{"id":156,"date":"2013-06-20T00:36:05","date_gmt":"2013-06-20T04:36:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/?p=156"},"modified":"2021-08-10T16:09:14","modified_gmt":"2021-08-10T20:09:14","slug":"conversation-pieces-from-joe-henderson-and-charles-lloyd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/2013\/06\/20\/conversation-pieces-from-joe-henderson-and-charles-lloyd\/","title":{"rendered":"Conversation pieces from Joe Henderson and Charles Lloyd"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Y Todavia La Quiero\u2019 by Joe Henderson and \u2018Sweet Georgia Bright\u2019 by Charles Lloyd are two tunes that provide a good introduction to jazz and improvisation on the piano.\u00a0 Their chord progressions are made mostly or entirely of chord changes that last two bars each, a harmonic situation that is particularly conducive to right-hand\/left-hand \u2018conversation\u2019 in a piano solo (either with chordal \u2018questions\u2019 and melodic \u2018answers\u2019, as in Wynton Kelly’s ‘Freddie Freeloader’ solo, or vice versa.)<\/p>\n

A chart for the Henderson tune can be found in Tim Richards\u2019 book Improvising Jazz Piano Volume One<\/em><\/a>, and a chart for \u2018Sweet Georgia Bright\u2019 can be found in the sixth edition Real Book<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 For the transcriptions and exercises I\u2019ve done on these tunes, I consulted the version of \u2018Y Todavia\u2019 on the Joe Henderson album \u2018Relaxin\u2019 at Camarillo\u2019<\/a> and two versions of the Lloyd tune, the version from his album \u2018Discovery\u2019<\/a> with Don Friedman on piano and another from a live version<\/a> featuring Lloyd’s more recent quartet with pianist Jason Moran, drummer Eric Harland and bassist Reuben Rogers.\u00a0 (Both Henderson’s recording and the one from Lloyd’s ‘Discovery’ are available on iTunes.) I saw Lloyd’s current quartet around the time the video was made, in a concert where they gave just about every tune the same kind of abstract yet totally swinging approach that they give ‘Sweet Georgia Bright’ in this version.<\/p>\n

My exercise on \u2018Sweet Georgia Bright\u2019<\/a> is inspired by Charles Lloyd\u2019s first chorus of solo from the live concert version, in which it sounds to me like his phrases are answering the first chord in each four bar phrase, and Jason Moran\u2019s fourth chorus of solo, in which his right hand poses short ‘question’ phrases and the left hand answers with dominant-seven-sus-4 chords.\u00a0 Here is my transcription of both of these choruses<\/p>\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n

My exercise on \u2018Y Todavia La Quiero\u2018<\/a> is based on Chick Corea\u2019s solo during the intro to tune<\/a>, where the bass line played by the left hand is answered with short right-hand melodic phrases based on the F sharp melodic minor scale.  After transcribing Chick\u2019s intro, I transcribed some excerpts from Joe Henderson\u2019s solo, focusing on some of the more straight-ahead phrases, some using a one-scale-fits-all approach and some using a bebop-style \u2018making the changes\u2019 approach.  Both of these are contrasted with other phrases where Henderson delves into overblowing and other techniques typical of ‘free’ playing.  I would argue that it’s the contrast between the free and more structured phrases of the solo that make it a captivating piece of musical storytelling.  (If you have the bass line memorized, the first two phrases can actually be played in the right hand along with the bass line in the left hand; the third phrase needs to be moved up an octave in order to fit with the bass line.)<\/p>\n

\"Joe<\/a>The way Henderson builds a long and varied solo over this simple eight-bar vamp by alternating modal, bebop and free playing reminds me of Sonny Rollins\u2018 wonderful bebop-tinged solo on the Rolling Stones tune \u2018Waiting On A Friend\u2019, discussed in an earlier blog entry<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Y Todavia La Quiero\u2019 by Joe Henderson and \u2018Sweet Georgia Bright\u2019 by Charles Lloyd are two tunes that provide a good introduction to jazz and improvisation on the piano.\u00a0 Their chord progressions are made mostly or entirely of chord changes … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":865,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/865"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1723,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions\/1723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}