Understanding Charlie Parker through triads

[Jonah]

Thanks. I hadn't looked at a chart of this tune for some time. I go to a 3 6 2 5 when I play it, not a 1 6 2 5. I may go back to 1 6 2 5 now that I've paid some attention to it.

And, maybe I don't understand the meaning of "resolve". Using the chart's changes, it still doesn't sound/feel like a "resolution" to Cmaj. To me, that implies that the Cmaj would resolve tension and not feel like it's leading somewhere else.

In this case, it sounds/feels like it's the start of a descending line to A7. Even though it's a Cmaj in the key of C, it sounds to me that it has a kind of instability. It feels more like a necessary passing chord on the way to A7.

You are right but it's both... it is a resolution to C (But just not perfect cadence - since it has 5th in melody)
And the beginning of a descending line...

(this descending line basically can be also analyzed as I-VI-II-V or even as I like putting it : I - I -IV -V...

[PMB]

I just generally prefer learning things that can be used in LOTS of situations... be it a harmonic movement towards the II, or a basic ii V I or any other variation thereof. I find it the most helpful for me in my own learning process of learning how melody works against chord movement to think in terms of underlying architecture and structure and in smaller chunks and segments so that I can get comfortable with them and build them up into anything I want them to be.

One of the things that impresses me most about Parker was how he managed to recast material so deftly in various situations. Regarding his melodic improvisations, it seemed that he was particularly attracted to phrases that weren't too harmonically specific. An example is the turnaround lick preceding the line in question that later turned up as the primary figure in Cool Blues (and was most likely lifted in the first place from either Duke Ellington's Blue Ramble or the second act of Bizet's Carmen). As a consequence, it makes it even harder to ascertain what CP was thinking at any one moment.

Were triads of primary importance to his line conception? Perhaps, although the writings of Parker's contemporaries and followers make much more reference to four-part harmony as the basis for their thinking. That aside, artists take what they need from any situation even when it may strike us as a "creative misunderstanding" (e.g. the Renaissance interpretation of classical Greek practice or say, the manner in which early British R & B groups remodelled Chicago blues). If triads are the prism through which you analyse earlier music and develop your own universe, Jordan then best of luck with your discoveries!

Personally, I hear a more generalised linear thinking here. In his book on bebop, Thomas Owens illustrates how an extended scalar descent gives continuity and direction to a passage from Bird's solo over The Closer. A similar stepwise movement determines the inner movement of our line from Yardbird Suite:

[jordanklemons]

Thanks for the well wishes PMB. And glad you shared the full original riff, unedited. I love how he notated that descending line... that's great.

Keep in mind... utilizing triads and playing through changes vs using chord tones or 7th chords, or enclosures or ornamentation, or creating descending or ascending longterm movement through a line... none of these ideas are mutually exclusive. There are plenty of instances I've seen in his playing where there are 7th chords being arpeggiated. There are also plenty of instances where I see him using straight triads with no 7ths and no embellishments. And plenty of times where I've seen him using a basic triad with a 4th note added to it that's not the 7th.

Ironically, the extra bit you added here to the riff which I originally removed to simplify the study only includes one instance of a b7 from the normal go-to 1-3-5-7 chord tone stuff we normally talk about. On the other hand... literally everything he played is straight out of the melodic techniques we use to utilize basic triads through changes.

Again... not arguing he was thinking that way. But seeing the rest of the riff written out actually makes me feel even better about using triads to analyze his ideas. Which I was already fine with since I've seen them all over the place in his music and already found them helpful for my own musical development... but still neat. Thanks for sharing.

[PMB]

Cool. Just to be clear, that's my notation in Sibelius. I simply borrowed the graphic style (beams showing stepwise movement and dotted lines where intervening notes move in opposition to the prevailing direction) from Owens' The Closer example.

[PMB]

Actually, just checked Owens' book and the dotted lines indicate where a line is broken up and then returns to the same pitch so I made a minor adjustment to the end.

[jordanklemons]

Oh cool. Yeah it's a great educational notation idea for seeing some subtle ideas. Very cool.

[Jonah]

Perhaps, although the writings of Parker's contemporaries and followers make much more reference to four-part harmony as the basis for their thinking.

It's an intereting observatiom... what did they mean?

