The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Someone had to do it...

    The thing or 'trick' to his music to me---aside from the beautiful melodies, heaven-sent voice and good lyrical message and feel even when the lyrics to me ain't up to the rest---is his genius for harmonic architecture, a way of making the simplest elements hang together in a way that's profound. I wrote this on another thread about 2 songs from Innervisions:

    'I wanted to learn Living For the City. Tried to play that magnificent instrumental section of what is really a mini-opera or mini-drama within a 7:23 song---from memory, but my changes were wrong, and my connection is iffy here to take it off the record on youtube, so I did something I rarely do: cheated by going to a tutorial. Glad I did, b/c the guy did a good job and I have insight into what makes it so special: it's his voice leading in the bass, sometimes chromatic, sometimes in whole steps, but NEVER doubling the melody line. It's not really contrary motion since the melody is travelling in the same direction as the bass, but notice how he picks melody notes that compliment the bass---and vice-versa. All the really good writers do that: (in 3, 1 chord a measure until it resolves to Gb [the guy calls it F# in the tutorial] back in 4: F#/E/ Eb Min7b5/ D/ C/ D/Bb/ A/ G (2 beats only)/ Gb. The 3 meter also really isolates it. At the end, the 'choir' holds out that G, and that's how it ends---an 'unanswered question'.

    Then on Visions (w/nice guitar work, BTW, by David T. Walker---who I've never heard anything about since) he does a thing he likes a lot: minor chords going in whole steps (in Girl Blue, Music of my Mind, they go down. Here they go up), then he mixes it up w/13th and # 9 chords going down before resolving w/an E7+ back to A Minor. The bridge uses half-diminished chords in a very Benny Golson-like way.

    Don't wanna get too technical about such deeply felt music, so I'll stop there---just to say that aside from the beautiful melodies, good lyrical messages and a heaven-sent voice the man has a real intuitive genius for harmonic architecture.'


    It's probably best to start with a simpler tune like Too Shy to Say: Let's say we're in C. The bridge ('And I can't go on this way...') is a simple chromatic affair: Major 7ths to 7ths. But the way he starts it from Bb (b 7 or # 6) and ends up in Bb with a simple turnaround back to C works perfectly.

    I also like If It's Magic. The bridge ('It holds the key to every heart..') goes to the IV minor (A Minor in E), but resolves not to the expected E 7th, but E Maj. 7th.

    Another favorite is You and I: In F, it makes a slight detour to D---or DOES it? The D Maj. 7th could be viewed as a 'borrowed' chord, Major for the D Min. VI chord. But the way he gets back: F # half-diminished (2 beats), B 7 #5 (2 beats) to E half-diminished (4 beats), C 9/E (2 beats), C 7---or C 9---an ingenious episode, and just 1 of many.

    Your turns...
    Last edited by fasstrack; 07-09-2017 at 02:09 AM.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    I was just listening to this yesterday. Pure popular music with the most natural flow of chords, lyric and melody. I also love how Jimmy Rosenberg (of Sinti) shows it up to be a great improvisation vehicle.
    David


  4. #3

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    Yes, his songs on those '70s albums - wow!

    I think dispensing with the singing/lyrics works on some Stevie songs - but not on others. The closing credits of action movie Passenger 57 has Norman Brown playing Stevie's Too High. I think it works - and the chromatic descending triads in the introduction are convenient on guitar.


    This song (from the mid-80s, performed since by many others) still has mileage:


    So do these - although sung by MJ, both are by Stevie:

    Last edited by destinytot; 07-09-2017 at 06:58 AM.

  5. #4

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    Great idea for a thread.
    A few weeks ago I learned That Girl and My Cheri Amour. I'd forgotten what a great songwriter he is.He has a huge number of songs worth doing. There's some interesting chord changes;



    Another great one;


  6. #5

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    All In Love Is Fair. Rip my heart out and stomp on it.

    Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

  7. #6

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    It's my official duty in the forum to post this tune in every Stevie Wonder thread.


  8. #7

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    Stevie doing some be bop...


  9. #8

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    And I'll post two jazzy guitar covers





  10. #9

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  11. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by destinytot
    ...I think dispensing with the singing/lyrics...

    Let's talk about those lyrics, shall we? It's germane and worth it:

    The MESSAGES are wonderful, and when you hear he effect of the tune, harmony, rhythm and words together---it WORKS somehow. But---as a songwriter and student of great lyric writing---I'd have to say he gets away with murder sometimes.

