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Recently there was heated discussion (including myself losing temper) on this forum about the kind of theory Charlie Parker might have used and what kind of books he might have read on the topic and if there even any literature on jazz harmony existed back then.
It dawned on me today that not too long ago I had by random come across a digitized version of a four volume book by musician and arranger Lyle “Spud” Murphy from 1948 which I link here. It does not make much sense to speculate if that book was known to Parker (if so it could only be known to him when he was already a superstar who had — together with some others — revolutionized jazz).
But it is an interesting example of the (“vanilla” as some would probably like to call it) rather simple theory that was use back then.
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10-10-2022 05:30 PM
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Theory and theory books existed back then just like I said.
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This is probably a more productive way of approaching the same topic. I’d love to know if anyone has more actual info on this.
Originally Posted by Bop Head
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On guitar I had a look at the Eddie Lang Guitar book a while back (ghost written) which is essentially a list of guitar voicings in notation iirc, and the George Van Eps method from the late 30s which is probably more interesting. The latter had lots of what you may call ‘rule of the octave’ type exercises. They sound pretty nice. The harmony is quite ‘common practice classical’
This book looks of similar sort of similar genre.
(Rob MacKillop is the guy here I would think of as the authority on old guitar and banjo books.)
i also had a Gene Krupa drum manual from the early 40s that I gave to a drummer. Mostly drum charts with advice and most usefully some shots of Krupas kit set up at that time. Again maybe it was ghost written.
I’d be interested to see more harmony books from the 30s. This one’s a little later. It still looks quite common practice tonal in some ways rather than what we may think of as jazz harmonies, but I haven’t played through the examples.
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No one doubted that ever. The points was how much and what theoretical knowledge CP got from learning the instrument the classical way and what theoretical knowledge he aquired later and how. Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
Have you read the memories of Charlie Parker by Barry Harris’ youth friend Pepper Adams that I had already linked in the other thread (it would not hurt to read the section mainly regarding Pepper Adams own life as well)?
Furthermore on learning back then I recommend this interview with Barry Harris and especially this one with Dizzy Gillespie (audio here and here). [As I have written before, through those interview collections (the Fillius Jazz Archive at Hamilton College and the Jake Feinberg Show on YouTube are other important ones to mention) those old cats have “virtually” (in a double sense) become my mentors by at least letting me listen to their storytelling even if they have passed away already (like most of them now).]
As soon as I finally find my scanner’s FCKin’ power supply I will post those three pages by Herb Ellis on improvisation of which one is an analysis of one of his solos — chord tones, passing tones and neighbour tones.
Finally I recommend this book by a student of Robert “Boysie” Lowery who also taught a certain Clifford Brown improvisation. It shows how little theory (but how much hard work!!!) is there behind what was taught as a (mainly) oral tradition (of course CB like CP had learned reading music in school the classical way) “on the street”.Last edited by Bop Head; 10-11-2022 at 04:19 AM.
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Well tbf there have been theory books since Pythagoras. Or at least scrolls.
that said Pythagoras’s aim was probably less to instruct his audience on how to play shredding Kithara solos, but more to explore his obsession with how number underpinned the world around him. Which is proper music theory, none of this actually learning how to play nonsense. We’ll leave that to the servants.
