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Been digging the Non Functional thread which had me listening again to the great Herbie, McCoy, Shorter era with renewed interest.
So I'd like to ask the Forum for their fave post functional progressions and tunes -
What are they, and what pitch collections do you like using over each part?
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06-02-2020 10:14 AM
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good call Prince , first you need a 42page dissertation on what Non Functional is,
Jokes aside a friend of mine has the European Real Book, basically a book of modern Euro Jazz compositions, i see the Australians and S. Africans have theirs as well.
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Originally Posted by marvinvv
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Originally Posted by princeplanet
Yes quite aware of what you meant. my father started the NF thread, was only mentioning , Euro, Aussies and SA have their own tunes/charts, relatively new last 40 years or so.
As Prince you asked; So I'd like to ask the Forum for their fave post functional progressions and tunes -
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Originally Posted by marvinvv
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Originally Posted by princeplanet
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Would Eric Dolphy's 'Hat and Beard' count? Or Grachan Moncur's 'Frankenstein'? Both are all-time favourites of mine, lifelong earworms, routinely popping into my head. But maybe they are 'functional', just a bit more whole-toney and discordant than most.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
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Originally Posted by princeplanet
Any tune by Kenny Wheeler...
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I've been working on this one.
I don't actually think it's 'non-functional' at all, but it it is not GASB harmony (or is it?). The relationship between the melody and the chords is really important here:
There's a few subtle but really nice touches here form a compositional standpoint.
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Yes, I can see how that chord progression is meaningless without the melody. I think I was expecting people to name their fave post bop tunes / progressions as vehicles for post functional improvisation.
Stuff like this (although some of these sound a bit Functional):
Post-Bop on Spotify
...
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Here I go again...
Those progressions move
down in 1/2 steps
up in 1/2 steps
down in whole steps
up in whole steps
down in 3rds (Maiden Voyage
up in 3rds (Maiden Voyage)
ETC...
It can be referenced to E.D.O. equal divisions of the ovtave... But it's really about the freedom to go anywhere; flow of consciousness process.
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Maiden Voyage (Hancock)
Dolphin Dance
Time Remembered, Bill Evans (no Dominant 7th chords present)
Fall (Shorter)
Beatrice
Prince of Darkness (Hancock)
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So things about Kind Folk
The melody & bass figure
- the melody and bassline are highly motivic and reflect each other (literally for the first phrase in that the melody interval is an inversion of the bass). Much of the melodic material is built around the interval of a 5th, and its version the 4th, with a rhythmic figure of an eight note followed by a longer tone.
- This is a clear indication that Kenny was what I like to call a 'proper composer.' ;-) It gives the piece unity, focus and identity.
- The bass line obviously outlines the roots and fifths while the melody notes focus on the 3rd, 7ths and upper extensions of the chords.
- Similar to standards, the melody is more diatonic than the harmony. It centres around G lydian/ionian for 12 bars, then A lydian for 4 (the transcriber writes the melody out with flats for some reason - might have been thinking about the Bb part), then Bb lydian/ionian for 12 and C lydian for 4. Fairly straightforward.
- Heavy pentatonic influence.
- So the first phrase references D pentatonic on G lydian. Wayne also likes this type of thing. Later, E on A lyd, F on Bb lyd and G on C lyd.
- The melody is very songlike as a result. All the melodic intervals are very consonant and singable, even though some of the notes are rather more 'jazz' than we might expect from a folk tune, say, due to their relationship to the chords.
Modernised dixieland
- Harmony is not really non functional
- the Fmaj7#11 F#m7b5 Cmaj7/G progression is actually very trad. It's basically a version of F D/F# C/G which is actually a progression you get in Dylan tunes.
- This is related to F F#o7 C/G of course which is a classic Dixieland progression. AFAIK Kenny started playing Dixieland music back in the 50s.
- The thing that gives it it's upper extensions is that melodic ostinato
- The relationship to the central key of G is less usual. Obviously this can be understood as a temporary modulation to C. I really think it's the melody that pulls it together here.
- Everyone seems to have a thing against writing F#m11b5 when they'll happily write F#maj7#11 a bar earlier with the same melody... never been sure why, but I never see this chord symbol. It's a very common chord/melody relationship, a half dim with an 11th in the melody. Think of the first chord of Beautiful Love for instance.
Tonic oscillations.
- We then have a fairly conventional V-I into the new key - Db (C#) minor, then to A major.
- So, we have quite a lot of what I think of as oscillations - Mahjong (Shorter) does this as well. In this, we oscillate between two diatonic/modal chords that share the same functionality. G/Bm, C#m/A and , I and iii. Modality in each of these case is Lydian. So we could say - IV and vi, but it doesn't feel like that.
- Then diatonically down the scale to what might be the tonic - E
Structural Tritone sub
- Then - surprise - we modulate up a tritone. This is pretty cool. We go from F#m11 to Bbmaj7 instead of the expected Emaj7... Peace (Horace Silver) does this but - big difference is, Peace has a ii-V.
Relaxed or 'softened' cadential motion
- So here's the thing - I have a theory about the softening of the dominant in contemporary music. The removal of the leading note/3rd of the dominant leads towards a more floating harmony style. You can hear this in Gospel. Motown and the Baby Boomer V7sus4 chords of Carole King and James Taylor, but also as far back as Lester Young.
- So in rintin's formulation that's chords moving up and down a tone. It's like a relaxed version of cycle of fourths.
- So, the next section is similar to the first progression but in Bb rather than G... but there's a slight tweak he makes
Isocycle/harmonic phasing
- So there's a lovely isocycle - I know Kenny was a big fan of early music and I wonder if he got this idea from Ars Nova composers, but we run a 3 bar harmonic sequence - Bbmaj7 Am7 Dm7 against a 4 bar melody, and it goes out of phase in an interesting way. Does anyone know if there are other jazz composers who do that? It's pretty cool.
Last edited by christianm77; 06-08-2020 at 06:18 PM.
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I might do Icarus next actually. Always liked that one.
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Kenny Wheeler! Should there not be a thread?
i played “3/4 in the afternoon” and did an amateuristic take on Unti and Celeste (played by Kenny Wheeler, but a beautiful Ralph Towner tune). I dig the groovy basslines against the slow moving melodies.
but I just love the music, the harmony...
UNTIJG4KW101(3) by Jazz Stylezz | Free Listening on SoundCloud
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