We began the rehearsal by performing the minor blues tune we collectively composed together last week, titled Driftwood, for our combo leader and clinician Michael Kelly. We practiced playing through the head a few times, and as a group brainstormed how we could make the tune sound more “spooky”, cohesive, and creative. We tossed around the idea adding a bridge for the tune that used dissonant long tones played by all the horns. A combo member suggested playing a tune completely different in mood and tone from the spooky minor blues, like the great standard On the Sunny Side of the Street. We jammed on that tune for a while, sounding out the melody as a group as we did not have a chart for it. Everyone in the group seemed really excited to include this tune as part of the set for the final concert. We agreed that our arrangement will be heavily informed by the Dizzy Gillespie recording from the album Sonny Side Up (1957), in which the melody is notably altered. We played through the tune a few times, with everyone taking solos. During the last portion of the night, we thought that since our combo is called the Driftin’ Combo, we should at least consider playing the tune Driftin’ by Herbie Hancock, from his album Takin’ Off (1962).. None of us fully remembered the melody or the changes, so we listened to the recording to refresh our memories. We talked about how, harmonically, the A sections generally maintain an Eb minor bluesy sound, even though the changes move around a bit. We proceeded to play through the tune a few times, with everyone taking solos. We agreed to, between now and the next rehearsal, consider creative arrangements for all three of our tunes so far. We also should brainstorm a fourth tune for our set, which could be something more open in structure or something that markedly contrasts to the other more straight ahead-style tunes we established.
Rimmy - We read through an arrangement of Summertime and played the appropriate arpeggios with the chord changes. An exercise that was used in order to help you keep track of where you were in the tune was playing the root and the third on beats one and two of each bar and if there was more than one chord in the bar, the root and the third of the second change would occupy beats three and four. After this, we moved on to an arrangement of How High the Moon and rehearsed the horn and rhythm section parts first separately, then together. We utilized the backgrounds of the tune to help the soloist keep track of where they were throughout their solo.
Joel - The Little Boat combo had our first rehearsal with Mr. Paul Gabrielson. The charts we will prepare going forward are Stolen Moments and In Walked Bud. We listened as a group to the original monk recording of In Walked Bud. The rest of combo time
Was spent rehearsing these two arrangements.
Homework is as follows:
Horns are to learn their parts for both arrangements. Extra time should be spent on the changes of these tunes.
Rhythm is to spend time playing along with both original recordings (Benny Golson for Stolen Moments, Monk for In Walked Bud). Drummer and bassist are to continue to develop a solid
Quarter note feel.
Piano should shed the alternate minor blues changes in bar 9 and 10 of Stolen Moments. General improvements of Voicings on In Walked Bud (dig what Monk plays please).
Interns Joel and Brandt will each flesh out arrangements of one chart for future weeks.
Jack - Today we worked on a Dank Moblat arrangement of Little Boat. The class first played the chart and then learned about the Dorian mode. We started with D Dorian and worked on numerous patterns. Finally, the class worked on Bluesville and focused on soloing over a 12 bar Bb blues. We also talked about New Orleans and what "walking" means to jazz. Notable names mentioned include Hank Mobley, Wynton Kelly, Wayne Shorter, Paul Chambers, and Randy Weston.
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