The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #51

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    Quote Originally Posted by Patlotch
    I could never have been a professional musician, or even a good jazz musician. I'm not interested in the job, too many material and relational difficulties. The world of musicians does not attract me, too much dishonest competition, too many men (not enough women). And I'm not interested in pedagogy either, or at least I wouldn't want to be a teacher. I am not interested in the art trade, whether in painting, literature or music. I made a living differently, and I never sold my artwork

    When I take the guitar, to play or compose, there is 100% music, no others problems. I know it's stupid, I have virtually no audience, but I don't care

    So I have a lot of respect for the vast majority of jazz musicians. They are proletarians of music. In movies, commercials... you never see their name written, while all the technicians are on the credits. It's theft! and lack of the most basic respect. To live, most are forced to play music they don't necessarily like: where is the pleasure of creation?

    How many standards do I know? Maybe 50. It's really not enough. In France, I don't see the reason to play only American tunes, but jazz musicians do mostly that
    true

    you know that our art isn’t even recognised by law, right? cant copyright a solo....

    (btw if anyone knows the pianist who plays that beautiful solo on Rene Fleming’s version of You’ll Never Know from the Shape of Water, please let me know )

    anyway, there are, to a high degree of precision, no full time professional jazz musicians. There’s maybe a few tens of people worldwide.

    The profession in the UK is largely people getting grants from the Arts Council for tours. That’s why the scene is focussed around projects and originals. And Ronnies pays Ok, like clubs in the Village that’s tourism right?

    in NYC I can’t see how anyone makes a living. A town more expensive than London that pays worse for gigs and you likely aren’t even the best jazz guitarist in your apartment building. That’s why you go there right?

    I understand there are trust fund babies and those with day jobs. I suppose you as an American can tour Europe and teach for extra cash, though I suspect that’s not open to everyone. (It wasn’t simple for David B to book Pasquale Grasso in London, the promoters need convincing. Now they love him of course, not just because he’s amazing but because crucially he sold out his dates.)

    Certainly doesn’t sound that the continent is any better...

    other than that it’s teaching, sessions, pit band work, pop stuff....

    So the amateur/pro distinction is kind of nonexistent. Actually this is one thing that drew me to jazz.... it’s very honest! We are all amateurs in the truest sense.

    The classical world on the other hand which was what I was working towards as a singer is just horrendous. I hate it.
    Last edited by christianm77; 01-26-2020 at 08:51 AM.

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  3. #52

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    true
    in NYC I can’t see how anyone makes a living. A town more expensive than London that pays worse for gigs and you likely aren’t even the best jazz guitarist in your apartment building. That’s why you go there right?
    That's a good line! "I moved to a 4-plex, so now I'm one of the top players in my building ...". LOL!

  4. #53

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    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    ... the top players in my building ...
    building your jazz audience

  5. #54

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    An article by Hal Galper, "How To Learn A Tune."

    How To Learn A Tune | Hal Galper

    "...only after you’ve learned 1,000 tunes do you realize that there are really only about 20 song forms and every tune is a combination of segments of these 20 forms. This overview made it easier to learn (internalize) any new tune."

  6. #55

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    So the amateur/pro distinction is kind of nonexistent. Actually this is one thing that drew me to jazz.... it’s very honest! We are all amateurs in the truest sense.
    It really is. I must say, back in the day on rec.music.makers.guitar.jazz, this was always a big topic of discussion, and people made a big deal about pro/vs non-pros and what kind of gigs pros take in places and how you'd never find Jesse Van Ruller playing in a pizza shop because jazz musicians are treated better than that in Europe and anyways real pros don't teach and blah blah blah. I'm glad that kind of discussion seems to be over.

    It does feel like the playing field has been leveled a lot and honestly, today jazz musicians are much more humble now than they were back when I first moved to NYC in 2000. Some of that was just everyone in my circles being young people, but in many ways I think the scene is a bit healthier now.

  7. #56

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    ha I know some guys like that. The best of them know this about themselves.
    Even some of the people I think are the best players, don't think of themselves that way. Mike Moreno mentioned a while back in an interview that he never thought he was the best player in his peer group, guys like Stefan Schwartz were around and playing their ass off (I heard stories about this guy for years, unfortunately he passed away very young).

  8. #57

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    Quote Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
    An article by Hal Galper, "How To Learn A Tune."

