originally posted 3\/8\/11<\/p>\n
I recently read an interview<\/a>\u00a0with jazz piano great Billy Taylor, reposted as a memorial (Taylor died on December 29th of last year).\u00a0 In it, Taylor mentions how, as a young pianist, he used the chord voicing from Duke Ellington\u2019s piano intro to \u2018In A Mellow Tone\u2019 as his \u2018basis for harmonizing behind horn players\u2019 and \u2018built a whole style on that approach\u2019 which eventually got him a gig with Ben Webster.\u00a0 This reminded me of how piano intros in the jazz tradition often encapsulate important concepts, and how often they\u2019ve helped me learn and re-learn chord voicings.\u00a0 I originally learned the \u2018Mellow Tone\u2019 intro on a gig with tenor saxophonist Alex Stewart, who gave me a written score for it.\u00a0 It\u2019s been more than ten years since that gig, but thanks to Alex\u2019s score, I\u2019ve played the intro from memory many times when the tune has come up on gigs.\u00a0 The Taylor interview, along with a revisiting of the original recording, made me aware that while my memory has retained the chord structure of the intro, I\u2019ve been doing a different voicing than Duke.\u00a0 The intro in its original form can be turned into a useful exercise for practicing 3-7-9 voicings of dominant chords in all keys, descending chromatically from A flat.<\/p>\n Here, in no particular order, are piano intros which contain valuable lessons , and which I\u2019ve returned t0 over and over:<\/p>\n I could also make a shorter list of intros from tunes outside the jazz canon which nonetheless played a significant part in the evolution of my jazz chord vocabulary.\u00a0 This list would probably include the intro to \u2018Magic To Do\u2019 (from the Stephen Schwartz musical Pippin<\/em>), Rick Wright\u2019s intro to \u2018Breathe\u2019 from Pink Floyd\u2019s Dark Side of the Moon <\/em>(strangely enough, one source claims Wright said that this intro, a repeated ii-V progression, was influenced by Kind of Blue, <\/em>an album with no trace of a traditional ii-V progression, let alone a ii-V-I), and Ray Manzarek\u2019s intro to the Doors\u2019 \u2018Light My Fire\u2019 (like the Monk tune \u2018Skippy\u2019 and the bridge of Duke Jordan\u2019s \u2018Jordu\u2019, a circle-of-fifths tour de force).\u00a0 The Pink Floyd intro is a good example of how, when rock musicians appropriate jazz progressions, they often translate them into a root-position context.\u00a0 It would fall to hipper rock keyboard players like Donald Fagen in \u2018Bodhisattva\u2019 to take advantage of the innovations jazz players made in chord progressions and\u00a0 <\/em>voice leading.\u00a0 I\u2019d be hesitant to mention any of these intros in the context of a discussion of jazz piano, but the relevance of learning non-jazz vamps to developing jazz chops was brought home to me when I had a lesson with the jazz pianist Harold Danko, who in the midst of demonstrating a variety of dorian-mode concepts played a flawless rendition of the intro from Michael Jackson\u2019s \u2018Billie Jean\u2019, complete with the bassline in his left hand and chordal vamp in his right.\u00a0 It made me think that maybe it wasn\u2019t such a bad thing that I learned tunes like Joe Zawinul\u2019s \u2018Mercy Mercy Mercy\u2019 and Jimmy Smith\u2019s \u2018Back At the Chicken Shack\u2019 in my high school jazz quartet before I started tackling Charlie Parker tunes. Learning \u2018Mercy Mercy Mercy\u2018 in my high school lessons with Vermont keyboardist Chuck Eller introduced me to fundamental jazz concepts such as as the suspended seventh chord and using multiple voicings for the same chord.<\/p>\n Occasionally the Mike Gordon band repertoire includes intros with the same kind of methodical sequencing as the jazz piano intros I mention above.\u00a0 Mike\u2019s acoustic guitar intro to \u2018Andelman\u2019s Yard\u2019 on the album The Green Sparrow <\/em>uses a series of augmented arpeggios descending by half steps, which seems to musically set the scene described in the song where the protagonist dreams that he \u2018dig[s] a hole and tunnel[s]underground\u2019 in his neighbor\u2019s backyard.\u00a0 As we have continued to play my tune \u2018God Bless These Crumblin\u2019 Bones\u2019, I have added an intro that uses a sequence of dominant chords moving through all twelve keys.\u00a0 I first used this intro on our November 2010 tour, in a show at the Crocodile Cafe in Seattle, WA.\u00a0 I have always been drawn to the sound of the dominant cycle, starting with hearing my dad play C.P.E. Bach\u2019s \u2018Solfeggieto\u2018 and \u2018Sweet Georgia Brown\u2018 (and then learning it out of his fake book).\u00a0 I think my work teaching improvisation via Barry Harris\u2018 method, in which the dominant cycle plays a central role, has planted this progression even deeper in my musical subconscious, leading me recently to seek out tunes like Thelonious Monk\u2019s \u2018Skippy\u2018 (which Tom McClung once pointed out to me is a dominant-cycle reharm of \u2018Tea for Two\u2019), Hank Jones\u2018 wondrous reharmonization of \u2018It\u2019s Me Oh Lord, Standin\u2018 In The Need of Prayer\u2019, and more recently Ron Carter\u2019s tune \u201912+12\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" originally posted 3\/8\/11 I recently read an interview\u00a0with jazz piano great Billy Taylor, reposted as a memorial (Taylor died on December 29th of last year).\u00a0 In it, Taylor mentions how, as a young pianist, he used the chord voicing from … Continue reading \n
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