Getting started with modal Jazz

[ragman1]

You guys don't know that a rag is a type of a piece of music? Lol

As a matter of fact I've never played a rag in my life, the name just popped into my head. Rather inconvenient on SoundCloud because there are a hundred and one ragman's on it already. For some reason.

[ragman1]

Thanks, that's just a question of recording. Sometimes it sounds good, sometimes it sounds bad.
With real people (other than myself) I play better even if it's hard to meet people who understand what I am doing and don't get lost.
About my lovely pussy, I've got her ashes.

Well, it sounded pretty good to me. Maybe you got a bit tired towards the end but in real life for a solo you wouldn't. It was excellent.

Sorry, pussy, it comes to us all.

[Jazzjourney4Eva]

You guys don't know that a rag is a type of a piece of music? Lol

Thats one possibility. I played one recently, although not well. Syncopated as hell.

[ragman1]

what's in these bags?

Bodies. Of wannabe internet gurus :-)

[pamosmusic]

Of course in free improvisation there is a tradition now - they made it. It's very hard to escape the influence of that music when you do non-idiomatic improvisation. Music students transcribe Evan Parker records to learn how to free. So it becomes an idiom. Which it kind of was anyway. So it goes.

Amiri Baraka is really good on this stuff. “Black Music” is a collection of his Downbeat essays (mostly written as Leroi Jones) from the mid-60s, when Coltrane and Ayler and Cecil Taylor and Don Cherry were sort of figuring all of it out.

He calls it (quoting some of the musicians) The New Thing.

[Lionelsax]

Musically, the more difficult thing I tried was real free jazz. It's clearly difficult to sound right, I mean playing something that doesn't remind something else.
It's not a joke, a lot of energy.

[ragman1]

I played one recently, although not well. Syncopated as hell.

Did you indeed? Well, it's about time you showed us how to play 'So What' then, isn't it? With lots of antecedent wotsits, etc.

After you, maestro. Don't let me hold you up :-)

[ragman1]

Musically, the more difficult thing I tried was real free jazz. It's clearly difficult to sound right, I mean playing something that doesn't remind something else.
It's not a joke, a lot of energy.

I think that was the object, as far as I recall. The idea was to get away from the conditioned reflexes and cliches of traditional harmonies.

[Bobby Timmons]

As a matter of fact I've never played a rag in my life, the name just popped into my head. Rather inconvenient on SoundCloud because there are a hundred and one ragman's on it already. For some reason.

Well it's still fitting since your playing sounds like early jazz.

Thats one possibility. I played one recently, although not well. Syncopated as hell.

Yes, it's a 'possibility.' The other possibility is he's referring to how he works at a car wash.

[Jazzjourney4Eva]

Did you indeed? Well, it's about time you showed us how to play 'So What' then, isn't it? With lots of antecedent wotsits, etc.

After you, maestro. Don't let me hold you up :-)

I’ve exposed a veeeery simple musical form concept to you and you reject it out of hand. Melodic form that is, and it fits hand in glove with the musical (song) form. It is not “guru”or “maestro” level, it is fundamentals. I think that you just don’t want to know. You’re a hobbyist, are happy with yourself, and are dug in. So far, so good.

The thing is, Coltrane was merely a human being, played So What, and for the world to hear. The point being made at the time was Dorian baby, Dorian. You too are a human being and played So What several times here on the World Wide Web, for the world to hear. You have repeatedly and publicly trashed his performance and approach to soloing. One can reasonably surmise that you believe your approach to be preferred/superior. You have offered critical analysis (ok, that’s a stretch) of his solo, so here is some for your(s):

Slow plodding ideas, no logical relationship of one idea to the next, in almost a stream of consciousness manner. The ideas themselves are not particularly weak or strong, they merely exist. No tension and release is apparent, or likely even attempted. The listener has no reason to engage, and certainly no reason to stay engaged. Finally, the overall effect is that the creator of same couldn’t care less.

