The Essential Casa Valdez
For the improvising Jazz musician
By David Carlos
Valdez
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Jazz Harmony for Improvisation- chord/scales
To quickly find scales for these common chordsC7 #11
Up a fifth melodic (G melodic minor)
C7 b9 (or #9)
Up a half step diminished (C# dim)
C7 b13 (or +)
Whole-tone from root
C7 b9 b13, or C7 alt, or C7 #9 b13, or C7 b9 #9 b13 #11
Up a half step melodic minor
C7 b9 b13
Up a 4th harmonic minor
C-7(b5)
Up a half step Maj (C# Maj) or up a minor 3rd melodic minor (Eb melodic
minor) or down a whole step harmonic minor or up a 4th harmonic minor (F harmonic minor)
C sus7 (b9)
Down a whole step melodic minor (Bb melodic minor)
C maj7 #5
Down a minor 3rd melodic minor or down a minor 3rd harmonic minor
Here are some important rules for substitution:
1. You may add the related ii-7 before any V7 and add the related V7 after any ii-7.
2. You may add a #11 to any major or dominant chord.
3. You may substitute any chord for another chord as long as it has two of the same notes.
4. You can actually add a dominant seventh chord a fifth above before any chord. This
creates some nice tension and resolution, and can also create a delayed resolution if the
resolution chord is pushed later in the bar.
Example:
Cmaj7
/
BecomesG7 Cmaj/
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When analyzing a tune to determine appropriate scales for blowing, first look at the dominant
seventh chords and where they are resolving. Look only at the root motion; the quality of the next
chord (Maj, min, sus, ECT) is not important.
If a dominant seventh chord is moving down a 5th to the next chord, then you have the freedom to
alter that chord however you wish (whole-tone, diminished, altered dominant, Lydian dominant,
ECT).
If the dominant seventh chord is moving down a half step, then only add the #11 (the Lydian
Dominant, up a fifth melodic).
Also the V7 may not go directly to its resolution, there may be a delayed resolution.
Example:
/C7
/ C-7
F7/
The C7 is still resolving down a fifth (by way of the C-7) and can be altered by the improviser.
Remember that if you add alterations to a Dominant 7th chord, start less altered and add alterations.
For example- If you are playing over two bars of G7 going to C you may play a straight Mixolydian
in the first bar and then play a G7#11 (D melodic-) for the first two beats of bar two and an G7
altered dominant (Ab melodic-) in the last two beats of the second bar. You would not want to start
with the G7 altered dominant and THEN play a straight Mixolydian before resolving in bar three.
This is OK:
G7 G7#11/G7b13 G7alt/ Cmaj7 /
This is not:
G7alt G7b13/ G7#11 G7/Cmaj7 /
The first example has forward harmonic motion; the second has backwards harmonic motion.
Here is an easy way to help you analyze chord changes. This is the way Berklee teaches chord
analysis. It helps you see the ii-V7s and the V7 resolutions, so you can easily determine when
you are free to make chord-scale substitutions.
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
Use brackets to mark ii- V7s and dotted brackets to mark ii-7 subV7s (example: D-7 C#7)

Draw arrows from V7 to I resolutions (example C7 to Fmaj, or C7 to F7, or C7 to F-7)
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Symmetrical Scales-Diminished, Whole-tone & Symmetrical Major
In modern western music we use a system of tuning that divides each octave into twelve equal
semi-tones. Using this system we find that there are only a certain number of possible ways to create
symmetrical scales. The ear hears these scales differently than other scales because they are
expressions of pure relationships of whole number intervals. We pick them out immediately and can
easily predict the next note. The system that I outline here is found in Nicholas Slonimsky's classic
book 'The Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns. This book has influenced generations of
classical composers and Jazz improvisers alike. The pure definition of a symmetrical scale is a scale
that covers one or more octaves with equal intervallic scales between each note.
The first symmetrical scale happens when you divide one octave equally into two parts (or the 1:2
scale). This is a scale that consists of just two different notes, in the key of C -C & F#. The next one
is the 1:3 scale, or the augmented triad- C, E, Ab. Next is the 1:4 scale or the diminished 7th chordC, Eb, Gb, A. {Again, remember that scales can have any number of notes}. If we divide one octave
equally into six parts we get the whole-tone scale or 1:6 scale.
The two symmetrical scales that we use in Jazz improvisation are the whole tone scale and the
diminished scale. The diminished scale is really just two 1:4 scales (augmented chords) a whole step
apart. Let's deal with these two in more detail since they are used the most in Jazz improvisation. A
diminished scale fits over a dominant seventh b9 and/or #9 chord. So over a C7b9 you would play
the diminished scale a half-step up: C# diminished. There are many common diminished licks that
every young Jazzer thinks are great when they first discover them. These are really cool until you
realize that just about every jazz player on the planet over-uses them at the beginning of their
careers. They are as cliché as you can possibly get. As a matter of fact, it is hard not to sound cliché
when using this scale. Because they are symmetrical you must play them UNSYMETRICALLY in
order to sound interesting. The Slonimsky book is a great place to find interesting non-cliché
diminished and whole tone patterns.
Some ideas for hipper diminished (and WT: #1-3) patterns:
1. Play patterns with intervals that contain wider intervals
2. Add leading tones/approach notes that are outside the scale
3. Instead of using 4 note repeating patterns (like usual cliché patterns) use 5 or 7 note patterns, so
they shift around in the bar.
4. Think of the diminished scale as two diminished chords, alternate between the two chords.
5. Alternate between diminished scale and the diminished scale a half step up. Remember to keep in
mind that diminished scales resolve down in half steps. Diminished scales moving down in half steps
are like Dominant seventh flat ninth chords moving around the circle of fifths. If you're playing over
a dominant seventh flat-ninth chord you can play the diminished scale up a whole step from the root,
then the diminished scale a half step below that (up a half-step from the root of the dominant chord).
This implies a V7b9 of V7 to V7b9.
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Original chords:
G7b9 / G7b9 / Cmaj7
You play:
A dim /Ab dim /Cmaj7
Implying this:
D7b9 /G7b9 /Cmaj7
Each diminished chord has exactly the same notes as THREE other diminished chords. Each
dominant 7th b9 chord is therefore almost exactly the same as three other dominant 7th b9 chords.
C7b9 is related to: Eb7b9, F#7b9 and A7b9. These chords are the same except for ONE NOTE
difference (the roots).
So here's where things get interesting. You may substitute any of these chords for any other chord
AND THEIR RELATED ii-7s.
Put in to practice it looks like this:
Over:
/D-7
/G7b9
/Cmaj7
You may substitute:
/F-7
/Bb7b9
/Cmaj7
/Db7b9
/Cmaj7
/E7b9
/Cmaj7
OR:
/Ab-7
OR:
/B-7
Or even hipper:
/D-7
/F-7 Ab-7 /Cmaj7
Bob Mover reminded me that when you're adding substitutions you can use the related ii-7s
rather than the V7s. Bob says that Phil Woods often does this. This seems fairly obvious yet
most players don't do this very often.
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We know that Trane was very deep into the Slonimsky book. During his 'sheets of sound' period he
used this type of substitution. You could call this type of substitution a 'Four Tonic System'. Later on
Trane started exploring 1:3 and 2:3 substitutions, these are the classic Giant Steps (Countdown, Fifth
House, ect) 'Three Tonic System' subs. This system spawned a school that is sometimes called the
'Jewish Tenor School' ;) The key exponents of this school are Brecker, Grossman, Liebman and the
late great Bob Berg.
There are other players, like saxophonists Rick Margitza and the Northwest's Burt Wilson who
have thoroughly incorporated this system into their playing. This is a modern 'New York' sound. The
three tonic system is used not only over ii-7 V7s but also over almost anything and everything! It has
so much internal momentum that it can be used as a way to go outside without losing forward
motion.
Personally I find it really hard to use the three tonic system without sounding too much like I'm
playing patterns. I find the four tonic system a bit easier to use without sounding stiff. Bob Mover
once told me that he thought that the three tonic system had ruined the course of modern Jazz. I do
see his point. When I was at Berklee a tenor player I knew had T-shirts made with one of the most
famous Grossman lick on it, the one that sounds like this- weeee-ba-da-ba-doo-be-ahh. Any Steve
Grossman fan knows just the one I'm talking about.

One more symmetrical type scale is called the 'Symmetrical Major' scale. This exotic
sounding scale is made up of three major triads major thirds apart.
C Eb E G Ab B C
This is nice over a Cmaj7, Emaj7, and Abmaj7 chords since it has leading tones to each note of the
major triad.
There are other symmetrical scales in Slonomisky's book just waiting to be applied to Jazz
improvisation!
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Basic ii-7 V7 chord substitutions
Here is a very common type of ii-7 V7 substitution. To do this one you simply turn the ii-7 into a
secondary dominant of the V7 or V7 of V7. This is an easy sub to make because all you are doing is
changing the quality of the ii-7 from minor to dominant, with or without alterations. Here are just a
few of the many ways to do that:
Over:
D-7 / G7 / Cmaj7 /
Play:
D7 /G7 /Cmaj7 /
Or:
D7b9 /G7b9 / Cmaj7 /
Or:
D7alt /G7alt /Cmaj7 /
Or:
D+7 /G+7 /Cmaj7 /
Or you could turn the ii- into a subV of V, like so:
Ab7#11/G7 /Cmaj7 /
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Coolest ii-V7 substitution ever
Here is a really great and easy to make substitution that I often use. It's a straightforward way of
substituting a V7 of V7 in place of the ii-7 in a ii-/V7/I. This is one of Bob Mover's favorite devices
and you can really see why once you give it a try.

First remember that you may substitute any related ii-7 in place of a V7, or vice versa.
All you have to do is to play a minor a half step up over the ii-7 and then play a regular V7 (or
possibly an altered V7).
So over:
D-7 / G7 /Cmaj7
You would play-
Eb-7 /G7 /C maj7
This implies the related V7 of the Eb-7, which is Ab7.
Ab7 is the sub V7 of V, or the tri-tone sub of the secondary dominant of V7.
So the substitution is implying this:
D7 alt /G7 /C maj7
* The beauty of this substitution is that it is so easily calculated on the fly; it sounds very outside
yet soon resolves perfectly and completely to the V7. The tension of playing a half step away from
the minor is total, yet the resolution is so strong that it makes perfect sense to the ear.
It's simple, yet elegant and easily to put into practice.
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Bob Mover's ii- V7 subs
You can blow over these subs while the rhythm section is plays a standard ii-7 V7 Imaj7.
Over:
/G-7
/ C7
/F Maj7
/ Db melodic-
/F Maj7
Play:
/Ab melodic-
/G-7
Ab7#11 / Db Maj7
/Ab-7
/G-7
/ G mel-
Ab-7
/B dim
/ GbMaj7
Bb-7
/ Db-7
/Ab-7
Db7
/ Db-7
/Ab-7
Db7
/ Bb-7
/Ab-7
Db7
/ Bb-7
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Db mel- /F Maj7
Db mel- /F Maj7
/ Bb dim
/G-7
/Ab mel-
Db mel- /F Maj7
/ Bb mel-
/F Maj7
/F Maj7
Gb7
/ F Maj7
/ F Maj7
Db-7
/F Maj7
/F
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Modes of the Harmonic Minor Scale
The harmonic minor scale is considered by some to be the homely sister of the elegant and useful
melodic minor. Yes, it's kind of clunky. Yes, it makes you want to do the snake charmer dance. Just
like the melodic minor the harmonic minor scale generates some modes that are very useful for
improvisation. Here they are:

On a C- maj7 you would play a harmonic minor from the root

Over a minor ii/V7 you would play harmonic minor from the root
For example:
D-7b5 would take a C harmonic minor scale starting on D (down a whole step):
D Eb F G Ab B C (root, b9, b3,11 b5, 13, b7)
Note: A more modern sound for a half-diminished chord would be to play a melodic minor from the
b3rd)

On a G7b9 chord you would play a C harmonic minor scale starting on G (up a fourth):
G Ab B C D Eb F
(root, b9 ,3 ,11 ,5 ,b13 ,b7)
This is a classic Bebop approach to V7b9 chords; some call this an Augmented-Phrygian scale.
Bird used this scale on minor tunes all the time and it is distinctly pre-Trane bop. The altered
dominant (whole-half) scale for the most part supplanted this sound in the post-bop period.

Over a Maj 7th chord you can play a harmonic minor scale from the third.
So over a Gmaj7 chord you can play a B harmonic minor scale starting on G:
G Bb B C# D E F# (root, #9, 3, #11, 5, 13, 7)
This is called a Split Third Major Scale. Of course you wouldn't want to hang out on the #9. This
scale is very close to the Symmetrical Major Scale, which is made up of three major triads a major
third apart (C, Eb, E, G, Ab, B) or C triad+E triad+Ab triad.

Over a minor 9(b5) chord you can play a harmonic minor starting on the fifth.
Over a D-9(b5) you could play an A harmonic minor scale starting from D:
D E F G# A B C (root, 9, b3, #11, 5, 13,b7)
You could call this a Minor Lydian/Mixolydian scale.
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
Over a Maj 9 (#5) chord you can play a harmonic minor scale down a minor third.
So over a D Maj7(#5) chord you can play a B harmonic minor scale starting on D:
D E F# G A# B C# (root. 9, 3, 11, #5, 7)
This is called a Major Augmented Scale. Notice the clunky natural 11, a melodic minor scale from
the same root would give you a #11 instead.

Over a diminished 7 (b9) chord you would play a harmonic minor scale up a half step.
So over an Adim7 (b9) chord you can play a Bb harmonic minor scale from A:
A Bb C Db Eb F Gb (root, b9, #9, 3,#11, b13, 13)
Now we are stretching things but you could think of this scale as an alternative to the Altered
Dominant scale.
Obviously some of these scales are more useful than others, and most are not quite as hip as their
melodic minor counterparts. These scales do offer some different flavors to add to your harmonic
pantry and are worth exploring.
Special Function Dominant Chords
Special function dominants are dominant seventh chords that do not resolve down a fifth or down a
half step. These dominants have reasonably strong resolutions to tonic Imaj7 chords and can be used
by the improviser or arranger as substitutes for V7 chords. Though these special function dominant
chords do not have as strong resolutions as V7s or subV7s, they are strong enough to be used as subs
for these chords. SFD chords can be used to create a more desired bass line or to harmonize hard to
voice melody notes. Special Function Dominant Chords can be used by the improviser to create
interesting re-harmonized lines over existing chord changes. One thing to keep in mind when you are
creating re-harmonized lines or chord changes is that you may always precede these SFDs with their
related ii-7s.
Here are the Special Function Dominants:
* I7 this is used in blues progressions as a tonic dominant. It also sometimes resolves to the Imaj7
tonic.
* II7 this chord is closely related to the bVI7 and the #IV-7b5 (they all share the same tri-tones). It is
normally analyzed as V7/V (secondary dominant function), except when it resolves directly to I
when it acts as a SFD.
* IV7~ used in blues progressions, resolves to an I7. IV7 is diatonic to melodic minor, and has a
subdominant function in that context.
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Blues context: /C7 /F7 /C7 F7 /C7
Minor context: /C-6 G7(b13)/ C-6 F7/ C-6 /
* bVI7 ~ usually analyzed as a sub V7/V. When resolved directly to I it creates a special function
cadence. This chord is derived from the chromatic harmony of the 19th century. This chord is
closely related to the IV- chord, although it is not diatonic to the minor key. This chord is said to
have an altered subdominant minor function.
* VII7 ~this is usually analyzed as a V7/III, except when it resolves directly to I. Since VII7 is not
associated with any particular area within the key, its function is simply cadential.
* bVII7 ~this chord is derived from natural minor and has a subdominant minor function. This is
an example of modal interchange. The IV-7 is often used with the bVII7 in a subdominant minor
pattern like so: /C- /F-7 Bb7/C- //
How do we apply this knowledge?
As improvisers, we need to be able to create valid and functional chord progressions on the fly.
Special function dominants can help us do this.
* We can add SFDs after V7s, before resolving to I:
/D-7 G7/Ab7 Cmaj7/
This creates a delayed resolution, which is always interesting.
*We can use them at the very end of a tune for a cadenza, right before the last chord of the tune.
*We can add the SFD's related ii-7 and substitute or add to an existing ii-7/V7/I:
/D-7
/ G7
/Cmaj7
/ (original)
/F-7
/Bb7
/Cmaj7
/ (substitute)
/D-7 G7 /F-7 Bb7 /Cmaj7
/ (substitute)
* We can also use them as passing chords to break up a bland Imaj7 section in a tune:
/G7
/G7
/G7
/ Cmaj7
/Cmaj7
/ Cmaj6
/ Cmaj7 Ab7 /Cmaj7 D7
/Cmaj6
/Cmaj7 Eb-7 Ab7/Cmaj7 A-7 D7 /Cmaj6
/ (original)
/ (with SFDs)
/ (with added related ii-7s)
The best way to get used to the sound of the SFD chords is to sit down at a piano or with a guitar
and play through all of them. Try playing them one at a time and resolving to Imaj7 after each one.
For example:
Cmaj7 /C7
/Cmaj7 /
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/Cmaj7
/D7
/Cmaj7
/F7
/C7
/Ab7
/Cmaj7 /Bb7
/Cmaj7
/B7
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Triad Pairs for Jazz
Gary Campbell wrote a book called Triad Pairs. Mr. Campbell is a professor at University of Miami,
which has a highly respected Jazz program. His book thoroughly details how to use pairs of triads in
Jazz improvisation.
In his introduction Mr. Campbell explains the importance of triad pairs in improvisation:
Why Practice Triad Pairs?
1. By limiting note selection to six tones (each triad consisting of three), a more concise sonority is
created. For example, the conventional chords used in the Jazz idiom are oftentimes associated with
parent chord-scales of seven or more tones (melodic minor, major, minor, harmonic minor, and so
on). Rendering these scales in the form of triad pairs yields more variety in tone color and suggests
novel melodic possibilities.
2. Each of the triads expresses a tonality. By using two triads, bi-tonal effects are created. This effect
is multiplied when the triad pair is used over a root tone that is not present in either triad.
3. The structure and "tensile strength" of triads give the melodic line an independent internal logic.
The "stand alone" sound is oftentimes enough to make a strong, effective melodic statement
regardless of how it is (or isn't) relating to the harmony over which it is being used. It sounds
"right".
4. The triads offer a skeleton structure to base lines on. This can be very helpful in modal settings
where there are no diatonic, cycle-forth root movements or resolutions and where each chord
change may last a long time (for instance, four, eight, or sixteen measures)"
Here is an example of the concept applied to a C melodic minor tonality:
A C melodic minor scale contains the following triadsCmin Dmin Eb+ F Maj G Maj Adim Bdim
The possible triad pairs are:
Cmin/Dmin Dmin/Eb+
Adim/Bdim
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Bdim/Cmaj
Eb+/F Maj
F Maj/G Maj
G Maj/Adim
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Of these the preferred selections are:
Cmin/Dmin
Eb+/Fmaj
Fmaj/Gmaj
These are the chords that a C melodic minor scale can effectively be applied to:
Cmin(maj7) Dsus(b9) Eb Maj7(#5) F7(#11) G7(b13) A-7b5 B7alt
* One of the most basic triad pairs is Major triads a whole step apart. This one triad pair is
explored exhaustively in Walt Weiskopf's book Intervallic Improvisation (Abersold press). I f you
have ever heard Walt play you will hear him use this A LOT! It can be used over ANY Major chord
and any Dominant chord with a natural 9th and 13th. These two triad triads contain the following:
1st triad- root, 3rd, 5th
2nd triad- 9th, #11th, 13th
Other triad pairs covered are:
* Major Triads a half step apart
* Major Triads a Tri-tone apart (works well over dominant seventh b9 chords from the root)
* Minor triads a half step apart
* Minor Triads a Tri-tone apart
And on and on.........
Here are is a triad pair idea for a /ii-7 /V7 /I Maj:
Over a:
/ D-7
/G7alt
/ C Maj
/
Play:
/ G triad F triad / Eb triad Db triad / C triad D triad /

