The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #226
    joelf Guest
    Tom Harrell, in his very prolific catalog, has the knack of using unusual (read: unexpected, and they work) or non-resolutions in his pieces. Like in these 2:





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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #227
    joelf Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Haha, too true.

    Schoenberg himself was regarded as a bit old fashioned by the time the hardcore modernists (Boulez et al) turned up.. He was still writing Sonatas FFS.

    i honestly don’t think the early modernists - Schoenberg, Bartok of course Stravinsky were anything like as dogmatic as the hangers on and followers.... mind you Boulez has his moments. Holy shit:

    'Newness' always attracts cults. Followers range from the brilliant to the sycophantic. It can be as much a cul de sac as going retro.

    Artists truly secure in their voices and visions aren't afraid to cull from the best materials of any kind. You can make interesting paintings with more paint available. And the beauty is you don't have to use them all in any one painting...

  4. #228
    joelf Guest
    Please allow me to digress---and reminisce:

    In the late '80s, my 2 main instructors at City College (of The Mango) were the late Ed Summerlin and Ron Carter. I was uncomfortable as hell around and feared both---until I grew up some years later, and realized they were on my side, and tough b/c they felt they had to be. I learned a lot from both, Ron especially.

    Ed was a stone advocate of 'progressive' writing, and very opinionated*. I did my first big band charts under his tutelage, also Dick Lieb's, and they were conducted by the late Bob Norden. Ed would tell us to compose by 'making up an artificial scale'. I scoffed then (see above, re growing up), thinking 'if I don't hear a thing...'. Now I'm ready for it, b/c I think I may be at a dead end of what I can do with the harmony I know---or, rather, would like to expand the palette. And Ed was an interesting writer, one of the 1st jazz composers to write a liturgy for the Methodist Church, and a contributor to an early Freddie Hubbard recording (Hub Cap?).

    I have a friend, Glenn Mills, a wonderful composer. He knows much more than I do about form and orchestration, so I still study with him. (James Chirillo is also a terrific writer/orchestrater---and one of my oldest friends). Glenn wrote this terrific piece for the BMI composers' workshop: Broad Daylight. It uses 2 cells: FG Bb Eb; A Bb G# A. If I get his permission, I'll post the recording and score.

    * If you think we're bad, talkin' schnizzle about each other, hang out with writers sometime. Speaking of Ed, I later went to study with John Carisi (who imeediately fell into a coma---draw your own conclusions...); earlier Manny Albam and my true mentor of all these, the great Bill Finegan (Chirillo was also a student of Bill's). So I brought up Ed to Carisi. He made a disgusted face. His exact words: 'He's a fraud, a politician. (the last thing thorny, outspoken Ed was was a 'politician'!). They asked me for an opinion when he was up for the CCNY job (head of the Jazz Program), and I copped out...'. I kept my mouth shut. And Bill (whom I adore) on Manny (to me one of the great writers---it all sang and swung): 'I could talk about Manny for hours. (Pregnant pause) Dispassionately'.

    But I digress from my digression. And now it's time to get back to the piano and my own writing...

  5. #229

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    I'd love to hear the Mills piece.

    Apparently Reiner Baas is all synthetic scales as well... He certainly has a sound.

    TBH the thing that I find most interesting about composers is the way they deal with form and texture... Anna Meredith in particular I've been listening to, and she uses some familiar rock and pop resources, but the way she puts them together is quite unlike something a jazz or rock musician would think of doing, I think. The harmony side of it seems to retreated in importance, and a lot of it is based around simple pop-style chords, with some subversions.

    For instance this one has a very 'indie' texture - you can hear borrowings from Nirvana even:



    A composer being someone who organises material, rather than coming up with it necessarily, or writing in a 'style' - that's pretty meta. Meredith obviously likes rock guitars, EDM style beats and swirly post minimalist textures, but her sense of form takes her out of the sub-Reich rut.

    Musical narrative is important to me, I think

  6. #230

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    My completed rendition of Iris. Thanks for the recommendation rpjazzguitar.

    I found this very difficult. I chose to record it on acoustic archtop because I though that would be a more interesting way to do it, but the floating nature of the chords highlights every imperfection.


  7. #231

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    Correction, I heard sus b9 and assumed it was Db, but upon closer listening, I realized it's an Ab7sus b9 over Db bass (V of Db pedal point)

    : Hancock plays for the so called "Db- b6" :
    A Db Eb Ab over Db
    Last edited by rintincop; 05-22-2020 at 08:06 PM.

