Wayne Shorter original charts - are they available?

[Jonah]

I play some Shorter's tunes in duo (finally) with another guitarist.

The guy is much Berklee- oriented modal player (very rational at some choices).
I am much rooted in traditional functional tonality (though I know modal approaches too).
He relies much on Fake Books and is very careful to use the best one. And he reads the chords from charts and uses them as a starting point for his comping and impros often conciously. And he likes space of harmony to float in. Works a lot on separate chords.
I am more of the 'explore the melody' and hear the relationship and figure out things by ear. And I like intensive movement and dense sculptural relief of melodic harmony. And I always think in terms of melody through changes.
We are OK probably complimenting each other but in some cases we seem to really move apart .. when he builds up something ftom chart indication and I do not relate to that at all.


This is with Wayne... I really think that something does not work here in my mate's approach.
I really feel with Wayne that first I try to dig the tune as it is very informative often... and then I try to hear records to hear what were other voices he would prefer to hear like bass or middle voice...
Chords in charts (even authoritive once) seem to be misleading often or omitting something I hear as crucial.

I remember I saw somewhere original charts of Wayne in handwritten copy... and there were not chords indications but voices written out which seems to make sense for me.

Was it his common way to write it down?

Is there a source for it?

[Christian Miller]

One thing I’ve noticed is Wayne writes 7b5 where you’d expect 7#11; diminished scale harmony more his sort of thing than Lydian dominant maybe?

[Jonah]

One thing I’ve noticed is Wayne writes 7b5 where you’d expect 7#11; diminished scale harmony more his sort of thing than Lydian dominant maybe?

Interesting.. I saw in some printed charts of his tunes where the symbol is 7#11 there is a note something like 'could be rather 7b5'

[Jonah]

In the chart of Footprints we used there is Cm11 and then Fm11 -- so my partner plays an impro and comping basing on all that it gives to him from point of view of modal stuff...

First thing - to me 11 here is not quite 11 but rather an indication for a 4th down to the melody that is played somewhere in the comping or second voice. But to me it is not that crucial really... there is also Enat below Anat in the melody but no indication for that.
Just parallel quratal voicing

And also I hear Dorian sound on Cm (A nat in the melody) and then Ab on Fm chord... and I find most fascinating thing to work with while playing impro... but from point of view of charts it just does not exist.

[Christian Miller]

In the chart of Footprints we used there is Cm11 and then Fm11 -- so my partner plays an impro and comping basing on all that it gives to him from point of view of modal stuff...

First thing - to me 11 here is not quite 11 but rather an indication for a 4th down to the melody that is played somewhere in the comping or second voice. But to me it is not that crucial really... there is also Enat below Anat in the melody but no indication for that.
Just parallel quratal voicing

And also I hear Dorian sound on Cm (A nat in the melody) and then Ab on Fm chord... and I find most fascinating thing to work with while playing impro... but from point of view of charts it just does not exist.

and then you ask ‘what would Wayne do?’ and usually he’s
1) playing the blues
2) paraphrasing the melody (which is probably the blues)
3) playing the chromatic scale

So no help there haha

obviously with footprints the melody hangs out a lot on the G minor pent which is interesting

Wayne himself to me seems more about pentatonic, whole tone, dim and chromatic scales than heptatonic modes. The CST approach isn’t the default for him. Same for McCoy actually.

Herbue is more like the modern CST approach, more heptatonic modal playing on these charts… it’s interesting Waynes music allows divergent approaches. I think Herbies approach has been the basis of a lot of ‘model’ approaches for jazz improv though; I’m interested in some of the other approaches…

[grahambop]

There are lead sheets of his tunes deposited at the Library of Congress for copyright. Sometimes they are quite a bit different from the recorded versions, especially the Miles Davis versions, since the group used to discuss and change things a lot in the studio.

I have a book which covers a lot of this, I’ll dig it out later and get some more details.

[grahambop]

The book I mentioned is The Studio Recordings of the Miles Davis Quintet, by Keith Waters. Here are a couple of interesting things from it:

- a description of some of Shorter’s copyright lead sheets:




- an example which the author transcribed from the copyright sheet (note that some of the chords are simpler than the real book versions):

[grahambop]

And of course ‘Iris’ was changed in the recording from a 10-bar tune in 4:4 (as per the lead sheet) to a 16-bar tune in 3:4.