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So far as I can see, there is no evidence that Parker ever read a book of music theory. The theory he knew was picked up from conversations with his peers, such as Dizzy Gillespie. As Carl Woideck wrote:
When Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie found themselves in the same band for some months in early 1943, they realized that each had something valuable to offer the other. Later, Gillespie compared himself with Parker: “At first we stressed different things. I was more for chord variations, and he was more for melody, I think. But when we got together each influenced the other.” In his memoirs, Gillespie amplified what he felt each brought to the music. He acknowledged that he had shown Parker aspects of music theory, harmony, and structure at the piano keyboard, then added, “Charlie Parker’s contribution to our music was mostly melody, accents and bluesy interpretation.” (Woideck, Carl. 1996. Charlie Parker : His Music and Life. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, p26)
Bird read scores: Sarah Vaughan recalled, from the time they were both in Billy Eckstine's band, “He used to sit on the bus or train with Stravinsky scores. And then he’d get on the stage and play something from Stravinsky, but play it his way." (Woideck, p30)
Anybody who believes Parker had a deep knowledge of music theory should read the following passage:
Cobbling together a sense of the fundamentals of music theory and improvisation from many individuals can lead to some unique musical concepts. In 1954, Parker gave a music lesson to a novice player who tape-recorded the session. On the tape, Parker is heard urging the saxophonist to learn all of the major and minor scales. Interestingly, Parker says: “Thirteen scales. Major scales. Thirteen minor scales.” (Woideck, p170)
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Litterick, thanks for the quotes. I have the Woideck book and it's very good.
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Paul Desmond asked Parker where did you get your technique? Parker said from studying books. I think they were referring to Parker's virtuosity and command of the music, but of course you could write that off as them only referring to technique. That certainly isn't no evidence tho since Parker himself said he studied music books. Originally Posted by Litterick
Last edited by Jimmy Smith; 10-11-2022 at 09:23 AM.
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Hi, J, Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
Do you think it's the tea they're drinking over there since they continue to beat the tom-tom despite Parker's own words and statements from those who knew him.(See: Parker Discussion)
Marinero
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M, did you read the Art Pepper memories I linked above? Did you read or listen to the Dizzy and B Harris interviews? In the other thread you quoted some things about Barry Harris from dictionaries. In the interview you can read (or hear depending on what you prefer) what Barry himself had to say about his musical learning process. Originally Posted by Marinero
And I was happy that this started to become a factual discussion and now you start a “we against them” thing … Please — I don’t want to go down on the level of too much of over-sugared beverages on the brain …
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I think as long as we try to stick to facts and logic, and refrain from ad hominems, we could pull through.
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don’t you stereotype me. I’m a coffee man. Which explains a lot. Originally Posted by Marinero
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The book linked in the main post is very interesting. I haven't looked at it very carefully yet but it might give insights into the pre-CST jazz harmony. Like how Tin Pan Alley composers and big band arrangers conceptualized contemporary music, altered notes, embellishments, expansions of the strict diatonic harmony etc.
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In Germany music critic and author Alfred Baresel wrote a book on Jazz as early as 1926 (“Das Jazz-Buch”) — that was the year of birth of John Coltrane (and of my father). A later revised edition from 1929 can be read in digitized form at the website of Bayerische Staatbibliothek. Originally Posted by Christian Miller
Google Translate and DeepL will not help you here unless you download all the images and do an OCR — unfortunately
but you can at least take a look at the examples.
(I strongly doubt that Parker read that. He would probably rather read Stravinsky, Bartok and Honegger scores and learn and steal licks from that.)
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Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
On K.C. Blues, Parker quotes the opening bars of Exercise 23 from 25 Daily Exercises For Saxophone by Hyacinthe Eleonor Klosé. In the interview, Desmond recognises the passage, and sings it. Parker responds, 'Yeah, yeah. Well, that was all done with books' (Woideck, p136). Desmond and Parker are referring to the standard exercise book used by saxophonists (which is still in print, a bestseller for over a hundred years). This is not a work of theory, and Parker is doing no more than quoting.
When Desmond asked Parker how he developed his 'fantastic technique', Parker replied, 'Well you make it so hard for me to answer, you know, because I cannot see where there's anything fantastic about it at all.' He went on to say that he practiced long and hard in Kansas City (Woideck, ix-x).
Parker learned by copying. 'Ross Russell tells of numerous occasions when the teenage Parker listened outside (and inside) the Kansas City clubs where [Lester] Young was playing with Count Basie's band, and that Parker bought every available recording of the Basie band and learned to play Young's solos note-for-note. In addition, Parker worked in a band in which he sat next to Buster Smith, whose playing he admired and imitated. These formative experiences preceded the time when Parker first recorded' (Owens, Thomas. Charlie Parker: Techniques of Improvisation. PhD thesis, UCLA, 1974).
Thomas Owens studied 250 improvisations by Parker and concluded, 'Except in a handful of cases, Parker's solos appear to have been composed spontaneously, rather than in advance. In spontaneously composing, he drew primarily on a repertory of about 100 motives of varying lengths, modifying them and combining them in a great variety of ways. Consequently, his solos are normally organized without reference to the theme of the piece being performed' (Owens, 269).
This is not a theoretical approach to music.
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Regarding embellishments: Originally Posted by Tal_175
In 1975 William “Bill” Barron Jr. (brother of pianist Kenny Barron) wrote an interesting doctoral dissertation at the age of 48 under Roland Wiggins (another interesting figure in jazz education, check him out on YouTube).
This dissertation is the product of a seasoned professional and practitioner of jazz on improvisation and how it could be taught. Before I start to write a novel here better check the abstract on p. 8 yourself.
[Other ones who wrote dissertations under Wiggins were Yusef Lateef and Dr. [sic] Billy Taylor.]
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I am a graduate of the Lyle Spud Murphy’s Equal Interval System. It is primarily a composer’s course. The link you provided contains a good portion of Book 2 of the current 12-book course. It’s not geared at improvising and Charlie Parker had no involvment with it. However, a lot of well known arrangers and composers have studied it. Originally Posted by Bop Head
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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I googled a little for EIS yesterday and read a little about it in a forum. The lessons seem too be very expensive and secretive — more so than the Banacos stuff taught by Garry Dial and Barbara Banacos. Originally Posted by jsaras
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Concede that Desmond pointed out that he noticed Parker worked out of the Klose exercise book. This doesn't prove that Parker didn't work theory out of books or that he learned from peers or mentors. Originally Posted by Litterick
Yes, I would think all accomplished musicians have to put in the work practicing. This doesn't prove that Parker didn't work theoretical concepts.When Desmond asked Parker how he developed his 'fantastic technique', Parker replied, 'Well you make it so hard for me to answer, you know, because I cannot see where there's anything fantastic about it at all.' He went on to say that he practiced long and hard in Kansas City (Woideck, ix-x).
Yes, I would think that all accomplished musicians put in work studying aurally and copying and need to have that ability to advance. It doesn't prove that Parker didn't operate theoretically in tandem with his musicianship.Parker learned by copying. 'Ross Russell tells of numerous occasions when the teenage Parker listened outside (and inside) the Kansas City clubs where [Lester] Young was playing with Count Basie's band, and that Parker bought every available recording of the Basie band and learned to play Young's solos note-for-note. In addition, Parker worked in a band in which he sat next to Buster Smith, whose playing he admired and imitated. These formative experiences preceded the time when Parker first recorded' (Owens, Thomas. Charlie Parker: Techniques of Improvisation. PhD thesis, UCLA, 1974).
Identifying Parker's motifs does not prove that they were all arrived at through musicianship. It is just as reasonable to assume that Parker arrived at his motifs through musicianship and theory. Especially since many of his motifs appear to be solely theory based, such as a pure arpeggio or scale excerpt.Thomas Owens studied 250 improvisations by Parker and concluded, 'Except in a handful of cases, Parker's solos appear to have been composed spontaneously, rather than in advance. In spontaneously composing, he drew primarily on a repertory of about 100 motives of varying lengths, modifying them and combining them in a great variety of ways. Consequently, his solos are normally organized without reference to the theme of the piece being performed' (Owens, 269).
This is false. You cannot state your opinion as a fact that you think Parker developed because of his musicianship only. There is plenty of evidence that he likely developed as a result of his musicianship and theory studies. In the interview he talks about how schooling helps develop the individual in tandem with his talent. Schooling doesn't imply only technique, it implies the breadth of the mechanics of how to become proficient in a discipline. Also, by analyzing his solos which I will post, it seems likely that he used theoretical guidelines to build his solos since his lines follow these guidelines.This is not a theoretical approach to music.
