August 20 - Caught a whopper!

This is what may happen if you keep showing up to be a part of the Jazz Community in Edmonds.  Big Thanks to Zac Clute for gifting me this gorgeous salmon last night at our Wednesday Sea Jazz Jam!  Seems to fit the Gone Fishin' Jazz Colony Theme perfectly :)

COMBO UPDATES:

iReel Combo - (choir room) 

We decided to run through our two tunes multiple times to get everyone some practice improvising. 

Over Doxy, at the end, we are tagging the ending, and we will have a brief final chord to noodle on. 

One thing we discussed over “Maiden Voyage” was how you can have a specific pitch that you like to hit, or resolve to, and how moving away from that pitch and returning to it builds melodic tension. This can be an effective method of improvising. An example of this is Coltrane playing “Hackensack.” 

We also discussed doing some arranging on “Maiden Voyage.” We decided to crescendo on the bridge, and we gave the horn players some harmony parts. The rhythm section also has a specific way to comp over the soloists, being to keep the rhythmic motif going over Ari’s solo. Then, we can branch out over the other soloists. The piano should be going into the higher registers and embellishing things over the bass solo. We also are going to cue the end of the final vamp.

Other than that, that’s it!  - Liam Salas

8/20

Wave! Submitted by Alex Weber

Today, we locked down details for each song for the gig. 

1. Surprise! (Maybe)

2. Wave: 

A) Isabel and Mabel

A2) All

B) Alex and Mabel 

A3) All, with new articulations

Solos: Mabel plays original changes, others play little sunflower changes

The head again, then to coda

3. Centerpiece:

1 chorus unison

1 chorus harmony

Solos, 2 choruses each

Call and response 

1 chorus unison

1 chorus harmony

Ending

Remember, for the ending (in concert pitches):

Mabel Bb B C

Arden G Ab A

Alex F Gb G

Isabel Db D Eb

Plus, a bonus photo of our poem here:

Good Bait Combo

This week our group was a little on the small side. We decided to work on Avalon a bit by ourselves and then combine with Eisenmenger’s group. 

We ran the melody to Avalon a couple of times, then practiced either playing the roots, the melody, or walking a bass line. All three methods are a great way to become comfortable with the changes. 

After that we combined with Eisenmenger’s group, and played through Maiden Voyage.

Notes from that discussion: 

Dynamics count - play the bridge louder, then pull back for extra drama

After that we worked on Doxy a bit, and found a stanky way to play the ‘bridge’ of the tune. Lot’s of attitude and a big sound make a difference. We then took turns improvising over 8 bar sections of the tune. 

Notes from soloing

have a plan going into a solo, and look for key notes like 3rds and 7ths to anchor around

Repeat the same material if it will fit across multiple chords

“enclosures” sound hip. Practice enclosing the chord tones with the adjacent notes. 

Example: in Bb, the 3 chord tones are Bb, D, F. This can be enclosed like:

C-A-Bb, Eb-C#-D, G-E-F etc

- find a note that sounds especially good on your instrument and incorporate it in the solo

Finally we played through Avalon, and Conner’s group joined in on the solo choruses. Andrew briefly demonstrated pre-bebop drumming techniques. 

Notes:

again aim for those anchor notes. Over a 2-5-1, play a pretty melody in the key, then aim for the leading tone somewhere in the 5 to lead back to 1. This will make the solo sound coherent and planned. 

Exercises:

play through all 2-5-1 in all keys. Start from the root and outline the chord

Play those same 2-5-1’s but don’t start from the root, and aim for the notes that change in the next chord

Play a solo using only quarter notes to give yourself time to think about the voice leading

- submitted by Andrew Fox

...

8/13 - Looking ahead and a brief synopsis

The Edmonds Honor Jazz Band performed this week and will play once more next Thursday 8/22 at 6:30 PM

8/13

-We checked out Brandt's new composition of Wave and did a little arranging (trumpet+trombone for the first A, trumpet trombone sax for the second A, trombone for the bridge, everyone for the last A)

-We did some call and response soloing as well as took full choruses over the changes to Little Sunflower. We talked about what makes an interesting solo (dynamics, rhythm, note length, etc). It's a modal tune, and Brant wrote out the corresponding scales for us to practice using.