    Case in point: The song to which I referred, Too Shy to Say. The opening line is 'You make me smile, you make me sing. You make me feel GOOD'S EVERYTHING'. Maybe that's some kind of ebonics I don't get, but I'd rather think it's poor writing. And singers who have performed it usually sing '...good AND everything'---way more sensible, and it 'sings' better, too. Singers (and the public) will let a writer know when he's screwed up---and not just in pop music. The original line in Carousel's You'll Never Walk Alone was 'when you walk through a storm keep your CHIN up high...'. Who keeps their CHIN up? Nobody. You keep your HEAD up---and that's what singers have always sung. So even the giants make mistakes---we're all human.

    He also uses cliche phrases like the 'pollution/solution' line in Living For the City---but, again, it WORKS somehow. He's digging in w/his voice getting edgy and gritty, and you buy him singing about pollution and solutions.

    I really think he did some of his best lyrics in collaboration with ex-wife Syreeta Wright. An early collaboration (unless I'm wrong) was Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer. You also can hear her stamp on Music of my Mind and Talking Book. I'm pretty sure she had a part in Girl Blue---the imagery in that one is such that you don't come across in most SW songs---and You Are the Sunshine of my Life---but, again, I wasn't in the room. Guess we'll never know unless he 'cops'...
    Last edited by fasstrack; 07-10-2017 at 09:57 AM.

  12. #11

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    Case in point: The song to which I referred, Too Shy to Say. The opening line is 'You make me smile, you make me sing. You make me feel GOOD'S EVERYTHING'. Maybe that's some kind of ebonics I don't get, but I'd rather think it's poor writing. And singers who have performed it usually sing '...good AND everything'---way more sensible, and it 'sings' better, too.
    'you make me feel good's everything'
    I am not native speaker I just dont get what it means... it's like inversion: you make me feel everything's good' ? or?

    Byt the way is 'you make me feel good everything' much better? I cant eally get the meaning of his version too..

  13. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by fasstrack
    Let's talk about those lyrics, shall we? It's germane and worth it:

    The MESSAGES are wonderful, and when you hear he effect of the tune, harmony, rhythm and words together---it WORKS somehow. But---as a songwriter and student of great lyric writing---I'd have to say he gets away with murder sometimes.
    Ah - the pragmatics of language...
    Quote Originally Posted by fasstrack
    Case in point: The song to which I referred, Too Shy to Say. The opening line is 'You make me smile, you make me sing.
    This evokes specific social use - praise of one belovèd.
    Quote Originally Posted by fasstrack
    'You make me feel GOOD'S EVERYTHING'. Maybe that's some kind of ebonics I don't get...
    Ha! Was Emily Dickenson black? I'm kidding, but I don't think - in this instance - the style has to do with (here we go again) race.
    Quote Originally Posted by fasstrack
    ...but I'd rather think it's poor writing.
    Maybe so, but I find 'YOU MAKE ME FEEL GOOD AND EVERYTHING' to be infinitely worse. It reminds me of a (famous?) Black Beatles skit, replete with stereotypes (eg. Lucy in the Sky with Too Much Jewellery On) - all love.

    There's slight innuendo to 'YOU MAKE ME FEEL GOOD AND EVERYTHING', which would be out of place in this particular song.

    I'd speculate that 'GOOD' in 'You make me feel GOOD'S EVERYTHING' is a subtle reference to the ineffable.
    Last edited by destinytot; 07-15-2017 at 05:54 AM. Reason: typos and punctuation

  14. #13

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    I'd speculate that 'GOOD' in 'You make me feel GOOD'S EVERYTHING' is a subtle reference to the ineffable.
    Excuse me my poor foreign ear.. but I hear something very close to 'god' here .. even the way he pronounces when he sings...

  15. #14

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    ingers (and the public) will let a writer know when he's screwed up---
    I bet they will even when he actually did not screw up at all

  16. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jonah
    'you make me feel good's everything'
    I am not native speaker I just dont get what it means... it's like inversion: you make me feel everything's good' ? or?

    Byt the way is 'you make me feel good everything' much better? I cant eally get the meaning of his version too..
    'Good' is a noun here. (Summum bonum.) Ebonics is a red herring here, but funny:

  17. #16

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jonah
    Excuse me my poor foreign ear.. but I hear something very close to 'god' here .. even the way he pronounces when he sings...
    Yes - and I meant "the ineffable name of God"

  18. #17

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    I dunno, I always liked that line. God is good, you make me feel everything good that is of god. I'm not a particularly religious person, but this is how I took it, kind of a way to say god without saying it.

  19. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
    I dunno, I always liked that line. God is good, you make me feel everything good that is of god. I'm not a particularly religious person, but this is how I took it, kind of a way to say god without saying it.
    I also like the idea of extension of this joyous feeling that overwhelms him..
    It's like it is starting from somewhere deep inside and first shows just in a 'smile' then goes out when he starts to 'sing' and then with his songs it feels everything... and everything fills him, and everything is good

    It's like being filled with love makes you fill everything with love


    It's simple but very good poetic line

    ?????????? ? ????? SM-G570F ????? Tapatalk

  20. #19

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    IMHO, Stevie is one of those very rare once in a generation (or less) musicians like Art Tatum or Bird. It's hard to grasp that humans can be that talented.

