Guitar fingerings for modes

I need to figure this out.  It actually is not entirely clear.

(But it's also not an easy post from YouTube.)

Ionian

Dorian	Phrygian
Lydian	Mixolydian
Aeolian	Locrian

Some Captain Beefheart, as promised.

Not quite sure what this is doing here.  Follow back to YouTube for the credits.

I should be grading papers

Two with just a little edge.

First, Sun Ra, before he ventured into space:

From the album 'Jazz in Sihouette, release in 1978
Sun Ra - Piano, Celeste, Gong
Hobart Dotson - Trumpet
Marshall Allen - Alto Sax, Flute
James Spaulding - Alto Sax, Flute, Percussion
John Gilmore - Tenor Sax, Percussion
Bo Bailey - Trombone
Pat Patrick - Baritone Sax, Flute, Percussion
Charles Davis - Baritone Sax, Percussion
Ronnie Boykins - Bass
William Cochran - Drums

And next,  Ornette Coleman.  This is often referred to as similar to Captain Beefheart.  Not sure, need to check that out.

From the album 'Body Meta',  released in 1978
Ornette Coleman Saxophone
Jamaaladeen Tacuma - Electric Bass
Ronald Shannon Jackon - Drums
Bern Nix and Charles Ellerbee - Guitars

Interview with Ornette Coleman

The previous post led to this: a video interview with Ornette Coleman, who was performing at the Bonnarroo Music Festival (now that's a surprise and maybe I need to pay more attention to Bonnarro).

BTW, 'Sound Grammar', which Coleman talks about, is a CD I purchased recently, in part because of the title.

I saw Ornette Coleman at the Mann Theater several years ago.  The group included 2 bass players.  Candidly, I'm not sure I understood it.

Don Cherry talking about Albert Ayler

This is rather special: the legendary Don Cherry talking about Albert Ayler, and a glimpse into the jazz community of the time as well.

More on Albert Ayler soon, but I didn't want to loose this.

Footnote: One of Fat Kid Wednesday's CD is entitled:  'The Art of Cherry'

Listening to Now. The Modern Jazz Quartet

Something easy for a Saturday morning (plus it adds to my count.)

Theory. Circle of 5ths

A really good version.

Listening to Now. Phronesis

A tip from some friends with good taste.

Don't know anything about these guys.  Be sure to follow the link back to YouTube and read the discussion on the rhythm (15/8 seems to be the consensus).

Be sure to follow the link back to YouTube and read the discussion on the rhythm (15/8 seems to be the consensus).

Listening to Now. Miles Davis, Kind of Blue

Remarkably, from one of the best selling jazz albums of all time.

Recorded 2 March, 1959


Personnel:
Miles Davis - trumpet
Julian 'Cannonball' Adderley - alto saxophone
Paul Chambers - double bass
Jimmy Cobb - drums
John Coltrane - tenor saxophone
Bill Evans - piano

from wikipedia...

"So What" is one of the best known examples of modal jazz, set in the Dorian mode and consisting of 16 bars of D Dorian, followed by eight bars of E♭ Dorian and another eight of D Dorian.^[1] This AABA structure puts it in the thirty-two bar format of American popular song.

The piano-and-bass introduction for the piece was written by Gil Evans for Bill Evans (no relation) and Paul Chambers. The distinctive voicing employed by Bill Evans for the chords that interject the head, from the bottom up three perfect fourths followed by a major third, has been given the name "So What chord" by such theorists as Mark Levine.

The same chord structure was later used by John Coltrane for his standard "Impressions".

Theory. Jazz Chords2

 Here they are: the 7 key chords of jazz harmony.  The post of 9 March provides an introduction.  


But as a reminder, a 7 chord is built by stacking three 3rds on topic of one another so that the total distance between the tonic and the upper most note form the interval of a 7th.  Thirds can be made up of either 3 or 4 semitones, and a 7 chord consists of either 10 or 11 semitones.


Major 7th
   Formula = 1, 3, 5, 7
  Semi-tones = 4 - 3 - 4
  Example
     Cmaj7 = C, E, G, B
Minor/Major 7th
   Formula = 1, 3b, 5, 7
  Semi-tones = 3 - 4 - 4
  Example
    C-M7 = C, Eb, G, B
Minor 7th
  Scale degree = 1, 3b, 3, 7b
  Semi-tones = 3 - 4 - 3
  Example
    Cmin7 = C, Eb, G, Bb
Half diminished 7th

  Scale degree = 1, b3, b5 b7
  Semi-tones = 3 - 4 - 3 

  Example: 

    Cm7b5 = C, Eb, Gb, Bb

Diminished 7th

  Formula = 1, 3b, 5b, 7bb
  Semi-tones = 3 - 3 - 3
  (aka, 2 tritones; the devils interval)
  Example: 
    C dim7 = C, Eb, Gb, Bbb (A)
Dominant 7th

  Formula = 1, 3, 5, 7b
  Semi-tones = 4 - 3 - 3
  Example
    C7 = C, E, G, Bb
Suspended (aka suspended dominant)

  Formula = 1, 4, 5, b7

  Steps = 5 - 2 - 3 

  Example:

    Cm7b5 = C, Eb, Gb, Bb

Listening to Now: Goodbye Porkpie Hat, Charles Mingus

This is Charles Mingus' requiem for the saxophone player Lester Young.   There are many recordings, though the definitive may be the original on Mingus Ah Om.

