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How well do you know a jazz standard before you know it? Do you have to be able to comp, improvise over it and know how it in chord melody form?
And how does one work from 'The Real Book' (and lead sheets in general)? Do you work out where to play each chord (rhythm/emphasis on beat) and work out substitutions and all that? In a band situation, what would you be expected to do?
Many thanks, this whole jazz thing is a bit confusing
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05-05-2010 12:00 PM
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Well, there are different levels of knowing of course, but in addition to what you mentioned, I would add knowing the melody in 2-3 positions, and being able to play it in different keys.
In a band situation, you will be called upon to comp, solo, back up a singer, and very likely play it a key you are not used to. The key thing is to accomodate a singer's range, or a horn player. If you can do the things you mention plus the above, I would be able to confidently say I know a tune.
I recently read a quote (someone help me out), where the grizzled old jazz cat told the youngster that you need to play a tune 100 times to be able to play it by yourself and 1000 times to play it well with others. Or something like that.
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Jazz is not memorization and perform... When there is an arrangement with intro, head , maybe an interlude etc... maybe... or as most players do, you read and still listen and react. You should be able to play all aspects of the standard, even if you don't know the tune. Most standards are in a typical form, AABA, Blues, ABA, AB etc... and you should be able to play head, comp etc... if you don't know the tune, you should be able to hear where it's going, or be able to read and listen so it sounds like you know the tune.
Just knowing the standard is a great start... but you need to be able to listen and react with the band. Again jazz is not memorization and perform, what makes good jazz players is what their able to do with the standard. Best Reg
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I will politely disagree Reg. You are clearly further down the road with jazz than many of us. Starting out, memorize and perform is all we have. Certainly, getting to the place where we hear and react to what is going around us is the ultimate goal, but no one starts out that way.
Originally Posted by Reg
Did I misunderstand you perhaps?
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This is a very interesting topic. It explains somewhat my own reluctance to really call myself a “Jazz guitarist”. While I use some of the rhythmic and harmonic devices that come from and to a degree characterise Jazz, I as yet lack the musical knowledge and improvisational skill to be able to play effectively on any tune I know, or any tune I don’t know for that matter, in any given key, in any musical situation. This I feel is one of the fundamental definitions of a Jazz musician.
Another nice definition I think, might be that any musician can play the tune, but a Jazz musician can PLAY WITH the tune... and the rhythm... and the harmony!
On the other hand Gene Bertoncini, who freely admits to playing some arranged and rehearsed material on his solo gigs, said that big bands such as the likes of Duke Ellington and Count Basie played some pretty tightly arranged stuff but nobody ever said that they weren’t Jazz. (It made me feel better!)
Do what you can do now, and try to get better. Remember if only the sweetest songbird sang the forest would be very quiet.
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Hey Derek and all... Hey man...I'm wrong all the time, maybe here to...you didn't misunderstand, and I clearly don't want to offend anyone. But what I've noticed over the years is that players who start to memorize and perform become that style of player... there's nothing wrong with that. But I seldom see a memorize and perform player change... they have problems with new tunes and don't seem to listen while were playing. I see similar situations with readers... So that's why I push so much for being able to, as you said...hear and react. Obviously you need; chops, good ears and great reading skills. (by chops I mean all the technical skills we practice and theoretical knowledge) But with out practicing the hear and react style of playing... Well anyway it's just an observation. Best Reg
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Hey philipmgibson's... I dig your comments... start and get better, yea... I like a forest with lots of songbirds... Reg
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I try to memorize the melodies first; internalize them and be able to find them in as many registers as possible, in as many positions as possible, with as many different timbres as possible. I do this because the chords can be variable, #1, depending on your taste and the moment, and #2, trying to remember and understand not the chord names from your leadsheet, but their functional relationship to each other and to the melody, will make it easier to play that tune in some different key when called for. Instead of trying to figure out, "OK, I memorized D-7b5 to G7 to C-, so in Ab, it would be....uhh..uhhh....uhhh" you think " IIb5 to VII to I. Got it". The Realbooks have lots of mistakes. Learn as many things as you can from recordings. The Fakebooks are great for finding tunes you have never heard and would not have been exposed to, but don't memorize those charts and get on the stand and play them like that.
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From a more basic point of view I would suggest:
First: learn the chords
Second: learn to play the melody single note
Third: learn to play arpeggios over the chord changes which IMO would be the first step towards "knowing" a tune because it shows you its harmonic and tonal material and how to use it.
