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I have to admit ... this is fun
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07-24-2020 08:28 PM
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Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
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Getting younger everyday? Hmm, if it was an option...I'd consider it.
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No, to the best of my knowledge there are only two options, and of those only one is acceptable. But eventually everyone accepts the other, since there is no other choice.
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Back to business for a moment, can anybody name a tune that uses Lewis changes that I might find on a real? Other than Stormy Monday that is
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Yea they’re very vanilla jazz blues option...before we shut down I used them on a Parker’s Barbados. I never play that vanilla. But using a version of Imaj and a chord pattern like
Ima7 II-7 / III-7 bIII-7/. Or I II / III-7 VI7/....for approach of II-7 V7 is very common.
There are millions of standard options that are used, not to mention that you can actually start using Blue Note referenced chords. Where I’m going is that basic blues changes are just the vanilla staring point.
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Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
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Originally Posted by Bach5G
If he gets back to me, I'll let you all know.
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Here's Bobby "Blue" Bland (with Wayne Bennett on guitar) doing "Stormy Monday" live in 1962. Fans
of the Allman Brothers version will find much familiar about this.
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I heard back from Chuck Anderson (the guitarist who wrote the article about "Lewis Changes".)
Very gracious of him to get back to me.
Chuck first heard the term when he was 19 and studying with Dennis Sandole. Since Chuck was born in 1947, I figure this would have been in 1966.
He pointed out that T-Bone's original version of "Stormy Monday" (1947) did not have the "Stormy Monday changes" we think of from the Bobby "Blue" Bland and Allman Bros. versions. Bland's version came out in 1962, IIRC. The Allman Bros. version was nearly a decade later.
Nice of him to get back to me. He's used the term for a long time now and has forgotten its origin.
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Thanks Mark... puts in perspective.
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The John Lewis changes relate to his simplified changes with C. Parker,
Blues for Alice
|F |A7 |Dm |F7 |
|Bb |Bbm |F |Abdim |
|Gm7 |C7 |F D7 |Gm7 C7 |
Blues for Alice uses ( what is called UK Round the clock Blues] Bird Blues,
This is courtesy of Lionel Grigson & Pete Burdon Rip, both authorities bebop players on C. Parker,
It was mentioned C Parker did not depend on passing chords, and could pare down to sequence to its essential changes.
I think the Alice changes in the form we know today, came a few months later. It is unclear. It also seems that the Lewis Changes are not really mentioned as it really just basic blues changes, issues over whether Bar is Maj or Dom, and perhaps Bar 7 are min7 or min7b5 are sometimes mentioned.
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We're almost back to vanilla dance band changes... Sure glad we eventually added some color.
Nice research, thanks.
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Originally Posted by marvinvv
I like the term "Bird Blues". Short and sweet. Though I never cared for "Blues for Alice." Carol Kaye teaches those cycle changes with "Bluesette", a much better tune (IMHO).
IF people use "Lewis changes" to mean "Bird Blues" changes (or the first four bars of them), I don't see much value in it.
IF people use "Lewis changes" to mean what we call "Stormy Monday changes" I don't see much value either.
(Beyond getting the reference when hearing older musicians talk.)
IF "Lewis changes" just mean varied-blues-changes, well, that's too vague to be helpful.
I'm glad we've had this discussion and I appreciate everyone's input but I can't see myself saying, "Let's play X but with the Lewis changes."
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Yea... Mark. lewis changes isn't really used because of the obvious, which you laid out.
As you point out.... cycles like Blussette with Kaye, (still love that tune), anyway personally...it's about Targets and Cycles or Chord Patterns approaching them. With Blues part of the fun is the changes within the Tonal Targets.
I generally think of Blues, Jazz blues as just I IV relationships with a V chord sometimes just to start over or I V with again extended V to start over. The rest is filler, cycles, chord patterns etc... obviously, I'm over the top Blue... I make Giant Steps feel like a Blues tune...
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Speaking of blues, I have a new one that is unusual for me. It's a 12-bar minor blues in G(m) but the last four bars are: Ab7 / G7 / Gb7 /F7. So in a sense it doesn't "turn around" at the end. You just go from F7 back to the i (Gm)
The reason I did it is because I like the melody line there. I think it's killer, but of course, I just wrote it so of course I think it's great. (And six months from now I'll be embarrassed by it and then a year later I'll think, "That's not so bad.")
I wrote those changes and then came up with a line over them. But it kinda stinks to blow over those changes. (They're all static---they don't resolve!) Think I'll use standard changes for the blowing section.
I'll record this soon. (Still awaiting the digital audio interface I ordered back in May.)
Anyway, it sounds good with the line I play over it for the head. But it still seems like an odd last-four bars for a minor blues. Maybe I just don't know enough minor blues....
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
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You can also think of F7 -> Gm as a back door or minor plagal cadence. You have two half step pulls: A -> Bb and Eb -> D.
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Originally Posted by PMB
Thanks for the analysis. I can follow that but believe me, it's not how I was thinking when I came up with it. I had been looking at a sheet for "Mr. PC" and it goes to Ab in the 9th bar but of course, "Mr. PC" is in Cm. So I thought, "what if I go there in a blues in Gm? What's the worst that could happen?" (<<<<<This is exactly how my mind works.)
I'll let you know when I post it so you can hear it.
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But there's already a "Second Hand Blues." Dang.
Maybe, "...and On the Second Hand." (A play on 'one the one hand...and on the other hand.')
NGD: 1935 National Duolian
Today, 04:41 PM in Other Styles / Instruments