Actually speaking of triads... what Jordan speaks about seems specific modern triad thinking where triad is just two 3rds (sometimes even it comes to the point where it is just 3 tones - at least it seems like it leads to eventually)

And triads as a part of 4-part harmonony is a differentt thing.. I mean C major triad like c-e-g-c in basic from and then voice leadings ... what is important that in that case it is realtions between 4 and 3 in different proportations and combinations.
And 7th chords represented in 4-part harmony too as a triad with an altered 4th note

(Looks like now it became a trend to discard 7th chord jazz harmonony.
Though actually it can be quite explanotory too and vey interesting as an original harmonic thinking - though maybe not that much convinient for teaching practical melodic improvization)


Parker's lines look very idiomatic in that sense, they are lines set in very strict ralation to 4-part vertical harmony voice leading...
'Hidden polyphony' similar to German baroque music 'harmonic lines'.

[ragman1]

Looks like now it became a trend to discard 7th chord jazz harmony.

In what way? What does that mean?

[Jonah]

In what way? What does that mean?

exactly what it says. I come over many tools of analyzing jazz music that are not directly related with 7th chords or even ignore them.

When I began learning jazz 1st thing you could find about harmony is that in jazz it is built about 4-part 7th chords (as a difference from classical 4-part triad).
And I still believe that it is so in great deal of jazz music.

But many times I wrote here that in jazz theory is often about tools for improvizing and does not necessarily describe relations in resultutive music we hear

So in that sense anything works that works fine for the purpose.

[Binyomin]

<i>Which did bird write first I wonder, the melody or the changes?</i>

They say the changes are from a tune called Rosetta. I tried listening to Rosetta once and it helped even less than listening to Whispering to understand Groovin' High although that helped a bit.

[Jonah]

<i>Which did bird write first I wonder, the melody or the changes?</i>

They say the changes are from a tune called Rosetta. I tried listening to Rosetta once and it helped even less than listening to Whispering to understand Groovin' High although that helped a bit.

How they used old changes for new tunes...
It's the thing that describes mentality of bop improvization the best imho.

[christianm77]

It's not Rosetta.

EDIT: at least if it is he's transposed it from the usual key, changed the chord in bar 2 from G+ to Fm7 Bb7, and completely changed the second half of the B section.

Not impossible or even unlikely, but there has at least been some recomposition of the chords here. So the question remains.

[christianm77]

If we are going to dig into this, lets take a look at Dewey Square, another head by Parker.

This tune is formally the same as Lady Be Good - a tune Parker would have been intimately familiar with due to Lester Young.

He transposes the tune from G to Eb.

The other change he makes is to turn every IV7 or IV7 #IVo7 from the original tune into a minor plagal/backdoor cadence IV IVm (bVII7). Parker really really liked the backdoor cadence....

So - it's possible he did this to Rosetta A to get the yardbird A - key change, change the nature of the cadence in bar 2. He does similar things on blues, rhythm tunes etc.

Why did he do this?

Well - I think ITMS (It's the Melody Stupid!) - and often we see players playing one cadence (IVm/bVII7) over the other (IV #IVo7) - Louis, Lester, Charlie Christian, Parker himself of course.... So.... I reckon Parker wrote the melody first based on the form but with that relaxed harmony, and then either wrote changes out that supported it, or the pianist backed it up with appropriate chords by ear.

That's my hunch.

[jordanklemons]

Looks like now it became a trend to discard 7th chord jazz harmonony....

...I come over many tools of analyzing jazz music that are not directly related with 7th chords or even ignore them.

I'm not sure if you've actually taken a look at the study guide I linked to, or any of the other monthly study guides I've put out, or followed any of my online lessons or teachings using triads... but I've never discarded 7th chord harmony... nor do I feel that triads as a rule are unrelated to them or ignore them. Perhaps there are other musicians who use triads in a way that might be separated from 7th chords... but I'm certainly not one of them.

Though actually it can be quite explanotory too and vey interesting as an original harmonic thinking - though maybe not that much convinient for teaching practical melodic improvization

I have to strongly disagree with you there. I find them insanely convenient and practical for my own personal studies with the music and for teaching. Of course, if a student is open to an idea and/or willing to put in work, nothing will be practical. But you're welcome to come hang in our study group and ask our members what they think or to watch their progress in the videos that they've been posting. We're only around since January and their progress is already self-evident and a little overwhelming and amazing for the ones who are really hitting the shed hard.

But everyone's different, learns differently, and has different ways of learning and goals they want to reach. I'm sure no "method" is perfect for everyone. I've received a lot of very positive and happy emails and private messages from people who couldn't believe how easy they've been finding it to progress with this material... but it's possible the people who don't like it just don't bother taking the time to email. I would have no way of knowing.

