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This is NOT a theory question. It's a question about the historical use of the term "two-five". When did this term/concept enter the Jazz lexicon?
I ask because it always bugged me that Mickey Baker looked at, for example, Am7 > D9 (rootless with 5th in bass) as Am7 > Am6. Of course, the chord is an Am6 but it's clearly functioning as a D7 - the V chord in key of G. I'm thinking that maybe it wasn't common at the time to see this as a ii > V.
Can anybody shed some light on this? Maybe Rob MacKillop with his collection of old guitar method books, or Christian Miller with his knowledge of the evolution of Jazz? Or someone else familiar with this kind of thing?
Again, my question has nothing at all to do with theory. It's about when a specific term came into general usage.
Since I'm asking a stupid question I think I'll ask another. When did Drop2 and Drop3 become common terms for certain voicings on the guitar? Jimmy Bruno was once asked to explain what a Drop 2 is on his YT channel. His answer was, "What the hell is a Drop 2 chord? I never even heard of that."
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07-13-2020 02:06 PM
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Drop 2 -- I thought this term came from piano voicings, although it's also used for brass voicings in big bands.
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My "Mel Bay's Complete Orchestral Chord System" book dates to 1948 and has IIm to V7 resolution exercises. David Baker's "Jazz Improvisation" has a chapter titled "The II-V7 progression and Other Frequently Used Formulae." That one dates to the late '60's. Baker also had a book on II-V patterns for jazz from back then.
Since the Great American Songbook is filled with songs that rely on this concept, I'm pretty sure it's "been a thing" for 100 years at least. Fun fact: a sax player who used to sub in my jazz group called me "Mr Two Minor Five" because of my predilection for calling tunes chock full of 'em.
Danny W.
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It has been around since at least 1980 when I started studying jazz. But I am sure that it had been in use for decades before that.
And to be a bit pedantic, I was always supposed to write it out as ii-V.
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I always heard it called the "Nashville Number System" that started in studios.
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Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles
I don't see the relevance to the guitar. We don't play many close voiced chords and you can't simply drop the 2nd to highest note down an octave without rearranging the whole friggin' chord. It's like somebody forced a piano/horn section concept onto the guitar. I've never heard any older guitarists refer to any chords as "Drop" chords.
It's not a big deal. It's just one of those little things that bugs me. It's like forcing the English language to conform to the grammatical rules of Latin.
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Originally Posted by lawson-stone
Danny W.
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Originally Posted by Jack E Blue
Take C major seventh. In my head a hear an ascending arpeggio:
C E G B C E G B C E G B ...
I take four consecutive notes starting on any note
B C E G
I take the second from the top
B C E G
And remove it
B C G
Then add it an octave lower
E B C G
As a grip on guitar, say xx2413.
Works for me!
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I don't claim to know the answer but I'll take a stab.
Setting classical music aside, and in the context of popular songs, II-V (as opposed to IV-V?) has to go back to the early 20th century. I suppose one could check some ragtime songs to see if it predated jazz, but I'll say 1930s and maybe even 1920s...
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"Music is movement; not two-five - two-five."
Barry Harris
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Originally Posted by Danny W.
Baker, David. 1968
Developing improvisational facility: v. 1 : The II V7 progression : for all students and performers of music in any idiom.
Libertyville, Ill: Today's Music.
Jerry Cover recommended the II-V in 1975:
'Therefore, the II-V progression should be practiced separately from the II-V-I, following some of the common II-V sequences as they appear in many tune progressions.'
Coker, Jerry. 1975.
The jazz idiom. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 34.
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Originally Posted by GTRMan
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Originally Posted by GTRMan
I was just wondering if this was a common way of looking at this cadence/progression back then or just Mickey Baker's way of looking at it.
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Originally Posted by Jack E Blue
In other words we call things what they are, and the OP title asked "when?". Also, Danny's posts above are spot on, as usual.
The thing is, I realize that some people have a sentimental and historical affinity for Baker's books. BUT - he was neither a jazz guitarist of note, and his method is/was far from "complete" (as is everyone's). The title to his books were/are pure marketing. Pure.
There are a lot of great, real, jazz guitarists who have published training and educational material. You might want to check them out.
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Originally Posted by Litterick
Attachment 73980
It was printed in 1970, so the II V7 book was from ‘69 or ‘70.
Danny W.
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Danny, my source for the citation was WorldCat. Today’s Music, the publisher, was a division of National Educational Services.
A search on Google Books indicates that Baker and others were writing about the II V7 progression in the early 70s. He seems to have started a minor craze.
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Originally Posted by Jack E Blue
Obviously ii V comes from classical theory functional notation as in a ii V I, common cadential progression with a long history stretching back into the Baroque era.
However - in jazz ii V means basically any pairing of a m7 chord with a dominant a fourth higher, and to call that a II V would be meaningless to most classical players. So by this I mean
Fm7 Bb7 Cmaj7
We might think functionally IVm7 bVII7 Imaj7
But jazzers could think of it as a "II V" resolving up a tone, or a "backdoor II V" (which would be word salad to a classical harmony professor.)
The main use of the II V in jazz education is to take transcribed lines etc that can be played on these two chords and then transpose them to all keys and cut'n'paste appropriately, practicing how to resolve them to a variety of target chords.
This cutting and pasting of Parker lines became an observable thing during the 50s and 60s - the second generation bebop players. Did they use this specific terminology? Don't know.
I'd hazard a guess that this terminology in common to most of what we use now in jazz was formalised in the 1960s and 70s, when jazz education was starting to become a thing.
If someone has more info to offer, would be interested.
(Incidentally Peter Bernstein told me off for playing Am7 Am6 G and not Am7 D7 G or Am7 Ab7 G haha.)Last edited by christianm77; 07-14-2020 at 08:02 AM.
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Originally Posted by Litterick
The earliest jazz book I have is 'Improvising Jazz' Jerry Coker, which I think is 1964. It doesn't discuss II V's in that way, but obviously talks about II V I's.
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Originally Posted by Danny W.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
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Originally Posted by princeplanet
With a bass player this wouldn't obviously be so important.
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Originally Posted by A. Kingstone
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With regards to Jazz texts the following cover II-V and II-V-I
Tonal and Rhythmic Principles, John Mehegan, 1959
Improvising Jazz, Jerry Coker, 1964
A Modern Method For Guitar, Volume 1, William Leavitt, 1966 (covered via applied studies, that is)
the II V7 progression, David Baker, 1968 (first printing)
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Originally Posted by Litterick
Originally Posted by princeplanet
As for tunes, flip through a good fake book and pick them out. If they don't have enough II-Vs just add them in the appropriate places.
Danny W.
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I don't know if this helps, but I recall reading parts of Rameau's theory book in an arranging class at uni, and he called the progression ii V. That was mid 1700s. I'm pretty sure that it was commonly used in the French and German schools, so it would have been incorporated into the English school. I have some film scoring books that I believe are from the 40's that I'm pretty confident refer to the progression as a ii V, so yeah, probably anyone playing popular music in the 19th century would probably have understood and used the expression. Was it jazz? No idea. Certainly Ragtime players must have used the expression as it goes way back into music history/theory.
Just what I recall from college composition and arranging courses 40+ years ago.
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