April in Paris

A quick Parker transcription. It gets me everytime. Even at slower tempos, staying so close to the melody, the lines are absolutely gorgeous.

April in Paris

And it all adds up to Nothing

Composition of the week:

Sea of Green

Composition of the week.

The exercise here is to use more 16th notes, and "shift gears", going from 16th, to triplets, to 8ths.

I have a little fun with Tynerisms on the bridge. I thought it just screamed for it.

Here it goes:


and a quick recording:
Sea of Green

And then it did

Composition of the week.



And a quick recording:
And Then It Did

What if there was another you?

Composition of the week.



and a quick recording:
What if there was another you?

Flora

Composition of the week.

This composition, like the last, uses only triplets. In addition, ghost notes are added, breaking the flow.



And a quick recording:
Flora

Darn This

Composition of the week.

Different than usual, the point of this exercise is to create a line exclusively with triplets. Add to that the fact that I wanted to do long lines. The result's a little wild.

Here we go:


And a quick recording:
Darn This!

Parker's Mood

Another Bird transcription. Another masterpiece. I'm going through the first 2 choruses of

Parker's Mood

More Charlie Parker to come ...

East of Cyprus

Composition of the week:




and a quick recording:
East of Cyprus

Composed in Rosegarden, recorded in Logic.

White Whale Drive

Composition of the week.



and a quick recording:
White Whale Drive

(recorded in Logic, composed in Rosegarden)

Embraceable You

Another Charlie Parker transcription. This is probably the best solo I've ever heard. I never realized just how much was going on in Charlie Parker's ballads until this.

This is a ballad played at a slow tempo. There are a few solos before this one. Everyone is playing swing eights, taking it easy and melodic. Bird comes in, and everything is taken to a whole new level. Swing 16th are the new rules. Pick up the track from to see what I mean. Parker still keeps a ballad feel throughout, he's just re-inventing how to play them, right there and then. I cannot imagine having to solo after Bird that day.

Despite the slow tempo, I had to slow this down considerably to hear the individual notes. My teacher tells me him and Lennie used to learn Bird's solo on a record player set up at half speed, with everything an octave down. This is basically it.
I dropped the usual sax voice in favor of the good old acoustic.

More Parker to come. For now, this is
Embraceable You

It's not much really

Composition of the week. I have a couple more ready, just need to create the blog entry.

Here we go:


and a quick recording:
It's not much really

Now's the time

Usually, I slow down Bird recordings to play along to them. In this case, he takes it a a reasonable tempo, somewhere around 130. So I decided to play along at normal speed. All was good for an entire chorus. And then he puts you right back where you belong. I ended up skipping a couple of lines :).

I need to do more Charlie Parker.

For now, here's
Now's the time

Tweet Tweet

Last Composition for a short while.




and a quick recording.
Tweet Tweet

Billie's Bounce

4 choruses of Charlie Parker. Some parts are very tricky to play. Nevertheless, this is quite addictive.

Here I am on top of Bird playing Billie's Bounce

But Not Today

Composition of the week.



But Not Today

A blues? Perhaps.

This one can be found on the Savoy Sessions.
Charlie Parker blowing over a blues. A Parker kind of blues. 12 bars in C Major with these basic changes.
CM7 | D-7 G7 | CM7 | G-7 C7 |
FM7 | F7 | CM7 | E-7 A7b9 |
D-7 | G7b9 | CM7 | CM7

The chord are flowing. 16th notes @200 bpm are used to play fast passing chords, while the swing 8th provide a good tension release. It's unbelievable someone could chain chords this fast (listen to the original, it's slowed down to 150 or so here), go so high in the register while keep complete control over the tone, and -- of course -- not get lost.

So here I am as Bird, playing 3 choruses of Perhaps.
Perhaps

Mind blowing...

My Whole Love

Composition of the week.

I discovered Rosegarden for Linux. And it's just absolutely awesome. The note editor is really good, I'm able to quickly enter notes using my keyboard, editing is convenient, chord notation is very intuitive. 5 minutes, my sheet is complete.
The output uses Lilypond, and looks much better.

A few things worth noting in this line. First, I purposely overuse the whole tone scale, and that's where the title comes from. Also, I slip in a couple of pitch grouping technique. Metaphors for the Musician explain this concept in details. In bar 5, 6 and 7, I use groups of 3.

In bars 21 and 22, I use rhythmic grouping, a series of triplets which gives a 2 against 3 feel. It's a technique that creates a sense of randomness. I heard Charlie Parker use it all over the place, and this always comes unexpected. This is also difficult to apply because counting is more difficult. The last 2 8th notes help me get back to a normal flow.

here's the sheet:



And, as usual, a quick recording:
My Whole Love

1969

Composition of the week. Nothing too special except for slipping in a couple of Fitzgerald quotes.





