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It's with a Bb in the root.
He plays it as a A on a Bbm, the sound colour comes from the
(Bb) F A Db E = F Maj7(#5)/Bb

Amazing close to what I said. I didn't actually try it on a keyboard. But it sounded so close because I worked on that particular pattern.

Chick Corea has some similar ones he demonstrated in a video. The LH hit random black keys and the RH hit triad shapes.

The exactness probably doesn't matter.

Hey ToT, you've been busy gigging so let's discuss your set list and arrangement styles. I'm going to do more of this too so I'd like to have more of a plan.

You tend not to do swing stuff right? So what do you do to mix up the tempos a little bit? Do you walk a bass?

hey wee, merry christmas man, how's the playing going?

Set list, well for the holidays I learned about 10 Christmas songs, plus 10-15 jazz/pop standards that I know.

Actually, I've been playing some totally free improvs on my gigs, did that yesterday. A la Keith Jarrett on his solo concerts, just completely made up stuff. That's where I take my inspiration from.

I don't know if it sounds any good, but for background music where people aren't paying attention it's good filler.

Yeah I don't swing too much, but I do play some more uptempo songs like "Way you look tonight", Girl from Ipanema. I'm trying to work on timing but when you only play solo there's less consequences then if you play trio. I don't do walking bass, could never figure out how. Mainly it's chords in left hand, melody in right.

I've been working on inner voicing stuff, or voice leading, Jarrett loves doing it on ballads.

What gigs do you have coming up? I've been taking pop tunes by Sting, Peter Gabriel, and reworking them as solo piano. People like to recognize a melody.

Got a New Years eve gig lined up. Real fancy and all in a high end hotel. There's gonna be other musicians but I'll be playing solo piano, so I'll see how it turns out.

hey NPR has a christmas jazz piano show, Kenny Barron, Renee Rosnes, Freddy Cole (Nat's brother).

They all play solo except for the last song. I took alot of ideas from them to play X-mas songs.

http://www.npr.org/2010/12/16/132054036/a-jazz-piano-christmas-2010

The 3rd song Sleigh Bells swings pretty hard, starting at 12:00.

I can do the free improv too so I can get away with that if no one's paying attention. So maybe I'll try that for part of the time. Yeah I have several things lined up plus jams in between.

What Sting songs do you play as solo piano? I'm not sure I have time to arrange though as these gigs are coming up really soon.

This particular one I'm worried about is probably no more than 1 1/2 hours so I could probably even rotate some tunes and no one will know.

Share your regular set list to stimulate some ideas.

Here's a few songs I play:

Sting- Fields of gold
Sting- Fragile
Sting- Every breath you take
Peter Gabriel - Mercy Street
Pretenders -If there was a man (james bond)


Basically, I take songs that I like and remake them for solo piano.

Here's a nice ballad, played by Pat Metheny and Charlie Haden:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EAQ1oX7hv8

For jazz standards this is what I like:

My funny valentine
Skylark
Nearness of you
I Remember clifford
The Wind
Round Midnight
Over the Rainbow
Danny Boy

This guy on youtube, PianistaItaliano has a style for ballads I really like:

http://www.youtube.com/user/PianistaItaliano#p/u/14/uB-PeKQvwks


what songs do you play now?

This is my current list. I've got to analyze this as far as solo piano.

Blue Bossa
Blue Monk
Autumn Leaves
Along Came Betty
All the Things You Are
Falling Grace
Giant Steps
Goodbye Pork Pie Hat
Here's that Rainy Day
How High the Moon
Invitation
Just Friends
Maiden Voyage
My Foolish Heart
My Romance
Nardis
Nefertiti
Oleo
On Green Dolphin Street
Recordame
Round Midnight
Solar
Song for my Father
Stella By Starlight
Take the A Train
Tenor Madness
Very Early
Windows
Body and Soul
Days of Wine and Roses
Dolphin Dance
Donna Lee
Girl from Ipanema
Misty
My Funny valentine
Over the Rainbox
Satin Doll
Softly as in the Morning Sunrise
Someday my Prince will Come
Spain
Wave
500 Miles High
Lullaby of Birdland
God Bless the Child
All Blues
Centerpiece
Fly Me to the Moon
Heart and Soul
Alfie
Blue in Green
Night and Day
On a Clear Day
The Look of Love
Corcovado
All of Me
As Time Goes By

Man that's a pretty long list, I couldn't memorize that many. Some songs like Giant steps or Nef I doubt I'd play on a lounge gig. People would be like "what the heck!" Kind of my reaction when I hear avant garde when I don't expect it.