-We also did clapping solos where we had to guess what each person was trying to do to make it interesting (see above). - Alex Weber

Good Bait Combo,

This week our group was a little on the small side. We decided to work on Avalon a bit by ourselves and then combine with Eisenmenger’s group. 

We ran the melody to Avalon a couple of times, then practiced either playing the roots, the melody, or walking a bass line. All three methods are a great way to become comfortable with the changes. 

After that we combined with Eisenmenger’s group, and played through Maiden Voyage.

Notes from that discussion: 

Dynamics count - play the bridge louder, then pull back for extra drama

After that we worked on Doxy a bit, and found a stanky way to play the ‘bridge’ of the tune. Lot’s of attitude and a big sound make a difference. We then took turns improvising over 8 bar sections of the tune. 

Notes from soloing

have a plan going into a solo, and look for key notes like 3rds and 7ths to anchor around

Repeat the same material if it will fit across multiple chords

“enclosures” sound hip. Practice enclosing the chord tones with the adjacent notes. 

Example: in Bb, the 3 chord tones are Bb, D, F. This can be enclosed like:

C-A-Bb, Eb-C#-D, G-E-F etc

- find a note that sounds especially good on your instrument and incorporate it in the solo

Finally we played through Avalon, and Conner’s group joined in on the solo choruses. Andrew briefly demonstrated pre-bebop drumming techniques. 

Notes:

again aim for those anchor notes. Over a 2-5-1, play a pretty melody in the key, then aim for the leading tone somewhere in the 5 to lead back to 1. This will make the solo sound coherent and planned. 

Exercises:

play through all 2-5-1 in all keys. Start from the root and outline the chord

Play those same 2-5-1’s but don’t start from the root, and aim for the notes that change in the next chord

Play a solo using only quarter notes to give yourself time to think about the voice leading - Andrew Fox

We spent a lot of time playing Maiden voyage until the other group decided to join us. We specifically focused on improvising over the whole form and trading 8s with the drummer.

We then spent some time learning Avalon. Conner showed the group some tricks on how to use chromatic enclosures to land on a specific note.

Overall, not much to report this time. We did a lot of improvising! - Liam Salas

We started off by going over our two tunes Yardbird Suite and Filosophical Flying Fish. We ran through those as normal in preparation for Joel to give us some feedback.

We started with Filosophical for Joel and he stopped us and gave us some things to consider.
- In Bb blues you can play a D minor chord over the first 4 bars
- Anytime you have a dominant you can play the minor 5 or 6 on top of it
- If we give ourselves more rhythmic intentionality you will sound more confident
- Don’t start out with everything you have to say, start sparse and build, think just 2 notes and how you can build a solo off that
- Foot tapping affects your phrasing. The bigger the subdivision your foot taps, the longer your phrasing will be. Whole note, half note, quarter note. - Max Bartron

Mr. Fox's Cascade Swing Orchestra played on Thursday 8/15 at the Port and it was a delightful experience to hear so many jazz colony alumni playing their rear ends off. Here's a photo of the little trumpet section. Wishing the best to Forrest as he heads off to Berklee College of Music in Boston! Check out this band at their website? https://cascadeswingorchestra.com/

We are Dolphin Dance!

Today we switched around our teachers to act as judicators for our mini-performance. We played through On Green Dolphin Street and Sandu. 

The more we played, the more we felt better in keeping time and phrasing. As Kian put it, he “felt it” happening, and that’s what we’re looking for!

Remember that simple isn’t always easy and complex isn’t always best. 

Only couple more weeks until the big day! If you believe our group can handle another tune with the time we got left, shoot your shot and bring in a tune you like. A ballad would be nice! 

- Don Tran

August 6 - Many great jazz events around Edmonds! Read whole blog?

August 6th,

Mark your calendars for August 22 Big Band Event at the Edmonds Opera House on 6th and Dayton (old Masonic Hall).  Jazz Punishments and Honor Jazz Band will play from 6:30 PM - FREE

Thanks to JazzClubsNW for sponsoring this great opportunity.

https://www.jazzclubsnw.org/

As we head toward the performance we will try something new. Next week we will have a 15 minute slot at 7:00 where directors will go hear one tune by another combo and give feedback. If you leave your group, get them rolling while you’re away so they can get some reps in with you out of the room?

