Final blog for this season

 Looking forward to our culmination on Wednesday night at the Main Street Commons!

 ExtravaBANDza is on Thursday 8/28 morning at 9 AM.  Section Leaders need to arrive by 8:15 AM

Check out this nice article in MyEdmondsNews and consider sharing the link?  These events are for us but also to help our community enjoy your efforts. INVITE friends and parents please.

https://myedmondsnews.com/2025/08/edmonds-woodway-hs-jazz-colony-combo-workshop-to-showcase-student-and-professional-talent/

Here's the plan for Wednesday8/27. All members are expected to bring their own chair and stay for the whole event to support each other. There may be pizza at the conclusion (probably around 7:45 PM).

                1)  Michael Glynn/Rimmy Le – “Astros”

                2)  Andrew Fox/Max Bartron – “Royals”              

                3)  Max Bennett/Scott Swanberg/Forrest Aubrey – “Nationals”

                4)  Brandt Fisher/Don Tran – “Rangers”

                5)  Joel Steinke/Talli Kimani – “Giants”

 

Here's last week's summary from Joel's Giants Combo - thanks to Talli for writing good blog summaries :)

 One-Liner Summary:

Joel’s core teaching → Music is about channeling raw power and life energy through rhythm, intent, and diatonic foundations — better to have energy and grow into the notes than have notes with no fire.

Joel’s Philosophy of Music

• The reason we play: to feel and cultivate power, strength, and life’s intensity — mixing aggression with sensitivity.

• Life constantly tries to strip your power; music restores it.

• Listening to jazz recordings builds that energy.

• Energy > Notes: it’s better to play with raw intent and fix notes later than to play “perfect” with no energy.

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 Observations from Listening (“Devilette” – Dexter Gordon)

• The bassist and drummer created energy changes that people felt.

• Lesson: if you play with the right energy, people connect, even if every note isn’t perfect.

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 Harmony & Notes (Practice Concepts)

• Diatonic triads = 3-note chords built from the scale.

• Diatonic = “within the scale.”

• Dorian mode = major scale starting from the 2nd note. (Ex: G Dorian = F major scale starting on G.)

• Practice idea: play scales in thirds (up and down).

  • Ascending example: F–A, G–Bb, A–C, Bb–D …

  • Descending example: A–F, Bb–G, C–A …

• Learn to recognize scale degrees + what comes next.

• Use diatonic triads in solos.

• Exercise: play triads up in one direction, down in the other.

• Sing the notes → helps train ear + connection.

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 Bebop Principle

• Bebop = all about rhythm.

• The notes matter, but it’s rhythm and energy that give it life.

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#7 - August 12th - 7th inning

It's now familiar territory, and we achieved deeper understanding...

This week, we stayed with the same material as last time, continuing
to dig into the tunes and the concepts we've been building on
throughout the summer.

We focused again on “Summertime” in D minor, using it to strengthen
our improvisation and listening skills. The group is becoming more
confident with navigating the changes and finding space within the
form to develop ideas.

On the theory side, we’re still honing our ability to recognize chord
quality by listening for certain scale degrees, and thinking up
rhythmic lines to go along with them. This continues to be a key tool
for soloing (and comping) more intentionally.

We had some interesting conversations about film music, their
composers, and how artists can have drastic changes in their
discography later in their musical careers, which may reflect where
they find themselves in their own lives. Remember to play, make, and
listen to music that YOU enjoy. While it takes a lot of studying,
practicing, hard work and discipline, music is also supposed to be a
place where you can be yourself.

Our current repertoire:

Baseball Boogie (Eb version)
Watermelon Man (Herbie Hancock)
Summertime (John Coltrane version in D minor)

Even though the material hasn't changed, the music is growing.
Repetition with focus is helping everyone sound more connected and
expressive. Keep practicing, and keep showing up ready to play.

-Don Tran

We started learning Mack the Knife a few weeks ago, but not everyone was here, now we are working on making sure everyone is on the same page with the melody. We learned it by ear, we listened to the Sonny Rollins recording, we also listened to a bunch of other recordings, including some old ones from the 20s, but we found that the Sonny Rollins recording was the most clear.

