It seems unlikely that he didn't know exactly what he was doing, judging by the quality and harmonic sophistication of his arrangements. The way the voicings move around in a parallel way make harmonic juxtapositions like that quite common. I think he may have got those ideas from Horace Silver. You can hear the same kind of thing in this tune …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOK-Lkxbwsg

Well this is my point. A lot of minor blues tunes are really modal tunes. I don't really know why that is but a standard blues scale doesn't work on minor blues.

Minor tunes also lend themselves to quartal harmony, or even minor/major harmony.

So What can be played in such interesting ways that I didn't realize before.

Interesting how he limits himself to functional harmony. The (limited) chromatic movement introduces more modal elements which he doesn't address (unless it's in the small print -- I just looked at the changes).

Like this maybe ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CmDq4GKSLw&feature=related

Blues scale is just a starting point

...which brings me to ask the question: why do I to worry about focusing on a blues scale? My teacher once told me. If you're not into blues then don't worry about it.

Why can't I just treat blues more in these terms?

I7 - IVAlt - VAlt

Then the whole chromatic scale is open instead of just thinking Blues scale. Now I can't yet hear what Pilc hears when he starts sounding out but I think this is more fun to me to explore than simple blues.

Now obviously I've played blues but I'm just not interested in taking it further the traditional way.

No, I have to disagree. I believe everything Oliver Nelson wrote was just a fluke really. The notes on the page being somewhat like the paint splatters of a Jackson Pollock painting in his later years. It just so happened that everything fell in place and sounded cool. He was just lucky I guess.

Just kidding, of course.

My favourite Oliver Nelson tune Butch and Butch:

I think everyone needs to have some real working knowledge of the blues if they are going to play jazz properly. This doesn't necessarily mean that one has to play blues scales or licks in every line (ugh), but it is a basic part of the jazz vocabulary. It's all the Anglo Saxon words in the jazz language. In the video you posted Pilc is clearly explaining that he imagines melody to be words and sentences, and that the difference between playing intervallically and melodically, in his view, is that by playing intervallically you may know where you are, but may not know where you're going. Which seems to me that it is the same as saying that someone may know how to blow over the changes, but lacks direction in their melodic content. The musical phrases lack meaning. So, in my opinion, sometimes the blues language is a good way to get yourself centered again, at least for a bar or two once you've left the tonal constraints of key, chords and melodic sense.
And by the way, even in his examples he's playing blues stuff, albeit in a few different tonal centers juxtaposed over the F blues chords.

Oh no no no. A minor blues is a minor blues is a minor blues.
Has nothing to do with modal minor tunes.

A blues:

...and to further the discussion of the blues scale... at 2:50 as well as 3:05 of this clip this is what I'm talking about. KJ does all this stuff leading away from the tonal centre for long periods of time, BUT at those two places (and probably more later, but I chose to write this before listening to the whole thing), he references the blues scale-- the first time in a different tonal centre, then the second, the tritone leap, within the key.
If its good enough for KJ, its good enough for me.

Wait a minute. This is a major blues. Are you trying to trick us, Chris?

By the way, why aren't you posting recordings anymore?

It is true that SOMETIMES the mistakes are the best bits ;-)

But of course dear chap, a minor blues is a minor blues; it's a major thing.

Many reasons. Foremost; family-work. Two small kids (1.5 + 4) takes up a lot of my time, my wife has been getting a lot of gigs lately - there goes my evenings.
as for work, I've been heavily involved in a cd production featuring bassist Palle Danielsson, there's been loads of last minute changes . . . apart from producing (recording/mixing) I've also designed the cover . . anyhow, it arrived from the printers today (release in Sweden the 28th Feb, end of March the rest of the Vürld) . . so my practice time has been cut short.

But fear not, I'm at it again. And will post some solo piano shortly.

And sometimes Jarrett vamps on a simple blues scale idea for 10 minutes at a go. I can't find any examples on youtube but almost every jarrett album has a 10 minutes bluesy vamp. One of my faves is the first track on Nude ants, awesome the way he builds the solo up from a few blues licks.

You call those reasons? You Northerners are really lazy.

Looking forward to it!

Must be my English work-ethic then . . .

Jarrett solo at a sound check, somewhere in the South of France I believe, burning on Butch and Butch doing his Oscar Peterson imitation; walking bass et al:
http://www.box.com/s/yp9jinx7z4uf8j3qcnl4

As there is a shortage of music her is what I was playing today ...

