Cedar: Today we began the rehearsal discussing the value of understanding what makes something “jazz” by analyzing pop covers by jazz musicians which have been 'jazzified' (Dirty Loops, Jacob Collier). We talked about how aspects such as interactivity between musicians, re-harmonization and unusual melody phrasing set these versions of popular songs apart from the original music. The tune to practice this week is "Feira Livre" by Jovino Santos Neto (whose band Tim Carey played in). This tune introduced us to a Brazilian rhythmic feel called Baião. We used the tune as a vehicle for improvisation by isolating chord changes and pivoting between them. Shed this tune this week if you’re in this ensemble!
Feira Livre - Jovino Santos Neto
Max: The St. Thomas Combo started off the session with a discussion about some theory concepts.
1. We discussed the nomenclature for different tones in the scale. For example, in a C major scale, I is the "tonic", iii is the "mediant", V is the "dominant", etc.
2. We also discussed "Backdoor ii-V-I's". These are an alternative way to get to the I, or the tonic chord. One way to think about them is that they are bIV-bvii-I (minor four to flat 7 to one). They borrow from the scale a minor third above the tonic. Composer's and improvisers use these all the time in tunes. For example, you find this in the third bar of Lady Bird, or in the third bar of Just Friends, or riddled in the music of Stevie Wonder.
3. Lastly, we talked about "enclosures" (or the principal tone system"). These are a part of the bebop sound and there are many many different types of enclosures. One fairly simple version is playing the scale tone above a chord tone, playing the half step below the chord tone, and finally landing on the chord tone. Approaching the tonic in C major would be D, B, C. Approaching the third would be F, Eb, E.
4. For the playing portion of the night, we really stressed the importance of playing the "good notes in the chord" or the "playing the notes that change". We also played a number of patterns on the changes of Airegin. We played 135, 1357, 1235. You should really work on these for next time and challenge yourself. Hopefully this will help you get a better feel for the changes.
Kyle: The Driftin' Combo started by playing the head to "On the Sunny Side of the Street." Everyone was playing the melody well, but we discussed listening the recording for articulations and inflections. After each improvising on a chorus of the tune we stopped to discuss the harmony of the classic standard. Michael offered a couple different techniques for combining theory and melody, the first was looking for the pitches that change between chords and using their motion to guide a melodic idea. The second technique was looking for the notes that stay the same (though their function in each chord may change). We also practiced identifying key centers within the harmony, to improvise with. Writing out the pitches of each chord of a tune in closed position is a good exercise to help visualize how a pitch moves through the harmony.
Next we worked on Driftin'. Again the head is sounding great, time to hone it into what we like off the recording! On this tune we discussed using the Blues scale to help fit the idiom of the original recording. After a brief discussion regarding the social implications of dramatically overusing the blues scale we practiced using blues concepts and theory concepts to construct solos.
We finished by playing the head to "Drfitwood," then enjoyed a great snack.
Nice Work Kyle. Man on the Street
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