Well You Needn’t Changes

[Christian Miller]

I don't think that's accurate to say Monk and his band didn't operate using music fundamentals like chord symbols. We've been over this before. There's literal footage of Rouse asking Monk the changes and Monk gave them to him. I think it's obvious if you listen to Monk's bands that they all agreed on the changes.

I mean professional musicians don't necessarily need chord symbols to play the right chords, right?

But I would say for Monk there's often tricky corners and details. I can imagine him explaining harmonic details in that way for soloing.

But I don't think anyone is arguing Monk didn't know chord symbols or didn't use them. For my part I personally said is that chord symbols don't seem to cover what is going on with a lot of Monk's music, including Well You Needn't.

In the music itself, there's details and figures gong on that are not only cool, but reproduced between recordings and not present in the charts I've seen. Many of his voicings are not easy to write down as chord symbols - he often omit thirds and uses parallel motion in fourths, fifths and sevenths for instance. This is all part of the character of his music.

Monk isn't the only composer who suffers from this 'lead sheet-isation'

Further, there's footage of Teo, the recording engineer, asking Monk to play a free form piece and Monk wouldn't do it. Ergo because he operated within the structure of explicitly composed tunes.

Although for this tune it's probably realistic to just have only the roots, written as triads. Rather than try to notate the full quality of each chord since on band recordings Monk would do creative stuff not representative of the chords. But the bassists absolutely would stick to the form of the tune and outline the changes.

Again, if you wanted more info on the chord quality, you'd have to pick a definitive recording, maybe a solo one, and just transcribe it.

Yeah Teo story doesn’t surprise me. You only need to listen to different recordings of Monk to realise how consistent he was about the way he played those tunes. I think that’s a big misconception about Monk. He was a great improviser too, of course, but his music was very composed in terms of the head arrangements etc, and if you look at things like Crepuscule with Nellie there’s no improv at all.

In terms of writing out monks music I think a good compromise is piano score with chord symbols. the Sher new real book does this for a few Monk tunes, actually.

Monk own charts would vary between piano score


and more lead sheet - with chord symbols - like depending on the tune.


I couldn’t find one for WYN.

They were written for copyright presumably, it doesn't sound like he used them much for his musicians. The extract graham posted makes it sound like his approach varied from tune to tune.

Monk's own mention of 'major ninth' in the bridge of WYN seems to me an example of how chord names weren't so standardised in those days. From his recordings it seems he meant a Db chord with a major ninth - possibly no third - rather than a Dbmaj9. You can appreciate that from looking at the way he writes a Dbmaj7 chord as Db-natural-7 in the Monk's Mood chart. (The implication is also that the other major chords in the chart are intended to be plain major chords with no added notes.)

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[pamosmusic]

EXACTLY - AT LAST!

This is the whole point. We're so scared not to copy. Of course you've got to play the tune but it's what you do with it. Have fun with it. You can play what you want.

This tune is actually great fun once you're not afraid to let rip. Don't imitate, it's absolute death to creative innovation.

And this tune is NOT difficult, really it's not.

Wait so is reading it off a leadsheet somehow not copying and more creative?

Fascinating.

[Christian Miller]

(Interestingly the Monk's Mood chart above doesn't reflect the intricacies of what Monk plays... the Sher NRB is good on the actual notes, but I've noticed some errors in the voicings.)

[pamosmusic]

I mean more like composers where a substantial part of the catalog is non negotiable.

though I did notably forget Charlie Parker

Wayne Shorter

[ragman1]

Wait so is reading it off a leadsheet somehow not copying and more creative?

Fascinating.

'Reading it off a leadsheet' is unnecessary when you know the tune. Then you can play with it, as so many have done.

[pamosmusic]

'Reading it off a leadsheet' is unnecessary when you know the tune. Then you can play with it, as so many have done.

But if you just learned it off the leadsheet rather than like … from the song … do you “know the tune?”

And around and around we go.

Literally what we’re talking about here is trying to learn and understand the music of one of the whole tradition’s most important and challenging composers. The leadsheet only tells you what it tells you.

[grahambop]

I haven’t read this thread properly (life is too short) but I assume from what I have read that confusion arose because the OP did not realise there are 2 versions of this tune in common use, thanks to Miles muddying the water way back. Which is perfectly understandable.

I guess it’s a useful reminder that one needs to be aware of this sort of thing. In my case, when I got into jazz (in far-off pre-internet days) I was so obsessed with it that I read every book and biography I could get my hands on. So I kind of knew about a lot of these oddities, they all get mentioned somewhere if you read enough.

