Wednesday, July 26, 2023

July 25 - #3


Hello All, 

Time to add some more fertilizer (go see live jazz and/or listen with friends).

May also need to do some weeding - what is distracting you?  Try removing it from your practice space or your calendar?

Jams continue every Wednesday and Friday at the Port of Edmonds. Hope to see you.

Mr. B


Hothouse Combo - Kimani/Perez (sub for Glynn)


First the combo got set up to work on some new songs. We had Fried Bananas by Dexter Gordon. I counted the song very slowly and we practiced just playing the melody. We talked about properly articulating the eight notes using jazz articulation. Then we talked about improvisation over the song. The song is in Eb major so using notes from the Eb major scale will work great. Also using notes from the Eb major pentatonic scale and blues scale. We also talked about using chord tones to improvise and playing each chord change. We did an exercise in which one horn player would solo while the other four just played the melody and the person soloing would switch. We talked about being supportive to the other players in the group while they are soloing and being respectful by not talking. 


Next we worked on Cedar’s Blues and improvising on the blues. We talked about playing with a big sound with lots of air and confidence. Especially when soloing. For the saxophone masterclass, Joel, Liam, Max and I talked specifically about tone for saxophone players. In order to play with a good tone your mouth should make the “haw” position. This will open up your throat and make playing the whole range of your saxophone much easier. We also talked about practicing overtones and matching the sound of the normal fingering with the overtone. Answer talked about playing crescendos on long tones. 

In our last segment we played through Lotus Blossom. We had everyone trade 8 bar segments to get a feel for soloing on the song. We focused on playing with emotion and feeling and not playing the music straight off the page but improvising a little. 

- Talli


Little Sunflower Combo - Eisenmenger/Salas

Today, we did a lot more work on arranging and being intentional with our improvising. We did a lot of playing on Bb blues. Specifically, we worked on learning Sonnymoon for Two in F, having half the players play in Bb and the other half play in F the first time, and then those two groups would switch the second time around. 


We discussed more voice leading, getting into how you can find color notes for the proceeding chords that are nearby a note you are already playing. Additionally, we decided to have the participants scat a solo, and we discussed why it is important to be able to hear the melodic idea and to be able to sing it.

After the break, we transitioned to playing Little Sunflower, where we did more improvising over the chord changes. We also discussed the importance of playing in tune on long tunes with extended notes that are held for long periods. We spent some time learning the chord tones for the chords to Little Sunflower. 

Homework: Learn the changes and melody to Little Sunflower - Liam Salas

7/25 - Bergevin, Alex Weber (Fox was absent)


Only four of us this week ... Jon and Oren too.


We started off playing Joe Avery's blues and had fun improvising over it. We passed the tambourine around to focus on SPIRIT, starting to lock in together! Hit the shed at home on this tune to gain confidence and STAND OUT during your solo. Don't let the harmony/rhythm section be the center of attention during your choruses of fame! This tune stays on the 5 in the last 4 bars (no 5 4 or 2 5). Stride piano playing is a "thing," just like knowing how to play with a singer/Latin playing/big band piano playing will get you more gigs. Check out Emmet Cohen?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzl3e0SsQyc&t=29s


Next, we spent some discussion time on Dig and how we can use Sweet Georgia Brown as a jumping off point for improvising over it. Since Dig is a difficult tune to transcribe, we started by learning the head/changes to Sweet Georgia Brown. It's okay to need iReal at the start! 


(Sectionals break— brass had a great chat with Ms. E about having a practice routine!) 


Spent a little more time feeling the groove on Sweet Georgia Brown. Went over the Major

Bebop scale for blowing, also switching to This I Dig of You. Listened to Mobley's recording many times for unification of rhythm and style (legato in piano). It's cool to play downbeats only, you often don't need more than that. Went over the importance of persistence when transcribing, even when the small details are hard to lock down.


Solo circle + traded 4's to learn the changes and practice playing the same riff/lick until it feels good. Don't throw out your good ideas, even if they don't sound good at first. Practice incorporating the chords into your solos, particularly the roots as a starting point.


To work on at home: Polish/work on blowing on this I dig of you/Sweet Georgia Brown/Joe Avery. Transcribe solos (and voicings) from the recordings for ideas? Use the recording (or your own recording if you play piano/bass) to improvise over. Definitely use a metronome if not. Begin learning Dig (Miles Davis). Don't forget about straight, no chaser?

(AW)


This I Dig of You Combo (Bergevin notes),


Plenty of fun work to do.  I recommend spending some time trying to lift this by ear before you use the cheat sheet. There are no shortcuts if you'd like to get good.

Dig - Miles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUcj_vPwkEI


Every song (and every moment) has something to teach us. Great slammin' loud hi-hat here. Simple but effective piano comping.  Remember that this tune is built on Sweet Georgia Brown.

Alex W had a good question yesterday, which recording might be good to listen to in order to learn Sweet Georgia Brown?  I wasn't sure.  Here's what I found.

Buttery clarinet from Louis Armstrong group.
Especially cool slap tonguing demonstration. Also some cool melodic comping from pianist.

Mr. B


Bloom Bossa - Tran/Bennett


To remember: transcription tools to add to blog summary: using audio playback function in YouTube video, using audacity or another free DAW, anytune app or amazing slow downer apps (have to own and downloaded the song on your device)


Hw: begin transcribing second chorus of Clifford browns solo (trumpet) on sandu. Continue to work on improvising over tunes. A good place to start is to know and be able to play chord tones on the various chords (1,3,5,7) of all the tunes. Think about playing melodies. Write blue boss’s contra fact (melody over the existing changes) if you haven’t already. Either write it down and play it for me or make a recording. (DT)

Honeysuckle Rose Combo - Steinke

For those who missed our third meeting, we have continued to rehearse our royal garden blues working on various rule-based systems for practicing soloing on the Bb blues. Because no one has yet to do any of the assignments from the last two weeks of the blog posts, the first half of your assignment this week is to catch up on undue work! It makes it difficult for us to work on the arrangement of the music if you have not learned your part! The second half of your assignment is to transcribe the head out and ending of our Royal Garden Blues. This begins at 4:40 in the recording. Please note there is a tag ending, so the ending phrase is repeated three times. Brass players will transcribe Edison’s line, reed players will transcribe Hodges’ line. 
 

Next week we will begin working on Green Chimneys with Stefan, so our focus will be shifting there. Do listen to the recording!
 

As always please reach out to me at joelsteinke@comcast.net with any questions. Happy practicing!

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Wednesday, July 19, 2023

Session 2 - July 18, 2023 - Flourish

Here is this week's recap:
 
Schatz/Steinke - A103
HONEYSUCKLE ROSE COMBO

For our second meeting, we familiarized ourselves with the recording of 
Royal Garden Blues which we plan to lift (transcribe). The particular recording 
is linked here: 
 

Important note for those who were not present for this week’s meeting, we have 
learned the arrangement up to the 1:18 mark, so please come to week 3 with 
this much already memorized, in addition to this week's assignments. The 
tune is actually a blues in two different keys, F and Bb, and at 1:18 the 
band switches to playing a Bb blues.
 

There are four assignments for next week’s meeting. First, practice the melody 
up to the key change to Bb (1:18). Second, learn one of the two melody lines that are 
played when the band plays in Bb (1:18 onwards to the blowing sections). Saxophones, 
please learn Johnny Hodges’ melody, brass players, please learn 
Harry “Sweets” Edison’s, harmony players, please choose one of your liking. 
Thirdly, transcribe one phrase from any one solo from the recording. If you 
are feeling ambitious, transcribe more! We will share our transcribed phrases next 
week and try to incorporate them into our arrangement. 
Lastly, please continue to practice the week one blues exercises in our soloing key of Bb. 
 

As we look forward to learning our second tune, please feel free to start listening to it! 
 

As always please reach out to me at joelsteinke@comcast.net with any questions. 
Happy practicing!
 
Thanks,
 
Joel

This I Dig of You 7/18 - Bergevin, Andrew Fox, Alex Weber, (with Goeff Cooke and Mike Perez)



We finished by taking a break and improvising over the F blues! Learn “Straight, No Chaser?” The heart of the music lies within repetition of riffs. You don’t need to play something complicated and impressive to make it feel good. 


To work on at home: Improvise over Bb and F blues. Focus on the time/groove! Don’t be afraid of repeating simple phrases. Learn Sweet Georgia Brown and This I Dig of You heads (and maybe Straight, No Chaser?) Focus on the tricky parts first, slow down YouTube recordings and play along, one small section at a time. 


Bonus homework: diatonic patterns in Bb concert (like repeating triads up and down the scale: 1,3,5 - 2,4,6 - 3-5-7, etc


Here’s some youtube recordings: 


Dig with Miles and Bird 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUcj_vPwkEI


Here’s Bird, Dizzy, and Lester Young playing Sweet Georgie Brown. Stride piano followed by bebop saxophone, what a contrast!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSZNlfISNvU


For even worse recording quality, here’s Cab Calloway singing it in 1931. Notice how he abandons the melody and sings like a trumpet player might play it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGGeuiw1QPc


And Monk’s recording of Straight, No Chaser. You can hear Monk humming along with his own playing. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJs2eCqhTN0


(Fox and Weber)

HOT HOUSE COMBO - A111 Glynn/Kimani

First the combo got set up to work on Cedar Blues by Cedar Walton. We talked about embracing the dissonant harmony of cedar blues in which the horns are voiced in three part harmony. Then we talked about playing loud solos, especially the saxophones Olivia and Ian. This is to show confidence the saxophones are to use lots of breath support and loosen up the embouchure so that the reed vibrates in order to get a bigger sound. Furthermore their posture must be straight and they shouldn't slouch.


Then Forest talked about self love when practicing and how we shouldn’t beat ourselves up when we don’t feel like practicing as we can’t be perfect all the time we are not robots. I talked about discipline vs passion. This is important as you need both discipline and passion to succeed in playing music. You must have a deep love for jazz music, practicing, and playing with other musicians. But this is not enough as you must have discipline for practicing. This is because even if you love something you're realistically not going to want to do it every day. You must practice your instrument everyday for even a short amount like 30 minutes and you will improve so much. So it takes both passion and discipline to succeed. You won’t get far if you like jazz and music but aren’t disciplined to practice. You also won’t get far if you have great discipline to practice but you don’t even like playing music or jazz. 


For our next song lotus blossom we talked about changing the melody up rhythmically and playing the exact melody of the page. We talked about bringing out the volume of the highest note of the song and phrasing the melody like a singer. WE also talked about Johnny Hodges and his use of bends and wide vibrato which can be heard on I got it bad.Duke Ellington & Johnny Hodges "I Got it Bad" (1958)  


For improvisation on lotus blossom we talked about using chord tones of each chord which is the 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 of each chord. So for a C-7 chord the chord tones would be c, eb, g, bb, and d. We discussed playing along to recordings to work on improving sound and improvisation. Finally we analyzed the harmony and its use of 2 5 1. (Talli Kimani)


BLUME BLOSSOM (Bennett/Tran - Stage)

This week was also a little loose since a couple people were gone and its only the second week. However, almost everyone did their homework and came up with a melody over “Blue Bossa” changes. We listened to each of us perform our pieces, and I personally think everyone did a great job. All of them were unique and most of them followed the changes pretty well. Someone said they tried to use repetition more so it sounds more like a recurring melody instead of a improv solo, and I think thats a great method to write music. 

We went over “Take the A-Train” again, this time learning the changes by number. We also played the changes by their roots, thirds, triads, and sevenths chords. We understood Minor7, Major7, Major6, and Major Dominant chords. We made sure to understand what it means to play a flat 5th, sharp 5th, and the 6th of a chord. We then took turns soloing over the tune, with the non-soloists playing chord tones for a chorus. Everyone had great ears and played well.

We went over “Sandu”, an Eb blues, while trying to to do the same thing again. Since most of us were familiar with this tune, we played through it pretty easily and everyone sounded great. 

For homework, we decided that everyone go home and learn their major and minor scales in every way possible (thirds, triads, sevenths, going down, etc) and do any revisions with their Blue Bossa melody if they want to. We decided that we will finally share and decide on a melody once we get everyone in our group to show up. 

Here are links to each tune:


Little Sunflower Combo - Now known as the Groove Gardeners. Eisenmenger/Salas A202

  • Played sonnymoon for two again
  • Learned about altering one phrase to fit the changes
  • Looked at little sunflower (learned the tune, looked at the changes)
  • Learned what the modes are, looked at the D Dorian scale. 
  • Learned how to derive modes from the Ionian mode
  • Talked about little sunflower’s irregular form (AABBAA)
  • Played more blues
  • Discussed the difference between modal tunes and more “traditional/bebop” tunes. (Specifically referring to the changes and how fast/slow they come)
Homework:

Find a bossa nova or other you enjoy - Liam Salas
Attachments area

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Thursday, July 13, 2023

Jazz Colony 2023 Kickoff - 7/11

 Jazz Colony is BACK! 

Flourish: Bloom Where You Are Planted! 





Tuesday, July 11 Jazz Colony Combo Improv Workshop Resumes.  

This blog is intended to help players remember what happened as well as catch up students who may have been away for this session.  If you practice daily as though you're watering a young plant, you'll notice growth.  Don't take days off or your enthusiasm may wither.

Here are some notes of what we worked on ...

Honeysuckle Rose Combo - Schatz/Steinke - A103

Hey, here is the recap for week 1.
 
Thanks to Milo Petersen for helping our combo get off to a strong start! Milo gave us a beautiful history lesson on the Blues and gave some key context of the art form of Jazz. Thanks to everyone who could make our first session. 
 
An overview of various topics covered:

We settled on Royal Garden Blues as one of our two tunes and spent the majority of our meeting covering the basics of the blues form. The blues is a 12-bar form with the first four bars being Bb7, bars 5-6 F7, bars 7-8 Bb7, bar 9 Eb7, bar 10 F7, bar 11 Bb7, and optionally bar 12 F7.  Written out like this it seems confusing, so please find a blues lead sheet or make your own! 
 

We had a mini music theory lesson discussing the three major diatonic (diatonic meaning ‘of the scale’) triads of the major scale (the one, four, and five chords). This means that assuming the major scale of Bb, the triads built from Bb (one) Eb (four) and F (five) will all be major triads. Coincidentally these are the 3 fundamental chords found in a 12-bar blues. What distinguishes the chords of the blues however are their flatted 7th scale degrees. We call these dominant chords/scales, 1 3 5 b7, which as Milo taught us informs the musician that these chords, Bb7, F7, and Eb7 all belong to various major scales which are not to be confused with the root of the chord. They are all the 5th mode of their parent major scales, Eb, Bb, and Ab respectively. 
 

To recap the music theory lesson, when soloing on a Bb major blues, we can think and make use of both the 3 major diatonic triads found in our Bb major scale Bb (D F), F (A C), Eb (G Bb) over their respective chords Bb7 F7 and Eb7, and/or think of the 7th chords (triads with an added note a diatonic third above the 5th) and their own parent scales. So Bb D F Ab (which all belong to the Eb major scale, F A C Eb (Bb major scale), and Eb G Bb Db (Ab major scale). We have triads, 7th chords, and chord scales all available to us here.
 

We then applied this theory in practice, first playing our 3 triads at the appropriate times over the blues form, then playing our 7th chords, then playing a common music shape ‘1 2 3 5’ of each chord (being able to think of scales and chords in relation not to their musical names but in relation to numbers is an essential method in music. In the key of Bb major, 1 is Bb, 2 is C, and so on). After getting comfortable with these triads, 7th chords, and shapes, we explored playing improvised solos. Note, this is a fundamental way to learn tunes in Jazz; it is always up to the musician to extend these exercises into new and challenging ways. Once you have mastered the three exercises above, find permutations that will deepen your understanding and ability. For example, can you play the triads in all three inversions at will? Can you play the 7th chord inversions? Pairs of diatonic triads from the same chord scale like 1 and 2, 5 and 6? Chord scales? Extensions beyond the 7th scale degree, like 9, 11, and 13? 
 
Two assignments were given to combo members for next week. Listen to as many classic recordings of Royal Garden Blues as possible with the goal of transcribing the main melody and any other line or harmony part you feel inclined to lift. Practice soloing over Bb and F blues with the above-mentioned theory front of mind. Please reach out to me at joelsteinke@comcast.net if you have questions or need clarification on the assignments or the topics covered from week 1. Happy practicing!

Little Sunflower Combo - Eisenmenger/Salas

  • General introductions, name choosing, etc.
  • Learned Sonnymoon for 2 by ear
  • went over the chord changes for a blues in C, Eb, and Bb
  • sung the roots in time, also sung 1st and 2nd scale degrees in time
  • Went over the importance of singing when playing
Homework:

Familiarize with Bb mixo, Eb mixo, F mixo, and C Dorian

Horns: find a solo you dig
Bass: transcribe a chorus of Bb blues from "Sonny Moon for Two
Drums: find a chorus of comping with a texture you enjoy

This I Dig of You Combo - Summary: 07/11/23 - A112 Bergevin/Fox

A brief overview of what we covered:

Andrew provided a short discussion of early jazz (also called dixieland or New Orleans style jazz) and its roots and ongoing importance. In short, it’s important to know the history and origins of jazz to understand the cool things we hear later players doing. We then listened to a recording of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band playing “Joe Avery’s Blue/Second Line”.

Here’s the recording we listened to.

Here’s an additional recording that highlights the “marching band” snare

We touched on the differences in instrumentation and style from more modern jazz forms:
      - addition of banjo, clarinet, and tuba/sousaphone
      - collective improvisation
      - individual improvisation backed up by improvised harmony

After listening to the tune we learned the melody by ear. We listened to Andrew play the melody first, then hummed along, then sang along, then started to play along. Once we had it, we played the melody as a group several times through. This pattern: listen - hum - sing - play is a good workflow for learning tunes and transcribing solos. Learning them this way with a lot of repetition leads to much deeper internalisation than reading a lead sheet ever will.

We also practiced counting off and establishing a groove. Everyone took a turn counting off the tune, followed by us playing the melody through. The count-off is an important part of establishing not only the tempo, but the mood and style of a piece.

Once we had the melody down, we tried breaking away from it a little bit into some collective improvisation. The idea was to change the melody a bit, while staying close to the notes (happily, the notes of the melody outline the chords of the blues!). Collective improvisation is useful for a few reasons:
      - the emphasis on the melody engrains it in your memory, and grounds your improvisation
      - no need for a rhythm section! The other horns playing create the harmonic background

After this we jumped forward about 40 years and listened to “This I Dig of You”. We took turns noting things that we really liked or noticed about the recording. Observations included:
      - and the enormous buildup of energy of the break before the piano solo
      - tension and release - a concept we’ll return to…
      - the rhythmic freedom of both Hank Mobley’s saxophone and the rhythm section
      - the intense groove of the bass when it starts walking
      - the repeating pattern in the bass and piano during the latin section
      - how tasty that opening line of the piano break is!

Here’s a recording of “This I Dig of You”

And the full album!

Next, we learned most of the head by ear, following the same pattern of listen - hum - sing - play. We identified a difficult section - where the melody moves up a half step before shifting back down. Planing is when a melody is played in one key, then shifted up or down and played in another key. It creates a sense of “parallelism”, as you hear the same material shifted from one key centre to another.

Finally, we spent the last 20 minutes playing Song For My Father. Takeaways included the potential difficulty of the AAB form, and the acceptability of light comping over a bass solo (especially in the upper end of the piano keyboard)

We didn’t listen to it, but here’s the recording

Bonus content: The changes to Song for My Father go: Fmin7, Eb7,Db7,C. This is an example of “harmonic” planing. Can you see why?

Assignments for next time:
      - finish learning the head to “This I Dig of You” by ear
      - play Bb major scale in thirds
      - Fox’s bonus extra credit: play Second Line/Joe Avery in another key

  • AJF
You Are My Sunshine Combo - Stage - Bennett/Tran

We introduced ourselves, and shared how many hours we slept the night before. It was an awkward prompt but it got us a little insight into each other’s lives. 

We learned the head of Take the A-Train (in Concert C), using numbers instead of Notes for the melody. To help with improvising, we played the root, third, fifth, and seventh of each chord, hoping that this arpeggiating would translate into our solos. We also learned the intro, ending, and second melody of Take the A-Train, basically learning the whole tune. 

For this years theme (Gardening), someone came up with the idea that we should go the opposite direction. We came up with “Sandu” (like the sand in a dry desert), a blues in the home key of Eb. We already knew the tune, so we ran through it nice and slow.

For a little homework, we thought each of us can go home and cook up a nice and simple melody over Blue Bossa changes for our new contrafact, “Bloom Bossa”, or how Woods Jarol would spell it “Blume Bossa”. It’s not set in stone that we would ever perform this, but it sounds like it would be fun to at least give it a try.

-Don T

Hot House Combo - Glynn/Kimani


First our combo got to know each other's names, grades, and instruments. Then Michael Glynn, our head coach, passed out the first song which was Cedars Blues, by pianist Cedar Walton. He had the horns rehearse the melody and practice playing it perfectly without messing up the complicated rhythms. Then when the horns went into harmony there were intonation issues and due to lacking a third voice in the chord, it sounded a little off. So on piano I played the chord voicings to help the horns. Michael explained that it takes a little while to get the dissonant sounds of some jazz chords into your ear. Next we went over the final 4 bars of Cedar’s Blues in which the horns are playing in 3 part triadic voicings. Mr. Glynn explained what, “ped” means, as it means pedal and it means that the bass and piano are playing the same not over and over in the same rhythm. 

Then I explained to the saxophone players in the group how to play with a big sound. I explained that you have to drop your jaw and relax your bottom lip and roll it outwards in order to make sure the reed vibrates as much as possible. You also have to push your mouthpiece in as this will make your saxophone flat so to compensate. Finally you have to use a lot of air support from your diaphragm.


     We then discussed improvising on the blues form. Mr. Glynn explained how to use melodic and rhythmic motifs to make the solo more interesting to listen to. We also talked about using the blues scale (1, b3, 4, b4, 5, b7) in a major key. And we talked about the major pentatonic scale, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6). 


For our next song we played lotus blossom by Billy Strayhorn. This song is a bit trickier to solo on and we discussed using the chord tones of each chord to solo over it. The chord tones are the root, third, fifth, and 7th. For example the chord tones of a Bb major chord are Bb, d, f, g. We also discussed using the pentatonic scale and major scale and using melodic riffs to improvise. Mr. Glynn explained to our drummer the different drum feels for playing a waltz and where to play the hi hat (on the second beat). 


Songs to listen to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0oLYCdoDC8

Cedar Walton Quintet - Cedar's Blues


Talli Kimani

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