    How To Learn A Tune | Hal Galper

    "...only after you’ve learned 1,000 tunes do you realize that there are really only about 20 song forms and every tune is a combination of segments of these 20 forms. This overview made it easier to learn (internalize) any new tune."
    I don't think he means to say you can figure out the 20 forms and suddenly know the 1000 tunes.

    If you've been successful at learning 1000 tunes, you've got a trained ear, good musical memory and the ability to instantly play what you hear in your mind.

    I'm a fan of Hal G. but I don't get this idea of, for example, "knowing where" the tonic chords are. That implies some sort of linguistic analysis. But that's not how a non-musician can sing a pop tune. No language involved. It's not how you learn melody. You just hear the sounds in your mind. You can hear the chords too -- even if you don't know them, you can tell if somebody plays the wrong one. And, the key, it seems to me, is training your ear well enough that your fingers go to the right place. My belief is, that if you have to think in bandstand shorthand, you aren't likely ever to learn 1000 tunes. Sure, you can easily memorize a tune like Autumn Leaves by remember (251 alternating major and minor), but you can't easily memorize Stella that way and I doubt that anybody who knows 1000 tunes has a linguistic formula for each one.
    Last edited by rpjazzguitar; 01-26-2020 at 05:44 PM.

  9. #58

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    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    I don't think he means to say you can figure out the 20 forms and suddenly know the 1000 tunes.

    If you've been successful at learning 1000 tunes, you've got a trained ear, good musical memory and the ability to instantly play what you hear in your mind.

    I'm a fan of Hal G. but I don't get this idea of, for example, "knowing where" the tonic chords are. That implies some sort of linguistic analysis. But that's not how a non-musician can sing a pop tune. No language involved. It's not how you learn melody. You just hear the sounds in your mind. You can hear the chords too -- even if you don't know them, you can tell if somebody plays the wrong one. And, the key, it seems to me, is training your ear well enough that your fingers go to the right place. My belief is, that if you have to think in bandstand shorthand, you aren't likely ever to learn 1000 tunes. Sure, you can easily memorize a tune like Autumn Leaves by remember (251 alternating major and minor), but you can't easily memorize Stella that way and I doubt that anybody who knows 1000 tunes has a linguistic formula for each one.
    how do you know?

    tbh A lot of the questions that people ask here about progressions are usually answerable from the perspective of ‘well it’s not that weird there’s X tunes that do the same thing’

    really I think hal g is on the money, based on how it’s gone so far.

    btw weirdest thing about Stella is the form. Harmony is straightforward.

  10. #59

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    btw weirdest thing about Stella is the form. Harmony is straightforward.
    Yes, that's right. Interesting also, the melody uses a lot of 11th, 9th, 7th, and this at the beginning of the bar. I don't think his composer needed to borrow that from the boppers... One could imagine a much simpler harmony, without using the superstructure of chords or substitutions

    we speak of "jazz harmony", but most standards were not composed by Jazzmen, and not played first by jazz orchestras

    Stella is from 1944, by Victor Young for the music of the film


    what made the success of jazz until the 50s is that the tunes played by jazzmen were already known to the general public, a characteristic that disappeared in the 60s and 70s

    today, it may be poorly considered that Jazzmen plays pop songs but in reality, it is very difficult for an audience to appreciate what has not referenced for him (cf topic Gig solo ...)

  11. #60

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    Yeah, right? It’s romantic harmony, Rachmaninov. They’re leaning notes. Mostly diatonic neighbours iirc, Bach used that stuff actually...

    Think Mahlers Adagietto. It’s a Fmaj7 chord... oh.

    This is the vid I did about the tune



    jazz harmony largely was romantic harmony up until maybe the 40s ... check out Matt Munisteri... it’s all 19th century shit really. Which is not to say it isn’t gorgeous (and not to say that soloist didn’t play jazz notes over the top of it)

    and you see this stuff all the time in big band charts.... Fancy modern chords resolving to simpler ones, chromatic lines through the voice leading etc etc

  12. #61

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    Btw that iim11 thing... one of the first things I notice about standards.

    oh it’s a suspended V7

    oh hai Barry harris

    man, looking at tunes deeply is the only way. They have a way of teaching you. You aren’t going to get this from a harmony text. It might have all the info (or not) but it’s just dry, unmemorable facts with no context. Dungeons and dragons manuals or something. Like that thing I just said, just fairy stories till you get into it

    same with solos.

