It was another great big week of Jazz in Edmonds and around our area. I hope you're all getting a chance to "hit the road" a bit during the summer break. Practicing your same routine but changing the location can make something ordinary seem special.
One reason for musicians to Road Trip is to bring their tunes to people they don't usually get to play for. Having a gig will really help motivate you to hone in on some specifics. Remember to keep the music as the priority.
I hope you'll take a moment and read the notes from this past weeks' Jazz Colony workshop and then sign off/put your screen down and then practice :)
The coaches opened the session with a nice rendition of But Not For Me.
Take a listen?
Follow this LINK:
But Not For Me - Joel, Talli, Scott and Max
Route 66 Summary
This week we’re starting to focus more on improvising and understanding the language, trying to get a foundational understanding of how to solo over chord changes.
The key is the chords, Jazz musicians play the chords, with some other notes. If you analyze a bird solo you will find he is constantly outlining the chords, playing chord tones and extensions with passing tones and such. Understanding chord motion and voice leading will help your improvising exponentially, and these skills come with time. The more you transcribe and learn tunes, the more familiar you’ll be with the language.
Alex asked a great question about learning tunes, there are many ways to go about it, but here’s some advice I can give.
- Start with getting the song into your ear. Listen to the original, and many other recordings. If you want to really learn the melody, I’d suggest listening to many recordings. Listening to vocal recordings can help with clarity on melody.
- Then obviously, learn the chords. Go through playing roots, guide tones, arpeggios, until you are comfortable with the changes.
- I would suggest learning a solo to a tune you want to learn. It will help speed up the process and keep you from becoming demotivated.
- Take the song through comfortable keys, you don’t need to learn them in all 12 (yet). First, focus on the keys that you play in regularly, like F, Bb, Eb, etc. Don’t worry about keys you don’t normally play in.
Next we played through Trane’s blues and ran through the whole thing. After we finished we reflected on what went well, it good to see that the common theme was experimentation, we were all trying new things. So what went bad? The general consensus was that the time was very iffy, rushing a lot. So naturally, we turned the metronome.
Some tips for practicing with a metronome, I find it more helpful to practice on off beats, it helps you create your own sense of time, rather than the metronome doing it for you. The key to metronome practice is subtraction, the less clicks the better. You can start with quarter notes, then maybe try half notes or whole notes, you’ll notice it makes your time much different and you have to really focus. For a fun exercise and good practice, you can put the metronome on varied beats and improvise over that. One I like to do is whole notes on beat 4, but you can get creative with offbeats and other beats.
Max Bartron
Road Song Combo
7/21/26
In the absence of Mr. Glynn, we were fortunate enough to be joined by Scott Swanbert and Brandt Fisher. Following introductions we took the time today to work with some music out of the Charlie Parker Aebersold book. More specifically, we spent most of our time discussing the blues with Parker's tune, “Now’s the Time.”
We began by reading the tune quite literally out of the book before taking solos around. Calling back to some of the previous sessions, we briefly discussed the importance of the recordings in pulling the valuable details like articulation and phrasing in creating a signature jazz sound and so as to get off the page. Following this, we took the time to play around with a few exercises to get the blues form under our belts as much as we can. We designated one person as an accompanist and another as the melody / solo. We passed these roles off going around a circle and taking choruses. By narrowing down the amount of people playing and the number of instruments taking up space, we are able to focus intensely on one person's specific sound. This limitation, ironically enough, often makes it easier to generate ideas and play off another person's sound as the accompanist. After some time, we added a third role in the bass part. Besides forcing us to listen so closely, passing these roles around allows us a peek into other instruments' workings and thinking during a song, and how all of these interactions shape our approach to improv. Scott gave a few excellent examples of how a bass player may approach walking, and how those approaches can give horn players more freedom to then approach their solos.
With Olivia joining us, we also took the time to discuss how we “feel” the music and time. Similarly to how we discussed the breaking up of the form in pieces so as not to get lost, we can break up the measure into half or whole notes so as to keep us more grounded and steady. Even with a drummer, time is something that must be shared between every member of the group especially given our exercises that focused on only two or three players at a time.
Finally, we talked a bit about voice leading. Many times, chords share common tones which we can use to our advantage in creating lines and hearing the progression of the harmony. The root movement, along with the movement of the chord tones is always a reliable place to start approaching a tune when unsure.
Summary
Study the recording for the language. Even when reading classical music we must insert our human touch in the articulation, phrasing, feel, etc.
Every role teaches something different. Whether accompanying, walking bass, or soloing, each part provides a unique perspective on the music.
Understanding how other instruments think and function helps us become more responsive, supportive, and musical improvisers.
Time belongs to everyone! A drummer may establish the groove, and arguably has the largest reins over it, but every member of the ensemble is responsible for maintaining it,
Larger beats, half or whole notes, can help us stay grounded in the form and develop a stronger internal pulse.
Voice leading is one of the clearest paths through harmony and one of the best ways to begin examining a new tune. When in doubt, follow the movement of the roots and chord tones as they provide a strong foundation for creating melodic lines.
Learn to love playing the blues!
Milestones Combo - This week we played Impressions, and the recording we listened to was with John Coltrane and Elvin Jones.
We urge you to listen to the recording, and get the styles into your head. Just by listening to their phrasing and rhythmic tendencies can help shape your during improvisation.
KEY CONCEPT: Pentatonic Scales
This week, we mostly focused on the
Minor Pentonic: 1 - b3 - 4 - 5 - b7
and the
Minor Pentonic with Major 6th (also known as the Dorian Pentatonic Scale): 1 - b3 - 4 - 5 - 6
this is one is good for modal tunes like Impressions.
Learning these scales in all twelve keys can help with creating cool “out” lines by shifting the pentatonic around multiple keys. Also just useful in just about every tune.
Once you get the linear scale down (going up and down), experiment with different patterns and shapes using the notes in the scale. Flesh out ideas until you can form entire coherent lines when improvising. Take inspiration from the ideas that John Coltrane and Elvis Jones deploy in Impressions.
So, the homework for Drummers (applies to everyone else) - Listen to Elvin Jones. His playing was revolutionary for Jazz in his time, using things like polyrhythms, and playing so fluidly while keeping time. Like he was singing through the kit. It’s a testament to the line of thinking that we should not just improvise, but create melodies.
Nonetheless, Time is King. Prioritize keeping the tempo and saving all the fancy embellishments and flourishing later.
“Quarter-note makes the money”. If you want to be play reliably in time, play quarter notes/half notes.
Mr. Bergevin mentioned the difference in era of how we learn Jazz.
Nowadays, we learn mostly by video/streaming. Take this as a reminder to learn just learn tunes by reading lead sheets from time to time. We were passed out a lead sheet book of tunes by Miles Davis. A good idea for you and your friends is to just go through it and learn as many heads as possible, so that everyone knows the same tunes that they all could play at a gig.
- Don Tran
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