[video:youtube]http://youtu.be/Ng8BhnF2VvI[/video]
I am also playing the blues but didn't record it. Maybe tomorrow

Nice Dave!

I think the functional harmony is the basis for chromaticism. The chromatic ideas momentarily imply substitute changes that are functionally connected to the basic harmonic structure.

The chromatic scale is useless if you can't imply functional direction. I think what players like Pilc are doing is stretching ideas over layers of functional harmonic substitions. Think of playing an Eb triad and F triad over Cm, but alternating between those triads and Db and B triads. The Db and B triads are very functional if you trace the steps back. They are diatonic triads outlining a Db7 chord... and a Db7 chord is a tritone sub of G7, which is obviously V of the Cm. So you're really just switching back and forth between Cm and G7... nothing fancy at all.

Chris, so are you saying that Footprints and Stolen Moments cannot be played as modal tunes?

Scott, of course I know that a dominant chord half a step away is a Tritone sub.

But you're missing what I'm saying. When Herbie Moves chromatically from Cm7 to C#m7 or back to Bm7, that is not a Tritone sub. Once I start playing that with Fourth voicings, we are in completely different territory.

Very common thing in So What is to play the fourth voicings a step away in the scale. And then start thinking Half-Steps like Ebsus /D, Esus/D Fsus/D, F#sus/D.

Now of course the harmonic movement in scale steps is the melody to Little Sunflower.

Is everything to be viewed as vertical responses to the changes? What happened to common tones?

The reason I view tunes with long stretches of minor chords differently is that the harmony can be made vague by quartal harmony, ala McCoy Tyner.

So when there's opportunity to stretch out of functional harmony, I like to explore a little different approach. Focusing on 1-3-5 on Mr PC at 240bpm for 10 choruses isn't all that interesting to me.

Ehh no.
Both tunes is a modal tune.

Come on, that WAS the blues man. That Prokofiev was a bad mutha. I found myself tapping along and humming the tune.

But hey, in all seriousness, nice stuff. I'm not sure I could read through charts like that without getting a bit frustrated.

These types of movements are still heard functionally, otherwise the tonal gravity of the original harmony is lost.



I don't think there's anything vague about this type of harmonic approach. It would be vague if you couldn't tell what the foundation is... a minor chord.



I don't want to play 1-3-5 for 10 choruses either. But I also don't want to play stuff that doesn't give the sense that Cm is the resting place. Earlier when we were doing recordings of lines without accompaniment, the goal was to make the lines give the sense of the harmonic movement. I think this is the same thing, except when we move away, we have to always give a sense of the underlying stability.

All blues, whether major or minor, can be approached with the blues scale, or with modes... or both at the same time. As long as there is something functional that connects whatever it is you are doing. This is why, in order to be a jazz player in the true sense, we have to understand and absorb the language. We can't just play stuff because we know about some theory to support it. It all has roots in function and that's what makes it work and what makes it jazz. It's evolution and has to be understood that way. The hard part I think, is unravelling it all. I'll be doing that for the rest of my life.

Well, let's agree to disagree then.

Quartal harmony in my mind already implies a vague tonality so if that implies something different to you then of course we'll be coming from different directions. One of the things I do when I play a quartal harmony on minor tunes, or modal minor tunes, is to not continously imply the third of the chord and focus on the 11th instead.

I specifically look to approach my minor chords differently. This is one of the reasons you disagreed with my note choices on Stella, and it was on a minor chord.

Let's just say my modern jazz lessons influences me in a different way. I don't intend to look at all progressions functionally. I think of it based on the intent of the tune. And if I define my approach on a tune as modal, then as far as I'm concerned, all "functional" rules go out the window.

Now of course, one could attack anything functionally, but I'm just leaving the option for myself not to.

McCoy does the same thing with more major tunes as well, and tunes that run through different key centres.
It does lead to a certain flatting out of the harmony, a relaxation of voice leading and dominant-tonic relationship, although he usually brings a bit of that in as well.

Passion dance for example is a more major/dominant tonality primarily

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

Thanks Sceptical. It does have a kinda blues feel, I guess maybe it investigates the same emotions.
Playing any kind of music can be frustrating maybe, but I am not really reading it, just using the sheet music to jog my memory to remind me how it goes. I am bad at proper memorisation, too lazy for it. I save that mainly for jazz tunes.