Here is the same concept applied to a diminished scale:
Over a C7b9 chord you can play a C# diminished 7th chord, a D# diminished 7th chord, also A, F#,
Eb, and C major triads.
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All these ideas will open your playing up and break you out of the linear rut that Jazz players often
fall into. If you start with some of these ideas and then start adding more outside triads to the mix
you can come up with some very modern and interesting lines. Try adding some passing tones
between the triads to smooth things out.
I would highly recommend Gary Campbell’s Book Triad Pairs to any player looking for new
improvisational material. This book will really open up your lines and give you some new ideas for
playing over chord changes. It is also good for improving sight-reading and technique.
Harmonic Minor Triad Pairs
Let's examine how triad pairs would work when the triads are taken from the harmonic minor
scale:
If we take the diatonic triads from a C harmonic minor scale we get the following triads:
C-
Ddim
Eb+
F-
G Maj
Ab Maj
Bdim
These are the possible triad pairs from C harmonic minor scale are:
C- /Ddim
Ddim/Eb+
Ab Maj/Bdim
Eb+/F-
F-/G Maj
G Maj/Ab Maj
Bdim/C-
Each of these triad pairs works over every chord that a C harmonic minor scale fits over!
The chords that take a C harmonic minor scale would be:
C-maj7
scale)
D-7b5
Ebmaj7(#5) G7(b9,b13)
Abmaj7 (careful here, implies a split-third major
(Please refer to the chapter 'Modes of the Harmonic Minor scale for Jazz' if these don't make sense to
you)
To apply these in an informed and meaningful way you should first try them at the piano. Play the
chord with your left hand while playing each the triad pairs as alternating arpeggios to hear which
ones work the best. Some triad pairs sound hipper than others so decide which ones you like and
write them down.
This is quite a lot chew on. When you're finished try the same thing for the modes of melodic
minor. This will open up new worlds of two-tonic-triadic possibilities for you!
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Digital Patterns
At some point in almost every Jazz musician's development he/she usually works on digital
patterns. By digital we mean both fingers and numbers. Digital patterns can be helpful for learning to
play over changes that move around a lot, like Giant Steps or Stablemates. Trane's solo on Giant
Steps is packed full of digital patterns. You can tell that he practiced many of them before recording
the tune. The down side to practicing digital patterns is that they sound like digital patterns, but they
can be good for getting your fingers working fast over difficult changes.
Here are some digital patterns in order of difficulty. First try playing the patterns around the circle
of fifths then half steps and whole steps (up AND down). Next try playing them over a tune with a
lot of changes that are two beats long and move around a lot, like Giant Steps or Stablemates.
(A 1-3-5-3 pattern over a Cmaj7 chord would be C-E-G-E, Over a C-7b5 it would be C-Eb-Gb-Eb)
1-2-3-1
1-2-3-5
1-3-5-7
1-3-5-3
5-3-2-1
5-3-1-3
3-5-1-3
7-5-3-1
3-2-1-5
1-2-3-7
3-2-1-7
Obviously you could keep going and going with these.
At first just practice one pattern at a time. Then start mixing them up. You might alternate between
1-2-3-5 and 5-3-2-1 for example then eventually incorporate all of them at random.
As I said earlier, Coltrane used these digital patterns all over the place when playing on all of his 3tonic compositions (Giant Steps, Countdown, Satellite, Seventh House, ect). It's hard to play linearly
over these types of tunes because of their rapid harmonic motion. The goal is to be able to play over
these types of tunes and not be forced to rely on digital patterns at all. This is very difficult to do.
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The controlled freak out- outside/inside playing
Improvising over changes takes many years of dedicated practice to master. It is a highly
intellectually demanding act that requires knowledge of music theory as well as an excellent memory
and quick thinking. Once players get a basic grasp of Jazz improvisation it is often hard for them to
let go and play by ear again, as they did when they first started to improvise. Long before they were
thinking about symmetrical scales or tri-tone subs they just followed their ears and let their fingers
do the walking. Once they are blowing bebop lines through changes with some proficiency they find
it hard to trust only their ears to navigate for them. I often try to get my students to move outside by
disengaging their rational minds for just a moment at a time. It's almost harder to get an intellectual
player to play by ear than it is to teach an ear player to learn Jazz harmony.
I like hearing bebop players who are able to step outside without using set harmonic formulas.
There are many post-bop players who use harmonic devices in order to take it outside, fewer who are
able to play freely by ear and then drop right back inside.
It can be hard to convince a student who has worked hard to play over changes to ignore them,
even if it is just for short periods of time. I may cross out a few chord changes and tell them to just
blow whatever they hear over those bars. I tell them not to play anything that is harmonically related
to the changes played by the rhythm section. They should then try to land on the next written chord
change with a strong chord tone.
I try to get them to feel comfortable with playing totally outside by ear for just a bar at a time. This
is like popping the clutch in a stick shift vehicle. The rational mind is forced to disengage from its
calculations and computations while the ears and the fingers momentarily take the reigns. When the
'clutch' is re-engaged the rational mind takes over again without losing its place in the tune.
After the student is comfortable with one bar of cosmic freak out I'll have them try for a few more
bars at a time. It's also nice to work your way outside and then work your way back inside using
chord substitutions. For example let's take the first five bars of the bridge of 'What is this thing called
love?'
The written changes are:
C-7
/F7
/Bbmaj7
/BbMaj7
/Ab7 (b9) /
Let's try playing the first chord of the bridge and then work our way out using strong resolutions,
then right before the Ab7 (b9) we'll play a few changes to get us back inside.
C-7
B7 /E7
A7/FREAK OUT! / E-7Eb7
/Ab7 (b9) /
By beat three we are starting to head outside, culminating in a six beat cosmic freak out in the third
bar and the first half of the fourth bar. Beats three and four steps us back inside where we land on
terra firma in bar five. Unscathed!
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This example shows how we can gradually move outside using standard diatonic harmony, play
free for a few moments and then step back inside without anyone knowing what hit them. We weave
the psychedelic freak-out seamlessly into the tonal harmony. It doesn't come as so much of a shock
(which isn't always bad) to the listener, and the transition from inside to outside and back will be
much smoother. You'll be able to play like Archie Shepp even at a Bar Mitzvah or your hotel lobby
gig!
Listen to George Garzone or Ellery Eskelin for their ability to step across the line between inside
and outside playing with ease. Free playing doesn't always have to drive the grandmothers out of the
room (my grandmother used to ask me when she came to my gigs if I was going to play any of that
'drive the grandmothers out of the room music'). Grandma won't even know that anything's wrong
before you're back from your full-fledged FREAK OUT.
Randy Porter's Be-Bop harmonic devices
I started studying with pianist Randy Porter last year. It's been years since I had a formal lesson
with anybody. Randy has one of the deepest harmonic and rhythmic concepts I've ever encountered,
plus he is my favorite saxophonist's (Charles McPherson) favorite pianist. In my first lesson we
looked at a couple of standards and Randy gave me some new ideas to think about. One interesting
harmonic device he showed me was a classic Bop delayed resolution for a Major chord. When you
have a Major chord all you do is play a diminished chord/scale from the root of the Major chord and
then resolve to the Major chord.
So in the context of an ii-7 V7 Imaj7 it looks like this:
D-7 / G7 / Cdim C Maj7/
Simple, just really nice classic Be-Bop.
Another thing Randy does is use a melodic minor up a fourth over a Major chord, which then
resolves to a Major 6 chord.
So over two bars of Gmaj7:
C-maj7 / G6 /
This is something Charles McPherson likes to do and it sounds quite cool. It suggests a G major
Bebop scale by bringing out the #5 of the major. You could look at this as a special function
dominant b7 with a #11. You should really try to bring out the melodic minor sound with this one
and then resolve to the 6th of the Major.
Randy showed me some four tonic substitutions over a Minor chord. He had me play over Solar and
over the first two bars of C minor we substituted four different dominant 7th #9 chords, resolving
after each one to the C melodic minor. This is kind of a variation of Barry Harris' diminished subs
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where you can substitute any dominant seventh chord Minor thirds away from any other Dominant.
Example: over a C7 you can play an Eb7, Gb7, or A7
What we did was thisOver:
C-7
/ C-7
/C-7
/ C-7
/
We played this:
D7alt Cmel- / F7alt Cmel- / Ab7alt Cmel- / B7alt Cmel- /
You can also think of it like this:
Ebmel- Cmel-/ F#mel- Cmel-/ Amel- Cmel- / Cmelodic- / (except the last one).
Randy showed me an interesting way of a resolving a dominant 7th (b9) chord. He thought it
sounded like something that Cedar Walton would play, someone who is definitely worth emulating!
Over a C7(b9) resolving to an F you would play:
A triad, Ab triad, F# triad, then resolve to F
This creates a descending triadic line that leads to the tonic.
This works for chordal as well as for single line instruments. Just be very clear as you play your
triads or triadic line. Major triads are always very strong and are able to supercede almost any
harmony they are played over. In this case the triads are drawn directly from the chord-scale and
descend in stepwise motion, very strong motion indeed.
Questions from Sammy Epstein
“Hey David,
You've definitely got good stuff on your blog! Now, when you take a lesson from Randy, and he
talks about, say ii-V-Idim-Imaj7, how do you implement that on your horn? And how do you teach
single note players to implement on the horn? Do you have a set of licks that work for I dim to I Maj,
and work them in each key? I say one can't simply do scales over the patterns...no hip solos come
from merely scales (my opinion) and the other example, over Solar: C-7 /C-7 /C-7 / C-7 / We played
this: D7alt Cmel- / F7alt Cmel- / Ab7alt Cmel- / Cmel- C-7 / or you can think of it like this: EbmelCmel-/ F#mel- Cmel-/ Amel- Cmel- / Cmelodic- / something you spoke about months ago... or Eb-7
/Ab-7 /Cmaj7 How do you implement these substitutions in your playing? Do you come up with licks
that "make" the changes, and then practice the licks in twelve keys? As I see it, gotta have structure
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(i.e., licks, patterns, call it what you will) or scales sound just like scales, nothing more, leading to
naive solos that simply don't work. Your thoughts? From sunny Austin, Sammy”
Sammy,
As a horn player studying with a piano player there is a little translating that I must to apply certain
ideas, but not much. Pianist can certainly flesh out chords substitutions in a way that horn players
only dream of. As a horn player applying chord substitutions you need to be clearer than a chordal
instrumentalist does. As you move further away from the key of the original changes you need
outline the chords in a more direct way.
Single note lines can suggest chordal structures strongly enough to create convincing advanced reharms if there is enough clarity in the lines. This doesn't mean playing only digital patterns (for exp.
1,3,5,3) or playing all the notes in every chord. Create strong melodic lines without running scales or
chords.
As for licks for I diminished to I maj7 resolutions; take a look at my symmetrical scale article for
diminished ideas. Everyone should be familiar resolving from diminished to Major or any other
chord. Download the Ray Brown diminished lines that I posted for many of the most common
diminished patterns. Write some patterns of your own and learn them in 3 keys, which will get you
12 keys, what a deal!
Patterns should be learned so you can use them as the templates for creating your own lines. I'm
not big on learning all your lines in every key. You need to be able to transpose ideas to different
keys, but practically speaking if you really learn every new line in all 12 keys then you'll end up
repeating yourself like crazy. The listener won't recognize that you played lick X in four different
keys, they'll just hear redundancy.
We want to have variety and balance in our solos. Don't play too chordally/vertically OR too
linearly/modally, new ideas OR repetition. Don't play too many patterns OR freaky lines. The
chord/scale approach needs be balanced with the development of motifs, and the motifs should be
drawn from relevant material (the melody, ideas that the rhythm section is comping, your own and
others' solo ideas, quotes from other tunes that have similar changes, ect).
Remember BALANCE and VARIETY! If ideas are not being developed in your solo then no
matter how many cool lines you play your solo will seem static. Focusing on all this theory and reharmonization, chords and scales, can distract you from taking simple melodic ideas and making
melodies.
Randy has been trying to wean me away from relying on modes too heavily,” Less Trane, more
Bird!” This allows you to outline re-harmonized chords without obliterating the underlying harmony
with a hail of notes. After all a scale is much more dense than a chord. Try to choose your chords
consciously; don't just randomly play wider intervals. Be prepared to justify the chords that you're
outlining.
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Randy had me do something that was meant to help melodic awareness. He had me improvise
blues choruses, but I had to play the exact same chorus twice in a row. This of course eliminated
many unimportant notes and forced me to play stronger, simpler melodies. Another thing Randy
suggested was to be aware of when I played a really good idea and then let it breath for a second or
two. How will the listeners appreciate your best shit if you never leave them time to digest your
amazing lines? How will they hear the true extent of your genius?
8th note lines
Jazz musicians tend to practice 8th-note lines more than anything else. This can lead to a string of
8th-notes common on most bandstands. Here are a few things you can think about in order to make
your lines sound more interesting.
1. Practice anticipating the chord changes by an 8th-note
2. Practice delaying the chord changes by an 8th-note
3. Practice purposely slowing your 8th-notes down and then speeding them up to catch back up with
the time
4. Focus more on the direction of your lines. Don't just swoop from top to bottom over and over.
Really try to change direction unexpectedly.
5. Play a line and then answer it in another octave. Create a dialog with yourself in different octaves.
6. Try varying your dynamics with the shape of the line, higher=louder, make this effect very
pronounced.
7. Displace notes unexpectedly into different octaves while playing a smooth line.
8. Try writing repeating 5, 7 or 9 note patterns. These will shift around in the bar and create very
interesting effects.
9. Practice repeating notes unexpectedly in your lines. This can make the most cliché Bop lines
sound very fresh. Saxophone players can do this with alternate and overtone fingerings. By doing
this, the tongue is not needed in order to play repeated notes. This is helpful at fast tempos.
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10. Be more aware of when you are playing horizontally and when you are playing vertically.
Most players tend toward one or the other. Change this up consciously.
11. Shift between swinging very hard to playing straighter legato 8th-notes (straighter, not like an
old un-swinging Caucasian)
12. Remember the farther outside you go, the harder you need to swing!
13. Practice shifting back and forth between 8th notes and eighth notes triplets or dotted eighth notes
If you are trying to learn licks or patterns keep a journal for yourself. Each day that you practice
memorize just three new patterns. Each day after you work on the three new patterns go back
through all the previous patterns and refresh your memory. If you try to learn too many every time or
don't go back over the old patterns, you will never retain what you are learning.
Make sure you take time to compose your own patterns and licks to memorize along with the
classics. Start developing your our style at the beginning. I don't agree with those who say that you
should first learn to play like the masters before developing your own sound. You can put your own
touch on everything that you are picking up from the masters. No one wants to hear a player that
sound just like another player. Why bother?
Spend time using CDs as ear-training tools. Try to play back lines that you're hearing on the spot.
I'm not talking about transcribing. Just try to pick out pieces of what you're hearing and play them
back.
Do you really need to memorize Jazz licks?
Maurizio Miotti, a regular reader from Rome, wrote in with a great question.
" My saxophone teacher tells me that I can study music theory and harmony, but if I want to
improvise jazz music I have to listen, memorize and play “jazz phrases”. The same situation with
learn a new language: you can study grammar but when you talk with someone, you have to use
idiomatic expressions because grammar is a set of theoretical roles (sometimes “a little distant”
from the current language) and pre-defined phrases are more efficient for communication."
This is a very good analogy. Jazz is a universal language that is spoken all over the world. I can go
to Poland and call All the Things on the stand and immediately be speaking the same language as the
band musically. Licks are very much like idiomatic expressions, they are the elements of a musical
language that can be understood the world over. Many licks are favorite patterns developed by an
influential player. These are often forever tied to this player as signature licks. Everybody knows
exactly whom these licks came from as soon as you play them. Yes, Bird and Trane live, because
everyone is still playing their shit!
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Other licks are what I call 'Public Domain' licks. These are pattern and lines that can't really be
tracked down to any particular player. These are the first licks that young players memorize as they
learn to improvise. Most diminished and whole tone patterns are in this class. These licks are your
garden variety stale old Be-bop licks.
David Baker has done a wonderful job cataloging these public domain licks in his 'How to Play
Bebop' books. These are licks are tried and true, good as gold and oldies but goodies. Everyone has
heard these expressions, but they still carry a strong meaning and are understood by everyone who
speaks the language. By learning public domain licks you learn how to construct logical and
meaningful lines, they can also act as fillers when you aren't feeling totally spontaneous.
If you were to speak using nothing but idiomatic expressions you'd sound ridiculous.
It would be like an albatross round your neck if you thought it was all the rage to jump on the
bandwagon with the rank and file who play nothing but licks, thinking they were real deal and
the creme de la crème. In all honesty these dime a dozen bean counters make me lose my
lunch!
Like idioms, licks are meaningful elements of a musical language, but they can and usually are
overused. I once heard Donny McCaslin say that you need to learn the entire common licks so that
you don't ever have to play them. Many professional players never get past the point of playing
nothing but licks, we would call these guys totally derivative or BOOOOOORING. True, some great
licks never get old, no matter how many time you hear them, but some dumb licks can make a great
player sound corny and hokey in an instant.
It also depends on location. You might get away with playing an old Bebop line in Idaho that
would evoke groans from an audience in the East Village. The less the listener knows about Jazz, the
better these corny-ass lines sound, because they haven't heard every beginning soloist play them
already. You can fool an uneducated audience into thinking that you're can really play by stringing a
bunch of stale licks together, it's a fast way to sound like you're playing Real Jazz.
Is this really creative? Some would argue that it is and that the goal is to sound good, and playing
lots of licks helps you sound good. Many, many players take this way of playing to the extreme and
play nothing but licks that they have memorized. They are happy to regurgitate dumb licks for their
entire career.
There are different approaches that teachers take with students with regards to learning licks. The
first approach is to have the student memorize a ton of licks in every key. The great disadvantage to
this approach is that the student ends up sounding redundant by repeating the exact same lick in
many different keys during a solo. Also if the student never breaks free of this mode of learning they
end up sounding totally generic. There is also no cohesion in the player's solos, just a bunch of
unrelated parts.

