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This is the third post in the ‘pairings’ series. The two previous posts, on left hand walking bass with right hand melodic lines and left hand walking bass with right hand comping, each examine a particular technical challenge by comparing one or two pieces from the classical repertoire and one or two transcriptions of improvising or comping by great jazz players which involve that challenge. In this post I am pairing a well-known teaching piece by J.S. Bach with a lesser known teaching piece by Oscar Peterson, one of the few well-known mid-20^th century jazz pianists to have written a collection of pieces aimed at the needs of developing pianists.  (Peterson’s book, ‘Jazz Exercises, Minuets, Etudes and pieces’ is available as a book from Hal Leonard; a scan of an earlier edition, ‘Jazz for the Young Pianist’, is posted here.)  The Bach piece and the Peterson piece both challenge the player to develop equal facility in both hands with executing melodic passages.

Developing strength, agility and independence in one’s weaker hand is a challenge for pianists in all styles and at all levels. A 2009 article reports that an eye-opening number of great classical pianists and blues guitarists were left-handed.  Various sources have cited jazz piano great Erroll Garner as ambidextrous and Mary Lou Williams as left-handed.  In the case of the pianists, this suggests that their success is an example of imagination and discipline triumphing over challenging circumstances, as the jazz and classical repertoires make such great demands of the right hand.

Most pianists, by contrast, face the challenge of building strength, agility and independence in a left hand that is naturally weaker than their right. This is the challenge addressed by Bach’s ‘Little Prelude’ in C Major (BWV 939) and a jazz piece which has a number of features in common with it, Oscar Peterson’s Etude No. 6.     (Given Peterson’s own affinity for Bach, as demonstrated in his piece The Bach Suite, particularly the section at 2:52 in the linked video, the resemblance may be more than coincidental.) Unlike the Hanon exercises, which seek to build strength in the weaker hand by having it play in unison with the dominant hand, and the Bach two part inventions, in which both hands often play the same figures but rarely do so in unison, these two pieces take a more incremental approach. Both pieces open with the right hand playing an opening phrase (a three-measure phrase in Bach and a two-measure phrase in Peterson) which is then answered by the left hand with minimal right-hand accompaniment (in Bach) or alone (in Peterson.)

In the Bach piece, this sets up a ‘conversation’ in which the right hand ‘speaks’ slightly more than the left, which has just two more measure-long melodic replies (m. 7 and 12) after its initial answer in m. 4-5; in m. 9-11 and 13-16, it takes up its more typical accompanying function. Although Bach does not give the hands equal melodic time, both hands are challenged in this piece to quickly alternate between two dynamic levels: a quieter level for accompanying passages, which requires the hands to stay closer to the keys (for right-handed players, this is the ‘default’ role for the left hand, but takes more work to develop in the right hand) and a stronger level for playing melody (which requires the player to have ‘higher’ fingers while still maintaining legato articulation where necessary.) There are a number of recordings of this piece online; although the one on the ‘Great Repertoire’ channel is rather stiffly played, it does include a valuable opportunity to follow the score while listening; the video by Dr. Alan Huckleberry of the University of Iowa features a more musical interpretation, as well as good examples of upper body posture, bench placement and rounded hand position.

In the Peterson piece, the right and left hands are given equal melodic time. Like many of the pieces in Peterson’s ‘Etudes and Pieces’ collection, Etude No. 6 follows a twelve-bar blues progression (in this case, in the key of E flat), and the right and left hands follow a pattern which jazz players call ‘trading twos’, breaking the progression into six phrases which are divided evenly between the hands. Although there are fewer accompanying passages in the Peterson piece than in Bach, the left hand is given some walking bass in m. 9-10. Although there are a number of odd, non-swinging recordings of Peterson’s etudes posted online, the performance in the link given above, by Italian pianist Giovanni Battista Gaetano, has a good sense of swing feel.  For an example of the kind of ensemble context where the concept of trading originated, check out the classic tune ‘Blues Walk’. In their exchange at 5:28 in this tune, Clifford Brown and Harold Land demonstrate a number of the ways two improvisers can divide the twelve-bar blues progression between them, including ‘fours’, ‘twos’ and ‘ones’.