  8. #232

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    Why not phrygian dominant?

  9. #233

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    Quote Originally Posted by rintincop
    Hancock plays that so called "Db- b6" as a Db7sus b9 (2nd mode of B melodic minor). It's like Right hand plays Ab Db D Gb over Db bass note (basically changing the flavor of the previous Db7 +4). Levine covers that voicing in his odd Chpt 3 on "Sus and Phrygian" voicings
    That doesn't sound quite right to me. Listening to the first time Hancock plays that chord in 'Iris' (about 34 secs), it sounds more like Ab, A natural, Db (all over a Db bass). You could play something very similar to it on the guitar as: x 4 6 2 2 x. Can't hear a D in it, that would sound quite unpleasant and would clash with the melody.

    It's a typical Hancock sound, like a sort of Gb min (with a second i.e. Ab) over a Db bass. Similar to the bit near the end of Dolphin Dance where he plays Am7 over E bass (right after a Bm7 over E, it's a very similar sounding move).

    Another way to look at it is Amaj7 over Db (apparently Shorter's original lead sheet showed this chord as Amaj9).

  10. #234

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    Ooops, I listened again more closely, Hancock plays

    RH spelled from the bottom up: A Db Eb Ab over Db bass. It's almost Db- b6 but there is no Fb, so it doesn't sound like Db- b6.
    It sounds like V of Db7#11 (Ab7sus b9/Db)
    Last edited by rintincop; 05-22-2020 at 07:52 PM.

  11. #235

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    So, it's like Ab7sus b9 (2nd mode of Gb melodic minor) over a Db pedal point in the bass (so we get V7sus b9 of Db7#11 which = Ab-Maj7/Db)

    Parallel melodic minor modes, a whole step apart, all over Db pedal point, one of Herbie's favorite parallel pairs of melodic minor scales.

    ||: Db7#11 ( Ab melodic minor/Db) | Gb melodic minor /Db :|| makes for a typical Herbie style vamp on the intro and outro episodes on various tunes.

    Herbie will sometimes take it further with the parallel descending melodic minor tonalities over a pedal point.

    Here's an example of Herbie shifting down thru melodic minor keys over a static pedal point:

    Ab-Maj7/Db | Gb-Maj7/Db | E-Maj7/Db | D-Maj7/Db | B-Maj7/Db | Db7sus |

    Iris can all be derived from modes of major and modes of melodic minor. Just like Mark Levine would state and what he's good at analyzing.
    Last edited by rintincop; 05-22-2020 at 08:45 PM.

  12. #236

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    Quote Originally Posted by rintincop
    Ooops, I listened again more closely, Hancock plays

    RH spelled from the bottom up: A Db Eb Ab over Db bass. It's almost Db- b6 but there is no Fb, so it doesn't sound like Db- b6.
    It sounds like V of Db7#11 (Ab7sus b9/Db)
    i has trouble hearing that chord tbh. I ended up going with the chart because it sounded close. Its good to get another pair of ears on it, the best way to learn by listening. Hancock isn’t someone I’ve transcribed a lot of...

  13. #237

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    Quote Originally Posted by rintincop
    So, it's like Ab7sus b9 (2nd mode of Gb melodic minor) over a Db pedal point in the bass (so we get V7sus b9 of Db7#11 which = Ab-Maj7/Db)

    Parallel melodic minor modes, a whole step apart, all over Db pedal point, one of Herbie's favorite parallel pairs of melodic minor scales.

    ||: Db7#11 ( Ab melodic minor/Db) | Gb melodic minor /Db :|| makes for a typical Herbie style vamp on the intro and outro episodes on various tunes.

    Herbie will sometimes take it further with the parallel descending melodic minor tonalities over a pedal point.

    Here's an example of Herbie shifting down thru melodic minor keys over a static pedal point:

    Ab-Maj7/Db | Gb-Maj7/Db | E-Maj7/Db | D-Maj7/Db | B-Maj7/Db | Db7sus |

    Iris can all be derived from modes of major and modes of melodic minor. Just like Mark Levine would state and what he's good at analyzing.
    I wonder if that not just the way we hear it.

    Melodic minor modes are kind of obvious stuff, the magic is in getting things more specific.

    And often modes distort the sounds a little. Put a b5 here, add in a b7 there, but it might not be the sound. You might just hear it that way because it’s the framework you know.

    If you want to put a 6 on a 7sus4b9 do it. Maybe a b6? Maybe nothing?