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I have my students work out of books like David Baker's How to Play Bebop in order to get them
hearing how lines are constructed and also to give them ideas about how to construct their own lines.
To me licks are like training wheels that you eventually take off once you've learned how to
improvise your own original lines.
Even great players sometimes break out an old Bebop lick once and a while, maybe as a nod to a
favorite player or for some kind of effect. Sure, I use elements of the many different licks that I've
memorized over the years, but only small parts of these licks. Now I use licks as templates from
which to build my own lines. I do sound like a Bebop player when I play Bebop because I've
incorporated the vernacular of Bebop into my playing over the years. You can hear Bird, Cannonball
and many other players in there, but you'd probably be hard pressed to pick out exactly which line
came from which player.
When I was younger you probably could pick out many Bird phrases in my solos, but as I get older
I've created more of my own personal vernacular. The biggest reason players like Pops, Bird, Trane
and Woody Shaw were innovators was that they created their own personal language that was so
compelling that it influenced players for years to come. Their personal idioms became the public
domain licks that everyone else incorporated into their own playing.
How is the evolution of the language of Jazz much like the evolution of language? Once in a while
a particularly strong personality comes along, say like a Snoop Dog, and suddenly everyone is
putting 'izzle' on the end of words. Sometimes these fo'shizzles and mo'nizzles pass like fads, other
times they work their way into the language and end up in Webster's dictionary or maybe even
spoken on the lips of the queen of England. “I dub you Sirshizzle Wynton Marshizzlis!”
Yusef Lateef used to tell his students that it is never too early to start developing an original sound
and style. The idea that you must first learn all the idiomatic Jazz licks before you can really start
creating an original style is BULLSHIT.
You can be working on your own unique way of playing from the very beginning by learning to
make everything you absorb your own. Yes, practice the public domain licks and patterns, but as you
learn them put your own twist on them. Displace a note here and there, change a rhythm, leave a
note out, add an accidental, just do something to it. Take different pieces of patterns and combine
them in unusual ways. I have my students look at David Baker's ii-V7 licks (the ones that are all in
the same key and stacked one above the other) and play the ii-7 bar from one lick and a V7 bar from
another lick. I have them try all different V7 resolutions with the same ii-7 bar. Then I might have
them play the same ii-7 bar and play an improvised V7 using a diminished scale, then a whole-tone,
then and an altered dominant, ECT. Then I have them play different ii-7 bars while keeping the same
V7 resolution the same.
You don't have to wait until you've mastered the Jazz language to start creating your own personal
idioms. On the other hand if you create a personal language that has no relationship at all to the
languages that everyone else is speaks then no one will be able to converse with or understand you.
Remember Steve Martin's routine when he talks about wanting to have a kid and teach him to speak
random gibberish for laughs?
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It all comes down to balance. A good balance between original and idiomatic material is essential
in order to sound fresh and still sound like you're grounded in the Jazz tradition. You don't want to
alienate the other musicians or your audience by playing the music of the spheres all night. You also
don't want to sound like you sleep with the Omnibook under your pillow (which I thoroughly
approve of by the way) or that the only record you own is Heavy Metal Bebop.
Why bother even pulling out your horn if you're just going to play licks that you memorized from
records and books? Respect the tradition by adapting its idioms and making them your own, not by
being stuck playing nothing but music from before 1957. Take a chance and be creative, even at the
expense of sounding sloppy and bad once in a while. Try not to use long licks, instead only use short
fragments.
Innovate as you emulate. It's possible to sound very original without throwing the baby out with the
bathwater.
Foshizzle Monizzle?
Emotional range- the musician as the actor
I see music as an art form that requires the artist to be highly emotionally expressive. One of the
things that is usually lacking in younger players, no matter how burning they are technically, is deep
emotional expression. Many players never develop this type of expression no matter what their age.
The old saying,” You need to live the blues before you can play the blues", is very true. How can a
suburban teen know great sorrow or other deep emotions without years of living a hard life? How
can we express a complete range of emotions if we are narrow unexpressive people? It takes living a
full life to really understand how to express certain deep or subtle emotions in your music. I think
that this is true up to a point.
In many getting your heart squashed and burnt by a lover will do as more for your music than
spending endless hours in the woodshed. We can consciously speed up this growth process if we
really focus on this aspect of our playing. Like everything, it takes practice to be emotionally
expressive.
The Jazz musician has quite a lot in common with the professional actor. The actor becomes the
character he portrays by taking on a different personality in his mind. Even though the actor may not
feel sadness or joy while working he takes on those emotional states until they feel real to him. If he
has a scene where he needs to crie the actor might think about how his puppy got flattened by an icecream truck when he was six years old. He relives that sorrow until he cries real tears. The actor's
entire instrument (facial expressions, voice, body language) then expresses the emotion or sorrow.
To the audience this appears to be real. They don't know that the actor is really crying about Spot.
We all have certain emotions that we are comfortable with and others that we don't understand or
have a hard time expressing. We may have no problem feeling angry but can't express tenderness, or
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vice versa. We need to learn to use the full range of human emotion in our music even if we aren't
use to expressing all of these emotions in our daily life.
Jazz musicians in general have a tendency to have 'dry' or unemotional personalities. This is a
hindrance to being an expressive artist. It is possible to cultivate the ability to work with unfamiliar
emotions but it takes some amount of disciplined practice. Maybe only an 'appearance of an
emotional state' is possible for the actor or the musician, at least this is better than nothing. The first
step toward this kind of emotional range is to try to purposefully take on emotional states before
playing. Think of the time you accidentally ran your kitty over with your Big Wheel, or the first time
you got dumped. Look at the tune and try to determine what is appropriate. What are the lyrics
about? What is the general tone of the melody?
Here is a list of emotions to consider in relation to playing music. You don't need to understand
how they directly relate to a way of playing. Just trying to feel them while playing is enough to
affect your music:
Abandoned Ablaze Abominable Abrasive Absorbed Absorbed Absurd Abused Abusive
Accommodating Acknowledged Acquiescent Acrimonious Admonished Adoring Adored
Adventurous Adverse Affected Affectionate Afflicted Affronted Afraid Aggravated Aggressive
Agitated Agonized Agonizing Agreeable Airy Awkward Alienated Alive Alluring Alone Altruistic
Ambiguous Ambitious Amenable Amorous Amused Angry Anguished Animated Annoyed Anxious
Apathetic Appealing Appeasing Appreciation Apprehensive Ardent Arduous Argumentative
Armored Aroused Arrogant Astounded Attentive Avoidance Beaten down Bemused Betrayed
Bewildered Bewitched Bitchy Bitter Blah Blessed Blissful Blunt Boiling Bored Bothered Brave
Breathless Breezy Bright Broken Bruised Buoyant Bursting Callous Calm Captivated Captivating
Careless Caring Celebrating Cheerful Cherishing Clandestine Clear Cold Comatose Comfortable
Compassion Competitive Complacent Composed Concerned Confused Congenial Content Cool
Cornered Crucified Crushed Cursed Cushy Dainty Defensive Dejected Delectable Delicate
Delighted Demure Depressed Desirable Desired Desolate Despair Despondent Devoted Devoured
Discomfort Discontented Disgust Dismal Dispassionate Displeased Disregard Disregarding
Distracted Distressed Disturbed Doldrums Doomed Droopy Dull Eager Earnest Ecstatic Electric
Enchanted Endearing Engaging Enjoy Enlivened Enraged Enraptured Enthused Even tempered
Exasperate Exultation Fanatical Fascinated Fearful Fervent Fervor Fiery Flared up Flushed Flustered
Fluttery Foaming at the mouth Forbearance Fortitude Frantic Fretful Frigid Frisky Frustration Full
Fuming Fun Funny Furious Giggly Gleeful Gloomy Glowing Grateful Grave Grief Grieving Grim
Griped Grounded Gushing Gusto Half-hearted Hardened Harsh Having Fun Hearty Heavy Hopeful
Horrific Humorous Hurt Hysterical Impetuous Imposing Impressed Impressionable Impulsive
Indulgent Inept Inflexible Infuriated Insatiable Insensitive Insouciant Inspired Interested Intimidated
Irrepressible Irritated Jealous Jittery Jolly Jovial Jubilation Languid Laughingly Lethargic Light
hearted Lively Lonely Lonesome Long-suffering Lost Loving Lukewarm Mad Manic Melancholy
Melodramatic Merry Mindless Mirthful Miserable Moderate Mortified Moved Nervous Nonchalant
Numb Optimistic Over-wrought Pain Panic Paralyzed Passionate Passive Patient Perky Perplexed
Placid Plagued Pleasant Pleasurable Pride Proud Provocative Quarrelsome Quivering Rash Raving
Ravished Ravishing Ready to burst Receptive Reckless Reconciled Refreshed Rejected Rejection
Rejoice Relish Repressed Resentful Resigned Resistant Romantic Scared Sedate Seduced Seductive
Seething Selfish Sensational Sensual Sentimental Serious Shaken Shame Shy Silly Simmering
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Sincere Sinking Smug Snug Sober Sobering Soft Solemn Somber Sore Sorrow Sorrowful Sour
Sparkling Spastic Spicy Spirited Spry Stoic Stranded Stressed Stunned Subdued Subjugated
Suffering Sunny Surrender Susceptible Suspended Sweet Sympathy Tame Tantalizing Tantrumy
Temperate Tender The blues Threatened Thrilled Tickled Tight Tight-lipped Timid Tingly Tolerant
Tormented Tortured Touched Tranquil Transported Trepidation Troubled Twitchy Uncomfortable
Unconcerned Unconscious Uncontrollable Undone Unfeeling Unhappy Unimpressed Used Vexed
Victim Victimized Vivacious Volcanic Voluptuous Vulnerable Warm Warmhearted Weary
Welcomed Whining Winsome Wistful Woe Woeful Worked up Worried Wounded Wretched Yearn
Yearning Yielding Zealous
These emotions are tools to the improviser, just like whole tone patterns or 3-tonic lines. Work with
them, make them your own, mix and match until you find something you like then make them part
of your personal musical language. Remember, these emotions do not have to reflect your
personality in any way, wear them like masks!
In certain spiritual traditions this practice is called conscious invocation- certain scents, colors,
shapes also helped to put the practitioner in tune with the energies called upon. We don't have that
luxury on the bandstand, unless cigarette smoke is what you need to tune in.
Think about this, practice and then FEEL and PLAY.
Free Jazz and The function of freedom
The topic of inside/outside playing is something that I feel is an important issue to address, partly
because I personally struggle with it in my own playing. The free mindset is a completely different
one than that of straight-ahead, or for that matter any other style of jazz. It’s a much more meditative
mindset. You have to listen more to what your ear is telling you to do, by temporarily strangling
your rational mind.
When I play free music I feel like my lines might go in any direction at any time, it feels like I’m
just trying to get my mind out of the way so my body can play what it wants. It is much easier for
this to happen if the audience (and the other musicians) is already expecting and excepting of the
possibility of freedom.
I don't hear many modern Jazz musicians who incorporate totally free playing while playing an
inside gig. Most jazz players will play 'outside' at certain times, but it's not really free. They will use
techniques or formulas to take them outside and get them back inside. They might use three-tonic
lines, sequences, 12-tone lines, converging chord changes or pre-worked out patterns. These
methods do take them 'outside' and back but they really lack the spontaneity and intuition of free
playing. There are a few players who really do incorporate free playing with straight-ahead; players
like George Garzone, Ellery Eskelin, and Jean-Michelle Pilc.
To me it's as if the mind cannot be in these two modes at the same time. They seem mutually
exclusive in my experience. The rational mind is more constrictive and deals with what is already
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known and defined. It calculates and applies the rules of musical harmony, form and rhythm. It is
reactive rather than active can only rearrange already known elements.
The function of the mind that is used in free playing, let’s call it the abstract mind, is DIALATIVE.
It puts together entirely new combinations of notes and can express inner feelings by way of pure
abstraction. It doesn’t express things in logical or linear ways; it is above logic and linear time and
space.
Since most of us can’t operate using both these modes of functioning at the same time, the best we
can hope for is be able to move between them fluidly. To play freely over changes you can’t be
thinking how the notes you are playing relate to the changes (or lack of changes).
People say that in order to play outside you first must learn to play inside. I’m not so sure that this
is true. I don’t think the Bop players can learn to blow free music by practicing inside playing.
Almost the opposite is true; it becomes harder for most players to let go of their rational minds once
they’ve mastered musical theory. They don’t want to let go and just let their ‘fingers do the
walking’.
Trane was the shining example of someone who had totally mastered Bop harmony and then started
toward freedom. This was a rare musician indeed. I think that Trane had so thoroughly mastered
inside playing that there was nowhere else to go but out. He had the ability to function on the
abstract plane while his rational mind was able to slip into a type of automatic consciousness. He no
longer needed to think about keys or scales. He became an 'ear player', but with a mastery of
musical theory.
There are still great Be-boppers out there who never learned any theory at all. [Check out ear player
and master Bop saxophonist Vince Wallace.] At one time this was the rule rather than the exception,
favoring a more natural and organic sounding style of Jazz.
The difference between the rational mind and the abstract mind is very much like the difference
between the ear and the eye. The eye is like the rational mind; it can only see the surface of things
and only in a direct line of sight. The eye also perceives only one octave in range, whereas the ear
can hear almost eleven full octaves. The ear can also hear things that are hidden from the eye, far
away or behind closed doors.
Most young players learn to play jazz more by their eyes than with the ears. This was not the way
Jazz musicians learned to play in the first half of the twentieth century. It would be hard for us to
choose if we were forced give up either our sight or our hearing. So we should also equally value our
rational mind and our abstract mind. When we learn tunes we should learn how the changes sound as
well as memorizing the changes.
I've noticed that it is easier to play free music if it is a 'free' (read non-paying) gig. Unless you've
developed an audience for your free playing or you're in Europe. If you are worried about clearing
the crowd out or pissing off the club owners you really can't loosen up enough. My goal is to make
my free playing flow right into my straight-ahead playing. I want it to be seamless.
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Motivic development
Let’s talk about what goes into a solo besides the nuts and bolts of the music theory. A lot of players
come out of music school playing BURNING JAZZ. They basically learn to play tons of shit over
changes. It is nice to be able to lay down sheets of sound at the drop of a hat. I won't deny that. But
what kind of artistic content is there? What is the person saying besides, "Check out this badass
shit!”?
I was lucky to spend a lot of time with Herb Pomeroy while I was at Berklee. I played lead alto in
his 'recording band' and also played in his small improvisation ensemble. He made us develop
motifs. He would have us start a motif and develop it as we played through our solo choruses.
If we threw in a pre-worked out lick he would stop the whole band and call us on it. Each idea had
to be a development of the last, eventually the motif would get too complex and we were then
expected to start with another simple motif. This is a much different way of thinking that what most
players use. Everyone has some cool licks that they've worked out in the woodshed, how can you not
help throwing them in?!
Herb saw these 'licks' as irrelevant to improvising in the moment. They always stood out like a sore
thumbs when compared to ideas that were developed naturally, spontaneously and musically. He
actually plays this way himself; it's a very compositional way of thinking. Herb is truly one the great
improviser/composer/arrangers/teachers/bandleaders of all time. I had heard of motivic development
before studying with Herb Pomeroy but I hadn't really considered the possibility playing this way
exclusively. Herb used to play with Bird but even Bird didn't play this way, he had a ton of licks and
he played them often.
Fred Lipsius wrote a great book called 'A Creative approach to Jazz improvisation'. In it he gives
nice short ideas for every type of chord in every key. After this he has tables to show how the ideas
can be played over different chords and keys. For example a B7 alt lick will also work over a C-maj7
chord and a F7#11 chord. Then he talks about all the different ways that a pattern can be developed.
He then would take a pattern from the book and showed what the pattern would look like if it was
compressed, reversed, stretched, transposed, fragmented, ect. He wanted you to practice using each
one of the methods of changing ideas.
This is the same thing that Herb was trying to get us to do. If you learn all the different ways that
you can possibly transmute an idea then you will never be at a loss when you're trying to develop a
motif. It then stops being about how many licks you can memorize and becomes about learning how
to mess with any giving pattern or idea.
Licks are like a crutch that gets you walking, but eventually cripples you if use it too long. The
positive feedback from the audience can even keep a “lick player” dependent on his bag of licks. It
really comes down to the fact that a lick is something that keeps you from hearing what the music
should sound like in the moment.
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I tell my students that if they're going to memorize licks, at least they should make up their own
licks. Take a lick and change it somehow to put your mark on it and make it yours. If you learn a lick
in all keys then guess what, you'll probably end up playing the same lick in a bunch of keys.
The listener doesn't always hear that the lick is in Db this time and E last time, it just sounds like
you're repeating yourself! So although it IS a good thing to be able to do, it can make you sound
redundant. It's better to learn how a single lick (if you must use licks) can be used over many
different types of chords. This way the lick sounds totally different in each harmonic situation.
Where do we get these motifs? There are many different ways to come up with these motifs. It's
usually better if you don't just pull them out of your ass; rather take them from existing material. Of
course fragments of the melody are always a good place to start. How about quotes from other tunes
with similar changes?
You may want to start your solo with an idea that the previous soloist left off with. Be sure to pay
attention to what the soloists before you are playing so you can refer to their solo ideas. {Be sure to
make your rhythmic ideas drive your solo development rather than thinking of harmony as
primary.} Take ideas from the rhythm section as they comp for you; always be reactive to what they
might throw out there. Take up ideas that you may have dropped earlier in your own solo. You may
even want to use motifs from tune that the band has already played or from your own solos on these
earlier tunes! This gives continuity to the entire performance.
Vary these motifs by learning to change every possible element; shape, direction, range, dynamics,
timbre, placement in time (lay back or speed up), duration, and articulation. This takes constant
practice but the payoff in your overall musicality will be immense.
Motific Development
1. Repetition
2. Transposition
3. Mode Change
4. Addition (start, middle, end)
5. Sequence
6. Embellishment or Ornament
7. Augmentation (pitch, rhythmic)
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8. Diminution (pitch, rhythmic)
9. Inversion (upside down)
10.Retrograde (backwards)
11.Retrograde inversion (upside down & backwards)
12.Displacement (pitch, rhythmic)
On positive audience feedback
I’ve come to believe over the years that the audience hardly ever has any clue about how good the
music is. Only if you see a great musician in the audience will anyone know anything about what
you are doing. So this means that compliments mean almost NOTHING. They usually mean
something like- they liked how the horn player was swaying back and forth or that the guitarist had
really shiny hair, or that the drummer made a lot of cool faces. You think that you want someone to
say that you sounded good, but that would just mean that you looked cool playing on stage.
If I go by this assumption then I won't be emotionally attached to the audience’s reaction. I have to
assume that my idea of what sounds good is more developed than that of the crowd. Once in a while
our tastes will happily coincide, when I will feel that I’ve played good music, and they will feel that
they’ve heard good music. Just because there are more of them than me I don’t fall for the natural
human tendency to think that they’re right. I have better things to think about when I'm improvising
than what the crowd thinks. If I feel that I played really great, then the fact that no one clapped for
me doesn’t affect my satisfaction one bit.
If you don’t give a shit what the audience thinks, then you will be free to really relax,. Then you
will be able to swiftly pull yourself out of any musical hole that you’ve dug for yourself without
losing the natural flow. If you care what they’re hearing then when you hit that ‘wrong note’ you’ll
say to yourself, “FUUUUUUCK!!!”. This breaks the natural flow because it brings you back to selfconsciousness. No audience, no self, only music. This is of course the ideal.
* If you are thinking about the audience when playing then you are not concentrating on the
music enough.
My way of thinking won’t always get you the most chicks, but you’ll play better music. If you want
more compliments then go find a really great shampoo and conditioner, practice moving around
while playing and making scrunchie faces in the mirror.
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Lots of players get into music because they want positive feedback from people. I think that these
players didn’t get enough compliments from their parents or were picked on in school. Know that
what you are doing is worthwhile. Don't listen through someone else's ears!
When I was young my dream was to be discovered and recognized by the next generation of young
players (or even two or three generations down the line). I wanted to be several decades ahead of my
time. They would hopefully say, ”Man, too bad Valdez didn’t make many recordings in his time,
they just didn’t understand his genius back then.” 
Openers, Limiters and Pairs of Opposites
One of the things that seem to help my playing the most is teaching advanced students. I am
challenged to analyze and describe my personal concepts and approaches to Jazz improvisation.
Yesterday as I was teaching a lesson I realized that I like to start out my solos with an abstract
theme. I look for something that has an interesting shape to start my solos with. It may not even be
such a strange shape or rhythm, or it may just be a pattern that lays funny on the horn. I do this in
hopes that I'll stimulate something new in response to it. It doesn't need to bea complete idea, just an
introduction for what will follow.
For me the first statement is very important in developing the rest of the solo. I want to feel like I'm
circling the tune like a vulture, waiting for the right time to drop in and devour my carcass. The first
statements of a solo should have some relationship with either the tune or the prior solo. It should let
the listener know that a new section of music has started. These first statements also act as a bridge
for what came before. It's a mood change. I may not even have a particular mood in mind; it may be
just an expression or a type of look that you may give someone.
Sometimes, just for a change of pace, I'll give myself 'limiters'. This means that I'll pick a few
specific limits to different factors of my playing. I might set a limit on the range of just the first
chorus, for example only playing between low D and middle G. Another approach would be to limit
the dynamics that are you use, an example would be to play only piano on the A sections and only
forte on the bridges. You might limit yourself to a couple of types of articulation or one type of
interval. You could also limit yourself directionally, like only playing lines that ascend. If you
combine more than one 'limiter' you can really get some cool effects that you might not come across
any other way.
By using limits in this way you can create some very interesting and unique textural effects. You
don't have to use limits for your entire solo, maybe just in the beginning or for a short period of time
in the middle or at the end. You might try switching from a set of limiters to the opposite (or
complementary) set of limiters halfway though the solo. Some limiters would be better used for free
playing; they can give structure and variety when there is little form in the music. An example of a
limiter best used in free situations would be to only play flat or sharp, or to only play alternate
fingerings.
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Like any technique or musical device it takes some practice to get from the conscious mentation
stage to the intuitive reaction stage. At first, limiters are an entirely intellectual process, but with
some practice they become automatic and natural. Of course some limiters will probably never be
totally spontaneous, like deciding to only play Major or Diminished triads over an entire tune.
Sometimes you need to set limits in order to focus what you're working on.
The idea of limiters is also related to what I like to think of as the table of opposites. This is an
adaptation from an idea from an ancient document called the tablet of Hermes. The fourth principle
from this document is the principle of polarity. It reads like this:
“Everything is Dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike
are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are
but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.”
This Principle embodies the truth that “everything is dual”; “everything has two poles”;
“everything has its pair of opposites”; these phrases are old Hermetic axioms. It explains the old
paradoxes that have perplexed so many, and which have been stated as follows: “Thesis and
antithesis are identical in nature, but different in degree”; “opposites are the same, differing only in
degree”; “the pairs of opposites may be reconciled”; “extremes meet”; “everything is, and isn’t, at
the same time”; “all truths are but half-truths”; “every truth is half-false”; “there are two sides to
everything”, etc.
The Principle of Polarity explains that, in everything, there are two poles, or opposite aspects,
and that “opposites” are really only the two extremes of the same thing, with many varying degrees
between them. For example: heat and cold, although “opposites” are really the same thing; the
differences consisting merely of degrees of the same thing. Look at your thermometer and see if you
can discover where “hot” ends and “cold” begins! There is no such thing as “absolute heat” or
“absolute cold”; The two terms “heat” and “cold” simply indicate varying degrees of the same
thing, and that “same thing” which manifests as “heat” and “cold” is merely a form, variety, and
rate of Vibration. So “hot” and “cold” are simply the two poles of that which we call “Heat”, and
the phenomena attendant thereupon are the manifestations of the Principle of Polarity. The same
Principle manifests in the case of “Light” and “Darkness,” which is the same thing, the difference
consisting of varying degrees between the two poles of the phenomena. Where does “darkness”
leave off, and “light” begin? What is the difference between “Large and Small”? Between “Hard
and Soft”? Between “Black and White”? Between “Sharp and Dull”? Between “Noise and Quiet”?
Between “High and Low”? Between “Positive and Negative”?
The Principle of Polarity explains these paradoxes and no other Principle can supersede it. The
same Principle operates on the Mental Plane. Let us take a radical and extreme example – that of
“Love and Hate,” two mental states apparently totally different. And yet there are degrees of Hate
and degrees of Love; and a middle point in which we use the terms “Like” or “Dislike,” which
shade into each other so gradually that sometimes we are at a loss to know whether we “like” or
“dislike” or “neither”. These opposing sentiments are simply different degrees of the same thing.
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Can musical principles also be seen in this way?
How about these for a start:
Horizontal-Vertical
Sharp-Flat
Fast-Slow
Ascending-Descending
Bright-Dark
Short-Long
Dense-Sparse
Consonant-Dissonant
Legato-Stacatto
ppp-fff
Rushing-Dragging
Inside-Outside
Tradition-Modern
Sensitive-Aggressive
Sad-Happy
Vibrato-Dry
High-Low
Sloppy-Clean
Straight-Swinging
The more you become aware of all of the opposites, the more you can determine where your
playing is on the scale of the opposites and the more you can bring balance and variety to your
playing. Some players may be totally unaware of let's say the Sad-Happy opposite and always play
happy sounding solos, never varying the level of happiness. Some of the West Coast swing players
might do this. By consciously playing toward the opposite poles of your usual playing you can break
yourself out of some real ruts.
Awareness of the musical opposites can really help give you a better idea of all your musical
options for improvisation. If you aren't aware of these opposites then you could end up getting stuck
in a rut with regards to your overall sound and texture. Even the mental and emotional sets of
opposites can help you give more variety and depth to your improvisation.
We must develop our abstract thinking in order to fully understand such an abstract art form like
music.
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Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns- Nicolas Slonimsky
Mark Sowlakis asked, "Is there a good way to practice out of the Slonimsky book? Do you
transpose that shit or just run over it in the key of C to get more ideas. It's very interesting but dense
harmonically, I never considered all the different permutations that are there."
I've never gotten round to transposing the Slonimsky material. The 1:6 are whole tone, 1:4
diminished and the 1:3 can be used over whole-tone or three tonic progressions, each one of those
already cover several keys. The diminished and whole-tone patterns are cool because they are based
on the scale but not all the notes are diatonic to the scale. That makes them close enough to use in
place of a whole-tone or diminished scale. Remember also that as long as you move a pattern in
minor thirds or whole-steps it sounds like diminished or whole-tone respectively.
The 12-tone patterns don't need to be transposed either. You just need to land on a good note when
they resolve. This is because they have no key center, just a powerful gravity to the final tone. In fact
you can really think of all symmetrical scales as having a strong dominant function, so you can get
pretty wild and loose with them. Just make sure you resolve them strongly, you'd be amazed what
you can actually get away with and still sound good.
Another way I like to practice from the book is to read through in a loose manner. I might just
follow the shapes of the lines but use different notes. TSMP is great for opening your ears up to new
directional motion in lines. There are shapes in TSMP that you just don't run across in Jazz. It also
can introduce you ways of covering larger intervallic space, the first scale in the book (the 1:2 tritone) is a good example of this. Many players practicing out of Slonimsky’s book trap themselves in
a prison of starting their lines from the bottom of the horn, heading straight to the top and moving
back down to the bottom. I call this the 'Slonimsky Roller Coaster Syndrome'. There is one of my
peers in particular who does this all the time. This cat is a great guy and a truly fantastic player, but
up-down-up-down thing really gets on my nerves. Take that book away from him!!!
I think what Trane and generations of players found in TSMP were lines that had so much forward
motion that they could be used over ANYTHING. These lines are strong enough to make outside
playing sound logical. Tonal harmony is after all mainly about forward motion, so the lines found in
TSMP offer away to still retain forward motion while playing outside. It just becomes a matter of
being able to resolve these lines in a logical way.
Later in the book there are some very exotic sounding pentatonic scales like the Javanese pelog
scale, the Japanese Hira-Joshi scale and Scriabin's pentatonic scale from Sonata number 7. These all
could be used over various types of C7 chords. They could also fit over other chords with a little
ingenuity. All these exotic scales still sound uniquely exotic no matter what chords they are played
over.
Internalizing exotic scales takes the same practice as any other scale. Try practicing them in
different keys and try fitting them over different chords. Once you have an idea where these exotic
scales can fit and have them under your fingers start throwing them in. At first they will sound
contrived, later when you start to hear them in your imagination they will come out more naturally.
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Part of the usefulness of exotic scales is that they sound so different from the scales we normally
use. Usually we want to create a contrast to standard diatonic chord/scale harmony when we break
out an exotic scale, so it's ok to sound contrived at first. Listen to Yusef Lateef to hear someone who
uses a lot of exotic scales and uses them well.
The Bi-tonal Arpeggios section of TSMP is a topic that has already been thoroughly fleshed out in
Gary Campbell's Triad Pairs book. These pairs of triads offer a gold mine for the Jazz musician. For
more on this topic see my Triad Pairs articles.
For me TSMP offers an entire new world of 'directional ideas'. The lines in TSMP snake,
interweave, spiral, converge & diverge, jump, lurch, and infra-interpolate. Practicing this book will
break you free of overly simplistic vertical/horizontal concepts of linear thinking. TSMP has been
without a doubt one of the main modes of transmission of contemporary classical ideas to the Jazz
world. There is still much in TSMP that has been untapped. Can you imagine what would Jazz sound
like in thirty years if young players worked out of TSMP instead of David Baker's Bebop books???
More Slonimsky questions
Q: Carlos,
Hey, can you elaborate more on this idea of "resolving" your harmonic lines? Obviously things like
taking the leading tone of a dominant to the tonic make sense to me, but in your last email regarding
Slonimsky you said the following....
"Just make sure you resolve them strongly, you'd be amazed what you can actually get away with
and still sound good."
and ..
"Tonal harmony is after all mainly about forward motion, so the lines found in TSMP offer away to
still retain forward motion while playing outside. It just becomes a matter of being able to resolve
these lines in a logical way...."
A: Charles McPherson has an exercise that he makes his students do. He has them play totally
outside over dominants and then land on a strong chord-tone on beat one of the next resolving bar.
He says if you resolve on the downbeat with a strong chord tone you can play anything and it will
sound like Bebop. This is just about true, even though it does sound quite extreme.
Q: Related question. Do you use diminished stuff freely against dominants resolving to both Major
and minor, or just for dominants resolving to major? I've heard both suggested and can you
specifically tell me how you resolve a diminished scale, like do you actually try to resolve each
dissonance (flat 9, sharp 9, sharp 11....) or just go to the Lydian mode/melodic minor of the tonic and
leave it at that?
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A: I do use diminished modes when resolving to major or minor chords. To determine what chordscales are available I only look at the root motion of the chord that the dominant resolves to. If the
root motion is going down a fifth (up a fourth) then anything is fair game, no matter what chord
quality the resolution is. Yes, there are scale choices that are smoother as far as voice leading when
resolving to a minor chord, like a harmonic minor scale from the fourth and/or and altered dominant
scale.
Remember that if the dominant chord is moving down a half step in root motion you only should
play a Lydian dominant (even if the #11 isn't notated) because it is functioning as a tri-tone!
Berklee teaches that certain tensions are available for each of the secondary dominant chords:
V7/II b9, 9,#9, b13
V7/III b9,#9, b13
V7/IV 9, 13
V7/V b9, 9,#9, 13
V7/VI b9, #9, b13
The most important thing is to watch for root motion! Where do the dominants move to? Don't
worry about resolving individual tensions, this will drive you nuts and slow you down. Some people
would argue with me, remember I consider myself a post-bop player, which to me is like an abstract
expressionist painter. The rules are a bit more relaxed and I'm looking to use a more 'painterly
technique', I don't want photo-realism in my playing. So what if a few lines bleed over or if some
canvas shows? You could follow stricter rules than I do as far as finding scales for chords, but mine
keep you out of trouble and you can always break them if they get too constraining.
Promoting your gigs
To be a working Jazz musician requires one to constantly be booking and promoting gigs. It's
getting less and less common to have steady gigs anymore. The player is usually responsible for
doing much of the promotion that the club owner used to do. The club may have an ad in a weekly
paper or a listing in the entertainment section, but many times this isn't enough to ensure a decent
crowd.
When I was younger I didn't take promoting my gigs very seriously. I just cared about making the
music good and pinning down the next gig. If you don't draw many listeners to your gig it doesn't
really matter how good you play. You probably won't get many more gigs there in the future.
Besides, how much fun is it to play to an empty house?
I've found that posters are not always the best way to advertise your gigs. Postering is expensive
and time consuming. If it's a big show that needs promotion, consider having a professional
postering company put up 100 or 150 posters. These companies usually charge around 50-60 cents
per poster. They have well-established routes and know where all the high traffic spots are. They
blanket the city in a way that is impossible for an individual to do. If you are going to take the
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trouble to do this, make sure you have a great eye-catching poster. You should be able to find an
inexpensive struggling professional graphic artist at a reasonable price (try Craig's list) if you aren't
artistically inclined.
Mass media is the musician's best friend. Make sure you send out your press releases for your gigs
about two weeks before they happen. Don't send out promo for a few days before your gig and
expect to get media coverage. Make an effort to put together email AND fax lists for every paper
and radio station in town. Get promo material to all of them. Make sure your press releases are
interesting and short enough so they can be printed or read without needing any editing. Take the
time and read some good press releases to learn how to write a good one.
* Make sure you send a note to the music calendar editors. These are usually different folks than
the journalists.
* You should try to develop personal relationships with the writers and DJs that cover Jazz. Call
the papers or radio stations and find out who they are and get their contact information if you can.
Don't just send them CDs and promo material randomly. Call them where they're working or write
them and let them know that you'll be sending them something. Always follow up after sending
promo material. Say that you're calling just to see if they received your package/CD/press release.
Make friends with these people, they are invaluable! Send them free tickets to your shows, flowers,
and chocolate. Try inviting them to recording sessions or rehearsals.
* Try to get on the radio as a guest before your gig. People's memories are short so do this right
before your gig. Many radio stations have web sites and live music listings. If there is a Jazz society
in your town, they usually have some kind of newsletter or calendar you can submit to. Craig's List
is also free and has high traffic.
* Get your demo CDs to the DJs to play on their shows. Again, follow up. CDs are expensive.
* Find out when the outdoor fairs and festivals happen and start working on them six months
before they happen. Many times these will be booked by a professional booking agency.
* Contact every booking agency, caterer, and party planner in the phone book. These are the real
money gigs.
* Work on an email list. Bring a notebook to every gig and make sure to ask the audience to put
their email info in it. Trade email lists with other similar bands to expand your contacts. Remember
to always put your addresses in the Bcc: section when you do your mailings. This way other people
can't get your addresses without your permission. In the past, bands sent out postcards to fans about
their upcoming gigs, emails are FREE. Take advantage of this technology. You also may want to
upload your high quality music mp3s to a free streaming server like Music for Dozens.com. Then
put a link to the site in your e-mail gig announcements.
* Get on the phone and personally invite people to your gig. This is much more effective than any
other promotion method. People will respond to a call much more to a call than an email.
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* Talk the club owner into offering some kind of food or drink special just for your gig. Use this
as a draw in your promo materials.
* Save every review, blurb and ad about your band for your promo package. If no one is writing
about you, ask some established musicians to write a few sentences about your music.
* People are always more interested in musicians and bands from out of town. Bring in a player
from out of town for a few gigs to generate more buzz. You'll be more likely to get more media
coverage this way. Set up some private students or a master class to make it worthwhile for them to
travel to your town. Many great players are looking to get out of the big cities and have their
expenses covered.
If you become a good promoter you can make decent money playing even door gigs. Always give
yourself plenty of time to promote gigs. No musician can afford to ignore this important element of
the music business. As you start putting some effort into promotion it will get easier. Your mailing
list will grow, your relationships with the media will develop and you will begin to draw the types of
crowds to your gigs that want to hear what YOU are going to play.
Relatively Perfect Pitch
Perfect pitch is a great asset for a Jazz musician. Unfortunately it's extremely uncommon. If you
don't develop it at a young age, you probably never will. Relative pitch is being able to figure out
pitches after you have a reference pitch given to you. I was able to teach myself what I call
'relatively perfect pitch'. This is something that is somewhere between perfect and relative pitch.
If I'm listening to notes played on my main axe, the alto saxophone, I can tell what pitches they are.
I've been able to do this since I was in high school. You might call this something like 'perfect alto
sax pitch'. I learned 'relatively perfect pitch' years later. The way I did this was by choosing a few
pitches at a time (these might be from the melody of a favorite tune) and singing them over and over
in a very loud voice. I'd sing these four to six notes very slowly and just notice what my body felt
like as it vibrated these notes. If you sing loud enough you can learn to remember what your body
feels like with these notes rather than just what they sound like. It becomes a physical sensation that
is very hard to forget. Eventually you will ingrain several of these note combinations into your aural
& body memory. You will then be able to relate any pitch you hear to these memorized tones.
I tell my students that each note is like someone you know. There is just one guy named A natural
and he has a unique personality. You don't recognize him just by the facts that he has brown hair,
green eyes, wears glasses, and is stocky. If this were how you defined him you'd be calling all kinds
of guys by his name. There is only one guy named A natural. Musicians don't know each note
personally but they will get very close, without ever really locking the notes in. They may know A
natural as somewhere between 438 bps and 444bps, but they have never really sat down with 440
bps and gotten to know it personally. Once you sit down with someone and get to know him (find
out where he grew up, what his parents were like, what motivates him) and find out what you have
in common with him (how your head, throat, chest feels when you sing the note for periods of time),