The piano, more than any other instrument, has the capacity to evoke the sound of a group of players.  In the Dave McKenna version of ‘C Jam Blues’ that I transcribed in the last post, it could be argued that his left hand bass line and right hand melody line have just as much independence as do Slam Stewart and Don Byas in their duo version of ‘I Got Rhythm’.  Great stride players like Art Tatum, Fats Waller and Teddy Wilson incorporated into their solo playing the chordal, bass and melodic parts that Nat King Cole later divided up among the members of his trio.  Another category I have been interested in recently is that of great jazz pianists who excel in a duo context.  For me, Kenny Barron’s work on the duo album ‘People Time’ with Stan Getz places him at the top of this list, although he has made many other great duo recordings, including his work with Frank Morgan and Regina Carter.

One of the most important skills for the duo player is the ability to walk quarter or half note bass in the left hand while comping chords in the right.  As an accompanist, I have always found that this is a crucial way of establishing a rhythmic connection with soloists, both those who are experienced musicians and those whose sense of rhythm needs some guidance.  Throughout most of ‘People Time’, Kenny Barron and Stan Getz display a seemingly telepathic connection that allows both of them to play with great rhythmic freedom while still maintaining a clear sense of moving together.   The excerpt I transcribed below, from Barron’s comping on ‘Like Someone In Love’, is a comparatively rare instance where his accompaniment of Getz moves into more deliberate timekeeping.  It is a great example of an active quarter-note bassline combined with upbeat-oriented comping in the right hand.  Although this technique is only one of many that Barron uses, for most jazz duo situations, the ability to combine strong left hand walking bass with upbeat-oriented comping in the right hand is a crucial survival skill for the jazz pianist.  Barron also employs a number of refreshing chord substitutions on this great standard.  I have transcribed just the first sixteen bars of this chorus, as my idea is that this should serve as a model for your own duo comping, rather than a score from which to perform.

John Coates Jr. is what I would call a ‘municipal monster pianist‘ (the term I coined to describe Dave McKenna in the last post.) For more than 50 years,  Coates’ home base was Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania, where he played at the Deer Head Inn.  (In his survey of Keith Jarrett’s earlier recordings, Ethan Iverson speculates that Coates‘ playing was likely an influence on the young Keith Jarrett, who grew up in that area.)  Coates recorded a fair amount of solo piano music in a style that might be called ‘improvisational folk-jazz gumbo’ (or what Iverson calls ‘countrified piano’).   The excerpt below, which showcases Coates’ straight-ahead jazz playing, is from a great version of the standard ‘Moonglow’ on a duo album he made with the fantastic vocalist Nancy Reed at the Deer Head in 2007.  I was not aware of Reed’s singing before hearing this recording, but hearing her made me an instant fan; in addition to being a highly inventive and swinging vocalist, she is equally gifted bass player and I look forward to checking out her music more.  Coates‘ left hand walks in a manner similar to McKenna’s (although Coates’ bassline here uses an even lower range than the McKenna excerpt) while his right hand deftly alternates between chordal comping phrases and single-note fills.

John Coates’ solo playing, documented on the collection ‘The Omnisound Years’, is the work for which he is best known and is well worth checking out.   With interpretations of tunes by Neil Diamond, The Beatles and Cole Porter, this compilation suggests the catholic (in the sense of ‘universal’) breadth of Coates’ repertoire during the 1960s and 70s when the recordings were made.  In his composition Prologue, Coates synthesizes these diverse influences, beginning with an intro that would be at home in an Elton John tune, progressing through some more jazzlike modulation and into a solo that makes shrewd and tasteful use of bebop language.  Like the classic live recordings of Bill Evans at the Village Vanguard and Thelonious Monk at the Five Spot, on these recordings Coates is heard in a context of ambient sounds, including dinner conversation, clinking silverware and even a passing car at one point in ‘Prologue’.  The listener gets a strong sense that this music was created in and for a particular social setting, and a particular room.  Although the arc of the melody in ‘Prologue’ has a meditative quality, there is also an energy to Coates’ playing which I think derives from a natural inclination a solo player can develop in live situations to mirror the level of activity in the room where they are playing.  In this piece one can also hear a number of stylistic elements that found their way into Keith Jarrett’s solo piano work by the time of his albums ‘The Koln Concert’ and ‘Facing You’.

Coates’ solo piano music has a site-specific nature which can also be found in the solo keyboard music of G.F. Handel.  Handel’s keyboard music, in contrast to his concert works, was created for intimate, informal situations such as small social gatherings and concert intermissions (where the level of background noise was likely comparable to that heard behind Coates’ Prologue.)  Handel’s Aria with Variations from his Suite no. 1 in B Flat Major  contains, in its second variation, a valuable etude in combining left hand walking bass and right hand chordal comping.  (A score for the piece can be found here – go to the third score listed under ‘Sheet Music’.)  In addition, this piece also prominently features a number of other techniques which are important skills for jazz pianists, including left hand walking bass with right hand melody (in the first variation) and left hand-right hand conversation (in the third.)