    And the melody with the bass seems to be the backbone of the composition. I’d like to see Wayne’s chart to know how much Herbie was interpreting with his own musical language. I reckon McCoy would have played it a little different for instance. And i think most jazz manuals take Herbie’s approach as standard.

    In my version I chose to go more with diminished scale type voicings over the Bb7b9 into Db7#11. It’s not what Herbie plays there but it seemed that way the melody was constructed. McCoy might have used diminished there perhaps. Or Peter Bernstein perhaps.

  14. #238

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    Herbie and Wayne worked closely together harmonically. Herbie loves the sound of melodic minor harmony and so does Wayne. Herbie uses characteristic melodic minor voicings, again and again, that pop up all over his work and Wayne's work. He's not thinking so much about specific chord tones, he's thinking pools of notes (melodic minors, major scale, diminished scale and whole tone, and of course some blues) for harmonic "episodes" as he calls them. I'm pretty sure he influenced Wayne to a great degree being the chord player and Wayne being the melody man.

  15. #239

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    Wayne’s original changes were:

    / Fm9 / Emaj7 Gbmaj7 / Emaj7 Db7 / Cmaj9
    / Cmaj9 / Cmin9 / Dbmaj7 Cmin9 / Db7b5 Amaj9
    / G+9 C9b5 / /

    according to the book I mentioned before, this is from the deposited lead sheet at Library of Congress. (The tune started out as a 10-bar theme in 4:4).

  16. #240

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    Re "Db- b6" hard to hear Herbie played AMaj/C#


    Dbm b6 really a pianistic chord. there is a difference in min b6 and min#5 sometimes (rarely) the min#5 is indicated with b7)


    Dbminb6 has 5th Ab enharmonics blur a bit Ab/G# Maj7 for A


    In essence AMaj7 the AMaj9 is just decoration.

  17. #241

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    Certaiinly I think of that chord as an inversion.

    I think there are inversion people and people who think of every chord as built as a mode from the bass, so there are no inversions.

    So Barry Harris might say - play the scale from the 3rd of G7

    But Adam Rogers would say - the B locrian mode

    (Would Mark Levine say - C ionian scale from the 7th rintin, or use Locrian?)

    It's just a different way of describing the exact same thing and that makes learning the ropes seem much more complicated then it actually is until you realise this.

    I think jazz teaching has moved towards the latter 'there are no inversions, everything's a mode' framing...

  18. #242

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    Quote Originally Posted by grahambop
    Wayne’s original changes were:

    / Fm9 / Emaj7 Gbmaj7 / Emaj7 Db7 / Cmaj9
    / Cmaj9 / Cmin9 / Dbmaj7 Cmin9 / Db7b5 Amaj9
    / G+9 C9b5 / /

    according to the book I mentioned before, this is from the deposited lead sheet at Library of Congress. (The tune started out as a 10-bar theme in 4:4).
    Wow...

    C maj 9! That got rewritten to C/Ab or Abmaj7#5...

    Also, no Bb7b9 chord instead we have Emaj7... Maybe because the same motif (#4-2-3-#4) was used on Db7, makes the construction of the tune a little less transparent. Also - minor third relation.

    The melody tells us this where the chords disguise it...

    But also - disguised tonality - Db7 to C rather obvious....

    Melody suggests Db7#11 not Db7b5... shows how non standard chord symbols were back then.

  19. #243

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    Quote Originally Posted by rintincop
    Herbie and Wayne worked closely together harmonically. Herbie loves the sound of melodic minor harmony and so does Wayne. Herbie uses characteristic melodic minor voicings, again and again, that pop up all over his work and Wayne's work. He's not thinking so much about specific chord tones, he's thinking pools of notes (melodic minors, major scale, diminished scale and whole tone, and of course some blues) for harmonic "episodes" as he calls them. I'm pretty sure he influenced Wayne to a great degree being the chord player and Wayne being the melody man.
    I'm hearing it from Herbie, I don't hear it so much from Wayne. Wayne isn't expressing harmony in the same way on a lot of his solos. He plays a lot fewer notes for one. And Wayne is like Mr Pentatonic as well.,. I haven't studied Wayne on this song (no time) but it seems form solos on other tunes that he's not well behaved in the way Herbie is.

    I find that interesting. The Herbie approach is more familiar to me. I hear it imitated a lot... it's like Seinfeld. Pianists playing lots of notes... OK. I hear lots of guitar players who are very accomplished in that approach as well.