A leadsheet is a boiled down stenograph version of the tune depicted. It's a point of reference. However, the way chords and chord changes are represented IMO should be taken seriously if you're a beginner. Although in Jazz chords are interpreted along their harmonic functions you won't be able to start understanding those if you're not given the basic tonalities in the first place.
Hope this helps.
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If your going to memorize charts... also put time into playing tunes on sight, like your at a gig. Grab the chart... take 15 to 20 sec. to figure out the road map and play. After you've gone through the tune, take note of what and where you had problems, and get better at those areas. You will get better...What do you think is harder to do... memorize or play... put your time in accordingly. Best Reg
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Lots of interesting advice here
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First of all, as an artist, you are not expected to do anything! Originally Posted by a name
How well do you know a jazz standard before you know it? Do you have to be able to comp, improvise over it and know how it in chord melody form?
And how does one work from 'The Real Book' (and lead sheets in general)? Do you work out where to play each chord (rhythm/emphasis on beat) and work out substitutions and all that? In a band situation, what would you be expected to do?
Many thanks, this whole jazz thing is a bit confusing
You are expected to let the music out.
I have the feeling that you go to rehearsals to practice your guitar.
At rehearsals you must play and enjoy the time with your band,
Just relax. There no bad notes...
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Come on Francisco!
This "artist . . . . . " thing amounts to meaningless chatter and really doesn't offer any positive suggestion regarding lead sheet guitar playing. The guy who asked the question is probably looking for a concrete procedure to follow when using a lead sheet . I remember many years back when I attended college, I asked the teacher a question and he gave me a long far out pholosophic dissertation which meant nothing and led me to believe that he didn't know the answer.
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I don't think I "know" a tune until I can play it without the music: melody, chords, and solo.
Being able to read along through the real book is a good skill, but if you are reading the chart, then I think that you don't really "know" the tune.
If I have to learn a new tune, I usually learn the melody. Then I play through the chords while humming the melody. Often, I'll try to work out a chord-melody or a way to accompany my melody with some comping (as if I was playing a duet with a bass) but for some tunes that can be hard so it is not required. Then I try to improvise over the tune, at first with the chart. Eventually, I should be able to hear the changes in my head well enough that I don't need the chart or accompaniment. For me, once I can play the melody, comp the chords, and solo - all without accompaniment except maybe a metronome on 2 and 4 - then I "know" the tune. Until then I am just familiar with it.
I'm sure others disagree, but that is my view and approach.
Peace,
Kevin
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Our leader (a vocalist) E-mails the set list in advance of a gig by a couple of days, with who is soloing where (then we sometimes swap or beg off a solo on the bandstand before the next tune gets counted off).
We play out of a fake book with 650 tunes in it, and sometimes he adds other songs and brings leadsheets to the job. He digs up some real chestnuts sometimes I've never heard of before but invariably they're cool songs: last week he dropped "A Small Hotel," on us.
He often calls for a tune that maybe was traditionally swing, but he wants it Latin feel.
He gives us plenty of opportunities to call instrumentals too. Usually a couple each set at least. We bring those maybe from a different book.
Lots of other bands around here play the same 40 standard tunes as everybody else. I prefer the variety of our quintet.
All that to say this:
Yes, I have memorized enough standards from the standard jazz repertoire but there's no way I could keep doing that with the rate of variations our leader uses. Many times I need to read and interpret on the spot, and I actually prefer it this way.
The leader seems to have memorized the lyrics to hundreds of songs and can deliver them like Frank Sinatra!
Are my cold shot tune solos as good as a tune I've played many times before or maybe have memorized? Definitely not by my standards, but I'm confident that I can cover the bases, do my job on rhythm and comping duties, and get a solo delivered that nobody would mistake for Charlie Parker on guitar, but it will be free of clams and obvious lost and drifty noodling.
Do I ever get lost? Of course! But sleight of hand keeps the snobs unawares.
It's a language. By this time I would hope to be able to turn in a professional level performance on most songs in the jazz repertoire whether or not I've got it under my fingers in all the right positions.
Are we smokin' cutting edge Be-Boppers ripping it up at light speed tempos? No!
We are a versatile bunch who have lots of fun, for TENS of dollars, playing the standard repertoire, and some twists, very much like a lot of other groups out here on the left coast calling ourselves a jazz band.
