This week, we got straight into playing and decided to revisit the concept of voice leading. To reinforce this concept, we looked at the relationship between the 3rds and 7ths of chords that are a 4th/5th apart. For example, when working on our Bb blues, we highlighted the 3rd of the Bb7 and then moved down a half step to Db to highlight the 7th of Eb7. We did that for entire tune, except on the ii7 V7 I7, we chose to highlight the 3rd of C-, which then becomes the 7th of F7, to resolve down to D, which is the 3rd of Bb7.
Choir Room - Hot House Combo - Glynn/Kimani -
The number one lesson for this session of jazz colony is to play with passion and emotion and energy! You have to convey a feeling to your audience especially when you are soloing. And play with confidence when you solo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
This is a perfect video to watch to see what I mean.
First we assigned the task of transcribing two measures of a great solo. We are working on honeysuckle rose and fried bananas and cedars blues.
Here are some great recordings of the songs to learn from and even transcribe from.
Ella with Count Basie - Honeysuckle Rose
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Dexter Gordon - Fried Bananas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Cedar's Blues - Cedar Walton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
We talked about how to get good at jazz you imitate good players. Like a toddler imitating it’s parents. Some great people to listen to are coltrane red mitchell and chet baker. We also talked about practicing starting your phrases on off beats. We played the f major scale in all off beats.
For the drums we talked about how the ride cymbal should lock in with the bass and the snare drum should lock in with the piano. To practice not getting lost in forms we practed saying 1, 3, 5, 7 every two measures. So you play for two measures than say 3. Then play for two measures and say 5. In jazz phrasing most of your phrases are 4 bars, or 2 bars. A good exercise is to play for 3.5 bars and breath for two beats and then play another 3.5 bars and so on. Or play for 1.5 bars breath for two beats and then play another 1.5 bars. Finally we talked about tension and release and talked about playing like you are a lead trumpet.
Stage - You Are My Sunshine Combo - Bennett/Tran
This week at the Colony was great. We managed to figure out Cassie’s melody and Mable’s hits for our new tune, Blume (or Bloom) Bossa. We were super impressed with how Cassie was able to come up with a completely new melody over Blue Bossa that sounds great and unique.
Band Room - Bergevin, Alex
John Avery warm up
Sweet Georgia Brown - need to memorize the chords and form
Want to learn to play a bit faster? Take a moment to enjoy this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6OP8ZAypE4
Dig Soli - sight reading - Mr. B discussed how great improvisers will write songs in an effort to improve on a playing concept - basically it's a build your own Etude idea. Adam Maness and Peter Martin talk about this around 11:46 - said he learned this from Herbie Hancock biography.
Mr. B wrote a contrafact on Sweet Georgia Brown and we tried to learn it but there was an editing mistake so it was emailed out to members on Wednesday.
Sweet Georgia Brown trading 8 bar phrases
This I Dig of You rhythm section locking in! - What can we do to not drag?
Pro drummers Stefan Schatz and Matt Jorgensen both gave Kody a street beat lesson. While they had different methods (ride and snare vs bass drum and snare), the clave was pronounced in both. Played the head a few times and started making every part lock in together!
Matt talked about This I Dig of You masterclass and learning from Kenny Washington. Think of the swing session as the color red - drive!
Mr. B really enjoys this recording of Terrance Blanchard solo - thanks Matt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3vUT45T2uc
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