Anyway I think it can be worth knowing a lot about the history and background of the music if you want to play it, maybe it helps in some way.

[AllanAllen]

I haven’t read this thread properly (life is too short) but I assume from what I have read that confusion arose because the OP did not realise there are 2 versions of this tune in common use, thanks to Miles muddying the water way back. Which is perfectly understandable.

I guess it’s a useful reminder that one needs to be aware of this sort of thing. In my case, when I got into jazz (in far-off pre-internet days) I was so obsessed with it that I read every book and biography I could get my hands on. So I kind of knew about a lot of these oddities, they all get mentioned somewhere if you read enough.

Anyway I think it can be worth knowing a lot about the history and background of the music if you want to play it, maybe it helps in some way.

I heard the changes different than they were. It was merely a coincidence that there are two commonly played versions. I started a similar thread in the summer about Stanley Turrentine's Sugar. Where I try to learn changes by ear, then when I check the lead sheet says something different and to my ear it sounds wrong/sour/off. It went smoother because there is only one standard reference recording of that tune.

Knowing jazz isn't played one way over and over, I'm always wondering if it's substitutions or re-harmonizations on the recording, or if I'm hearing things wrong.

[Bobby Timmons]

That’s not really what I said, I said Monk was reluctant to tell them stuff. He often liked them to figure it out themselves, after they’d learned the melody (which he usually taught them by ear from the piano). Of course there were exceptions to this practice sometimes.

It’s one reason why Monk’s recording sessions often overran and annoyed his producers!

Here are a couple of quotes from the book:

Attachment 108708Attachment 108709

Thanks, that clarifies it.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

That’s not really what I said, I said Monk was reluctant to tell them stuff. He often liked them to figure it out themselves, after they’d learned the melody (which he usually taught them by ear from the piano). Of course there were exceptions to this practice sometimes.

It’s one reason why Monk’s recording sessions often overran and annoyed his producers!

Here are a couple of quotes from the book:

Attachment 108708Attachment 108709

[pamosmusic]

I heard the changes different than they were. It was merely a coincidence that there are two commonly played versions. I started a similar thread in the summer about Stanley Turrentine's Sugar. Where I try to learn changes by ear, then when I check the lead sheet says something different and to my ear it sounds wrong/sour/off. It went smoother because there is only one standard reference recording of that tune.

Knowing jazz isn't played one way over and over, I'm always wondering if it's substitutions or re-harmonizations on the recording, or if I'm hearing things wrong.

Yeah in my crusty old age, I’ve really started to see the value in Vanilla Book, Barry Harris, or even Pat Martino style leadsheets for tunes I’ve learned.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

Yeah in my crusty old age, I’ve really started to see the value in Vanilla Book, Barry Harris, or even Pat Martino style leadsheets for tunes I’ve learned.

What are Barry Harris or Pat Martino style lead sheets?

[pamosmusic]

What are Barry Harris or Pat Martino style lead sheets?

Lead sheets is the wrong word.

Streamlined chord changes.

In my old age, the idea of streamlining chord changes and mapping out tunes that way makes more and more sense.

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

Lead sheets is the wrong word.

Streamlined chord changes.

In my old age, the idea of streamlining chord changes and mapping out tunes that way makes more and more sense.

Got you I think, you mean like "generalizing" a II V to "dorian" or "mixolydian".

[pingu]

been looking at Vanilla Changes
for ‘like someone in love’

will start another thread ….

[pamosmusic]

Got you I think, you mean like "generalizing" a II V to "dorian" or "mixolydian".

Hate that

But generalizing it to just the minor or just the dominant.

Also some other things …

I vi ii V can often be made just I and V or even just I … certain more unusual ii-Vs eliminated altogether or reduced to something simpler, like a passing diminished.

(the Pat Martino one here is obviously more specific with everything becoming some form of minor, but still)

[Boss Man Zwiebelsohn]

Hate that

But generalizing it to just the minor or just the dominant.

Also some other things …

I vi ii V can often be made just I and V or even just I … certain more unusual ii-Vs eliminated altogether or reduced to something simpler, like a passing diminished.

(the Pat Martino one here is obviously more specific with everything becoming some form of minor, but still)

That's why I put quotation marks.

[Bobby Timmons]

Yes, agreed on all points.

I mean professional musicians don't necessarily need chord symbols to play the right chords, right? But I would say for Monk there's often tricky corners and details. I can imagine him explaining harmonic details in that way for soloing.