It's not a snake pit. It's humans attempting art at least at the basic jazz level.
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Great post this - I second this perspective; much like my experience in my trio (vox/double bass/guitar), The singer is always bringing extra stuff to play on the night, apart from what is rehearsed. We are getting better at doing stuff on the fly, and we now know our instrumentals so well that they are real fun. Originally Posted by backliner
Our leader (a vocalist) E-mails the set list in advance of a gig by a couple of days, with who is soloing where (then we sometimes swap or beg off a solo on the bandstand before the next tune gets counted off).
We play out of a fake book with 650 tunes in it, and sometimes he adds other songs and brings leadsheets to the job. He digs up some real chestnuts sometimes I've never heard of before but invariably they're cool songs: last week he dropped "A Small Hotel," on us.
He often calls for a tune that maybe was traditionally swing, but he wants it Latin feel.
He gives us plenty of opportunities to call instrumentals too. Usually a couple each set at least. We bring those maybe from a different book.
Lots of other bands around here play the same 40 standard tunes as everybody else. I prefer the variety of our quintet.
All that to say this:
Yes, I have memorized enough standards from the standard jazz repertoire but there's no way I could keep doing that with the rate of variations our leader uses. Many times I need to read and interpret on the spot, and I actually prefer it this way.
The leader seems to have memorized the lyrics to hundreds of songs and can deliver them like Frank Sinatra!
Are my cold shot tune solos as good as a tune I've played many times before or maybe have memorized? Definitely not by my standards, but I'm confident that I can cover the bases, do my job on rhythm and comping duties, and get a solo delivered that nobody would mistake for Charlie Parker on guitar, but it will be free of clams and obvious lost and drifty noodling.
Do I ever get lost? Of course! But sleight of hand keeps the snobs unawares.
It's a language. By this time I would hope to be able to turn in a professional level performance on most songs in the jazz repertoire whether or not I've got it under my fingers in all the right positions.
Are we smokin' cutting edge Be-Boppers ripping it up at light speed tempos? No!
We are a versatile bunch who have lots of fun, for TENS of dollars, playing the standard repertoire, and some twists, very much like a lot of other groups out here on the left coast calling ourselves a jazz band.
It's not a snake pit. It's humans attempting art at least at the basic jazz level.
Sometimes the late notice stuff is very tricky and doesn't go so well - but that is part of jazz too.
My two bits,
NL
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@backliner - sounds like a fun band!
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Yes indeed. A perfect situation for me at my level of jazz comprehension (as-in "rusty chops" [a good stage name] Originally Posted by M-ster
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I have played tons of Pop and Showtunes/BigBand "tuxedo" jobs. When I first started with this bunch I thought a lot of the tunes were corny as I was looking to dust off my jazz chops from my long ago College days.
But then I remembered that Johnny Smith and Howard Roberts used to stand Pop tunes on their heads: so what exactly IS my problem?
Besides, our leader is very liberal. We can bring in tunes. And especially for instrumental interludes. He has never blinked when we ALL take a full chorus to solo, saying whatever we want, tune after tune.
'Course it's lucky I have retirement income from my day job. I'm the luckiest guitar player I know!
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One small note... how long do you remember a tune...
I'm with M-ter... cool hang Backliner.
When you play all the time (gig), it's almost like " relative pitch ".... instead, it's "relative memory". Hell, I can't remember the name of most tunes... but I have no problem playing 4 hour gigs from memory, with band I've never played with... ( if there are charts... it's as though it's the only band I gig with)
I never get lost, wait what was I talkin about... If your a young or beginning player... there's a balance to keeping your skill levels developing at same pace. Don't spend all your time memorizing tunes... for every 5 tunes you memorize, be able to read through or use your ears and sound as though you memorized 5 other tunes. To be able to do that you need skills... those skills need to be developed... I've posted many times how to go about that process... Best Reg
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Originally Posted by Reg
Indeed and I agree.
There are songs that intrigue me, so many times I'll work out a chord solo in the key it's usually done in first. If that tune gets called I have to cut way back on what I would do alone but that's OK, I still have it in the bag even if it's in a strange key.
What sometimes happens is that a band member will bring in a tune "...just a a possibility to look at..."
The last time -a couple weeks ago- it happened to be "I'm Old Fashioned," which has a cool sorta B section move that I wouldn't want to stumble through without having at least looked it over first.
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