Category Archives: Uncategorized

‘Liza Jane’ is a North American folk tune that is a standard in the repertoire of New Orleans jazz.  It has been performed by musicians from pianist Ramsey Lewis to trumpeter Wynton Marsalis.  It is an example of the strong … Continue reading →

I was going to make this a post about the New Orleans standard tune ‘Iko Iko’, but then realized it is a copyrighted tune, so I decided to go with ‘Polly Wolly Doodle’, which uses the same chord progression and … Continue reading →

This arrangement is inspired by Louis Armstrong’s 1938 version of the tune.  It can be practiced along with that recording by listening to the spoken introduction (in which Armstrong introduces himself as ‘Reverend Satchmo’), counting through the trombone statement of … Continue reading →

‘Terry Town Line’ is a bop line I composed based on the changes to ‘I Could Write A Book’ by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart.  The tune is dedicated in part to my mother, Roddy O’Neil Cleary, who for a … Continue reading →

In a recent master class with my students at UVM, Stefon Harris talked about the connection between language and melody in an improvised solo.  While discussing the performance of a student group, he said: ‘The details of rhythm are connected … Continue reading →

The voicing which Phil Degreg calls the ‘B form’ of the minor ii V i progression starts with a clear demonstration of why Thelonious Monk referred to the minor 7 flat five chord as a ‘minor sixth chord with the … Continue reading →

The previous posts in the ‘Harmonic Moss’ series dealt with various voicings, scale outlines and various melodic patterns for the major ii-V-I progression. Although I have another post, ‘What Is This Scale Called?’, which deals with scale choices over the … Continue reading →

This melody line  combines patterns from the posts on one-bar ii-V progressions (‘Give it up for the root (position pattern)s‘ and ‘Midnight Donna and Reets in Paris‘)  and with those introduced in the posts on longer ii-V-I patterns (Harmonic Moss … Continue reading →

‘Simple Paris Dancers’ is a melody line in the bebop style on the ‘Rhythm Changes’ progression.  I encourage you to check out the charts below along with a recent recording of the tune by my quartet Birdcode.  It is through-composed, … Continue reading →

‘Everybody’s Inside Blues’ is a through-composed melody line on the twelve-bar ‘jazz blues’ progression.  Here’s a  live recording  of it (in the key of F) from a gig I played a few years ago with guitarist Steve Blair and bassist … Continue reading →