Charlie Parker and Alan Turing: Anthropology is 'The Bombe' (Cracking The Bebop Code, Part I)

tgcleary on The Key Bop Chronicles

In my Theory and Practice of Jazz Improvisation class at UVM, we study some building blocks of the bebop melodic language which Barry Harris has assembled and codified as the ‘5-4-3-2’ licks.  They are four short […]

Will The Circle Be Unbroken: reflections and an exercise on the circle of descending fifths and the dominant cycle

tgcleary on The Key Bop Chronicles

When the first keyboard instruments with a twelve-note chromatic scale were introduced around the beginning of the 14th century, they entered a world where days already had twelve hours and years had twelve […]

Viral Rhythm

tgcleary on The Key Bop Chronicles

The word ‘virus’ is most often associated with negative and harmful microbes, from actual diseases like pneumonia and H1N1 to the fictional ‘simian virus’ that kills off most of the Earth’s population in the […]

Midnight Donna and Reets in Paris: anagrams, mirrors and the one bar ii-V

tgcleary on The Key Bop Chronicles

In the 2010 thriller movie ‘Shutter Island’, Leonardo DiCaprio plays Edward Daniels, a U.S. Marshal who is plagued by nightmares about an arsonist named Andrew Laeddis,  Later in the movie, in a plot twist I won’t […]

What is this scale called: Charlie Parker, Barry Harris and the minor ii-V progression

tgcleary on The Key Bop Chronicles

Charlie Parker recorded a number of solos on the chord progression to ‘What Is This Thing Called Love’.   On two of these performances, a 1952 studio version of ‘What Is This Thing’ with a big band and a live 1953 […]

Six Degrees of Bud Powell, Part ii-V-I

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Note: as in previous posts, I have included YouTube links for some of the recordings mentioned; however, as always, readers are encouraged to purchase the recordings themselves, as YouTube […]

Six Degrees of Bud Powell

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Six Degrees of Bud Powell In a recent appearance on the NPR quiz show ‘Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me”, the actor Kevin Bacon was asked how he felt about ‘Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon’, a game which was invented by […]

'Oh, play that thing!' - the use of transcribed solos in the jazz tradition

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In a recent interview with Charlie Rose, Yankee pitcher and three time World Series champion Mariano Rivera was asked how he prepares to face a particularly difficult hitter: Rose: Tell me about studying for a […]

'The melody round the melody': the art of the short solo piano rendition

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(Note: While I have added YouTube links for some of the examples in this post, a number of the most crucial examples are not available there; the reader is urged to purchase the original recordings through a legal […]

American Tunes

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When the University of Vermont announced that Wynton Marsalis would give the commencement speech at its 2013 graduation proceedings, it added serious star power to the event, given his well-established career as a […]

Conversation Pieces, Part Two: Carla Bley and Horace Silver

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Many great improvisers, in addition to creating extended solos in which they are the main melodic voice, are also masters of the musical dialogue known as trading.  (This is discussed in detail in an earlier […]

Conversation pieces from Joe Henderson and Charles Lloyd

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‘Y Todavia La Quiero’ by Joe Henderson and ‘Sweet Georgia Bright’ by Charles Lloyd are two tunes that provide a good introduction to jazz and improvisation on the piano.  Their chord progressions are made mostly […]

One half step of separation: Miles Davis and Ray Vega (a.k.a. the half step between the root and the seventh in the seventh scale)

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To follow up on my recent post about solo choruses by great jazz players that stay within a basic seventh scale outline of the blues progression, this current post is about solos that develop by alternating […]

Rhythm Changes and Trading Fours

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This past Sunday, on the NBC show ‘Meet The Press’, I watched a skilled TV journalist, David Gregory, interviewing a seasoned politician, Senator John McCain.  Whatever one thinks of the style or viewpoint of […]

'Making the changes' on the blues

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As I’m teaching the part of the improvisation class at UVM where we learn Barry Harris’ scale outline of the blues and then compose a chorus of solo on the blues, I thought I’d post some examples of choruses from […]

Everybody's Boppin'

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originally posted 3/23/11 When I’m asked what musical styles interest me, one of my standard answers is ‘the bebop tradition from J.S. Bach to Barry Harris and beyond’.  There is a little joke in this answer, because the word ‘bebop’ didn’t get coined until the twentieth century, but I’m mostly serious in the sense that […]

'So This Guy Walks Into A Bar' - great intros I have known

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originally posted 3/8/11 I recently read an interview with jazz piano great Billy Taylor, reposted as a memorial (Taylor died on December 29th of last year).  In it, Taylor mentions how, as a young pianist, he used the chord voicing from Duke Ellington’s piano intro to ‘In A Mellow Tone’ as his ‘basis for harmonizing behind horn […]

Practice Journal: Intros and Counterpoint - originally posted 3/6/11

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Practice Journal: Intros and Counterpoint (3/6/11) I write today from Humboldt, California, near the beginning of another tour with the Mike Gordon band. On this tour we are adding some music with particularly challenging keyboard parts to our repertoire, including Mikeʼs tunes ʻGot Awayʼ (from his newest release, Moss) and ʻMoundʼ (from the Phish…[Read more]

Autumn Leaves in March

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originally posted 3/18/10 My experiences of the last three weeks have brought to mind the wonderful Anthony Burgess novel ‘The Piano Players’, in which a pianist gives a marathon concert, something like two or three days, during which he sends assistants out to music stores for more scores with which he can maintain the marathon.  […]

What's Right, What's Left - originally posted 9/30/09

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The Mike Gordon band has been making its way through the Midwest recently, including shows in Madison, Wisconsin; Cincinnati, Ohio; Ann Arbor, Michigan, and (the city I’m writing from today) Pittsburgh, PA.  We have been alternating between larger venues such as the Barrymore Theater in Madison, and smaller ones, such as the Blind Pig in […]