The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Hello everyone,

    Long time lurker, first time poster. (Very grateful for this resource - I've learned a great deal about jazz perusing all the threads.) I am hoping you could provide some insight into my "situation". First, little bit of context:

    I grew up in an Eastern European country, surrounded by Balkan folk (a whole lot of harmonic minor, phrygian mode, chromatic passages, and odd times). In my teens, I immigrated to North America, where I was gradually introduced to jazz. I was intrigued by its aesthetic and in my late 30s, I started learning its fundamentals, on my own, using all the resources available to me. Right now, I am fairly comfortable with arpeggios, scales, swing, and even some chord-melody. I am slowly building a 2 x 45m repertoire for a coffee shop/restaurant setting, using a combination of fingerpicking and plectrum playing (all alone, instrumental). But I have a problem: I am not learning nor am I playing any jazz standards. And I mean none.

    Now, before you tell me what I already know (i.e. I need to learn standards), please hear me out first. I am not trying to dismiss the importance of jazz standards. I fully understand their pedagogic value, and of course their central place in the jazz idiom. So, having said that:

    Even though I've listened to a lot of jazz, I experience very limited emotional response to the great melodies found within the standards. That is, although I find them very enjoyable, I will never hum those in the shower. However, all those melodies I grew up with, well, they're a big part of me. They are so deeply embedded in my heart and soul, that I will even sing them on my own (and I don't even sing.)

    So with this in mind, I proceeded, without much thought about it all, to make my own arrangements of these melodies, using (of course) jazz harmony/reharmonization, good amount of chromaticism, all while swinging and of course improvising! In my head, I found a way to marry melodies of my childhood with the jazz theory I learned in the New World. I have no recordings yet, but everyone that's heard it so far puts me in the jazz category, from musician friends, to music store staff, to people in the park (I often play outdoors).

    I understand this might be unorthodox (or maybe it isn't?) I really wouldn't know. Is this approach legitimate? Will jazz police arrest me? Will I offend the proper jazz musicians?

    Perhaps I am insecure about this all (aren't we all?) But given the immense wisdom I've seen on this forum, I was hoping you could pitch in your two cents.

    Sincerely, kebbs

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  3. #2

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    I hope you post some recordings to this forum.

  4. #3

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    You’re just charting a different course. This is wonderful - anyone who finds the idea of using your own musical heritage and personal experience as a basis for your approach to jazz to be anything but praiseworthy should be condemned to a lifetime of chants and dirges!

    Without that spirit to move us, jazz would rapidly become stale, repetitive, stagnant, and boring. Bring it on!

  5. #4

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    Sounds cool to me...I would love to hear it.

    Re: Standards, you certainly don't have to play them...but some study might give you a bunch of good harmonization/reharmonization ideas.

    I play a lot of standards...but when I go see someone play live, I don't need to hear them do the same songs I'm doing. New angles are a breath of fresh air.

  6. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by kebbs
    Hello everyone,

    Long time lurker, first time poster. (Very grateful for this resource - I've learned a great deal about jazz perusing all the threads.) I am hoping you could provide some insight into my "situation". First, little bit of context:

    I grew up in an Eastern European country, surrounded by Balkan folk (a whole lot of harmonic minor, phrygian mode, chromatic passages, and odd times). In my teens, I immigrated to North America, where I was gradually introduced to jazz. I was intrigued by its aesthetic and in my late 30s, I started learning its fundamentals, on my own, using all the resources available to me. Right now, I am fairly comfortable with arpeggios, scales, swing, and even some chord-melody. I am slowly building a 2 x 45m repertoire for a coffee shop/restaurant setting, using a combination of fingerpicking and plectrum playing (all alone, instrumental). But I have a problem: I am not learning nor am I playing any jazz standards. And I mean none.

    Now, before you tell me what I already know (i.e. I need to learn standards), please hear me out first. I am not trying to dismiss the importance of jazz standards. I fully understand their pedagogic value, and of course their central place in the jazz idiom. So, having said that:

    Even though I've listened to a lot of jazz, I experience very limited emotional response to the great melodies found within the standards. That is, although I find them very enjoyable, I will never hum those in the shower. However, all those melodies I grew up with, well, they're a big part of me. They are so deeply embedded in my heart and soul, that I will even sing them on my own (and I don't even sing.)

    So with this in mind, I proceeded, without much thought about it all, to make my own arrangements of these melodies, using (of course) jazz harmony/reharmonization, good amount of chromaticism, all while swinging and of course improvising! In my head, I found a way to marry melodies of my childhood with the jazz theory I learned in the New World. I have no recordings yet, but everyone that's heard it so far puts me in the jazz category, from musician friends, to music store staff, to people in the park (I often play outdoors).

    I understand this might be unorthodox (or maybe it isn't?) I really wouldn't know. Is this approach legitimate? Will jazz police arrest me? Will I offend the proper jazz musicians?

    Perhaps I am insecure about this all (aren't we all?) But given the immense wisdom I've seen on this forum, I was hoping you could pitch in your two cents.

