The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    Mr Beaumont,

    I like your style!

    I find that at 60, I can still learn a song fairly quickly (about a week) and in a month or so can internalize it..

    However, now my memory serves as a "LIFO" (Last-in-first-out) where if I want to internalize one, another
    will escape my grasp and I'll have to pull out the dreaded sheet...

    When I played classical guitar, I had a stockpile of Choro's and Bossa-nova songs that would last ~1 hour...
    15 songs or so, but now, as a a "seasoned citizen" I can hold about 5-6 chord-melodies of Jazz standards...

    The song "Stardust" to my ears is one of the most beautiful imaginable, I first heard it through my folks who
    were "Big-Band" fanatics, so we mostly heard the spectacular Glenn Miller version. If I hear this version
    out and about, by accident, I will surely get goose-bumps, and may actually shed a tear or two.

    I ordered (recently) the sheet from Rick Seversen (Guitar College) and it looks like quite a
    "Knuckle-buster" to play the chord-melody. I used to play the melody on my Mandolin from
    the "Frank and Joe Show" CD, but now you have inspired me to take on this monster whilst
    screaming out the Greg Kihn lyric "They don't write 'em like that anymore"

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  3. #27

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    I can empathize with the feeling of Stardust being a "lost" tune, as in underperformed.
    A couple of thoughts spring to mind, primarily that due to the static nature of some points of the chord progresion, it's not really a blowing tune, also Hoagy Carmichael utilized some really unusual poetic/rhythmic meter in his tunes, I'm also thinking of "I Get Along Without You Very Well" as being another similar case in point.

    I believe for this reason, "Stardust" and also "Lush Life" are more effective as "set pieces" rather than vehicles for improvisation. (Purely based on personal/subjective opinion).

  4. #28

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    Quote Originally Posted by PMB
    I don't know why my last post doubled up and I can't seem to remove or edit either one.

    Here's a solo rendition of JK playing Stardust:

    C major???????

    Unacceptable, Mr Kreisberg

    (only kidding)

    In all seriousness, I was to understand Db was the 'right key' but I do know a lot of people play it in C. Any thoughts?

  5. #29

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    C major???????

    Unacceptable, Mr Kreisberg

    (only kidding)

    In all seriousness, I was to understand Db was the 'right key' but I do know a lot of people play it in C. Any thoughts?
    Ralph Patt's "Vanilla chords" has it in C. I was always taught to consult the Ralph Patt website, to get a sense where the tune originally started at, before all the mods/subs did their tricks.

    In fact, here are the Ralph Patt changes to Stardust:

    STARDUST


    Key of C 4/4

    Pickup | C7 |

    [ F | F | Fm maj7 | Bb7 |

    | C | Em7 A7 | Dm A7 | Dm |

    | G7 Gdim G7 / | Dm7 G7 | C | C |

    | D7 | D7 | G7 | G7 C7 |

    || F | F | Fm maj7 | Bb7 |

    | C | A7 | Dm A7 | Dm |

    | F | Fm | C | B7 E7+ |

    | F A7 | Dm7 G7 | C | C |

  6. #30

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    I came up with a few guitarist performances of "Stardust" but, compared to something like "All the Things You Are," it's under-played.

    Charlie Christian, both with the Benny Goodman sextet and the open jam sessions at Mintons
    Herb Ellis and Remo Palmier, Windflower
    Joe Pass with Jimmy Rowles, Checkmate
    Joe Pass, solo, Unforgettable
    Jim Hall and Ron Carter, Telephone

  7. #31

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    Quote Originally Posted by lawson-stone
    I came up with a few guitarist performances of "Stardust" but, compared to something like "All the Things You Are," it's under-played.

    Charlie Christian, both with the Benny Goodman sextet and the open jam sessions at Mintons
    Herb Ellis and Remo Palmier, Windflower
    Joe Pass with Jimmy Rowles, Checkmate
    Joe Pass, solo, Unforgettable
    Jim Hall and Ron Carter, Telephone
    Jimmy Rowles! Now there's a name. My friend who grew up in LA and studied with Art Pepper and Harold Land was extolling his virtues recently. I don't think I have that Pass record. Off to google land.

  8. #32

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    Tony Mottola did a nice version, included the verse ,too and played it in "C." I have it in my iTunes library, but have no idea how to post it here, I'm sorry to admit !

  9. #33

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    C major???????

    Unacceptable, Mr Kreisberg

    (only kidding)

    In all seriousness, I was to understand Db was the 'right key' but I do know a lot of people play it in C. Any thoughts?
    Neither key is 'correct'. The original manuscript is in D major.

  10. #34

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    Stardust - The most popular song of the 1st part of the 20th century, now LOST?-stardust-jpg

  11. #35

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  12. #36

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    Quote Originally Posted by PMB
    Neither key is 'correct'. The original manuscript is in D major.
    Excellent. a fine fact to annoy horn players with.