  13. #62

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    how do you know?

    btw weirdest thing about Stella is the form. Harmony is straightforward.
    What is the bandstand shorthand for Stella? I'd argue that it's too complicated for most people to utilize. So, what makes the harmony "straightforward" or, better yet, possible to remember? Is Hal G. really remembering where the tonics are in that tune? More likely, it seems to me, he remembers the sound of it in the same way any of us remember Home on the Range and he finds the right notes based on a well trained ear and the ability to play whatever is in his mind. How do I know? Logic, some discussions with other players and watching masters at work. I've never asked Hal G.

  14. #63

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    regarding Stella by Starlight, it is still difficult to say that harmony is 'simple'. And first of all, what harmony? Victor Young's Soundtrack? The one in the song with the lyrics? The one for jazz? Keih Jarreth's re-harmonization? See these four versions p.84 and their analysis here in Keith Jarrett’s Art of Solo Introduction: “Stella by Starlight” – A Case Study

    on the contrary, the analysis is not simple because harmony is not functional everywhere

    there is no denying the originality of this score from the very beginning in Victor Young, its mysterious character that makes this theme one of the most original and attractive of the standards's repertoire. Of course, there is such originality among the great American composers in relation to their romantic inspirations of the 19th century, not to mention the influence of the blues which is the dimension that most upsets the Western tonality (I'm not talking here about Stella but by ex Gerschwin) with the reciprocal influence of jazz and early 20th century composers, Debussy, Ravel (blue notes in L'enfant et les sortilèges 1919-1925) etc. and back upon Ellington from the 1930s. Cole Porter studies in Paris with Vincent d'Indy... it's not all very "romantic harmony"...

    when I was playing and improvising on Stella by Starlight, frankly, I went by ear, without going out of Bb by adding here or there, or removing the notes that correspond to the chords 'out'. That's how I felt the freest

  15. #64

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    Stella is still a damn special tune. Always will be.

  16. #65

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    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    What is the bandstand shorthand for Stella? I'd argue that it's too complicated for most people to utilize. So, what makes the harmony "straightforward" or, better yet, possible to remember? Is Hal G. really remembering where the tonics are in that tune? More likely, it seems to me, he remembers the sound of it in the same way any of us remember Home on the Range and he finds the right notes based on a well trained ear and the ability to play whatever is in his mind. How do I know? Logic, some discussions with other players and watching masters at work. I've never asked Hal G.
    yeah like the first few bars are

    biiio7 V7 I7 IV IVm I and so on

    then it goes to iiim, backdoor to V then around to relative minor sitting on the III7 for a bit. Then back to I via a backdoor and the last few bars are back to the biiio7 and turnaround back to I

    as I say it’s the unusual through composed structure of Stella which makes it hard to summarise, not the harmony. If you aren’t sure what I’m on about, check out the original changes and then compare to the jazz subs. Which of course is one of the best ways to learn about jazz harmony, comparing different versions of tunes....

    I think it’s easy to underestimate how many tunes a 1000 tunes is. Try writing out your repertoire on a spreadsheet or something and see how much a 1000 is. Hopefully you can see why it’s going to cover pretty much all the bases ... apart from the odd Holdsworth tune or whatever.

    not sure why you are trying to dispute this lol but I assure you it’s a total waste of both of our times. Time that could be spent learning more tunes :-)

  17. #66

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    Quote Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
    Stella is still a damn special tune. Always will be.
    Music is about much more than whether the harmony is ‘interesting’ - music is a language. With all tunes a summary of the harmony gives no indication of whether a song is any good or not.

