Well You Needn’t Changes

[AllanAllen]

How many choruses do you guys take on a tune during a gig? I usually stick with two unless I'm feeling it and have somewhere to go, otherwise I get lost on the 3rd.

[AllanAllen]

Out of curiosity, what does this mean for you?

Ive always found “embellishing the melody” to be something that is more complicated and challenging in practice than it sounds.

When I state the melody, I do it very vanilla, as sparse and as clean as I can. Essentially, I leave all the rests as rests.

Then to embellish I'll play it how Louis Armstrong might play it as a melody statement, or if it's a slow song I'll think about Miles Davis... Maybe I should add a disclaimer that I don't get there yet, but that's what I'm aiming to do.

[pamosmusic]

How many choruses do you guys take on a tune during a gig? I usually stick with two unless I'm feeling it and have somewhere to go, otherwise I get lost on the 3rd.

I remember the two chorus mark being tricky to get past.

How many I take is suuuuuuuuuper gig dependent.

At a session I go to, my buddy’s rule is “two if you’re hot; one if you’re not.”

My general rule is one fewer than the band leader takes.

If it’s my own gig, it’s less about how many and more about intensity level than the actual number of choruses … somewhere between 2 and 6 most of the time probably? Rarely rarely rarely more than that. Except on a short form like a blues, obvs.

[pamosmusic]

When I state the melody, I do it very vanilla, as sparse and as clean as I can. Essentially, I leave all the rests as rests.

Then to embellish I'll play it how Louis Armstrong might play it as a melody statement, or if it's a slow song I'll think about Miles Davis... Maybe I should add a disclaimer that I don't get there yet, but that's what I'm aiming to do.

Right. I guess when I think about this, I have to make a lot of the same decisions I’d have to make if I were laying other stuff too … scales, chord tones, etc.

To be honest, I tend to find just making stuff up from scratch to be marginally easier than embellishing the melody convincingly.

Out of curiosity … have you ever tried using the melody to get ideas for playing the changes?

[AllanAllen]

Out of curiosity … have you ever tried using the melody to get ideas for playing the changes?

It seems like that would be the same thing to me. Or do you mean, taking another head through changes? Playing Sonnymoon for two over Oleo?

[Rick5]

How many choruses do you guys take on a tune during a gig? I usually stick with two unless I'm feeling it and have somewhere to go, otherwise I get lost on the 3rd.

It depends on the tune, what others in the band are doing, and what I feel like doing at the moment. Sometimes as few as one, and sometimes probably 4 or more. I never plan it in advance. It depends what is going on at the moment.

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[Rick5]

And sometimes none!

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[AllanAllen]

It depends on the tune, what others in the band are doing, and what I feel like doing at the moment. Sometimes as few as one, and sometimes probably 4 or more. I never plan it in advance. It depends what is going on at the moment.

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Seems like I'm in the right ballpark. Thanks for the input.

[Christian Miller]

Extensive discussion (scroll down a bit)

Variants on a Theme of Thelonious Monk (including guest post by Eric Lewis) | DO THE M@TH

Ethan is on team Db NOT G which he regards as a Miles Davis mistake.

The chords on the B section are not according to Ethan maj9’s despite the Monk quote. He hears a straight Db chord in the left hand. I tend to agree. The melody includes the 9th, so overall we have a Dbadd9 tonality. I think others have commented on this above but didn’t closely read every post, sorry.

There’s lots of subtle variations with this tune. Monk tends to play cool little chromatic lines and countermelodies that seem very much part do the song, omitted on the lead sheets I’ve seen.


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[Christian Miller]

Allan -

This is getting beyond stupid. Here's the friggin lead sheet. Turn on the Kenny Burrell version and play some shells over it. F7 - Gb7, etc. It fits. Fancy that. The bass plays the occasional C nat over the Gb7 because that's the b5. But he doesn't even do that every time. That's all.

The play G7 -- Ab7 --- A7 Bb7 B7 Bb7 A7 Ab7 G7 Gb7 over the bridge. Voila, it fits.

If you want the clip of me doing it over the recorded tune you can have it. It's not rocket science.

It's really not worth this absurd beard-scratching over one bleedin tune. Just get on with it. Nobody cares.

It's the soloing you need to worry about!

Attachment 108688

Bloody hell this chart makes me sorry I said nice things about the Sher NRB’s on another thread.