Couldn't find that, however.  Here's a lush and fully orchestrated version by the Mingus Big Band.  The theme enters about the 1 minute mark.

And a very different version;

I also heard Michel Portal perform this live at the Sur Seine festival.

An aside, Lester Young attended North High in Minneapolis.

Theory. Jazz chords1

The basic chords used in jazz harmony are the 7th chords.  They are:

- the major 7th
- the minor/major 7th
- the minor 7th
- the half-diminished 7th
- the diminished 7th
- the dominant 7th
- the suspended dominant 7th


So I want to make sure I understand their structure.   A 7 chord is built by stacking three 3rds on topic of one another so that the total distance between the tonic and the upper most note form the interval of a 7th.


They  can be described by a 'formula', which identifies the accidentals of each scale degree for that chord, and the semi-tone steps (or intervals names, but I won't do that here).

The 7th chords are build on triads, to let's start there:


Major triad
  Formula = 1, 3, 5
  Semi-tones = 4 - 3
  (aka, intervals of a major 3rd and a minor 3rd)
Example
  Cmaj= C, E, G


Minor triad
  Formula = 1, 3b, 5
  Semi-tones = 3 - 4
  (aka, intervals of a minor 3rd and a major 3rd)
Example:
  Cmin = C, Eb, G


Finally to create a 7th chord, an additional the 7th scale degree is added.  Here's a simple example.


Major 7th
  Formula = 1, 3, 5, 7
  Semi-tones = 4 - 3 - 4
Example
  C major 7th = C, E, G, B


Watch for a new posting which uses the same scheme to describe each of the primary 7th chords used in jazz.

In the meantime, here is rare clip of Charlie Parker, who was among those who introduced these chords to jazz.

Cheese

I need to redeem my tagline.  So what are the best cheese's in France?

Here's a start, but not ranked.

1/ Brillat-Savain, a triple cream, with additional cream.  The younger the better.
2/ artisan Camembert, of which only about 30 remain.  Ripeness depends on softness, and the color of the rind.  Actually, a very strong cheese.
3/ vielle Gouda.  Not  true a French cheese however.  Extremely hard/dry, and difficult even to slice from the round for the cheese vender.
4/ blue d'Auvergne.  This is to Roquefort as Armagnac is to Cognac
5/ les Chevres.  a wide variety of goat cheeses, from the soft like a camembert to a very hard cheese.  Nothing like it in the US.

I'm still looking for a cheese shop in the Twin Cities that does not keep it's cheese in plastic wrap.

Theory. Intervals2

For some, a bit more concrete way to think of intervals:

Theory. Intervals1

Walk before running.  I really want to write about the Coltrane cycle and the Hancock chord, but need to make sure I have a handle on the vocabulary first.

It starts with intervals.

The octave is the most fundamental organizing element in music. (It's possible to imagine alternatives I guess, but I suspect that they'd still need to reference the octave, at least by explicit exclusion.)

Preference, practice, and physics all have converged on a division of the octave into 12 mostly equal steps, called semi-tones, and measured by 'cents', though the physical measurement is referred not often in discussion of music theory. Regardless, the cent is logarithmic unit of measure of musical intervals.  1200 cents are equal to one octave, and thus one semi-tome = 100 cents.  Tidy, huh?  By design of course,  but also observe the familiar psycho-physics here.  Weber's law also expresses the relationship between a physical stimulus and its perception in logarithmic terms.  (BTW, the jnd for a tone an interval is about 5 or 6 cents.)

Each of these steps has acquired a name.  Or rather, the number of steps between two semi-tones has acquired a name, and also a somewhat confusing set of abbreviations.

Here they are:

Jazz Class at McPhail

I'd heard some good things about this class.  One hour a week for 12 weeks, split between theory and history, designed for McPhail students but open to the general public.  It hasn't been offered for several years, so I was interested when it came up.

I talked to Adam Linz before enrolling because it was described as being suitable for intermediate or advance jazz students.  I'm not any of those of course.  But Adam encouraged me.

So I walk into the class the first night, expecting to see 15 or 20 people, and a classroom with a back row from which I can quietly listen and learn.

Instead, I find a big rehearsal space, with 4 music stands and chair in front of each.  Also, a grand piano, a white board with music staff lines.  And the two instructors: Adam, plus Phil Hey, who's one of the top 2 or 3 drummers in town.

At 3 of the places sit a high school kid.   Think of a ragged flying 'v'.  The chair left for me is front and center.

'Hi my name is Tom and I'm a jazz fan and I don't play any instruments and I can't read music and  I don't know any theory and my kids haven't been in high school for 10 years.


'Oh, and you've been playing saxophone for 9 years, and you play classical violin in a youth orchestra and also play in the McPhail jazz combo, and did you say you play guitar in 3 rock bands and have been doing a lot of improvising based on alternate modes.  That's cool.  Nice to meet all of you.'

