Questions for you Barry Harris disciples / players steeped in the bebop tradition

[brent.h]

..

[pamosmusic]

1. How often did the 40s beboppers (Bird et al) use the Family of Dominants?

2. Do you play the ii chord while comping?

3. Do you prefer transcribing/using lines from beboppers or using Barry's 'bebop lego' to construct your own lines?

I think that's all I have for now.

I don’t think I qualify as steeped, but …

1. not sure. Back door over the minor ii-V is all over, even on later guys. Was transcribing Ed Bickert the other day on I Should Care and he went straight down a C7 no alterations on the minor cadence to Dm. Tritone sub and tritone minor are quite common in small snatches too.

2. yes. Far as I’m aware, Barry would have the pianist in his rhythm section do this during the workshops too. You can hear him say it on the YouTube stuff and in the workshop video. The real ones can tell you how common that was in the wild

3. dunno. Both. More Lego blocks for me lately.

[Christian Miller]

1. How often did the 40s beboppers (Bird et al) use the Family of Dominants?

They used all of them. They mostly used V7 bVII7 and bII7 as a way of playing into the I chord, in roughly that order of popularity. III7 is rarer and mostly used as a way into relative minor (see the head of Blues for Alice, which is a major dominant/mixolydian III7 sound going into Dm)

2. Do you play the ii chord while comping?

Yes. Surprisingly rare before the bop era, super common after.

3. Do you prefer transcribing/using lines from beboppers or using Barry's 'bebop lego' to construct your own lines?

I like to do both. Transcription these days less about swiping licks for me, and more about being able to hear the music better.

Transcription should ideally be a very quick affair if you know the language. It should be like repeating stuff back at tempo. That's what Barry expected in his class and it was a roast.

I'm not at that level haha, but I'm not bad. That might sound like a crazy goal, but remember Bebop is relatively small room compared to contemporary jazz, where frequently I just can't hear the line until I listen to it a zillion times. I can usually sing back a bop line quickly if it's at a reasonable speed.

Barry himself didn't talk much about trasncription, never when I went to his sessions, although he obviously knew all the Bird and Bud stuff extremely well. According to Charles McPherson, he prioritised students learning heads, which makes sense. The language is all there, and you have something to play on gigs. Ever the practical angle.

In a way people who talk about "transcription" probably don't have that sort of relationship with it yet, because they have to have a special name for it and think of it as a specific activity (like at college). I think for that generation it was called 'learning music' and was the default way to do it.

[AllanAllen]

OP,

I found this podcast interesting, Chris Parks discusses what the method is and isn't.

[pamosmusic]

OP,

I found this podcast interesting, Chris Parks discusses what the method is and isn't.

Man I keep trying to listen to this but the audio quality is unlistenable

[GuyBoden]

What sounds good to my ears for single note lines, is the BH Chromatic Scale used with different skip intervals, frequently changing from descending to ascending visa versa, especially when mixed with pivots, arps etc.

Very simple BH Chromatic scale lick example below.

[AllanAllen]

Man I keep trying to listen to this but the audio quality is unlistenable

They did repost on Apple Podcasts with fixed audio. It’s how I heard it. I assumed they would have fixed YouTube as well.

[Mick-7]

2. Do you play the ii chord while comping?

What is this in reference to? (Why would one not play it, is it a sin?)

[pamosmusic]

What is this in reference to? (Why would one not play it, is it a sin?)

Barry doesn’t really pay much mind to a ii chord. When he’s referring to single note improvising, it doesn’t exist.

When he’s refers to comping, it’s a little less clear it seems.

[Christian Miller]

Barry doesn’t really pay much mind to a ii chord. When he’s referring to single note improvising, it doesn’t exist.

When he’s refers to comping, it’s a little less clear it seems.

The II chord is the suspension of the V chord is what he said. The II chord is present in the dominant scale so we play it (it’s the important minor) but conceptually we think V

You no doubt know all this, just wanted to be clear.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[sgcim]

[Christian Miller]

4. Do you 'temper' your bebop language with blues vocabulary (or the other way round)? Like, if you could put a number to it, what is your ratio of bebop vocab to blues vocab?

Mine's about 75% bop-ish/Barry inspired stuff, 15% blues (too low in my opinion), 10% trad rhythms and swing riffs

I’ll leave that for people who want to transcribe me haha. I try to play the gig.


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[AllanAllen]

I think about the changes, and the melody. Lately, after listening to a bunch of Dexter Gordon, I try to think of other heads that I can shoehorn into the changes.

[AllanAllen]

Is it possible you’re over thinking things?

[pcjazz]

Barry doesn’t really pay much mind to a ii chord. When he’s referring to single note improvising, it doesn’t exist.

When he’s refers to comping, it’s a little less clear it seems.

He liked the ii7 chord in comping, but also the Vsus.

[GuyBoden]

5. Just curious... Has anyone here been actually successful at running a one dominant scale (on any degree) into another dominant scale (on any degree)? E.g. on the V7, you run a G7 scale into and E7 scale. Seems to me there isn't much 'real estate' on the guitar to construct such those long, scalar lines. Perhaps it's more possible with a G7 chord (F, D, B, G) down into an E7 chord (G#, E, D, B) then resolve to C?

By 'chord', I mean BH's definition of a 'chord'.

Have you tried using BH chromatic scales?
Personally, I'd add a few more devices than this basic example I've shown below:


Add some "Octave Jumps" and all is good.

[Mick-7]

5. Just curious... Has anyone here been actually successful at running a one dominant scale (on any degree) into another dominant scale (on any degree)? E.g. on the V7, you run a G7 scale into and E7 scale. Seems to me there isn't much 'real estate' on the guitar to construct such those long, scalar lines. Perhaps it's more possible with a G7 chord (F, D, B, G) down into an E7 chord (G#, E, D, B) then resolve to C?

By 'chord', I mean BH's definition of a 'chord'.

E7b9 = G7b9, Bb7b9, Db7b9. Ergo, the same diminished scale works over all of them.

Combining the E7 & G7 scales would make: G-G#-A-B-C#-D-E-F-F# - raising the 4th scale tone (C) of G.

So the F# over G7 is the only note with which you'd have to be careful.

[Petimar]

1 Its common

2 Yes

3 I use both

[Mick-7]

6. Has anyone here tried to use the vii-6 sound? In the key of C, that would be B minor 6.

I know that Charlie Christian would sometimes play an E9, which is almost a Bmin6, before resolving to the tonic of Amin or Amin6.

I'm wondering if anyone has tried/likes using Bmin6 and then resolving it to C6. Or is this sound too weird?

I know that ii-6, iv-6, and bvi-6 are used frequently by jazzers, but I don't hear the vii-6 too often.

It can work as an altered dominant sound because it's also E9/Bb7#5b9 (sans roots) - depends on the context.

[buduranus2]

1. How often did the 40s beboppers (Bird et al) use the Family of Dominants?

Are you talking about "family of four" (dominant) and "family of three" (tonic)?