Can I do call and response? Of course. And so can you, but only if you want to.

[Christian Miller]

Well it's still fitting since your playing sounds like early jazz.

Cripes. have you actually listened to any early jazz?

[Christian Miller]

Well, it sounded pretty good to me. Maybe you got a bit tired towards the end but in real life for a solo you wouldn't. It was excellent.

Sorry, pussy, it comes to us all.

phrasing!

[Christian Miller]

Amiri Baraka is really good on this stuff. “Black Music” is a collection of his Downbeat essays (mostly written as Leroi Jones) from the mid-60s, when Coltrane and Ayler and Cecil Taylor and Don Cherry were sort of figuring all of it out.

He calls it (quoting some of the musicians) The New Thing.

I always felt that music had a very different ethos to a lot European free improv. It was still jazz to my ears, had a specific energy. While a lot of them weren’t dealing with strict pulse, when they did a lot of the free guys swing harder than the straightahead players in all honesty. You do get players that specialise in early and free jazz, which I find interesting. Polyphonic horns, extended techniques and crazy sounds… etc

As Keith Tippett used to say a lot of European free improvisers didn’t really like jazz, often coming more from a contemporary classical background. One of my other sometime free improv teachers/workshop leaders is a medieval hurdy Gurdy player. It’s a broad church. I used to get told off for playing jazz in fact haha (usually by free jazzers.)

at the end of the day I like jazz.

[Bobby Timmons]

Cripes. have you actually listened to any early jazz?

I'm familiar with the entire lineage of jazz. Ok, so his playing sounds older in the scheme of jazz. I don't see how that warrants getting personal.

[Lionelsax]

phrasing!

What do you mean ?

[Jazzjourney4Eva]

Hey Rag - I had a couple more constructive thoughts/observations for you. First of all, it's good to know that we agree - Coltrane's solo was a veritable clinic in musicality and jazz improvisation mastery.

Now that we have that out of the way:

1. What you are doing is actually more difficult than repitition, antecedent/consequent phrasing, call and response, tension building. You are putting an unnecessary burden upon yourself to come up with a wholly new/original idea, phrase after phrase. So, that's counter-productive on three fronts: (1) It's unnecessarily difficult and bogs you down, (2) it's not nearly as musical/interesting, and (3) it fatigues the listener.

2. You posted a link to a Jens Larsen video above, where he analyzes a Herbie Hancock solo. What did you observe there? I only watched it quickly and didn't listen to Jens that closely but looked at the music. What I believe I saw and heard was the following: (1) a motif, (2) repitition of same - but at a different pitch level, (3) continued repitition of the motif going up in ascending manner (tension builder), and (3) ending response (tension release).

That is how a master gets a lot out of a little. Musical leverage, one might say.

[Litterick]

As Keith Tippett used to say a lot of European free improvisers didn’t really like jazz, often coming more from a contemporary classical background.

It so happened that both contemporary classical musicians and jazz cats discovered free music in the 1960s, independent of each other. The classical crowd wanted music to be free of genre, so had nothing in common with the cats, who wanted to continue jazz by other means.

Some had a foot in both camps: Gavin Bryars was a student at the music school of Sheffield University, but played with Bailey in Holbrooke in his spare time.

I find the plinkety-plinkety-pause kind of free music rather tiresome after a while, and I abhor anything with pebbles. Trying to escape genre only leads to creating a new tradition.

[ragman1]

Trying to escape genre only leads to creating a new tradition.

Absolutely. In freeing oneself from one kind of playing one inevitably creates another. There's no music without a pattern. Even when it's apparently chaotic and random it's called 'free'. As long as one is playing there'll be a form of some kind.

So I suppose the only answer is silence. But when Cage did his silence piece that too became a work of art! There's no escape :-)

[Christian Miller]

It so happened that both contemporary classical musicians and jazz cats discovered free music in the 1960s, independent of each other. The classical crowd wanted music to be free of genre, so had nothing in common with the cats, who wanted to continue jazz by other means.