  13. #37

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Excellent. a fine fact to annoy horn players with.
    The first recording of Star Dust in 1927 for Gennett Records had Carmichael backed by horn players. Will Friedwald in his book, Stardust Memories: The Biography of Twelve of America's Most Popular Songs writes "the arrangement is in D natural (two sharps), which, as [Richard] Sudhalter observes, must have been the key Carmichael felt best suited his piano solo. He certainly wasn't doing the horns any favors by throwing them into "sharp-infested waters.""

  14. #38

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Excellent. a fine fact to annoy horn players with.
    Important rule: NEVER pass up a chance to annoy a horn player...

  15. #39

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    Quote Originally Posted by NSJ
    Thanks. I think it's doable. Most of these tunes I've already played and am familiar with, my understanding of harmony and the instrument is better than it was before; I think I have to just make the tradition from "sort of knowing them" to "knowing them without thinking". That means using all the tools I've been developing, levering what I've learned about the form, intervals, diatonic sequences, chromaticism, cadences, secondary domiants, etc.

    I mean, I haven't started reworking on "Speak Low" but I still can recall the main memory now. But now I understand that it goes from the 5th below the tonic to the third and the sequence of triplets that follow reinforce the M3, etc. That kind of understanding was lacking when I played the tune before.

    Basically, it's not enough to must memorize the chords and melody and hope you can retain it. That's my belief anyway. It comes from watching pros and realizing they don't have to THINK about what they're playing.

    It's just time to put it all together and build a solid repertoire that will stay with me for life.

    From studying and working, for me, the key thing is repetition from multiple angles (singing, harmonic and melodic analysis, reinforcement of the same, rinse and repeat and repeat.
    I once asked Jonathan Kreisberg about his own practise program for learning chord types and their inversions. He said he wrote out all the possibilities, stuck them on the wall and removed each one only after he had them truly under his fingers in every position and key.

    Regarding tunes, as long as you break things down and shake them up in an imaginative way, your approach should work fine. Where things usually come unstuck is having a long-term goal without any specific steps or strategies to get there. There's a statement I read years ago from Howard Roberts (can't find the source) that discouraged students to tell themselves things like "I want to be a great jazz guitarist in two years time" as it confined them to mediocrity in the interim. Deep!

  16. #40

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    Quote Originally Posted by PMB
    I once asked Jonathan Kreisberg about his own practise program for learning chord types and their inversions. He said he wrote out all the possibilities, stuck them on the wall and removed each one only after he had them truly under his fingers in every position and key.
    I rather like that idea.

  17. #41

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    Quote Originally Posted by PMB


    The first recording of Star Dust in 1927 for Gennett Records had Carmichael backed by horn players. Will Friedwald in his book, Stardust Memories: The Biography of Twelve of America's Most Popular Songs writes "the arrangement is in D natural (two sharps), which, as [Richard] Sudhalter observes, must have been the key Carmichael felt best suited his piano solo. He certainly wasn't doing the horns any favors by throwing them into "sharp-infested waters.""
    Just right for a string band tho

  18. #42

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    I rather like that idea.
    It's also how Roger Woodward worked on memorising the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas so there must be something in it!

  19. #43

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    I don't know why Joe Pass' photo is there
    Last edited by medblues; 01-19-2017 at 07:15 PM.

  20. #44

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  21. #45

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    Tunes that start on IVmaj7

    Stardust
    Just Friends
    After You've Gone
    I Can't Believe You Are in Love With Me

    Any more for any more?

  22. #46

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    The distinctive thing about all those is that they all move to ivm before resolving to I (unlike say, Blueberry Hill that bypasses the intermediate change). There are also tunes where the ii is acting as a kind of disguised IV. For an example that's closer to the IVmaj7-iv6 songs you cited, the opening chords to As Time Goes By are sometimes played as Fm7 Bb7 | Fm7b5 Bb7 | Eb6 but they could be equally well expressed as Abmaj7 | Abm6 | Eb6.

  23. #47

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    Quote Originally Posted by sgcim
    Well, I didn't mean that starting on the IV chord was all that unusual; I was talking more about the fact that the melody starts on the major 7th in the key of C (a B natural), which kind of negates the sound of a C7.

    The other three songs you mentioned, JF, AYG and ICBYAILWM, can all be set up with a I dominant 7th chord that leads to the IV chord, but HC seems to be setting up an F6/Dm7 kind of thing by arpeggiating a Dm7 chord descending on the first bar of the tune, after the pickup measure (D-C-A-F-D).

    We used a lot of subs on it to make it more interesting.
    I wasn't trying to disprove you... Just thinking of other tunes. There aren't that many of them.

    Oh I see, that is interesting. I think I'm getting my keys mixed up.

  24. #48

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    Hoagy Carmichael wrote it in C, right? Because it sounds like the Goodman Sextet (w/ Christian) played it in Db. Then again, I am rarely right when it comes to this stuff!

  25. #49

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    Horn players like it too...


  26. #50

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    I once read an article by a Musicologist who said that "Stardust" was the most original song written in the last 200 years (FWIW)...

    Sublime Gypsy Jazzer Fapy Lafertin plays this tune on a regular basis. Here is a representative version: