Why 7#5 chords?

[Spirit59]

...that a tube I posted of a guy playing a jazz standard with swing rhythm, improvised choruses, chromatic embellishments, and harmonized walking bass lines was not at all "jazzy."

Are you referring to that Francesco Buzzurro clip of Someday My Prince Will Come?

[kenbennett]

It's not "wrong" if you like that sound. You (we) don't have to care if it's not what Jimmy Page did.
In fact, your E7 chord arguably works better than the Cmaj7#5 of the original - it certainly sounds "good", even if it is "wrong". Matter of taste which one prefers. (Some listeners will wince if they are particularly attached to the original, but E7 is a perfectly good chord in that place.)

Good point.

[cosmic gumbo]

The Line Cliche
Another frequently returning cliche in bebop is the line cliche. The line cliche is a chromatic descending line going from the 1 of a minor chord to the 6 of that chord. On an F minor chord this would be: f --> e --> eb --> d. This results in the following chords: Fm Fm/maj7 Fm7 Fm6.

Here's an example of the line cliché. It's the first 4 bars of In Walked Bud, composed by Thelonious Monk, a brilliant and very eccentric piano player and one of the pioneers of bebop.

Another very well known song that uses the line cliche is Stairway to Heaven from Led Zeppelin.

http://www.jazzguitar.be/bebop.html

[JonR]

The Line Cliche
Another frequently returning cliche in bebop is the line cliche. The line cliche is a chromatic descending line going from the 1 of a minor chord to the 6 of that chord. On an F minor chord this would be: f --> e --> eb --> d. This results in the following chords: Fm Fm/maj7 Fm7 Fm6.

Here's an example of the line cliché. It's the first 4 bars of In Walked Bud, composed by Thelonious Monk

Good example.

"This Masquerade" is another.

Another very well known song that uses the line cliche is Stairway to Heaven from Led Zeppelin.

Er, yeah. See posts 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, etc....