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Spud
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You're getting confused between means of analysis and means of creating music, just like you calling Bach a 'theory machine' when what you meant was Bach was a 'composing machine'. Originally Posted by Jimmy Smith
Litterick literally quoted some scholarly evidence to support his argument - I don't see that in yours.
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I'm not confused about anything. Reread my response to his article about Parker's solos analysis, maybe you're confused. Identifying Parker's motifs doesn't by definition make them all conceived aurally does it? They could have been conceived aurally and theoretically.
Look at the bridge to scrapple from the apple. It is all composed of either chord scales, enclosures/ chromatic approaches to chord tones, or licks composed of chord tones or straight arpeggios.
Bar 1 and 2 are all chord scale. Bar 3 is a chord tone lick. Bar 4 is all chord scale. He literally only went down the bebop scale from the root to the 3rd. Bar 5 is the chord scale and an enclosure. Bar 6 is a chord tone lick including a straight arpeggio. Bar 7 is the chord scale into a chord tone lick in bar 8.
But that's not evidence that he used theory.. Sure.
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If Bird was 'using music theory' then, so were these guys.
Your analysis of Bird BTW is similar to what I would do, and ask my students to do. It's a reasonable way to go about it IMHO.
But it's one thing to make that analysis and then state confidentially that that was what was going on on in the players head when they played it. That's a leap. I'm not saying you are definitely wrong in the case of Bird, but it's even harder to make that case for Django (who couldn't read or write music, and may well have been illiterate) or Louis (who probably wasn't learning to improvise jazz solos on changes from a book, given he invented the practice.)
In any case the point is, it is a leap of faith to say 'I'm analysing the notes this way so that must be the way the player conceived of them.' You may be right, but it's not a slam dunk. Some people are just very good at music, and can hear the notes they want to play, that happen to be, chord tones, extensions, scales, enclosures etc etc.
If you do enough practice you may get to this point too.
I do think you switch your defintion of 'music theory' a lot. So you may as well just say music is the same thing as music theory and be done with it. In which case music theory is this Platonic thing that exists 'out there' and every musician intuits it when they play. That's not an uncommon philosophy among players actually.
However, if you want to make a more specific and bounded definition of music theory such as 'a set of tools by which we can analyse music and learn from it' than the statement Bird played using theory doesn't really make sense by that particular definition. Which of course you may not accept.
So to meaningfully use the term 'music theory', one needs to choose one meaning and stick to it. Alternatively, the term 'music theory' may be too vague to be helpful here, so I'll avoid the term as much as I can.
These points seem to follow:
- If you mean 'Parker makes sense from the point of view of music theory analysis' I would say that this is largely, but not completely true (there are some exceptions - take my Celerity/Celebrity example).
- If you want to say 'Parker knew his scales, chord tones, enclosures etc and practiced them' I'm not absolutely 100% but I think that's pretty likely.
- If you want to say 'Bird learned jazz out of a theory book' I think that's probably wrong for a number of reasons evidenced in bios of Bird and musicological literature on his music.
- And I would further say that it's definitely wrong in the case of Django and Louis anyway for the reasons I've given above, and those would be the cases you'd need to address as well.
One reason why I (and most people AFAIK) think Bird picked up jazz from recordings and from hearing it played by great musicians in Kansas City (like Prez) is because to learn jazz of any kind you have to learn to swing and phrase the music in a convincing jazz way. It's the way professional and aspiring professional jazzers continue to learn today. For example, if you give the charts we posted to a classical violinist, they'll read the notes but it won't sound like jazz.
So it follows
- it's one thing to be able to construct melodies over chords using the resources you identified, it's another thing to be able to improvise jazz.
Just trying to walk you through the nuances of the argument. I've always thought you are right on some points, but make other assertions that either I do;'t quite understand or that I don't think the evidence to support.Last edited by Christian Miller; 10-12-2022 at 06:10 AM.
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