We then broke down each chord and arpeggiated each of the chords, and went over some basic tips for improvising over these chords, using the chord tones 1 3 and 5 mostly. We all took solos at the same time, then we went down the line and took individual solos. Some of us were having a hard time hearing when the chorus starts, so we broke down the chorus into two separate parts. We looped the first 8 bars, focusing on making smooth transitions in between the chord changes. We then looped the second 8 bars, emphasizing the big 2-5-1 turnaround so we can hear when the chorus starts and finishes.

- Max Bartron

Jazz Artist of the week to check out: Lester Young

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From Talli:

Get inspired about jazz, or any type of music. Music is most fun when you have skill on your instrument, then you can express yourself as much as possible. The better you are at something, the more fun and enjoyment you can have. You all should focus on playing with soul, heart, and passion on your instruments. Strive to be better, seek out songs that feature your instruments of any genre, and play along with them and learn to sound like the players on the original song.   

HW: Find just 1 song that you genuinely like to listen to that features your instrument prominently (upright bass, tenor sax, alto sax, trumpet) and listen to it, not for homework but for pleasure. It can be any genre. Just find something you like that will inspire you to practice your instrument more. 

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Joel’s Teachings: 

Balance in life is very important Joel Steinke. Society values people who go all or nothing for one thing, but Joel believes balance is important. Joel seemed to support not going all in for just one thing, but instead living a balanced life

"Try and be great at many things, not just one" - Joel Steinke

If all you do is practice in a practice room,m you’ll sound sad, and jazz is about expressing the feelings of life, not the practice room. This is very important, music is about feelings and expressing yourself so like I said in previous blogs, play you!

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Harmonic Wisdom

You can treat every two-five chord progression just like a five. So instead of worrying about G minor 7 and C7 just worry about C7. This will simplify your solo work. Another example is if you have a 2 -5 chord progression like F-7 to Bb 7, just improvise over Bb7.

Follow the closet three and 7 of each chord. This is voice leading. One note per bar of each chord. Move to whichever third and seventh is closer to each bar. Over the song devilete, this works well on the bridge, starting on the 3rd and seventh (either one) of the first chord of the bridge and continuing to play the closest 4th or seventh of the next chord. You will either not change notes or only have to move by the distance of a whole step at the maximum.

Key tip: If you don't know where to start, just play the chord tones (1,3,b,7) of a given chord and improvise using just them. Practice your improvisation for just 10 minutes a day, and you will see extreme gains very fast!!

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Other Knowledge

Pay attention to the form of the songs!!

The form is ABA for Devilette

Rushing is better than dragging generally, but not changing the tempo is preferable.

To make soloing more fun, incorporate background, short riffs played by horns and guitar that are implemented behind a soloist. These make a song way more fun and interesting to listen to. They are almost always included in big bands, but you can include them in small combos.

Anything longer than a dotted quarter gotta be shaped.

- Talli Kimani

Tunes:

• After You’ve Gone
• Mo’ Better Blues
• The Intimacy of the Blues
• Lady Bird

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Concepts:

Suspended Chords:

we ran into suspended chords for the first time on Mo' Better Blues here's a recap of what they are:

- suspended chords replace the third in a chord with either the 2nd or 4th, which is often specified as sus2 or sus4, respectively.

- for the sake of simplicity as well as in the context of Mo' Better Blues, sus chords are often considered as "passing chords" and function similarly enough to dominant chords, and therefore can be treated as such with minimal conflict.

Leave Space!

• Leaving space gives what we do play a stronger sense of intention and purpose.
• This also gives us a moment to either reflect on what we have played or think about what we would like to play next.
• It also encourages greater creativity within constraints, as now we are not only thinking about “when, where and what will I play?” but “when and where will I finish what I am playing.”
• This will also improve our musicianship in the sense that it is easier to keep track of where we are if we continued to play along with the changes, but in the moment we are not playing, it can be more difficult to do so, which is similar to the idea that people tend to get lost while reading rests, rather than notes.

Striving for Complexity

• This idea expands on something Andrew Fox went over in the large group discussion. In practice, it is great to challenge yourself to try things that on unconventionally challenging in order to satisfy our desires to improve our playing ability, however, we shouldn’t lose track of the idea that we are trying to make music at the end of the day.
• Music is just like any other art form, it can be interesting and stimulating to read a highly theoretical textbook where the writing is strictly informative and direct every now and then, similar to how it can be nice to listen to or play highly technical bebop, or post-modern music. But it can also be nice to read a poem or short story, similar to perhaps playing the blues.
• Overall, the idea is that it is okay to go through periods of intense focus on a certain area of skillset, it is important not to lose track of our goal to become well-rounded musicians.

Rimmy Le

#5 - August 5 - On the Trail - Baseball & Apple Pie :)

 

Mr. B opening remarks were to ask students how they are making an effort to make Jazz Colony the best it can be for their group participants?  I made pie which was fun for me but more fun to share. 

This evenings' opening music presentation ... follow this link to enjoy a review of our teacher squad playing on "On the Trail"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLYLtSy9ySg

COMBO SUMMARIES

Fox's Royals - Andrew and Alex only

In today’s session I (Max) did a bit of roaming around since our combo only had 1 person!  I sat in with Brandt and Don's combo to help work on establishing a groove and orchestrating the melody on Watermelon Man by Herbie Hancock.

We figured out what the dissonant sounding notes were in the beginning, I believe they are being played by bottles. Bergevin edit (Actually this sound is brazilian instrument called the cuica https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVOtE1qSymU)

We had each of the horn players play one of those parts for the intro, until we all come in with the melody. But before we played the melody, we just looped the intro, trying to make it sound as tight and groovy as possible, and making sure we’re all comfortable before the melody.

After learning all the orchestration for the melody, we figured out the whole arrangement and started soloing on the tune. Then after we played the melody out we had to figure out an ending, so we took the ending from the head hunters recording. They do a fade out, and it’s the exact same thing as the intro, except the layering is opposite. The whole band starts, then bass and drums drop out, and it’s just the two horns doing the dissonant pattern.

-Max Bartron

Only Alex showed up this week! So he had a private lesson for the first 1.5 hours. 

We started by practicing the circle of fifths. 

Here it is starting on C: C, F, Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb/F#, B, E, A, D, G, C 

1. Bopping the "roots" around the circle
2. Bopping major triads around the circle
3. Bopping minor triads around the circle

Next, we practiced identifying and playing notes by their scale degrees. I made a little game out of it, but listing the numbers 1-9 on a piece of paper. I would call a key, then point to a scale degree, and Alex would identify it according to the key. For example, 3 in Db is F, and 2 in A is B. 

After we were pretty confident in scale degrees, we learned a jazzy little pattern by scale degrees (8, 6, 5, 8, 6) and learned it in several keys. Knowing the scale degrees of a pattern will make it easier to learn in all 12 keys if you know your scales well! 

Then Alex had an introduction to the piano. I showed him the layout of the keyboard, and we identified and found chords together. Being able to voice chords on the piano is a temendous help in memorizing chord structures and harmonic patterns! We noticed that some chords are stable feeling while others pull or lead the ear to another chord. Those leading chords are usually what we call "dominant" chords, and feature a lowered seventh. Music is really only made of three kinds of chord: 

1. Home - (tonic)
2. Somewhere else - (subdominant)
3. Going home - (dominant) 

 

This pattern is everywhere! In classical music as 4-5-1, in jazz as 2-5-1

Finally, we applied all of this to improvising in C minor, and then the first 2-5-1 of Honeysuckle Rose. We noted that certain notes in the C melodic minor scale are unstable, and "lead" to the chord tones, and that these happen to be the same notes as in the dominant chord of C minor. 

The 2 tends to lead to 1 D -> C 

The 4 tends to lead to 3: F -> E

The 6 is rather evocative on it's own, but can lead to 5: A -> G

The b6 strongly leads to 5: Ab -> G

The 7 strongly leads to 1: B -> C 

If we take those unstable notes and stack them up, we get G, B, D, F, or, the dominant in C minor! 

Things to pracice: 

1. Major, minor triads around the circle of fifths
2. Dominant seventh chords around the circle of fifths
3. "enclosures" around chord tones
4. Improvising over a recorded drone, noticing the tendencies of certain notes to lead to others

8/5

Washington Nationals Combo

We played the head to “Ladybird” and each took a chorus on it. Afterward, we collectively played through the root movement of Ladybird. Then we played the 3s and 7s of each chord in quarter notes, then in eighth notes. 

We tried improvising with rhythmic limitations (playing one motif and developing it through the chorus). 

We took this further by only playing one note, C, and playing it with one rhythmic motif which we developed over the chorus. C works well on Ladybird because it’s a common tone among all the chordscales in Ladybird. 

The members of our combo who missed last week learned the melody to “Blue Monk” by ear. Afterwards, we also discussed a harmony part to the melody and who would play that part. 

Everyone also went over the changes to a ‘jazz blues’ and we improvised using these changes for Blue Monk. 

At the end, we shared some stories with each other as a group. 

- Forrest A

Michael Glynn's Astros - 

Tunes:

• After You’ve Gone
  

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Concepts:

We practiced taking solos and only using notes from the home key of the tune (Concert F) regardless of the underlying chord changes. This exercise helps achieve the following:

• It makes gives us a tool by limiting the amount of notes we can use to play the underlying changes

• This in turn shifts our focus from “what notes can I play?” to “which of these notes sounds good over this chord?”

• We are also forced out of out comfort zones in a way will often develop certain tendancies and “isms” where they reach certain chords and progressions, and this exercise helps restrict us from crutching on those tendancies to make it through certain sections and actually make musical decisions.

• It also encourages greater creativity within constraints, similar to how poets work within a specific meter or rhyme scheme.

• This approach can strengthen our sense of melody and phrasing, as we’re compelled to find interesting musical ideas with fewer resources.

• It reinforces our understanding of the home key and helps internalize its sound, which can improve overall tonal memory.

We also went over how important it is to sing:

• Singing is incredibly important as it gives us a greater responsibility for the pitch of each note.

• Often, musicians tend to rely on their instruments to get the “close enough” to each note they are trying to play, but with singing you don’t have that luxury which then exposes how good your ears actually are.

• Singing internalizes the music in a different way—it creates a direct link between your musical imagination and execution.

• It also serves as a diagnostic tool: if you can sing something accurately, you probably understand it musically and harmonically.

• Incorporating singing into your practice can enhance both improvisation and intonation on your primary instrument.

We played a game where Michael would choose a random key to play the blues in without telling the soloist and they would have to figure it out on their own until we moved on to the next person who then also got a completely random key.

• This exercise spawned from an experience Michael had had where musicians began a tune while they were unsure of what key the tune was in.

• The idea of this exercise was for us to see what its like to be truly unprepared and quickly devise a means to get back on track.

• It also highlights the importance of ear training and quick adaptability in live performance scenarios.

• This kind of challenge builds real-time problem solving, helping players become less reliant on charts or lead sheets.

• It mimics real-world situations where you may have to jump in mid-song, transpose on the fly, or deal with unexpected modulations.

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Discussions:

• We discussed the idea that in order to achieve something in your practice, the first and most important step is that you must want it.

  • to play in tune, first you need to want to play in tune.

  • to achieve a certain goal, first you have to want to achieve it.

  • The depth of your desire directly influences the effort, patience, and consistency you’ll apply in your practice.

  • This “intentional mindset” is often what separates those who improve steadily from those who plateau.

• Michael talked about how the thing that almost always sours the vibe of a gig, is when people are rude to each other, or try to blame others for their own shortcomings.

• It goes without saying that this applies to every discipline or profession you engage in.

• Creating a supportive and respectful musical environment is essential to building trust and fostering creativity onstage.