Derek covers this in some detail in his book. I get the feeling he was interested in bridging the divide. In practice they ended up crossing paths at festivals. Cecil Taylor would be on the same bill as some new music group playing Stockhausen (who had some interesting interactions with improv. I’ve often used his text pieces in workshops, and of course I learned about them from Derek’s book.)

otoh the only people who’ve told me off for playing jazz in this context have been jazzers lol

I tend to use the term ‘non idiomatic improvisation’ to separate from free jazz but of course you get a bunch of classical players in a room and, naturally, they invent works of contemporary chamber music haha (some of them are AMAZING at it, you record and tell someone that was a new commission and they’d be none the wiser.)

there’s also the use free improv in music therapy. This is something Julie Tippetts (Kieth’s wife) is very interested in. There’s a book about it on my shelf, I must have a look sometime.

Some had a foot in both camps: Gavin Bryars was a student at the music school of Sheffield University, but played with Bailey in Holbrooke in his spare time.

I find the plinkety-plinkety-pause kind of free music rather tiresome after a while, and I abhor anything with pebbles. Trying to escape genre only leads to creating a new tradition.

pebbles in the piano? That was a Keith thing.

He wasn’t always plinky plonk though (although he certainly could be), his free pieces could incredibly ambient and textural, tonal even.

[ccroft]

RE American VS European free improv:

I risk stating the obvious, but when did that ever stop anyone around here? :-)

Free jazz in America was mostly done by black musicians during a time of extreme civil unrest. Black Panthers, police brutality, Newark, Detroit and Watts riots, and the assassinations of several leaders for EG. I think we hear a lot of catharsis in the playing. And sometimes I feel we might be hearing an effort to get out of it all thru mystical transformation.

Back to So What for a sec. Is this where CST got started?

[Jazzjourney4Eva]

RE American VS European free improv:

I risk stating the obvious, but when did that ever stop anyone around here? :-)

Free jazz in America was mostly done by black musicians during a time of extreme civil unrest. Black Panthers, police brutality, Newark, Detroit and Watts riots, and the assassinations of several leaders for EG. I think we hear a lot of catharsis in the playing. And sometimes I feel we might be hearing an effort to get out of it all thru mystical transformation.

Back to So What for a sec. Is this where CST got started?

No. People criticize John Mehegan and his piano improv series, and even Jerry Coker and his Improv book. Those books were about the Great American Songbook, not post bop. If you think about it, it is more changes - not fewer - that make the improvisers task more challenging. With all the key center changes, the first question that a player may ask himself is - what is the scale of the moment?

When players get lazy and stop with that answer, is where the rub lies with CST.

Finally, if thinking only of the “scale of the moment” is a kind of crutch, then it’s probably easier to reach for that crutch when playing modal, or “modal blues”.

[supersoul]

pebbles in the piano? That was a Keith thing.

He wasn’t always plinky plonk though (although he certainly could be), his free pieces could incredibly ambient and textural, tonal even.

I don't know anything about Keith Tippett, although I've heard his name over the years. What are some good albums that are ambient, textural and free?

There's much more to it, I know, but the sound of British free improv is very much plinky plonky. "Men rummaging in the drawers of their desk" as a friend of mine put it. Or unabashedly harsh saxophone acoustical experiments. It's like the shadows of Derek Bailey and Evan Parker stretch far.

[Christian Miller]

No. People criticize John Mehegan and his piano improv series, and even Jerry Coker and his Improv book. Those books were about the Great American Songbook, not post bop. If you think about it, it is more changes - not fewer - that make the improvisers task more challenging. With all the key center changes, the first question that a player may ask himself is - what is the scale of the moment?

When players get lazy and stop with that answer, is where the rub lies with CST.