And a quick recording:
1969

Charlie to Charlie

Leaving Charlie Christian and into the world of Charlie Parker.

Different level of technique. Lots of stretches for those big wide chords.

Here I am as Bird:
Moose the Mooche

Hypnotized

Composition of the week.


and a quick recording:
Hypnotized

It's not you, it's me

The title of the composition of the week.





and a quick reference recording:
It's not you, it's me

The last of Charlie

One last Charlie Christian.
Here's

Breakfast Feud

Tense Love

Composition of the week. I wanted to do something with more tension.





and a quick recording:
Tense Love

Getting Melodic

Over you, composition of the week.




And a recording for those who can't read / play:
Getting Melodic Over You

What wind?

Quick chorus with Charlie Christian, Benny and Basie.

Fun stuff, here's
Gone With What Wind?

Y Spot

Composition of the week:





And for those who can't read / play, a quick recording:
Y Spot

Solo Flight

I found the original on Youtube, unfortunately with very poor quality but it'll have to do.

Here's the original:


And me as Charlie:
Solo Flight

Take It or Leave It

Composition of the week:





And for those who can't read / play, a recording:
Take It or Leave It

Benny's Buggle

Latest solo. I'm playing along with Charlie Christian.

Here it is:
Benny's Buggle

Honey

Composition of the week,
here it is:



And a complimentary recording:
Honey

Hello Charlie

Leaving Basie and Lester Young, we are now moving to the 1940, into the wonderful world of Charlie Christian.

So here's a short, sweet solo on Six Appeal. The sound of my electric guitar is pretty decent in the alto register but rather thin in the soprano.

Enough talk, here I go pretending to be Charlie.
Six Appeal

LH Arrangements - Solar

Going through a new phase again. Man are we going through this stuff quickly.

Anyway, for the next 12 weeks, I will write LH arrangements of jazz standards.

The first one, chosen completely randomly, is Solar.
Here are the arrangements:



And a complimentary recording:
Solar

Keep Your Coat On

Composition of the week:





And for those who can't read / play:
Keep Your Coat On

Last but not least

One last Prez, but wow! what solo!

The next master I'll study will be a guitarist. Can you guess who?

For now, here:
Oh Lady be Good

Bad Apple

Composition of the week.






and for those who can't read of play:
Bad Apple

Swing me to Sleep

It's the name of the composed line of the week.

Here it is:





And for those who don't read or play:
Swing me to Sleep

Let's Boogie!

I'm running out of ideas for these posts titles ...

Oh well, continuing on the Lester Young journey, another stellar solo by the master. The title is "Boogie Woogie" and this is again with the Count Basie orchestra.

Here I am as Prez again:
Boogie Woogie

More Prez

Can't get enough of that stuff. A few more of those to come. Today is Honeysuckle Rose, with the Basie orchestra.

Basie's actually ripping it up on this tune, playing some good stride. Lester uses a lot of repeated figures, mostly around the Bb blues scale.

So here I am being Lester Young again:
Honeysuckle Rose

Yves' Tune

In a new phase with Dave. A new exercise is to compose solo lines over familiar chord progression.

So here's it goes. I call it "Yves' Tune". You can figure out why.

Sheet below, and for those who can't read / play, a sample mp3:
Yves' Tunes

New Prez Release

Another quick transcription. More technical than the previous, I had to slow it down a bit.

I've listen to so much Basie as a kid, it's good to finally play for him.

Here's me as Lester Young:
Tickle Toe

Keep playing.

Lester leaps in

Here's another quick one. Lester's just so smooth. This one is labeled under Teddy Wilson w/ Billie Holiday. You can also find it on Prez + Lady Day compilations.

The tune's 'Foolin' Myself'

Here's the source:


Don't you love youtube?

Here's me being Lester for a quick moment:
Foolin' Myself

One Last Louis

Before I leave Satchmo for the world of Prez, one last short transcription.
S.O.L Blues, Louis with the Hot Seven in 1927.

The source first:


I took the chorus at 2:00 or so.
Here it is:
S.O.L Blues

Ella elle l'a

I have been very busy with music lately. I now have the privilege of studying with Dave Frank, and he's really turning things around for me. Anyway, one of my assignments this week is to work on Duke's 'A Train'. So I thought I'd pick up a version from youtube.

Here's the source first:


I started by transcribing the bass on the first chorus, just to find out the changes. Then I transcribed the first solo. Ella is just really amazing.

