Infant Eyes (Wayne Shorter)

[pauln]

Maybe Wayne would have just called it
harmony, defining "harmony" as what
is needed to produce the tune's sound.

[swampguide]

That is good but your rhythm is too straight, Wayne plays it with a languid feel and Herbie's accompaniment is calm and yet somewhat erratic.

There's a guy on YouTube who played it with a plodding 4/4 rhythm and it sounded like a death march - just dreadful, he should have renamed it infant death! I'm certainly not comparing your rhythmic feel to that monstrosity, only saying that the rhythm of this tune is essential to it's mood, it accents the suspenseful harmony.

Thanks for the comments. Agree that the rhythm is pretty square in my version ;-) . I was having enough trouble just trying to navigate the harmony. I think "cesarguit's" version was good for tempo/rhythm. There's still a detectable rhythm in his version but he's also staying on some chords for longer and adding embellishments to the melody to create interest and variety. I agree with "ragman1's" comment that it's important to maintain a pulse/rhythm to this piece. Too much rubato and erratic tempo can sound bad too.

Harmonically there's much to learn in this piece. Parallel and non-functional harmony, suspended chords, +4 chords, diminished chords etc. And it's "easy" enough (LOL!) to be a first piece to learn as an introduction to modern harmony. It's almost like Autumn Leaves is as an introductory piece for learning traditional harmony. I think I'll be working on this piece for a while to try and learn to improvise chord-melodies on it.

[Hyppolyte Bergamotte]

With my d’Aquisto NewYorker de luxe from 1989
https://youtu.be/dIEvqq6Mrz8?is=zXrzO43O0Ok-gLDi

[swampguide]

So I've been working on improvising chord melodies over this. The interesting/challenging part for me is going from the A7b9 chord to the Gbmaj7 chord (in the Mark Levine chart). Looking at this chart, the piano score has an F# where the A7b9 chord noted which is important and is a different sound (so actually an A13b9 I guess). Without the F# in the chord it doesn't sound as good to me.

When improvising chord melodies on this part, Bb diminished chords will work but I didn't find they sounded very interesting. 13th chords separated by minor thirds seem to sound better for the A7b9 (e.g. F#13, A13, C13, Eb13) or 7#9 chords (e.g. F#7#9, A7#9, C7#9, Eb7#9). These are all chords that can be built from notes in the Bb diminished WH scale.

But I also found that other chords not functionally related to the Bb diminished scale work too for A7b9. For example E/Eb or F#/F which have notes close to the Gbmaj7 chord they move to but have notes outside the Bb diminished scale. This got me thinking that maybe this is more how one should approach this kind of harmony - not try to apply functional harmony much. Perhaps this is obvious to others. I was aware of this idea but this tune is the first one on which I've really tried to apply it in a significant way.

What are other's thoughts on how to approach this progression?

Below is the version I recorded with an improvised section:

Thanks

[wolflen]

So I've been working on improvising chord melodies over this. The interesting/challenging part for me is going from the A7b9 chord to the Gbmaj7 chord (in the Mark Levine chart). Looking at this chart, the piano score has an F# where the A7b9 chord noted which is important and is a different sound (so actually an A13b9 I guess). Without the F# in the chord it doesn't sound as good to me.

When improvising chord melodies on this part, Bb diminished chords will work but I didn't find they sounded very interesting. 13th chords separated by minor thirds seem to sound better for the A7b9 (e.g. F#13, A13, C13, Eb13) or 7#9 chords (e.g. F#7#9, A7#9, C7#9, Eb7#9). These are all chords that can be built from notes in the Bb diminished WH scale.

But I also found that other chords not functionally related to the Bb diminished scale work too for A7b9. For example E/Eb or F#/F which have notes close to the Gbmaj7 chord they move to but have notes outside the Bb diminished scale. This got me thinking that maybe this is more how one should approach this kind of harmony - not try to apply functional harmony much. Perhaps this is obvious to others. I was aware of this idea but this tune is the first one on which I've really tried to apply it in a significant way.

What are other's thoughts on how to approach this progression?

It is a wonderful tune..

The discovery of the chords found in diminished scales can open a harmonic/melodic wonderland

I use many of them and variations of such in my fusion studies.

yes the Eb7#9 (R 3 b7 #9--Eb G Db F#) can be seen as A13/Eb (no root) and the mentioned A13b9.

And of course the Bb diminished could also be named Db dim...John Scofield has an exercise using it as a C half/whole (same scale..just starting on the Cnote) and ripping the daylights out of C7#9 and all its related variations.

I see this composition from a Sax players point of melodic view. Shorter wrote for groups I m sure he used a keyboard to map harmonic/melodic intersections. and came
up with some very cool cross roads such as Infant Eyes

[Mick-7]

If you mean improvising with chords, you can build them from chord scales as you suggested, I base it on the chord type.

Such as.... (I'm in a different key) A melodic or harmonic minor, or diminished, for the Ab13b9; major/lydian for the maj.7 chords, etc.

Example:

[ragman1]

Thought I'd give this a spin.

[sunbambino]

House of Jade, Nefertiti, Mahjong, Juju, Deluge I play all the time, wonderful tunes I've known and loved for years... but Angel Eyes is new terrain, gonna scope it thanks to this

[ragman1]

Angel Eyes

Infant Eyes. Wayne Shorter.

(Angel Eyes is a 1946 jazz standard, different tune).