  18. #67

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    Quote Originally Posted by Patlotch
    regarding Stella by Starlight, it is still difficult to say that harmony is 'simple'. And first of all, what harmony? Victor Young's Soundtrack? The one in the song with the lyrics? The one for jazz? Keih Jarreth's re-harmonization? See these four versions p.84 and their analysis here in Keith Jarrett’s Art of Solo Introduction: “Stella by Starlight” – A Case Study

    on the contrary, the analysis is not simple because harmony is not functional everywhere

    there is no denying the originality of this score from the very beginning in Victor Young, its mysterious character that makes this theme one of the most original and attractive of the standards's repertoire. Of course, there is such originality among the great American composers in relation to their romantic inspirations of the 19th century, not to mention the influence of the blues which is the dimension that most upsets the Western tonality (I'm not talking here about Stella but by ex Gerschwin) with the reciprocal influence of jazz and early 20th century composers, Debussy, Ravel (blue notes in L'enfant et les sortilèges 1919-1925) etc. and back upon Ellington from the 1930s. Cole Porter studies in Paris with Vincent d'Indy... it's not all very "romantic harmony"...

    when I was playing and improvising on Stella by Starlight, frankly, I went by ear, without going out of Bb by adding here or there, or removing the notes that correspond to the chords 'out'. That's how I felt the freest
    we are getting into the weeds here a bit. Stella is of course not ‘simple’ but it is ‘straightforward’ in a way that a Wayne Shorter tune might not be if you understand functional harmony well and know the original changes (the jazz changes disguise things a bit.)

    it dips in and out of near keys with borrowed minor key harmony that would have been familiar to Brahms and the use of the dim7 is typical for the music of the time except that it *starts* on a dim7, which is highly unusual.

    The melody in the Bb major scale with two accidentals

  19. #68

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    Here's one version of the simple changes in G.

    [ F#7 | F#7 | D7sus | D7 |

    | Dm7 | G7 | C | Cm |

    | G | F#7 | Bm | Gm7 C7 |

    | D | Em7 A7 | F#m7b5 | B7 |

    || E7+ | E7+ | Am | Am |

    | Cm | Cm | G | G |

    | F#7 | F#7 | Bm7b5 | E7 |

    | Am7b5 | D7 | G | G |

    So, it's the structure, not the harmony that's not straightforward? I'm not clear what that means. We were discussing memorization.

    How do people memorize Stella in a way that permits playing it readily in any key?

  20. #69

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    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    Here's one version of the simple changes in G.

    [ F#7 | F#7 | D7sus | D7 |

    | Dm7 | G7 | C | Cm |

    | G | F#7 | Bm | Gm7 C7 |

    | D | Em7 A7 | F#m7b5 | B7 |

    || E7+ | E7+ | Am | Am |

    | Cm | Cm | G | G |

    | F#7 | F#7 | Bm7b5 | E7 |

    | Am7b5 | D7 | G | G |

    So, it's the structure, not the harmony that's not straightforward? I'm not clear what that means. We were discussing memorization.

    How do people memorize Stella in a way that permits playing it readily in any key?
    these are the original changes iirc

    Stella_by_starlight_melodic_progression_original.pdf

    (Jordan’s chart hope he doesn’t mind)

    your changes have the correct original key (G) but this has it in Miles’s key (Bb) as it’s easier to compare it to the familiar Real Book changes.

    we can quibble about the inversion of the first chord, Peter Bernstein thinks about it as a Dbo7 - ie a biiio7, as does Jordan but others have Eo7

    If genuinely interested in my thoughts on the tune you also you could also watch the video I posted above which talks about the tune in depth.
    Attached Images Attached Images

  21. #70

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    Stella By Starlight Original Changes.pdf

    this I think is closer to the original

    if take a careful look you can see that your chart and the RB one and Jordan’s all relate, but the original has a lot less ii v movement, more dim7s and a lot of specific bass line movement.

    may remind you more of Bossa harmony?

    Also I might’ve hearing things but I’ve heard some versions that go

    Eo7 | % | Bb/F | G7 |
    Cm7b5 | F7b9 | Bb | % |

    in the last 8
    Last edited by christianm77; 01-27-2020 at 07:31 AM.

  22. #71

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    None of which address directly your question rpjazzguitar, so indulge me another, long, post. This is a subject that interests me.

    We know that it's much easier to memorise words than random characters. So 'giraffe shed balloon' is easier to remember than 'a;fgkqs;dogiqwgh' and a meaningful sentence such as 'the quick brown fox' is easier to remember still (but often we may forget the exact wording but retain meaning of the words.)

    The original changes of Stella represent musical words that make sense to me. So easier to remember. There are a few changes there that are a little unfamiliar to modern jazz players so you might see them 'modernised' a little such as in Jordan's chart where we have less in the way of specified basslines, and more ii V's, which I still wouldn't quite call a reharmonisation like I would the standard Real Book jazz changes. The meaning is retained, some of the wording is changed, if you like.

