The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Hi I have been fiddling with Barry Harris stuff, eg if you have (C for clarity) 2 bars of Cmaj 6 or 7 you can play a Bm7b5 (half dim) or Dm6 and Bm6b5 or B F G #D to extend the line or add movement instead of just 2 bars of C.

    Heres the question Jake brought this up is this a parallel or similar to Barry Harris, without being super technical what I means is are these roughly the same type of thing I know the scales Parent might be different.

    The first thing I think of harmonically when I think of Wes is sevenths chords up in thirds...Cm7=Ebma7=Gm7=Bbma7 etc

    C7=Em7b5=Gm7=Bbma7, so he would get to that pesky 'avoid' note quite often without resolving it, as it was all part of the harmonic territory of the dominant. ...he used the diminished passing chords a lot, voicing drop 2s on top four strings, so if the chord was Cm7, you'd get ascending alternations between Cm7 and Ddim7.

    Regards M

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  3. #2

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    yup wes used the barry harris stuff a lot, even if he didn't know it's barry harris stuff

  4. #3

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    It's all different point of view of the same thing. That is the language of the Bebop and early legends, but they all had their own way they viewed it so they could play it. Some just heard it and played it.

  5. #4
    Barry also used Wes's stuff because he knew it............................

    As Barry in a video said " And Wes Montgomery never did "

  6. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by marvinvv
    Barry also used Wes's stuff because he knew it............................

    As Barry in a video said " And Wes Montgomery never did "
    barry also shared Wes' disdain for Trane's Impulse era music --wonder what that was all about ? I know from reading something that Wes felt his time with Trane's band was not the best place for him --he didn't dig playing one song for 45 minutes straight.

    wonder what Barry's beef was ?

  7. #6

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    I recover this post, because I am missing more comments from Barry about Wes. Do you know any other comment?
    I watched a video where an attendant asked Mr. Harris about Joe Pass, but he didn't answer that question.

  8. #7

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    I missed this post. My feeling about the Wes thing is that like Barry's style it evolved from previous jazz musicians.

    Barry's teaching, which I am a big fan of obviously - is kind of (to me) a very elegant and clear systematisation of common practice jazz harmony up to 1958 with some room for further developments...

    A huge influence on Wes was of course Charlie Christian, who was a big fan of the b7 sub on dominant chords - Bbmaj7 or Bbminmaj7 on C7 chords for example, the latter can also be understood as also referencing the major 6-dim scale, for example...

    A cursory examination of the standard issue bop heads (Donna Lee, Blues for Alice, Moose the Mooche etc) also ought to teach you all the basic combinations of dominant sounds that you will also find in Wes. The C7-->Em7b5(Gm6)-->Gm7-->Bbmaj7 loop for example was common practice in Parker's playing and writing. The Em7b5 and Bbmaj7 subs for example are extremely common in the swing era music (Charlie Christian, Lester Young) that was a direct influence on bop, and probably if you dug around you'd find earlier stuff.

    Another obvious example is Charlie Parker's very heavy use of the melody from Honeysuckle Rose (a '20s pop tune) as a motif which itself could be understood as a pivot of a b7 sub on a dominant chord (over C7, the notes are C Bb D F A) - so that would be b7 subs in the late 20's.

    (Incidentally Bird's music uses an awful lot of quotation of this kind - another famous line which Bird used so much that people often think he came up with it - is his use of the Alphonse Picout solo line on High Society (look it up) - I wonder how much of it is quotations? Probably more than we think. Bird is thought a harmonic soloist, but he seemed to think very melodically.)

    Anyway, so all of this stuff goes back a ways.
    Last edited by christianm77; 03-14-2016 at 08:39 AM.

  9. #8

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    BTW two huge myths of jazz theory:

    1) natural 4 on a dominant chord is an 'avoid note.'
    2) jazz musicians don't use the harmonic minor much.

