Jazz Colony at EWHS continues with chamber groups too. The weather is getting hot so the chamber groups stayed outdoors in the shade.
Romeo's Jam this THURSDAY - July 28 at 7 PM featuring Reuel Lubag on piano. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXwTfNPWn-Q
COME OUT & JAM with EWHS players on Wednesdays at Sea Jazz all summer long. 5-7 PM.
https://tinyurl.com/mr34zbbf
Address: 458 Admiral Way behind Anthony's Beach Cafe
At this Tuesday's Jazz Colony session it was especially nice to have some notable alumni drop in including Devon Yesberger and Andrew Fox. Check out Devon's website for some cool free online lessons ...
https://yesbergerplease.com/
Some key advice from Mr. B - "strive to develop your 'hearing eyes' and 'seeing ears'. All groups continue to strive to be creators while also working on achieving a BIG TONE.
Here's the practice log link - try to create some new habits this summer?
https://forms.gle/dg3CzM5hjFNG5nC69
Rehearsal summaries:
Star Eyes Combo:
This rehearsal we continued to work on “Star Eyes” and “Now’s the Time.” For the blues we learned about the leading tones of the blues, the thirds and sevenths and how they lead from one to the next in the 1, 4, and 5 chords of the blues. We then passed around a call and response exercise trying to play confidently and develop a melodic idea into our own spontaneous “blues head.” Possibly, a member of the group will write us an F blues head, so we don’t have to play “Now’s the Time“ anymore. Everyone did a nice job, and we are getting more comfortable with the blues every time we play it.
On “Star Eyes” we reviewed our triads exercise from last week. We also spent time with the chord movement of the A section of the tune playing just the roots of the chords, just the thirds, fifths, and finally the sevenths. This kind of work helps us the expand how we hear the changes and encourages us to start our musical on notes other than the root. We then spent some time soloing on this tune trying to hit the new key centers when they come up.
Homework:
-continue to practice Now’s the Time and Star Eyes with backing tracks
-Think about a 3rd time our group could play?
-when at home, play with TONE! Focus on air speed and breath to create a beautiful tone while practicing jazz as well as our technical exercises
Bonus Homework (optional):
-write an F blues head (a contrafact) and bring it in for us the replace Now’s the Time
I can hear us getting better every week :) ~ Brandt
Tuesday, July 26 2022
This week, we worked on the same tunes as last week with a focus on “Skylark” and “This is For Albert." Copies of charts can be found at the following link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TcU23WhIkX_lqQWQUCPd7FnMc-AsELNa?usp=sharing
“Skylark”:
Horns- I hope y’all are ready to blow over this when you get here. Make sure you can play the melody convincingly as if you were a soloist. We will divide the head into sections for each of you to shine.
Rhythm- Loved the samba groove we settled on, but wasn’t thrilled by our collective “open feel.” check out some more Gretchen Parlato stuff with Mark Giuliana on drums to get some inspiration. I’ll be shedding my Fabian Alamazan impression! Additionally, this tune would be a great candidate for a drum solo w/ comping behind it. We will keep the vamp in the end the same.
“This is for Albert”:
Boy is that head tricky. Nice work figuring out the Blakey-isms in the “A” sections, Max. The hits in the sections that follow the pedals are still tripping up (myself included). Also, listen to how the soloist on the record blow over the “Gmaj7 +4/C#” in the bridge. It’s simpler than you might think!
Thanks again and hope to see more of you next week.
-Conner
Hi Fly Combo - We took each section of the chords to Hi-Fly and repeated them, playing patterns 1 2 3, 1 2 3 5, and explained the modes for each chord. Showed the drummer some new Afro-Cuban grooves. ~Milo
Yesterday we continued working on Solar and Equinox. On the tune Solar, we focused on our guide tone lines using 7ths and 3rds. If that's still a struggle, practicing slowly out the playing chords 1 3 5 7 can help solidify mentally being able to find the near guide tone as you play through the form. Our goal in improvising on this tune was taking a shape and playing it over all the changes. Some example shapes were 5-3-1, or 1-2-3-2-1.
Practice goal: make up a short shape and play it over the changes with this play laong:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvpJEMVGijQ&t=22s&ab_channel=GuitareImprovisation
For Equinox: improvise, and repeat! We got a good handle on the changes, now our goal is to get more confident soloing for more than one chorus. Pick an idea and repeat it while improvising with good tone!
Practice goal: come up with a
new melody (Leo!) on these changes! We'll have Leo vote on his favorite next week. Play along:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W61cA8vQrjU&ab_channel=M2
Christine
Stars Fell on Alabama Combo:
Our combo did some listening to a live Marcus Miller recording from 1992 called "Run for Cover"
https://youtu.be/cHf7DvVpeiU We talked about playing with style and showmanship and the elements of good solos (developing short ideas and leading to longer ideas, high notes, tricks). We also talked about learning; specifically we talked about more structured learning habits (such as making lists and checking off goals) versus more inspired and exploratory learning (such as going deep into a recording or learning songs). In terms of playing, we learned how to trade 4s with the drummer (and how to keep the form) on the blues. We discovered that playing memorable ideas allows for some fun interactions between the drummer and instrumental players. Additionally, we broke up into instrument specific groups and worked on our own stuff (saxes, brass, and rhythm section). Saxes specifically transcribed a lick from the Sonnymoon recording and talked about the circle of 5ths.
- Max B
Sea Jazz on 7-27 photos
Thanks to Lilia Sanders, Reuel Lubag and Max Bartron
Romeo's Jam on 7-28, 7-9 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment