Lego Bricks: Green Dolphin Street

[Christian Miller]

I'm not that interested in the chord charts haha.

Do it yourself! You'll learn more.

[GuyBoden]

Sounds like it was written by an aviator, do songs end on a helipad?

That has to be an April fool!

You need to understand the concepts to understand what the chord chart means.

It entails learning by ear what each "Lego Brick" sounds like.

[garybaldy]

You need to understand the concepts to understand what the chord chart means.

It entails learning by ear what each "Lego Brick" sounds like.

Yeah. My post was tongue in cheek. Put it down to my naivety. I have years of BH still to grasp before I move on to anything else. Not sure I'll last that long!

[Christian Miller]

Barry Harris said he liked the LEGO bricks concept according to Cork

I think a principal difference here is Barry blocks the harmony down more.


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[AllanAllen]

I have years of BH still to grasp before I move on to anything else.

I've found I need to dabble with these bigger concepts. I can focus on scale fingerings just fine, but using BH harmony is a week on week off routine for me. I need time to mentally digest things.

[Danil]

The idea behind "Insights in jazz" is solid, but the changes in it may be are too specific. For example, "Summertime" on I tonic part oscillates between Dm and G7 ("on off IV" as it says), on IV part there is descending minor cliche of Gm ("CESH" as it says).
Anyone heard it being played like this(that is not sarcastic, i'm genuinely curious)?

If you learn a song literally from this book you'll memorize rather dense chord changes which may not be all that fitting.

maybe it makes more sense to learn vanilla changes, than to overlay chord patterns/bricks as embellishments over those as needed.

[pamosmusic]

The idea behind "Insights in jazz" is solid, but the changes in it may be are too specific. For example, "Summertime" on I tonic part oscillates between Dm and G7 ("on off IV" as it says), on IV part there is descending minor cliche of Gm ("CESH" as it says).
Anyone heard it being played like this(that is not sarcastic, i'm genuinely curious)?

If you learn a song literally from this book you'll memorize rather dense chord changes which may not be all that fitting.

maybe it makes more sense to learn vanilla changes, than to overlay chord patterns/bricks as embellishments over those as needed.

Its kind of the opposite?

For rhythm changes, you could learn “Turnaround, turnaround, four and back, turnaround” or you could learn 16 chords in those eight bars

[Danil]

Its kind of the opposite?

For rhythm changes, you could learn “Turnaround, turnaround, four and back, turnaround” or you could learn 16 chords in those eight bars

I mean, the book provides not a general gist, but rather specific turnarounds and other chord structures often 2 chords per bar. So, one saves some mental bandwidth on chunking, but essentially will tend to play a narrowly defined busy changes.
In case of "I' got rhythm" it does say "there are many variants of the types and IV n backs used, this is a basic structure" but generally it imposes a very specific chord sequence - like "doggleged" 2/5 rhythm changes bridge not covered by disclamer.

[AllanAllen]

I don’t have the book yet. But isn’t the larger concept that this bucket of “on of IV” are interchangeable?

So while a specific tune might have V a series of 2 chords per bar Legos, another tune will have different Legos with the same function. Then it’s your job to play with them.

If that’s not the point of the book, someone please enlighten me.

There is no definitive “correct way” to play changes. If you want the same thing over and over, learn classical or join a party band.

[Danil]

I don’t have the book yet. But isn’t the larger concept that this bucket of “on of IV” are interchangeable?

So while a specific tune might have V a series of 2 chords per bar Legos, another tune will have different Legos with the same function. Then it’s your job to play with them.

If that’s not the point of the book, someone please enlighten me.

There is no definitive “correct way” to play changes. If you want the same thing over and over, learn classical or join a party band.

I think, the main idea is to learn recognising typical harmonic movements and to have some naming system for chunking.

In introduction to section B were the charts are, there is a disclaimer "the devil has all the best chords", where author says that intention is to kickstart reader's understanding to provide some examples of analyses, but there is no substitute for doing ones own work.

Formulated like this it all makes sense, I maybe missed the disclaimer when jumped directly to the charts

[Mick-7]

I think, the main idea is to learn to recognize typical harmonic movements and to have some naming system for chunking.

A simple naming system, yes, the simpler the better, this is far away from that:

[Christian Miller]

I don’t like Cork’s nomenclature because it’s not what most musicians use


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[GuyBoden]

I don’t like Cork’s nomenclature because it’s not what most musicians use

But, AllanAllenAllanAllen has just bought the books.

[AllanAllen]

But, AllanAllenAllanAllen has just bought the books.

Not yet. I'm slow to take action.

[Danil]

A simple naming system, yes, the simpler the better, this is far away from that:

No argument here, it is highly idiosyncratic and is an additional steep entry barrier for anyone but creator.
(To be fair, it is sort of inevitable, because many moves don't have a common name other than maybe referring to a song where they occur)

[Christian Miller]

IMO the concept is the most important thing. I think you still have to do your own work, I’m certain Cork would agree. But he talks you through the process.


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[Christian Miller]

No argument here, it is highly idiosyncratic and is an additional steep entry barrier for anyone but creator.
(To be fair, it is sort of inevitable, because many moves don't have a common name other than maybe referring to a song where they occur)

There are names for many of these things - he could have used those. Tbf some of these differ based on who you play with.