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then you will probably never forget him when you pass him on the street. You won't say," That dude
looks really familiar, is it because he looks kind of like my other friend G#?” You will know this old
friend immediately and say," A440! Whasup! Haven't seen you since the bridge."
This is not some magical process. It is just a matter of taking time to sit down with these notes and
spending some quality time with them. After you work on your note combinations during your
practice time, remember to sing them occasionally during the rest of the day. This will help solidify
your personal knowledge of these notes. First try to sing them in your mind. Then check them by
singing them in your full chest voice. If you're patient and diligent you will be guaranteed results.
Alan Jones & Randy Porter's workshop
A while back I attended a Jazz combo workshop with two of my favorite players, pianist Randy
Porter and drummer Alan Jones. The class consisted of two sets of rhythm section players and me.
I've played many gigs with these two guys over the years and have always wanted to get a better idea
about what they're thinking about when they play. Both these guys are true masters of their
instruments and they both are able to weave in and out of the rhythmic structure in a way that is
smooth yet complex. Randy has an incredible ability to create new harmony that doesn't interfere
with the soloist or the spirit of the tune. When we play duo gigs together I always want to stop him
say," What was that right there?" This was my chance to do just that.
They talked about their ideas of rhythmic feel and harmony and had us play as we thought about
different ideas. As I soloed Randy comped for me and really started to take it out there with different
time feels. He asked me to try to lock up with him in the different time feels that he was
superimposing. Usually when we play together and he starts to take it out there like that I tend to
emphasize the original time feel over what he's doing, otherwise I usually get turned around
rhythmically.
It was a little easier following him out into the rhythmic wilderness since Alan Jones was locking
the time down with his relentless swing. It also helped that we weren't on the bandstand. We also
focused on creating extended harmonies while soloing. I had a tendency to play and think modally as
I navigated harmonically. I think this is natural for post-Trane saxophonists. Randy asked me to
think chordally (like Bird) rather than modally (like Trane). He asked me to think about the exact
individual chords that I was superimposing.
When I tried playing this way everything seemed to open up. Even if the chord structures I was
using were far from the changes of the tune it much easier to fit them over what was happening.
Using scales to move outside created a much denser dissonant sound than thinking chordally. I found
that I could get away with some pretty outside chords have them sound acceptable because they had
a more distinct yet less dense structure than their scale modes did. It was a revelation.
One exercise that Randy had us do made us think about playing lyrically. Everyone has a tendency
to play too many notes, cluttering our playing and interfering with our natural lyricism. He brought
out a story that his kids had written and told us that since lyrically really meant 'with lyrics' we
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would play as if we were playing lyrics. He had us play over the tune Confirmation at a fairly fast
tempo.
The idea was to play solos while we were reading the story, every note we played was to be a
syllable in the story and every phrase was a sentence. We were supposed to create solos that made
sense while playing every word of the story. Of course Randy was the only one who could do this
for more than a couple of words.
It was an entirely different mode of thinking and it has the effect of making you play very simple
and concise musical statements. The melodies that we were forced to create were just complex
enough to tell the story. Not an unnecessary syllable/note. We all realized just how much we tended
to overplay. It made me think of the old adage that the first twenty years is spent learning to play and
the next twenty years is spent not to play.
Being lyrical cannot be done with too many notes, that’s a hard fact. Try to make every single note
really count and eliminate every unnecessary note. To do this we need a radical exercise like Randy's
because most of us have been conditioned into playing too many notes. This is especially true when
we’re not sure what to play. Musicians tend to play a surplus of notes when they’re not sure of
what’s happening.
George Russell's 'Lydian Chromatic Concept'
The other day while playing a jam session I noticed that the guitarist had written some key centers
on top of all the two-five-ones. So over the D-7/G7/Cmaj7 he had written C major. Many Jazz
improvisation teachers start their students out thinking this way. The students at least play in the
correct key, right? Ouch! This is a sure fire way to have a major clam festival. There are not many
worse clams than the natural 11 on a dominant or major chord, this is called an avoid note because it
sounds bad.
The great arranger and NEC professor George Russell teaches what he calls the 'Lydian Chromatic
Concept for tonal organization ', or just 'the concept' for short. His rationale is that a Major 9th chord
with a sharp 11 has more a greater degree of unity than the same chord with a natural 11.
* Jason Gross explains the reasoning behind the LCCOTO-"For Russell, the Lydian mode (with,
in the key of C, its tonic F and dominant C) was a more logical candidate to become the primary
scale because it suggests a greater degree of unity between chords and scales. Russell argues that a
major scale, for example C, consists of two tetra-chords that embody two tonalities, not one. But if
you adapt the major scale to Lydian mode (in the key of C that would be a C major scale with Fsharp instead of F), it removes the duality of conflicting tonics, and more fully satisfies the tonality
of the major chord. With one tonic used for each respective scale, Russell reasoned that a greater
variety of chords could be stacked. This offered a new path for adventurous musicians: Standard
chord progressions need not dictate the course of an improvisation, as each note is equidistant from a
single tonic center. Notes could flow more freely beyond the strictures of a song's chords." From:
'George Russell Goes for the Modes' by Jason Gross, Village Voice, June 4 - 10, 2003
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This thinking shows that we should use the Lydian scale as our 'base' scale. Lydian is the new
Ionian! For the beginning improviser this is not really such a bad way to think about things. If you
always add a sharp 11 to every major and mixolydian scale you avoid the 'avoid' note of the natural
11. You can always add a #11 to these chords without worrying about messing up the harmonic
progression. Of course the 'concept' is much, much more involved than this.
George Russell has had a major impact on the course of Jazz evolution with this concept. Miles
said that George was," the motherfucker who taught me how to write." Miles' classic 'Kind of Blue'
album was a result of his contact with George Russell. Dolphy was also influenced by the 'concept',
along with many other important figures in Jazz.
Here is another way to think of key centers (if you must) using this concept over a ii-7/ V7/ Imaj/
progression.
Over a:
D-7
/ G7
Think:
D melodic- /
/Cmaj7 /
/Gmaj
/
George teaches how to with navigate outside conventional harmony. He talks about playing
'outward' and inward'. This means moving outside or inside in degrees, not just in or out.
For example- Over a C major chord, outward bound playing would be to start playing a C Lydian,
then a go to C Mixolydian, then C Phrygian, then C diminished, then D major, then F# Dorian. The
general idea is to slowly move to scales that have fewer and fewer notes in common with the chord
you are playing over.
It's all about what George calls 'Tonal Gravity'. Every note or scale has it's own particular tonal
gravity when played over any particular chord. Conventional Jazz harmony doesn't deal with; say
how a G minor pentatonic sounds and where it wants to go to when played over an Eb sus4 b9
chord. This is unmapped territory as of yet.
You really can't go wrong with Lydian. George Russell even goes so far as calling the chromatic
scale a 'Lydian Chromatic Scale'. George's book is very difficult to make sense of. Fuze even told
me that the concept is hard to figure out even if you have George there to explain it to you.
If you have ever heard George's compositions for his big band you would know that he is on to
something really big.
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Rob Scheps had this to say about the LCCOTO:
I took two years of his classes and toured with him.
"The Concept" made simpler
Some of George's basic ideas:
1. When perfect 5ths are stacked, the #11 occurs before the "Natural 11"
(Which he once called, "the most unnatural f%*kin' note in the world!!")
2. Ergo, a C Major 13 ( #11) chord, sits in calm repose, while a C Maj. 13 chord w/ a natural 11 has
an unresolved clash (a minor 9th).
3.That C major (Ionian) is really a Mode of F Lydian.
George Pepper explains it like this:
Actually, this is a concept related to the scale generated by the natural harmonic overtone series,
which stacked in thirds creates a dominant seventh with a major ninth and an augmented eleventh.
Since a lot of jazz is blues based, and blues uses dominant seventh chords for the IV, V, and I,
augmented elevenths are naturally the coin of the realm in that genera. I always start my students
out with blues for just that reason: Theoretically, it is the style most in agreement with the natural
harmonic overtone series.
The so-called Ionian mode, on the other hand, is a scale generated by three major triads each a fifth
apart, as in a IV, I, V relationship. In other words, it's actually the harmony that generates the scale,
and not the scale that generates the harmony (In both jazz and classical music).
Textural variety for improvisation
Today I had an advanced student and we were talking about things to be aware of in order to create
more interesting textures. Many young players are too focused on playing the right changes and
don't focus enough on shaping notes with dynamics and articulations. They may start at mezzo forte
or forte and then they stay at that volume for several choruses, maybe slowly getting louder as they
play. I try to get my students to be aware of how they are shaping each and every note.
* How are they articulating the start of each note?
* How are they releasing each note?
* Does the volume stay the same or does it change for each note?
* What is the timbre of the note?
* Are they able to quickly and drastically get much louder or softer?
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* Are they using the full range of possible articulations?
* Are they varying horizontal and vertical playing?
* Are they playing varying the note density?
* Are they aware enough of creating interesting direction in their lines?
* Do they know how to bring a rhythm section to a low simmer from a high burn?
* Are they able to consciously layback and play on top of the beat?
* How is vibrato used and is it varied without being corny?
So often Jazz devolves into a string of connected 8th note lines, with little change in the texture that
is being created. If you are always aware of the questions above while improvising then you will
create interesting textural soundscapes. Think like a sculptor or a painter instead of a musician once
in a while.
How important are individual notes when the larger sound sculpture is bland and lame? Hip BeBop lines aren't enough to keep things interesting. Go ahead and make subtle shadings to individual
notes! (Alternate fingerings and overtones are great for shading pitch and timbre)
You want to try to make your solos have a texture at least as complex and interesting as someone
speaking a romance language.
Don't just focus on one element of texture, like dynamics. Practice being aware of all the different
elements that vary texture. Shift your focus consciously to element one after another. Eventually it
will become second nature to create interesting textures.
The function of the Jazz musician
An idea that has intrigued me over the years has been," what is the functional role of a musician in
this society?” As musicians we tend to be more aware of the music we create or the environments we
find ourselves in than what our essential function is.
By function I mean* What is my role in this social situation that I find myself?
* What does the audience expect my music to do for them?
* How narrow are the limits on my actions in my role as a musician?
* How much can I affect the audience without them playing an active role?
* Should I be doing more than just trying to entertain?
* How much of my inner self should I reveal through my music, if any?
* Will they be aware if I change my function from minstrel to high priest?
I believe that a listener can only judge the functional role a musician is playing by the effect that
the music has on them directly. The attitude of the musician determines the functional role he/she
plays. How the musician sees his own function as a musician can determine how much or how little
the ego enters into the music. Function can change in the mind of a musician in an instant, and with
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it the profundity of the musical expression. A musician who believes their function is to create
beauty will create music that is very different from a musician whose function is to pick up chicks.
If we look into the musical philosophies of ancient cultures we learn that their musicians were
expected to play very different functional roles as modern musicians do. For them the role a
musician was closely tied to the roles of the priest, healer, magician and seer. Music was never
separated from its related disciplines- astrology, medicine, mathematical cosmology, geometry and
ceremonial magic. To the ancient mind you could not understand one of these sciences without
understanding all of them. In fact Hippocrates, the father of medicine, once stated that a doctor who
didn't thoroughly understand astrology would be unable to do so much as even diagnose a patient.
Music was always the thing that tied all the other sciences together and made them relevant to each
other. It was the study of the manifested qualities of the whole numbers, in other words it was the
foundation of qualitative mathematics. These qualities of the whole numbers, or integers, were the
laws of musical harmony, but they were also the very laws of nature operating in the cosmos, on
earth and in the psychological realms of the mind.
These laws of number/music became expressed in the construction of early alphabets, which were
numbering systems as well as symbolic languages capable of expressing abstract musical concepts.
For example in the Hebrew alphabet each letter is a whole number and a whole number ratio. The
first expresses its relationship to the quality of an overtone, while the second relates the letter to a
musical interval. This is jumping ahead quite a bit, the point I'm trying to make is the general
disparity in the way ancient civilizations defined the function of the musician compared to the way
our society sees our role.
Consider the ideas that you were taught about the functional role that musicians play. Did you
accept these ideas without first questioning them? Have your ideas about your function as a musician
changed over time? How narrow or flexible are your ideas about function? How do you think these
ideas influence the way you play music?
These ideas that we have about our functional roles can and do affect the music we end up creating,
how we feel when we create music, and how people feel when they hear our music.
By making positive changes in our belief structures relating to music we can grow more musically
than we could by woodshedding for years, and the changes take affect in an instant. These changes
affect the very nature of our musical expression by changing whom it is making the music. Is that a
ladies man playing Stella or a high priest of the sun?
Ok, Ok I'll go back to talking about how to play over two-fives.
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The life of a NYC Jazz musician
Andreas Steffen from Germany asked me to write about what the life of a New York Jazz musician
was like. Most people have some glorified idea of what the NYC musician does to make a living.
Adreas' idea went like this: sleep until noon, practice, studio job, gig, and jam session, repeat from
start. That's pretty much what I expected when I got there with five hundred dollars in my pocket.
The economic realities of living in NYC have changed drastically in the last thirty years. Long time
resident musicians have told me that back in the 70s you could pay your rent by working one or two
gigs a month. Many musicians had large lofts where they jammed till the wee hours of the morning.
New York is one of the most expensive cities in the world and gigs still pay roughly what they did in
the 70s. There are still tons of fifty-dollar gigs all over town. Of course now you could be playing
fifty-dollar gigs every night of the week and still be starving. A one bedroom apartment is now
$1400 and up in Manhattan.
There were many different ways that Jazz musicians scraped by in NYC. Here are some of the ways
that I saw when I was living there.
* The Trust Fund baby- How do all those Avant-Garde downtown hipsters make ends meet by
playing at the Knitting Factory? You'd be surprised how many have trust funds.
* The Club Date Band Whore- Club dates are gigs that pay $150-300 where you have to play
every shitty popular song from almost eight decades of pop music. Better learn Chatanooga-choochoo and the horn backgrounds to Boogie-oogie-oogie.
* The Weed dealer- Prices are high in NYC and so are the musicians!
* The Boston commuter- No kidding, cats commute all the way to Beantown just to teach at a rat
infested music school.
* The Atlantic City suspender & straw hat wearer- Atlantic City is an abomination and so are the
gigs there.
* The Black-tie Cater Waiter- Most of the actors and actresses in town work for caterers but quite
a few musicians do too. This is actually how I made ends meet. The advantages to this type of job
are of course the gourmet food and the fact that you can pick your own hours each week.
* The Successful Jazz musician- These are the guys who have record deals and are actually
making their money playing Jazz. What folks don't realize is that they are hardly ever in New York
at all. They must do road gigs most of the year to meet their NYC expenses.
* Husband of a doctor/stock broker/lawyer etc.-This category is probably no surprise to anyone.
* Catskills Cats- These guys are gone for months at a time playing Jewish resorts in the Catskills.
These gigs are a cross between a Bar Mitzvah and a 40's dance band.
* The Broadway show musician- Can you play every woodwind ever invented? I didn't think so.
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I never met any musicians that made their living doing studio work. The truth is there isn't a ton of
studio work anymore and a few cats have locked up the work there is. I would suggest that anyone
moving to NYC to play music save at least ten thousand dollars before moving. Also consider living
in Jersey City, its closer and cheaper than many parts of Brooklyn or Queens. I do miss living in the
Jazz capital of the world at times, but I just remind myself what the weather and the general quality
of life is like there. I usually get over it pretty fast.
There are many jam sessions at clubs in NYC. When I first got there I attended many of these. I
played sessions at clubs like Blue Note, Birdland, Cleopatra's Needle, Smalls, and St. Nick's pub.
Some of these sessions were fun, most were a waste of time and money. You can meet some great
players there if you're lucky.
At worst, you can end up waiting for hours to play two tunes with a random, and often bad,
rhythm section. Usually you're not even warmed up. These two tunes can cost you upwards of thirty
dollars after you pay for transportation and buy your (two drink minimum) five-dollar beers. If you
don't know many already established players you may not have any other choices to get on the
scene. I found out, after many five dollars beers, that it is much better to go to a few sessions and
find a few players you like and set up sessions at people's houses. You end up getting to play more
than two or three tunes and making a better impression because you're playing with a good rhythm
section.
Let me add a few positive thoughts about living in NYC. I think every Jazz player should have the
experience of living in New York. It definitely changes the way you think about music. So many
players get to the city thinking they're going to take over. As soon as they're there for a few weeks
they usually want to 're-evaluate their sound' or just change some things about their playing. There is
so much great music there every night of the week. NYC has basically drained all the brightest Jazz
talent from the rest of the entire world.
The city itself can be overwhelming but it can also feel like a small town. I found the people there,
musicians included, to be some of the most open and friendliest of anywhere I've ever been. This is
the exact opposite of the stereotypical NYC resident. They will definitely let you know when they're
not happy with you, but they are also extremely helpful. There is work there and you can make a
living if you're willing to work hard at it.
Don't wait until you feel that you're burning enough to move there. If you want to get better fast it's
the best place you can be. Your concept will come together so much faster by being there. It's not the
dangerous and scary city that it once was either. I walked all over Manhattan at every hour of the day
and night and never once had any problems there. I think it's because the thugs can't afford to live
there any more! The music industry doesn't take musicians very seriously if they don't live in New
York City. If all the New York musicians just went home to where they came from there would be
tons of great players in just about every city again.
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Virtual Practicing-desert island practice tips
Regular reader Roman recently asked a good question that deserves a response.
"David - You've offered up so much great practice advice here on your blog. Do you have any tips
for practicing away from the horn? I've heard of people closing their eyes and fingering an imaginary
horn, and I've tried that but it really hasn't seemed to be very effective for me. Any other ideas?
Thanks, Roman."
Roman,
There are several ways to practice without your horn. Here are a few techniques that I have used
over the years:
* Bilateral Finger Coordination Exercises- these exercises help to get both hemispheres of your
brain working together to control digital dexterity. For the sake of explaining the exercises we'll call
the thumb on your right hand R1, right index finger R2 and so on. Your right pinkie of course is R5,
left pinkie is L5 and your left thumb is L1. The goal when doing these is to get both hands acting
exactly together. Most people have one hand that reacts faster than the other and of course this is not
good for saxophone technique. These exercises would of course be helpful any instrument that uses
both hands. Start each exercise slow and concentrate on getting your hands working together. Slowly
speed up to a blistering speed. Remember to keep your hands and fingers totally relaxed at all times.
Set both hands comfortably on a flat surface in front of you with your fingers spread out slightly.
Tap each finger lightly on the flat surface.
Bilateral Symmetrical Digital Dexterity Exercises (both hands at the same time):
1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2- repeat
1-2-1-3-2-1-4-3-2-1-5-4-3-2-1-4-3-2-1-3-2-1-2 - repeat
1-2-1-3-1-4-1-5-1-4-1-3-1-2- repeat
This last exercise isn't bilaterally symmetrical.
At the same time as you doL5-L4-L3-L2-L1-L2-L3-L4-L5
Do the right handR1-R2-R3-R4-R5-R4-R3-R2-R1
* Perfect pitch exercise- carry a small pitch pipe or tuning fork with you throughout the day. Each
day pick a pitch and try to sing it at various times during the day. Use the pitch pipe to check your
accuracy. Sing the pitch loud enough to feel the way it makes your throat and chest vibrate. Every
note physically feels unique. Over time you will be surprised at how much better you can recognize
pitches. It doesn't take long to develop a really perfect A, E or G. From there you can slowly add
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other notes that are solid inside you. I call this 'Relatively Perfect Pitch' because you start out with
only a couple of note that you can recognize.
* Sing along to solos! Duh. This seems so obvious but not many players do this regularly. Load
your iPod or Diskman with great tunes and try to sing along to every note in the solos. Singing is
great for ear training. Don't worry that your tone sounds like crap, just try to sing in tune and in time.
This will internalize and solidify your sense of pitch, and time for that matter.
* Try to read though solo transcriptions without your horn. Take the Omnibook with you on the
subway. You don't even need to sing out loud, just try to hear the lines in your imagination. This is
great for sight-reading and ear training (or pitch visualization).
* Of course the next step here is scatting. You can do this to music or unaccompanied. If you can
clearly hear and sing something then you will be less likely to let your fingers do the walking. Play
what you really hear, don't play what you can't hear or sing.
What my students are working on
Some of the things I've been having my more advanced students do lately are:
* Keeping a detailed tune list of all the tunes they know, all the tunes the sort of know and all of
the tunes they need to learn. This master list should be in a digital format so it can be constantly
updated and organized. This master list will become the index for the student's personal gig book.
Students should have enough copies of this book to give a rhythm section at a gig, rehearsal or jam
session. If you don't want to bring your whole book to a gig/jam then you can at least bring this
master list to show the other players. This ensures that you will be able to find acceptable and
interesting tunes with any combination of players. No more,"Duh, what do YOU want to play?" I
would stay away from plastic sheet protectors because they're usually more trouble than they're
worth, plus they're expensive.
* Put together a three ring binder of solo transcriptions. These could be your own, things you've
downloaded off the Internet and printed or solos that you've copied out of books. Just use the blog
search engine in the upper left hand corner of this page and search for 'transcriptions', you'll find
hundreds. Don't practice the same few players all the time. Go for a wide range of cats; especially
look at transcriptions of musicians on instruments other than your own. You'd be surprised how
many solo transcription books your public library may have. Pack your binder with solos! Keep
adding to your collection! Play through them all!
* Take a lead sheet for a tune and for each chord change write several pentatonic scales that would
work over that chord. A great book to help you figure these out is Pentatonic Scales For Jazz
Improvisation by Raymon Ricker. Also take a look at my post called Pentatonic Lines- Navigating
outside harmony. Try soloing over the tunes using only these pentatonic scales. Don't forget to do
plenty of chromatic sideslipping.
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* Practice playing some slow ballads and really concentrate on the ends of all the notes. Try to get
the vibrato to speed up slightly as you cut off each note. Shape the cut offs; be conscious of the exact
shape that you're trying to create on the ends on notes.
* I have just gotten my students back into an old stand by called Universal Saxophone Method by
Paul Deville. It was written almost a century ago and it still kicks ass. If you want to fix any problem
you are having with technique the Universal Method has what you need. The exercises on difficult
fingerings and exercises on mechanism can make drastic improvements in a student technique in a
short amount of time because they isolate every single problematic fingering combination on the
horn. The etudes will whip any sloppy tongue into shape by hammering it with different
articulations.
* Sing, sing, sing! If you can't sing it then you won't be able to play it in tune. Try singing phrase
first, listening for perfect intonation, then play the same phrases. Once you know what a note sounds
like intimately, meaning you recognize that note like the face of a friend in a crowd, then your oral
tract will be able to position itself automatically as soon as you imagine that note in your mind's ear.
You don't need to be born with perfect pitch to recognize pitches in this way! You can introduce
yourself to just a few notes at first and become very close friends with them. When you know
everything about them (how they feel when you sing them, how they feel when you play them, how
the different octaves sound and feel) then they can introduce you to the other notes. This is a learned
form of perfect pitch that starts with one or a few notes; I call it relatively perfect pitch.
Yogic breathing for musicians
Playing a wind instrument requires serious breath control. Anything you can do to help you develop
this control is worth investigating. While living in Santa Cruz I spent some time studying Yoga and
Vedanta with master Yogi Baba Hari Dass. Hari Dass has been practicing Yoga since he was eight
years old and he hasn't spoken a word for fifty-three years. Yoga isn't for everyone, but there are
some simple breathing exercises that anyone can benefit from. If you happen to play a wind
instrument they can be of immense value. These breathing exercises (or Pranayama) can help
increase both control and capacity. They also calm the mind and balance the bodily functions. If you
try these four exercises you will immediately notice some positive results. A calm mind is highly
desirable for all musicians. So even if you don't play a wind instrument these Pranayam are worth
checking out. They are entirely safe.
The Four Purifications (from Baba Hari Dass' book the Ashtanga Yoga Primer):
1. Nadishodhana (alternate nostril breathing) - Gently exhale all air. Close the nostril with the thumb
of the right hand, and inhale slowly and deeply through the left nostril. Close the left nostril with the
ring finger, releasing the thumb, and exhale through the right. Inhale through the right, then close it
with the thumb and exhale through the left. This makes one round. Begin with ten rounds and
gradually increase to forty.
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2. Kapala Bhati (skull shining) - Exhale and inhale quickly and lightly through both nostrils.
Emphasize the exhalation, letting the inhalation come as a natural reflex. After one series of
exhalations, which should last no longer than one minute, rest and breathe naturally. Then repeat.
Begin with three rounds of thirty exhalations each and gradually increase to ten rounds of sixty
exhalations.
3. Agnisara Dhauti (fire wash) -Inhale, then exhale all air. While holding the breath out, pull the
diaphragm up and toward the backbone; release it suddenly. Repeat this in-and-out movement
rapidly as long as the breath can be held out without strain. Then inhale gently. Start with three
rounds and increase gradually to ten, beginning with thirty pulls and increasing to sixty for each
breath retention.
4. Ashvini Mudra (horse mudra) - Inhale completely and hold the breath. Contract and release the
anal sphincter rapidly and repeatedly. Hold the breath only so long as the following exhalation can
be slow and controlled. Begin with three rounds of thirty pulls each, and increase to ten rounds of
sixty each. (Note: I call this the 'loaf pinch' mudra. It sounds freaky, but it is very powerful)
Pythagoras- Music of the Spheres
Sometime during my junior year at Berklee I had a dream that changed the course of my life. I had
had many lucid dreams before this one. These were dreams where I woke up during my dream.
When I 'woke up' I became fully aware of my conscious self. I knew my name and I was aware that I
was dreaming. Usually when this happened the dream would suddenly become more vivid. The
colors would get brighter and I would see faces clearly and even highly detailed architecture. The
moment I woke up in these dreams I would also gain some amount of control over them. I might be
able to fly or move objects around with my thoughts. At the time this particular dream happened I
was completely immersed in music. I was playing my horn about eight hours every day and listening
to music the rest of the time. When I woke up in this dream I heard something that changed my
entire perception of reality.
The dream was like this; I was on the moon looking at the earth. The earth was exploding with
multiple nuclear explosions and the sky was filled with bright multi-colored lights. These colors
looked similar to a puddle of oil, except fully illuminated. I heard the most amazing sound. As low
and as high as I could hear there were innumerable voices, rather instruments. In the dream I could
hear more than the usual eleven or so octaves that we usually perceive. I heard many more octaves.
It was as if there were an infinite number of different instruments. Each and every one of them had
it's own unique timbre or tone. Each and every one of them was playing a unique melody. Not one of
the voices sounded the same or was playing the same melody! Imagine octaves and octaves of
different instruments playing individual melodies. You would reasonably expect that this would be
the most chaotic noise possible. It was the exact opposite. It was by far, the greatest and most
beautiful music that I had ever heard. The totality of melodies created a piece of music so amazingly
perfect that in an instant I knew that there had to be a master musician directing this music. This
master musician had the talent to make what by all right should be total chaos into an infinitely
beautiful symphony.
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To me this proved the existence of an infinitely intelligent creator, but more importantly a creator
that was a musician, and outside time and space. Every dissonance in the song was balanced and
harmonized in some other voices, which might be many octaves apart. It was as if each voice was
improvising it's own melody but the rest of the voices were in perfect harmony with these
improvisations. I knew that what I was hearing was paradoxical. It seemed to be impossible. But I
heard it and, as my mentor Lawrence Williams says, hearing is believing. When I woke up, which
was more just like opening my eyes, I was stunned and amazed. What the hell had I just heard? I had
never read or heard of anything even remotely like my dream, so I just kept it to myself for a while.
About a year later I ran across a book about Pythagoras that described what I had heard exactly!
Pythagoras called it the 'Music of the Spheres'. He taught that everything in the universe makes
music. The planets all create music as the orbit the sun and every person creates music as they live
their life on the earth. All the planetary orbits follow the musical laws of harmony and everything is
an expression of number. There are no random events. Every note has a musical purpose. The
universe is more like a song than a machine. It moves between consonance and dissonance to
ultimately create a supremely beautiful piece of music. This music is alive. Each voice creates it's
own song, yet the master musician is always conducting the whole. Pythagoras was scoffed at for
centuries because of his 'Music of the Spheres' idea. Scientists were thankful for his other
contributions to math and acoustics but they thought he was a fruit-loop because of this. We should
also keep in mind that Pythagoras was trained in the initiatory schools in Egypt. His concepts were
anything but new inventions.
I am relating my personal experience to the best of my ability and also at some risk of sounding
like a new age freak. This experience led me to the study of esoteric music, which is sometimes
called Pythagorean or neo-platonic philosophy. I had to learn more about what I heard on that fateful
night and I would spend the next twenty years trying to figure it out.
Jam session experiment- the mad scientist at the threshold
I just got back from a bad jam session. I didn't have any gigs this weekend so I wanted to play a
little. It was at one of those clubs that is so smoky that you have to leave your clothes on the porch
when you get home and run straight to the shower. For some reason I thought that it was going to be
good. As I unpacked my horn a saw that there was a conga player sitting in on just about every tune,
no matter what style. He had but a single evil conga drum and he knew how to instantly destroy any
groove with it. Even without Dr.Chaos on the conga, the band wasn't locking up. I wondered why I
torture myself over and over again. Why do I think that it is easier to go out to a shitty session than
to call guys over to my house to play? Laziness of course! An evening of Aebersold would have
been more productive. I feel so empty after a playing experience like that. I rationalize to myself that
jam sessions are a good place to experiment with new concepts. I did plenty of experimenting there
tonight. I was working on my chromatic concept all evening. Because in my mind the music was
already sucking I went ahead with some major research.
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Here were the parameters of my experiment:
* Don't try to gravitate to any note just because it is consonant
* Don't think about what the changes actually are, ignore them as much as possible
* Dissonance needs no resolution unless it happens totally by chance
* The longer dissonance can be maintained the better
* Odd groupings of notes should be used to destroy a sense of bar lines
* Strange shapes should be the rule
* Try to hear the next note, it can be anything
Hey, Call Steve Colman I just discovered M-Base!
If you don't make a point to practice giving up rational control and turning it over to your ears then
it will never happen on it's own. Don't wait for a modern modal tune to practice navigating in the
ozone, do it on a Blues or Stella. It takes a conscious decision let the reigns go. It is a different mode
of thinking altogether and a very definite shift needs to happen when the rational mind takes a
holiday and the reactive ears dictate. Of course you can't give a shit what other people are thinking
of your playing if you want to do this. Usually we only go out to the outer realms when we go all the
way 'outside'. It's rare for a player to be able to drift back and forth between these two modes, from
the dream state to waking consciousness and back.
Think about that time when you are on the sofa fighting off a full nap while watching TV. First the
words coming from the TV are making sense, then all of a sudden the words do not have a strict
meaning, they are only tones carrying emotion. These tones may also connect with images or the
may bring images into being. Even the images that start to form in your mind do not have a
particular meaning. They may have emotional content but they are not related to anything solid.
Then all of a sudden you wake up a little and the words lose their abstract quality. Now they are
talking about beauty pageants for young girls or how to fry a turkey. The words were so much more
artistic and beautiful when they were drawing images out of the unseen and across the threshold of
your consciousness.
Music can drift across this threshold of abstraction too. First every note is related in some way to
the chords, and then each note may or may not have direct relation to the harmony. It is a shift into
an abstract realm that is like the moment when you drift off to sleep. You can of course wake
yourself up at anytime and enter back into to chord/scale universe, but isn't it nice just to drift off a
little.
If I were going to totally take it totally outside I'd just go to bed and take a full siesta and dream
about Albert Ayler or Archie Schepp. Instead, I'll just recline here on the couch with the TV on and
pretend that I'm awake, sliding effortlessly between Bebop and clouds that look like farm animals.
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Relatively Perfect Pitch
True perfect pitch is a great asset for a Jazz musician. Unfortunately it's extremely uncommon. If
you don't develop it at a young age, you probably never will. Relative pitch is being able to figure
out pitches after you have a reference pitch given to you. I was able to teach myself what I call
'relatively perfect pitch'. This is something that is somewhere between perfect and relative pitch.
If I'm listening to notes played on my main axe, the alto saxophone, I can tell what pitches they are.
I've been able to do this since I was in high school. You might call this something like 'perfect alto
sax pitch'. I learned 'relatively perfect pitch' years later. The way I did this was by choosing a few
pitches at a time (these might be from the melody of a favorite tune) and singing them over and over
in a very loud voice. I'd sing these four to six notes very slowly and just notice what my body felt
like as it vibrated these notes. If you sing loud enough you can learn to remember what your body
feels like with these notes rather than just what they sound like. It becomes a physical sensation that
is very hard to forget. Eventually you will ingrain several of these note combinations into your aural
& body memory. You will then be able to relate any pitch you hear to these memorized tones.
I tell my students that each note is like someone you know. There is just one guy named A natural
and he has a unique personality. You don't recognize him just by the facts that he has brown hair,
green eyes, wears glasses, and is stocky. If this were how you defined him you'd be calling all kinds
of guys by his name. There is only one guy named A natural. Musicians don't know each note
personally but they will get very close, without ever really locking the notes in. They may know A
natural as somewhere between 438 bps and 444bps, but they have never really sat down with 440
bps and gotten to know it personally. Once you sit down with someone and get to know him (find
out where he grew up, what his parents were like, what motivates him) and find out what you have
in common with him (how your head, throat, chest feels when you sing the note for periods of time),
then you will probably never forget him when you pass him on the street. You won't say," That dude
looks really familiar, is it because he looks kind of like my other friend G#?” You will know this old
friend immediately and say," A440! Whasup! Haven't seen you since the bridge."
This is not some magical process. It is just a matter of taking time to sit down with these notes and
spending some quality time with them. After you work on your note combinations during your
practice time, remember to sing them occasionally during the rest of the day. This will help solidify
your personal knowledge of these notes. First try to sing them in your mind. Then check them by
singing them in your full chest voice. If you're patient and diligent you will be guaranteed results.
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Melodic Minor Scales
There are four different possible melodic minor scales that can be played over a dominant seventh
chord. You can organize them in terms of the number of alterations.
For example over a C7 chord you can play:
* G melodic minor- one tension (#11)
* F melodic minor- one tension (b13)
* Bb melodic minor- two tensions (b9, #9)
* Eb melodic minor- three tensions (#9, #11, b13)
* C# melodic minor- four tensions (b9, #9, #11, b13)
Brian Berge said...
Hey, are you guys forced to refer to the modes of the Melodic Minor the way you do because not
all of them have standardized names? Or is that the way you guys actually prefer it (always referring
to what would be the root of the 1st mode)?
David Valdez said...
For practical application in improvisation it's an easy way to calculate the correct chord scale
quickly. The modes of the Melodic Minor scale also do not have the same type of key relationship as
the modes of the Major Scale do. For example a B7 altered dominant scale is more related to the key
of E Major than C Melodic Minor. If we relate everything we can back to the Melodic Minor then
we can use take advantage of our familiarity with this simple scale. At Berklee they don't even
bother to tell you that the altered dominant scale is a mode of the melodic minor. This is because
they don't want you thinking in terms of another key. They would rather have you learn alt dominant
scales as: root, b9, #9, 3, #11, b13, b7. It is much easier to think in terms of melodic minor, but the
downside is that sometimes you lose track of how each note is actually functioning in relation to the
chord that the scale is being played over.
Making the saxophone bark like a dog, WOOF!
There is an entire universe of saxophone multi-phonics and alternate fingerings out there. John
Gross, one of Portland's own heavy-hitters, wrote about the most comprehensive book on the subject
called "185 Multi-phonics for the Saxophone, A Practical Guide" (published by Advance Music).
You can hear John put some of these to use on his recording with drummer Billy Minz called
Beautiful You.
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Bert Wilson is another NW saxophonist who is crazy about multi-phonics. Bert is one of the few
cats that only use multi-phonics that make functional chords. Bert plays chord progressions with
multi-phonics. I must admit that to my ear most multi-phonics sound pretty harsh and raw, whether
they are harmonically functional or not. I might use one now and then when playing free music, but
like altissimo, I find that it's best to limit them. I most often use them not for the multi-note effect
but as barks. By a bark I mean a note that pops out louder and with a different timbre, used for
dramatic effect. The most widely used barks are simply overtones. Check out Lester Young on Jazz
at the Philharmonic, you'll hear him use this technique on the A sections on Rhythm changes. Every
time he does it the crowd goes totally nuts. He plays repeated middle C eighth notes, alternating
between regular fingering and the 1st overtone of low C. Since the overtone C has most of the keys
down the sound comes out of the bell rather than the upper stack. When a mic is right in the bell this
makes the overtones explosively pop out. This same technique can also be used from middle F up to
G# with the second overtones of low Bb to C#. The overtone notes are bigger and darker since more
of the tube is being used.
The two other barks that I use are multi-phonic fingerings without the extra notes.

