The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    I know that the Beatles have been repackaged and resold to death ... but .. man they wrote some good songs!

    I have found myself playing around with a voice leading thing based on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" -- I am sure I am not the first ... anyone else turn to some classic popular tunes for inspiration??

    -- Andrew

    P.s.

    I hope to post a vid of said voice leading exercise soon, please check back

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  3. #2

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    All the time. Beatles have so many tunes that work. Also, Hank Williams and Willie Nelson and XTC and The Cars and on and on. I often use more recent pop tunes in my sets -- I mainly do standards from the Great American Songbook in my solo git/vox sets, but I'm always looking for a good tune.

  4. #3

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    They have great melodies, you can do anything with a great melody.

  5. #4

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    Sure, in my jazz/pop duo we do lots of jazz standards, but also many pop songs while still incorporating 'jazz' improvisation, including:

    As Tears Go By
    Sleepwalk
    I Shot The Sheriff
    I’ll Follow The Sun
    In My Room
    In My Life
    Tears In Heaven
    All My Lovin’
    Things We Said Today
    World Without Love

    Early on, the Beatles didn't really know what they were doing theory-wise, but they had such great ears! Many of their songs are very intriguing harmonically ... and not always so easy to figure out, either!

  6. #5

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    Led Zeppelin's - Babe I'm Gonna Leave You

    I know it's not The Beatles, but if you guys are looking for a tune with a nice melody and interesting chords, there it is.

    Here are some beatles tunes I love playing

    Yesterday
    While My Guitar Gently Weeps
    Norwegian Wood
    Ticket To Ride

  7. #6
    Norwegian Wood -- I was at Smalls in NYC and heard a tenor player rip that up with his quartet ... I had forgotten how cool a song that is.

  8. #7

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    Don't forget 'In My Life'

  9. #8

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    Working up a jazz arrangement of "I Wish" for guitar/bass as we speak.

    Peace,
    Kevin

  10. #9

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    I have some of these and they're awesome:

    beatlejazz

  11. #10

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    Laurence Juber did a helluva job with some of their tunes a few years back.

  12. #11

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    Chet Atkins did an album called "Chet Atkins Picks On The Beatles." He was one of their heroes.
    Ray Charles' "Eleanor Rigby" is a good record. George Harrison's "Something" is a cool song too, and where I grew up, all the guitarists learned "Here Comes The Sun."

  13. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by paynow
    I have some of these and they're awesome:

    beatlejazz
    I like David Kiloski's playing in general, love his version of Chick's "Bud Powell", fun tune to play. I think my first post on this forum was Sandu and Can't buy Me Love , nothing worked out Just played solo versions on the spot. ...Reg

  14. #13

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    Someone has to be a dissident, here, so - I'm not a Beatles fan myself, never have been, I find them far too contrived. The early Beatles stuff works, of course, but mainly when it's straight-down-the-line rock 'n' roll, I really can't bear the rest of it. It's McCartney, not Lennon. Even my eighty-something-year-old mother, once a very passable classical pianist but who has never expressed the slightest interest in pop (except to say what an awful din it all is, of course), recently told me that she had always preferred John Lennon.

  15. #14

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    I have, "Chet Atkins Picks on the Beatles," on vinyl. George Van Eps', "My Guitar," which I also have on vinyl, has just been remastered/released on CD. Check out the track list!
    1. Spanish Eyes 2. And I Love Her 3. All My Loving 4. There Will Never Be Another You 5. Yesterday 6. Lollipops And Roses 7. Love Me Do 8. I'll Walk Alone 9. If I Fell 10. I'm Glad There Is You 11. It's Been A Long Long Time 12. Theme From 'A Summer Place'
    Last edited by Tom Karol; 02-17-2011 at 09:15 PM.

