Category Archives: Uncategorized

Emulate, assimilate, innovate, part 2a: Ella Fitzgerald and ‘The Irish Washerwoman’

‘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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Teaching philosophy, lesson rates and policies

In teaching piano lessons, I integrate the study of technique and music theory with work on piano music, from the music of important jazz composers such as Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Mary Lou Williams, Horace Silver, Herbie Hancock … Continue reading

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about Tom Cleary

Tom Cleary studied jazz performance at Hampshire College, where his teachers included Yusef Lateef and Archie Shepp, and music education and classical piano performance at the University of Vermont, where his teachers included Sylvia Parker and Elizabeth Metcalfe.  As a … Continue reading

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How to write a ‘one bar blues’ (featuring an original blues, ‘Barbara’s New Digs’)

Throughout his career as a composer, Thelonious Monk composed a number of tunes that use the twelve-bar blues progression.  Among these are tunes based on one-bar motives or ‘riffs’ which Monk transposes and alters in various ways, which might be … Continue reading

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Sevenths reaching for the heavens (or other faraway places) (Emulate, Assimilate, Innovate part 6)

In two well-known melodies, one from the late 1950s and another from the mid-1960s, the ascending minor seventh interval is used to symbolize reaching for a not-yet-attained goal.  Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Somewhere’, first performed in 1957 as part … Continue reading

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