[grahambop]

There’s a lead-sheet for Footprints reproduced at the beginning of Shorter’s biography (also called Footprints):

[Jonah]

grahambop!
great stuff... thank you!

[ragman1]

And of course ‘Iris’ was changed in the recording from a 10-bar tune in 4:4 (as per the lead sheet) to a 16-bar tune in 3:4.

And for the better, I'd say. I've just tried that version. It's nearly the same as the Miles one but not quite. The first note (Ab) in bar 2 should be a quarter; that bar's an 8th short.

When all's said and done it's hardly noticeable that it's in 4 rather than 3. I think I'd go for the later version. So should Jonah probably :-)

Well done for finding it all!

[grahambop]

grahambop!
great stuff... thank you!

thanks, I find this stuff fascinating too!

[grahambop]

And for the better, I'd say. I've just tried that version. It's nearly the same as the Miles one but not quite. The first note (Ab) in bar 2 should be a quarter; that bar's an 8th short.

When all's said and done it's hardly noticeable that it's in 4 rather than 3. I think I'd go for the later version. So should Jonah probably :-)

Well done for finding it all!

Thanks!

I think Miles had the knack of knowing how to change his sidemen’s tunes and make them sound a lot better, from what I’ve read he did it quite a lot.

[grahambop]

I once looked into that copyright lead sheet business (Library of Congress). From what I could make out, I think you have to go there in person (and pay a fee, naturally) to get copies.

There is a website where you can search the entries, as I recall the search engine is very clunky to use. It doesn’t tell you much anyway. But I did manage to find the listings for some of the tunes.

[Christian Miller]

There’s a lead-sheet for Footprints reproduced at the beginning of Shorter’s biography (also called Footprints):

the chords in the turnaround are a little different from what’s in the iReal chart as well. Only in one chord E is specified as a dom7, are the B and A chords without the seventh with those extensions/alternations? Or did he just forget to write ‘7’?

I notice Wayne will often write extensions that are independent of the melody; Cm9 where a modern editor might have Cm11, E7+9 instead of E7#11 and so on

[Jonah]

Thanks!

I think Miles had the knack of knowing how to change his sidemen’s tunes and make them sound a lot better, from what I’ve read he did it quite a lot.

Maybe so... I remember GB described his attempts to join Miles' band and that was I thinl the period when Wayne was there and Tony Williams and that GB only managed to be on one rehearsal (though he came a few times but Miles either did not show up and just came for a while and left). And GB said that they changed a lot of stuff on the spot.

I like Miles' records... but from the point of view of tune performance I prefer later versions of Shorter's tune when he was the leader. They sound more flexible rythmically and have more lyrical power to my ear.

[grahambop]

This guy has put together a nice collection of some less well-known Shorter compositions (and a lot of other interesting charts too):

wayne shorter | Noteheads

[ragman1]

Oh, no... you realise I'll have to go through every one of these now to see what they're like?

[Cunamara]

The old guys in jazz always say you have to use your ears and not go by the fake books, as they are often wrong. The original Real Book was transcribed by Berkelee students from recordings and so they wrote down what they heard, not necessarily what somebody else would hear. compare Waynes chart above with the Real Book 5th edition version.

When it comes to Footprints, for whatever it's worth, I hear that in quartal harmony rather than minor 11th chords (C F Bb Eb).

Back when I was in a quintet, which used the RB 5th chart, I liked to make the harmony of that more open. So instead of C minor, I would play an Ebsus2 at the sixth fret over the bass player's C minor line. I thought I gave it an interesting floaty feel. Then up a whole step to Fsus2. For the D9-Db9-Cmin cadence I would play Amin-Abmin-Csus2. That was usually under the melody, though; comping I mostly just played around the chords as written. But I thought it gave it an interesting sound for the head.

[Jonah]

I actually play quite a lot of stuff on Footprints while comping but I also understand that me and the other guitarist - we have very different thinking...
On C minor I just move around a lot...

Sus chords for me is a bit controversal thing... I mean sus in modal conception (not just sus chord in traditional tonality).
For me sus is just a quartal voicing and quartal voicings for me are kind of extention and/or alterations...
kind of vague ambivalent very loose but still traditional harmony.
even when I use modal relations I still tend to intuitively find some functional points.. this just the way I hear things.
And I think it works for Shorter's tune (though maybe not always for Holdsworth's).

As for impro I study melody, not only original tune but I hear some kind of audial features of the tune: form, melody, harmony in integral relations and when I play impo I try to investigate that audial features to expand it by ear first of all (which does not exclude that i may derive out of it some conception but basic principle is ear).
I do not say it is always easy and I can do all on spot any time - with some pieces it may take time to figure out the pathways.

Comping actually is the same - I think of it as of a thick dense counterpoint melody - ideally... unfortunately I do not have this the way I would love to. Imho to play comping like that one has to have much more elaborated vocabulary on th efretboard. I have just to practice more with that.

[Jonah]

e old guys in jazz always say you have to use your ears and not go by the fake books, as they are often wrong. The original Real Book was transcribed by Berkelee students from recordings and so they wrote down what they heard, not necessarily what somebody else would hear. compare Waynes chart above with the Real Book 5th edition version.

He uses 3-volume New Real Book byt Shermusic. Nice edition actually and as far as I understand it is a kind of and 'urtext' - as much as it can be applied to jazz - authoritive one, edited, consistent, legal etc.

But when we played Blues On the Corner I comped just regular blues (I did not know the tune before) and he comped from charts... and every time I heard that Bb7 (I) shows up in the middle of the 6th bar instead of the 7th.
I aked him why and said: it is written hear - in the charts there was Bb7 (#9#5) on the 2nd beat of the 6th bar.

I listned to the original record and I think I heard som superimposed voicings and maybe inversion in the bass in the bass but the general harmonic sound there is subdominant.
Theme is played twice at the beginning, I did not pick it up exactly but in the 1st chorus it sounds like there are some bass moves and voicings that can sound as sort of mixed Bb7 and Eb7 sound (there is F at least)... on the 2nd chorus there is pure subdminant in the bass and just some 4ths played on piano to my ear which in realtion to melody can bring in some Bb7 sounds...
But there is no straightforward Bb7
(on the other hand that anticipation sounds nice if you can handle it properly but it's another story).

Funny thing that the opposite happend when I comped.. he played from the charts and expected tonic Bb7 in that place and he uses that littereally applying some of his impro conceptions respectively to the chord symbol...
and I kept staying in subdominant area or just heading towards tonic.

[Christian Miller]

The New Real Book charts are generally pretty good and a vast improvement over the Berklee Real Book charts; and many of them are based on the composers lead sheets, but as you say there are problems

Looking at the Footprints chart for instance it’s possible to see some ‘tidying up’ editing has gone on of chord spellings etc. I always find it interesting when editors think they know better than this or that legendary jazz composer due to the benefits of their Berklee education or whatever. Tbf they are probably just trying to be consistent.

As mentioned above tunes also get changed after composition during recording. If McCoy or Herbie suggests to use *this* special sauce voicing, say, you probably didn’t write it on the chart as a chord symbol. That’s jazz. It’s like… communal or something?

Furthermore the chord symbol system is very limited and not suited for purpose for anything beyond standards harmony. It’s a problem for instance that the same chord symbol means the quartal ‘so what’ voicing (which of course is not an 11th at all lol, but rather a 4th) and also a m7 with an 11th in the melody, common in standards.

[Jonah]

Tbf they are probably just trying to be consistent.

That's probably the most important reason. Some kind of academical publishing/editing tradtion.

’s a problem for instance that the same chord symbol means the quartal ‘so what’ voicing (which of course is not an 11th at all lol, but rather a 4th) and also a m7 with an 11th in the melody, common in standards.

oh! 11th minor is quartal voicings all the time in modern tunes charts. Took me some time to figure it out...
At the beginning I plain-heartedly strummed that good old minor 11th anticipating on-coming dom7 and.... I could not get what was going on.

[44lombard]

Here's a blog post from someone who has gone down this road a bit:

Peter Spitzer Music Blog: "E.S.P." (Wayne Shorter)

[grahambop]

According to the book I mentioned earlier, Shorter’s own lead sheet for E.S.P. gives the first chord as E+9 (b5).