    One thing that strikes me as effective about those Miles and Wayne recordings is that not everyone has the same approach. Diversity is good. Herbie is valued because he has his own voice and approach. Somehow that's become the voice and the approach. I have a problem with anyone telling me there's one right way to do things.

    Jazz education has kind of selected a canon of players that fit into their theory - Herbie is one, for instance. Pitch choices. Easy to evaluate. Miles, less so. With down his notes and you'd fail theory 101.

    Also from an ears/theory basis I think characteristic melodic minor voicings are often not as characteristic as they are cracked up to be. That's why I like Jordan/Stephon Harris's approach. It's a lot more specific. Look at the melodic triad, not a whole scale. It's great for this type of thing... You get all the sounds, but they are much more controlled and refined.

    For instance - b5 in the Bb7#9b13 chord?

    The closest thing to characteristic melodic minor voicing for me might be a major triad with an add b6 used in various US positions - tone below a m7b5, tone above a dom 7th, and so on... It's good because it avoids internal tritones which is tough with the melodic minor scale. But that's not even melodic minor, not really ...

    Why 7 notes? Why not 8? Or 6? Or 9?

    Is one dorian voicing fungible for another? (Of course not.)

  20. #244
    joelf Guest
    I'm not a huge fan of Wayne's playing TBH. Or, I should amend that to not always. His writing, hell yeah. I found it kind of meandering in that Plugged Nickel period. Just sort of discursive, and never taking you home. And I found his soprano sound personal, but kind of bleating. Dug the earlier and contemporaneous Blue Notes very much, and whenever else he played---not more 'in', but with a certain artistic self-editing.

    I know he's a great player and probable genius, and it was really astonishing to hear him play over his challenging tunes on High Life and Atlantis----just like walking in the park. And I saw and heard him do it live with a string orchestra, and it kind of blew my mind. And someone played me a recording of Just in Time that was great in every way.

    What I mean: I dig very much the looseness of it---he and the late C. Sharpe are the two most flowing players I've heard, maybe. But as a total improviser, I prefer a little more focus, and a smooth wrap-up.

    Through it all I remain a fan and admirer, who would like to figure out his strategies...

  21. #245

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    Dunno a light bulb went on in many head when I heard his 60s stuff after not listening to that stuff for AGES (just his more recent stuff.) he’s not - that thing I thought he was at that point. He’s always been that puckish musical spirit...

    Post Trane virtuoso sax player? Well Yes and No... he’s just odd, droll. Is he serious? Plays like he talks. so then I heard that he’s always been that player...

    Harmonically, yeah not really what I though he was. Paraphrases the melody a LOT. In a weird way it sounds to me like the harmony is coincidental. He’s not playing the changes in the way that you might if you had the changes and played on each chord. He’s sitting at the centre of it?

    Hard to explain. And then Herbie comes along and plays the chords. Is OK. It’s his job.

  22. #246
    joelf Guest
    ...And after all that I went on a listening jag. Re-copped Night Dreamer off the recording and jammed along. That's one of his (superficially) easiest and most rooted in blues pieces.

    Yeah, gotta play that one more. Wayne, moi, my acoustic---and thou(s)...

  23. #247
    joelf Guest
    Pres didn't 'play the changes' either. Wore it like a badge---and I hear didn't do too bad with it...

  24. #248

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    Quote Originally Posted by rintincop
    Herbie and Wayne worked closely together harmonically. Herbie loves the sound of melodic minor harmony and so does Wayne. Herbie uses characteristic melodic minor voicings, again and again, that pop up all over his work and Wayne's work. He's not thinking so much about specific chord tones, he's thinking pools of notes (melodic minors, major scale, diminished scale and whole tone, and of course some blues) for harmonic "episodes" as he calls them. I'm pretty sure he influenced Wayne to a great degree being the chord player and Wayne being the melody man.
    There was a series of Herbie's masterclass lecture in Japanese jazz magazine, and on Nefertiti he said all the changes he'd seen were wrong and showed the one Wayne wrote and specified the voicing of each chord. So, I don't believe it was Herbie's influence, rather the opposite.

  25. #249

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    Wayne says his pieces are always evolving and changing. The recordings show this over the years. His tunes are not set in stone.

  26. #250

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    Pianists refer to the characteristic melodic minor voicing as b3 5 7 9, (or it’s common inversion 7, 9, b3, 5 ) a rootless voicing. It is applicable and interchangeable to all 7 modes of the parent melodic minor scale. Hancock moves that particular melodic minor voicing almost as freely in and out as McCoy Tyner moves his 4th voicing in and out of key on Passion Dance.