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Sounds like a cool tune. I’m going to do another week on Freight Trane because I’ve been slacking pretty badly trying to get a new recording setup together. I’m there now, so I’m hitting Freight Trane hard this week.
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01-21-2018 10:25 PM
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Yes! Man, another great pick. Carla''s music is woefully overlooked.
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Yeah, I posted that one a little early because of the technical challenge of it. I also picked a follow up tune, this week's Ida Lupino, because it's a gentle piece, both to the ear and on the learning curve figuring Freight Trane could easily be more than a week's piece to live with. It's always really interesting to see just what unexpected things a devoted time on the instrument teaches us with any tune, and how it transfers to another tune.
Originally Posted by wzpgsr
I'm seeing how differently I have to construct lines from short changes (last week) to longer tonal areas in this week. A very different way of studying.
Going backwards from Ida to FT, I'm now starting to think about longer phrases that cross the bar line from one change to another without changing the nature of the line. For an example, a linear pattern of thirds changing direction going through two tonal areas across the bar line. It can really change the way you think about your lines. Fluency and comfort in different phrase lengths is very important in being a balanced player.
David
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I am obsessed with Freight Trane, lol. I've finally gotten the tempo up and swinging on the head and now I'm trying to match tempos with improv. It's crazy - sometimes hard, sometimes easy. I'm playing with all kinds of phrasing ideas and a little bit of wild abandon thrown in, because well, after all it is a Freight train, lol.
seriously, I don't know why this one grabbed me but it really did and I'm having a blast
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Same here! Finally got a couple of hours last night to really dig in. Great head. Looking forward to spending more time with this. Given my new schedule, I think I’ll probably need to devote a month per tune so that things stick.
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Originally Posted by Michael Kaye
Yeah those bebop tunes are like little etudes. I will sprinkle more throughout our year here but I love that tune and it's been a part of me since I tackled it a while ago. I was going to use Nostalgia, a Fats Navarro contrafact of Out Of Nowhere this week but I thought I'd wait a while. Originally Posted by wzpgsr
If you're hungering for more of this (these pieces will change your playing), remember the etudes thread I began. I've been taking that one slowly (it's on the changes of A Train) so you could really absorb the language, as it's intended. I'll have to re-visit that soon, add some more commentary to that.
I'm so glad you're having fun!
Keep poking at these tunes if you can on a weekly basis. There's always something to learn!
David
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Contrafacts are one of the unique and delightful features of jazz that were born out of necessity and have become a trademark of the jazz tradition. Originally used as a way to "rewrite" a tune to avoid copyright liability, they were also ways to filter out casual players, often written with very intricate bebop melodies.
Out of Nowhere is a standard that dates back to the early 1930's, it's been a staple and standard of jazz artists for 3/4 of a century. Trumpeter Fats Navarro penned a contrafact and named it Nostalgia. Employing the same changes, it has a beautifully singable bebop head.
The tune(s) find G as the home key, the changes are in an ABAC form and we'll see our secondary dominants and we meet the tritone substitution here in bars 3-4, or that's how I hear those changes, the dominant a half step above the expected tonality target.
You guys who've been having fun with Freight Trane can have some fun with these tunes.
If it's your first time around for this tune, Out of Nowhere is a great tune. Immerse yourself and get to know it. If you've got that down in your past, take a look at Nostalgia, and not how a different head and deference to it, can change your soloing on a tune.
Have fun here!
David
Out of Nowhere sung by Ella:
Charlie Parker's classic
More contemporary, always a favourite for a duo, Julian Lage and Mike Moreno
Here's Bean with Django
Taking it out with Mick and Joe Diorio
Nostalgia the Fats Navarro contrafact with Fats Navarro
Lee Morgan playing Fats' tune
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Lennie Tristano did a great contrafact on Out of Nowhere too. This is a lovely version by Warne Marsh and Red Mitchell...
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So players- what's your impression working with this piece, either as Out Of, or as a contrafact? This has always been one of my favourites to work with, there's a natural flow and I love that little twist in the first changes.