And here's a quick recording:
http://www.box.net/shared/g2x369dr1l

This is a quick break from the few Armstrong transcriptions I'm working on now, and for the next two weeks.

Back to Pops

Some will argue that he invented Jazz. Or Swing. None will argue that he is probably the most important American musical personality ever.

Transcribing Louis Armstrong is an excellent exercise and reveals a couple of things:
- Simple, clean lines, close to the melody
- Lines are often repeated, but the swing feel changes
- The arrangements are ... pre-Duke?

So here's Struttin' With Some Barbecue. Me playing my digital keyboard (trumpet voice) on top of Satchmo :). Can't say that wasn't fun. What else? Even my wife likes this type of music.

Chapter 3

One of the most famous books amongst jazz pianist is Mark Levine's Jazz Piano Book
I recommend getting a copy of it.

The first "real" chapter is chapter 3. Chapter 3 talks about shell voicing. As a basis for everything else in the book.

That chapter suggests working on 14 tunes. I worked on them, completed the exercise and recorded each tune. It's an excellent selection of tunes for several reasons:
- They're all standards
- They cover a range of tempos and keys
- They have lots of ii Vs lots of key changes.

And here they are, one by one:

Title	Key	Tempo	Comments
Tune Up	D	180	First one I recorded. I used the rhythm from my keyboard and chose a tempo of 180. This is an easy tune.
Ask Me Now	Db	70	One of Monk's tune. Love it. This is a difficult tune to play, with lots of modulation and chord changes. I took it slow at 70bpm, same as the recording I have of Monk. I learned this by playing on top of him to try and emulate the style.
Come sunday	Bb	65	Duke Ellington. Not my favorite, so I had a bit of a hard time hearing the melody, until I found this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpoBvXJapHM whom I thought sang it really well. I just transcribed the melody from him. Thanks!
Four	Eb	160	I have a few recordings of this, including Joe Henderson & Wynton Kelly. Great records, but somewhat far from the original melody. So I transcribed a jazz band I found on youtube. At 160bpm. Not an easy tune, but pretty fun.
Here's that Rainy Day	G	145	Another one that wasn't a favorite. Until I found this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvJ5yPD0l9o. So I went ahead and transcribed it off of that. Learned it well on top of Frankie. Then added Aebersold, bumped up the tempo to 145. I had this tune in my head for the last 2 weeks. Very catchy. I really had to play this to enjoy it.
Lazy Bird	G	178	Not the most played. I have one recording of this. Keith Jarrett who plays it at an amazing speed. But... he plays the head just like it is. So I just transcribed that, took it down to 178bpm and off we go.
Little B's Poem	F-	140	I was not familiar with this great jazz waltx by Bobby Hutcherson. The only tune in the list in 3/4. I really enjoyed this. Tempo of 140.
All the things you are	Ab	130	This was like a free one. Recorded in a couple minutes.
Satin Doll	C	130	Pretty easy tune to learn. Recorded in a few minutes also.
Countdown	Bb	304	Now we're getting serious. This is an insane tempo of 304. I can barely make it through the head for a few seconds, I cannot imagine soloing on this. If you haven't heard the original, pick it up. Coltrane starts with a solo and plays the head in the last few seconds of the tunes. One of 3 of Coltrane's tunes in this list.
Darn That Dream	G	60	What a relief from the previous tune. This is taken slowly at 60bpm or so. I don't particularly like this tune, it's too slow for me. I transcribed the head from this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyEcP6OPk4Y
Cherokee	Bb	270	What a beautiful standard. Searching for Cherokee on youtube turned out some ... interesting results. No need for transcribing here, this one's in. The tempo's makes it challenging. Another one I can't imagine soloing on. The track comes from an Aebersold album called "Burnin', Only for the Brave". I thought that was funny.
Moment's Notice	Eb	270	Another of Coltrane's gem. Very fast at 270bpm. I didn't have a recording close enough to the original, but I found a great version by lot2learn. I stole the melody from there. So thanks Roger!
Giant Steps	Eb	310	Now why did Mark have to put this in there? This is often considered the ultimate test in jazz. Again, I cannot imagine soloing on it. Someone on a forum told me recently: " On a gig just calling that tune usually gets you some nasty looks. Try calling it in any other key and see if you live to see another day.". I thought that was very funny. Well the head itself is very difficult, especially at the tempo of 310bpm. But what beautiful, absolutely gorgeous harmonies and modulation. It's a real pleasure to have that melody under your fingers.

So that's it. 14 tunes. I bought this book about 2 years ago. I can finally move on to chapter 4: "Sus and Phrygian Chord". Why would anyone want to play chords that my spell-checker doesn't know about?