Category Archives: Uncategorized

Tritones: They Aren’t Just For Evil Anymore (Emulate, Assimilate, Innovate part 3a)

(or: From Hellish To Hopeful: the exoneration of the tritone in western music)  In the late 1970s, a group called Florida Orange Juice Growers sponsored an ad campaign to spread the message that orange juice could be consumed at any … Continue reading

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Boptosaurus: bop language on a ii-V funk groove

Chameleon, from Herbie Hancock’s 1973 album Headhunters, is an iconic and frequently played jazz tune in which the first section of the tune is based on just two chords, B flat minor seventh and Eb dominant seventh (aka ‘major-minor seventh’), … Continue reading

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Thought of Bud At Midnight

Here’s a link to a recording of my tune ‘Thought of Bud At Midnight’, based on the solo changes to Tadd Dameron’s ‘Lady Bird’ which Miles Davis borrowed for ‘Half Nelson’. It includes licks from the Glossary of Melodic Patterns … Continue reading

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Bud Powell, bard of bebop

What’s in a quote?  Writers, conversationalists, or jazz improvisers can incorporate quotes from well-known sources into their writing, speaking, or playing for many different reasons, and with many different levels of success. In the lyrics to his song ‘Brush Up Your … Continue reading

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Emulate, assimilate, innovate, part 2a: Ella Fitzgerald and ‘The Irish Washerwoman’ (a post on the use of melodic seconds and thirds)

‘The Irish Washerwoman‘ is a lively jig melody which is either Irish or English in origin. It is often played to accompany country dances such as the one seen on the video to which I linked at the beginning of … Continue reading

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How to write a two-bar blues (featuring an original blues, ‘After Lunch’)

In ‘Things Ain’t What They Used To Be’, first recorded in July 1941 by Johnny Hodges and His Orchestra (a subset of the Duke Ellington Orchestra under a different name), Mercer Ellington uses one element clearly modeled on his father … Continue reading

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The Magic Number: great three-chorus solos on the ‘jazz blues’ progression, with an original tune, ‘Notes From All Over’

pictures clockwise from upper left: Wardell Gray, Annie Ross, Bobby Tucker, Hansel and Gretel, Wynton Kelly, Horace Silver After you read this post, including the section using Freytag’s Pyramid to analyze ‘Twisted’, I encourage you to add a comment in … Continue reading

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What Do You Do With Two? – Great two-chorus solos on the jazz blues progression

In each of the solos I link to below, the soloist makes a change in their improvising strategy in the second chorus in order to create a contrast with the approach in their first chorus. In the comment section, please … Continue reading

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‘Thin-slicing’ the blues: Kavita Shah’s solo on ‘Interplay’ (State Of The Blues, #13)

Kavita Shah is a vocalist raised in Manhattan who studied jazz voice at Manhattan School of Music and incorporates her ethnographic research on Brazilian, West African, and Indian musical traditions into her original repertoire.  Her recording of Interplay, a twelve … Continue reading

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How Red Garland’s first chorus of solo on ‘Blues By Five’ models a number of often overlooked jazz piano techniques (State of The Blues, #12)

(note: some of the links to which WordPress has added a strikethrough to mark them as ‘broken’ seem to actually work. Feel free to email me at the address above or add a comment below with any thoughts on this.) … Continue reading

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