Devices over a jazz blues

[Al Haig]

We are, in fact, both right because he's arguing against something I didn't say. Funny how that happens.

And for what it's worth, the philosophy that you should be able to play whatever you want whenever you want is just a philosophy until you have some of that working knowledge of the idiom. The working knowledge of the idiom has to come first for the "anything you want" to be at all convincing.

I more take that view too.

[rpjazzguitar]

If I had better ears and concentration I might be able to participate in this sort of discussion. I have to focus to be able to figure out what a given solo is doing and I only do that occasionally, usually for a fragment that catches my ear.

But this is the internet and I have a computer, so here's my approach.

Cm6, if that was actually the chord at the start of the tune, suggests, to me, tonic minor. And, if I were thinking scale, it would be Cmelmin. There are no avoid notes in Cmelmin, so that gives C D Eb F G A B. If the chord is Cm69, used as a tonic sound, same thing.

There are five other notes. Db is going to sound harsh because of the b9 interval in the context of a minor. E is going to conflict with the minor nature of the chord. F# makes it lean towards Cm9b5, which isn't typically a tonic sound. Ab might work since it's part of C natmin or C dorian, if you need a justification.

So, to me, that's the palette. 8 notes that you can use without being a genius. The geniuses get all 12. Now, it's scat singing in your head with that palette and playing the line you scat.

If you're thinking about C melmin, C Dorian, C harm, C natmin, all you're actually doing is thinking about a scale name to pick the 6th and 7th of your palette. Four possible combinations of 6 and 7 and four corresponding scale names.

One simple approach is to throw them all into the palette (C D Eb F G Ab A Bb B) and then use whichever make your melody sound good.

Then, onto the next chord/palette as you develop the line.

You do have to know the notes in the palette and where they are on the fingerboard. Sometimes I wonder if all the focus on scales is to allow use of patterns and avoid really learning the fingerboard.

You also have to fit in with whatever the rest of the band is playing at the moment. I can't explain that, because it's entirely by ear for me. I know what the foundation is supposed to be and then I hear what's being played and alter things on the fly, usually without conscious thought. Won't always be art, but I try to avoid clams.

I confess that I don't tend to care much whether, sometime in 1959, the jazz culture shifted from Ab to A, or the reverse. Or who played what in a different version. I wish I did. I'd probably have a bigger, more classic, jazz vocabulary.

I'm not putting down the more theoretical approach. A lot of great players use it. But it's not the only way.

[John A.]

(snip) Again this comes from the inadequacy of a chord scale name being applied to the blues tradition. Ask a blues harmonic player what harp he/she plays over a blues in C and the answer you'll get is "Bb."

No, the answer you'll get to that is "F".

[ragman1]

Gladders -

See, they can't stop. They're not interested in you, it's just some sort of intellectual exercise. Which is all right except they're exploiting your thread to do it.

Playing this stuff isn't tricky. It doesn't need an international symposium. Listen to the musicians themselves do it. Duke Pearson himself is on that video. They start really simply. It's more or less Cm pentatonic. Then add the D in because of the colour of the Cm69. Then embellish. You can hear them do it.

Don't be fooled by the embellishments, they're devices to extend the basic sound. Because you insert, say, a B before the C doesn't mean you're using C harmonic or melodic minor, it just adds another colour to it.

Speaking of devices, that video's plum full of them. Sliding up to notes, staccato notes, rhythmic patterns, and so on. Just use what you know and can hear. You can see what drives that tune along.

And absolutely don't think getting into all the clever theoretical gobbledegook will help you to play well, it won't. It might on some very modern stuff but not on a tune like this. As I said, the real challenge is that awkward rhythm pattern. It's confusing.

Good luck :-)

[pamosmusic]

No, the answer you'll get to that is "F".

Oh yeah you got it, with a bend on the E's.

I'm terrible, and had a harmonica player tell me "major key whole step down" because I can't bend.

As you were.

[John A.]

Oh yeah you got it, with a bend on the E's.

I'm terrible, and had a harmonica player tell me "major key whole step down" because I can't bend.

As you were.

Bend the E's, plus the G's, and C's.

When I started playing blues in high school there were a bunch of other kids trying to play blues harp and could not figure out why the harp was a different key from what I was playing (and none of 'em had friggin'A harp ...). Then I took music theory in college and learned about the mixolydian mode. Eureka!

[AllanAllen]

All that works well for a standard like Girl From Ipanema or Autumn Leaves, but is there a better approach for a blues tune?

Any opinions gratefully received.

Sent from my Pixel 8 using Tapatalk

Lester Young

[Al Haig]

^ Soul!

[Alter]

For me, anything bluesy in the realm of jazz can be a beautiful and very challenging thing, because it combines the sensitivity of the blues (which in itself can be pretty complicated, certainly more than most people realize), and the intricacies of jazz with all its harmonic sophistication.

The beginning of Empathy is a good example of that, a progression where one can choose to just play Blues, or see it as a tonic-dominant thing, so resolution and tension (like Caravan or Night in Tunisia). There's no end to the substitutions and harmonic and melodic devices one can use over that, as it is a balancing act between tension and release, dissonance and consonance.

I mean, Blues can be Grant Green, but it can be Wes and Pat Martino, Benson, it can be Blues for Alice or Coltrane changes, it can be Monk or Ornette Coleman, Mingus, Wayne Shorter.. Literally every jazz giant has their own approach to it, and along with its rhythms, the blues element is what makes American jazz so great and so different from jazz in other parts of the world.

[supersoul]

I don't believe this thread. There's a YT of this tune with solos. They're really simple, clear and anybody could get the notes from it. The Cm isn't a Cm6, it's a Cm69 which makes a lot of difference because the D is very prominent.

The basic scale is C dorian, although strangely they avoid the nat A. Anything else is just popped in per taste, like the exotic chromatic bit.

I just don't believe no one has posted this video to see how they do it. It's not even difficult. What's more difficult is the rhythm!

The rhythm on this one is a beast!
Harmonically, I'm hearing the piano playing a C sus2, and then a little thing that goes between Db sus4 and Eb sus4. To me that is a C phrygian sound (the Db, esp) but the solos all reference D natural, Bb and Ab, which is a C aeolian. Hard to argue with James Spaulding, Freddie Hubbard, and Joe Henderson!
Personally, I think if you can play confidently over that rhythm section, it doesn't really matter what notes you play. I have to really concentrate to keep the pulse. Mostly it's the bass that I listen to to keep my place.

[Gladders]

Gladders -

See, they can't stop. They're not interested in you, it's just some sort of intellectual exercise. Which is all right except they're exploiting your thread to do it.

Playing this stuff isn't tricky. It doesn't need an international symposium. Listen to the musicians themselves do it. Duke Pearson himself is on that video. They start really simply. It's more or less Cm pentatonic. Then add the D in because of the colour of the Cm69. Then embellish. You can hear them do it.

Don't be fooled by the embellishments, they're devices to extend the basic sound. Because you insert, say, a B before the C doesn't mean you're using C harmonic or melodic minor, it just adds another colour to it.

Speaking of devices, that video's plum full of them. Sliding up to notes, staccato notes, rhythmic patterns, and so on. Just use what you know and can hear. You can see what drives that tune along.

And absolutely don't think getting into all the clever theoretical gobbledegook will help you to play well, it won't. It might on some very modern stuff but not on a tune like this. As I said, the real challenge is that awkward rhythm pattern. It's confusing.

Good luck :-)

That made me laugh. I do wonder just how much of this theory would be recognisable to Tal Farlow or Rene Thomas. Maybe I'm wrong. It's been a fascinating read but it quickly went beyond my ken.

There's a lot of good vocab in the pentatonic scale...

Sent from my Pixel 8 using Tapatalk

[pamosmusic]

That made me laugh. I do wonder just how much of this theory would be recognisable to Tal Farlow or Rene Thomas. Maybe I'm wrong. It's been a fascinating read but it quickly went beyond my ken.

There's a lot of good vocab in the pentatonic scale...

Sent from my Pixel 8 using Tapatalk

Well see here's the thing.

Short answer to your question. Probably not much. These dudes absolutely understood music and knew music theory, but (probably, we can't know for sure) they were much more interested in practical vocabulary. When you peel back the jargon, even people with a reputation for being theory heads -- maybe like Pat Martino -- are after what works -- not after what is correct. To guys like Tal and Wes, any talk of chord substitution was probably more like "it's turnaround time, what turnarounds do I know" rather than the sort of chord+chord=fancy chord harmony we spend a lot of time doing now. Even though that stuff was still in their vocabulary.

BUT

If I discard theory stuff (thank you ragman), I have to spend time listening to and interpreting what it was Tal Farlow and Rene Thomas were actually doing. Can't have it both ways.

Maybe it's annoying to say that people like the melodic minor scale over this chord or that, and that this chord is an upper structure of the next. But is saying "Grant Green really just uses five notes over minor and likes the B as part of a dominant thing to give it some tension" theory? I don't know. Except for telling a person to get off the computer and go steal some stuff from a record" that's about as practical as it gets.

So yeah -- Tal Farlow probably (again -- not positive) didn't care much for the weeds of theory, but I have to find the tools to understand and digest what he's doing. If the theory isn't my bag and I don't have time to learn and incorporate the vocabulary, then I'm just noodling.

[pamosmusic]

Here's a thing I did as part of a group class I teach.

25 01 08 playing the minor .pdf - Google Drive

this one is abridged -- there are a couple more pages, but I clipped out the stuff that wasn't really relevant here.

[rpjazzguitar]

I heard the first chord as Cm69 (this is an edit, when I did it by memory earlier I missed the A). l like x6703x. Eb A G D. I couldn't get the low C in the grip.

