A Smooth One

[AllanAllen]

Listening to A Smooth One (B. Goodman) it sounded simple enough, maybe a rhythm changes, after picking out the melody I opened iReal and… What in the world is going on with this harmony?

Bar 1
B-7b5: Tritone for F?
Bb-7: why is this minor?

Bar 2 seems clear enough, just the tonic with some bass notes. Is the F6/A is a sub for Gm9 and the F7/C is a sub for C7.

Then we might have a I vi ii V?

F Tritone subbed to B-7b5
D- somehow subbed to Bb-7?

I guess that’s the one tripping me up.


The bridge seems simple enough IV going to I.

[AllanAllen]

Maybe it's not a rhythm changes and I'm forcing square pegs into round holes...

[mr. beaumont]

Not loving those chords. Try a Bdim7 and a Bbm6.

[AllanAllen]

Are they ii V subs or something? I don't understand why this harmony is so complicated, it's from 1941.

[Christian Miller]

Are they ii V subs or something? I don't understand why this harmony is so complicated, it's from 1941.

Yes I remember being flummoxed by this type of thing. jazz harmony is usually taught from a post war basis.

actually harmony simplified down in someways during the bop era, lots of ii Vs. Old school ‘songbook’ progs got subbed with ii Vs not the other way around. Eg

Abo7 Gm7 C7 F
becomes

Bm7 E7 Gm7 C7 Fmaj7 in alone Together, (which to me makes less sense lol.)

So, swing era harmony is more bassline oriented, not nearly so many ii Vs and many more inversions. sometimes it can be confusing to players raised on post war music. Think of

F F/A Bb Bo7 F/C

little brown jug/Christopher Colombus

anyway this Smooth One thing. It’s an old school turnaround. So you aren’t far off with rhythm changes.

F F7/C Bm7b5 Bbm F/A

is derived from
F F7/C G7/B Bbm F/A

or, a form of I II7 IVm I. Not as unsual as all that.

it can also be used as a sub for I IV IVm I

examples of this prog:

night and day
Just one of those things
djangology
some variants of Embraceable you
Aguas de Marco (Jobim)

and probs loads others I forgot, often in the longer form

F/C Bm7b5 Bbm F/A Abo7 Gm7 C7

what to do with it?

Well my first port of call would be - what do Charlie and Benny do? Do they honour all the chords or do they take a more generalised approach?

[mr. beaumont]

I have not played this one,so give me a day or so to listen closer and mess around with it. It seems to me at first glance, to be what I call a "pull" tune like Topsy or It Don't Mean a Thing...so there's movement pulling to a key center, but playing on it isn't really about following every chord change.

[Christian Miller]

I kind of feel it’s missing the point to play every change in the same way as you might on some of the other tunes I mentioned. It’s a bassline thing. A vamp really.

[AllanAllen]

F F/A Bb Bo7 F/C

anyway this thing. It’s an old school turnaround. So you aren’t far off with rhythm changes.

F F7/C Bm7b5 Bbm F/A

is derived from
F F7/C G7/B Bbm F/A

or, a form of I II7 IVm I. Not as unsual as all that.

it can also be used as a sub for I IV IVm I

Thanks, this is helpful.

what to do with it?

Well my first port of call would be - what do Charlie and Benny do? Do they honour all the chords or do they take a more generalised approach?

Man, Charlie didn't do anything, he just got 8 bars in the last bridge to go up and down F. That's why I think the bridge is IV to I twice over. I played a long a little to the first solo, sounded like a sax with the speed at .75 but maybe it was Benny. It was a lot of F too.

[AllanAllen]

I agree with you guys, it didn't sound like a tune to solo the changes over. But then with that assumption, I wasn't expecting the changes to look like they do.

[pamosmusic]

I love prewar changes. The minor 4 chord and the diminished passing chords kind of phased out with bebop.

These are tricky though. My ear isn’t quite good enough for the details all the time, but that minor four is almost always a minor 6 chord and the melody supports that, with the prominent D natural.

Christians definitely right on the bassline. A lot of the time leadsheets complicate things by trying to name chords when really it’s some simple harmony with a nasty bassline spicing things up.

To me this sounds and feels like the universe of an F blues. B natural in the bass isn’t an unusual blue note, and the melody gives you that D natural to the bendy Ab and then resolves to the A natural. That vibe just screams blues.

Saxophone solo is bluesy as all hell too. Herb Ellis has a recording that sounds like he’s hitting changes in the bridge, but sort of dancing back and fourth between straight blues and generalizing to Bb and F in the A sections.

[pamosmusic]

I agree with you guys, it didn't sound like a tune to solo the changes over. But then with that assumption, I wasn't expecting the changes to look like they do.

Yknow it’s kind of funny. Christian has had a rant or two about people cutting the blues out of their analysis of guys like Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock and their changes look an awful lot like this. Less predictable and with some weirder pedal point choices, but you can kind of see where those sort of ostinato basslines give the blues a little running room.

