Soloing on non functional changes using Stefon Harris/Jordan Klemons approach

[Christian Miller]

Semi coherent video

[pamosmusic]

Sounds reasonably coherent to me.

[James W]

Some nice sounds.

I started Jordan's online course the other day. I've not been greatly impressed so far but I haven't reached yet the real nitty gritty of it. There's a lot of waffle and preamble before that. But I will persist.

[pamosmusic]

Some nice sounds.

I started Jordan's online course the other day. I've not been greatly impressed so far but I haven't reached yet the real nitty gritty of it. There's a lot of waffle and preamble before that. But I will persist.

Haha…Amazing. That definitely sounds like Jordan to me. But worth persisting, methinks.

I’ve been going through it too, but I did skip around early early on. I’ve had some time to absorb the mindset stuff from talking to him. I started the improvisation stuff at square one though and am kind of sitting with that early stuff still. Super useful.

[wolflen]

hmm..I hear some Monk and On Green Dolphin St...

I used a lydian approach on #4 chords and for me it worked ,,giving the option to use the major scale as fill in color..the Alt chords open the melodic minor and its built in
augmented chords and its scales ..those nice minor third apart chords almost beg for some diminished flavors and its options

So my approach is hearing a fusion based harmonic structure..those nice "add" chords can have a Steely Dan flavor (MU chord)

I do like your approach to the tune

[James W]

Haha…Amazing. That definitely sounds like Jordan to me. But worth persisting, methinks.

I’ve been going through it too, but I did skip around early early on. I’ve had some time to absorb the mindset stuff from talking to him. I started the improvisation stuff at square one though and am kind of sitting with that early stuff still. Super useful.

That’s good to hear. Yeah all that mindset stuff is a bit superfluous IMO, might have to skip it then come back...

[Christian Miller]

hmm..I hear some Monk and On Green Dolphin St...

I used a lydian approach on #4 chords and for me it worked ,,giving the option to use the major scale as fill in color..the Alt chords open the melodic minor and its built in
augmented chords and its scales ..those nice minor third apart chords almost beg for some diminished flavors and its options

So my approach is hearing a fusion based harmonic structure..those nice "add" chords can have a Steely Dan flavor (MU chord)

I do like your approach to the tune

you could definitely build those out from the triads

That later section is very similar to GDS for sure!

At some point I’ll check out what Kurt does.

[jordanklemons]

Semi coherent video

Yoooooooo! KILLER breakdown of the system!
And FIRE playing!!

Haven't analyzed too many of Kurt's tunes with this approach. I had to actively distance myself from his playing at a certain point. But I def HAVE seen some melodic triads and quadratonics concepts peppered through the few tunes I've looked at since meeting Stefon. And regardless... they ARE a great entryway into keeping up with his changes. Way less to think about. Never falls into the trap of just sounding like chasing after scales or stuck running 1-3-5-7 chord tones on his changes... which I've found rarely sound very authentic to his music.

Great video!

[Christian Miller]

Yoooooooo! KILLER breakdown of the system!
And FIRE playing!!

Haven't analyzed too many of Kurt's tunes with this approach. I had to actively distance myself from his playing at a certain point. But I def HAVE seen some melodic triads and quadratonics concepts peppered through the few tunes I've looked at since meeting Stefon. And regardless... they ARE a great entryway into keeping up with his changes. Way less to think about. Never falls into the trap of just sounding like chasing after scales or stuck running 1-3-5-7 chord tones on his changes... which I've found rarely sound very authentic to his music.

Great video!

Thanks so much Jordan - your exposition of Stefon's ideas have been a big influence on my learning over the past few years.

I know what you mean about Kurt - he's such a huge figure it's very hard to escape his influence esp. for people of our sort of vintage haha.

I like the slightly unusual melodic contour these quadratics give. Just the ones with the added 2nd for example - they are everywhere in jazz, but you also see them in classical music. There's something about having a mix of steps and leaps that make ideas sound that sound way more interesting with just four notes.