The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #51

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    Hey Jcat... all you say works for you, right? But as a rhythm section player, composer, arranger, copyist back when we had work, LOL. Anyway your approach just doesn't cover. I'm not saying your wrong... really. But there can be a lot more going on. There's more to the music going on... choice of extensions have organizational concepts...and we as rhythm section players are are expected to be able to hear... and understand. In many cases... be able to play what's implied as well as what's notated or verbally called.

    I'm old... and I remember playing gigs in he 60's and 70's where we rarely used charts or expanded the concept of comping. We used our ears and two fingers up was D and two fingers down was Bb...

    But a clearer understanding of Jazz harmony and common practice was beginning to become used in notation. Embellishments became harmonically organized as well as the concepts of Modal Maj/Min functional harmony opened the door to better musical organization of extensions as well as expansion of what and how Function could work within jazz contexts.

    Back in the 70's and is still the standard for professionals.... Carl Brandt a composer/arranger professional and Clinton Roemer a professional copyist both top shelf in LA , put out "Standardized Chord Symbol Notation", was and still is the standard uniform system for professionals. (still used in most texts, programs and keyboards etc...)

    Small, short and to the point.... also cheap. (little red book) All musicians should use it. It only takes 30 min. to get through and understand the concepts.

    The only needed addition would be the common practice usage of "Altered". Which still has choices as to how or what one implies. As the reference for the alterations and how to develop etc... but the function remains the same.

    Thanks for the kind comment.... it was loose, but I did get it together by end of improv... (I'm also a bone player, played all through college in some BB's, but just like piano, I can read the music etc... but have no chops)

    I'm working on material and how to present etc... for a new thread. "Comping at the speed of Jazz". It should help most as to how rhythm sections work and how to comp. The technical BS. Basically then develop your personal bag of tricks (develop your ears)... and play.
    Last edited by Reg; 01-16-2023 at 01:11 PM.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #52

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    ‘My ideal’ has a nice ninth chord in it

  4. #53

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    Quote Originally Posted by JCat
    As a soloist I won't appreciate if the comp plays C7 where I expect a C9.
    When I’m improvising a solo I want the freedom to play a b9 or #9 over a dominant chord, so I’d rather my accompanist leave the 9th out even if it’s written in a lead sheet. Of course if the accompanist can hear from my preceding notes that I’m not in an altered scale I don’t mind if they play the 9th, but if they aren’t sure I’d rather leave me in charge of the extensions.

  5. #54

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    Quote Originally Posted by KirkP
    When I’m improvising a solo I want the freedom to play a b9 or #9 over a dominant chord, so I’d rather my accompanist leave the 9th out even if it’s written in a lead sheet. Of course if the accompanist can hear from my preceding notes that I’m not in an altered scale I don’t mind if they play the 9th, but if they aren’t sure I’d rather leave me in charge of the extensions.
    I think there's a cultural difference here between the bop players and the more Berkleeoid post-chord scale crew.

    I remember Barry saying regarding Cherokee - play dominant on the Bb7, we don't worry about the #11 (which comes from the melody); actually this is what Bird does on those changes (Koko)

    So we prefer the accompanists play basic shells or in the gaps between phrases (assuming there be such lol)

    There's some interesting instances of clashes with 9ths - sometimes between the pianists left and right hand. For instance, one hand playing block chord style and the other playing comping chords, clashes occur and are not necessarily a 'bad thing.' Red Garland's famous solo on Billy Boy is an example.

    Red’s Bells | DO THE M@TH

    Most of us get a fit of the vapours just thinking about it, but it's a thing.

    OTOH the newer players are more likely to view the extended chord - which in standards most usually arises from the addition of the melody into the chord - as the starting point. So instead of

    G7 | Cm | Ab7 | Bb

    which we may see in something like the old Tunedex cards or fake books, which often wrote out the changes as very basic chord symbols. We would comp and solo from these basic types of function as bop players (maybe using Cm6 and Bb6 as a basis), changing up the functions of the chords as we wish.

    Now, these days, for the middle 8 of Stella, we may think something more like:
    G7b13 | Cm11 | Ab7#11 | Bbmaj9

    With the chord scale relationships these suggest
    G altered | C dorian | Ab lydian dominant | Bb ionian (lydian)

    Despite the fact that all the melody notes are in fact in the original context diatonic upper neighbour dissonances that resolve to basic triadic chord tones (eventually)

    For example, I remember Jonathion Kreisberg being very specific about this sort of thing.

    Jordan/Stephon Harris's approach also does this by systemising the melody into upper structure 'melodic triads' on 1 3 7 left hand shells. For example;

    Eb/G7 | Bb/Cm7 | Bb/Ab7 | F/Bbmaj7 |

    I kind of swap back and forth between approaches. The latter certainly sounds more generically "modern". Obviously players aren't limited to doing this - chords and scales can be changed up and so on, but it seems the starting point for many.

    (Interestingly, the 5th ed Real Book is not at all consistent with this chord notation, often opting for simpler chords - in fact for the Stella middle 8 it has something kind of half way
    G+7 | Cm7 | Ab7 | Bbmaj7
    I think 6th Ed has it as
    G7b13 | Cm7 | Ab7(#11) | Bbmaj7 | which gives you all the chord scale info you need to "plug and play")

    it's also something that is much more constantly applied for example in the Sher New Real Books. Standardisation!

    How you comp should be sensitive to what the soloist is doing, obviously, and their style and approach.
    Last edited by Christian Miller; 01-21-2023 at 06:19 AM.

  6. #55

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    I've always been confused by some of the things I've heard about paying attention to the soloist.

    One of my teachers once scolded me for playing a tritone sub while comping. He played the tritone arp in his solo at that moment and I turned it into vanilla by playing the same notes in the comping chord. He wanted to hear the original chord so he could sound hip against it.

    So, even if I'm aware of what the soloist is playing, that doesn't mean, necessarily, that I should play the same thing.

    And, the fact that I recognize what he did during chorus 1, doesn't mean he is going to do the same thing in subsequent choruses.

    And, some soloists want it all to be interactive -- meaning he may want the comping to push him in a certain direction at times.

    In light of all this, what I'm left with is keep it rhythmic, be sparser when the soloist is being busier, put your fancier stuff in the spaces, be predictable the majority of the time, and in the event you hear harmonic clashes (which either don't happen all that much or I don't hear as well as I should), play simpler harmony.

  7. #56

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    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    I've always been confused by some of the things I've heard about paying attention to the soloist.

    One of my teachers once scolded me for playing a tritone sub while comping. He played the tritone arp in his solo at that moment and I turned it into vanilla by playing the same notes in the comping chord. He wanted to hear the original chord so he could sound hip against it.

    So, even if I'm aware of what the soloist is playing, that doesn't mean, necessarily, that I should play the same thing.
    Yes this is a wider lesson I personally learned from free improvisation. In free improvisation when someone creates a sound it’s very easy to jump and copy. That can be cool, but often it’s better to do something that contrasts or complements. Working with a composer to create devised pieces through improvisation taught me a lot about how to keep textures interesting and voices distinct within a texture.

    This has very specific application to straight ahead jazz .

    many college student level jazz players will hear something like a dotted quarter expressed in a line and jump in on it as if to say ‘I heard it, look I’m listening!’; but like the tritone sub the effect changes when you do that. If the aim is to create a polyrhythm, or in the case of chord sub, polytonality, the improv partner jumping in on it destroys the effect.

    So often the best thing you can do is hang back. So
    1) the beginner hears nothing
    2) the intermediate hears what’s going on and is keen to join in
    3) the more advanced player hears whats going on and judiciously contributes to the whole music

    getting to 2) is a milestone in itself, getting to 3)… well that’s tricky. You just have to play and listen a LOT.

    Comping wise, one thing I learned from Peter Bernstein is that you can comp mostly in half notes with minimal pushes when the soloist is playing hip rhythm and harmony; you can leave the jazz to the soloist to some extent. Otoh when there is a space you have an opportunity to do something more interactive if you like. It’s amazing how few players leave these gaps.

    One exercise I really like is to record a solo and then comp for myself. I quickly learned that I personally left very few opportunities for musical dialogue. It’s worth trying if you haven’t done this.