Taking a look at that particular change of tonality from an "inside" or sound of the expected, a D7 is the most predictable and natural sound to lead back to the G. Our tritone family focuses on the half step approach, the sound of Ab7 down to G. I like this piece because it's got Ab's II V, the secondary dominant of the tritone sub sound and then returns to the G. A nice example of that alternative route to getting home. When I'm soloing, I hear Ab as much as I hear Bb-, so there're options for getting lots of "outside" sounds and how to play them.
Comments on whether you like this tune? Why? guido5, very cool. Paul Desmond's duo with Gerry Mulligan is also really nice in that same kind of dialogue way of playing. How've you been doing on this tune? It's got so many places and twists to change it up that they provide a nice cue to for movement. When I was doing a regular duo thing with another player, this became a regular part of our playing. Each time, week after week, it was different, but that may have just been playing with Mick, he seemed never to have a cliche or habit in his playing.
Do you guys like the contrafact approach? Does it change the way you solo? Let's talk about what we do to construct a solo. Can you describe some of the things that guide you when you open up the solo space? Those first two bars and the two that follow, are you thinking Question and Answer? See the way Fats' piece clearly sets up a feeling of call and response? How's that different or similar to the original? Is it helpful to listen to Nostalgia? Remember as you listen to any of these versions: Think like a soloist, like a composer, even when you're "just listening". These recordings provide a lesson in themselves, each one of them full of ways that your own soloing can grow.
Tell me guys, would it be helpful to take a look at some unique things in a recording that's posted? If you post an example you like, tell us what made it compelling or if you got something out of it. Could you use more commentary and discussion of new ideas or tools that can be mined from individual recordings we have posted? For example, that Warne Marsh recording is really nice! Do you notice how he uses bits from the original head as a spring board when he's finding new ideas to feed off of? That kind of thing.
Well hope it's going well! Report in and tell us how it's going?
David
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For me, contrafacts have always been favorite tunes to work on because, being a melodic based player, they give me two melody threads to work from. It's nice to interleave fragments of the original and new themes and combine them in new ways.
I thought you would like what Warne is doing on that one... The Paul Desmond and Gerry Mulligan quartet recordings are favorites as well..
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I sure did! Thanks. In my lessons, listening critically and with a composers' ear is a big part of my teaching. I wish we could all share that annotated real time experience together, especially on this thread. Sometimes someone will point out something they heard and it gives everyone a look into the soloist's process. It certainly changes the mindset of the group after we've listened, many times it'll make someone play better, smarter, easier and more imaginatively for a little while. The Tristano approach of interaction is a much undervalued contribution IMHO. Originally Posted by guido5
David
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I'm a little late to the party, but...
Out of Nowhere is one of the few tunes I know well from memory. It's not even like "memory" anymore. I just know it. Consequently, I've tried a lot of different approaches to it. I was not aware of nostalgia (though I'm sure I've heard it before, but probably not when I was paying a lot of attention), but I'll give it a look. (Eventually. I'm preparing for a gig on Tuesday).
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You want a little fun? You know the original Star Trek theme? The one with Mr. Spock? It's a contrafact of sorts on Out Of Nowhere. That's a way to wake up an audience that's drifting off. Originally Posted by Boston Joe
David
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Nice I hadn't placed that before. Very cool. Originally Posted by TruthHertz
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One more 317 East 32nd version...
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Ha! That totally works! I'll have to pull that one out next jam session. Originally Posted by TruthHertz
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Yeah, you should've heard it when Mick and I would play OON a lot. One day I slid into that version and he was right there with me. Then he took it into another galaxy. Mick Goodrick playing Star Trek, my life is complete! Originally Posted by Boston Joe
Who would've thunk it?
David
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A gentle and warm start for our February chapter. Bossa is one of those song types that's important for a jazz player to know, but so many players kinda fudge their way through some kind of faux quasi bossa comping they picked up on the fly. That's good enough for jazz as they say. But a good bossa rhythm, a clave, is a wonderfully flowing dialogue between a steady quarter and a syncopated eighth beat. So I've included a clip, it's not in English but the music speaks strongly and if you're not familiar with bossa, it's there for us.
Wave. I love this tune. It's not loaded with hidden land mines. To the contrary, it's really easy on the ear and the position movements can be gentle if you want them to be, and you can explore line movement all over the fretboard and do it safely because the melodic framework is easy to hear. Great tune to get off book and blow on.
