and G7.

Barry Harris talks about the latter sub on his DVD, it's a cool movement to come under the C chord, and BH identifies the F# on G7 as a nice feature of this progression.

Of course the mode books will tell you F# over G7 is wrong :-) I think it sounds hip.

Yes, but I think it works as a chromatic approach to the 5th of C. Nothing to do with G7. IMO, the simplest explanation is usually the best . (It seems an unnecessary stretch to invoke Db7 and then a riskier stretch to B, because it's ignoring the fact that a bII7 works differently from a V7. If the Db7 was going to Gb, then B as sub would work in the same way Fmaj7 works for G7 in C.)
In that line, Wes doesn't resolve the F# in that way of course, but I think it does by implication. You would hear the G in the C chord, even if he didn't play it.

[dingusmingus]

Wow, thanks everyone. That's at least four cool ways to think about this! (some responses below)

For those who are interested, and thinking about fingering, we should probably imagine fingering this up an octave. This is from "Body and Soul" on Movin' Wes, where Wes apparently used a baritone guitar, like a Fender VI, which is tuned down an octave. (I never really dug the tone on those tracks, and now I know why.) So, playing along on a regular guitar, the fingering is a little different.

Here is the recording:

The lick starts around 4:26.

I know Wes often seems to use that close-voiced major 7 voicing on the top four strings, which makes that comfortable diagonal:
12
13
14
15
x
x

Wild guess is that he's thinking Fmaj7, then, for the G7, he drops the Fmaj7 to Emaj9. Just sliding down a fret. Then, he drops another fret, with some adjustment, to the Cmaj9.

Ah, nice. Makes a lot of sense. I didn't spot that. You may be interested in my note on fingering above.

Nice find.

Fmaj7 going to B triad going to a bebop resolution on the 9th and 7th of Cmaj7

In the Barry Harris understanding we reduce the Dm7 G7 Cmaj7 to the function G7 --> Cmaj7.

bVII subs of dominants - Wes's favourite sub I think for a dominant.

The F maj7 can be understood as a bVII sub for G7
The B triad can be understood as bVII sub of Db7 - the tritone sub of G7.

Barry Harris talks about the latter sub on his DVD, it's a cool movement to come under the C chord, and BH identifies the F# on G7 as a nice feature of this progression.

Of course the mode books will tell you F# over G7 is wrong :-) I think it sounds hip.

Mind blown. I didn't notice the F to B tritone move, even though I kind of had an inkling there was some flavor of tritone sub here. I'm gonna dig into this. Thanks!

About Wes lick... if you look at it without chord symbols - it looks just as A-7 D7b9 G (ii-v-i in G major)

Elegant solution!

That works..
...but that doesn't, IMO. The F# on the B triad sticks out against the function of both Db7 and G7.
Yes, but I think it works as a chromatic approach to the 5th of C. Nothing to do with G7. IMO, the simplest explanation is usually the best . (It seems an unnecessary stretch to invoke Db7 and then a riskier stretch to B, because it's ignoring the fact that a bII7 works differently from a V7. If the Db7 was going to Gb, then B as sub would work in the same way Fmaj7 works for G7 in C.)
In that line, Wes doesn't resolve the F# in that way of course, but I think it does by implication. You would hear the G in the C chord, even if he didn't play it.

Intriguing! I was also trying to see this as some form of approach or enclosure, but couldn't quite work it out.

[christianm77]

Christian, could you explain a bit more what you mean here?

From your following line

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it looks like it's bVII of dominant... I mean scale-wise... what is the root?
as I understand it when we say something like 'bVII is sub of dominant' we mean dominant as V (so it will be Bb and G7 - in realation to C as a root)

Yes. That's the standard usage I think, or what I've seen people saying here. So bVII of the chord. Fmaj7 on G7 for instance.

From ladder of thirds (one of Wes's favourite sounds in its own right)

13 chord --> 1 3 5 b7 9 11 19

What's confusing is that the bVII of the key is also often used as a sub for V7 - so as you say Bb7 for G7 - a backdoor.

I always think IV on V7 (or VII on bII7) - I tend to think very much in keys when playing bop - but I don't think that's standard. Most jazz musicians seem to think from the root of the chord rather than the key centre. Both approaches have advantages.

[christianm77]

About Wes lick... if you look at it without chord symbols - it looks just as A-7 D7b9 G (ii-v-i in G major)

I like this as a concept. II-V-I into the V of the target chord. I may have to play around with this.

[matt.guitarteacher]

Yes. That's the standard usage I think, or what I've seen people saying here. So bVII of the chord. Fmaj7 on G7 for instance.

From ladder of thirds (one of Wes's favourite sounds in its own right)

13 chord --> 1 3 5 b7 9 11 19

What's confusing is that the bVII of the key is also often used as a sub for V7 - so as you say Bb7 for G7 - a backdoor.

I always think IV on V7 (or VII on bII7) - I tend to think very much in keys when playing bop - but I don't think that's standard. Most jazz musicians seem to think from the root of the chord rather than the key centre. Both approaches have advantages.

Ok. Thanks for this. I think many of us are programmed to read "backdoor" when seeing "bVII".

[christianm77]

Yeah I don't know. I am happy to call it whatever people are most familiar with. Is there a set terminology for these things in main stream use?

[mr. beaumont]

I'm trying to answer this without reading other's responses, but I'm pretty sure I saw some things as I scrolled down.

To me, I always think in simplest terms. There's a bunch of environments that pull to I, V, of course, so G pulls to C, but so do C# and B.

So here, since the F is spelled out so neatly, I see F to Bmaj to C. And yeah, there's a tritone thing at play there, not even totally sure how important it is to know that, or just know that relationship can sorta be used to explain why this sounds cool.

I doubt Wes thought about it anymore than that. Heck, I doubt Wes thought about it, that was probably a move he practiced 1000 times and in the moment, it came out. But this is a cool idea to practice.

[christianm77]

Yeah - going back to vertical/horizontal, you can see the B-Cmaj9 resolution as:

B D# F#
B D G

Nice mix of movements there which stops it from being jut a B triad going to C....

Obviously the F#-G isn't in the line so much.

But the tritone sub in general can be though of as maximising the number of possible chromatic resolutions to chord tones

Tritone dominant scale
b2 b3 4 b5 b6 b7 7

So
b2 & 7 -->1
b3 & 4 --> 3
b5 & b6 --> 5
b7 & b6 --> 6

See also my vid - the altered scale as a process...

[Runepune]

He might also just have missed a note

What I'm hearing is a II-V to E (F#m-B7 instead of G7). Always liked the sound of a 7th chord from the 7th step over a major chord (e.g. B7 over Cmaj), although just anticipated here.

[christianm77]

He might also just have missed a note

What I'm hearing is a II-V to E (F#m-B7 instead of G7). Always liked the sound of a 7th chord from the 7th step over a major chord (e.g. B7 over Cmaj), although just anticipated here.

Yeah me too actually. I see that as related to V7+5

[Jonah]

I like this as a concept. II-V-I into the V of the target chord. I may have to play around with this.

I use it quite a lot as a trick to get extensions quickly... only F# note is a bit risly here over the G7

by the way I guess Wes could think this way too - since you operate here with very basic and conventional ii-v concept 'play ii-v-i over another ii-v-i'

[mr. beaumont]

Actually sat down with a guitar and played it. Sure feels like G7alt.(G7#5/b13) F# could be a mistake or intentional...sounds great.

For giggles, played the same line with a G instead of the F#. Works too. But that F# has some SASS.

[JakeAcci]

Knowing Wes's tendencies somewhat well, I think Christian is spot on, I might just phrase it as:

Wes often played with sus4 ideas over dominants. Or we could say, extending the chord scale in thirds, on a dominant, he'd use the 11: 1 3 5 b7 9 11 13.

He would do this a lot, find ways to access the nat 4 over dominant that sounded totally fine, good, and intentional.

In this case, you could say he's just playing off of the tritone sub, Db7, and suss-a-fying it.

Again, knowing Wes's tendencies, I could see this as being a "shape' type of thing depending on where he was fingering it.

I say christian is spot on because to access that "dominant with 11th" or "7sus4" or whatever you want to call it, you can use the triad a whole step below that dominant.

[dingusmingus]

Actually sat down with a guitar and played it. Sure feels like G7alt.(G7#5/b13) F# could be a mistake or intentional...sounds great.

For giggles, played the same line with a G instead of the F#. Works too. But that F# has some SASS.

Yeah, at first I was hearing the first two notes as F G, instead of E F#, until I slowed it down. I find I sometimes cram something into a framework I already know, instead of using my ears. That F# is what was stumping my knowledge, but it sounded great!

Knowing Wes's tendencies somewhat well, I think Christian is spot on, I might just phrase it as:

Wes often played with sus4 ideas over dominants. Or we could say, extending the chord scale in thirds, on a dominant, he'd use the 11: 1 3 5 b7 9 11 13.

He would do this a lot, find ways to access the nat 4 over dominant that sounded totally fine, good, and intentional.

In this case, you could say he's just playing off of the tritone sub, Db7, and suss-a-fying it.

Again, knowing Wes's tendencies, I could see this as being a "shape' type of thing depending on where he was fingering it.

I say christian is spot on because to access that "dominant with 11th" or "7sus4" or whatever you want to call it, you can use the triad a whole step below that dominant.

Makes sense, thanks! I think of that approach as "Two-ing the Five." (I believe I heard that phrase form Steve Herberman.)

[JakeAcci]

Makes sense, thanks! I think of that approach as "Two-ing the Five." (I believe I heard that phrase form Steve Herberman.)

I like that!

[coolvinny]

I don't read too much harmonically into the F# due to its rhythmic placement and the overall phrasing of the line. Seems to me that he's resolving to 9ths (E on the D; A on the G) in the first two full bars, and from there I see the D# as an alteration over G7 which also happens to be tension note resolving down to D as the 9th of C. That's how I see and hear it, basically a dressed up idea of resolving to 9ths.

But I don't know very much about jazz theory.

[ColinO]

I'm sure everything above is right and I'm wrong but, if I were playing that, the way I would get to the F# would be to play a D7 over the G7 (V/V?). the D# looks like GAlt or the b9 of D7. I would probably play a D-E-F-F# rather than the A-E-F# but I guess that's one of the million things that makes Wes cooler than me.

[ragman1]

It's from Movin' Along and other albums, but not Movin' Wes. There are two versions, take #2 and take #7. We want #7! There's an album called ?Encores with takes #4 - #6 on it. This version is slightly better quality, but not much.

Maybe he didn't even know himself what he was doing. Sounds to me like he was maybe slip-sliding, trying to jump up to something before coming down again. I think he does that several times in the solo. Why couldn't it have just been a lucky hit at that speed? After 7 takes? Jeez, the guy's only human!

[Runepune]

Haha...well, I spotted the phrase in there. The first note is E, not F, and the chords are Am-D7-G And suddenly everything made sense...Where in heavens name did that notation come from, dingusmingus?

EDIT: Meh, it's a good idea to not trust a laptop. Forget this post. The bass begs to differ, I hear!

[ragman1]

Haha...well, I spotted the phrase in there. The first note is E, not F, and the chords are Am-D7-G And suddenly everything made sense...Where in heavens name did that notation come from, dingusmingus?

Are you sure? If that lick was played over D7 it wouldn't sound altered, which it does.