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Wow Scott, we can't beat a video. That's commitment

However, please check as the links don't work. It asks me to login.

Oops... had it set up wrong. The links should work now.

Excellent Scott! First of all the camera angle is fantastic for studying your voicings. The solo intro had lots of great ideas there. I'll have to watch a few times more. There were many interesting voicings there.

Your improv was wonderful. Very intervallic style which I like a lot. I'll probably have more comments as I watch it a few times. It's really different when using video.

Don't worry about having a finished product type of recording. That's not for this thread. We're into one take with all the flubs

How did you record this BTW? I can see the little tripod.

Thanks jazzwee! Let me know if you have any questions about anything I'm playing.

Here's a picture of how I setup the camcorder. It's pretty ugly!

http://www.box.net/shared/bbf13ri96a

I already had the webcam attached to the music stand to test out teaching over Skype. Then I just leaned the camcorder over and balanced it there! I had to use movie maker to flip the image around the right way. Hopefully I'll figure out something better sometime.

OMG! That's pretty complex. I knew it couldn't be that easy.

Yeah I was analyzing the beginning portion and you had some voicing for the A7 that appeared to have both an 11 and a #11. the #11 being the bottom note. That was interesting.

Then at first I was confused with the Cm7 in bar 4, but then I realized you immediately went to F7b9 which changed the sound.

This tune is really neat because there's so much you can do.

I have to go slowly as the stuff moves very quickly. You have a very adept LH btw with those arpeggios on E-m7b5.

that's somethin' else!!

Are you looking at the head? I think we must be understanding the changes differently because I'm not sure what A7 with an 11 and #11 you're looking at Also not sure about the left hand Em7b5...maybe if you give me the times on the video I can clarify?

Scott, I'm not sure how doodle tonguing helped you on the piano. You really ought to have some sort of key coatings for that, otherwise it'll start to develop mold between the keys.

But seriously, since doodle tonguing (as I understand it) is saying "Da dle, di dle, do dle instead of ta ta ta ta ta ta " while playing to articulate notes faster on wind instruments, I'm not sure how you benefited from this. Was it the idea of 'Da' being strong and 'dle' being weak? Or?

Very funny . Yeah, it is mostly for wind instruments but it does help get the feel of how things get articulated... weak, strong, long, short, etc. I was particularly enlightened by the triplet subdivision. Here's the overview of the approach:

http://www.box.net/shared/pltff0yaae

In the explanation it says "doo-od-le" but in practice it really sounds more like "doo-duh-luh". It has to roll smoothly. I've learned to hear that in my mind and feel it when I'm playing swing and it helps me lock into the groove.

Scott it was the first two chords. It seemed like some extra figure that you used again later so it seemed to be an insert in the regular changes. On one the bottom note was Eb and then I saw a D up higher.

Since the first two chords are E-7b5 A7b9, I just figured it was a voicing for that.

BTW - I just stepped to the piano for a moment and your voicing ideas gave me ideas for myself on how to spread out some of those chords.

Hey, I just tried it out, and wow it completely changes how I play. I didn't read all of the article yet, but can really see how thinking about doo duh luh gives a different pulse and swing than when I don't think about it.

A good jazz drummer is supposed to imply that triplet feel. Which reminds me of our jam drummer. Doesn't swing and it affects the way I play.

BTW - Scott, you got learn from Prof. Ron Carter?

I watched him in a Marsalis movie on Jazz bands doing the Ellington Competition. Really good stuff. That's really great training. Here in the west coast, there's less focus on the swing. You were lucky to experience that.

Ok, I see it now. On the second chord it looks like I'm playing Eb with my left hand 5 finger. I'm actually not playing that key. What I'm doing there is doubling the melody note A on the bottom with my LH thumb. That's the general approach that I take to the melody... doubling the melody on the bottom and filling in harmony in the middle.

When you get some voicings worked out I'd like to see them.

Yeah, Ron Carter is the head of the jazz program at Northern Illinois where I did my graduate degree. I took several classes with him. I was definitely lucky to have such good teachers there, not to mention other students who were kickin' my butt! My private weekly piano lessons were with Willie Pickens. He was really great and helped me alot. If you haven't heard him play here's a video from when he played with Elvin Jones...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvzDXhhrpgI

And a couple other interesting videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezzwbKPswzU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS2HWLZpvbI

Actually no, he was playing scales that fell outside of the chords as if the chords were stand alone objects. For example I think he may have used for example the note 'B or Cb' in a scale function (rather than a passing chromatic tone between two scale notes) when playing the Gbmaj chord, but this is really a poor choice given that the melody has a C in it and the Gbmaj chord is probably closer to a Gbmaj#11 as Sam plays it (given that it is Sam's tune).

I know there are no hard and fast rules concerning all of this, but to my ears Jaki was playing the changes without proper attention to the function of the changes. And that's what, IMHO, makes the tune difficult-- to make musical sense of the chords as a continuous flow rather than isolated scales that don't have any relation to each other.

Some specific questions on Beatrice...

The questions are related to the function of D- and A-. The key of the tune is in Bb but of course the D- and A- are clearly not ii chords. So I'm trying to determine if they should be iii or vi. For he D-, I've been moving around both. For the A-, I'm treating it as a iii.

These tunes require a little bit of analysis since the function is vague.

What have you guys been doing here?

BTW - I play GbMaj7#11 and EbMaj#11 as it happens to be the chords on iRealBook. It's in the melody so this has to be the correct one. I noticed that a lot of Fakebooks just assume the #11 in many tunes since you'd think Lydian anyway on a standalone major chord. But it's clearer with the #11 stated.


The melody gives a pretty good guide on how to solo on this IMHO. So I've already done a run through and I'd like to change some of my first try approaches.

EDIT - it appears that this question is related to your Jaki Byard comment. Unless you had time to analyze this, the scale attached to the chords are not entirely clear. So it suggests that someone laid the changes on them just before recording. Or didn't do their homework.

It's hard to go further if you are thinking the tune is in Bb. It should be in F, which makes the Dm and Am the respective vi and iii.

So the question becomes not really what to do on these chords, but the ones attached to them (Ebmaj and Bbmaj) I'd agree that the Ebmaj is a #11 and then so is the Bbmaj too. Even though you might look at the Bb and say it's in F maj (IV) it really isn't functioning that way.

Not sure if i have the definitions right but I'd say the Ebmaj, Bbmaj, and the Gbmaj are all some type of upper auxiliary or non functioning chord ( is that the term) Scott went to school for this so I'll bet he knows what they're called.

It's almost as if someone else had pointed this out on this very thread...

No sorry Scep, I meant the KEY SIGNATURE of the lead sheet.

Do you interpret those minor chords as F?

EDIT - we keep editing our posts so it's confusing.

So OK I understand what you mean about the Major chords. I used the term stand-alone as that is my perception of them. The term is "non-functional progression" I believe.

And I've interpreted them as vi and iii so looks like we agree.

I can't a good groove in my lines playing this because I feel like it always takes an unexpected twist. So it needs to sink in more.

Hey Scott, where did you get the idea of using those triad pairs. It's a very familiar motif and it sounds really good.

You're just playing diatonically with the chord/scale right?