  16. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tom Karol
    I have, "Chet Atkins Picks on the Beatles," on vinyl. George Van Eps', "My Guitar," which I also have on vinyl, has just been remastered/released on CD. Check out the track list!
    1. Spanish Eyes 2. And I Love Her 3. All My Loving 4. There Will Never Be Another You 5. Yesterday 6. Lollipops And Roses 7. Love Me Do 8. I'll Walk Alone 9. If I Fell 10. I'm Glad There Is You 11. It's Been A Long Long Time 12. Theme From 'A Summer Place'

    I have the CD. Excellent CD

    I also have a copy of transcription for And I Love Her done by Jerry Simms. Send me a PM with an E-mail address If you like

  17. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by JohnRoss
    Someone has to be a dissident, here, so - I'm not a Beatles fan myself, never have been, I find them far too contrived. The early Beatles stuff works, of course, but mainly when it's straight-down-the-line rock 'n' roll, I really can't bear the rest of it. It's McCartney, not Lennon. Even my eighty-something-year-old mother, once a very passable classical pianist but who has never expressed the slightest interest in pop (except to say what an awful din it all is, of course), recently told me that she had always preferred John Lennon.

    Post Beatles, Lennon and Harrison did plenty of interesting stuff (to my ears) .. all that McCartney/Wings stuff was just .... hey -- different strokes for different folks.

    Even Ringo had a couple of decent tunes.

    I was getting jazzed up about Soulive's "Rubber Soulive"



    Three bad ass cats!!!

  18. #17

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    I had a few jazz Beatle CDs and they were pretty durn good. I also have Helen Merrill singing Beatle songs as well. You should also hear John Pizzarelli's version of Can't Buy Me Love. It swings like a Benny Goodman tune. Great stuff.

  19. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by paynow
    I have some of these and they're awesome:

    beatlejazz
    very nice playing, thanks, have not heard of these people.

  20. #19

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    they do have great melodies, and check out the melody to strawberry fields forever, try to sing it.

    it's astonishing what they produced together, in just a few years.

  21. #20

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    If you look at paynow's link, I have the white one and the black one. I really like them. Plus, when I do a Beatle song myself, I try to make it swing somehow.

  22. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by markf
    ...it's astonishing what they produced together, in just a few years.
    I think the 'magic' of the Beatles (not to denigrate George or Ringo) is the combination of Lennon and McCartney - plus George Martin's arranging and production.

    There's an interesting biography of McCartney that I just read. It's called, "Paul McCartney, A Life," by Peter Ames Carlin - sort of chronicles the good and the bad in the group's inter-relationships.

  23. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tom Karol
    I think the 'magic' of the Beatles (not to denigrate George or Ringo) is the combination of Lennon and McCartney - plus George Martin's arranging and production.

    There's an interesting biography of McCartney that I just read. It's called, "Paul McCartney, A Life," by Peter Ames Carlin - sort of chronicles the good and the bad in the group's inter-relationships.

    It always seems like they must have been together for 20 years or so, but what they were only like mid late 20s when the Beatles broke up and mid late teens when they started their skiffle band. The Dichotomy of Lennon Mcartney was a big part of their early success, certainly the raw drive of Lennon and the suaveness of McCartney(kind of classic good cop/bad cop, no?). But ultimately the cause of their end, Harrison was only 15 when he joined, and as he became a man into his 20s and a great guitar player and songwriter he was frustrated, by then still 'giving' him 2 or 3 tunes on a record. Ringo was the one who was cool with all three, more or less, all the time.
    But I read a Lennon bio a year or so ago and it said Lennon and McCartney's great partnership and why it was great can be summed up in the line "It's getting better all the time(McCartney-the question); couldn't get no worse(Lennon-the answer)." That light and dark thing.

  24. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by ejwhite09
    The Dichotomy of Lennon Mcartney was a big part of their early success, certainly the raw drive of Lennon and the suaveness of McCartney(kind of classic good cop/bad cop, no?)...
    Lennon and McCartney's great partnership and why it was great can be summed up in the line "It's getting better all the time(McCartney-the question); couldn't get no worse(Lennon-the answer)." That light and dark thing.
    That is certainly the conventional wisdom, but I always think those generalizations don't really hold up as well as we'd like. I mean, McCartney wrote some very dark and heavy stuff (Blackbird, Eleanor Rigby, She's Leaving Home, etc.) as well as some of the hardest rockin tunes in the Beatles canon (Helter Skelter, Birthday, Oh! Darling, I Got a Feelin'). I'm not saying Lennon wasn't raw or Paul wasn't suave, but just that's it's more complicated than that.