Draft:

Conner will go upstairs to Fox/Swanberg “Good Bait” combo - Avalon.

Joel will go hear Max Bennett’s “Body and Sole” - Yardbird Suite.

Swanberg will go to Conner’s choir room group - Doxy.

7:15-7:30 we will have Max Bennett listen to Joel’s “Dolphin Dance” combo.

Fox to Brandt’s “Wave” combo.

If you haven’t encouraged your combo to listen to their namesake song or artist can you try to encourage that next week?

Keep up the good work! - Mr. B

Many jazz events this week. Here's a photo of a bunch of my high school friends that are still playing music and now their kids are into jazz too. Bill Wilson brought his son Chris to the SeaJazz event.  Chris is playing jazz piano at Augora Hills in California (3rd place at Ellington last year).  

Bill & Chris were impressed at how mature our players were and they really loved the session.  Heidi Baum was a trumpeter with me in Jr. High School and we played Bugler's Holiday way back in the 1980s. Now she teaches nursing at SPU and she is an avid yodeler :)  Heidi's son took trumpet lessons with me for a bit. Michelle Broderson has a daughter who's now playing trombone and Devi especially enjoyed Hot Java this year at the Paramount Theater. They came down from Camano Island.

Here's what happened at Colony:

We are Dolphin Dance,
This week we learned the rest of On Green Dolphin Street. We even learned interesting ways to play over some of the changes. We utilized what we covered the week prior: playing scale degrees in 6 note runs, triads, thirds, the scale’s arpeggio and its variations, etc…
-Reminder to hit the shed a bit harder this week, as we will have a mini-performance in the coming Colony session.
-Brush up on Sandu, Eb blues. 
-Don’t forget that the blues scale exists. 
When all is done and well, why not try your hand in choosing what YOU believe is a good Ballad for our group to learn. (bring charts for extra musician points) - Don Tran

We reviewed the melody to Avalon starting with the last eight bars and moving backwards. The logic here is that the beginning is practiced the most, it's usually the strongest and it gets weaker and weaker as you go on.

We then started working on improvising over avalon. We went through the chords one by one, playing chord tones only; quarter notes, then eighth notes, then both. When comfortable with that, we did the same exercise with entire sections. During this time we also discussed articulation.

We reviewed the melody one more time at the end before practicing the roots only. We would have one person play The Roots while the other played the melody and then switched. - Scott Swanberg

Honor Jazz Band plays at Sea Jazz next Wednesday at 6:45 PM.  Bring a lawn chair and come check it out?

Join us at the Mainstreet Commons for Friday night sessions from 5-7 PM.

August 16th will feature Marina Albero and Jeff Busch!

Conner's Combo - This week, we decided to really hone in on playing a pattern through the chord changes of Doxy. The pattern we worked on was 1-3-5 over each chord change. We also went over how doing this is actually harder than improvising because when you're improvising, you typically aren't thinking of hitting every chord change systematically in this manner. Hitting the changes is important, but lyrical lines that incorporate more rhythmic variation usually aren't so rigid. 

We also played a "game" called "Switcheroni." It's when you're playing the melody of the tune and randomly switch to singing the pitch and number of the chord tones! It's a great way to learn the changes of the tune and make sure that you "stay found" within the melody and the changes. 

We then took some time getting used to playing Maiden Voyage. We did a lot of improvising, so there's not much to report on that front. However, one thing of note is that Conner demonstrated how you can play something through the changes of a modal tune such as Maiden Voyage. 

Don't be afraid to ask me (Liam) for advice too! - Liam Salas

In the Wave combo, we continued working on the song "Wave," arranging the rhythms and articulations of the melody. We also practiced the chord changes for "Little Sunflower" in F, as a possible alternate set of chord changes to perform over "Wave." At this time we also practiced soloing over the dorian scale with limitations on numbers of notes we could use. Later, we worked on the blues "Centerpiece" and practiced taking solos that featured call-and-response between the horn players and rhythm section. We also practiced taking clapping solos, to focus on rhythm in our improvisation.

Thanks, Forrest