Postscript: I have always enjoyed duo work; some recent recordings I’ve done in that format include a version of eden ahbez’ ‘Nature Boy’ on vocalist Allison Mann’s album For My Mother and Father, and a version of ‘All of You’ that can be heard on the ReverbNation page for Birdcode, a new band that I’ve been working in with bassist John Rivers, drummer Caleb Bronz, and vocalist Amber deLaurentis.

The concept of food pairings is one that I’ve learned a great deal about from my wife, Amber deLaurentis, a great pianist, vocalist and songwriter who happens to be an amazing artist in the kitchen as well. In food pairing, one chooses a garnish for the way it brings out the flavor in a salad or a cut of meat; or one chooses a beverage for the way it brings out the flavor in the food it accompanies.

When I studied classical piano repertoire with Elizabeth Metcalfe and Sylvia Parker in the mid to late 1990s, following my studies of jazz with teachers including Yusef Lateef, Archie Shepp, Tom McClung and Bruce Sklar in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I noticed that a number of keyboard techniques I had learned as a jazz player also showed up in classical piano repertoire. The techniques that jazz players call left-hand walking bass, left-hand stride accompaniment and left-hand chordal comping, for example, can all be found in various pieces from standard classical solo piano literature. As a piano teacher, I’ve started to notice that applying a given technique (for instance, walking bass) to a jazz tune can be easier if it is studied side by side with a classical piece that calls for the same technique; the ‘pairing‘ can bring out the ‘flavor‘ in both pieces. To use more technical (and less appetizing) language, the classical pieces can function as etudes that help a jazz player develop facility with a particular technique.  Making these kinds of connections with classical repertoire can can also introduce jazz pianists to the value and relevance of studying classical solo piano literature in general, as a way to build technique, develop their sound. and as an end in itself.  This is the first in a series of posts on pairings of classical and jazz pieces that can be useful (and hopefully enjoyable) in the practice room (and maybe also in adventurously programmed performances.)

Four of my piano students recently played in a workshop with the great Henry Butler, one of the prime exponents of the New Orleans piano style. (Many thanks Steve MacQueen and Madeline Bell from the Flynn as well as Dr. Alex Stewart at UVM for their help in organizing the workshop.) From earlier albums like ‘Fivin’ Around’ to the more recent ‘PiaNOLA’ and the just-released ‘Viper’s Drag’, Butler’s playing has carried forward the innovations of New Orleans pianists like Jelly Roll Morton, Professor Longhair and James Booker and featured Butler’s own unique fusions of harmony (from gospel, blues, jazz, etc.) and modernistic melodic motion.

In advance of Butler’s visit, I transcribed some of Henry Butler’s piano solo on the tune ‘Some Iko’ and studied it with some of my students. It can be heard in a YouTube video featuring Butler with Steven Bernstein and the Hot Nine, the band with which he performed recently at the Flynn. The solo is a great example of how to apply bebop concepts to a simple two-chord progression, as well as of a conversational and melodic approach to comping with the left hand during a right hand melodic solo. I told Butler that I particularly liked the two-handed melodic intro that he plays before getting into the form of the tune, and he mentioned that Frank Zappa keyboardist and jazz/funk keyboard icon George Duke was one of the first people to show him this kind of two-handed technique. This reminded me that I’ve been wanting to transcribe Duke’s solo from the Zappa tune ‘Blessed Relief’. (Maybe I’ll also post a transcription I did of Art Neville’s intro chorus from the Meters tune ‘Cabbage Alley’.) In any case, here’s the beginning of Butler’s solo:

In the first eight bars of this solo excerpt, Butler focuses on using the flatted third of the F7 and C7 changes, which gives the melodic line a more traditional blues flavor.  However, both the way that his line closely follows the chord changes, and the way his left hand interacts conversationally with the right (comping in spaces his right hand leaves, rather than playing chords underneath a more continuous line) are more characteristic of jazz players like Wynton Kelly.  Starting with the pickup to measure 9, Butler uses the bebop approach of placing non-scale tones or ‘half steps’ on upbeats (for instance, using the half steps between the root and 7th and the 6th and 5th of the F 7th scale in m. 10).   His blues-based opening strategy in the first eight bars grabs your attention, but the jazz chromaticism in the latter half of the solo holds it .

In the workshop at UVM a few weeks ago, Butler hit a wonderful balance of criticism and encouragement with my students. While some of the statements I’ve quoted are critical, which is to be expected in a master class, my written quotes don’t fully convey the congeniality with which he delivered these thoughts. I am really grateful for how generously he shared his prodigious knowledge and insight during an hour and a half sandwiched between his arrival in town and a house concert. (Before the workshop, we were also treated to Butler’s harmonically adventurous takes on ‘In Your Own Sweet Way‘ and ‘Love For Sale‘ while he tested out the piano.)

The workshop began with one of my UVM students playing a rendition of ‘Mood Indigo’ that opened with two choruses of stride (a head statement followed by a chorus of solo.) After listening to some of the stride solo, Mr. Butler stopped the student and said: “You’re playing this sort of in a stride style, and I hear in your right hand that you’re intimating that it’s supposed to be a triplet feel or swing feel, right? But in other parts of your playing, I wonder if you’re trying to be in the swing style or in more of an even rhythmic style.” He then demonstrated some ways of adding a swing feel to a stride left hand. (An example of this is in the discussion of ‘Blue Monk’ below.)

In discussing the student’s solo, Butler commented: “You have to compel people to listen, and the only way you’re going to be able to do that is by instituting more contrasting elements. [Your solo sounds] pretty much the same in both choruses. Your first four bars, maybe your first eight bars, could be just the way you started. And then, after that, you need to lift it. One way to lift it is by changing your phrasing to maybe a mix of sixteenth notes with maybe some of what you’re doing [i.e. eighth notes] or triplets.” He followed this with a couple choruses of his own that demonstrated rhythmic variety and swung hard. I’m going to see if I can get Mr. Butler’s permission to post audio excerpts, but in the meantime, here’s a transcription of the beginning:

Later in the workshop another student played ‘Blue Monk’, also leading off with two choruses of stride. Through first talking and then playing a few choruses of his own on the tune, Butler made the point that stride piano is not just the ‘boom-chuck’ combination of a bass line in one range and chords in another, but that it can and should also include elements of swing feel. “If I was going to play it sort of like you were playing,” Butler began, “I would maybe do this.” He then played a stride head statement of ‘Blue Monk’ full of swing and great voice leading in the left hand. He further clarified his approach to stride on this tune by playing a chorus of left hand alone on the twelve-bar jazz blues in B flat, starting with these four bars:

He then paused, perhaps remembering how one of my students had mentioned that he couldn’t reach tenths, a common interval in stride left hand parts. Butler added: “If your hands aren’t big enough to do that, you can do…” and went on to play the following excerpt.  He began by taking a different approach to the walking tenths in the last bar of the excerpt above and changing them to what I’d call jump tenths :

Throughout this excerpt, Butler either jumps up a major tenth from the root of a chord to its  third(as in the first bar), or up a seventh from the root of a dominant chord to a guide tone (i.e. 7th and 3rd) voicing of it.  In these excerpts he also follows the standard jazz piano practice (described in Jazz Keyboard Harmony by Phil deGreg) of keeping the 3rd and 7th of every chord above C3 (i.e., the C below middle C.)

Henry Butler’s visit was an energizing experience both for myself and my students, some of whom have also gotten to play in workshops with other guest artists; over the years I have had the privilege of coordinating workshops with Arturo O’Farrill, Marcus Roberts, Donal Fox, Mike Holaber, Jason Moran and John Stetch. If I can see interest in this post in the form of blog comments, maybe I’ll post some of the transcriptions I’ve done of these great players. Recently I’ve discovered the benefits of transcribing first and asking questions later (as I did with Butler, Roberts, and Fox); but then again, it can also be exciting to chase the traces of a melodic imagination after its owner leaves town. True confession: while I was transcribing Butler’s workshop excerpts, I was dashing back and forth from my computer to the TV to catch updates on the gripping last game of the World Series.  It was doubly inspiring to take breaks from decoding Butler’s brilliant piano moves and see the team from the birthplace of the Count Basie Orchestra stride to victory over the team from the birthplace of bebop (who swung hard in their own right.)