  8. #57

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    Yea, some interesting thoughts. I would maybe add.... there must be a level 4.

    Most good jazz players really don't just see and hear single chords.... (I'm putting myself in that group) , at least with comping, any way, we see and hear Chord Patterns.

    It's not that we play complete Chord Patterns all the time....but what's implied Harmonically is.

    It's not complicated... really.

    Obviously when one plays or hears a chord pattern.... the tonal reference be comes much more organized.

    When a tune is in Bb.... and Bbma7 notated. You know , or should know that Bbma is the tonal reference and the chord being implied ... is Bbma7.

    Chord Patterns are just an expanded version of that application. And give or imply much more Musically organized tonal information. They organize the color or whatever one wants to label ... all the other notes, chords, embellishments etc... This is also going on with improve....what you play when soloing is telling the rhythmic section what your doing and where you want to go. At least is should, LOL

    This obviously means... you need to know all the chords, and how to create chord patterns and what they harmonically imply... depending on the tonal Reference and style etc... yea it takes as much work and skill level as soloing.... personally, I believe it takes much more, but that's a different conversation.

    There are other aspects.... jazz is generally not like the old rock days... where the rhythm section is like a rhythm tract, jazz usually is also about interactions, communications and reactions... Your trying to develop the music and entertain or take the audience with you. Obviously why jazz isn't that popular. But it can be... eye contact occasionally will help...

  9. #58
    Quote Originally Posted by KirkP
    When I’m improvising a solo I want the freedom to play a b9 or #9 over a dominant chord, so I’d rather my accompanist leave the 9th out even if it’s written in a lead sheet. Of course if the accompanist can hear from my preceding notes that I’m not in an altered scale I don’t mind if they play the 9th, but if they aren’t sure I’d rather leave me in charge of the extensions.
    Depends on situation I think.

    scenario1 : Bass, Guitar and Sax playing a long note for one bar. The sound of music are the notes combined; the bass note, the guitar chord and the sax lead note together represent a chord. If for example the Bass plays a C, the guitar plays what looks like an E5-chord and the sax plays a G, the sound of music is C7M. The guitar player may think he's playing an E5, but he's not. He plays a rootless E/C.

    If the bass plays a B and the sax plays a G the sound of music would be Bsus4. If the Bass plays a C and the sax plays a D the sound of music would be C9M, etc. When improvising, the sound of music is whatever the musicians happened to play at the moment...

    Scenario 2: Now assume the sax plays 16 notes in that bar. -What is the sound of music? Depends if the soloist plays C-Ionian or something else. -What if the Bass plays 4 notes walking bass, then what's the sound of music? It depends on the chord scale.

    In this scenario the guy that holds it together is the guitar player. When the sound of music is supposed to be C9M, this is what he plays. He can't continue playing that E5-chord, because the band (and the audience) will get all confused. C9M means that the 9 is heard and not supposed to be altered.

    Scenario 3: Bass, Guitar and Sax are jamming in C-Mixolydian. The sound of music is C7. What if the sound of music is supposed to be C9? Then someone in the orchestra better make sure to highlight that 9 and to pay special attention to the 3rd (handle the "10th" with care).

    Scenario 4: A musician is studying a lead sheet including chord symbols. The chord progression is a representation of the sound of music. Sometimes it's very hard to get a picture (like if someone had never heard Stella by Starlight and were trying to make sense of that chord chart). It's understood that a complete representation of music would require a complete score.

    Voicings, chords and function
    Within a given key, a function can be represented by many chords...A function can also be represented by many chord scales. But a chord scale could also be represented by more than one chord (a chord scale is not the same thing as a chord). And each chord can be represented by many different voicings....Each voicing has a unique sound which adds to the actual sound of music. So, as we are primarily interested in the sound of music, we are focusing on the voicings, that traditionally are represented by staff notation.

    Alternatively one could name common voicings. We do this e.g when explicitly spelling chord inversions. Use of extensions is another example; A guitar player will get closer to the intended voicing if extensions are added to the chord, like if we write F13 instead of F7; the function is V7, the chord scale is F7 Mixolydian, the chord is F13 and the voicing is one of the few good sounding F7add13 voicings you could pick on a guitar. Many players do think about voicings like "chords".