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05-05-2025 02:30 PM
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Figure I may as well share this here. I know I scuff a few notes playing the melody and that this is a definitely a no-no - I will bear this in mind definitely for future performances.
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Just can't resist playing, recording and sharing another version of this.
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It’s interesting to know about various changes in use for oft played tunes. It’s reminiscent of the Monk / Miles versions of Well You Needn’t and other examples. i think context and intention are factors, too. Personally, Stella has come up in two contexts.
Here in Japan, where there is a thriving jazz jam session scene in my region, Stella is a staple and an ice breaker tune. When I first started going to jazz jams at one of the several venues that hold them within a reasonable driving distance from home, it was one of the first tunes that I learned. I had the old Real Book from when I had been a working musician during the 1980s, but I noticed that while some of the Japanese old timers still have that from when they studied at Berklee, at the jams here the Jazz Standard Bible was used.
For open jams at which amateur musicians (in Merrifield’s sense “the joy of doing what you love”) proliferate, the JSB provides a common agreed upon ground to keep jams on track. Rather than debating versions of tunes, we use it to keep everyone on the same page and focus on playing live jazz spontaneously together.
Bands and gigging musicians can work out arrangements of tunes, including the correct versions, in rehearsals and such. But the jam sessions are informal and with a main focus on fun and learning.
Besides the open jams culture here, a second context in which Stella has come up, in my own very limited experience, is for an occasional solo guitar set. Some time ago, I had worked up a 10 minute “Stars Medley” featuring Stella with When You Wish Upon a Star. Besides changing the key to enable more use of guitaristic devices like harmonics and open strings, I inserted a vamp for a bit of ad-lib over a loop that was based on a combination of the changes for each. I found that some variations on the changes that I was used to, incorrect or not, worked best in that context.
From where I’m sitting in my little corner of the world, where playing live jazz out with and for others is a kind of a community event, that seems to work fine.
Maybe that’s how this all started, jazz musicians doing their own thing with the repertoire, and at some point one or some other of the variations got canonized. But this is getting verbose and that’s another story so I’ll end it here.
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As far as I'm concerned the real chord changes are Em7b5 - A7b9 just like everyone plays them. Anything else is for weirdos.
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Amen.
Originally Posted by ragman1
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I studied with Allen Hanlon, a friend of Bucky Pizzarelli. Allen, like Bucky advocated for using the original changes to a tune.
I like to know the original changes AND the commonly used changes to all the tunes I know. When I play with other cats, I use my ears and play whatever changes they are using. What is problematic is when different cats in a band use different changes at the same time.
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here's some nice Stella changes
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My weird chord melody goes X X 5 7 7 5 > X X 5 6 6 5 (sort of Em9/11 > A7aug) Originally Posted by ragman1
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The RB changes work fine over the original changes as soloing options. The thing I really like about the original is the bass line. There's some weak bass movement in the RB chart which is not actually what Miles etc played. Going into the middle 8 for instance, you have the RB:
F^7 | E-7b5 A7 | A-7b5 | D7
The bass line here is a bit weak. I never really like those sorts of 'dogleg' II V movements and here the A is especially metrically weak on the second half of the bar. E for the whole bar is stronger. I don't really like to many consecutive leaps in basslines anyway, and there'd be four leaps of a fourth in a row going into the B. E-A-D-G-C
But on Miles version they play F^7 | E-7b5 | Eb^7 | D7 Which is a bit nicer
The original is lovely though F/C | Bbo7 | A-7b5 | D7
Which is set up fantastically too with the aug 6th chord:
Bb^7 | G-6 | Dm | Db7(#11)
F/C | Bbo7 | A-7b5 | D7
Old school, but very satisfying.
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Love this tune, one of my favs but I always struggle with the real book changes, can anyone give me the real ones or at least something better to start from?
Cheers.
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check out post no. 14 in this thread, Jeff worked out something pretty close to the original changes. Originally Posted by Basshead
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