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[pamosmusic]

It seems like that would be the same thing to me. Or do you mean, taking another head through changes? Playing Sonnymoon for two over Oleo?

Not really … so like in Well You Needn’t, that first little part of the melody comes right out of an F major triad. You could use that same structure for any of the other triads that are useable over the tune. Like maybe any of the triads from the F major scale you’d use over the F, or whatever Gb7 situation you’re using. Approach to the third (or fifth, depending on the version) and run up the triad the way the melody does … or you could use a different inversion or something and follow the same shape.

You could use that fragment from the bridge too … half step to the fifth, then up to the root … and put that over all your chords.

It’s a great way to start getting some vocabulary out of the melody you’re embellishing.

[Reg]

Allen... just keep doing your thing. And Don't take advice from Rag... (sorry rag you just have a narrow view of playing jazz... nothing wrong or bad... just not productive for amateurs)

Do put enough time into getting your technical skills together to have options when playing jazz tunes.

Your going to get better.... you have a great attitude and your open to whatever.

Soloing in jazz is huge... Part of soloing is being able to be in the moment and be able to develop musical ideas.... with the rhythm section, or whatever your performing with.

Well you needn't is.... just a blues tune. Monks tunes just camouflages and expands the basics. I'm not really a Monk fan.... but have always had huge respect. And his tunes are just part of the jazz repertoire and are fun to play. Jazz audiences and even non-jazz audiences, summer festivals etc.. know and love them.

Eventually your going to be able to hear and play tunes in many ways... Some develop these skill by trial and error some use other approaches.

Playing jazz requires being able to have a collection of Plug and play possibilities. Like how I always talk about Chord Pattern. Basic single chords have musically organized Chord patterns that imply harmonic references.

It's like how you want to develop melodies. Chords or Harmony and rhythm also get developed. So just like you develop collections of Licks... that adapt to different tunes. Harmony and rhythm also become Licks.

And like I said... you have plug and play options which basically just have longer space or time than single notes, chords etc.

Ex. In Well you... all those single chords can become Chord Patterns. Again Chord Patterns are just like mimi tunes condensed and imply that single chord.

The difficult part, at least at first, learning how to use the chord patterns with musical organization.

I hate to use this analogy... but you know how to use 3rds and 7ths, or chord tones... or even the dreaded Scale references. The point is ..there is musical organization for how any of these approaches work .. TOGETHER... and what they imply. Chord Patterns are the same thing, you need to learn the language.

You know the concept of embellishment.... just expand your understanding of embellishment with use of harmony and rhythm. Sorry... too much BS

[Christian Miller]

I mean on this recording for the B section I hear nothing in the left hand on the head and then parallel fourths in the left hand during the first chorus of soloing (root/fifth of the chord in inversion) with a D on the Eb and E chords - so you could call them Ebmaj9(no 3) and E9(no 3) I suppose. So Dbsus2 Dsus2 Ebmaj9(no 3) E9(no 3) in this case.

I don’t think Monk is well served by chord symbols tbh. His own charts didn’t have them iirc, but written out stuff in the left hand. That two part left hand thing in the A section is also in the horns of the ‘monk’s music’ arrangement for example. I think those details are important elements of the composition.

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[AllanAllen]

Extensive discussion (scroll down a bit)

Variants on a Theme of Thelonious Monk (including guest post by Eric Lewis) | DO THE M@TH

Ethan is on team Db NOT G which he regards as a Miles Davis mistake.

The chords on the B section are not according to Ethan maj9’s despite the Monk quote. He hears a straight Db chord. I tend to agree.

There’s lots of subtle variations with this tune. Monk tends to play cool little chromatic lines and countermelodies as much as full chords, and he really likes parallel fifths and fourths.


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Is the Miles Davis one really a mistake? I don't see why all this matters so much, the Davis changes are the ones people use, but if I call the Monk ones the real jazz freaks will be impressed?

I think this is directly related to the popularity and record selling success of Miles Davis vs Monk, and also it's not a big deal. If I called Needn't and someone in the band got in a ruffle about using Davis changes instead of Monk, I just wouldn't ask them back.

It's good to know they exist, but I think (AT THIS POINT IN MY JOURNEY) my time is better spent learning a new tune, say Groovin' High instead of learning Needn't twice.