However, it's been great.  Much is over my head, but I'm catching enough to sort it out afterwards.

More than that, it's intimate exposure to two world class jazz musicians.  How do they think about their music, the tradition of jazz, how are solos structured, how does the interaction between musicians actually take place?

A rare opportunity, and it's changing what I listen to and the way I listen to it.

 Adam Linz

 Phil Hey

Fat Kid Wednesdays. New Yorker review.

I didn't want to lose this, so am posting it without comment.

More on Fat Kids later.

JANUARY 16, 2009

FAT KID WEDNESDAYS, AT THE STONE

Posted by Richard Brody

Last night, at the Stone, on Avenue C, Fat Kid Wednesdays, a remarkable jazz trio from Minneapolis, made its New York début, a fact all the more noteworthy in that the members of the group have been playing music together for sixteen years, since high school, and have been performing under this name for more than a decade. The saxophonist, Michael Lewis, the bassist, Adam Linz, and the drummer, JT Bates, have that preternatural mutual responsiveness that comes from an instinctive sympathy, but is developed over time through work, and their exhilarating performance last night revealed both the depth of their individual artistry and the symbiotic wonder of their interplay.

Their music suggests the influences of the crucial canon of modern jazz. Lewis’s dry, metallic tone on alto and tenor and the free melodic logic of his improvisations recalls the playing of Ornette Coleman (they opened with a Coleman composition), as well as the fragmentation of mid-sixties Sonny Rollins, the quizzical assertions of the great altoist John Tchicai, and even the visionary gospel rhapsodies of Albert Ayler. Linz has a big tone, like Charlie Haden’s, strums like Jimmy Garrison, and has a sure sense of musical space like Gary Peacock. As for JT Bates, in free rhythm, his shimmering cymbals recall Sunny Murray’s work with Ayler; the tom-tom groove is like the one Ed Blackwell got with Coleman; and, when he plays on an ethereally introverted modernistic piece, he sounds like a one-man Art Ensemble of Chicago, ready to use anything for the right sound—chopsticks, chains, his hands, and even the nub of a drumstick, which he rubs on cymbals to make them whisper as if butterflies were beating their wings upon them.

For all their influences—good, deeply and sincerely assimilated ones (they offer neither pastiche nor parody, and there’s no anxiety to the influence)—their music, and their interaction, is deeply personal; Lewis’s solos, digging from melody to wail, moving from a breathy, atonal whisper to a deep, swinging groove, have a vulnerable, confessional air. As happens so often, it takes the French to celebrate great American art: they record on a French label and have a following in France, where they play often. This clip is from a recent Paris gig.

This was—one can’t say it too often—their New York début; they play at the Stone, at the corner of Avenue C and 2nd St., again tonight, at 10 P.M. Don’t miss it.

KEYWORDS

• Adam Linz;
 
• Fat Kid Wednesdays;
 
• JT Bates;
 
• Michael Lewis;
 
• Ornette Coleman;
 
• The Stone;
 
• jazz

POSTED IN

• NIGHT LIFE

 http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/goingson/2009/01/fat-kid-wednesd.html#ixzz1FjMTi3ti

Notes to self

Topics for future posts
(Voting is open.)

1/ Fat Kids Wednesday
   - performance
   - interview
2/ Humbly sitting in class at McPhail
3/ Coltrane changes
4/ The ii -IV-I progression in jazz
5/ Cheese as collateral
6/ Triads, and why is the the dominant so important
7/ Jazz books I'm reading
8/ My personal jazz history
9/ Joe Pass style, with chording subtitles
10/ Melody, harmony, and rhythm: how did Miles do it?
11/ Max Roach: the greatest drummer who ever lived?

...and while you're thinking about it
(doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah)

Listening to Now: Countdown, John Coltrane

Countdown (2:21)
John Coltrane, from album 'Giant Steps'.





Recorded May, 1959.  Atlantic records
Personnel:
John Coltrane - tenor saxophone
Paul Chambers - bass
Tommy Flanagan - piano
Art Taylor - drums


This seems to be the reverse the normal development of a jazz piece.  It starts with a drum solo, which normally is in the middle of a song, to be followed by the blistering Coltrane solo, and wraps up with the piano vamping the chord structure and finally, and briefly, a statement of the melody with some harmony from the bass.

So instead of...
theme, melodic solo, rhythm solo, restatement of theme,

Coltrane gives us...
rhythm solo, melodic solo, theme, (with no room left for a theme restatement).

For technical details, to be unpacked later:

http://www.songtrellis.com/GiantStepsInDetail

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltrane_changes

What was happening in 1959?

All released in 1959...
Kind of Blue - Miles Davis
Giant Steps - John Coltrane
Take Five - Dave Brubeck
Ah Om - Charles Mingus
The Shape of Jazz to Come - Ornette Coleman

Mis-spent youth.  At the time, I was listening to the Everly Brothers, the New Christy Minstrels, Connie Frances, and Bobby Darin.  Well, maybe not too much Connie Frances.  And there was some Ray Charles and Chuck Berry in the mix.