• Musicians who take ownership of their mistakes tend to earn more respect and contribute to a healthier group dynamic.

• A good attitude can make even a rough gig feel like a worthwhile learning experience.

Rimmy Le

This is Brandt’s group, and we are cooking it up in the summertime jazz kitchen. The designated blogger has run out of baseball/music puns.

Speaking of summertime, we went over “Summertime” by composed by George Gershwin, performed and recorded by many.

We went over much of the same concepts as the previous weeks, but we are surely getting better at them. To revisit, we realize the 3rd and 7th scale degrees to determine the quality of the chords. A little addition to that is realizing the 6th scale degree, as moving it around can create some nice intriguing sounds. For example, while playing Summertime in D Minor, we utilized the D Dorian scale, which has the usual lowered 3rd and 7th, but this time we have a non-lowered 6th (D E F G A >B< C). This creates a vibe that someone in the group described as “Miles Davisy” or modal sounding, and its great tool to have when soloing. 

Our repertoire looks something like this:

Baseball Boogie (our edited version in Eb)

Watermelon Man (Herbie Hancock version)

Summertime (John Coltrane version in D minor)

Practice! - Don Tran

Jazz Colony 8/5/25 Talli Kimani 

Tone Tips

• Use more mouthpieces in the mouth for the saxophone

• Like you're blowing through a straw

• Harder read for sax

• Get your tongue out of the equation.

Improvisation and notes

• Devilette first 4 measures are pentatonic

• G minor pentatonic = 1,b3,4,5,b7

• Blues scale = 1, b3, 4, 5, b5, b, b7

• Triads that make a hexatonic 6 note scale = F- and G- traid (f,ab,c and g, bb, d)

• Play them really fast and you can play outside the scale

• Joels favorite triads: 1 major and 2 minor triads in ionian. Example, in Db ionian (major) the 1 major and 2 minor triads are Db major (Db, F, Ab,) and Eb minor (Eb, Gb, Bb). 

Homework

• Learn bridge to devilette

• The bridge is slightly different from the recording

• Explore the pentatonic scale and practice it

Miscellaneous Notes

• Eb alto sax plays c when piano plays Eb. Bb tenor sax plays c when piano plays Bb. Bb trumpet plays c when piano plays Bb.

• Listen to Jay Thomas, he’s a force of nature

• Nothing missing its just work! 

- Talli

July 29 - #4

Royals - Theater

We started by running through the circle of fifths. I explained how not only is memorizing this order a good way to practice simple phrases in ass 12 keys, but it at the same time allows you to understand which dominant chord lead to which tonics (V-1), all the way around. 

Here's the circle, from C to C: 

C - F - Bb - Eb - Ab - Db - Gb/F# - B - E - A - D - G - C 

We practiced this a few time, just playing the roots, and then outlining major triads on each one. 

Next we worked on the A section of Honeysuckle Rose. We outlined the chords, and noticed that the 5-1 movement in the opening 2-5-1 is one of the pairs we saw from the circle of fifths. Next we tried simple improvisation using the roots of each chord, with some rhythmic invention and what I called "wiggles" to notes on either side. From here we realized the importance of knowing your scales not only ascending and descending from the first note, but inside and out, that way the "wiggles" become easy. 

Example in concert pitch: 

The first chord is Gmin7. A G will always sound nice over this chord. From there I can "wiggle" to A or F# on either side. 

Then comed D7. A D sounds good, and I can wiggle to E and C and those sound nice. 

This repeats once more, 

Then F6. F sounds nice, and I can "wiggle to E and G. 

Wiggling around those root notes doesn't create the most impressive solo, but it does make a purposive, understandable solo with a bit of melodic interest. I discussed how in a sense improvisation is aiming for those chord tones, like 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and wiggling around in between. 

I demonstrated how you could start on any random note, and if you make it back to a chord tone, it sounds like it was on purpose - purposive. 

