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The State of The Blues (solos on blues progressions)
- The State of The Blues, Part One: Helen Sung’s solo on C Jam Blues
- Talking and taking the words away: a visit from Stefon Harris (The State of the Blues, Part 2)
- State of The Blues, part 3: Joe Davidian’s solo on ‘Straight, No Chaser’
- A message from the future of jazz: Camille Thurman and her solo on ‘Sassy’s Blues’ (The State of the Blues, part four)
- An excerpt from Shirley Horn’s solo on ‘What Would A Woman Do?’ (The State of the Blues, part 5)
- The State of The Blues, Part Six: Gabrielle Stravelli’s solo on ‘Karma Medley’
- An excerpt from Harvey Diamond’s solo on ‘Tenor Madness’ (State of the Blues, Part 7)
- ‘Sideslipping’ in clave: Arturo O’Farrill’s solo on ‘Blue State Blues’ (State of the Blues, part 8)
- ‘You have to take a breath’: Bertha Hope’s inspired internal conversation (State of the Blues, part 9)
- Leading with the left: Blues solos by Tommy Flanagan and Wynton Kelly that use hand-to-hand conversation (State of the Blues, part 10)
- A swingin’ dialogue: two choruses of Emmet Cohen’s intro solo on Joe Lovano’s ‘Big Ben’ (State Of The Blues, #11)
- 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)
- ‘Thin-slicing’ the blues: Kavita Shah’s solo on ‘Interplay’ (State Of The Blues, #13)
Emulate, Assimilate, Innovate
- Emulate, Assimilate, Innovate part 1 – stepwise patterns time-traveling through music history: Mozart, Haydn and Ella Fitzgerald
- Emulate, Assimilate, Innovate, Part 2: Bud Powell and Wynton Kelly
- Emulate, assimilate, innovate, part 2a: Ella Fitzgerald and ‘The Irish Washerwoman’
- Emulate, Assimilate, Innovate, Part 3: echoes of Billy Strayhorn’s ‘Rain Check’
- Emulate, Assimilate, Innovate, part 4: Taking the fifth – melodic phrases using perfect 5ths
- The Sixth Sense: major and minor sixths in the improvising of Thelonious Monk and Ella Fitzgerald (Emulate, Assimilate, Innovate part 5)
- Sevenths reaching for the heavens (or other faraway places) (Emulate, Assimilate, Innovate part 6)
Original tunes on changes of Vermont All State Jazz Ensemble audition tunes
Harmonic Moss (rootless voicings of the ii-V and ii-V-I)
- Harmonic Moss, Part 1: The ‘A form’ voicing of the major ii-V-I (including a scale outline and related melodic patterns)
- Harmonic Moss, Part 2: The ‘B form’ voicing of the major ii-V-I (including a scale outline and various melodic patterns)
- Harmonic Moss, Part 3: Route 37, a voicing-based melodic line
- Harmonic Moss, Part 4: the ‘A’ form voicing of the minor ii-V-i progression
- Harmonic Moss, Part 5: The ‘B’ form voicing of the minor ii-V-i progression
Improvisation
- Will The Circle Be Unbroken, Part 1: the seventh scale, the circle of fifths, melodic patterns from rootless dominant 7th voicings (featuring ‘October Blues’)
- Will The Circle Be Unbroken, Part 2: an exercise and reflections on the circle of descending fifths and the dominant cycle
- ‘Making the changes’ on the blues
- Everybody’s Inside Blues: ‘making the changes’ in a blues line
- Rhythm Changes and Trading Fours
- Simple Paris Dancers: a bop-style rhythm changes
- Charlie Parker and Alan Turing: Cracking the bebop code in ‘Anthropology’
- 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)
- ‘Now What?’: a modal melody collage
- Midnight Donna and Reets in Paris: anagrams, mirrors and the one bar ii-V
- Six Degrees of Bud Powell, Part ii-V-I
- The neighborhood hang and the history hang (including ‘Monk, Bud and Elmo’, a tune on the changes of ‘In Walked Bud’)
- ‘Ornithology’: the memory palace of two bebop masterminds
- What is this scale called: Charlie Parker, Barry Harris and the minor ii-V progression
Root Systems (root position voicings)
- Root Systems, Part 1: Join the ii-V-I Club
- Root systems, part 2 / Take three at a time: an approach to learning major scales and ii-V-I progressions in all keys along with tunes from The Real Book (Volume I, sixth edition)
- Root systems, part 3 / outlining the ii-V and ii-V-I progressions with 7-up scales
- Root systems, part 4: Give it up for the root (position pattern)s! – Melodic patterns based on root position voicings
- Root systems, part 5 / Elijah’s Bounce
Pairings (jazz and classical pieces)
- Pairings, part one: left-hand walking bass and right hand lines in Dave McKenna, Bach and Handel
- Pairings, part two: left hand walking bass with right hand chordal comping by Kenny Barron, John Coates Jr. and G.F. Handel (or, Spring Comping Trip)