The first one is a bluesy Bb: Finger Eb with the octave key and without your G key. Relax
and tighten your embouchure slowly as you blow, actually it's more of a dropping of the jaw.
You'll notice that you'll hear a Bb alternating with the G below it. Rapidly and drastically
tightening and loosening your chops can create a minor third shake. Start very slow at first
and then faster as you get the hang of it. Phil Woods uses this one a lot, it has a very
distinctive bluesy sound. You can use just the top note (Bb) without the shake also; this gives
an extra low pitch that woofs. It's great for a Blue seventh or third (the extra flatted 7th really
comes from the 7th overtone).

The second one is a bluesy G: This one is the same idea as the last one but on a different note.
Finger a low C plus the octave key and without the F key (index finger of the right hand). Try
the same thing with your chops as above. You can also get a nice multi-phonic with this
fingering in the lower octave. Take off the octave key and just relax and blow, a full three
note multi-phonic should come out.
The way to master these techniques is by practicing overtones. Here are the overtone exercises that
Joe Viola gave me. These aren't as extreme as the Sigard Rascher 'Top Tones' exercises and much
more practical with a normal saxophone setup. Rascher's school used large bore Buscher horns with
very specific mouthpieces and reeds. Joe V told me that those guys all had raunchy sounds anyway.
Once you can pop out the various overtones for use to as alternate fingerings, to drastically change
timbre. Sit. Lie down. Stay. Speak!
Innovation or Emulation?
If you learn all the 'rules' and study what you're told to study, you will most likely end up sounding
like someone else. The thing to do is start developing a personal way of playing from the start. This
is true innovation. You don't need to develop a new system of re-harmonizing two-fives or break out
free of time signatures to be an innovator.
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When I was younger, my dream was to become the next major innovator. I wanted my
contributions to reorganize the world of Jazz. My name would be spoken along with Bird, Trane,
and Ornette. I wanted to be recognized by musicians hundreds of years from now as a pivotal figure.
It's amusing for me to look back on that young aspiring Jazz musician. I still do want to innovate, but
that has a different meaning to me now.
What innovation means to me now is playing music in a unique way, having your own individual
voice. You can incorporate elements from other musicians and still be innovative. I think you're on
your way to being an innovator when listeners can tell it's you after hearing just a few notes.
There are many young players today coming out of music institutions with high levels of
musicianship and technique. They rarely come out as unique stylists. They usually sound like several
of the Jazz greats. Sometimes their major influences can even be counted on one hand. Sometimes a
style can even be traced to a single record by one musician (I heard a tenor player once who had
based his entire style on Brecker's 'Cityscapes' album). One of the reasons this happens is that
students are over encouraged to transcribe and learn licks. This is positively reinforced when they
are praised for sounding like Trane, Benson, or Brecker. Audiences usually respond well to this type
of playing because it's already familiar to them. Some people say that lick playing is just crowd
pleasing and some think that it's respecting our rich Jazz heritage.
American audiences, in general, are more focused on the final result rather than the creative
process. To me, the creative process is much more important. I would rather listen to sloppy
exploration that contains a few gems than to a clean, but derivative, performance. I can accept a fair
amount scuffling and kacking if I think the player is trying to go somewhere new. Unfortunately the
masses aren't really conditioned to accept this type of musician.
The new crop of younger Jazz players is clean to a fault. They don't usually push for the
impossible, choosing instead to be content with the possible.
When I was younger I often played out of Joe Pass's Guitar Styles book. Joe's lines were woven
through the changes like a fine oriental silk rug. This book got me thinking about longer lines, but I
didn't want to play the exact same lines as Joe. My solution was to take a pencil and write crazy
alterations right in the book. The original lines were straight-ahead vanilla bop lines. By the time I
was done with them no one would have ever suspected that they came from Joe Pass. This same
thing can be done with any book.
Don't be afraid to learn from musicians who play different instruments than you. This will broaden
your style and your sources will be harder to trace. Always keep your influences broad. Don't focus
too much on any one player.
One of the topics I have written about in this blog is chord/scale theory. This is about finding the
correct scale to fit any given chord. If you take this theory as fact you will find yourself limited to a
linear and 'un-chunky' way of playing. You will end up sounding clean, but not very personal. One
of the 'theories' that we accept in school is that scales can all be defined in one octave and that each
octave is the same as every other octave. Music theory is taught this way because it's convenient and
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less confusing. In actuality, scales don't have to be limited to one octave at all. They may have a
range of five octaves or just a tri-tone. A flat nine sounds very different when played in another
octave and an A=440 is not really an A=880 at all. It's just the note that sounds the most similar out
of all the other notes. It has a completely different personality and resonant quality.
Jazz improvisation theory needs to be adjusted for the range of the individual instruments. A
baritone saxophone playing upper extensions over chord changes will be dealing with a totally
different harmonic environment than a piccolo. Consider the fact that an altered dominant scale may
be played differently in different octaves. You might want to try using a Lydian dominant scale in a
lower octave and an altered dominant in a higher octave. It also depends on the range of the comping
instrument.
Slonimky's book deals with symmetrical scales. The first of these is a tri-tone scale (C-F#-C2-F#2ect). Eventually he gets into symmetrical scales that span several octaves. The symmetrical scale of
2:3 is a two-octave scale that is divided equally into three parts, by minor sixths (C-Ab-E-C2). This
is related to the 1:3 scale (C-E-Ab-C2) but it is also very different. Try writing some of your own
scales that are not limited to just one octave. Try composing some of your own licks. Playing your
own licks is always more interesting and rewarding than playing someone else's.
The chord/scale approach has a tendency to lock you into playing only the scale notes over a chord.
The scale should only be thought of as consonant notes. All twelve notes should be available to you
over any given chord. The non-scale notes each have their own 'tonal-gravity'. They only sound
wrong if you don't know where they want to resolve to and you don't deal with them correctly. A
good exercise is to sit down at a piano and play chords while experimenting with every note over
each chord. Listen to where each 'avoid' note wants to resolve. Try things like a major third over a
minor seventh, a natural 11th over an altered dominant chord, a natural fifth over a half-diminished
chord. Be thorough about this process and take notes as you go. Once you realize that you can play
anything over anything you will be able to relax a little. You won't be so worried about playing
wrong notes because you will have the skills to adapt to any possibility.
Remember that you make the decision to innovate or emulate every single time you sit down to
practice.
On being emotionally present
I had a gig recently that really made me aware of the effect that emotional interaction has on Jazz
performance. I felt like one of the musicians on the gig wasn't emotionally available. I know that this
sounds like a talk that your needy girlfriend might want have with you but hear me out. A musician
may physically be playing appropriately or mentally be thinking about what he/she is playing. If
you're focusing more on the hot cocktail waitress than you are the music, then mental distraction is
the result, this is musically crippling.
If a musician that you are playing with is emotionally withdrawn or depressed, you won't be able to
converse on an emotional level with them. I don't just want the rhythm section to react to the musical
ideas that I'm playing; I need them to project and respond to strong emotions. You might even call
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what I'm talking about emotional comping. They have to be willing and able to contribute vital
feelings to the mix.
A musician depressive musician will have a hard time expressing joy and optimism in his playing.
He might not be able to feel excited if the crowd isn't clapping or paying attention, if at all. I really
want to feel palpable feelings of joy, sorrow and excitement emanating from the musicians I'm
playing with, or else the gig feels like I'm screwing with a condom on (sorry kids). Give me
something to work with please. Wake up and feel MUTHERF*#@%s+!!
You have to be willing to play like your life depended on it, like it's your last day alive, like your
balls are on fire. Otherwise go get a job as a parking lot attendant or an accountant (sorry all you
accountants out there). Being a Jazz musician requires intense emotional exertion. What if a pro
football player didn't bother to run at full speed when he got the ball, or a brain surgeon who didn't
bother to really concentrate all his attention to the job on hand? Playing Jazz should feel like a matter
of life and death! If everyone doesn't give 200% then the music will die on the operating table. If
you never sweat or feel wiped out after a gig, then I'd say you're trying hard enough. Even if your
life totally sucks ass the time you spend playing Jazz needs to scream," I LOVE MY LIFE!!!!” Some
bandleaders won't notice if you're phoning it in and are just trying to get through the gig, I do
though.
The thing that separates the truly great players from to mediocre players is the ability to attain nonordinary physical, mental and emotional states. When I go to a gig I know that I should be prepared
to enter a higher mode of being from my everyday state. I try to be open to experiencing a level of
emotional intensity that rarely happens when I'm not playing. Even if the gig is in a Yuppie bar in a
Yuppie shopping center.
I don't think of myself as a particularly moody person, but I want to be as moody as an expectant
mother or a rapid cycle bi-polar hypoglycemic. You must be willing to radiate waves of joy and then
the deepest blackest sorrow in a split second. Clinging stubbornly to the mask of your ordinary
persona will make you emotionally impotent and boring as hell to listen to. Hey, would the audience
clap and hoot while you load the dishwasher or scoop the dog poop in the back yard. NO. No one is
impressed with mundane personal chores; so don't make playing music one.
I sometimes refer to emotions with terms like radiate and emanate because when you strongly
project feeling and emotion with your music it should make the listener feel as if they were a
McChicken sandwich under a heat lamp keeping warm at McDonalds. If no emotional intensity is
achieved then it feels like you're trying to catch a tan from a 50-watt light bulb. Chinese medicine
sees all types of human experience as different manifestations of a life energy called Qi. This energy
needs to circulate freely throughout the different energy bodies in order to maintain good healthemotionally, mentally and physically. Qi energy can become stagnant or blocked and all types of
ailments start to set in.
* According to Chinese medicine there are seven emotions that a person can experience: joy,
anger, worry, pensiveness, sadness, fear, and fright. These are normal emotions that are reactions to
various life circumstances. Only when they come on suddenly and intensely, or continue for a
protracted period do they lead to pathological consequences. It should be remembered that diseases
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caused by the emotions arise from the interior and directly affect the corresponding organs. This is
different from, for example, the Six Excesses, which cause disease by entering the body from the
exterior. Thus, symptoms caused by emotional disturbances often manifest very soon after onset.
Furthermore, the immediate result is a disturbance of the Qi mechanism, which if untreated causes
further disharmonies depending on the affected organ(s).
* "In this [western] culture, there’s this idea that if you suffer from depression, you should not
talk about it. That makes it even worse. You’re suppressing emotions, and this causes energy to
stagnate. If it’s blocked, you start to see symptoms, either physical or emotional. These are all
manifestations of an imbalance of qi. The key thing is to eliminate that blockage and promote the
energy flow in the body, to help the energy flow smoothly.
In some cases one acupuncture session or just a good lay can help a musician more than a week of
shedding. Others who are more seriously emotionally impaired may need to see a shrink for a script
of mood stabilizers or elevators in order to regain emotional dynamics in their music.
You can't always just woodshed your way to the next level musically.
Many young players make this mistake. Spending 12 hours a day in the practice room will not bring
emotional balance and vitality to your playing. Only truly experiencing life's tribulation and victories
can make you more emotionally mature.
From now on I won’t hire players who don't put out emotionally. They had also better have their qi
flowing freely.
Articles by Casa Valdez Readers
Tim Price's random lines exercise
Here's an exercise from Tim Price's blog (www.timpricejazz.com/). Garzone used to have me do
this one. It's a great way to get comfortable playing outside; it's also a way to discover new and
interesting lines.
* "Here’s another exercise that may help you to find some other stuff to play: choose a tempo and
start to play in a swing feel with no tonal center. Let the rhythmic focus be your guide; that is, play
rhythmic phrases typical of jazz phrasing, but with a random choice of notes. Try to throw in some
really large intervals. Play any note! In fact, the more outrageous the better. Tape yourself and see
what happens. There may be some highly musical and personalized notes in there. By experimenting
with intervallic and sequential playing you can eventually develop a vocabulary that will enable you
to move from note to note. This is a really spontaneous way to improvise, and results in some pretty
wild stuff that you may have never played before."
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Once you are comfortable with a high degree of randomness in your playing (of course we can
never truly be totally random) you will be able to start introducing small amounts into your soloing.
As you practice playing lines over changes slip a bar or two of totally random notes in, then jump
right back to following the chord changes. Now try just a few beats of randomness. As you practice
playing 'random' notes be aware of trying to use different and wider intervals and direction.
Direction is an important element of free/outside playing. Experiment with lines while focusing on
just this one element; don't play more than a few notes without changing direction. Next introduce
wider intervals into the mix. Don't stop swinging as you are doing these things. If you're swinging
really hard the listener will accept these far out lines as being musical. The farther out you go the
harder you need to swing. If you mess with the rhythm of a cliché Bebop line it will sound much
more outside than a freaked out random line that really swings hard.
Tim Price on the LCCOTO and Jazz Harmony
Speaking of George Russell, here's some food for thought. In George Russell's "Lydian Chromatic"
you get this same scale sound by playing the "Lydian Augmented" scale built on the THIRD of the
Dominant 7th chord (in other words, play an E Lydian Augmented on your C7). It gives you the
same pitches as the "Altered Dominant Scale". The thinking is a bit more focused with the Russellvia modern stuff. I feel. BTW, I find the Lydian Chromatic way of looking at things extremely
useful, particularly when looking at chord voicings. Most extended chords can be boiled down to
some kind of Ma7 chord over a bass note. Sometimes the chord is a Ma7b5, sometimes a Ma7#5,
sometimes a Ma7, but it can almost always be seen as some kind of Ma7. Once you figure out what
chord you're really dealing with, the Lydian Chromatic thing becomes really easy. It also gives you a
way to pivot into a whole bunch of nice substitutions.
Without referencing the LCC it's a very good idea to look at the ways that the various chord types
can be voiced as one of the maj7 family of chords.
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1 b3 5 7
1 3 b5 7
1 3 #5 7
1 b3 b5 7
1 b3 #5 7
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All of these intervallic structures share the characteristic of the Maj 7th interval, which becomes a
min 2nd interval. Players like Bill Evans and writers like Oliver Nelson and Gil Evans owe their
style in no small way to voicings that lots of tension in them often achieved by selecting chords that
have min 2nds on the inside voices and or maj7 intervals somewhere in the chord. Just imagine how
any one of those maj7-type chords would function with a different note in the bass.
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CHECK IT OUT:
Cmaj7/Db: sort of Dbdim-ish but not a commonly used sound
Cmaj7/D: D13sus4
Cmaj7/Eb: sort of Eb7#5(b9,13)-ish
Cmaj7/E: just an inversion of Cmaj7
Cmaj7/F: Fmaj7(9,#11)(no3rd)
Cmaj7/F#: D7(11,13)
Cmaj7/G: just an inversion of Cmaj7
Cmaj7/Ab: Abmaj7#5#9
Cmaj7/A: Am9
Cmaj7/Bb: Bb9(b9,13)-ish
Cmaj7/B: just an inversion of Cmaj7 or B7sus4(b9,b13)
Cm(maj7)/Db:
Cm(maj7)/D: D13sus4b9
Cm(maj7)/E: Cmaj7#9/E
Here are some interesting Triad-Pairs
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
Over C7 use C Maj triad - C, E, G- and Bb Aug triad -Bb, D, F#- for a sound that is wholetonish...

