Day 2 - Road Trip
Thanks for reading the blog each week. The only thing better for a review of the learning is if you take your own notes (in writing) highlighting what you thought were the most important aspects and then review them daily until they become learned or habitual.
There are many ways to travel. Enjoy the journey!
I'm really grateful to have so many super students and coaches (nearly all of whom are EW alumni).
We began our time together with a brief game of BLOG TRIVIA and I think Dan Nguyen and Chi Chi won for their teams and earned an extra otter pop.
Here's the opening listening session performance by Talli Kimani, Brandt Fisher, Michael Glynn and Max Bartron. Many wonderful moments in this short clip.
Video Link here:
Stompin'
Route 66 Combo - Nat King Cole
This recording is worth a listen for the intricate way the guitar and piano work together.
There is a unique and distinct time/feel difference between the guitar (Oscar Moore) and the piano solos. The guitarist seems to treat the 8th notes more unevenly than the pianist (Nat King Cole).
First, we went over what we have practiced in the past week. Chichi and Nathan got together for a rehearsal and practiced some tunes together.
We spent most of the rehearsal going over all things Stompin’ at the Savoy. First by going over the melody with a lead sheet, then running it all through. To help our soloing, we ran through a series of different exercises to get warmed up to the changes. We started by playing the root movements of the A section, then 3rds, 7ths, and so forth.
After practicing on Stompin’ for a while, we decided to read Trane’s Blues. We only sight read it, so make sure to practice it for next week.
Some nuggets
- Learn different roles on your horn. If you’re used to playing the melody and just soloing, try to approach your practice like a bass player. Learn how bass lines work, and how to play them! Learning the different roles of the instruments on the band stand can help you diversify your own playing by putting yourself in unusual roles.
- Always know your hand gestures! These are key for communicating how to end solos and arrange on the fly. Some of the most important ones are holding up a fist for last time/going on, patting your head for the “head”, and holding up 4 or 8 fingers to trade with the drummer.
Drum notes!
- Listen for when your ride feel gets “heavy”, we want to feel light and relaxed, always make sure you can hear everyone.
- Try and only play in the spaces of other peoples solos, it forces you to really listen to other people as opposed to feeling stuck in your own playing.
- While you’re playing, make sure the melody never leaves your mind. If you know the melody and sing it to yourself, you will never get lost.
- Max Bartron
Milestones Combo with Night Train in A202 (upstairs)
Miles Davis featuring Canonball Adderly. Mr. B's observations of the solos: Cannonball has an even resonant tone, very few rests, even sound in all registers, very light and supple tonguing, lots of even 8th notes, not many accents or microdynamics. Miles also has an even and unaccented soloing style, a bit subdued and "west coasty", includes some 1/2 valve special effects, often repetitive, nice timbre shading from drums during Miles' solo.
Video link here:
Today we combined with Joel’s group to explore various topics on the tunes “Oleo” and “Billie’s Bounce”. Some various notes:
- Good time is non-negotiable. Don’t sacrifice time while reaching for harmonic ideas.
- On rhythm changes, explore the voice-leading embedded within the harmony of the tune. There are many chromatic leading tones which give the tune a “forward” motion that we should be able to outline as improvisers.
- Spend a lot of time on the blues and rhythm changes, as they are stepping stones towards learning many more tunes.
- Sound like you are playing with other people, instead of practicing! In our first run of Oleo, we were not listening as well to other people in the band.
- On the blues, we practiced playing shorter, more conversational phrases.
- Card game analogy: You can think of collecting jazz language as a card game like Yu Gi Oh or Magic the Gathering. It is cool to just collect cards but it’s even better to know how to USE that language. “Don’t learn licks, learn how to USE licks”
- Trade with yourself, “Play a phrase, sing a phrase” (Lee Konitz).
- We then traded phrases with each other, with no set length of phrase. The goal was to respond to each others phrases, like a conversation, while still maintaining the blues form and steady time.
Homework this week is the same as last week: Learn enclosures, dominant bebop scale, major and minor blues scales, mixolydian scale. Do all these in Eb F and Bb. Lastly, learn Oleo, Honey Suckle Rose, And Soonymoon for two, and come back to jazz colony next week with a jazz song that features your instrument.
-Leo Nakamura
Thursday Night at the Port - come hear Mr. B's band the Javatown Swing Orchestra with free ice cream!
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