[Christian Miller]

I love prewar changes. The minor 4 chord and the diminished passing chords kind of phased out with bebop.

These are tricky though. My ear isn’t quite good enough for the details all the time, but that minor four is almost always a minor 6 chord and the melody supports that, with the prominent D natural.

Christians definitely right on the bassline. A lot of the time leadsheets complicate things by trying to name chords when really it’s some simple harmony with a nasty bassline spicing things up.

To me this sounds and feels like the universe of an F blues. B natural in the bass isn’t an unusual blue note, and the melody gives you that D natural to the bendy Ab and then resolves to the A natural. That vibe just screams blues.

Saxophone solo is bluesy as all hell too. Herb Ellis has a recording that sounds like he’s hitting changes in the bridge, but sort of dancing back and fourth between straight blues and generalizing to Bb and F in the A sections.

yeah the B is more like a Traddy diminished thing, and the chords stick around a bit longer.

[Christian Miller]

Thanks, this is helpful.



Man, Charlie didn't do anything, he just got 8 bars in the last bridge to go up and down F. That's why I think the bridge is IV to I twice over. I played a long a little to the first solo, sounded like a sax with the speed at .75 but maybe it was Benny. It was a lot of F too.

ah of course. Sorry it’s been a minute.

[James W]

Not so long ago I encountered this tune in Randy Vincent's The Guitarist's Introduction To Jazz...

[AllanAllen]

Not so long ago I encountered this tune in Randy Vincent's The Guitarist's Introduction To Jazz...

I don't have that book. What's your insight? I'm trying to pull together some things that'll go over well with beginners at my jam night. I suppose it's a bit of the blind leading the blind, but I got the gig so how bad could I be.

[pcjazz]

That’s one of my favorite swing instrumentals. The A section changes are just a harmonized descending bassline riff that fits the bluesy melody really well; the B section is partly an ascending variation on the same riff. I like the version with the repeated triplet phrase at the end of the bridge. But didn’t Benny and Charlie play it in Ab? Most of the fakebook versions are in F, where the melody sits nicely in tenth position.

[Christian Miller]

I don't have that book. What's your insight? I'm trying to pull together some things that'll go over well with beginners at my jam night. I suppose it's a bit of the blind leading the blind, but I got the gig so how bad could I be.

Oh, get that book. (I don’t have a commission)

[James W]

I don't have that book. What's your insight? I'm trying to pull together some things that'll go over well with beginners at my jam night. I suppose it's a bit of the blind leading the blind, but I got the gig so how bad could I be.

No real insight I'm afraid. The tune appears in the chapter 'Riff melodies on tunes that are not 12 bar blues' and comes with a bit of description - the scales around which the melody is based, and includes a transcription of a background riff used in the A section.

[garybaldy]

Yes I remember being flummoxed by this type of thing. jazz harmony is usually taught from a post war basis.

actually harmony simplified down in someways during the bop era, lots of ii Vs. Old school ‘songbook’ progs got subbed with ii Vs not the other way around. Eg

Abo7 Gm7 C7 F
becomes

Bm7 E7 Gm7 C7 Fmaj7 in alone Together, (which to me makes less sense lol.)

So, swing era harmony is more bassline oriented, not nearly so many ii Vs and many more inversions. sometimes it can be confusing to players raised on post war music. Think of

F F/A Bb Bo7 F/C

little brown jug/Christopher Colombus

anyway this Smooth One thing. It’s an old school turnaround. So you aren’t far off with rhythm changes.

F F7/C Bm7b5 Bbm F/A

is derived from
F F7/C G7/B Bbm F/A

or, a form of I II7 IVm I. Not as unsual as all that.

it can also be used as a sub for I IV IVm I

examples of this prog:

night and day
Just one of those things
djangology
some variants of Embraceable you
Aguas de Marco (Jobim)

and probs loads others I forgot, often in the longer form

F/C Bm7b5 Bbm F/A Abo7 Gm7 C7

what to do with it?

Well my first port of call would be - what do Charlie and Benny do? Do they honour all the chords or do they take a more generalised approach?

Also:
Somewhere over the rainbow
Pennies from Heaven
I've heard Martin Taylor do it on a chord melody of Don't Get Around Much in Dmaj. First 8, bars 7 and 8 - Abm7b5 / Gm7 / D(F# in Bass)

[AllanAllen]

That’s one of my favorite swing instrumentals. The A section changes are just a harmonized descending bassline riff that fits the bluesy melody really well; the B section is partly an ascending variation on the same riff. I like the version with the repeated triplet phrase at the end of the bridge. But didn’t Benny and Charlie play it in Ab? Most of the fakebook versions are in F, where the melody sits nicely in tenth position.

I mean…. I thought this was in F…. The intro vamp being an F6.

[AllanAllen]

The RB Melody Is taken from the Kenny Burrell version ending the B with the 60’s swing cliche hits instead of Goodman’s bluesy lick.