    Stella is quite a bit harder to memorise than say, Exactly Like You. Remember that these tunes (Stella, ATTYA, Have You Met Miss Jones etc) were played a lot by jazzers because they were unusual, not because they were typical. In fact, jazz education kind of teaches these unusual tunes first.

    The RB changes can seem obscure because they are a reharm of depending on which chart you like, #ivo7 V7 or biiio7 iim7 V7. However take to the bank the idea that #IVm7b5 VII7b9 IIm7 V7 can be used as a sub for both of these, and you've learned something pretty useful.

    That's (in terms of the progressions) the process as I see it. You build up your own map of how exactly it operates. But here's the thing. I don't know 1000 tunes. I know maybe 350 at best. But that's enough to appreciate how it has helped me.

    So some patterns jump out when you learn your first 50 or whatever... II V I's of course, but also backdoors, the IV #IVo7 I, and so on.

    But some patterns take longer.

    Some people might think Just Friends is unusual for starting on IV. It's not that unusual, because Stardust, Moonglow, After You've Gone do the same, just to mention three, but you might not know those tunes if just learn the 50 most common jam tunes, because these are more vocal standards.


    • biiio7 iim7 V7 actually shows up in ATTYA, but if you don't know some juicy pre war standards like Embraceable You, Pennies, Can't Give You Anything But Love.
    • Or the modulation to V which we see in a lot of pre war tunes. Embraceable You, one example.
    • Or the modulation to III major might seem out there, Coltranesque, until you've learned If I Were a Bell, I'm Old Fashioned, Shiny Stockings, Tangerine and How About You.
    • How about II7 IVm6 I? Also seen as #IVm7b5 IVm6 IIIm7? Learn only Night and Day and it might seem weird. It's not. Just One of Those Things, A Smooth One, Djangology, some versions of Embraceable You (AGAIN! there's a reason why people think of that tune as a Rosetta Stone of standard harmony) and so on and so forth.
    • II7 I? Think that's weird, you guessed it, need to learn more tunes. (Also you guessed it Embraceable yYou does that, sneaky wee tune)


    So there you go - and that's off the back of a 1/3 of the tunes I'm meant to know. So I can only imagine the patterns I would learn when I get up to 1K....

    The best thing about this process is how holistic it is. You train your ears, your ability to play melodies, your knowledge of voicing (to play chord melodies), your knowledge of vocabulary, language and norms within the music, your ability to play changes and so on and so on. Best of all you have something to play on gigs.

    In that sense, do you have time to practice anything else? I mean not knocking exercises, but that's what you practice to help you play music, right?

    But here's another thing - I don't actually want to lecture people about jazz standards, or the GASB songbook and I don't want to be a dick about the 1,000 tunes thing. I mean, I find it daunting. But you have to learn one tune at a time, and for me that has to be a tune I heard someone play and went 'oh that's great, I have to learn that one.' I know you love Brazilian music for instance, so maybe most of your 1,000 ends up being Brazilian tunes. It really doesn't matter.

    But my beef with jazz edu is that everyone becomes results oriented. The big repertoires of working musicians are emergent from the requirements of their gigs. I know quite a few Dixieland and Trad tunes - I find them actually pretty helpful for understanding later tunes, but that's not why I learned them. You do a gig with a new person, and don't know four tunes, maybe. When you get the second call and have learned them, looks good, and you get future calls. So that number builds up...

    Being gatekeepers of the jazz tradition is a reflection of the fact that jazz is deeply insecure about its cultural position and needs there to be 'keepers of the flame.' When Jaco Pastorius first sat in at his first jazz gig, he didn't know ATTYA, but he was able to play the &*^$ out of it when it was called. And you can bet he knew all the soul, funk and Motown stuff...

    But there are many great musicians in the world who don't know 1,000 jazz standards. But they all engage with music... If you don't have a huge repertoire you might be a great reader for instance, or have great lugs. Or both.
    Last edited by christianm77; 01-27-2020 at 08:47 AM.

  23. #72

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    See also - "why do guitarists never practice the music they are going to play on gigs?"

  24. #73

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    [QUOTE=rpjazzguitar;1004056]I don't think he means to say you can figure out the 20 forms and suddenly know the 1000 tunes.
    /QUOTE]

    Granted. He (Hal Galper) is clear about that. Which is why he says it is only after learning 1000 tunes that you realize....

