Was Charlie Parker the Culprit Behind the Chord-Scales?

[Bobby Timmons]

I agree.

[GuyBoden]

Is there any more? Bebop is like German, the verb is at the end of the sentence.

At the moment I hear the D and F as an enclosure of the E and the Eb (D#) and the F# as lower neighbours. But depending what's on beat 1 might give it a different sense.

Yes, there's always more.

I was thinking that perhaps one of the Higher Intervals Parker commonly played was the 11th?

(Higher interval is the 11th, the high F. (in red)


Note that this this solo fragment includes the ascending arpeggio: F#-G-Bb-D-F.
Charlie Parker played this arpeggio a lot.

[charlieparker]

Yes, there's always more.

I was thinking that perhaps one of the Higher Intervals Parker commonly played was the 11th?

(Higher interval is the 11th, the high F. (in red)


Note that this this solo fragment includes the ascending arpeggio: F#-G-Bb-D-F.
Charlie Parker played this arpeggio a lot.

That's just an enclosure of the E as I think about it.

[Christian Miller]

Yes, there's always more.

I was thinking that perhaps one of the Higher Intervals Parker commonly played was the 11th?

(Higher interval is the 11th, the high F. (in red)


Note that this this solo fragment includes the ascending arpeggio: F#-G-Bb-D-F.
Charlie Parker played this arpeggio a lot.

Yeah the F and D seem to me like enclosures of E. Then it gets more interesting. The E is elided into the top note of an enclosure of D, which is the 9th. These kind of double enclosures seem very bird to me. You could try a variant that goes F D D# E C C# D...

The last note is the 6th. So you get a sort of C9 line with a cheeky 6th/13th at the end. So those are 'upper extensions for sure. But bebop didn't invent those, dominant chords are the first chords to have been extended, long before majors and minors. Dom 9th chords are all over baroque music. 13th chords are common in C19th music, In fact, it's called the "Chopin 6th" in some circles.

Needless to say you get in jazz too. a final cadence that goes V13-->I is really common in jazz standards and C20th popular songs too. All of Me is a good example, as is It Was Just One of Those Things and My Ideal (and loads others that I forget right now).It's also the riff for Stompin' at the Savoy.

Playing the 9th of the third (Em7b5 on C7 effectively) is something you also see the likes of Django and Lester do a lot. No doubt others including earlier players even (Doc Cheatham is cited in Berliner's book as having learned this from Bobby Hackett's solo on Ja-Da. Hackett was also an influence on Miles.) The 6th/13th too.

[GuyBoden]

Yes, there's always more.

I was thinking that perhaps one of the Higher Intervals Parker commonly played was the 11th?

(Higher interval is the 11th, the high F. (in red)


Note that this this solo fragment includes the ascending arpeggio: F#-G-Bb-D-F.
Charlie Parker played this arpeggio a lot.

This fragment is from Charlie Parker's Swedish Schnapps.

[Tal_175]

Well, I feel things have shifted here in terms of what you are arguing.

The original argument that Parker invented "chord scales" because of the quote above?

And my response to this is that I don't think you can draw that conclusion from the quote for two reasons - it might not be from him, and he didn't talk about scales.

There's also the small matter that Chord Scale Theory didn't seem to exist in the 1940's, although certain musicians were using a sort of proto-CST - chord scales rather than Chord Scales perhaps - and it may be Bird was aware of those ideas although this quote does not appear to be evidence of it and may not in fact be evidence of anything. (I also doubt it for a few reasons.)

So, now you saying that making a distinction between chord extensions and chord scale theory is contrived which is a seperate point.

There's two quite different ways to look at this assertion.

- From a tabula rasa ahistorical perspective (ie learning jazz in 2024) that may be arguable (or not). It may not make sense to make the distinction in the present day. Seperate discussion, nothing to do with how Bird or bop musicians conceptualised music.

- however, historically - which I think is what we are interested in - that doesn't seem a view held by many older generation players who thought in terms extensions but emphatically did not think in terms of chord scales. They viewed them simply as chords with extensions (and subs). This suggests that historically we can draw a distinction between the approaches.

(The Barry Harris discussion is kind irrelevant to that central point as it's another way of looking at it again, and Barry didn't really use the concept of upper extensions.)

I think that covers my thoughts on what's been raised so far.

Which is to say, maybe, as lack of evidence neither proves it not rules it out, but I suspect not.

