The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #51

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    Personally, I like Andy Jaffe's book, Jazz Harmony for a thorough accounting of a key centered approach to Jazz theory. It's more along the lines of traditional harmonic analysis as opposed to chord scale stuff which looks at each chord in isolation.

    In his approach he considers all secondary dominants as being part of the same tonal center, which is why I think your approach is fine. A tonal center isn't a scale per se, but really whether or not one has modulated to a new key.

    So for instance, I would consider the blues to be in a single tonal center.

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  3. #52

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    I remember liking Jaffe. I should take another look, good to be able to recommend books.

    Probably had more influence on me than I remember. In addition to blues, most A sections of tunes are in one key.

    You usually have the option to ignore secondary dominants as well as a soloist. A modern jazz musician, might analyse these things as #9 chords, of course... But I've always been a fan of Occam's razor.

    This is very much more supported in the recorded music c1920-1960 than anything in the chord/scale books. A lot of players; Lester Young, Art Pepper, Miles Davis, Stan Getz, Chet Baker - had a key centric approach to improvisation that focussed on melody...

    Again, putting one's finger on what exactly a key/tonality is more slippery than you'd think. the solar system analogy is quite nice - in this understanding, passing chords like secondary dominants are like rocket ships flying backwards and forwards between different planets like I, IV, V, ii etc.

  4. #53

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    This is very much more supported in the recorded music c1920-1960 than anything in the chord/scale books. A lot of players; Lester Young, Art Pepper, Miles Davis, Stan Getz, Chet Baker - had a key centric approach to improvisation that focussed on melody...
    Yeah, totally agree. I haven't done a deep analysis via transcription but to my ears Chet Baker and Lester Young among others basically create melodies primarily from the vanilla notes of the key center. Seems like a great place to start in one's journey to improvise.

  5. #54
    Quote Originally Posted by charlieparker
    Chet Baker and Lester Young among others basically create melodies primarily from the vanilla notes of the key center. Seems like a great place to start in one's journey to improvise.
    I love Chet Bakers lines! I transcribed a couple choruses of autumn leaves... I need to check out Lester Young for sure! Thanks for that. Also thanks for the book recommendation! The whole reason for this thread was to look for other people who are thinking this way and this really helps. Thanks for you help Mr. Parker and Christian :-)

  6. #55

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    basically create melodies primarily from the vanilla notes of the key center
    Which is like saying Shakespeare created dialogue from the letters of the alphabet. It's not as simple as that.

    Soloing is not easy. We all use the notes because that's all there is but the moment you limit your playing to a particular system then you're stuck in that system. You'll only get results as determined by that system.

    We want to be safe and we want something simple so we don't get confused. Its the way we work mentally and it's understandable. But when we settle on only one way of doing it then all we're doing is running in a groove.

    Of course we can make solos from the notes in a key centre. If we didn't it wouldn't sound any good, it would be all over the place and stop being musical. But you shouldn't be limited by only doing that.

    The moment you think you've found the perfect system, you haven't.