    Surely people that espouse these two myths can't have ever studied bop??? Have they ever actually analysed Blues for Alice say, or Donna Lee? The mind boggles. There are loads more jazz edu factoids that I've had to throw out in order to be able to understand actual jazz music.

    What I would say is that - if you avoid these two sounds (use melodic minor more than harmonic) and raise the 4 on a dominant chord, you will sound more modern as in it's good for developing a generic post-60s jazz style.

    It's a stylistic consideration if that's the direction you want to go in... But do put these out there as rules for jazz harmony? Hmmmm.

    If you are interested in playing bop and straight-ahead, and swing for that matter, you are best off ignoring these two myths completely. There are certain ways of playing major and minor ii-V-I's (as given in BH's material) and so on, which are super idiomatic bop as a look at any bop era material will show.

    If that's your vibe, it's a great way to go - but you could pick up all of this from studying bop lines from records and formulate your own understanding, which it sounds like is what you are doing.
    Last edited by christianm77; 03-14-2016 at 08:34 AM.

  10. #9

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    You can hear Barry and Wes side by side on this album, if you don't know it:


  11. #10

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    Bach also used the "Barry Harris" stuff too.... basically non chord tones may be harmonized with diminished voicings or chromatic approach vocings. Berkelee School of Music courses on arranging 101 has taught this for half a century. Barry Harris capitalizes on the well known "block chord" technique.
    Last edited by rintincop; 03-15-2016 at 02:18 PM.

  12. #11

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    There's a bit more to it than four way close

  13. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    I missed this post. My feeling about the Wes thing is that like Barry's style it evolved from previous jazz musicians.

    Barry's teaching, which I am a big fan of obviously - is kind of (to me) a very elegant and clear systematisation of common practice jazz harmony up to 1958 with some room for further developments...

    A huge influence on Wes was of course Charlie Christian, who was a big fan of the b7 sub on dominant chords - Bbmaj7 or Bbminmaj7 on C7 chords for example, the latter can also be understood as also referencing the major 6-dim scale, for example...

    A cursory examination of the standard issue bop heads (Donna Lee, Blues for Alice, Moose the Mooche etc) also ought to teach you all the basic combinations of dominant sounds that you will also find in Wes. The C7-->Em7b5(Gm6)-->Gm7-->Bbmaj7 loop for example was common practice in Parker's playing and writing. The Em7b5 and Bbmaj7 subs for example are extremely common in the swing era music (Charlie Christian, Lester Young) that was a direct influence on bop, and probably if you dug around you'd find earlier stuff.

    Another obvious example is Charlie Parker's very heavy use of the melody from Honeysuckle Rose (a '20s pop tune) as a motif which itself could be understood as a pivot of a b7 sub on a dominant chord (over C7, the notes are C Bb D F A) - so that would be b7 subs in the late 20's.

    (Incidentally Bird's music uses an awful lot of quotation of this kind - another famous line which Bird used so much that people often think he came up with it - is his use of the Alphonse Picout solo line on High Society (look it up) - I wonder how much of it is quotations? Probably more than we think. Bird is thought a harmonic soloist, but he seemed to think very melodically.)

    Anyway, so all of this stuff goes back a ways.
    That High Society line always sticks out to me precisely for its harmonically neutral quality. Here's a provisional list of other borrowed phrases in Bird's recorded output: Quotes in Bird's performance

  14. #13

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    There's a bit more to it than four way close

    Thank you.

  15. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    BTW two huge myths of jazz theory:

    1) natural 4 on a dominant chord is an 'avoid note.'
    2) jazz musicians don't use the harmonic minor much.

    Surely people that espouse these two myths can't have ever studied bop??? Have they ever actually analysed Blues for Alice say, or Donna Lee? The mind boggles. There are loads more jazz edu factoids that I've had to throw out in order to be able to understand actual jazz music.

    What I would say is that - if you avoid these two sounds (use melodic minor more than harmonic) and raise the 4 on a dominant chord, you will sound more modern as in it's good for developing a generic post-60s jazz style.

    It's a stylistic consideration if that's the direction you want to go in... But do put these out there as rules for jazz harmony? Hmmmm.