When I began learning jazz 1st thing you could find about harmony is that in jazz it is built about 4-part 7th chords (as a difference from classical 4-part triad).
And I still believe that it is so in great deal of jazz music.

Again, studying triads might SEEM that it discounts 4-part 7th chords, but it only appears that way if you only view triads from the surface and haven't dug into just how much potential they have within them.

If I had to, I could boil down the entirety of my way of thinking and the process I myself study and offer to others who are interested into two main priorities and goals. One is to learn to think harmonically more like a piano player. Meaning we have two hands... and we can play a basic 7th (or 6th) chord shell voicing in our left hand, and we can place some type of triad in our right. This isn't the ONLY way piano players play, but most piano players who can play will utilize this to some extent and have no issues with this idea. Again, this not only doesn't discount the 7th chord, it is specifically including it. But it's looking at it as only half the harmonic picture. And it's re-prioritizing our thinking away from only focusing on the left hand, to FIRST focusing on the right hand, and THEN supplementing from the left hand. Top-down thinking vs bottom-up thinking.

The other goal would be the intellectual understanding (and far more importantly) the sonic and experiential understanding and exploration of tension and resolution. Utilizing 4-part 7th chords and understanding 1-3-5-7 chord tones is all fantastic, and it's a part of utilizing triads as well. But for me, it's not the whole picture. Not even a little bit. Look at the unedited Bird riff that PMB posted for us. There's 21 notes in it and 5 chords... but there's only 1 single instance where Bird played a 7th of the chord. The & of 1 he plays a Bb over the C7 chord. And that's absolutely an option within triad thinking... it's just one of many options to choose from.

While chord tones and 1-3-5-7 resolution points are a huge part of jazz pedagogy, this riff alone should suggest that perhaps there's more to the story of the music than just that. And that's actually the goal of our study group and why we talk about triads. How do we transcend beyond 1-3-5-7 and improvise more freely if that's all that gets discussed in schools, private lessons, and online study?

There's several ways I know of and have played with, but for me, the most helpful is by getting away from thinking ONLY vertically and prioritizing the 1-3-5-7 and instead attempting to think horizontally, focusing on tension and resolution within lines, and organizing our resolution points with triads (hence melodic triads)... and then adding in tension notes around those to create melodic momentum and movement. The 7th of a chord isn't being ignored at all. We're simply giving ourselves the option of either including it in the melodic triad (which would give us the ability to treat it as a resolution point, a stable pillar in our melody) or to use it as a tension note against the stable triad notes.

It's too easy to fall into the trap of turning all of this into a theory debate which really serves little to no purpose... so let's try a playing experiment and listen to how the notes actually sound and behave and function. Let's assume for 2 minutes that it's all about tension and resolution and not worry about anything else. Let's look at the opening melody to Joy to the World. It's just a descending major scale.

If we listen to the way the melody phrases this "scale" we can see the tension/resolution I'm talking about on display. It's emphasizing the triad notes as resting points or structural pillars, and it's moving through the non triad notes of the scale as diatonic passing tones to get to the next triad note.

DO - ti - la - SOL - fa - MI - re - DO

First, just grab your guitar and play this. If you don't speak solfeggi just descend down a major scale but play it in the rhythm of the song and emphasize the tonic triad notes. It should sound and feel very natural and familiar. Yes?

Let's put this in the key of C major and harmonize this with the C triad for the stable resolution notes and then play the passing tension notes unharmonized. I'll voice out the chords and then put the tension notes between them inside parenthesis with the string name and fret number to notate it. And within the voicings, I'll put the basic triad in brackets so we can see it easily... doing this at the piano is ideal as on the guitar we sometimes have to sacrifice a note or two here and there... so sometimes the triad may only contain 2 of the 3 notes. But guitar works too... and this is a guitar forum... so...

Straight up C major sound.
XX10[988] - (E7) - (E5) - X3X[553] - (B6) - X3[555]X - (B3) - X3[201]X

Nothing modern or controversial about this, right?

All I'm talking about doing is taking it one more step forward by applying this same type of idea of triadic strength and stability (piano players right hand) over other chord types (piano players left hand)

How about an A-7? Not dorian or the nat 6... just a pure, natural minor.
X07[988] - (E7) - (E5) - X0X[553] - (B6) - 5X[555]X - (B3) - X0[201]X

Is this A aeolian? I don't know... kind of I suppose. But in general we think of A as the melodic root note of A aeolian. Yet it's still obvious in the ear of anyone who's playing this that C is still clearly governing the melody, right? We're playing within an A-7 sound, but C is the melodic tonic. This line still sounds fully resolved doesn't it? Doesn't the A note on the 5th fret of the E string sound completely natural being used as a tension note? I find that kind of odd when consider that every book and university and theory system tells us it's meant to be the most stable note we have over an A-7 chord. Yet it's functioning as a tension note to get us to the G. Which is the b7. Which is precisely why I disagree that we're ignoring or discarding 7th chords. On the contrary, I'm curious to explore the 7th chord and try to hear how tension and resolution can move through it.

Let's get a little more out there.
How about FMaj9? Not just a 7th chord, but a 7th chord with a 9th.
X87[988] - (E7) - (E5) - XX7[553] - (B6) - X8[555]X - (B3) - 1.0[201]X

Again, doesn't the C note make the line sound resolved? We've essentially stabilized and tonicized the 5th, the 7th, and the 9th. And now the F and the A notes (the R and 3rd of the chord) are functioning as tension notes.

What if we keep the C major triad notes the same, alter a couple of the tension notes, and put an AbMaj7 shell in the "piano player's left hand"?

AbMaj7#5
X11.10[988] - (B11) - (B9) - X11[10.9.8]X - (B6) - 4X[555]X - (B3) - 43[201]X


Let's try one more... because it's something I'm hearing in the Bird riff that I cut off but PMB provided.

Bb13(#11,9)
6X6[988] - (E6) - (E4) - 6X6[553] - (B6) - 6X6[55] - (G7) - 6X6[5]XX

[jordanklemons]

Continued...

Why do I call that a 13(#11,9) chord instead of a 7 chord? Because the melodic triad at work here is C major, which means our stable notes, the notes that are acting as pillars holding this tonality up within the melody are C, E, and G... the 9, #11, and 13. What that also means is that the 1, 3, 5, and b7 are acting as melodic tension notes that pass between the C triad notes. This isn't disregarding the 7th chord... it's simply giving it a more complete picture to function within, in my ear at least. If we attempted to improvise over this chord where we prioritized outlining it with the 1-3-5-b7 chord tones, and we wanted to create this particular tonality within the dominant7 chord family... we'd be attempting to outline the chord with the 4 melodic tension notes... which might not be the best way to define a sound.

The reason I brought up that specific tonality is that it's what I'm hearing over the Bb7 chord in Bird's unedited riff. I cut this part off to make it a shorter piece, but PMB gave us the full line. You may hear it differently, but I hear the F note as having a slightly delayed resolution down to the E note (due to the G in between them), and I hear the D note as wanting to resolve down to the C at the end. Try playing the last Joy to the World piece I wrote out, over the Bb7 chord, and then try playing the part of Bird's riff over the Bb7 and add the resolution from the D note down to the C note at the end. It's not there, but try adding it. You may or may not like it... I don't know. But I hear it, and I hear it because of my work with triads and tension and resolution... and that's not discounting the 7th chord. I just simply don't want all of my lines over all of the chords within all of my solos to be that homogenized as to be built around the 1-3-5-7 always... I want more variety. And it may be simply because I've spent a lot of time listening to this particular tonality (CMaj/Bb7), but what I'm hearing in this piece of Bird's riff. Again, no idea whether or not he thought about it this way... and honestly I don't see a reason to care one way or the other. I'm more interested in understanding what I'm hearing and finding a way to internalize it into my improv and comping.

I love that bit of the riff because my ear hears it as wanting the C natural resolution, but instead he lands on the C#... and he outlines a basic A major triad... again... with no 7th. We could either look at that as an A major triad with a basic enclosure... or if anyone's ever looked through my materials, you'll know that I enjoy using 2's and b2's in place of 7th sometimes... so you might see that as an A major triad with the b2 added for tension... and then a leading tone or enclosure. It's really all the same stuff though. Tension and resolution. And in this case, the resolution points are the A major triad notes. We could still add in the b7 as a tension note and use it to improvise with against the A major triad.

That's a lot. I'd definitely recommend that if you read all of this (thank you for that by the way) without having picked up your guitar and tried playing that listening exercise, that you take 3 minutes to go back and play it. The theory I explained is all garbage and nonsense alone compared to just hearing the simplicity of tension and resolution within a melody.