    In the "Little Stevie" days at Motown, he wasn't writing all of the tunes, but I always thought that he brought out the best in the Funk Bros. Even as a kid he was looser and closer to jazz than any of the other Motown acts, and the Funks took a lot of pride in "schooling" him. "For Once in My Life" was a particular gem.

    The guitar arrangement is stunning. They sound like a big band, and there aren't enough superlatives for Jamerson on that cut. Rising to the occasion, Stevie absolutely kills on his harmonica solo. Of course, he still does, which you can see on any of the Tony Bennett duets he's done in the past few years:
    Tony Bennett and Stevie Wonder - For Once in my life - Dailymotion動画.

    Other early Motown examples: "I Was Made to Love Her" and his cover of "We Can Work it Out".

    He also wrote some great tunes for other people in the early days, particularly "It's a Shame" by the Spinners (another great Funks guitar arrangement and classic Jamerson)


    "Till You come Back To Me" by Aretha (about as perfect a track as there can possibly be)


    and "Tell me Something Good" by Rufus:


    Then there's this:

  21. #20

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    I met 1 of those guys that wrote for him in those early days, Bryan Wells (A Place in the Sun). He was gigging as a jazz pianist, and I ran into him playing a duet w/my old friend Jared Bernstein---then a NY bassist, now a pretty famous economist/talking head/blogger. Sounded pretty good.

    Sorry if I came off a tad harsh about that lyric. I DID say that it WORKED, and that's what counts. Just don't think it was the best he could come up with, but, hey, that's personal. I love ALL his songs, play and record them as often as I can, and sing them to myself all day long. It's a good thing I have Music Of My Mind and Talking Book on my computer and not vinyl---I'd be through my 1,000th copies by now...
    Last edited by fasstrack; 07-11-2017 at 08:26 AM.

  22. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by fasstrack
    Sorry if I came off a tad harsh about that lyric.
    I didn't think it was harsh.

    I did think 'ebonics' was funny. (I also think it's a very silly made-up word - spawned by misguided ideology.)

    I agree that while (syntactically) Stevie's lyrics 'aren't all that', his message is beautiful and his talent exceptional and rare.

  23. #22

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    VERY rare.

    And, um, well-done...

  24. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by destinytot
    I didn't think it was harsh.

    I did think 'ebonics' was funny. (I also think it's a very silly made-up word - spawned by misguided ideology.)

    I agree that while (syntactically) Stevie's lyrics 'aren't all that', his message is beautiful and his talent exceptional and rare.
    I think is ebonics is neither silly nor misguided, at least as originally intended. It's the idea that African American Vernacular English is not merely something ungrammatical or debased. Rather, it's a full-fledged dialect with its own grammar and phonology, and recognizing this offers insights into some of the discrpencies in educational achievement between Black people and other ethnic groups. This is pretty well establised as a matter of linguistics and education research. How to act on this information is a whole other set of questions.

    Anyway, Stevie is an amazing songwriter. Innervisions is one of my all time favorite records. Livin' for the City, Don't You Worry 'bout a Thing, Golden Lady -- nothing could be better.

    Another one that has always intrigued me is Because We've Ended as Lovers. SFAIK, Stevie never recorded it, and the only version I'd ever heard was Jeff Beck's instrumental. I just stumbled on a vocal version by Syreeta Wright, which I'd never heard before.

    John

  25. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by John A.
    I think is ebonics is neither silly nor misguided, at least as originally intended. It's the idea that African American Vernacular English is not merely something ungrammatical or debased. Rather, it's a full-fledged dialect with its own grammar and phonology, and recognizing this offers insights into some of the discrpencies in educational achievement between Black people and other ethnic groups. This is pretty well establised as a matter of linguistics and education research. How to act on this information is a whole other set of questions.
    Well, I'm not unfamilar with verbal paradigms of non-standard English.

    And I maintain that it's a silly made-up word, and that it's driven (by misguided ideology) in the opposite direction from educational achievement and upward social mobility.

    What bothers me is its proliferation beyond US borders.

    No problem with the descriptor African American Vernacular English.

    God Save the Queen - and her English.

    PS Code-Switchers Rule, OK!
    <em>

    Last edited by destinytot; 07-11-2017 at 12:33 PM. Reason: PS

  26. #25

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    Stevie is a living legend and a musical genius. If he had chosen jazz as his primary musical focus, he might not have been as popular, but he would still have been at the top in that or any other genre. Such a gifted individual!