Finally, if thinking only of the “scale of the moment” is a kind of crutch, then it’s probably easier to reach for that crutch when playing modal, or “modal blues”.

I checked Mehegan out while researching something and I didn’t think it resembled modern jazz theory much. Coker is much more alike, which I think was 1964.

I was trained to think scale of the moment when getting started but my development into being able to play changes - esp things like rhythm changes - only started when I got into arpeggios in earnest.

there’s a simple reason for this imo - most jazz theory books are written by pianists. The thing about piano is if you plonk down a Cmaj7 chord, say, provided you know how to construct it, those notes are instantly available in any octave. Further book discussion is unnecessary beyond talking about voicings. You can play those notes as a melody and it should be fairly obvious when that is being done in a tune or solo from the relationship of the notes in the left and right. (Which is also why horn players are advised to learn a bit of piano. Guitarists should do this too imo.)

on the guitar we kind of have to spend a while just learning where the notes of cmaj7 are on the neck. So people working from books written by pianists can often unwittingly skip out this step (and then get roasted on it when they get to music school apparently, or get a good jazz guitar teacher)

not that being able to play chord tones will produce convincing jazz language any more than scales, but it’s an important preparatory step that is trivial on piano and pretty involved on guitar

[Christian Miller]

RE American VS European free improv:

I risk stating the obvious, but when did that ever stop anyone around here? :-)

Free jazz in America was mostly done by black musicians during a time of extreme civil unrest. Black Panthers, police brutality, Newark, Detroit and Watts riots, and the assassinations of several leaders for EG. I think we hear a lot of catharsis in the playing. And sometimes I feel we might be hearing an effort to get out of it all thru mystical transformation.

Back to So What for a sec. Is this where CST got started?

Ive been trying to find the answer to this question for a long time and it’s quite hard to ascertain. Here are some things I know:

- Cokers improvisation (1964) has a more or less recognisable form of modern cst
- many people cite George Russell’s lydian chromatic concept as being an early form of cst - this inspired miles to use modes in his music according to many accounts
- there’s the Schillinger system about which I know little. Berklee was originally a Schillinger system. Some people cite this as a proto CST approach.
- Peter Ind who studied with Tristano in the late 40s recalls him teaching scales including melodic minor, and there is a bit of melodic minor harmony in tunes of that era - George Shearings conception for example.
- Dennis Sandole was teaching Indian raags as far back as the 40s including to Coltrane.
- jazz education/theory was piecemeal before the 60s and varied from teacher to teacher. People worked things out themselves very often and picked up bits of info here and there, often from non jazz sources. While there were schools such as Tristano’s these were by no means as near universal as modern conservatoire jazz education is today among pros.

[Christian Miller]

Nb these days I tend to divide pure modal CST - on G7#11 play the lydian dominant - from applied scale use - on G7#11 play D melodic minor.

it’s my slightly informed belief that the latter system was more prevalent among older players and may represent an older form of scale use. Barry Harris and Tristano both kind of fit into this category. As does Allan Holdsworth in fact.

It has its root I believe in chord substitution. By the 30s players were frequently subbing Dm6 and so on for G7, so the expansion to scale sounds was natural and inevitable.

It also explains how many players ostensibly used chord scale sounds while saying they didn’t know the modes and so on.

Also, you can obviously use a #11 on a dominant chord without knowing what a lydian dominant is. People did that since the early days. The unity of chord a scale is a key aspect of modern CST (Nettles & Graf) and I don’t think you can really say it’s that until players are making that equation. To me the applied scale stuff is a mid point; most real world jazz from the mid century plays loosely with these relationships, sometimes leaning into them and sometimes ignoring them altogether.

These days jazz improv tends to be more uniformly ‘harmonic’ in this regard to the point of upper extensions implied by the melody often being considered the basis of improv rather than the looser and more ‘basic chord’ approach used by Barry Harris and other boppers.