This summarizes what has been discussed up to this point really well.

Yes, my statement is making a distinction between chord extensions and chord scale theory is contrived. But I don't think it is a seperate point. If one makes no distinction between the minor7b9b13 (ie Phrygian) scale and playing over that minor chord by melodically using the extensions b9 11 b13, then what is described in the Charlie Parker quote are chord scales. My point is the chord-scale view amounts to the chord-centric view (or intervallic view from the chord root) of the parent scale when the chord is diatonic to the scale. This is consistent with chord scales as they are defined in Mark Levine's book and the definition you gave. It's not a trivial shift from the key centered approach. It represents a mental attitude to playing the changes. It is seeing each chord and it's extensions as a distinct melodic unit organized from the root.

The distinction you are making with the historical and ahistorical perspective is about how these extensions were used but chord scales are agnostic to how they are used. Yes, the formal definition of chord scales puts the extensions within an octave. But that's done to present the concept in a consistent manner with other similar musical notions as opposed to suggesting a particular musical use. Charlie Parker probably didn't think "chord scales" as we conceptualize them now but that's because theoretical organization always comes after their use by the masters.

[charlieparker]

This summarizes what has been discussed up to this point really well.

Yes, my statement is making a distinction between chord extensions and chord scale theory is contrived. But I don't think it is a seperate point. If one makes no distinction between the minor7b9b13 (ie Phrygian) scale and playing over that minor chord by melodically using the extensions b9 11 b13, then what is described in the Charlie Parker quote are chord scales. My point is the chord-scale view amounts to the chord-centric view (or intervallic view from the chord root) of the parent scale when the chord is diatonic to the scale. This is consistent with chord scales as they are defined in Mark Levine's book and the definition you gave. It's not a trivial shift from the key centered approach. It is a mental approach to playing the changes. It is seeing each chord as a distinct melodic unit organized from the root.

The distinction you are making with the historical and ahistorical perspective is about how these extensions were used but chord scales are agnostic to how they are used. Yes, the formal definition of chord scales puts the extensions within an octave. But that's done to present the concept in a consistent manner with other similar musical notions as opposed to suggesting a particular musical use. Charlie Parker probably didn't think "chord scales" as we conceptualize them now but that's because theoretical organization always comes after their use by the masters.

Where this falls apart is when the chord scale doesn't match the chord that was being played, which is why this kind of thinking has limited utility. For instance in the example from Swedish Schnapps referenced above, it looks like Parker played a Gm7 arpeggio over a C7 chord so it looks more like a substitution than chord-scale thinking.

Also, I believe that some of Parker's riffs were repeated over slightly different harmonic contexts without much change like on different variations of rhythm changes. So, IMO, chord-scale theory gives too much weight to an approach that analyzes the chord of the moment.

[Tal_175]

Where this falls apart is when the chord scale doesn't match the chord that was being played, which is why this kind of thinking has limited utility. For instance in the example from Swedish Schnapps referenced above, it looks like Parker played a Dm7 arpeggio over a C7 chord so it looks more like a substitution than chord-scale thinking.

Also, I believe that some of Parker's riffs were repeated over slightly different harmonic contexts without much change like on different variations of rhythm changes. So, IMO, chord-scale theory gives too much weight to an approach that analyzes the chord of the moment.

Whether religious adherence to only using chord of the moment as a melodic conception is a good idea is a separate discussion I believe.

[pamosmusic]

Where this falls apart is when the chord scale doesn't match the chord that was being played, which is why this kind of thinking has limited utility. For instance in the example from Swedish Schnapps referenced above, it looks like Parker played a Dm7 arpeggio over a C7 chord so it looks more like a substitution than chord-scale thinking.

Also, I believe that some of Parker's riffs were repeated over slightly different harmonic contexts without much change like on different variations of rhythm changes. So, IMO, chord-scale theory gives too much weight to an approach that analyzes the chord of the moment.

Oddly enough, nothing to do with Charlie Parker, but I usually am more inclined to think somebody is a chord scale person when they use those more distantly related arpeggios.

I think it’s pretty easy to think of Gm7 over C7, or Go7, or GmMaj, or Gm7b5 etc etc without much thought for the chord scale they might be a part of, because the chord tones are so closely related to the underlying harmonic motion.

