#5 - Jazz Colony Summary of Rehearsals 8/8/23

Another colorful and fun Jazz Colony - Jazz Punishments Big Band also rehearsed from 8-9 PM and many students listened and jumped in to read due to some holes in the band. Thanks to Olivia Dunc for sitting in on alto!

Combo summaries:

 

Choir Room - Honeysuckle Rose - Steinke/Schatz

Great start to learning our second tune, Three Flowers by Mccoy Tyner. For those who were present, you received a leadsheet. There are three tonal centers within the song which require your attention. Eb maj, G maj, and E maj (concert). We discussed the importance of being able to play within these three tonal centers in time. It’s one thing to be able to play your G major triad, it’s another altogether to play it exactly where it lands in the form in time with the band. Many of you can play the triads, but as we found out applying them in time is hard. 

We discussed using restrictive practicing (creating rules to follow so as to focus our practice more effectively) and a metronome (not a backing track) both on every beat and beat one only. These two methods of practice are essential when working on a new tune. I hope that by next week everyone can play the three major triads in a mix of inversions where they belong. Once you have managed the major triads, the next step is to be able to play the dominant 7th chord triads (which are major triads), then filling in the brief 2-5’s leading into the first ending and leading back to A sections. Add complexity with rhythmic phrases or other rules to improve your restrictive practicing, again all in time with a metronome. 

 

Hopefully, by next week Three Flowers is in your ear to a greater extent. We will continue rehearsing it, and circle back on our Royal Garden Blues. 

 

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

Room 202 - Little Sunflower - Eisenmenger/Salas

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. 

To reinforce this concept further, we decided to learn the head to Tenor Madness and went over chromatic enclosures. We specifically chose tenor madness because most of the head models this concept. We also had the students play the leading tones as backgrounds during the soloist's playing.

In the last bit of time, after the Coach left, Liam went over the importance of having the music in your ears and stressed even further learning the music by ear. Putting this into action, he began to teach the students "Bessie's Blues" by ear. 

Stuff to work on: Learn Bessie's Blues from Trane's recording in Eb and then transpose the tune to Bb. - Liam

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.

Emmet's Place #70 - Struttin' With Some BBQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUCYkGc4v18

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?v=dhBruSqKfsU

Dexter Gordon - Fried Bananas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIbZbNCtWm8&pp=ygUMZnJpZWQgYmFubmFz

Cedar's Blues - Cedar Walton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EwfYQ-C6JY&pp=ygUMY2VkYXJzIGJsdWVz

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.

Clifford Brown has a swangin solo over Sandu, Eb blues, so for homework we wanted to transcribe the second chorus. Everyone was able to play it at 50%, and I wouldnt be surprised if they got it down by next week. Everyone was able to play a solo that was rhythmic and within the changes, and had great ideas. 

For now, keep working on the blues, and if you’re feeling up to it, learn Clifford’s third solo chorus on Sandu. We wrote out the changes for the Blume Bossa head, so make sure you go over it occasionally. 

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