In hopes of shedding some light on the difficult balancing act of jazz comping, I have transcribed the work of two great jazz pianists who were also great accompanists (or ‘compers’.) Among other things, these comping parts by Sonny Clark and Oscar Peterson demonstrate how a great jazz pianist uses a chord progression like a great interviewer uses a set of questions. As I was transcribing these comping parts and the solos they accompany, and adding commentary on the interplay between soloists and accompanists to these transcriptions, I found myself awestruck by the level of split-second interplay between these great players. I was also aware how my commentary could come off like the great Peter Schickele routine where he follows Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony with play-by-play sports commentary.   In any case, I hope these transcriptions are helpful to players who seek to improve their responsiveness and creativity as compers or soloists.

As I transcribed these choruses from ‘Cool Struttin’ (from the Sonny Clark album of the same name) and a video of a live performance by Peterson and Clark Terry of ‘Blues for Smedley’, I was reminded of how pianists who are skilled at comping create contrasts within their own parts in a variety of ways, for example, changing from more busy comping to more sparse comping, or from comping that is more melodically static to comping which is more melodically active. In my analysis here, I call these ‘strategy changes’. In the examples shown here, Oscar Peterson and Sonny Clark change their strategy often, sometimes in response to activity in the soloist’s line, and other times to break with a comping pattern before it becomes undesirably repetitive. In both tunes the piano part doesn’t stay with a single comping approach for a whole chorus of the form, but rather tends to change every two to four bars.

Skilled compers are also able to alternate during a single solo between echoing the soloist’s ideas at some points and contrasting their ideas at other points. At a number of points in ‘Cool Struttin’ and ‘Blues For Smedley’, to my ear, both these kinds of responsive comping lead the soloist to change their strategy, either to further develop the idea being echoed in the comping (as in Art Farmer’s second chorus on ‘Cool Struttin’) or to pick up the contrasting idea being introduced in the comping (as at the beginning of Clark Terry’s third chorus on ‘Blues for Smedley’). This underlines how important it is for pianists to use strong ideas in comping, to either clearly echo the soloist’s idea or to create clear contrast with the soloist.

In the examples below, both Sonny Clark and Oscar Peterson both use what I call ‘riff comping’, which uses repeating and usually simple melodic patterns either to fill spaces in the melody (which I call answering riffs) or as a counterpoint to the melodic line (which I call background riffs). Although both the examples given here are in small group contexts, both Sonny Clark and Oscar Peterson’s uses of riff comping echoes the use of horn section riffs in classic big band blues arrangements such as ‘C Jam Blues’ and ‘Blues in Frankie’s Flat’. The examples here also include comping which is not connected to a repeating pattern but is rather a spontaneous response to activity in the solo line; I call these answer comping.  Sonny Clark’s comping during the head statement of his tune ‘Cool Struttin’ includes answer comping, and then he begins to use riff comping in the second chorus of Art Farmer’s solo. Oscar Peterson begins comping behind Clark Terry’s head statement on ‘Blues for Smedley’ using riffs that sound like the composed riffs in a big band arrangement, but quickly changes to an improvised background line in his right hand. Starting with the first chorus of Terry’s solo, he returns to more ensemble-style riff comping.

I encourage readers to listen to the recordings of the tunes while following my transcriptions and comments. I encourage you to use the comment section to add to or even disagree with my play-by-play commentary. For pianists seeking to increase the variety of their comping, I would suggest learning the transcribed comping parts and playing them along with the original recording. Keep in mind that the ultimate goal here is not to memorize the transcriptions, or even to emulate Peterson’s virtuosity or Clark’s harmonic sophistication, but rather to strive toward their level of variety and responsiveness. My hope is that those who read this blog post and study these transcriptions can borrow ideas from Oscar Peterson and Sonny Clark and combine them with their own ideas to work toward a personal approach to creative and responsive comping.

I’d also encourage comments that answer the following question (required for my jazz piano students): Name a jazz recording involving piano and one other solo instrument and identify one or more specific moments in which chordal comping (on piano or guitar) influences the development of an improvised instrumental or vocal solo by another player (or where the development of the solo influences the comping).  If possible, add a link to a public page (YouTube, etc.) where the recording can be heard; use timings (i.e. ‘2:35’, ‘4:17’ etc.) to identify the moments of soloist-accompanist interplay, and give a brief description of what happens.  (Examples of chordal accompaniment to a solo instrument in other styles are acceptable as well, provided that both parts have some improvisational element to them.)

Oscar Peterson Trio with Clark Terry – Blues for Smedley, live in Finland 1965

Cool Struttin’ – Sonny Clark (Art Farmer, trumpet)