Over C7 use F# Maj triad -F#, Bb, C#- and E Aug triad -E, G#, C- for an altered/tri-tone
sound.

Over C7, (normal dominant or altered), use Db- triad and D Aug triad
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
Over Dmin7b5 use Bb Maj triad and Ab Aug triad

Over CminMaj7 use F Maj triad and Eb Aug triad.
How to Memorize Tunes- by Bill Mithoefer
A lot of these are stolen from different people who gave me tips over the years. I will credit Hal
Stein, Jerry Bergonzi, Kenny Dorham, Sonny Rollins, Sonny Simmons and Hafez Modirzadeh. They
are all spun through my own twisted system.
1) Rewrite the tune, laid out on the page, in 4-bar sections. This might seem trivial to some, but in
my mind, it is very helpful, as it makes it easier to visualize the tune in blocks.
(2) If you're having even remote troubles with the changes, simplify, simplify, simplify.
(3) The first step is to determine the form, is it a 12-bar blues or any of the many variations of this
form?? (Cycle blues, minor blues, major blues, etc.) Is it a typical tin pan alley 32-bar AABA, like "I
Got Rhythm?" If so, it's as simple as the blues, as you really only have 2 8-bar sections to memorize.
Is it modal? Again, this might make it simple, particularly if the quality of the chords remains the
same. Some of Wayne Shorter's tunes, such as "House of Jade," can seem quite complex until you
recognize a modal slant to them. Similarly, a composer like Thelonius Monk may not have the tonic
chord appear until half way through the A-section, or even the end of the tune. Often, recognizing
the tonic will make the harmony make sense. Obviously, there are many forms, ABAA', etc. What
I'm suggesting is that you first familiarize yourself with the structure of the tune (the "big picture")
and figure out how to break it down into 4-bar phrases if possible. Some tunes might need 2 and 8bar phrases.
(4) Now, if like myself, you play a single-line instrument, such as the saxophone, you will want to
find ways to hear the harmony. I'm a big fan of using numbers for the chords, but I've met people
who use moveable solfege (Do-Re-Mi,) fixed solfege (like the French, Do = C, Mi = D, etc.) and
even the Hindi Saregam system (see W.A. Mathieu, "Harmonic Experience")
(5) I'm assuming that you've learned the melody fairly well. To start, the simplest thing to do might
be to just play the root of each chord. Now, try playing (singing) the root and the third, and
successively adding the fifth, seventh, etc. This step can be done in many different ways depending
on your personal preference. You might play 1-2-3-5 of major and dominant chords, 1-b3-4-5 on the
minor, 1-b2-3-5 on dominant (b9) chords and 1-b3-4-b5 on minor 7 (b5) chords. (I credit this helpful
approach to Jerry Bergonzi.)
6. This is a continuation of the last paragraph. Just different single-note approaches to the changes.
Hafez Modirzadeh taught me Sonny Rollins and Sonny Simmons old method of learning changes,
which was to run down the basic triads in quarter note triplets through the harmony of a tune. This
like the preceding approach can be extended in several ways, through variation of the order of notes
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and, on a tune with 2 to 4 measures of, say DMaj, one could alternate with either AbMaj (tri-tone) or
maybe use the EMaj, F#Maj or BMaj once you have the changes fairly "wired."
7. Try to run a guide-tone line through the tune. As I learned, the typical guide tone will either start
on the third or the seventh and you try and move chromatically or in major sevenths depending on
how far the tune travels harmonically.
8. An example of this with an elegant song form such as "Ladybird:"
Cmaj
/Cmaj
/F-
/Bb7
/
Cmaj
/Cmaj
/Bb-
/Eb7
/
AbMaj
/AbMaj
/A-
/D7
D-
/G7
/
/CmajEbMaj /AbMaj DbMaj/
It's 16-bars, and it easily divides into fairly symmetric 4-bar sections. One could probably get in
some arguments about how to think about the form, but the main thing is to own your particular
method. I personally think about it as AA'BC. Each section being only 4 bars long instead of the
normal 8, but you could think about it as AB in 2 8-bar phrases, or a couple of other ways. A guidetone line starting on the third would go
E/E/Eb/D
E/E/Ab/G
G/G/G/F#
F/F/EEb/CC
Because of the turnaround, a smoother line results from using the tonic of the EbMaj chord towards
the end. In any event this can be repeated starting on B, the 7th of the C chord
B/B/A/Ab, etc. etc.
9. There are probably an infinite number of ways to "play through" the changes, which will force
you to hear them. It's also important to hear how they relate to the melody of a tune, and another
approach is to play a phrase of the melody, and then respond with the next couple of chord changes,
articulated in a melodic fashion. Really, the important thing is to figure out what works for YOU,
which will probably change over time. The Sonny Rollins/Sonny Simmons approach can be heard
on "Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders," on an alternate take of "How High The Moon"
when someone left the tape rolling during a run-through.
10. Think about the changes visually in your head or recite them while trying to hear them in your
head. I use "Ladybird" as an example, as you have a number of harmonic moments that happen in
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any number of other tunes. The first change goes up a fourth (or down a fifth,) to a minor chord.
Listen to the sound. We now have a II-V in Eb, but go back to the CMaj. You then go down a Maj.
2nd to a II-V in Ab. The AbMaj moves up a 1/2 step to an A minor, which becomes a II-V. Now the
V chord changes quality to a minor chord, with the D7 becoming a D- which makes a II-V with the
G7 giving us a full cadence to the CMaj, which begins a turnaround (up a minor third, up a 4th, up a
4th.) The final DbMaj drops down chromatically to the CMaj. These are all very distinctive and easy
to hear changes.
11. In a more diatonically oriented tune, for me personally, I find chord charts harder to memorize.
For approaching these types of tunes, just using some basic harmonic ideas can be very helpful. Any
seventh chord that does not contain the (4) or the (7) of the parent key, is a tonic chord. In G Maj,
you have (1-3-5-7) (G-B-D-F#), GMaj7, the I chord, (3-5-7-2)(B-D-F#-A), B-7, the iii chord, and (68-3-5) (E-G-B-D), E-7, the vi chord. Any chord containing the (4) is a subdominant chord. So in
GMaj, you have (2-4-6-8), (A-C-E-G), A-7, the ii chord, and (4-6-8-3), CMaj7, the IV chord. The
dominant chords contain the (4) and the (7), which produce the tension of the unique tri-tone present
in said major key creating a dominant tonality. So in GMaj, you have (5-7-2-4)(D-F#-A-C), D7, the
V chord and (7-2-4-6) (F#-A-C-E,) F#-7b5, the vii chord. If you work your way through a diatonic
tune such as "There Will Never Be Another You," (not my favorite tune, but it will have to do until
the real thing comes along) playing the chords from the tonal center, that is focusing on playing them
from the (1) or the (7) in the tune, you can pretty quickly train your ear to hear how the harmony of
these types of tunes deviates from the tonal center of the song. I suggest that with many of these
types of tunes, you can train your ear to work through the tune much faster than you should waste
the time of memorizing the changes.
12. In the final analysis, one wants to eventually try and just "know" the tune without even thinking
about the changes. You might try learning guitar or another chordal instrument, as for myself
personally, despite years of struggling with the piano, I've always been able to find my way around a
guitar a lot easier, even though most music educators seem to like the piano because of its visual
aspect. I prefer the guitar because it's easier to forget the notes and simply focus on the sound. But
finally you just have to use a large multiplicity of approaches and choose whichever one(s) work for
you "in the moment." Sometimes the bright moments will only happen when you feel like you're
falling through some harmonic elevator shaft.
Cheers, Billy
Varying the Melodic Rhythm- by Dan Gaynor
I've been practicing over here. I'm taking a melody (with no accompaniment) and playing it over
and over with phrasing variations, taking care not to repeat myself. I'll delay the melody and catch
up later or add passing tones and various things. After a certain point I found it convenient to try
rhythmic variations on the melody I was trying. I'd play the entire melody as triplets or sixteenths
and keep the form by starting in the right place (accounting for new rests). Then I tried playing the
whole thing an eighth note forward or backward from the original. Obviously this applies more to
tunes with a lot of rhythm, as opposed to, say, All the Things You Are. I'd imagine one would have a
lot of fun with Oleo, Moose the Mooche and Donna Lee, this way. In fact, on Lee Konitz and Warne
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Marsh, when they play Donna Lee, Lee is a quarter note away from Warne, so I'm sure they
practiced this sort of thing. Regardless, finding personal ways to phrase melodies is practically
synonymous with being an artistic improviser, so anything you can do to stretch your mind around
how should be helpful.
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Just to clarify exactly which modes of Melodic and Harmonic minor:

For a poly-chord with the upper chord a minor second below the lower triad:
F# triad over G triad
Play a melodic minor from the third of the bottom triad (B melodic minor)

If the upper triad is a minor second above the lower triad:
Ab triad over G triad
Play a harmonic minor from the 3rd of the upper triad (C harmonic minor)

If the upper triad is a Major 2nd above the lower triad:
E triad over D triad
Play a Harmonic Minor scale from the fifth of the lower-triad (A Harmonic Minor)
From the comments section
Forward Harmonic Motion
Joshua Cliburn said...
David - Let me first say that I worship your playing like a red-eyed pagan on a sacrificial Sabbath.
But I would like to take exception with the following statement:
"For example- If you are playing over two bars of G7 going to C you may play a straight Mixolydian
in the first bar and then play a G7#11 (D melodic-) for the first two beats of bar two and an G7
altered dominant (Ab melodic-) in the last two beats of the second bar. You would not want to start
with the G7 altered dominant and THEN play a straight Mixolydian before resolving in bar three."
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To the contrary, I often like to go the exact opposite way in resolving Dom7's, going from most to
least dissonant to provide a more consonant resolution.
Is there a contextual detail that I'm selectively leaving out? Let me know what you think.
Thanx!
Josh
David Valdez said...
Joshua,
Thanks for the mad props. :-)
Of course all rules are made to be broken, especially when it comes to Jazz. There is a
fundamental reason that I said that you shouldn't 'backtrack' when it comes to adding alterations
rather than subtracting them before resolution. When we are approaching a dominant to tonic
resolution we want to always maintain forward motion. This is the same reason that dominants want
to resolve down by fifths and not fourths. You say that you like the sound of starting with an altered
dominant then going to a dominant before resolving because it sounds more consonant to you.
Actually what is happening when you do this is that you are losing forward motion?
What does the circle of fourths sound like compared to the circle of fifths? It is not as compelling,
to put it mildly. There are certain laws of nature/music/number that are immutable, and this is one of
the biggies. So to go from the altered dominant to the dominant creates backward rather than
forward motion. This stalls out your momentum and is kind of a 'harmonic clam'. The altered
dominant has so much tension that wants to resolve to the tonic and instead of resolving you're going
to a straight dominant. All the voices that wanted to resolve to the tonic are suddenly left hanging
with 'nowhere to go'. This isn’t strong harmonic motion. It's like you've almost reached climax and
then you peter out right before a tiny squirt (sorry kids).
If we keep strong forward harmonic motion in our lines we can play practically anything over any
changes as long as we keep moving forward and eventually resolve. Here is an example of what I'm
talking about:
Over a:
D-7
/G7
/Cmaj7
/
G7 /Cmaj7
/
You could play:
E7
A7 /D7
The extended dominant resolutions work because they each resolve down a fifth to the next change.
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An extreme example of what you are doing by going from altered Dominant to Dominant before
resolving is this:
Bb7
F7
/C7
G7
/Cmaj7
/
The first set of changes resolve down in fifths and sounds very dissonant until they resolve to the
major chord. Once they resolve they, get this, RETROACTIVLEY make sense. This is a very
interesting phenomenon; the mind and ear work in mysterious ways indeed.
In the second set of changes the dominants sound very dissonant as they move around the circle of
fourths then they resolve to the tonic. When they resolve they do not suddenly make sense like the
first set of changes do. The only changes that have any real motion are the last V7 to Imaj7.
This is of course an extreme example of what I am talking about but it is exactly the same
concept. If you understand this idea then you will be able to create very interesting sets of subs over
very boring changes. A straight dominant to tonic resolution may sound more consonant than an
altered dominant to tonic resolution, but it does not have as dramatic a resolution. We ARE trying to
play jazz rather than New Age music here, I hope. Bird and all the other founders of Bop
revolutionized Jazz. They pushed the limits by using these upper extensions in the way I illustrated
above. Yes, it is dissonant but this is modern Jazz we are talking about here.
David Valdez said...
I want to add to my last comment: You should play exactly what sounds good to you. I didn't
mean to make it sound like no one ever does what you were talking about, many great players do.
Walking backwards is fine and cool as long as you are aware that your body was made to walk
forward. It's the general principal I wanted to stress. There are elements in harmony that are not just
matters of personal taste and once you understand what these are you'll be able to put together your
own personal style. You'll learn how to use these quirky and backward approaches to your
advantage. Again, always play the way you really want to even if it means going against the flow. I
was starting to sound like a true Be-Bop Nazi for a second there. Sorry about that.
Chicken little said...
Well, you've been a bebop nazi since you were a kid. Anyway, I would second David's comments
about resolving altered chords in the proper way. There are reasons that things are immutable laws
of nature. The circle of 5ths will always have a strong forward motion than 4ths.
On the other hand I can remember that when I was a kid (I won't bore you with the entire story) but
Buddy Rich told some kid to "Fuck rudiments, just play!" I think that this is the best advice you can
ever get.
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Joshua Cliburn said...
Ok...I GUESS I can see where you're coming from, but next time, feel free to fully explain the
concept, I mean, c'mon, JUST one page!
Just Kidding! That was phat...thanx so much for taking the time to explain. It does make more
sense when you break it down to fifths motion vs. fourths. I'm already working out some of the subs
you mentioned and others in your symmetrical scales blog.
Thanks for bringing us theory-challenged sax players up to speed!
A heated debate on audience feedback
Jeff Albert said...
I agree with much of what you say here. We can't worry about what the audience is thinking while
we are playing. But when you say, "I have to assume that my idea of what sounds good is more
developed than the crowd," you start down a slippery slope.
Why are we playing music? Is it solely for our own personal enjoyment? Are we giving the
audience some sort of medicine that they won't understand in their artistically undeveloped state, but
need to take anyway? I think people know what touches them and moves them musically. We
shouldn't underestimate our audience’s ability to connect emotionally to something they might not
completely understand technically.
I think we should play what we play, not what we think they want to hear, but I also think that
completely discounting their opinion or reaction removes an important part of the performer/listener
connection.
BUT, like you said, we can't think about that while we are playing.
David Valdez said...
Yes, Give them that bitter pill!
I do actually believe that listening audiences are highly intuitive and can actually tell most of the
time when a player is bullshitting. Sometimes they are dumb as doornails, take the crowd at a Kenny
G concert for example. So even though they might be highly educated and perceptive I have to
assume they're not just to keep myself from worrying about what they think. This doesn't always
work, but it is a way for me to trick myself into feeling free.
If we play only for our own enjoyment then we may as well just stay home and play Aebersold
CDs. If I am playing great and the audience is hearing great music then magical things can happen.
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The energy can go through the roof. If I'm playing great and the audience has a burning desire to talk
about their day at work, then I'm better off if I'm not affected by their rudeness. Some clubs are
listening rooms and other clubs are pickup bars and loud talking rooms. We can't always reach the
soul of the crowd as working professionals. My way (Miles Davis was the master actually) is a way
to play in less desirable situations and not be emotionally drained when there is no love.
In short, I do want to touch audiences but sometimes the only way to reach a particular crowd is by
playing Louie, Louie or Boogie-oogie-oogie.
Other players do approach this dilemma differently. I would rather wait a few generations than
play Boogie-oogie-oogie willingly.
Dan said...
I agree with you, Jeff, except in that the slippery slope is a fallacy, right? ;) There are a lot of
things to consider about the statement you quoted. Does the idea of "good music" need to be
developed? Some have developed such an idea, and they don't all agree with each other. Some
performers, like Lawrence Williams talks about in that clip found on this blog, cultivate the
connection to the audience. So, I don't think David completely discounts the audiences opinion -intuitive reactions are found among both the educated and the uninitiated -- but that he knows that if
he plays something excellent (in every sense of the word, not just technically, but with feeling and
timing) and the audience doesn't respond or responds negatively (there are a lot of drunks out there),
and at the same time somewhere else in the world the crowd goes apeshit for Sweet Home Alabama,
that he shouldn't think twice. I try not to pay attention to the audience’s reaction before I do my own.
There are ideal performer/audience relationships, where the audience loves to listen to the
performer and the performer loves to play for them, but in this world there are gigs that one has to do
to get by and gigs that one does to further an artistic vision. The bitter pill can be good for the
audience, or they cannot care one way or the other. If it's a situation where the audience doesn't care
what the performer does, that can be okay, too, but not ideal.
I am personally touched and moved by Funkytown. I'm not sure it's a "good touch," and I don't
think anybody wants to watch me move. :)
David Valdez said...
Lawrence talks about the ideal audience as people who you have cultivated over time. They are
fans of your music. They know what you have done in the past and want to hear what you are going
to do in the future. They come to see YOU play, not to hear any particular tune. They are there to
hear what you have to say to them. If you aren't sufficiently prepared to play for them then they will
just be there to witness your struggle. It's up to you to master your instrument and your material
before you get up on stage. One of the best experiences I've ever had playing for an audience was at
an all black club in the south side of Philly. These folks had been Jazz listeners for generations. They
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gave constant feedback; if you played a great solo they'd let you know as you were playing. They'd
say,” come on", or,” that’s right". To them, Jazz was not a spectator sport. It was their job to let you
know how you were doing and get you to play better by egging you on. It was a fantastic room
because I knew that every thing I played was fully appreciated.
HankC said...
Yeah, but to me, who played in those older "urban" clubs as a young man, a lot of times those
audiences can be swayed with soulful blues licks to make the say "yeah, that’s right"--so, I can say
that they can be superficial too, don't fool yourself.
That being said, I can't really agree with your premise, & I feel that is one of the things wrong
with the (for lack of a better term) "over intellectual, white, jazz school, younger players" that are
out there, today.
I see more and more of non-swinging, dry-ass-toned sax players, playing some chromatic claptrap over a 7/4 groove, really "exploring" man--to a empty room, for a bar owner that wont even
slide them a free beer for playing there. (Mommy & daddy are paying the rent for their little
geniuses to live the "jazz life" cuz their gonna be the next Dave Douglas--welcome to today's NYC
jazz scene!)
This is what I think. If you want to play challenging music, that’s cool, just have SOMETHING
that people can latch on to & DIG. Whether that is rhythm, or a GREAT sound, or something, just
one aspect, that’s all it takes. You won’t be a sell out, or a Kenee G, honest.
People LOVED Trane, (not everyone of course, but enough for him to sign a, at that time, big record
deal with Impluse) who didn’t know ANYTHING about what he was doing, cuz they picked up on
the energy, or his musical personality, etc. there was a lot of layers for many to enjoy, that’s the key.
Don't ignore the audience, throw them a bone, albeit a small one--you might actually have people
COMING BACK to hear you & wont have to wait for 40 yrs to pass for someone to say, what a
genius you are. (which is a bit of a cop-out, IMHO bro)
THERE IS NO JAZZ HEAVEN!!! There is only today, play it now!
David Valdez said...
Hank,
I agree with your take on the NYC scene. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying here. I'm all for
hard swing, warm fat tone, and blues based music. I can't even listen to more than a few seconds of
most of the 'young-white-conservatory trained' musicians coming out of NYC these days. I'm saying
that you shouldn't be affected if the audience isn't feeling your music, not that you should play heady
shitty music. Not every musician lives in a city that has good audiences and when they play Jazz
gigs they might not be playing what the crowd wants to hear. ALWAYS SWING. ALWAYS PLAY
GOOD SHIT. Don't be affected negatively if they don't like it. That's all.
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Hucbald said...
Well, I'll have to join the "I agree, but..." crowd. As someone who composes over 75% of what he
plays (A rarity for a solo classical guitarist) I am highly interested in audience reaction to my work.
When I get good applause for a piece I wrote that is in the middle of some Bach warhorses - for
example - it's quite satisfying. OTOH, I got into performing constantly to cure myself of
performance anxiety, so I agree that the goal is to be "in your own private Idaho" when you play.
With one caveat that is crucial to me: I can get into a higher level of concentration - "the zone" when performing for an audience than I can reach practicing at home: There is a certain something
extra that comes out of me when I have an audience that is absent when I'm alone. So, I think the
overall point is that the audience/performer relationship should ideally be a symbiotic one.
Mary-Sue said...
Well this is TOO funny. I was JUST sitting here writing some horn lines to "Boogie, Oogie,
Oogie" for the wedding band I play with, uh, that would be in addition to all the OTHER KINDS of
groups I play with: a straight ahead trio, my Avant-garde quartet, the three or four original jazz
quartets I'm a side person for and jeez, don't let me forget all the big bands and swing bands I play
lead for, oh! And there's my modern classical sax quartet too! Now. While taking a break before
delving into the complexities of "To Be Real" and listening to my iTunes library played on shuffle
(Last ten artists included, at random: Steve Grossman, Chet Baker, DAVE DOUGLAS - great track
by the by, Shostakovich, Ellery Eskelin, Buddy Rich Big Band, Stevie Wonder and Maria
Schneider) I checked out David's blog only to be dismayed at the sheer amount of generalizations,
categorizing and judging going on. I then hurriedly and happily went back to the comfort of my
world where I listen, love and play all kinds of music for all kinds of audiences and always try to do
a good job no matter what I play.
And by the by - for $200.00 a night I'll play Boogie Oogie all night long - I have a house to run
here! Baby needs new skate shoes! Mom and Dad aren't paying any of my bills!
Love, Mary-Sue
David Valdez said...
Jeesh guys,
I not saying 'fuck the audience', I'm saying fuck self-conscious thoughts about the audience not
digging what I'm playing. If they love it then there can be a real exchange of energy, if not then I'm
still fine with it.
In my case I'm never happy with my playing so I don't even expect that the audience should clap.
When people compliment me I have to pretend that I didn't think it sucked, so as not to be totally
rude. I've met quite a few other players who were the same way.
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Now about Boogie-oogie-oogie, I've played it too many times to count (also: Celebration, Jungle
Boogie, I Will Survive, ect) and I'd be more than happy to play it again, but for no less than two
hundred dollars!
I love playing classical, funk, Latin, groove. I'm no Jazz snob. I just don't want to be forced into
playing Disco just to get the crowd going. If I'm a sideman and I'm being paid well then I'll play
Yankee Doodle and Hava Nagila all night if the bandleader wants it. There's a difference between a
pay-the-bills-gig and an art gig. It's a different headspace, but I'd rather play disco than sit in a
cubicle. That's for damn sure. If I had to play that stuff all the time I'd be pulling my hair out and that
cubicle would start looking better and better.
It's all about balancing your artistic needs with your financial needs. At this point in my career I
have less tolerance for music that isn't artistically satisfying. OK, OK I'll just come out and say it!
I HATE PLAYING DISCO!!! There, I said it.
Darren said...
Well, seeing as I'm the person David wrote that note to, I should say that I was about to argue with
him about it, but opted not to, because we see it partially differently, and partially the same.
I had just said that it was an ok night; I got $7 in tips and 2 compliments. I wasn't making the
statement that I was playing for the compliments. The compliments are fine, but if they're not
coming from my heroes, they don't mean as much to me as if from the average listener, or a player at
my own level. If Dan Balmer said I sounded great, that would be cool. But if he doesn't, I work on it.
I'm not crushed by it, or dependent on it.
That said, I think of myself partially as an entertainer. I entertain myself, and that entertains the
audience. Partially. I also think of myself as a spiritualist. I'm sending vibes out, trying to connect
through the space to the space within the listener that is connected to the space within myself. Some
would say that this is the same space, and is ALL ONE. I play music for my own sanity, my own
therapy, and my own salvation. When it saves me, it saves a little piece of the collective human
consciousness.
In that respect, it could be said that it doesn't matter if the audience knows it or not, because I
know the jazz affected them, because it was good. And what is good is good for all of us.
The feedback just makes it nice to know that someone is feeling it and taking the time to make a
nice statement. I appreciate it. I'm playing music to connect, to tell a story, my story, and our story.
I'm playing music to save the human race. If they notice, that's good. If they don't, then I need to
listen more and notice more and be more aware and focus on the message.
If I have an attitude that I don't give a fuck about them, they don't understand, aren't smart enough,
etc., then that's all ego bullshit delusion anyways. Who the fuck am I kidding? It's just like any
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arrogant intellectual know-it-all-pedantic asshole that tries as hard as he can to sound superior. I had
a shitload of these dicks as college professors. If you can't say it simply, then you don't understand it.
Did you ever notice how you can understand exactly what a genius is saying, even though the
material may be extra heavy? That's the genius of it! They make it clear. Because it's clear to them,
it's clear for everyone. Everyone who cares to listen, that is. And for those who care to listen to what
I'm putting out there, I really appreciate them, no matter where in the spectrum of fanciness my
message lies.
The DIFFERENCE is if I'm trying to FIND MYSELF in the audience reaction. If that's the case, I
might as well just show up to the gig and say in the mic, "so, how am I going to feel tonight, you
guys are in control of it. What's my self worth?”
I can appreciate and desire the audiences’ positive reaction, without depending on it.
David Valdez said...
But can you deal with someone who comes up after you finish playing to tell you to go home and
practice? Would this bother you? Probably.
Sometimes if the crowd doesn't notice your human-race-saving-music it has nothing to do with
you. Crowds can suck just as much as musicians can suck. A great listener is as rare as a great
musician; it takes years of practice to be a great listener.
I think that if you are trying to save the human race or make them hear your message you'll end up
being pretty disappointed most of the time. Just try to play great music, that's all.
Everyone is not going to understand everything I play. This is not because I'm purposely trying to
be obtuse, it’s because you just can't reach everyone. If the crowd's not responding then I'm going to
try to play better music, not dumb the music down by playing a hip-hop version of Well You
Needn't. This isn't 'clarity' it's pandering. Jazz isn't for everyone; it's an acquired taste. Why expect
everyone to like the Jazz you play? I think that if you desire a positive reaction too much then you're
setting yourself up for resentment and disappointment. You're having an expectation that they will
dig your music. You're fooling yourself if you think you aren't negatively affected when this doesn't
work out.
A player isn't an “arrogant intellectual know-it-all-pedantic asshole” just because they don't care if
the audience likes their music. If I really wanted to reach as many people as I could then I would
make a Smooth-Jazz CD. More people like smooth-jazz than like post-bop. I'm still playing post-bop
because that's what I'm hearing. Dan Balmer wants to reach more people so he plays smooth-jazz.
That's his choice and I respect his decision. It's a hard road even if you're playing smooth-jazz. My
point is that you need to be self-motivated to develop a unique voice. If you're going to try to
develop your own style then you can't be swayed by the audience reaction. It's easier to take on the
style of players who are already popular. When you start searching you don't always find what you're
looking for. If I'm always trying to play it safe then I certainly won't find that unique sound that I'm
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looking for. Not uniqueness for the sake of strangeness, uniqueness meaning your own voice. If you
want a positive response it's usually easy enough to get, just break out some tried and tested licks.
I think that this topic has a profound influence on creativity.
Your attitude about the response you get affects your entire musical concept. I don't think that you
can be entirely free to express yourself when you care too much what others think. You need to be
perfectly willing to fall flat on your face in order to be truly loose.
Being commercial is when the audience comes before the art. Art should be done for it's own sake
or it just becomes another commodity.
Good art WILL eventually draw a good audience. Making great music is rewarding enough to
make the long struggle worth it.
HankC said...
David,
I think this is a good thread, with some good answers & comments. I think Mary-Sue missed the
point. IMHO, if any of us here wanted to play "Boogie Oogie" on our own gigs to please the
audience, it would be a 100% more slamming version than any cheezy club date catering hall band
could hope to do:) (Yes kids, we've all played disco, even the "greats"--my 1st New Years gig in
NYC was subbing in Long Island club date band, who's regular sax player was a very young Chris
Potter!!)
ps>>$250 is my minimum. $200 is a little light for disco, Mary-Sue:)
Darren said...
I think the real point here is that judgments and expectations are not helpful. The audience sucked,
the audience was great. I sucked. I was great.
Whatever the audience reaction is, it is. If it bothers me, then I can buy into it, or just take another
breath. If it helps them and they notice, then beautiful. If they care or don't care but I care and I feel
it and it helps me, beautiful.
If 10 or 20 percent of the time I spend in front of an audience is trying to engage them, 10-30
percent is trying to figure out what I'm trying to say and the rest of the time is art for art's sake,
beautiful. It's a story that is being told. That's jazz.
Jazz is the struggle to achieve humanity. It's the process to be a whole human being. It's paying
the rent, and not paying the rent. It's your concerto, your Magnus opus, your little blues diddy. My
art is my story, and the telling of the story. The fumbling, the bumbling, the nailing it hard, the
wailing to the stratosphere, the sailing over the crowd's ears, the bailing on the gig because you can't
take another second. That's the jazz of it all.
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Does it make a difference to the human race if you play at the Blue Monk or a Disco Wedding?
Dan Balmer would say it doesn't. I would say it does. Do you want it to?
BTW Dan doesn't make albums for the audience. I think you should talk to him about this,
because you're mistaken. He plays the music he plays from his heart, and that's the way it comes out.
The Tom Grant band, that was I think more for the audience at the time. But talk to him, because I
think you're mistaken.
I should clear up that my comment on pedantic assholes wasn't directed at anyone, and
particularly not David. The point was that being smart for the sake of being smart isn't the same
thing as being simple for the sake of being clear and elegant. I listened to two hours of Barry Green
on the Elegant Universe and understood everything he said, and I wouldn't know calculus from an
abacus. There's something graceful and beautiful about being able to use complex materials to say or
create something that a child could understand. But there I go being judgmental. I should stop lest I
be seen as a hypocrite. But, that's my story.
I'll reiterate the actual point of my comments:
The DIFFERENCE is if I'm trying to FIND MYSELF in the audience reaction. If that's the case, I
might as well just show up to the gig and say in the mic, "so, how am I going to feel tonight, you
guys are in control of it. What’s my self worth?”
Of course we all do this every time we play. It's the degree to which we do it, the amount of time
we spend dwelling on it afterwards, the severity of the depression or euphoria that we experience as
the result of our analysis, judgment, interpretations of the audience reactions to us and our own
reactions to ourselves.
I actually had a dickhead tell me to go practice one time. I stewed about it and was flabbergasted
that someone could have the fucking audacity. But the solution that I came to was that I needed to
practice. In Zen there is a saying, "my worst enemy is my greatest benefactor". Because he shows
me where and to what degree I cling to self-centered delusion.
When I saw it this way I stopped being resentful and became grateful to that dickhead, for making
me see that I needed to change my tone and attack and learn more tunes!
David Valdez said...
Well-said Darren. I retract my comment about Dan B. If he's really feeling it, then all power to
him. You can really never know if someone is doing something out of love for the music or just for
the bucks. It's safer not to judge someone else's music, even if they do seem too commercial, live off
a trust fund, or play more in odd numbered time signatures more than even.
I do have to say that I do care what my peers think about my music. It is nice to get an occasional
pat on the back from players who really understand where you're coming from. I like feedback from
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these people so I can improve my playing. My peers know what I was playing like a decade ago, so
they have a much better perspective on my playing.
Chicken little said...
Is it possible that there has been too much discussion on this topic (no, never!)? After all, David is
merely stating the point that it is a difficult task to both pay attention to the music and the audience
reaction. I don’t think that is too radical. If fact, I don’t think you can play your best and not be
focused 100% on the task at hand; playing (however you interpret that). I think it is great to hear
applause and, in some cases, positive comments. I doubt any well-adjusted person feels differently –
we are human beings, after all. However, when on the bandstand I have always been taught, and my
experience has shown me, that your mind should be on the music. I have had this conversation with
dozens of musicians over the years, both contemporaries and elders. There are as many opinions on
this subject as there are people, of course. The common thread I’ve found is that you can’t be all
there if you are not all there. It's as simple as that.
One last thing, I think that David’s point about good audiences’ being rare is true. It does take
practice to do anything well. Unfortunately, and this is another discussion, most people practice
watching TV and talking way to loud rather than enjoying the experience of being an audience
member.
David Valdez said...
I had a great friend named Wynne who passed away about a decade ago. Wynne used to refer to
himself as a 'professional listener'. You couldn't get anything past this guy. He paid more attention to
what was going on the bandstand than most musicians. He took his Jazz listening very, very
seriously. When he was in the audience it made me approach the music differently. He had great
musical taste so I would feel bad if I didn't come up to his standards. He knew what I was capable of
so he also knew when I wasn't really focusing. The room could be filled with drunken idiots, but if
Wynne was there I knew I had to be on. After the show he would always give me a full tune-by-tune
critique, he was always right on the money. Wynne was as musically perceptive as any professional
musician, he didn't always know the exact musical terminology but he heard the big picture.
Listeners like Wynne (though quite rare) can catapult the music to new heights just by being in the
crowd. It may sound like I'm contradicting myself by saying this. Wynne was aware of the effect that
he had on the music just by giving his entire attention to it, he knew that he played an important part
in the musician's creative process.
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Darren said...
This article from today is very relevant to this discussion. Be sure to read the whole article here:
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryID=27932
It begins: "Few people understand jazz veritably. And there isn’t any air of high and mightiness
in such a statement. In our pop-loving country, jazz isn’t commonly played over the radio; neither is
it an MTV mainstay.
Although widely celebrated in the United States, jazz this side of the world remains an almost
enigmatic entity, revered yes, but from a relatively distant vantage point. It’s just not everyone’s cup
of tea. Or it’s just too sophisticated a taste to handle. Kind of like an elaborate mural in a gallery that
people stare at for a minute or two and then leave to saunter off somewhere less complex.
Jazz is admired, almost branded as the zenith of a person’s musical journey in this little country of
ours. But seldom do we find a majority soaking themselves to the nitty-gritty. "
Mary-Sue said...
Remind me to take Hank C off my ever-growing sub list :)
As per missing the point: I think not. The question at hand is our connection with the audience and
how they relate to the music we are playing. This directly relates to the type of attitude we have
towards the audience, the music and our fellow band mates in ALL gig situations. Which, as David
points out, can be different in different situations. But, as James Genus, the KILLING bass player for
Dave Douglas once pointed out, "There are all kinds of whores. Those who will only play for money
and those who refuse to play for free." I love that guy. Anyways, maybe a little deep but I'm sure
you'll catch on.
And, hmmm, in other threads - I seem to recall a couple Dave Liebman, Bergonzi and Garzone
albums with "chromatic claptrap over 11/4 grooves" - I don't think it's anything new, OR anything to
be scared of. I can swing my ass off on a big band gig one night and happily go play "chromatic
claptrap" the next night. And free beer is always appreciated.
As per your boast that "any of us guys" can play a better version of Boogie Oogie - oh please Can I just throw up right here? I've been playing all kinds of music in clubs since I was a teenager.
I've heard all kinds of musicians playing all kinds of material in all kinds of situations. I've heard
good musicians play terrible versions of standards because they weren't into it. I've heard green kids
play smoking versions of funk tunes because they were totally into them. If your band does a killing
version of Boogie Oogie to please the crowd, well more power to you! I'm glad to hear it. I like
musicians and music to sound good. Bring it on baby.
Love, Mary-Sue
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David Valdez said...
Fine, there's nothing wrong with odd time signatures. That's just a matter of taste. Go knock
yourself out playing in 17/8.
I'm sure there's a guy out there who truly loves playing 'Boogie-oogie-ooige' but would only play
'YMCA' if forced by an evil bandleader. To him 'Boogie-oogie-oogie' (I'm embarrassed to even type
it) is high art and 'YMCA' is just commercial pap. We all have our own musical values, which we
usually have to sacrifice at some point in order to put food on the table. How do we as artists deal
with this need to compromise and still remain true to our inner voice? Will we play Blues but not
Country? Klezmer but never Polka? Disco only for more than two hundred dollars? Will we play
Moose lodges but no shopping malls? Concert halls but no clubs? I think that wherever we draw our
line in the sand is our own business. As long as we try to retain our integrity in every situation we'll
feel good about playing music. Anyone who has ever played to a pre-recorded track on a cruise ship
show band knows just how much your soul can be tortured by playing bad music. I want to feel good
about the music I play so I try to play only music I like. I might play a solo on a heavy-metal CD
project for novelty's sake, but I wouldn't join a band that I didn't like just because to pay was good. If
I had kids like Mary Sue does I'm sure my entire attitude would make a shift toward the Disco pole
(or ball rather). She doesn't mind a little 'Oogie' now and then. I bet she would learn to hate the
'Oogie' if she didn't have her other more rewarding projects to satisfy her. :-)
Chicken little said...
I really think this has gotten away from the original point. If memory serves (or rereading) this
was about what one should be doing on stage with their focus and not what one should play on stage
from the book. For all those out there who wouldn't dare play something for fear they would be
labeled a jazz heretic, well, I'd just say that is simply lame. Duke said it best, "There are two kinds of
music. Good music and the other kind." That goes for musicians as well.
HankC said...
Mary-Sue,
I'll listen to Liebs or Garzone playing "chromatic clap-trap" any day of the week, but the guys I'm
talking about bore the sh*t out of me.
THOSE GUYS have an audience & if you think Liebs DOESN'T care about his audience, then you
couldn't be more incorrect. He wouldn't still be out here, with a career if he didn't, the guy is very
self-promoting & career motivated (I meant that in a positive way)---hey, it's called selfpreservation.
I think you missed my point. "Any of us here" DOES have the ability to do a killin version of
anything, if that's our THING & we're really INTO it-most are into music that isn’t Booge Oogie,
etc.
Whatever
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Brian Berge said...
Martin Luther King Jr. didn't give speeches to pay his rent, or choose his vision according to what
the fewest people would hate. If the speech you (or I) have to make is influenced by some need like
supporting kids or rent or food or whatever, you are owned during that speech. Your service to the
necessity of your vision is diluted. Your love is polluted by fear. If you don't have a vision clear
enough to be more necessary than our circumstances, maybe the circumstances are too heavy or may
you (or I) are missing something. You don't have to make your art subject to all the other
circumstances in your life. You can manage those with something else. Einstein's real passion was
violin, but he was wise enough to not lean his need for rent $ on it, and it continued to be a free joy
to him all his life. It was probably part of his salvation, and probably powered part of what he shared
to save the rest of us.
Fear of homelessness & starvation are fear of death. Death & life come together--neither comes on
its own. Therefore, fear of death is fear of life. All of us will die some day. The chance to live free of
fear will pass. You can think about this while you're homeless, getting ready to sleep on wet park
grass & looking at the stars, still with a chance to continue YOUR music; or in the last seconds of
your life, looking back & realizing it's too late & your only chance is gone.
"The whole of life in all its aspects is one single music; and the real spiritual attainment is to tune
one's self to the harmony of this perfect music." --Hazrat Inayat Khan
"Our sages developed music from time immemorial for the mind to take shelter in that pure being
which stands apart from the body and mind as one's true self. Real music is not for wealth, not for
honors, or even for the joys of the mind, but as a path for realization & salvation. This is what I truly
feel." --Ali Akbar Khan
Chris Mosley said...
This is the deep dark hole that jazz has fallen into. Real performance is in communication with the
audience, not the personal satisfaction you get from playing what you consider a good jazz line.
Alexa Weber Morales said...
Great blog! I'm glad I found it. When I have some time I'll read more of your postings. I agree
with the last comment wholeheartedly. As a singer (let the attacks begin) I don't have the option of
checking out emotionally or hiding behind my axe (though I do play piano and percussion). I used to
try to do that, to be fair to the other cats when I was singing with a band that I didn't lead. Then I
realized I can't really disappear from view on stage--the singer is a de facto lightning rod for the
audience's attention, so pretending I'm just part of the club decor that occasionally bursts into song
was doing no one any good. I think an early stage of entertaining is hamming it up, and we all have
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to do a bit of that, but at some stage of development you get to true emotional honesty and that to me
is the goal of music. No art form has the ability to transport a listener or an audience into another
time/place/emotion the way music does.
David Valdez said...
Alexa,
I guess I would have a different perspective on this topic if I were a singer. Sadly in this culture
the singer is usually expected to be sort of a Jazz model (as in America's Top Model) as well as a
vocalist. There's enough to think about on the bandstand without worrying about looking cute.
Singers must suffer from the distraction of audience interaction more than horn players since there's
nothing standing between them and the audience (we can always pretend to adjust our reeds). Just
look at all the affectations that vocalists (gestures and vocal) take on in order to be more
'entertaining'. When I'm watching a Jazz singer perform I don't want to be distracted by silly hand
gestures and over emotional expressions that singers sometimes use to 'communicate' with the
audience. The very worst is when horn players feel that they must bob, sway and make scruntchie
faces when they play (also 'choreographed hair'). Lots of audiences react positively to this Kenny Gish type of expression, thinking that the musician is exhibiting true emotion and intensity. Usually it
is only a syrupy crowd-pleasing affectation, of a kind that makes my stomach curdle. I just want the
body expressions to be spontaneous and not just calculated and empty physical manipulations. If I
want to see silly expressions and body language I'd rather go to the circus, mime performance or a
rock concert.
David Valdez said...
I want to clarify my last comment; it might have sounded like I was bashing singers. I have to
admit that it is more interesting to watch a singer who puts on a good performance. I had to ask
myself if I expected more from a vocalist than a horn player (or rhythm section player) when it came
to stage performance. I think we all do. There are singers like Nancy King who do connect and
communicate without unnatural affectations. She engages the audience by speaking candidly to them
between tunes and by the intense emotion in her voice. As you can probably tell by the number of
posts on this topic I am quite divided about this. On one hand I want a pure high art form that doesn't
stoop to cheap thrills, and on the other hand I want to be entertained and to have a good time.
Singers can reach audiences in a way that other instrumentalists cannot. Everyone can identify with a
singer because everyone can sing. I must say that I don't envy vocalists though. I like 'blending in
with the background' if I'm a sideman. As a frontman that's not really possible, the sideman doesn't
have as much pressure to constantly entertain.
In no way was I suggesting that you were guilty of unnatural affectation Alexa. Horn players can
be even cheesier than singers if they've watched too many Springsteen (Clarence Clemmons), Kenny
G, or Dave Koz shows.
Which reminds me, Yanni was just busted for smacking his girlfriend.
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Alexa Weber Morales said...
Hi David, I didn't take that entirely as singer-bashing, no worries. But I do personally gravitate
toward artists who display a great technical foundation but then use it to convey powerful emotion.
That's the end goal, I believe. If pop music is afflicted by over-emoting, unfortunately jazz is often
branded the opposite: over-intellectual, impenetrable, and undifferentiated. I like what Nick Hornby
says about the importance of songs over unstructured jamming.
I had to laugh in fact at a horrible example of the latter recently. We were down in LA at Venice
Beach and some guys sit down with some drums and start jamming. We were eating breakfast so as
we sat we watched the "jam" develop: A bass player sauntered in and started playing the apparently
one chord he knew. Then another person came and started shaking various percussion instruments.
And a horn player sat down and blew lines over that one chord. It went on for an hour, never
changing! Of course, that's an extreme situation you wouldn't see in a club, but how often do you see
a jazz tune performed with no dynamic variation, no differentiation other than subtle modal switches
that only the most astute listener would get?
I love all types of music and perhaps people on this amazing forum don't care to hear about non-jazz
forms. I just love any sound that grabs my ear and heart and body simultaneously.
David Valdez said...
There are many styles of music that are much more emotionally intense than Jazz. Latin singers
make most Jazz singers sound like Barbara Bush. The gut wrenching emotions that Flamenco
musicians convey sometimes make me wonder whether Jazz has any real emotional content to speak
of at all. These Flamenco musicians know that they wouldn't be able to build up such feeling if they
changed keys as much as we do. Of course this is not the only reason that they play with more
emotional intensity. They just are more aware of the idea of expressing overwhelming emotion. I
don't think that we Americans are all that comfortable when people express deep emotions in
general, especially when those emotions are negative. As a society we still haven't strayed far from
our stuffy British cultural roots. Can we as Jazz musicians overcome our cultural conditioning and
really let loose? Try hanging out with some Gypsies at an all-night Flamenco jam session.
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Exchanges with Jonas Tauber
Jonas Tauber is a naturally gifted as well as a highly trained musician. He has a classical
background as a cellist but changed courses in life (as he often likes to do) and became an Avantgarde bassist. We played quite a bit together while he was living in Portland. I'd have to say that the
most rewarding experiences I've ever had playing free music were with him. This is an email he sent
me recently, in it he raises some interesting points.
“Dearest David,
I have developed ideas on bass playing, not quite consciously, over the time I have spent here with
people who practice too much in the wrong direction as far as I'm concerned, and it seems like
there's a slightly more concrete idea peeking out of the woods of too many notes: once I take a chart
and learn the melody, the harmony, play the harmony on the bass, play as much of it all together as I
can, integrate the form of the piece, or the version of the form that makes sense to me (Speak No
Evil: good example where I took and destroyed the form on the chart in a session and turned it into
an AAABAC form) it seems at that point that I forget everything I have done and concentrate on the
one thing that makes jazz beautiful as an art form to me: interactivity. With other musicians.
Listening to what's happening within whatever form that is. I have fought with my own sense of
helplessness in playing with people to have set ideas of what they were doing, feeling inadequate at
every turn, and finally found my own personal solution of just listening, reacting, and stimulating
things into a direction that made sense to me at least. Some of the other concrete ideas were that I
don't even like doing substitutions and complicated things, my solos are becoming more and more
melodic, in the older sense, singing solos as well as bass lines on the instrument so that somehow the
melodic integrity of the bass line frees certain things up in the soloist, while spontaneously jiving
with the drummer or rhythm part of the composition and/or band, be it a chart or free playing
(becoming more and more similar to me by the way), and that way creating a sense of synergy
between the music that is happening and the muse herself that is simply the most stimulating thing I
can think of besides sex... Two cents for no real reason except each time I get an email from you and
read the blogs this pops up in my head.
Hope you are well!
Best, Jonas
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David Valdez said...
Jonas,
Good points. By writing about all this theoretical shit I'm sort of catching up on the stuff that I
didn't really learn in school. I want to know as much about theory as I can now. I don't want my
playing to be bogged down it though. Things we take for granted that we learned how to do early on
as students are actually still quite complex. We no longer need to think about these fundamentals any
more, they have become reflex. I think it's the same way with a lot of the theoretical ideas on my
blog. They may not be natural at first but with practice they become second nature. This stuff isn't
brain surgery after all. Take some of Mover's subs for example, at first they were totally foreign to
me and I couldn't incorporate any of them into my playing. After thinking about them and slowly
putting them into practice they started to make musical sense to me. What seemed unnatural at first
became natural, logical and second nature over time. I still am only comfortable with a few of the
subs, but I hear how the others work and they sound like classic Bop ideas to me. I hear Bird doing
some of them and he sounds perfectly relaxed and melodic. I think it is the same with any of this
material. It will always seem foreign and stiff at first but with time and practice it becomes reflex. It
all depends on how the player approaches the music. A sad player can make the simplest tri-tone sub
sound stiff and weird. Then you have someone like Keith Jarrett glide over freaked out substitutions
like he was playing major scales. It's all in the approach. I want to know all of it. Mohammed once
said,” Seek knowledge even unto China". I don't think that you can know too much about music.
Knowledge of complex theory won't spoil your concept unless you forget what good music is all
about. A player should have no problem studying complex theory and then throwing it all out the
window to play totally free.
I see your point about players who practice too much in the wrong direction (the European
Conservatory trained Jazz musician or the Brecker-headed American). These players are legion. But
isn't it their musical concept that is lacking rather than the theory that they are studying? I guess for
me the solution to all of this has been not to practice, ever. Practicing can ruin your creativity and
your entire musical concept. Don't do it! That would be my solution to this dilemma. Study theory
but don't practice it. :-) Seriously though, I think it's better to learn things on the bandstand in a
musical situation rather than in the woodshed. If you work things out too much by yourself then
you'll probably sound stiff, too clean, lick-ridden and generally square. I do agree with you about
practicing the wrong things. It's just as important, if not more, to be listening to good music and
playing with good players. I would never suggest to a student of mine to practice as little as I did/do.
When I was much younger I did put in quite a few hours in the shed. I guess each player needs to
find the right balance for himself or herself. For you that balance was to get back to your own voice
rather than practicing what others were practicing.
MonksDream said...
I like what Jonas has to say, and sure, it's easy to nerd out and spend way too much time on
theory. But, as a horn player, it's interesting to go study with a piano player to see how they think
about music, who in turn, might say, "oh yea, sometimes you guys play this stuff that sounds
awesome, like different linear sequences, and then I (the piano player) look at it and it doesn't make
any sense until I get the sound in my head and notice that it's a purely linear melodic structure."
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Similarly we all try out different stuff. It’s in a multiplicity of approaches. Hafez Modirzadeh told
me that he ran away from NEC because a certain fairly renowned composer there told him that he
wasn't playing everything that he was hearing but his approach was based on training himself to hear
new things as he incorporated them into his playing.
I personally find it almost impossible to play "licks" that someone else played but I still will figure
out portions of tunes and play through solos and occasionally things will pop out by accident. There
are sections in Bird's solos where you can hear eight full bards of Stravinsky's Firebird Suite and
even a section that someone pointed out that came from Klose's daily exercises for saxophone, that I
used to think was like drinking down Castor Oil.
Some of the free players I know spend all day playing through classical etudes and some guys
transcribe like crazy. Others of us spend some periods of time on theory. I sometimes just think its
mental gymnastics but it all seems to help me slowly become a less mediocre, er, or shall I say,
better musician.
Jonas Tauber said...
Here's an answer to what you said furthermore. The concept I have when I practice is to try and
reach a point at every moment where what I hear comes out of the instrument. That's a point I make
when I teach. Play what you hear. Cliché, I know, but taken the right way it really works wonders.
Then, a friend of mine who is a drummer here quoted Mover who quoted someone else, forget who,
who said it's only when you start playing shit you have not yet heard that you are making music. To
add a third point, music is a live art. Almost exclusively, in the traditional sense, except for dance,
and in modern situations many things have become live time-bound performance art. Never mind
that, the fact that music is intended for audience consumption, in any sense: the audience being
people who listen either to your CDs or concerts, and I wonder sometimes how much of the
technical stuff, no matter how natural it comes to feel to the musician, actually registers to an
audience member!? An audience member who, in very concrete terms, will probably not be a
musician (if he or she paid to hear you) or will have taken music lessons at some point but definitely
will have stopped at some point in their musical development way before that which you are doing!
Meaning that fine line between audience-pleaser and hungry purist seems to be turning shades of
grey more and more.
The killer punch line comes out of my last two concerts playing solo. Festivals, large-ish crowds,
my first couple times daring to have no concept of anything that I would do on stage before actually
being there -- whether structure nor composition nor forms/textures/whatever. Trying to reach "true
improvisation" as it were. The result was literally screaming crowds, people from all walks of life, in
response to free improv. Crazy. But I have a hunch (even though I don't think I will play more than
two of those a year ever) that it is due to a certain kind of listening--defined as listening to the
audience listening to you. The silence that results from taking three or four seconds of time between
getting on stage/tuning/whatever and actually beginning to play is the seed out of which everything
grows, I believe, in fact not even style-bound. I started experimenting with that silence when I was
playing a lot of classical cello recitals and concertos: literally changed the energy of the concert
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completely. In free improvisation, listening to the sound of the energy of expectation coming from
the audience, letting it pass through you, and crystallizing that energy into sound of some sort really
creates an incredible vibe.
Anyway, I have found myself a much happier jazz musician if I can try at least to achieve some
level or percentage of that kind of listening at every single stupid money making gig I play. Sounds
insanely trite and Buddhist, possibly, but I can't help it: there were so many situations that easily
could have deteriorated, quickly, into horrible hell-raising terrifying non-listening disgusting antimusical background grinding never-ending torture, but except for a few exceptions I have somehow
been able to manage to find a key at least for myself to have an enjoyable musical time.
And I appreciate being made to think. It's important to think about things...
David Valdez said...
Jonas,
You just touched on a few topics that I've been writing about for a while. One is relating to the
audience. Do you find that it is a significantly different experience playing for European audiences
as compared to American audiences? Are European audiences moved by different things than their
American counterparts are?
On the topic of music as a 'live art', if you're playing something in an improvisation just the way
that you practiced then there's something wrong. I think that this is the problem with many young
'technical players' today. At what point does a music idea stop being an improvisation and become
through composed. I think that this line is often crossed far before the lay-audience realizes it. Yes, it
sounds cool and clean, but is it musical and spontaneous? Myself, I would rather hear creative, raw,
emotional and loose than cool, clean and technical. How can you really interact when you're playing
something that you worked out while you were practicing?
There is a point of balance that is possible between these two poles, but I don't hear it very often
in a lot of younger players.
Thanks for your deep musical insights.
Jonas Tauber said...
Musical audiences are definitely different to play for: they are silent, even in clubs, listening with
great (classical) attention. It feels like certain things go over much more consciously in terms of
harmonic variety: like playing a solo over changes and using the melodic aspect to create the tension
and release really seems to arrive here. More people have actually studied classical instruments even
if they don't play professionally. And there is a love of jazz music that is like when you love
something or someone you don't understand, or understand from a totally different perspective.
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As sick as this may sound, I miss the talking, clanging glasses, rude bar owners and general
craziness of the jazz scene in the states.
Swing. There's a concept that doesn't really exist here. I found one maybe two drummers so far
that can really swing -- the euro-swing is a totally different planet. Changes the way you walk on the
bass, and I have to be really strong to get certain things across, like playing at different points in the
beat to create different feel. Jeez! But it's fun...
Interview with Bob Reynolds
DCV: Tell me about your latest CD?
BR: I’m incredibly proud of it. Couldn’t be happier. The record was recorded last year and will be
out in late March/early April on the Barcelona jazz label Fresh Sound New Talent. It features 10
songs composed by me and an incredible band: Aaron Goldberg, piano and Rhodes; Reuben Rogers,
bass; Eric Harland, drums; Mike Moreno, guitar; David Soler, pedal steel guitar. It is a very songbased record. The songs are the focus, not merely jumping-off points for extended solos. I would
categorize it as melodic, groove-oriented progressive jazz. I explore a variety of settings within the
10 tracks: there are songs that are quartet with piano, with rhodes, or with guitar, quintet songs, a trio
song, songs that have a pedal steel guitar, one song that I like to describe as what might happen if I
spent a day in the studio with Brian Eno. It’s a very exciting mix, but it never feels disjunctive.
There are 3 songs in odd meters -- 11/8, 15/8, and 9/4 -- and all are grooving so hard (thanks to the
great band!) that you’d have to be alerted to know something “odd” was going on. It’s fresh, and
hopefully lends itself to lots of repeat listening.
DCV: Your music seems accessible to a wide audience, yet to me it doesn't seem like you're
dumbing down your playing or selling out. How do you think about your music in terms of
commercially viability and artistic integrity?
BR: I would never dumb anything down. Why should something have to be of lesser quality to be
enjoyable to lots of people? I believe that one shouldn’t have to compromise one’s artistic ambitions
to reach people. I think the real issue is the quality of the communication. If you’re successful, that
just means you’re doing a good job communicating your artistic message. There is a quality about
my music that seems to make it appealing to more than just jazz fans. I think it has something to do
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with the fact that I love melody, strong grooves — which exist in swing, too — and vibe. It’s all
about a vibe. I think it just comes back to trying to tell good stories. Are you telling a story that
others would like to hear? Are you interacting with the band AND the audience, or are you just
playing for yourself?
I began noticing on gigs down south that I would get a much stronger audience response when I
performed my music than when I played a standard. Why? Because when I’m playing a standard, it’s
background music to them. They’ve heard so many other people play it. When it’s mine, there’s
something personal there. Audiences respond to that. All that said, every single time I put the sax on
my mouth, I’m trying to be the best, and most creative, interactive, musical player I’m capable of
being. I think if you get an audience onboard with you, they will follow whatever musical path you
take them down.
DCV: What is your process when composing?
BR: Normally, I hear something and am compelled to get it out of my head. Sometimes it starts
with a melody I hear while walking around or traveling. Most times it comes from a groove. It could
be a bass line or a simple chord progression. I tend to hear the foundation first and then the melodies
sort of show themselves to me. I’ve always loved simple melodies with dramatic chord progressions.
Wayne Shorter is a master of the simple melody over the sophisticated harmony. As a composer, I
loathe the sound of II V I’s and have always avoided them when I write, though I negotiate them all
the time as a player. I draw inspiration from lots of non-jazz sources. The opening track of my album
is based on a 2 bar harmonic progression and bass line I heard D’Angelo do on a record by the hiphop artist Common.
I write at the piano, not the sax. I always write where I originally hear it. As a result, I have a lot of
songs in keys that are uncharacteristically “tenor”, i.e. B, E, A, Db....
Many times I’ll have a short idea that waits around for a while for me to expand or develop it, other
times stuff comes out fast, almost fully formed.
DCV: Who are your biggest influences right now?
BR: Kurt Rosenwinkel, Brian Blade Fellowship, and composers Thomas Newman, Mark Isham,
Ralph Vaughn Williams, and Aaron Copeland. Also, I’m really into Kanye West’s “Late
Registration” right now, and revisiting Sonny Rollins’ “Saxophone Colossus” - forgot how
AMAZING it is! And though I’m on hiatus to avoid burnout, Radiohead has been my most exciting
and influential discovery of the last 4 years.
DCV: How did it come about that Josh Redman put one of your tunes in his book?
BR: I met Josh at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1999 where we were both performing. I played
with my quartet on the Garden Stage in a well-attended afternoon show. He was the sold-out closing
act of the last festival of the millennium on the main stage. It just so happened that Reuben Rogers
— who was Josh’s bass player at the time — was checking out my show because he was friends
with my bass player. He told Josh about me and we were introduced later that night in the hotel
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lobby. We kept in touch over the years and he was always very nice to me. Last year, when I was
preparing to record my album, I gave him a CD that had a few songs on it that I’d recorded in a
Brooklyn living room. He was very encouraging of the music and when I showed him the finished
product a few months later, he was so enthusiastic and felt that I’d captured something unique,
something soulful. He went out of his way to help me get the CD in some people’s hands and
provided lots of helpful feedback that helped me make some important decisions about everything
from sequencing to publishing.
Last fall he asked me if I would be ok with him performing a song from my new album – Nine
Lives – and I think I said something like “Are you SERIOUS?” So a couple weeks later I was at the
Blue Note in New York and Josh was introducing my song and me and it was very surreal.
DCV: What kind of sideman work have you been doing in NYC?
BR: My bread and butter gig over the past 5 years has been with a singer-songwriter named Jonah
Smith. Jonah plays a mean rhodes, writes fantastic songs and (though he’s a white Jewish guy from
Syracuse) sings kind of like an old black man. He (and our band of five years) was recently signed to
Relix Records and we finished recording a CD produced by Lee Townsend (Charlie Haden, Bill
Frisell, Charlie Hunter) that’ll be out in May. I’ve also been recording and touring with another
singer-songwriter named Nellie McKay. That band includes Lonnie Plaxico on bass and Carl Allen
on drums. I recently recorded an album with Tom Harrell and Gregory Hutchinson for a guitarist
named Rale Micic. I have performed or recorded with Willie Nelson, Jessica Simpson, Live at the
Apollo’s Ray Chew and the Crew, Aaron Goldberg, Brian Blade, Reuben Rogers, Eric Harland,
James Moody, Cindy Blackman, Bob Brookmeyer, Kevin Mahogany, Jam/Funk band Lettuce, Eric
Krasno (of Soulive), Nathan East, Harvey Mason, and smooth jazz saxophonist Walter Beasley.
DCV: What do you see happening in the Jazz industry in the next decade?
BR: Hard to say. Everything is so DIY these days. I wonder if I’ll get to make another CD or if it
will all be straight to iTunes? I think there are some very positive things out there. MySpace is
developing into a positive medium to connect with like-minded music enthusiasts. We’ll see if all
the response I’m getting there translates into album sales when the disc comes out. There’s also
podcasts – which I’m just getting hip to. But there are all these specialized jazz shows and
broadcasts, which make new music more accessible to interested listeners. I think jazz, music,
trends, life....it’s all cyclical. I think we’re entering a new era of fusion. Not fusion with a capital F
like in the 70’s, but there are just so many more influences that are being brought to the table and
jazz is the ultimate platform for mixing and experimenting with different style. Probably after that, it
will be time for a retro, return of the young lions thing. Who knows?
DCV: How do you think the scene has changed in NYC in recent years?
BR: Well, I’ve only been here for 5 years, but I would say it’s changed a lot. The young lions are
no longer young and all who attempted to follow in their footsteps found a dissimilar fate. I wouldn’t
say it’s worse, but it’s different. Speaking for myself, it’s taken time to get my bearings. I’m only
now starting to come to terms with the fact that I don’t have to prove myself to anyone or follow in
some path that I thought was the only way when I was in high school. I came here thinking that I had
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to go to all the jam sessions and prove that I was the baddest cat and that would lead to all the choice
sideman gigs and eventually my own thing.... wrong!!! I HATE lame jam sessions and avoid them at
all costs. There is nothing musical about soloing over Airegin after 5 egotistical trumpet players have
just gotten their rocks off and a belabored rhythm section is begrudgingly — or sloppily — chugging
along beneath you.
I think less people go out to hear ‘jazz’ but there’s also more varieties of jazz to be heard. There’s
more fragmentation but also more acceptance. The biggest problem I have with the New York jazz
scene is that its audience is 90% jazz musicians. Why? Either those are the only people interested in
the breed of jazz being played, or the musicians don’t know how to reach an audience. I didn’t get
into music to perform for musicians alone.
New York is part legend and part myth. I do believe that people, myself included, construct idyllic
visions of what life in NYC as a jazz musician must be like, but it’s not really like whatever you’re
thinking! That said, if you really have a passion for the music you are playing, then there is nowhere
else in the world like it. The best musicians you’ve ever heard of are based here, as are the best
you’ve NEVER heard of, which is the real soul of the scene. That’s what New York is about. It
keeps you on your toes, at the top of your game. It also bonds you with all these other fantastic
musicians who are here to play at the highest level they can. Sacrifice is the common denominator.
It’s easy to get lost, though. For me, New York has been as much about finding out who I’m not and
what I don’t like as it has been the opposite.
DCV: You mentioned a while ago that you considering moving to the NW. Is the NYC scene
wearing you down?
BR: You know, New York can wear on you, but it can also be so invigorating. I think one needs
space in order to love it again. I know I won’t be here forever, but I know I’ll always miss it when I
leave. This is my first time visiting the Northwest and I’m interested to check out the scene, but New
York, for the moment, is definitely home.
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Carlos Valdez senior and Matisse
Being the only son of a painter I grew up listening to my father's ideas about the mystical
experience of art. As a kid I was bored out of my skull when he would start rambling on and on
about art, but as I grew older I realized that pops had given my a pretty decent artistic education. I
just applied everything he talked about to Jazz music. It would behoove every Jazz musician to take
some time to study the writings of the masters. Visual artists often have more developed philosophic
concepts about the artistic process.
Here's a note my father sent me about abstract expressionism. Carlos senior could be described as
an abstract expressionist painter, so here's what he has to say about one of his favorite paintersMatisse.
"You mentioned being an abstract expressionist playerSo what if a line bleeds through or some canvas shows?
Matisse worked those elements intuitively, brought them along with the rest of the painting.
They had as much rich distilled feeling as anything else in the painting.
Did this make the painting complex? no
Matisse condensed his elements fantastically- some wonderful works are nothing but a few
scratches.
He said that he wanted an art free of all troubling subject matterwhat he really wanted was to be in his oriental paradise, and he did get there.
Imagine decades of that experience of beauty.
He called it in his characteristically concise way- expression.
I can't understand how he was ever recognized-his work is so subtle.
Contemporaries talk of seeing him scrape away works of fantastic beauty- that's not what he was
after.
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He said that he experienced god at those times when he did something that he was not capable of,
but he felt cheated that that was as close as he could come.
I found this Matisse quote"Instinct must be thwarted just as one prunes the branches of a tree so that it will grow better."
but you know he got his major jollies when he worked-intuitively.
Maybe he meant something different than it seems.
I think that Matisse followed the sense of what mattered to himself in his art no matter what.
He learned everything he could about painting then simply left himself open to what might happen.
He was suicidal at times in despair over being unable to do what he needed to do. He lived through
two world wars where artists were starving- but if he could identify with it stayed in. This can be
seen in the work just after the fauvist period. Once that was solidly established, which I believe
involved cultivating his nervous system as a Tibetan monk would do- through the practice of
painting.
He went to the light and ultimately transcended himself.
The Matisse flower is actually a tamed demon. - Carlos Valdez”
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