Jim Hall on Stella

[pamosmusic]

I've been teaching a workshop at a school where I work and once a month I do a class on line-building or dissecting a cool line from a transcription. This month is a lick from Jim Hall's solo on Stella By Starlight. I thought it might be of interest here.

Over the last two months, we've been working on how to break lines apart to understand them a little better and work them into your own lines. But for this one, I wanted to focus on enclosures in particular. It's a great lick.


Dropbox - jim hall stella c.pdf - Simplify your life

[James W]

Thanks for this. I like the systematic way of thinking.

[Reg]

hey Peter... cool

But is that what you hear or would label in an analysis...

Personally and I'm no one... but isn't the pickup note "Db" really an approach chord, probable Bb-7.
And the C and E are A-7 ....going to B and G# from D7#11.

I understand melodic labeling is an approach... But it really can miss a lot musically... Without Harmonic reference...

[pamosmusic]

hey Peter... cool

But is that what you hear or would label in an analysis...

Personally and I'm no one... but isn't the pickup note "Db" really an approach chord, probable Bb-7.
And the C and E are A-7 ....going to B and G# from D7#11.

I understand melodic labeling is an approach... But it really can miss a lot musically... Without Harmonic reference...

Yeah I definitely don't hear things that way.

Maybe that Db is an exception because that's a pretty unusual choice there.

But generally I don't think chromaticism is at odds with the underlying harmony. By which I mean that G# doesn't need to imply a chord that fits it better ... I'm fine just hearing it as a melodic device over the big Am. Generally the chromaticism sounds the way it does to me because of its melodic strength, rather than its harmonic relationship to an implied chord. I would probably honestly argue that thinking of chromatic embellishments as tied to implied harmony would miss a lot ... maybe more. There are loads of melodic structures that you'd really have to bend over backwards to hear as implied harmony.

I've been transcribing Oscar Peterson lately and he likes this double time lick where he plays a leading tone half-step before every note in a triad on the way up ... so A - Bb, C# - D, E - F, all in the space of a beat and a half. And I have a hard time believing that OP was thinking about approach chords alternating every quarter-beat.

I guess some are easier, but if you take the B-G#-A as an example, it works equally well when it's moved across the triad. D-B-C, or more to the point F-D#-E. They both work well and the latter in particular is hard to pin a chord to ... I don't know ... Bbm or something maybe.

But the operative thing is when you move the enclosure rhythmically, it doesn't work as well. It's important to me because of what it does rhythmically and the way it adds movement and unpredictability to the line. Not to mention just that thinking of fewer chords with more melodic possibilities (side-slipping, leading tones, enclosures, etc) tends to free people up and is easier to assimilate into a person's playing than thinking of everything as being inside a much more harmonically active progression.

[Reg]

thanks Peter....

We live in different worlds... LOL.

[Jimmy Smith]

Analysis looks correct to me. Common bop tools for line building. Arp, enclosure, scale.

[pamosmusic]

thanks Peter....

We live in different worlds... LOL.

Same world, different ears.

[Christian Miller]

G# = a lower neighbour tone


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Christian Miller]

It’s an interesting one though. Jazz musicians do often hear stressed non chord tones (accented passing tones) as harmonies in their own right.

A relevant example would be Chelsea Bridge, where the accented passing major seventh in between b7 and root takes on its own harmonic life.

If I had to put my finger on it that’s what jazz harmony is. We would then hear G# as consonant and A as dissonant while we explore the D7#11 sound. That kind of feels right for Strayhorn.

But it would need to stick around a bit longer than in the example for my ears tho.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Christian Miller]

Another example might be the original Mancini version of Days of wine and Roses

We would write it

Fmaj7 Am7b5/Eb D9#11 D7

So that’s chromatic voice movement (G-G#-A). But then something about just naming the chord sort of suggests a possible exploration of it.

Chord symbols represent frozen moments of harmony and only imply movement (the experienced big band guitarist learns to see the movement in a sea of over specified chords.) But I think it’s mutated music in an interesting way. The passing chords acquire a legitimacy.

You see it a lot in music history, most famously the augmented sixth chord which is arguably where we originally start to get the 7#11 sound anyway…

OTOH notation affect the way musicians see and hear things. Wayne wrote subtly different chord symbols to the Real Book charts of his tunes and you can hear it in the way those tunes are played on record even where the chords specify the same pitch classes. Standardised chord notation often leads to more standardised choices. I would interpret often a 7b5 differently to a 7#11 if sight reading a tune. I would say modern players tend to be more uniform in their harmonic choices than post bop players, at least from my listening.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[pamosmusic]

Another example might be the original Mancini version of Days of wine and Roses

We would write it

Fmaj7 Am7b5/Eb D9#11 D7

So that’s chromatic voice movement (G-G#-A). But then something about just naming the chord sort of suggests a possible exploration of it.

Chord symbols represent frozen moments of harmony and only imply movement (the experienced big band guitarist learns to see the movement in a sea of over specified chords.) But I think it’s mutated music in an interesting way. The passing chords acquire a legitimacy.