If someone plays Dm7 over C7, it’s probably at least in part because the notes are diatonic. Or maybe to imply some separate diatonic motion. It doesn’t have to be a chord scale concept, but it seems more likely that someone is working in that frame of mind to me. Not sure.

And for what it’s worth, I believe that was Gm7 in the passage you’re referring to.

[charlieparker]

Whether religious adherence to only using chord of the moment as a melodic conception is a good idea is a separate discussion I believe.

I guess I don't understand that clearly your definition of chord-scale theory. Is it just another name for a chord? Is it an organizational approach to improvisation where you can use it to build lines over specific chords?

Any set of notes that were played could be envisioned as extensions over a chord so we could conceivably call all music as deriving from chord scale theory.

[Tal_175]

Oddly enough, nothing to do with Charlie Parker, but I usually am more inclined to think somebody is a chord scale person when they use those more distantly related arpeggios.

I think it’s pretty easy to think of Gm7 over C7, or Go7, or GmMaj, or Gm7b5 etc etc without much thought for the chord scale they might be a part of, because the chord tones are so closely related to the underlying harmonic motion.

If someone plays Dm7 over C7, it’s probably at least in part because the notes are diatonic. Or maybe to imply some separate diatonic motion. It doesn’t have to be a chord scale concept, but it seems more likely that someone is working in that frame of mind to me. Not sure.

And for what it’s worth, I believe that was Gm7 in the passage you’re referring to.

Yes, this comes up a lot in this thread. He played an arpeggio therefore it can't come from a scale is a common misconception of what scales are.

[charlieparker]

Oddly enough, nothing to do with Charlie Parker, but I usually am more inclined to think somebody is a chord scale person when they use those more distantly related arpeggios.

I think it’s pretty easy to think of Gm7 over C7, or Go7, or GmMaj, or Gm7b5 etc etc without much thought for the chord scale they might be a part of, because the chord tones are so closely related to the underlying harmonic motion.

If someone plays Dm7 over C7, it’s probably at least in part because the notes are diatonic. Or maybe to imply some separate diatonic motion. It doesn’t have to be a chord scale concept, but it seems more likely that someone is working in that frame of mind to me. Not sure.

And for what it’s worth, I believe that was Gm7 in the passage you’re referring to.

Thanks for the correction, yes, I meant Gm7.

[charlieparker]

Yes, this comes up a lot in this thread. He played an arpeggio therefore it can't come from a scale is a common misconception of what scales are.

I think you misinterpreted Pete's reply. I think was seconding the idea that the Gm7 was unlikely to be a C7 chord scale thought and that would be more likely the result of less obvious arpeggios.

[Tal_175]

I guess I don't understand that clearly your definition of chord-scale theory. Is it just another name for a chord? Is it an organizational approach to improvisation where you can use it to build lines over specific chords?

Any set of notes that were played could be envisioned as extensions over a chord so we could conceivably call all music as deriving from chord scale theory.

Let's consider the following approach to improvisation:

- Motivic and riff based melodic development using the key with only a visceral connection to specific chords. The strength of the visceral connection to chords depends on the player's musical sensitives, ears and the musical effect they are after.

Perhaps more reminiscent of Lester Young's playing. Yes, you can still envision some of the notes as extensions but that wouldn't provide a good insight into the player's melodic style.

The quote, however, represents a mental departure from this view. The insight in the quote is not trivial. This notion is not obvious at all even today outside of jazz. 100 years after this quote, modern rock guitarists still haven't had this epiphany one might say.

[Tal_175]

I think you misinterpreted Pete's reply. I think was seconding the idea that the Gm7 was unlikely to be a C7 chord scale thought and that would be more likely the result of less obvious arpeggios.

At the time I wrote the reply, it was about Dmin7 over C7.

[pamosmusic]

I guess I don't understand that clearly your definition of chord-scale theory. Is it just another name for a chord? Is it an organizational approach to improvisation where you can use it to build lines over specific chords?

Any set of notes that were played could be envisioned as extensions over a chord so we could conceivably call all music as deriving from chord scale theory.

And welcome to the thread.

I don’t think anyone is quite sure at this point.

For me it’s a way of generating ideas so I don’t think you can always tell if someone is using chord-scale theory from the end product.

There are certainly people like Adam Rogers who sound like they’re hearing scales as they’re playing, but there are also people like Miles who are very scalar players but disguise it really well so it’s hard to know at all. People like BH who make scales a central part of their thing, but who utilize them in quite idiosyncratic ways. And on and on.