- Pairings, part three – Hand-some conversation: Two-handed melodic conversations by J.S. Bach and Oscar Peterson
- Sonatinas and other two-sided stories
- Look who’s Bartok-in’: folk song reinvention from Bela Bartok to Chick Corea and beyond
Conversation Pieces
Comping Trips (examples of comping by great jazz pianists)
One, Two and Three Chord Tunes (New Orleans jazz standards)
Various Other Posts
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Recent Posts
- Emulate, assimilate, innovate, part 2a: Ella Fitzgerald and ‘The Irish Washerwoman’
- How to write a two-bar blues (featuring an original blues, ‘After Lunch’)
- The Magic Number: great three-chorus solos on the ‘jazz blues’ progression, with an original tune, ‘Notes From All Over’
- What Do You Do With Two? – Great two-chorus solos on the jazz blues progression
- ‘Thin-slicing’ the blues: Kavita Shah’s solo on ‘Interplay’ (State Of The Blues, #13)
Recent Comments
- Abby Marks on One Time Only (in memory of Ellen Powell, with a short history of the progression to ‘There Will Never Be Another You’)
- Corby Guba on Emulate, Assimilate, Innovate, part 4: Taking the fifth – melodic phrases using perfect 5ths
- Hunter Sarkis on American Tunes
- Corby Guba on A menagerie of intervals
- tgcleary on The Magic Number: great three-chorus solos on the ‘jazz blues’ progression, with an original tune, ‘Notes From All Over’
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Category Archives: Uncategorized
‘Ornithology’: the memory palace of two bebop masterminds
A recent news story described how publishers who represent songwriters Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty contacted publishers for singer/songwriter Sam Smith about a four-bar similarity between the melody and chord progression of Lynne and Petty’s 1989 hit song ‘Won’t Back … Continue reading
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Charlie Parker and Alan Turing: cracking the bebop code
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 licks of between four … Continue reading
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Will The Circle Be Unbroken, Part 2: an exercise and reflections on the circle of descending fifths and the dominant cycle
My exercise ‘Jody, Donna, Four Brothers and Koko’ is the second in a series of exercises including licks from ‘Donna Lee’ (the first, ‘Midnight Donna and Reets in Paris’ is in an earlier post.) Besides ‘Donna Lee’, other sources I … Continue reading
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Viral Rhythm
The word ‘virus’ is most often associated with negative and harmful microbes, from actual diseases like pneumonia and H1N1 to the fictional virus that kills off most of the Earth’s population in the recent Planet of the Apes movies. The … Continue reading
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Midnight Donna and Reets in Paris: anagrams, mirrors and the one bar ii-V
This post starts with an exercise showing how typical jazz piano chord voicings for the one-bar ii-V progression are also expressed ‘horizontally’ in melodic patterns from classic bebop lines. Below the exercise are some thoughts on how the use … Continue reading
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What is this scale called: Charlie Parker, Barry Harris and the minor ii-V progression
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 … Continue reading
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Six Degrees of Bud Powell, Part ii-V-I
Continuing with the last post’s theme of Bud Powell’s influence, here are four licks that outline the major ii-V-I progression, each with a connection to Bud. The first ii-V-I lick listed above is from the Denzil Best tune ‘Move’ . … Continue reading
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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 college students in the 1990s … Continue reading
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‘Oh, play that thing!’ – the use of transcribed solos in the jazz tradition
In a 2013 interview with Charlie Rose, Yankee pitcher and five time World Series champion Mariano Rivera was asked how he prepares to face a particularly difficult hitter: Rose: Tell me about studying for a hitter. How do you study … Continue reading
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‘The melody round the melody’: the art of the short solo piano rendition
(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 source of … Continue reading
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