But, the overall sonic impression of the harmony is striking.

I went to the guitar and played some notes that seem to fit. I got C D Eb F G A B C. I know the chord is Cm(something) so I started with the core notes of Cm, C D Eb and from there it's ear. (also an edit). My ears found Cmelmin, as it turned out.

Chord changes to a Db something. My fingers went to Abm as the core notes for the chord change and I picked out some more by ear.

I end up coming back to the scat-singing idea. If I can already scat-sing a better solo than I usually play, then the immediate task is to get better at going from mind's ear to speaker. I don't need more theory yet (although there would be no harm in getting started with it). When I've developed that ability, then the goal is to expand the musical imagination.

And, that's what I get out of threads like this one. How do you expand imagination? The classic method is learning material from recordings and playing along. And, applying enough theory to enable you to use what you copied in a song.

Another method, oft discussed, is learning chord/scale/arp juxtapositions. That's a subject that is immensely valuable to some and a potential abyss for others.

Reading the OP, I wonder if introducing some balance might be helpful. That is, stop thinking quite as much about theoretical devices and, instead, scat sing and play that.

Tbh, I never succeeded, in years of trying, in sounding like a classic jazz player, even though I like that style. OTOH, after I gave up trying to sound classic, and accepted the more limited way I hear music, I started getting more gigs.

[ragman1]

If I discard theory stuff (thank you ragman)

I'm not suggesting you, or anyone, discards theory, quite the contrary, but it was quite obvious that your, and not just your, extensive theoretical expositions were not going to mean much to the OP.

Jeff's post helped him the most. Clear and simple, and it got his grateful thanks. Just the way it should be really.

[Mick-7]

I hear the first chord as Cm9. Maybe it has an F that I can't hear clearly?

I go to the guitar and play some notes that seem to fit. I get C D Eb F G B C. I know the chord is Cm(something) so I started with the core notes of Cm, C D Eb and from there it's ear. Sounds better without A.

Have only given it a cursory listen but the chart says Cm6/9 (C-Eb-G-A-D). Cm6/9 = D7b9sus.

[rpjazzguitar]

Have only given it a cursory listen but the chart says Cm6/9 (C-Eb-G-A-D). Cm6/9 = D7b9sus.

Thanks! You're right. I corrected my earlier post.

[supersoul]

I heard the first chord as Cm69 (this is an edit, when I did it by memory earlier I missed the A). l like x6703x. Eb A G D. I couldn't get the low C in the grip.

When I worked on it earlier I just tried to come up with a way to play the piano part on the guitar, which always means simplifying.

For the first chord this fingering works (x x 7 5 3 x), but I found it easier to play (x x 5 5 3 x) because then I can use my pinky to play the little decending D Db C line he has in there.

Then it goes to Db -> Eb back and forth, so (x x 6 6 x x ) (x x 8 8 x x) and then he adds in a third so (x x 6 6 6 x) (x x 8 8 8 x). Db and Eb major triads; I wrote them as sus earlier, my mistake.

These fingerings lay under my fingers nicely, which I always think sounds better. As a guitar part it sounds good.
Cool tune, thanks to the OP for bringing it to my attention!

[supersoul]

I thought I'd just make a little video of how I'm playing it, especially the main "riff" or whatver it's called. Since I made this I've come up with a new voicing for the Cm9, but the idea is the same. It's still a work in progress!

[Gladders]

@supersoul , that's cool. The rhythm is a little bit tricky, isn't it? It took me a while to hear it in a way I could understand. Nice guitar. German?

Sent from my Pixel 8 using Tapatalk

[supersoul]

@supersoul , that's cool. The rhythm is a little bit tricky, isn't it? It took me a while to hear it in a way I could understand. Nice guitar. German?

Sent from my Pixel 8 using Tapatalk

I'm still working on the rhythm, haha. I'm ok when playing along with the record, but when I'm on my own I'm still finding my footing. It has a logic, though.
Yep, the guitar is German, I love that thing!

[Gladders]

Here's a thing I did as part of a group class I teach.

25 01 08 playing the minor .pdf - Google Drive

this one is abridged -- there are a couple more pages, but I clipped out the stuff that wasn't really relevant here.

Thank you. I'll read that with interest.

Sent from my Pixel 8 using Tapatalk

[ragman1]

So Gladders, have you solved your problem yet? Know how to solo it? Or are you still searching around for some other answer?

[Gladders]

So Gladders, have you solved your problem yet? Know how to solo it? Or are you still searching around for some other answer?

Well, I transcribed everyone's idea onto a picture of a fret board and pretty much every single note is covered, so I'm going chromatic.

Sent from my Pixel 8 using Tapatalk

[mr. beaumont]

Unfortunately that's the answer for every tune.

The important takeaway now is the weight each note carries in relationship to the tune...not all notes are equal, not all notes are places of rest.