I’m also not sure if there’s a good reason in this day and age to refer to Sears-Roebuck and Montgomery-Ward bridges. Rhythm and Honeysuckle bridge is fine.

Some names are practical - such as IV’n’back. Others are more obscure. For example calling the Hit the Road Jack progression a Passacaglia- but “Hit the Road” might be more accessible to most.

One main difference with Cork from say Jerry Coker is the emphasis he places on the joins. So that requires a different set of term - Cherokee being a series of New Horizons happy cadences followed by a dogleg (IIRC). Try telling that of someone on a gig haha.

It’s a bit cutesy even if I respect the thinking behind it


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[Mick-7]

I’m also not sure if there’s a good reason in this day and age to refer to Sears-Roebuck and Montgomery-Ward bridges.

Maybe make it Target and Walmart bridges?

[rpjazzguitar]

I think of it this way. Not that I'm recommending this approach over any other to anybody else.

Starts on a tonic. I can hear a b3 movement. It might be helpful to think of the Cm7 as an Eb6 (maybe not if you're the bassist). Then, it's a chromatic movement down to C. The movement of C to A7 is another one I can hear and I know it's 3 halfsteps down.

The ii V I is easy to hear and there's another b3 movement. Meaning it's the same ii V I pattern but 3 halfsteps up.

That brings us to the last 8. For me, the key is to hear the bass line, D C B Bb (tritone) A G F# F (tritone) E. The rest is iii VI ii V I.

[Christian Miller]

Maybe make it Target and Walmart bridges?

Amazon and Temu


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[pcjazz]

No argument here, it is highly idiosyncratic and is an additional steep entry barrier for anyone but creator.
(To be fair, it is sort of inevitable, because many moves don't have a common name other than maybe referring to a song where they occur)

My personal take: the fundamental structures are the Anatole and the Christophe with their many basically interchangeable variations. Almost everything else is specific to the particular tune and its contrefacts.

[PMB]

I don’t like Cork’s nomenclature because it’s not what most musicians use


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I suppose it would be possible to adopt Cork's nomenclature (or a similar set built from personal observations) for analysis only rather than as shorthand on the bandstand.

I'm no expert on Cork - I don't own any of his books but I did buy Elliott's Insights In Jazz years ago. My concern with having too many referential terms and visuals is that it can lead to information overload and distract us from rather than elucidate or reinforce the concept/construct in question. Maybe using images with different colours or shapes only rather verbal descriptions would help but then a key would be needed to explain the meaning of every image...

The situation reminds me of the Jorge Luis Borges' one-paragraph short story On Exactitude in Science where a map becomes becomes so detailed and all-encompassing that it ends up becoming the same size as the territory it describes and is rendered useless. In the words of one of Lewis Carroll's characters from his last novel, Sylvie and Bruno Concluded: "we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well."

[Christian Miller]

My personal take: the fundamental structures are the Anatole and the Christophe with their many basically interchangeable variations. Almost everything else is specific to the particular tune and its contrefacts.

A lot things orbit around the basic key. I'm less modulation minded than some people, Cork included. I tend to be a central key guy. So the joins are less important to me - except on modulatory sections like bridges (typically).

TBF I am less good at hearing modulations. The LEGO thing is probably really good for that.

Certainly Anatole (that's the turnaround, right?) and Christophe are quite a lot of it when you are in one key.

So I don't have names for a lot of these things. But I can hear them, so the names are less important.

You know I think playing Swing music helps an awful lot. Something like Lady Be Good, the way Django and the Hot Club plays it really is just
| G //// | C7 /// | G /// | // (Eb7) / |
| D7 /// | //// | G //// | D7 //// |
except for that little passing chord before the D7 everything is just I IV or V.
The bridge
| C7 /// | //// | G /// | //// |
| A7 /// | //// | D7 /// | //// |
Just has a II7 chord.

And then something like Honeysuckle is just 4 bars of V, 4 bars of I, the way Charlie Christian/Benny Goodman play it.

The blocks get WAY simpler, and you can see stuff like the blues ending/IV'n'backs, II-V's and turnbacks people put in there as stylistic details.

So that's probably where my approach is a bit different to Cork's. Maybe more like Ralph Patt's Vanilla Book. Just what I've learned from picking up tunes on the bandstand. I'm also influenced by classical voice leading Schemata theory which is more contrapuntally based. I like this - chord symbols can obscure the similarities between things sometimes.

For example the relationship between F^7 Bb7 E-7, D-7 F-6 C, D-7 D-7b5 C and F/A G13b9/Ab C might not be obvious right away from the symbls, but they can all be understood - and more importantly heard - as variations of the same voice leading scheme. I expect experienced players all learn this through playing music... I kind of did.

[Christian Miller]

The situation reminds me of the Jorge Luis Borges one-paragraph short story On Exactitude in Science where a map becomes becomes so detailed and all-encompassing that it ends up becoming the same size as the territory it describes and is rendered useless. In the words of one of Lewis Carroll's characters from his last novel, Sylvie and Bruno Concluded: "we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well."

I'm glad someone else knows that story. It often comes to mind. Theory is like that - it's necessary lossy,

But jazz standards (ie not the post-bop rep) is of course largely based on a small number of basic elements that come up an awful lot, so I don't feel that's so much of an issue.

[pcjazz]

Agreed.