This one is in D. It briefly moves out in two different key centres during the bridge section: first to F, then to Eb. Learn to hear these sections and really have fun with them.
Now soloing on bossa is a little different from swing. The eighth note is straight and even in feel; it's not a triplet based feel. If you're using a metronome, you set it for 1 and 3.
I'll let you spend some time with the tune, with the ear and with the guitar. Keep the thinking going, keep the thoughts flowing and post them here. Have fun!
David
Two printings, same tune. What ever is easier for you to read.
Jobim
Paul Desmond (with Ed Bikert)
a different take and a lovely trio version with a great jazz trio
McCoy Tyner pushing the tune to new places
Stan Getz who brought the first fusions of bossa and jazz to the realm of standards
Ella
Fred Hersch and Bill Frisell's lovely reading
And here's that clip on breaking down and playing the bossa rhythm.
So have a good listen, and yes, please share insight or delighted reactions to things that are played in the clips, that we might gain some new material or ways of improving our own playing chops.
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I'm a sucker for what Paul Desmond does on a bosa...
More Ed Bickert on this one too...
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On the whole, I dislike playing latin tunes. I'm one of those players that David mentioned. I have a fake bossa rhythm that I use, and it seems to get me through.
The thing is, I feel that's kind of a disservice to the music. Latin music has a lot of complexity in the rhythm and many traditional rhythms and figures that a real latin player should know. And I'm just simply not interested enough in the genre to learn them. But I feel bad about that when I play with guys who are really into the latin thing. We had a Cuban guy sub for our leader one night, and he was trying to get me to do all this stuff, and I just flat out didn't care. (If it were for a gig or something, I'd make the effort, just in the interest of not sucking at the gig, but it was just a play-through.)
Speaking of gigs, I have one on Tuesday, and we're doing Out of Nowhere. Time to pull out the Star Trek.
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I understand your thoughts Joe. I know there were many genres of music that elude my vocabulary because I choose to filter them out. There's only so much time in a life after all. Originally Posted by Boston Joe
That being said, I'll say I think Wave is a special tune worth some awareness.
I don't really look at this thread as a way to get individual tunes, although that's a nice consequence if you have the time.
I don't really look at this thread as a fun thing to do, playing over tunes that are within the easy reach of our everyday abilities, although that's a huge benefit and having fun is always at the core.
I have picked out 52 tunes in a planned presentation with the simple premise: Spending time with the instrument getting to know something new in a songform or what you can get out of what you know will, by sheer brute force, make you a better player.
So each week, there's a new feature that can inform everything you know, everything you might play in the future. Imagine a toolbox of 52+ things that can keep you from ever being bored or predictable... and increasing your proficiency as a player. That's my goal.
Straight eighth notes, syncopated rhythmic use (whether in a latin feel or superimposed over a swing feel), using the diminished scale as a melodic building block, passages in descending whole tones, making your ideas flow in waves... that's what might be dropped in your pocket with this song.
So that's the sales pitch. I learned one important thing in my time in music school: there can be a universe of the unexpected within the things we dismiss.
Anyway, just wanted to say Keep growing. It's what it's all about.
David
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I'm not saying I won't look at the tune. I'll take a look at it after I get this gig out of the way.
I guess I just get a little irritated with the whole thing because there seems to be this attitude that every set or session has to have an up swing tune (usually a bop head), a medium swing tune, a latin tune, a boogaloo, and a ballad. I can understand wanting variety, but there are other ways to do it.
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Hi everyone!
This is my preferred reading of Wave, by the great Joe Pass, from the LP Tudo Bem! Pablo records, featuring Paulinho Da Costa:
wave joe pass - Bing video
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For sure! I hate obligatory formulatic set programing. It kinda encourages the attitude of "OK now at point B. Punch in your point B chops and on to point C..." Originally Posted by Boston Joe
A great veteran tenor player told me to make a set list like the movements of classical symphony. Make it lead to somewhere. Let that be a ballad, then maybe an up-tempo to take a smile out the door. Yeah, programming is an art unto itself.
Have fun at the gig! I hope it's amazing, for you and the audience.
David
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Wow that's an exciting interpretation of the straight 8 feeling! Definitely worth checking out further. Thanks! Originally Posted by gcb
David
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