So I think the idea of trying to determine what someone is thinking from how they play or even from a short paragraph of them talking about chords is probably a fools errand

[pamosmusic]

I think you misinterpreted Pete's reply. I think was seconding the idea that the Gm7 was unlikely to be a C7 chord scale thought and that would be more likely the result of less obvious arpeggios.

Nah if someone’s playing Gm7 over C7 there are about a thousand ways of arriving at that sound, so who knows.

If it’s the hypothetical Dm7 over C7 then I feel like there are fewer options and generally less conventional ones. Like if you’re just thinking over chords and extensions you’d have to be looking for a C13sus but also doubling the root … so like … why? More likely that comes from some exploration of the wider environment. Chord scale theory isn’t the only option but it’s certainly one of them.

[charlieparker]

Let's consider the following approach to improvisation:

- Motivic and riff based melodic development using the key with only a visceral connection to the specific chords. The strength of the visceral connection to chords depends on the player's musical sensitives, ears and the musical effect they are after.

Perhaps more reminiscent of Lester Young's playing. Yes, you can still envision some of the notes as extensions but that wouldn't provide a good insight of the player's melodic style.

The quote, however, represents a mental departure from this view. The insight in the quote is not trivial. This notion is not obvious at all even today outside of jazz. 100 years after this quote, modern rock guitarists still haven't had this epiphany one might say.

How you want to conceptualize these things is ultimately a personal choice to some degree. So ultimately there is no right answer. I initially learned jazz theory from a CST point of view and I don't think it served me that well.

I'm sure some can get great results with it. But I'm kind of moving away from it because I think it isn't the best way to conceptualize how the early greats created the lines they played.

I am not an expert, but what I mostly see are a lot of basic chord tones, enclosures, chromaticism, rhythmic elements and harmonic simplifications in some places. Occasionally, an upper extension is important like a b9 on a dominant chord.

[pamosmusic]

Let's consider the following approach to improvisation:

- Motivic and riff based melodic development using the key with only a visceral connection to the specific chords. The strength of the visceral connection to chords depends on the player's musical sensitives, ears and the musical effect they are after.

Perhaps more reminiscent of Lester Young's playing. Yes, you can still envision some of the notes as extensions but that wouldn't provide a good insight into the player's melodic style.

The quote, however, represents a mental departure from this view. The insight in the quote is not trivial. This notion is not obvious at all even today outside of jazz. 100 years after this quote, modern rock guitarists still haven't had this epiphany one might say.

Im not sure this is the most effective example. Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins, probably Charlie Christian, and some of the other hot soloists from some of the big jazz bands were maybe good cases for why bebop wasnt as revolutionary with respect to harmony as it was in other areas.

Coleman Hawkins and esp Lester Young totally play motivically and with key centers more than the boppers did, particularly at up tempos, but they totally played changes too and maybe they outlined extensions, or maybe more likely they conceived of “hidden” changes that made the same harmonic shapes as the written changes or the pianists changes. So Charlie Parker and Bud Powell and Dizzy Gillespie totally built on that and were doing some wild things that no one else was doing, but rhythmically and melodically for example I feel like they were really doing different stuff. Though honestly in my old age I feel like their revolution was a sum of its parts rather than particularly radical on any one point.

Also it’s worth pointing out yet again that we don’t know if Charlie Parker said this, and have some contemporaneous evidence that he didn’t. Thats not important only because it invalidates the discussion for some reason … it actually goes to the core of your point. If it’s just some downbeat writer paraphrasing or attributing something some other musician said to Charlie Parker, then it can’t be all the revolutionary, can it? That would mean it was just in the air and not really that radical.

[Tal_175]

Im not sure this is the most effective example. Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins, probably Charlie Christian, and some of the other hot soloists from some of the big jazz bands were maybe good cases for why bebop wasnt as revolutionary with respect to harmony as it was in other areas.

Coleman Hawkins and esp Lester Young totally play motivically and with key centers more than the boppers did, particularly at up tempos, but they totally played changes too and maybe they outlined extensions, or maybe more likely they conceived of “hidden” changes that made the same harmonic shapes as the written changes or the pianists changes. So Charlie Parker and Bud Powell and Dizzy Gillespie totally built on that and were doing some wild things that no one else was doing, but rhythmically and melodically for example I feel like they were really doing different stuff. Though honestly in my old age I feel like their revolution was a sum of its parts rather than particularly radical on any one point.

