Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Jazz Study Group 2: Advanced Players

FINALLY!!!!!

To be fair though, there are a few different versions of the first 4 bars, and this might throw people off. I've also never heard it as uptempo either. Strange.

And this is one of my favorite tunes that I haven't played in a while.

Also re Knotty mystery tune:

For those still puzzling this out, the bass line is REALLY far from what would normally be played, at least from my experience anyways.

In both Knotty and Scott's examples, I'd say that they were both staying far away from giving any clues as to what one might normally solo over these changes.

Scep.
Really? I'm playing the real book changes. To me that movement in the first 2 measures makes the tune. Since the melody strictly outlines the chord, I'm curious as to what you'd play.

I know that Dave F. reharms it quite a bit, and that's just to his own liking. But I can't be that far off ...

I do agree that this is one of the most beautiful melodies out there. I love the open melody moving up. It really has something happy about it.

I will have more coming. Isn't this fun?


Chris, already 2012 where you are? Still 9 hours to go over here ....

I just played the real book changes too. What changes would you play exactly? I'd be curious to try them.

When you guys said Dave F., then I already guessed without listening. Then I listened and sure enough, I GOT IT. It's something that doesn't happen much where I am

I thought the solos were really misleading, like you stayed deliberately away from shaping the solo anywhere near the melody.

And back to Stella for a moment. You guys were commenting on chord tones and as I said, I've tended to play this tune differently. I sat down and looked at the melody that was mostly about common tones with the 9th resolving. Lots of 9ths and 11ths and 13ths.

If I played this tune strictly based on chord tones I felt like I was straying heavily from the melody that obviously focused on extensions.

So when I heard it played strictly by Chord tones, it sounded like a completely different tune. Let's debate that a little.

What's the more important guide? The melody or the strict harmony? I'm often criticized for not sticking to the melody much. And here I'm thinking of the melody mostly and so my ear biases towards extensions. I tried playing it again and it's true, on this tune I do play lots of extensions on downbeats.

Maybe that's why my teacher never cites me for harmonic departures when playing this tune. He's usually pretty quick to cut me off if he doesn't like it. And I've played this often in front of him.

Well, maybe I've since adapted from the changes I learned, but I'd go (in another key):

Bmaj F#7/A#, D7/A Ab7alt, Gmaj D/F#, Em Em/D, C#m7, F#7 C, Bmaj

...but now that I've played it a number of times today with what you guys are doing from the real book, I am again reminded that there are pretty basic chords for the tune, save the first transition from the first to second chord.

For what it's worth, I'd still think that the bass line would have to be played with proper leading tones to give it a better direction.

I think they're both important. Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that in early jazz improvisations were based entirely on melodic embellishments with little or no thought given to the chords. And bebop was born out of the idea of treating the chords as the foundation for improv. I think hard bop sort of fused the two together. Now, I guess it depends on what you like and what type of tune it is in terms of it's melodic and harmonic structure.

Listen to some early Louis and see how much is outlining chords.
I think bebop simply sets a new bar in terms of virtuosity. New tempos, faster changes.

This to me highlights the difference between Charlie Parker and everything else.
[video:youtube]T9cZF2dOZPM[/video]

I have yet to hear a more beautiful solo.
His solo starts at about 6:10. But listen to the whole thing because it's a marvel.

That was fun Scott. I liked your lines.

OK Jazz nuts, here's a new line for you to guess.

Take a listen because I think this line is pretty darn good. Well you be the judge.
Can you guess what these changes are?

http://www.box.com/s/3hmp938dqxhmxzs5ni9i

This is one and a half chorus.

huh. I'm really bad at this. All I can say is it sounds like Charlie Parker playing over a Monk tune. I do like your lines better in this one though.

I'll listen again...

Nice Knotty! I just sent you a PM with my answer.

I was trying out Scep's changes for Here's That Rainy Day this morning and I started doing some more reharm off of them. I only worked on the first 8 bars so far. It's a rubato kind of thing, but I can't play it smoothly yet. Still thinking too much. Anyway, I thought it would be fun to break it down and explain it in detail for analysis and discussion so I did a video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0MKMdvy_fA

Scott,
You have a very good ear! I didn't think this was easy to guess.

I'll listen to you tutorial when it gets quiet around here. Is that a new piano?

Well, it didn't jump out at me. I had to sit at the piano to find a few chords before I knew it.

I've had this piano for a little over a year now. It's a Kohler & Campbell.

Ok Monster Hands, nice job! I really like the bit that goes to C in the bass. I'm not sure I could duplicate your voicings since I can only reach certain 10ths. You really have a great sense of voice leading too.
By the way, they're not my changes--I'm sure I heard them somewhere. And I only wrote them out in B so as not to give away the original key of the piece, although I like playing things in many keys to see if I really understand how a piece works.

So it looks like you actually wrote a lead sheet for the piece. How did you come to the reharm of the reharm? Was it trial and error or did you use some devices that you used before for similar chord progressions, or a bit of both?

Hah! Yeah I guess I've got a large span. Well I'm glad you posted the changes in B. Bill Evans does this tune on his Alone album where he plays the head in B, then modulates to G for the improv, then to Eb and B again to finish the tune. I'm thinking I'll work out an arrangement for my trio that does this.

I didn't write anything for this... the paper on my piano is a Keith Jarrett transcription of Autumn Leaves I'm studying.
I think the reharm was mostly trial and error, guided by my ear and what types of things might work theoretically, which I guess comes from studying other similar progressions. When I arrange stuff like this, I just keep going around over the same section focusing on different voices in the harmony until I find stuff that I like and then I memorize it. I'll keep working forward on this and post new stuff as I settle on it.

For comparison, here's an arrangement of Rainy Day in G I worked out a few years ago... I still practice it every once in awhile to keep from forgetting it, but it's a little rusty today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihx9oeuVxAY

At the time I was really into figuring out how to do runs and fills like Oscar Peterson and Kenny Barron. But I never really did enough of this to absorb a vocabulary in this style. In the end, it's just not really my thing. With my new arrangement in B, I want to stick to more intricate harmonic embellishments like Bill Evans does.

Thanks for explaining what Bill was doing.
Is this practice of playing the improv in a different key to the head commonly found in bebop ?