You see it a lot in music history, most famously the augmented sixth chord which is arguably where we originally start to get the 7#11 sound anyway…


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sure … this being something in the vein of movements rather than changes I guess.

Definitely important to free yourself up from the written changes and think about the direction of stuff.

I guess i think about that stuff and then apply the same melodic devices to that stuff. Like if I wanted to play two beats of that hypothetical Bbm chord reg mentions, I would still be open to the same device there … C A Bb down to F.

So there’s a certain point where I guess I’m just like …. How many chords do I need to imply?

Vardan Ovsepian has some really interesting stuff on sort of chaining together enclosures and chromatic melodic devices over much longer passages to get some really cool stuff that defies easy categorization, even though it still lands on its feet. Super cool stuff.

[Reg]

yea...it can become more relevant when you start hearing longer sections of space and start using more organizational tools for creating musical relationships.

Example could be next time your playing in the same location of a tune.... where or how you expand the original relationship and develop it.

Typically just as one embellishments.... or creates a relationship with a Target or Reference, you use harmonic and rhythmic tools as well as melodic.

This helps make or creates what many call the Feel, pocket etc.. The good stuff LOL.

But sure different ears. In actual real time stuff.... I know and can hear how many different players play.... I work in lots of rhythmic section. They all have styles... so do I. But I can hear the differences and will adjust how I play to make the music better. Obviously also soloist.

What's get awkward is when players mix and match without organization.... you just hang on.

How do you organize how you use melodic embellishments?

[Jimmy Smith]

Edit: I guess the Db could imply a Bb-7 and the B and G#s could imply E7. However, I don't think it's wrong to look at it as just chromatic notes leading into A- chord tones either. It's common in bop language to lead into chord tones. Doesn't mean every approach or enclosure is a substitution.

[pamosmusic]

yea...it can become more relevant when you start hearing longer sections of space and start using more organizational tools for creating musical relationships.

Sure. But the melodic stuff I think works because of its melodic construction, it might imply some other harmony, but I think that’s incidental.

So over that part of the tune where there’s two measures of an A minor 7, I might do an E7 thing in the first bar or a Bbm thing or something. But I would still use those melodic embellishments over the implied chord. So the melodic embellishment is just a melodic consideration. Honestly I think it’s that bebop vocabulary that makes the implied chord sound convincing in the first place.

[Reg]

So yea We live in different worlds...

[pamosmusic]

So yea We live in different worlds...

I mean … or we have different ears?

Im not sure why this means we live in different worlds.

Like if this were chord melody you could harmonize them, but you apparently would think of them as part of a D7#11 … I would think of them as notes from Bdim7 or something. Or you could do something else.

The melody works. The harmonizing is incidental to the melody to me. I guess that doesn’t have to be the same to you, but the sky is still blue or whatever.

[pamosmusic]

How do you organize how you use melodic embellishments?

Hopefully better than I organize my desk.

[rpjazzguitar]

When I looked at it, I saw A minor, with an adjustment -- the G#. So, my guess is that Jim Hall is thinking "Am, which I will spice up with a G#". Why G#? To me, it's sort of a im V7 im move. It's a leading tone, sure, but it's also the 3rd of E7.

He doesn't play an F or an F#, so you can't really call it melodic or harmonic minor, although the G# is in both.

If I were to extract one thing from the line, it would be the idea that for an extended period of Am, you might be able to intersperse an E7, if you don't overdo it. And, then, use that principle within a melody. That might be worth practicing.

[Reg]

So what Chord is the Db from in the the key Halls solo is from... I'm guessing it's from the 2nd 16 bars. so the line is from E7#5 and going to A-7 and then to F7#11.
Were in key of "G"... right?

So the E7#5 usually implies D nat... with any analysis. I don't know the solo...but anyway you hear it, the Db implies a different chord.

Embellishment licks are generally very vanilla... and create unorganized harmonic references. They sound lousy and imply mud if not organized.

Your a teacher right.... your explanation just doesn't work.

I don't want to beat this into the ground.... but how do your ears hear this.

Rick seems to hear it as it is.... And would be easy to adjust the V7 of A-7 to work. Or as I said actually hear an approach chord.

[rpjazzguitar]

Does "Don't sweat the small stuff" matter?

That Db is on and-of-4. If there was also an eighth note D on beat 4 it would make sense as a quick chromatic line based on E7, leading to the C note within the Am.

So, I'm still getting V7 im movement, back and forth, which is a commonplace way to handle multiple beats of a tonic type of chord.

I like reading this sort of analysis. But it doesn't mean the player thought that way, or even practiced based on thinking that way. When you ask a great player what he was thinking, you never get this kind of answer. Well, at least the times I've done it. The usual answer is "I wasn't thinking". My favorite answer, from one player, was "darker". Once, I got a general explanation about targets, between which it didn't matter what you play. So, if there's an analytic explanation, it is subconscious. And then we assume that by looking at that analytic explanation we can assimilate the means by which you can execute similar sounds.

All that said, my impression is that a lot of players are thinking about chords when they solo, but not the same ones on the chart. So, in this case, Jim Hall might be thinking E7 to Am to E7 to Am. The Am is the tonic, which puts the E7 on the upbeats. And, to make that sound work, you have to put a G# on the upbeats. The other notes in E7 will sound like Am tonicity.

