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