    If you are interested in playing bop and straight-ahead, and swing for that matter, you are best off ignoring these two myths completely. There are certain ways of playing major and minor ii-V-I's (as given in BH's material) and so on, which are super idiomatic bop as a look at any bop era material will show.

    If that's your vibe, it's a great way to go - but you could pick up all of this from studying bop lines from records and formulate your own understanding, which it sounds like is what you are doing.
    I think Mark Levine was largely responsible for the idea that the use of harmonic minor is rare in jazz. He also managed to avoid discussing the blues in his jazz piano book (but made up for that obvious oversight in his later jazz theory book).

  16. #15

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    Speaking of "High Society"....


  17. #16

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    Quote Originally Posted by PMB
    That High Society line always sticks out to me precisely for its harmonically neutral quality. Here's a provisional list of other borrowed phrases in Bird's recorded output: Quotes in Bird's performance
    Thanks for this....

  18. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by PMB
    That High Society line always sticks out to me precisely for its harmonically neutral quality. Here's a provisional list of other borrowed phrases in Bird's recorded output: Quotes in Bird's performance
    Quote Originally Posted by PMB
    I think Mark Levine was largely responsible for the idea that the use of harmonic minor is rare in jazz. He also managed to avoid discussing the blues in his jazz piano book (but made up for that obvious oversight in his later jazz theory book).
    Which is made all the wierder by the fact that he credits Barry in the theory book iirc...

    Also it's inconceivable to me that he could have played through tunes like Donna Lee, Little Willie Leaps and so on and not thought 'hmmm here is a harmonic minor scale over the ii V' but there you go.

  19. #18

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Also it's inconceivable to me that he could have played through tunes like Donna Lee, Little Willie Leaps and so on and not thought 'hmmm here is a harmonic minor scale over the ii V' but there you go.
    I find that quite conceivable. Many players of Bird's era thought in terms of chords rather than scales. A lot of patterns are of the form "Note Above, Chord Tone, Note Below, Same Chord Tone" then repeat for the next interval up (-or down if you're headed that way) and so on. If you think of this in terms of the CHORD, it is easy to play without thought. If you think of it in terms of a SCALE, well, it gets dicey because some of the notes above and below are scale tones while others are chromatic tones. If one wanted to think of them all as scale tones, one would have to think as a scale such as harmonic minor, but it is possible to play such lines, to create them and vary them, use them on the fly, without ever thinking of them in terms of any scale at all.


    When Bird played "stacked triads" he often made the minor b5 (-the vii) a straight minor, which technically leaves the key, but it is possible to do this without thinking of scales or changing keys at all, just playing a minor for a minor b5 when that triad comes up in the sequence. The sequence for a I chord, starting on I, in C would be: C Em G Bmb5 / Dm F Am C. For the ii in the same key, starting on the root, would be Dm F Am C / Em G Bmb5 Dm. For the V in the same key, C, again starting on the root, would be: G Bmb5 Dm F / Am C E G. If you play those sequences but switch a minor triad for the minor b5 triad, you'll be doing something Bird often did, but you need not think of it in terms of leaving one key or switching scales.

  20. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
    When Bird played "stacked triads" he often made the minor b5 (-the vii) a straight minor, which technically leaves the key, but it is possible to do this without thinking of scales or changing keys at all, just playing a minor for a minor b5 when that triad comes up in the sequence. The sequence for a I chord, starting on I, in C would be: C Em G Bmb5 / Dm F Am C. For the ii in the same key, starting on the root, would be Dm F Am C / Em G Bmb5 Dm. For the V in the same key, C, again starting on the root, would be: G Bmb5 Dm F / Am C E G. If you play those sequences but switch a minor triad for the minor b5 triad, you'll be doing something Bird often did, but you need not think of it in terms of leaving one key or switching scales.
    could you direct us to some examples for the above?