Edit: All caps to emphasize there is a time and place to dig into all the nuance of the compositions, but right now I'm trying to learn enough tunes so my 3 hour gigs aren't all the same.

[Jimmy Smith]

I mean on this recording for the B section I hear nothing in the left hand on the head and then parallel fourths in the left hand during the first chorus of soloing (root/fifth of the chord in inversion) with a D on the Eb and E chords - so you could call them Ebmaj9(no 3) and E9(no 3) I suppose. So Dbsus2 Dsus2 Ebmaj9(no 3) E9(no 3) in this case.

I don’t think Monk is well served by chord symbols tbh. His own charts didn’t have them iirc, but written out stuff in the left hand. That two part left hand thing in the A section is also in the horns of the ‘monk’s music’ arrangement for example. I think those details are important elements of the composition.

I wouldn't derive chord symbols to a tune based on what Monk plays in a group setting. He would frequently play freely. I'd go more by what the bassist does. His bands always played his tunes correctly, to be representative of what was composed.

[Christian Miller]

Is the Miles Davis one really a mistake? I don't see why all this matters so much, the Davis changes are the ones people use, but if I call the Monk ones the real jazz freaks will be impressed?

I think this is directly related to the popularity and record selling success of Miles Davis vs Monk, and also it's not a big deal. If I called Needn't and someone in the band got in a ruffle about using Davis changes instead of Monk, I just wouldn't ask them back.

It's good to know they exist, but I think (AT THIS POINT IN MY JOURNEY) my time is better spent learning a new tune, say Groovin' High instead of learning Needn't twice.

Look, Monk is very hard, very counterintuitive music. There’s a hilarious Ethan blog where he takes to task seemingly everyone in jazz for playing Monk wrong. Herbie, Barry Harris, Miles…

The worst thing is I agree with him.

I tend to like Monk playing Monk best for myself because I love the way his music sounds so much and so much of what makes it Monk as opposed to mainstream modern jazz is in the weird details and specifics. And a lot of that stuff is really composed
into the music, it’s not improvised clowning around. It’s also not really imo entry level jazz material (although it is often used as this in workshops etc.)

But that’s also a reason why I tend to steer away from his music on pick up gigs etc. plus, i need to sit down and throw time at it which I haven’t done. It’s like playing Bach.

Miles is great, but his versions of Monk are more like recompositions if I’m being charitable and assuming he didn’t just play them wrong. As I’ve noted elsewhere he tended to do that a lot.

But people used to play music a little bit wrong a lot. It was harder to learn music in the bop and post bop era. Bruce Forman actually says that this might have been something that helped people evolve and develop their own style. Otoh these days we can slow everythig down without changing pitch and listen to stuff a million time. The internet is powerful too.. I get corrected online for mistakes and so on. You learn things here and so on. So it’s great for getting things right, but maybe there’s something to be said for getting things wrong haha (Bruce would say so.)

There’s also little point in being a pain about it otoh.

If someone wants to play a lead sheet version of monk on a jam session, there’s no harm in it, and now you also know better for yourself. You may also refine your ability to hear, for example whether the bass is playing G7 or Db7 on the bridge and adjust accordingly. That’s all great for your musicianship.


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[AllanAllen]

All excellent points Christian.

I picked the Burrell one because it's a monk tune, but played straight and cool. The subtext here is, it's a version I think I can pull off, with the pedigree of "I learned it from a Kenny Burrell record" if anyone asks why I'm playing it like that.

Just merely a coincidence it matches the Miles Davis changes, which is a bonus for me since the one I like matches the RB which means I don't need to write anything for my trumpet player. If he's unfamiliar with the song, he can just read it. Then, like I said, we can get through it on a gig.

[ragman1]

How many choruses do you guys take on a tune during a gig? I usually stick with two unless I'm feeling it and have somewhere to go, otherwise I get lost on the 3rd.

What would you say? Obviously it's completely dependent on the circumstances, isn't it? If it's a medium AABA tune probably one will do per instrument. Depending on how many soloists you've got.

If it's a fast number then maybe two, depending on how many soloists you've got, including the bass and maybe the drummer. If it's a really fast number and a short chorus then maybe more. Maybe there's a case for trading 4's or 8ths. You don't want to bore the audience, that's the point. The presentation is for their benefit.

It depends on the kind of tune, the tempo, the number of soloists, the length of each chorus, and everything else including the kind of audience. Is the gig small and intimate or up on a stage with a larger crowd? Is it a show or are you background?

So it all depends. There's no one answer. It's just common sense, really.

[Ukena]

Which take is this from? Septet, solo, a live thing?

Septet.



Same tune in the chorus and bridge with the Trio (with Ramey and Blakey).

[AllanAllen]

Not really … so like in Well You Needn’t, that first little part of the melody comes right out of an F major triad. You could use that same structure for any of the other triads that are useable over the tune. Like maybe any of the triads from the F major scale you’d use over the F, or whatever Gb7 situation you’re using. Approach to the third (or fifth, depending on the version) and run up the triad the way the melody does … or you could use a different inversion or something and follow the same shape.

You could use that fragment from the bridge too … half step to the fifth, then up to the root … and put that over all your chords.

It’s a great way to start getting some vocabulary out of the melody you’re embellishing.

To me, this falls under playing licks. I think of licks as a snippet of practiced melody. Could be part of a head, could be an exercise, part of a scale, something from a book or transcribed solo, just a modular melody.

I'm friends with a talented saxophone player and he says he thinks of a shape and takes it through the changes. Exactly like what you describe, but he imagines the staff.

[pamosmusic]

To me, this falls under playing licks. I think of licks as a snippet of practiced melody. Could be part of a head, could be an exercise, part of a scale, something from a book or transcribed solo, just a modular melody.

I'm friends with a talented saxophone player and he says he thinks of a shape and takes it through the changes. Exactly like what you describe, but he imagines the staff.

Sure but ideally these are pretty simple as far as licks go, so also super flexible.

And also, of course, they have the added benefit of sound like the melody.

[ragman1]

Allen... just keep doing your thing. And Don't take advice from Rag... (sorry rag you just have a narrow view of playing jazz... nothing wrong or bad... just not productive for amateurs)

You're wrong. Unless you're saying I'm giving professional advice. Which I'm not, a professional wouldn't need it. You must think I've spent my life in a closet.

There's a word for people who put other people down to put themselves up. I forget what it is now but it's not good.

[AllanAllen]

What would you say? Obviously it's completely dependent on the circumstances, isn't it? If it's a medium AABA tune probably one will do per instrument. Depending on how many soloists you've got.

If it's a fast number then maybe two, depending on how many soloists you've got, including the bass and maybe the drummer. If it's a really fast number and a short chorus then maybe more. Maybe there's a case for trading 4's or 8ths. You don't want to bore the audience, that's the point. The presentation is for their benefit.

It depends on the kind of tune, the tempo, the number of soloists, the length of each chorus, and everything else including the kind of audience. Is the gig small and intimate or up on a stage with a larger crowd? Is it a show or are you background?

So it all depends. There's no one answer. It's just common sense, really.

Peter said it gets boring going from F to Gb and I thought, how boring can it get if you go through 2 choruses. So I wanted to see how many rounds these guys are taking.

If you played a gig you would know, you have to fill the time, and someone has to take solos. You can't go up there, play the head to Autumn Leaves, think, I'm not feeling it, play the head again and stop. It's not always as artistic as it's romanticized to be. Sometimes you play a ballad while a table of salesmen are having a loud conversation about quotas right next to the band. There's no point skipping the solos there, the next tune is coming right up after you stop and after that another one.

[pamosmusic]

Peter said it gets boring going from F to Gb and I thought, how boring can it get if you go through 2 choruses. So I wanted to see how many rounds these guys are taking.

If you played a gig you would know, you have to fill the time, and someone has to take solos. You can't go up there, play the head to Autumn Leaves, think, I'm not feeling it, play the head again and stop. It's not always as artistic as it's romanticized to be. Sometimes you play a ballad while a table of salesmen are having a loud conversation about quotas right next to the band. There's no point skipping the solos there, the next tune is coming right up after you stop and after that another one.

Im sorry … I don’t mean that it’s boring to go back and forth between those two chords. Just that it’s easy to fall into a rhythm where you play *with the bass motion* on changes like that. So like you play a thing, then kind of slide up a half step and play another thing, then slide back, etc.

[pamosmusic]

There's a word for people who put other people down to put themselves up. I forget what it is now but it's not good.

You mean like someone who jumps into a conversation and immediately calls it stupid?