My opinion is that 1. He had his tunes explicitly composed and solidified with the melody, chord symbols, and extra parts like specific voicings, inners, counters, and bass lines. and 2. That his musicians understood the tune structure relevant to them through a process including ear but not limited to it. So the tunes got explained to them to some degree through Monk's idiosyncratic process.

But I don't think anyone is arguing Monk didn't know chord symbols or didn't use them. For my part I personally said is that chord symbols don't seem to cover what is going on with a lot of Monk's music, including Well You Needn't. In the music itself, there's details and figures gong on that are not only cool, but reproduced between recordings and not present in the charts I've seen. Many of his voicings are not easy to write down as chord symbols - he often omit thirds and uses parallel motion in fourths, fifths and sevenths for instance. This is all part of the character of his music. Monk isn't the only composer who suffers from this 'lead sheet-isation'

This is true. A pure lead sheet with only chord symbols would leave out the extra parts that characterize Monk's music to an adequate degree - specific voicings, inners, counters, bass lines. I think he would have extra parts solidified and they could be related to the structure more easily, or he would just be creative over the bass and have it be less relevant or representative of the chords like in WYN.

Yeah Teo story doesn’t surprise me. You only need to listen to different recordings of Monk to realise how consistent he was about the way he played those tunes. I think that’s a big misconception about Monk. He was a great improviser too, of course, but his music was very composed in terms of the head arrangements etc, and if you look at things like Crepuscule with Nellie there’s no improv at all.

Yes, that is a big misconception that he was all out there and unorganized with his music. He was very traditional in his approach to jazz, he was just creative.

In terms of writing out monks music I think a good compromise is piano score with chord symbols. the Sher new real book does this for a few Monk tunes, actually.

The Monk fake book does this. It has several formats: Crepuscule with Nellie is full piano score, some are piano score with chord symbols, some are treble clef with a few extra parts written in and chord symbols, and some are more or less lead sheet.

it doesn't sound like he used the his lead sheets much for his musicians. The extract graham posted makes it sound like his approach varied from tune to tune.

Yep

Monk's own mention of 'major ninth' in the bridge of WYN seems to me an example of how chord names weren't so standardised in those days. From his recordings it seems he meant a Db chord with a major ninth - possibly no third - rather than a Dbmaj9. You can appreciate that from looking at the way he writes a Dbmaj7 chord as Db-natural-7 in the Monk's Mood chart. (The implication is also that the other major chords in the chart are intended to be plain major chords with no added notes.)

Yep. I think if you wanted to pull more accurate info about the chord quality on WYN, you'd have to take maybe a couple recordings and just transcribe them. Maybe the genius of modern music take and a solo take.

[Bobby Timmons]

Monk own charts would vary between piano score


and more lead sheet - with chord symbols - like depending on the tune.

Ah hah. So proof his tunes were solidified including chord symbols. These are only a few examples but I think it was this way for all his tunes. Bass was my first instrument and I'm still a bassist on Hammond, been listening to Monk's catalog for 20 years, I think his bassists always outlined the changes too clearly for it to be otherwise.

[Christian Miller]

Today’s chord

3 x 3 6 4 0

Monk’s mood


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[AllanAllen]

Today’s chord

3 x 3 6 4 0

Monk’s mood


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No Kenny Burrell or Miles Davis version.... Don't care, it's a bus for church, NEXT

[Bobby Timmons]

Monk's own mention of 'major ninth' in the bridge of WYN seems to me an example of how chord names weren't so standardised in those days. From his recordings it seems he meant a Db chord with a major ninth - possibly no third - rather than a Dbmaj9. You can appreciate that from looking at the way he writes a Dbmaj7 chord as Db-natural-7 in the Monk's Mood chart. (The implication is also that the other major chords in the chart are intended to be plain major chords with no added notes.)

You guys have inspired me to put in some ear work on this tune. I'd been off it since they killed it in college band but I'm back into it. I think you're right that it's some sort of implied Dbmaj9 with missing notes, but without alterations. The voicing that has sounded the best so far to me is Db-Ab-Eb in fifths. Already sounding better than just a bunch of 7 chords. I also like Db-Ab-Bb-Eb

[ragman1]

That's quite a young Monk in the photo there. I wonder what happened to the specs when he got older.

[ragman1]

It's all about chords at the moment. But has anyone got the soloing down yet?

[AllanAllen]

It's all about chords at the moment. But has anyone got the soloing down yet?

You can blow F blues through the whole thing if you want.