Well that's the point. That's why I have to pick some tunes that have a melody they can occasionally catch on to but leaves me free to just do free improv the rest of the time. Nef isn't necessarily bad for that as it actually sounds good as a ballad.

But things like Bossas are hard to do solo piano. At least I'm not good at it.

Maybe a short list that I could do without warning could be

ATTYA
Autumn Leaves
Summertime
Blue in Green
Stella by Starlight
My Funny Valentine
Someday my Prince Will Come
My Foolish Heart
My Romance
Invitation
Dolphin Dance

That should last an hour, I figure and then repeat. At least these I don't need music for.

What do you think? They're not all ballads fortunately.

I was thinking of adding some Beatles stuff too. I was just playing Yesterday a moment ago and man, that's hard to do without practice. Maybe also some Stevie Wonder too like You are the Sunshine of My Life

But these require some arrangement. I can't play them cold and make them interesting.

BTW - you'd be surprised how good Giant Steps sounds as a ballad. I actually had someone say, "that's familiar". Yeah right

Beatles stuff is good, I find just pick the songs that you personal like and resonate with. Some standards I never play simply because I don't like the melody or tune.

I find I get asked more about the pop tunes rather than the jazz standards. A good melody always catches people's ear.

Jamie Cullum plays Wind cries Mary by Jimi Hendrix. It works quite well for piano.

Frank Sinatra stuff is classic, I've played Only the Lonely.

What kind of gigs are you doing?

The gigs are solo piano. This one coming up is a sort of formal affair and I just play piano while they're having cocktails. The problem with playing pop is that I don't like it. The chords are too triad based and I can't do things interesting harmonically. There's just a lot more potential for playing around with jazz. I don't think anyone expects improvisation over Beatles tunes.

But the good thing is that these are background gigs. Good for building chops.

I'm amazed at the pros that can do rhythmic things with their LH, whether walking bass or stride because I can't maintain that if I solo. That's in Dave Frank's territory. Hard stuff. But you want to come up with something interesting rhythmically.

My teacher always tells me to play in time so, the groove has to always be suggested somehow. He can play Latin with just a sparse LH. I haven't gotten there yet. So I don't want to play solo piano with the typical cocktail style rubato. Not my thing.

Unfortunately what I want to do requires more practice.

BTW I had a jam tonight and gave Blue in Green a try. Apparently the audience liked this one so I'm going to be interested to hear the recording. I just learned this recently and I was surprised that I didn't get lost at all. Thsnks to the iRealBook app. Two prior attempts at this in the jam failed so mine maybe the first version without a train wreck.

Giant Steps didn't sound so good but finally had a try with the whole band. Everyone else was getting lost and I was the only one keeping the form. I got forced to do Blue Bossa and Autumn Leaves once again. Blue Bossa is easy but AL was played as a ballad and I had difficulty with that. And then we also did Blue Monk.

I just found this clip of Bill Evans playing a Paul Simon cover. So you can turn pop songs into very jazzy arrangements, then again I ain't no Bill Evans!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDhvCLYJfX8&feature=player_embedded

I can't stand Autumn leaves or Misty, they are like the cliche standards so I don't play them.

Hi guys, wishing everybody a swingin 11 and a year of jazz, only jazz:) As per this thread, I thought I'd mention that I'll be uploading a new walking bassline clinic in a coupla weeks that will take you step by step into the process of developing beginning and advanced basslines, and then integrating it with simultaneous RH improv.

There's a real brain-hand coordination process that works to get you there and I'm excited about sharing it with you guys. It can seem truly daunting to improvise two lines at once, but you can do it!

Blessings and keep swingin,

Dave Frank

Look forward to that Dave!

you're gonna become a video editing monster!!