Nothing here discounts or disregards 7th chords. Nor does it deny the importance of being able to arpeggiate 1-3-5-7 chord tones. It's just about attempting to put things in the context of tension and resolution so we can craft melodies that play around within different tonalities and allow us more options for voice leading through changes. It's the same thing that our study of the Bird riff is about. We're trying to find the triad that his ear was naturally hearing and learn to take steps towards internalizing it within our own ears and fingers so we can hear a (potentially) new way of organizing tension and resolution within a basic cadence to give us more options for playing over changes.

Personally I don't think there's anything modern about this. I see a lot of these same things in music going all the way back to Bach. It can definitely help in breaking down some very modern jazz harmonies and sounds into more simple structures that we can use to play over those types of sounds, but in its essence, I see it as just a method of study of basic, traditional, triadic music.

[christianm77]

... it helped even less than listening to Whispering to understand Groovin' High although that helped a bit.

What? Whispering has the exact same changes of Groovin' High. Well GH adds in some ii-V's, but ii-V's just decoration.

[Jonah]

Jordan,

I checked your approach quite carefully actually...
I even did consequently went through a couple of blocks of lessons on your site exactly for the sake of understanding how you put it.

Your posts up there require a longer answer which I am not able to give immidiately but I will try to come back to it one of the next days (just for you to know I did not ignore it).

PS
To be honest I do not know why I get into these threads now... I should have stayed out of it. I have actually no time to seriously follow it and I do not have time to practically try things on guitar now ... as I am working over absolutely different musical tasks now.

[jordanklemons]

Jordan,

I checked your approach quite carefully actually...
I even did consequently went through a couple of blocks of lessons on your site exactly for the sake of understanding how you put it.

Your posts up there require a longer answer which I am not able to give immidiately but I will try to come back to it one of the next days (just for you to know I did not ignore it).

PS
To be honest I do not know why I get into these threads now... I should have stayed out of it. I have actually no time to seriously follow it and I do not have time to practically try things on guitar now ... as I am working over absolutely different musical tasks now.

All good Jonah. No need to reply or to try playing a few melodies to hear something if you're busy or not interested. I'm in the same boat of not THAT into debating theory. I primarily came to share some sounds and ideas for those interested and only gave that big long post as a response to your post which I may have misinterpreted as interest... I was trying to get us away from the theory and just into listening. And I also wanted to clear up that your feeling of the 7th chord being discarded or not present in my way of thinking wasn't actually the case.

Anyways...
It's still a neat sound experiment for anyone else who wants to try.

But no need to get back to me if you're into other things. Like I've been saying since the beginning of the thread, if someone's ear doesn't like the sound of something, there's really no need to get in and dig into the theory. For me the theory is always peripheral and secondary. Glad you're finding what works for you!
j

[christianm77]

I didn't read everything Jordan posted... but I would say it's not an either/or for me... Triads are everywhere in jazz.

Basics of modern jazz lines... take a look at the melody to Anthropology, Confirmation or Billie's Bounce - any of the common jam session bebop heads... Take a good look at them... Triads at least as frequent as seventh chords if not more so, and a lot of of 1 3 5 with passing tones. I know everyone talks about how Parker was into upper extensions, but he was also familiar with how to outline changes clearly with the obvious notes and the contrast he could make with those 9ths and so on.

In his improvisation workshops Barry Harris teaches straight triads as well as 7ths and bigger chords... It's all used. And I wouldn't exactly describe him as having a 'modern' outlook. I can't imagine anyone sitting down with the actual music of bebop and noticing this stuff.

And yet so many players overlook this basic resource in melody playing. So that's one thing I drill my students in. You can go up the ladder too - 1,3,5,7,9 and so on on every chord...

I think there's two things at play here:

The four chord colours - maj7, 7, min7 and min7b5... It's a simplification based on piano playing post-Bill Evans (according to Ethan Iverson) That's how so many of the textbooks start - as if harmony is just stacking up thirds. It's a useful construct for education but it doesn't necessarily reflect the actuality of the music. Sure jazz has extended chords in it, but that is not what makes it jazz.

And it covers only a specific style and era of jazz at that.

Also early on people cannot play jazz. I mean, they have no language, phrasing, swing. So, an easy way of getting some cool jazz sounds is to teach extended chords.