Also it’s worth pointing out yet again that we don’t know if Charlie Parker said this, and have some contemporaneous evidence that he didn’t. Thats not important only because it invalidates the discussion for some reason … it actually goes to the core of your point. If it’s just some downbeat writer paraphrasing or attributing something some other musician said to Charlie Parker, then it can’t be all the revolutionary, can it? That would mean it was just in the air and not really that radical.

Yeah, sure. None of this contradicts to what I am saying in this thread though right?

Just so we are on the same page, if we assume that the quote belongs to Charlie Parker (anyone who is unwilling to humour this assumption is really posting on the wrong thread), this thread is about what insights we learn from Charlie Parker's mental approach to jazz from this epiphany. Of course you can say, nothing it's just a paragraph, that's fine. But I explained why I believe what is described in the quote is not trivial (especially considering how significant it was to him based on the quote).

[pamosmusic]

Yeah, sure. None of this contradicts to what I am saying in this thread though right?

Just so we are on the same page, if we assume that the quote belongs to Charlie Parker (anyone who is unwilling to humour this assumption is really posting on the wrong thread), this thread is about what insights we learn from Charlie Parker's mental approach to jazz from this epiphany. Of course you can say, nothing it's just a paragraph, that's fine. But I explained why I believe what is described in the quote is not trivial (especially considering how significant it was to him based on the quote).

I kind of think it all contradicts everything you’re saying, but I guess that puts us back to where no one seems to be quite sure what it is you’re saying.

I mean … at the end of the day I’m still in the same place. There are ways to conceive of extensions that don’t involve thinking of chord-scales, there are ways to express extensions without thinking of them as extensions, etc etc.

Round and round.

[Tal_175]

I kind of think it all contradicts everything you’re saying, but I guess that puts us back to where no one seems to be quite sure what it is you’re saying.

I mean … at the end of the day I’m still in the same place. There are ways to conceive of extensions that don’t involve thinking of chord-scales, there are ways to express extensions without thinking of them as extensions, etc etc.

Round and round.

I don't think I can do whole a lot better than just re-quote my earlier posts at this point because I feel you are responding to some vague impressionistic notion than to what I am saying. I can see why that would give the impression of going round and round.

Just so we are on the same page, if we assume that the quote belongs to Charlie Parker (anyone who is unwilling to humour this assumption is really posting on the wrong thread), this thread is about what insights we learn from Charlie Parker's mental approach to jazz from this epiphany. Of course you can say, nothing it's just a paragraph, that's fine. But I explained why I believe what is described in the quote is not trivial (especially considering how significant it was to him based on the quote).

[Tal_175]

Also check out the post #110 (or not). It really is as un-vague as it gets in terms of the point of the thread.

[charlieparker]

Also check out the post #110 (or not). It really is un-vague as it gets in terms of the point of the thread.

So to summarize, you are making the distinction between a key centered approach, like I'm playing in Bb over these chords and a chord centric approach.

So for instance if someone was thinking G harmonic minor to play over |Am7 D7| Gm7 ... That would not be thinking in a chord-scale way.

So it seems that if someone is conscious of the chord tones of the moment then they would be playing chord-scalar by your definition.

Where I get hung up on this concept is the following. I might think of some of the chord tones like just the 3rd and the 7th and give myself freedom with the other notes based on considerations like melody and overall key and the wider context like in the G minor example above.

Anyways, like I said before there really isn't a right or wrong answer and obviously the chord changes have impact on what one plays. It's really a matter of degree for me.

[Christian Miller]

Oddly enough, nothing to do with Charlie Parker, but I usually am more inclined to think somebody is a chord scale person when they use those more distantly related arpeggios.

I think it’s pretty easy to think of Gm7 over C7, or Go7, or GmMaj, or Gm7b5 etc etc without much thought for the chord scale they might be a part of, because the chord tones are so closely related to the underlying harmonic motion.

If someone plays Dm7 over C7, it’s probably at least in part because the notes are diatonic. Or maybe to imply some separate diatonic motion. It doesn’t have to be a chord scale concept, but it seems more likely that someone is working in that frame of mind to me. Not sure.

And for what it’s worth, I believe that was Gm7 in the passage you’re referring to.

(Interestingly Berliner references a Barry Harris line like this with Dm7 on C7)


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