  21. #20

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    Quote Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
    I find that quite conceivable. Many players of Bird's era thought in terms of chords rather than scales. A lot of patterns are of the form "Note Above, Chord Tone, Note Below, Same Chord Tone" then repeat for the next interval up (-or down if you're headed that way) and so on. If you think of this in terms of the CHORD, it is easy to play without thought. If you think of it in terms of a SCALE, well, it gets dicey because some of the notes above and below are scale tones while others are chromatic tones. If one wanted to think of them all as scale tones, one would have to think as a scale such as harmonic minor, but it is possible to play such lines, to create them and vary them, use them on the fly, without ever thinking of them in terms of any scale at all.


    When Bird played "stacked triads" he often made the minor b5 (-the vii) a straight minor, which technically leaves the key, but it is possible to do this without thinking of scales or changing keys at all, just playing a minor for a minor b5 when that triad comes up in the sequence. The sequence for a I chord, starting on I, in C would be: C Em G Bmb5 / Dm F Am C. For the ii in the same key, starting on the root, would be Dm F Am C / Em G Bmb5 Dm. For the V in the same key, C, again starting on the root, would be: G Bmb5 Dm F / Am C E G. If you play those sequences but switch a minor triad for the minor b5 triad, you'll be doing something Bird often did, but you need not think of it in terms of leaving one key or switching scales.
    Man it gets lengthy with quotes. I don't think you are quite following me.

    I'm not talking about chord/scale relationships here. I'm talking about actual scales going up or down (usually down) in steps. The sort of thing you learn on piano when you are a child.

    Very often in bop and Parker's music, it's the descending harmonic minor over a secondary dominant moving to a minor chord. A minor ii V if you prefer. In the case of G7b9 going to to Cm we would run a descending c harmonic minor scale for example. Pretty straight no?

    The the last few measures of Donna Lee (which yes may have been written by miles) contain a typical example, but this scale is extremely common in his music.

    You could rationalise it terms of some sort of other thing but that seems a bit silly to me. Why wouldn't bird know what a harmonic minor scale was?

    That said, There is a different way of interpreting this scale which comes from Barry Harris/David baker. Here it is understood as a dominant scale a tone below the target chord with a raised root at some point.

    So sure bop uses scales, just not in a cst kind of way... It's more classical...

    An important skill for a bop improviser is to understand how to run scales to describe functional harmony rather than to float over the top or express some type of upper structure.

    I was able to play harmonic jazz perfectly well without doing this (and historically I think many guitarists from the Charlie christian school didn't employ scalar runs much, for example) but since I have started work on this it's opened up quite a few doors. the Barry Harris method is very heavily based around scales for example, but woe betide you if you confuse it with CST or any type of modal improvisation haha.
    Last edited by christianm77; 03-16-2016 at 01:12 PM.

  22. #21

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Why wouldn't bird know what a harmonic minor scale was?

    That said, There is a different way of interpreting this scale which comes from Barry Harris/David baker. Here it is understood as a dominant scale a tone below the target chord with a raised root at some point.

    So sure bop uses scales, just not in a cst kind of way... It's more classical...

    .
    Bird may well have known what a harmonic minor scale was. But knowing what one is does not mean that when you describe a line of Bird's as being a use of the harmonic minor scale that Bird was thinking of it that way when he played it. (The same goes for writers: how a critic analyzes a novel may be wholly alien to the way the novelist thought when writing it. In Bird's case, we don't have much from him about his thought process while soloing. We do know he talked about playing clean and using the pretty notes, but we don't have much reference to scales one way or the other.

    The reason David Baker needed to coin the term "bebop scale" is that the greats he transcribed didn't think of the notes he wanted to so classify as a scale. That's not how they thought about it and we know this because if they had, they would have had a name for it. They had no name for it. They were thinking another way. I think that way was in terms of chords. The rules Baker lays out in his books describe a way to play many Charlie Parker lines, but Baker never intended his "How To Play Bebop" as a description of how Charlie Parker (or Bud Powell or Diz or...) was thinking when he played the lines that enchanted him (David Baker). I think this is why the old idiom is 'play the changes' (or 'make the changes') rather than 'play the scales.'