(I'm thinking of the sorts of online demos you get of guitars where a rock player goes, 'also the neck pickup is good for a jazz tone', and they always play Cmaj7 Dm7 Em7 Dm7, cos that's what jazz is to them :-))

So later on, you listen to Wynton Kelly, and lo and behold he is playing triads and other simple chords and they sound like jazz. It's not the only chords that jazz players play, but obviously Wynton didn't overlook them for not being jazz.

Or go the other way and listen to Bill Evans and trying to imagine him playing anything as banal as the basic seventh chord voicings in the book...

So the way I see it, don't overlook any fundamentals if you want to be a strong player. Triads make up so much else... And I agree with Jordan... You can take the harmony of Bach and swing it and you have a bop line....

Play the right sound for the right moment.

[jordanklemons]

(I'm thinking of the sorts of online demos you get of guitars where a rock player goes, 'also the neck pickup is good for a jazz tone'

Hahahaha... had me on the floor, Christian!!

Sorry for the long post. It's funny how much garbage we have to type and how much theory we have to break down to try and explain why we don't find the theory helpful and why it's easier to just play a sound and listen to it before we worry about the theory.

Totally agree... triads AND 7th chords. The melodic triad method I teach is literally meant to understand, hear, and implement the idea of a piano player playing a shell voicing in their left hand, a triad in the right hand, and then the fallout of what those two things together create. Be it a basic major or minor chord, a 7 chord, a 9 chord, a 7b13#9, a Maj7#11#9, or whatever else. It's the coming together of the two worlds and the study of the tension and resolution they allow for within the melody.

I should really add more lessons about the use of the neck pickup though.

[WillMbCdn5]

Perhaps a four part triad is simply a triad with one of the notes repeated an octave up - just a guess TBH - still sounds like a basic triad but with a little added complexity?

Will

[Binyomin]

What? Whispering has the exact same changes of Groovin' High. Well GH adds in some ii-V's, but ii-V's just decoration.

You're right, of course. Just for me, sometimes learning a melody that goes with a set of changes (after you have been exposed to the changes) tickles the ear and the brain in a certain satisfying way. How High the Moon, for me, is a kind of skeleton key to Ornithology. It makes me feel I really know what those changes are all about. The original melodies for certain changes are almost magic. Cherokee is like that. I had a copy of Bird's Savoy recordings before I got familiar with some of the tunes they were based on. I knew "I got rhythm" obviously, but not Indiana. I know it now. It is another one of those magic tunes. Sometimes I don't get what I need from a melody or melody-changes combination, and it could be a very good melody just to listen to. (I'm just talking about my own limitations.) I played though the changes to Out of Nowhere once and could not get them to sound right. Even if what I am playing has seemingly nothing to do with the original melody, somehow the original melody has to be there in some abstract way or what I'm playing doesn't satisfy my ear. Maybe it involves hitting those resolution points the thread is talking about.

[ragman1]

exactly what it says. I come over many tools of analyzing jazz music that are not directly related with 7th chords or even ignore them.

Can you show me an example of jazz without 7 chords?

[Jonah]

Perhaps a four part triad is simply a triad with one of the notes repeated an octave up - just a guess TBH - still sounds like a basic triad but with a little added complexity?

Will

Of course...
It's classical layout that has been there for centuries. (That's where 'the sting quartet' idea comes from.)

In classical functional tonality triad is always at least 4 parts (bass, tenor, alto and soprano). And inversions are always about bass voice only... (it's not all teh voices inverted)

This is very important because this is the only way how you can keep good classical voice-leading with triads...
You can omit some tones of the triad (and by the way not necessarily the doubled one) but you still think of it as 4-part harmony.

And 7th chords were orginially heavily altered 4th voice of a triad...
we chould not forget that today we often think of alteration as going half-step up/down... but originally it came from more like sliding the pitch higher or lower... it was exactly what it says 'alteration of original pitch) - not changing to a new pitch.

and later some of 7th chords developed into independent harmonic element (like dom chord, or minor 7th)


Sorry, Jorda, if I dive into off-top here.. but it seems an interesting too in concern of triads in general.

[Jonah]

Can you show me an example of jazz without 7 chords?

Sorry... I am not into that kind of 'telephone' discussion.
Read my quote you refer too and see if your question is really related to it

I say: "I come over many tools of analyzing jazz music that are not directly related with 7th chords or even ignore them."

You answer with a question: "Can you show me an example of jazz without 7 chords?"

Did you read the words 'tools', 'analyzing', 'not directly related''... or you just read 'I comer over many (...) jazz (...) that are not 7th chords' ... is it what you read in my post? At least it seems so from your answer.