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10-14-2024 12:15 PM
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Just to make sure I’m keeping up, you’re the dude with the cane in this analogy, and the horse is Grant Greens artistic choices?
Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
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Sorry - that’s a Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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So let me throw my two cents:
The head groove, bass line is in F dorian.
The cord/stab could be named Cm11, with F on top.
The solo is a Cm - Dbm dorian, more of C pentaton with all kind of passing tones, color tones.
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Is this thread STILL happening?
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Not really, no.
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Good lord never ask the internet about a mode.
especially not guitar players on the internet.
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Guitar players might not know much, but we are very sure about it!
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Im curious about the whole playing the head in F over a Cm backing.
I've heard of people suggesting to play different pentatonic scales over a chord for different sounds.
I'm of the opinion that this must have been an intentional choice by Grant, no, as it sounds good to my tin ears.
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Okay for the love of all that is holy.
He is not playing it in F. Please do not go trying to play your F major scale stuff over C minor. It will not work.
Hes playing C D Eb F G over a C min. It will sound cool over an F minor too. Which is another way of saying that the original recording uses the same figure off the fifth of the underlying accompaniment. So G A Bb C and D over Cm in this case.
But sweet Jesus there is no key of concert F major one flat anywhere near this recording.
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All good. It's C minor Originally Posted by pamosmusic
The accompaniment is pretty ambiguous but on a quick listen I think there's only C, D and F in the voicing. There's no A or Bb or Eb. Was getting a 7sus vibe initially but after playing it on the piano I think there's less going on than you/we think.
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I wasn't referring to F major but instead to the comment djg made about the melody being played in Fm by Grant. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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Stop it, don’t break Peter, the kids need their jazz lessons.
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Man we’re way past that. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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Noted. Well … there was much talk of him playing it in F major, one flat, the relative major of Dm. Originally Posted by charlieparker
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Some kid is going to ask him about Ipanema in F and it’s all going to come out.
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So when you say “F”, do you mean F major, F7, Fm, or F Dorian? Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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if you play "so what" in Fm, the correct melody is F C D Eb F G Eb F. 1 5 6 b7 8 9 b7 8 in Fm . that is what grant plays (replacing the first note F with a G, no big deal). Originally Posted by charlieparker
BUT: he plays it over Cminor, so it becomes the slightly more trivial G C D Eb F G Eb F. namely 5 1 2 b3 4 5 b3 4 in Cm.
in other words: the so what trick is to play minor from the 5th. F C D Eb F G Eb F over Fm.
the more trivial (dare i say vanilla) version is to use the same line as minor from the 1. F (or G) C D Eb F G Eb F over Cm.
there is indeed a family of three: Fm Gm Cm. for example you can play Gm and Cm pent over Fm. or Bb triad and Eb triad. Wes montgomery is all over this concept. 4 on 6 is full of this. i think garrison fewell wrote books about it.
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beato has that one covered. sheer comedy. he probably swears to this day that the first chord of ipanema is Ab6. take that, barry harris. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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On the real, I have a student who just started with me. Older guy, and a pretty good player.
But he was talking about soloing over Franklins Tower (A G D G vamp) and he said “well I just play some stuff in A” and I said … “wait a second.” And he said “well, A Mixolydian.”
So I was like okay …
There are two issues here. The first is that I think that’s a rather cumbersome way of thinking about things, but he disagrees and I don’t harp on it to the extent he’s able to keep his stuff straight. So that’s a difference of opinion and I don’t particularly care.
The second is that the tune is not in “A.” Not in some abstract theoretical sense, but in the sense that when he tells the other guitar player to take a ride and tells him it’s in A, the other guitar player is going to play things that sound bad and the experience will be a bummer. He could do that ten times and get the same result every time. No musician is going to follow up “it’s in A” with … “you mean A locrian? Or A Phrygian? What?”
The communication is important because playing with people is the whole point.
Walk into a room and say “So What in Cm” and you’re going to get something like what Grant played. Walk into a room and say “So What in F” and they’re going to be like … “Fm? or like … huh?”
A failure to communicate what you mean is the only meaningful way a theoretical term can be incorrect.
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Best thing out of the two clips to my ears, btw, is the piano solo on Wes' recording (don't know who it is); sounds like an upright. Wes is always so slick though his solo is too short, the comping maybe somewhat static.
On second hearing, regardless of what Kenny Drew is overlaying in the Grant version, the bass and guitar are, again, clearly talking C (and Dd) Dorian.
OP, if you're just starting out with the theory stuff (not that I know or use it much personally), how about Autumn Leaves instead?
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Honestly, I think what Grant did hear was pretty cool. He realized by ear or instinct or however that the F So What melody actually sits nicely over Cm, kind of like a chord substitution but with a melody. Originally Posted by djg
It does give it a different flavor, more of a straight C minor sound to my ears.
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Indeed, C Dorian does have two flats. However, "straight up C minor" (which some have claimed is what GG is playing in) has three flats. And some have said that GG is playing the melody "up a 4th" which might put him in G minor, if that is up a fourth from the original recording, or F minor, if it's up a 4th from the C minor or C Dorian or C whatever? There have been so many confusing claims made on all sides that none of it makes a lick of sense anymore, no pun intended. Originally Posted by djg
In any event, I very much preferred the Wes Montgomery version of these two recordings. I don't generally find that I like Grant Green's playing all that much, for some reason, and this thread has done nothing to make me like his playing more.
And here's George, taking off on it live:
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Ok, lots to unpack here in this kind of blue dress conundrum:
Firstly, the opening piano chord is C-Eb in the left hand and A-D-F in the right hand directly above that. I suggest anyone who has a piano/keyboard handy to try it out. So, a C-6/9 with no 5th and an added 11th (!). As a few people have pointed out, that's x6776x but with a C in the bass. I hear it as a F13 and there's a reason for this that I'll get to in a moment.
djg initially considered the opening riff played by Grant Green and Ben Tucker as an Fm riff and I get that but there's no m3 Ab present, adding to the ambiguity. I hear it as a C minor line resolving to F dominant. The notes C, Eb and G fall on strong beats and resolve in the following bar to F on primary beat 1 - hence me hearing the piano chord as F13 rather than a Cm-type chord. There's also no Bb in the chord as it would clash.
Barry Harris (who was no fan of modal music or its terminology) would think of this melodic figure as 'V minor'. In modal terms, it's based around an upper structure of F7 from the 5th degree - (F), (A), C, Eb, G. Similarly, the line played by Paul Chambers in the intro to the original version by Miles Davis suggests an Am figure resolving into Dm. His line opens with a 5th from the tonic (D-A) rather than the 4th employed by Grant Green (G-C or E-A when transposed) but the outlining of strong beats of the V resolving to I remains.
Regarding nevershouldhavesoldit's comment that Grant Green had no knowledge of theory and wouldn't have been aware of all this, I'd like to add a couple of points: firstly, by the time this album was recorded in 1961, modal experiments by Miles and Coltrane were becoming common currency so it was a prevailing 'sound'. Furthermore, we don't know if Grant was responsible for the arrangement. Certainly Kenny Drew, pianist on the session who studied classical piano from his childhood years and attended the Manhattan High School of Music and Art would have been more than capable of setting this up for the recording.
By the way, I'm only dealing with the head here. The soloing is more straight up Cm with C roots in the bass and Drew's same chords now taking on a Cm quality.
In my mind, this arrangement was no accident and while it may not exhibit quite the level of melodic remodelling found in Coltrane's Impressions contrafact, Grant Green's group left us a pretty cool take on the classic recording.
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