    Anyway, if you ever need to get re-inspired by the Beatles and what incredible songsmiths they were, check out Pollack's notes on all the Beatles songs: Alan Pollack's "Notes on The Beatles"

  25. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dark Eyed Junko
    That is certainly the conventional wisdom, but I always think those generalizations don't really hold up as well as we'd like. I mean, McCartney wrote some very dark and heavy stuff (Blackbird, Eleanor Rigby, She's Leaving Home, etc.) as well as some of the hardest rockin tunes in the Beatles canon (Helter Skelter, Birthday, Oh! Darling, I Got a Feelin'). I'm not saying Lennon wasn't raw or Paul wasn't suave, but just that's it's more complicated than that.

    Anyway, if you ever need to get re-inspired by the Beatles and what incredible songsmiths they were, check out Pollack's notes on all the Beatles songs: Alan Pollack's "Notes on The Beatles"
    Well I mean to say that while Paul wrote about 'dark' topics, he never wrote about them 'darkly,' even when he does the the darkness is usually countered by brightness in melody or presentation or in resolution(Eleanor Rigby, Blackbird(which is quite uplifting)). Contrast Helter Skelter, Birthday, Oh Darlin, etc with I'm so Tired, or Bungalow Bill, or Yer Blues, or Julia, or Help.
    I definitely see the distinction that McCartney is bound to write a song that even if its subject matter is 'dark' its presentation is going to overcome the subject (ie. Lady Madonna, which is quite dark and a very taboo subject a single mother presented as a character of strength and resolve, in fact the very essence of womanhood rather than a whore). While Lennon will write a song like All you Need is Love, which is extrememly nihilistic, even if its chorus is sung by drones as a championing of love, the real purpose of the song is that 'there is nothing else possible in life but love, no learning, no teaching, no knowing, no discovery' which is still very dark. Love becomes a refuge from the void not even from stormy weather.
    Contrast John's section of A Day in a Life with Paul's section. When I'm 64, can you imagine how John would write that song? I hardly think he'd be resolving 'when I get older, losing my hair' with 'will you still need me, will you still feed me.'

    As far as the 'rawness' of the music, eh, I didn't really mean to comment on the level of distortion in songs. Helter Skelter is a nonsense song, Paul wrote because he took exception to the Who's Miles and Miles being called the 'dirtiest rawest song ever.'
    But as far as lyrical content, you can tell a John line and Paul line apart. And for me that's what makes them such a good partnership. John would writing proto screamo music if not for Paul and Paul would be writing Show tunes if not for Lennon(yes that's a bit hyperbolic). But I think you see the difference in their post Beatles work. Wings vs Plastic Ono Band. For me none of their solo work reaches greatness, most of it just passable radio pop. Lennon's post Beatles work is overrated, in my opinion, given to its co opt-ing of and by the 'revolutionary peace movement' (how revolutionary can a movement be when Abbie Hoffman is on the Dick Cavett show-but niether here nor there).
    Post Beatles, I think Harrison has to be the most recognized talent. Ringo had the most hits, but I think if anybody's record is going to be played 50 years from now its going to be All Things Must Pass.
    It's good music, its artistic creation, and it has a real message of personal revelation. Not McCartney's pollyannaesque 'everything's going to work out in the end(like his songs). Or Lennon's teenage emotional raging, which he never really got over until saddly, Double Fantasy.

    LOL, and I would like the stress, the above is just MY VERY HUMBLE OPINION.

  26. #25
    ejwhite09:
    I agree with (pretty much) everything you've said. Not sure about the All Things Must Pass being so eternal, though. Harrison said himself that a lot of its overproduction makes it sound dated. I have immense respect for McCartney as a musician and songwriter, and I think he has done some amazing work post-Beatles; unfortunately, he dilutes the genius with too much fluff that never would have made it past the other lads' BS meters.

    I suspect we're getting far away from "jazz guitar", though, so I'll just leave things at that.