    Sincerely, kebbs
    One of the coolest things about jazz is that each performer brings something unique to the table - a personal slant on the material at hand. Your cultural background is different from mine, geographically and culturally, and that is a valuable resource. Be yourself. Sing your own song, so to speak. Play what moves you. A jazz audience will have the sensitivity to appreciate what you present.

    For what it's worth, great chunks of the "standards" list frankly leaves me cold - I like a lot of it, a lot; but some tunes do nothing for me. It doesn't make me a barbarian (I have other characteristics for that), it just means my muse takes me elsewhere.

  7. #6

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    Follow your heart and don't worry about the jazz police. There's a lot of wonderful jazz coming from northern and eastern Europe that doesn't follow the common American jazz recipe. It's always valid when it's played with heart and sincerity.

  8. #7

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    Standards are the pop music of the 1930s. There is no reason why you should force yourself to like it. Your approach sounds great!


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  9. #8

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    Joe Pass once said that we should play the music of our generation rather than always playing those of previous generations. I can't remember if that was directly to me or if it was in an interview in some magazine. I did talk to him a time or two between sets when he played in town. Brief conversations rather than being buddies or anything like that.

    Tony

  10. #9

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    I say go for it

    Creating new music especially something different can only be good. You'll get a nice niche following too.

  11. #10

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    To me, jazz is the phenomenon of playing and often improvising continuous melody related to chord changes. This occurs to a lesser degree in some other styles but as a whole is mostly unique to jazz. So you can use whatever songs you want to do that and it's jazz. Sounds cool what you're doing and I don't think the jazz police is gonna get you. There's the separate topic of why standards are important to the genre, but I think most would agree that it's a positive thing to use different music to play jazz.

  12. #11

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    Doing them "your way".... isn't that what jazz is ALL ABOUT?

  13. #12

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    When I was about 18 I sat in with a bass player who had a late-night jazz jam place. At the time I was really into what McLaughlin was doing with Miles. I loved the experience of playing some wide open Silent Way type thing with some real musicians. After that I thanked the man and told him how much I enjoyed it.

    He said something like "you guitar players all seem to really love that modal thing. If you want to be a jazz musician you need to start working on learning a standard a day." I thought to myself "Why would I want to play anything standard? I want to change the world!"

    Moral of the story: some 50 years later I find I wish I had taken his advice to at least some degree. I'm learning some of the old ones now, but I have to say it does feel like homework. Lately it's more like 1 every 3 months. I go in and out of that and 'my own thing.' I get new ideas and technique to work with from the old stuff. It takes me to places I wouldn't otherwise visit.

    What the OP is doing sounds interesting to me and I'd love to hear it. I would say you have to play the music that moves you, but that doesn't mean you can't do a little homework while you're at it. Whatever you can manage will pay off.

    Look at Mark Kleinhaut for example.

  14. #13

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    Quote Originally Posted by ccroft
    If you want to be a jazz musician you need to start working on learning a standard a day."
    This was gospel 60 years ago, and it’s still good advice for many. You had to know hundreds of standards to get hired as a sideman by most decent leaders unless you sightread like (or were) a studio level pro and either you had the charts or the leader did. You also had to know a lot of standards to play at the better jams, especially with guys who were good enough to reharmonize and use alternate changes effectively. There were (and still are) signs at most good jams that read “If you don’t know it, lay out!”

    I was hired by a top regional office at 21 because I already knew most of their book. I’d been learning everything in my fake books (the original loose leaf ones) since I got my first one when I was 12 or 13, and I was just good enough at sight reading to use their charts on the fly - but if I hadn’t already known the tunes, I would not have been able to keep up. I had to learn new tunes from the charts before playing them for the first time.

    Learning standards also expands your musical vocabulary and broadens your conceptual base. Many standards have wonderful and unusual changes and/or melodies that lodge in your brain and influence your own compositions and improvisations.

    If you’re a solo performer and/or you have no interest in being a sideman, and you only plan your career around the music you write and/or want to play, you don’t need to know standards. But the road can be very tough for you if you go that route.

  15. #14

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    Imo, this is an example of a jazz rendition where the song used isn't a standard and the style played in is different than the traditional styles such as swing. It's jazz because he uses a tune and its melody to expand on, and he follows the format of the tune and its changes to play continuous melody on.


  16. #15

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    You know the problem as well as I do. As long as the boss and the customers know they're going to get cool versions of Balkan folk tunes and not American jazz standards you'll be fine.

    But if you advertise yourself as a jazz musician and can't play anything they know and are expecting, you'll not be fine.

    Simple, right?

  17. #16
    A sincere thanks to everyone for your thoughts!

  18. #17

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    Paradox Trio (really a quartet).
    Check out this band with guitarist Brad Shepik.





    A willingness to followup on personal ideas, although not always successful
    is an important component for individual growth and on occasion, moving
    the music forward. Go for it.

  19. #18

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    As an artist, you need to be yourself. Please post your music here.

    Some inspiration re non-traditional chord-melody:


  20. #19

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    Take a look/listen to jazz guitarist Bil Frisell who has made American folk and sixties pop music a platform for his jazz explorations. He is a master at harmonizing melodies.