[pamosmusic]

So what Chord is the Db from in the the key Halls solo is from... I'm guessing it's from the 2nd 16 bars. so the line is from E7#5 and going to A-7 and then to F7#11.
Were in key of "G"... right?

I already conceded that the Db is an odd choice and that you might be right on that one. Not sure what you want from me there.

Embellishment licks are generally very vanilla... and create unorganized harmonic references. They sound lousy and imply mud if not organized.

Well that’s a matter of opinion and I tend to disagree. I often find harmonically sophisticated playing with very little melodic chromaticism to sound “vanilla.”

Your a teacher right.... your explanation just doesn't work.

Thanks for that one, cat.

I think it’s worth mentioning that most folks would consider it pretty normal to think of both implied harmony, and melodic embellishment that stands on its own. So an implied dominant, but also the possibility of an approach note or other ornament that doesn’t need to be thought of as having harmonic implications to work. Most people are working with some combination of the two, myself included. So your idea that all melodic embellishment has to be considered from the point of view of an implied harmony is kind of idiosyncratic. Which is fine. That’s the way you hear it. It’s just a little odd that you think other ways of hearing it are incorrect.

I don't want to beat this into the ground.... but how do your ears hear this.

Ive told you how my ears hear this. You just keep telling me my ears are wrong.

I had a teacher who used to talk about vertical gravity and horizontal gravity. Meaning that the harmony … or the relationship of a note to the notes above and below it … can hold a solo together. Or the melody … the relationship of the notes to the notes before and after it … can hold a solo together. It was obvious from his telling that he preferred to think about the latter.

I’ve always been way more interested in the way melody holds together than the way notes can fit an underlying chord, though I probably practice the latter as much as or more than the former.

For what it’s worth, that teacher was a trumpet player, so maybe I’ve adopted more a horn players way of looking at these things.

Either way. Not sure why this is so controversial.

[pamosmusic]

Does "Don't sweat the small stuff" matter?

That Db is on and-of-4. If there was also an eight note D on beat 4 it would make sense as a quick chromatic line based on E7, leading to the C note within the Am.

So, I'm still getting V7 im movement, back and forth, which is a commonplace way to handle multiple beats of a tonic type of chord.

I like reading this sort of analysis. But it doesn't mean the player thought that way, or even practiced based on thinking that way. When you ask a great player what he was thinking, you never get this kind of answer. Well, at least the times I've done it. The usual answer is "I wasn't thinking". My favorite answer, from one player, was "darker". Once, I got a general explanation about targets, between which it didn't matter what you play. So, if there's an analytic explanation, it is subconscious. And then we assume that by looking at that analytic explanation we can assimilate the means by which you can execute similar sounds.

All that said, my impression is that a lot of players are thinking about chords when they solo, but not the same ones on the chart. So, in this case, Jim Hall might be thinking E7 to Am to E7 to Am. The Am is the tonic, which puts the E7 on the upbeats. And, to make that sound work, you have to put a G# on the upbeats. The other notes in E7 will sound like Am tonicity.

I would agree with all of this.

[Jimmy Smith]

Most folks would consider it pretty normal to think of both implied harmony, and melodic embellishment that stands on its own. So an implied dominant, but also the possibility of an approach note or other ornament that doesn’t need to be thought of as having harmonic implications to work. Most people are working with some combination of the two, myself included. So your idea that all melodic embellishment has to be considered from the point of view of an implied harmony is kind of idiosyncratic. Which is fine. That’s the way you hear it. It’s just a little odd that you think other ways of hearing it are incorrect.

This

[Reg]

Ok...we have different ears... cool. At what point or how long of a duration would create a different point to make an analysis or reference from which one creates melodic organization that might need to be harmonically not independent.

I'm not saying your wrong... I'm just really trying to see where or what that point is.

If you were in the rhythm section... and keeping the tune in context... because usually at that point in tune... there is a pause or slowing down of the Harmonic motion and that A-7 is really an important tonal Target etc...

I apologize for singling you out... but these are the things that, as Rick said... Does "Don't sweat the small stuff" matter?

Really do matter, they are the details that, yes many pros... say... I don't think etc... and generally they say this because they have put in the time and worked with lots or other pros... so yes it's already internal.

It's not just about the Db.... it about the general concept that chromatic embellishment or melodic embellishment does not have Harmonic implications.

Many single note players... don't understand harmonic motion. At least from a rhythm section players position. The changes on most charts are not what we play.... They are the basic Reference. A starting vanilla harmonic reference.

There are more levels of harmonic organization... which are implied by the context. The style, feel melodic implications etc... The better one keeps the bigger harmonic picture together along with the melodic and rhythmic organization.... the better the results. Most players or people just listening will feel the results... even when not thinking about anything.

So maybe... not incorrect, different perspective. Again I apologize for going on... not for the point.

[mr. beaumont]

A bar in isolation is a pretty difficult thing to analyze...

I listened to the solo...the bar previous pretty much tells where this came from.