    Mind you, it may not be necessary to learn 1000 tunes. Consider: we know pf professional jazz musicians who work at a high level but don't actually know 1000 tunes. It's worth pondering how SMALL the repertoire is of some great players---20 or so tunes that they play for decades. (Think of how common it is for a jazz set to contain only a half-dozen tunes, maybe less, played for 5-10 minutes each.) I think this works almost the opposite way of knowing a lot of tunes: one tune (maybe two) of each type one focuses on, explored deeply over a long, long time. And no taking of requests...

    Jazz is a long way from a piano player in a bordello being expected to play whatever the paying customers asked to hear.

    Some players know a lot of tunes. Jimmy Bruno is one. Frank Vignola is another. Peter Bernstein has already been mentioned in this regard. I think the more interested a player is in his own improv, the less need he (or she) has for vast rep because there isn't a vast set of vehicles for improv. The more one is interested in making the tune sing, the more tunes is apt to know. (If one is playing solo chord melody, one needs to know a lot of tunes, but even there, if you can play a few solo choruses--Tim Lerch is great at this---you are building sets of tunes that last 5 minutes instead of 90 seconds, so you don't need to know as many. You can focus on good ones you have a feeling for.)

  25. #74

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    Quote Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
    I think the more interested a player is in his own improv, the less need he (or she) has for vast rep because there isn't a vast set of vehicles for improv.
    I also think that jazzmen (and women) who compose tend to favour their own compositions, and even more so if they have their own orchestra. When I played in a group, our repertoire was 75% my compositions, and a mix of standards, bossa-nova ... Personally, being an amateur, I had more than enough work with this list. Today, i am less and less interested in standards, or to divert them frankly

    this is especially the case of the leaders of Big Bands (Basie, Duke, Gil Evans ...) but also whenever the repertoire has to be renewed (bebop, cool ... 1960s Bill Evans, Coltrane...), it's becoming new standards, to be constantly renewed

    what you say about the need to focus on some standards that we want to play seems true to me
    Last edited by Patlotch; 01-27-2020 at 08:57 PM.

  26. #75

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    [QUOTE=MarkRhodes;1004246]
    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    I don't think he means to say you can figure out the 20 forms and suddenly know the 1000 tunes.
    /QUOTE]

    Granted. He (Hal Galper) is clear about that. Which is why he says it is only after learning 1000 tunes that you realize....

    Mind you, it may not be necessary to learn 1000 tunes. Consider: we know pf professional jazz musicians who work at a high level but don't actually know 1000 tunes. It's worth pondering how SMALL the repertoire is of some great players---20 or so tunes that they play for decades. (Think of how common it is for a jazz set to contain only a half-dozen tunes, maybe less, played for 5-10 minutes each.) I think this works almost the opposite way of knowing a lot of tunes: one tune (maybe two) of each type one focuses on, explored deeply over a long, long time. And no taking of requests...

    Jazz is a long way from a piano player in a bordello being expected to play whatever the paying customers asked to hear.

    Some players know a lot of tunes. Jimmy Bruno is one. Frank Vignola is another. Peter Bernstein has already been mentioned in this regard. I think the more interested a player is in his own improv, the less need he (or she) has for vast rep because there isn't a vast set of vehicles for improv. The more one is interested in making the tune sing, the more tunes is apt to know. (If one is playing solo chord melody, one needs to know a lot of tunes, but even there, if you can play a few solo choruses--Tim Lerch is great at this---you are building sets of tunes that last 5 minutes instead of 90 seconds, so you don't need to know as many. You can focus on good ones you have a feeling for.)
    i think you are confusing total repertoire with working repertoire. Whatever band you are doing you are going to play a core rep of tunes night after night. Same if you build a solo set.

    Working rep is always in flux. For me in terms of standards gigs it’s about 10 or so tunes at any one time. The stuff that you might call on a gig if asked. Plus the stuff I learn for projects. but you can call the other ones.

    Again if you do enough gigs where it’s expected to learn the tunes, it builds up. Plus, you know, maybe you actually like music and want to learn some of it for fun from time to time. Dunno, call me crazy.

    its worth repeating - I play with some mega players with a fairly small rep of standards. But in general they have great reading.