To get away from all the theory, we moved to free improvisation over a drone. We took turns droning and Eb concert, playing some Eb6 chord tones, and improvising freely in the scale of Eb. Then we added any random notes, and noticed that certain notes sound more pleasant over the Eb  than others. Those are the notes to aim for! We also noticed that some of the less pleasant notes have a tendency to resolve in a certain direction. 

Using scale degrees:

2->1

4->3

6->5

7->1 

m3->M3

- Andrew Fox

We handed back our interval work sheet and started focusing on more basic theory. Going over major triads, the 5th movement is the basic key of all harmony, C to G, F to C,  Db to Ab, etc.

We are trying focus on the circle of 5ths, we’re practicing playing the fifths of each chord as we go around. Then we practiced 2-5s over Honeysuckle rose, primarily in the A section. We extended the 2-5 so they are a bar each, making it easier to resolve and have nice voice leading.

-Max Bartron

Jazz Colony 7/29/25

By Talli Kimani

LEGENDARY INSANE Joel Steinke Nugget: There is an innate sound inside of you that you can find through the courage of stopping to sound like other people and sounding like yourself. (This blew my mind)

Time and Tone

Everyone is responsible for time. Don't rely on bass players and drummers. Everyone's responsible, especially you Jonothan. With no drums, you gotta work even harder to stay locked in and not drag!

Remember, constant motion to your playing.

 

Play scales no tongue all air on sax. Especially the lower and higher registers. That will make your tone beautiful. Remember, relaxed embouchure tongue in the “hey” position, and tight corners and open throat use a tone of air. 

Don’t rely on the tongue and take in more mouthpiece. 

Use less tongue for sax players.

Play legato and play as evenly as possible.

Try not to rush or drag.

The best way to practice your time is to make the metronome play on only the first beat of the measure and not all 4 beats. Play scales with metronome only on beat 1 over and over and then just do fingering no air like we practiced.  Second step is put the metronome as beat two or beat three or beat four. This will make your time, ROCK SOLID.

The above paragraph is called metronome games. It will improve your time, technique, and is very fun and takes the monotony out of scale practice.

Improve

Play something that informs your ears what to play next. When you improvise, your telling your story, the audience is here to see you. So tell your story, play your life.

Pentatonics give coherence to playing

Pentatonic patterns: 1,b3,4,5,b7 5,4,b3,1… b3,4,5,b7,1,b7,5,4,b3 etc (notice the pattern its like math)

Skip notes on pentatonic scales for example 1,4,b7,b3,5,1

Find repeating Patterns in the pentatonic scale and explore them, have fun and be you.

Hear a song in 4 bar increments!! Phrasing of a song matters a lot It informs where your playing and where your headed to.

Don’t play if you don’t know where you are. If you get lost try and hear where you are.

Pay attention to the fifth bar and the 9th bar in a blues.

Other Joel Wisdom

If you have a goal and you focus, college will be better. Goals are important in life.

It’s easy to imitate others, as it requires less courage.

Talli’s Teachings

You all should focus on playing with soul, heart, and passion on your instruments. Strive to be better, seek out songs that feature your instruments of any genre, and play along with them and learn to sound like the players on the original song. 

Practice consistently even if its just 30 minutes a day, i know you can do that. Remember, discipline brings freedom. An inexperienced beginner can plunk at the piano to his heart's content and will not sound good. 

However, a disciplined student who practices multiple hours a day with discipline will have better technique and mastery over the piano and is more free to express their ideas on the piano than the beginner who lacks discipline.

Keep up the good work, push yourself even harder, and remember to have fun playing music!! 

7/29/25

Washington Nationals Combo

We learned the blues head “Blue Monk” by ear. Then, we went over the changes to a ‘jazz blues’ and used that form to improvise on Blue Monk. 

We played the chord tones of each chord of a jazz blues in quarter notes, then in eighth notes. We then took turns improvising on the form, using the chord tones as a tool.

We went back over “Ladybird,” first by playing the melody. Then, we played the chord tones of each chord in quarter notes, then in eighth notes. To end, we improvised on the form of Ladybird, using the chord tones as a tool.

- Forrest A