    There's an interesting quote about Charlie from Jon Faddis:

    >>>>>"Charlie Parker showed Dizzy a way of playing that almost eliminated that swing feel that Dizzy had in the early '40s, but that also incorporated those harmonic ideas that they both created. So I think the way of getting from one note to the next was very much Charlie Parker's influence on Dizzy. But if Charlie Parker was the stylist, Dizzy was sort of the architect that taught the musicians how to build the music … Dizzy said that Charlie Parker used to come over to his house, and Dizzy's wife Lorraine wouldn't let him in, so Charlie Parker would be in the hallway playing and Dizzy would write it down, and then show it to the other musicians. So Dizzy took the things that Charlie Parker got off the top of his head - Dizzy said he never saw him sit at the piano - and he would show other musicians."<<<<<<

    The Official Site of Charlie "Yardbird" Parker - Quotes

  23. #22

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    Look I'm not trying to argue the toss for the sake of making a point, but I still don't think you understand what I mean.

    If you were to analyse the notes G F E D C# Bb A G - for example, would you not think of this as a scale? I think it would be a bit perverse not to.

    This is the sort of stuff I'm talking about. (I could get you exact examples if you wanted but I'm away atm so have to wait a couple of days.) I'm not talking about bebop scales or added note scales or any of that stuff.

    Setting aside bird and his unknowable process (although bird certainly practiced scales because there is a recording of him doing it), would you not think Mark Levine author of a book primarily concerned with the application of scales might think 'y'know that scale with the augmented second in it, that doesn't half ring a bell? What could it be?'

    I wouldn't then write a book (a standard text!) stating that jazz musicians rarely use the harmonic minor scale when there are such hilariously glaring counter examples in the core repertoire no less.

    This is what I found a bit weird. Especially given he can no doubt kick my ass at bebop. *shrugs*

    I choose to analyse the line above as a D harmonic minor scale run starting on a G and would work very nicely over a A7b9 chord going to Dm. I think that's a pretty streamlined understanding provided you know what a harmonic minor scale is (which I presume Mark Levine does :-))

    (In fact I would use the C dominant scale raise 1 now... A less streamlined understanding but pretty useful one in many ways)
    Last edited by christianm77; 03-16-2016 at 06:46 PM.

  24. #23

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    That's a great bit of info about bird/dizzy you posted btw... Thanks

  25. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Look I'm not trying to argue the toss for the sake of making a point, but I still don't think you understand what I mean.

    If you were to analyse the notes G F E D C# Bb A G - for example, would you not think of this as a scale?

    I don't want to argue either. Let's say we talked past each other and let it go.

    As for the question about the notes G F E D C# Bb A G, no, I would not think of them as a scale. But that's me. I don't think that way.

    To be clear, I don't consider myself an exemplary player and am not suggesting what I happen to do is of any general interest. I have learned a lot from Herb Ellis and he did know scales but he played MAINLY (his word) out of chord shapes and that's how he thought and how he organized the fretboard. I find that approach congenial. You find your approach congenial. Good for both of us, I say.

  26. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
    I don't want to argue either. Let's say we talked past each other and let it go.

    As for the question about the notes G F E D C# Bb A G, no, I would not think of them as a scale. But that's me. I don't think that way.

    To be clear, I don't consider myself an exemplary player and am not suggesting what I happen to do is of any general interest. I have learned a lot from Herb Ellis and he did know scales but he played MAINLY (his word) out of chord shapes and that's how he thought and how he organized the fretboard. I find that approach congenial. You find your approach congenial. Good for both of us, I say.
    G F E D C# is just half-diminshed. Bb A G sounds like a lick. A lead in to a G7 or Gm chord.
    That's how I hear it.

    ......G F E D.....................C#......................Bb A G
    (G half-dim scale) (C# dim chord) (lick leading into G7 chord)

    I try to relate everything to chord shapes.