This is the final video in my way too long series on shell voicings and color tone chords. I learned about these voicings from Chris Buzzelli. I wonder where he learned them? Here is the link to the video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5YyBIkiLvg
Here is the link to the whole playlist. You know, in case you have nothing to do for the next two hours!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfMIvEfzDu-ddNbS4ruPGm1LLy7Nh49pI
It’s been a hard day. Getting out of the airport was tough because our rental van is so high tech that we are literally like the three stooges trying to remove the seats and work the GPS. I ended up navigating Kevin to St Gallen to pick up Serge’s bass the old school way. You know, with a map? We got there late and the shop was closed for lunch but we killed time for a few hours. The Sprenger violin shop is the oldest in Switzerland and it was gorgeous and very cool. They had three basses for Serge to try out.
After getting the bass we headed to Stafa, having deciphered the GPS. But we arrived with only enough time to sound check and to head to the hotel for 30 minutes. At this point we have been awake for well over 24 hours and it’s been showing. We’re all pretty ragged but soon we will play our first show and get our first night of sleep. I’m hopeful that we will be rested for tomorrow’s gig. Now we’re off to dinner and the show…
In five days I will embark on a 2 week tour of Switzerland supporting my long time musical collaborator Kevin Meisel. I’ll be blogging the tour here and hopefully I’ll figure out how to post video. The band is Kevin, me, and Serge van der Voo on bass. Today we had our final rehearsal, at a secret location in Ann Arbor. We’ve been rehearsing every Saturday for a few months now, making sure that our arrangements are worked out and that we are truly ready for 15 shows in 16 days! Tomorrow we will perform at Old Town Tavern to kick off the tour. Check back here for details and stories as we make our way across Switzerland!
Kevin and Serge at our final rehearsal.
Check out this Transcription of John Coltrane’s solo on his composition, “Moment’s Notice”. This is a great tune. The melody is very singable and the chord changes, while difficult, make sense. I’ve loved this tune for years but never really learned it well.
Looking at the solo, the first thing that strikes me is how often ‘Trane will use the same melodic material with slight variations. It’s clear that he has worked out some basic ideas for these changes. The second thing I noticed is an increasing use of the sharp five on dominant chords as the solo progresses. This is nearly always part of a descending arpeggio and happens at mm 21 (Bb7), 29 (Eb7), 33 (Bb7), 43 (Bb7 – not part of a descending arpeggio), 57 (Bb7, though he actually starts on an A natural here. Also, not resolving to I), 63 (Ab7), 85 (Ab7), 95 (Bb7, not resolving to I), 98 (Bb7 – he plays the arpeggio after the chord has already resolved to I and follows up with a lick that he also plays a few times earlier in his solo. That lick is also two beats later. Compare mm 21-22, 81-82, and 97-99.), 101 (Ab7), 109 (Bb7), and 115 (Bb7). I hadn’t really picked up on this with casual listening but it became very clear once I got into the transcription process.
Coltrane starts the solo out with a break. He plays down the so-called major bebop scale (a major scale with a chromatic added between 6 and 5 which keeps chord tones on strong beats) and then outlines the I chord. It’s repeated almost note for note at his second break in measures 40-41. The descending Maj7 arpeggio in measure 8 is used again in measures 62, 84, 85 (up a half step) and 100. Actually, he plays the exact same line in mm 99-102 that he played in mm 61-64. The difference is that the later repetition is part of a very long eighth note line. It’s as though he was assemling ideas in his first two choruses and then putting them together in the final chorus.
In measure 13 I think it’s pretty clear that he was still playing over Cmin7 even though the change to Bbmin7 had already arrived. It still sounds great and he makes the modulation quite clear in the second half of the measure with a descending Bbmin7 arpeggio.
Contrast the 13th measure of the form (mm 16, 54, 92) with the 29th measure (mm 32, 70, 108). It’s clear that despite the written changes, he is treating the former as a I chord (before launching into the key change up a minor third), whereas in the latter he is treating the measure as a ii-V to the ii chord. It’s an excellent example of how the function of a change can determine what you might do with it.
I love the desending melodic minor scale Coltrane uses over the Abmin6 chords in this tune. Check out mm. 31, 69, 91, and 107. I also appreciate the way he echoes the melody over the last 8 bars of each chorus. And of course there is the double time diminished scale lick right before the third chorus in measure 75. Dom7#5 chords played in descending minor 3rds. Each four note group is half of a diminished scale and the next four note group covers the other half. Well worth learning. Also note that the longest 8th note phrase – 5 bars long – is in his final chorus. And the first note of each measure is G, F#, F, E, Eb, and F. In case you thought that the F# on the Eb chord was some kind of error!
Every time I transcribe I learn something new. Usually I discover that what I thought was complicated is actually really straightforward. And I’ll admit that I don’t have this solo learned at full speed. Yet. That’s what practice is for!
I’ve recently completed this transcription of Sonny Stitt’s solo on “Out of Nowhere” from his Last Sessions LP. It’s one of the many tunes that I should have known years ago but only recently learned. I transcribed Sonny’s interpretation of the melody as well as his two chorus improvisation. The fingering should allow you to get close to the original phrasing, which is why, for example, in measure 53 there is a sudden jump up from position II to XII.
Rather than analyze the entire solo, here are some highlights that I found particularly interesting. There is a lot to learn from transcribing a solo, from phrasing to feel to interpretation and scale choice.
MM.24- This lick is difficult on guitar but it sounds great and the sudden drop of a fifth is very cool. Also, after this point Stitt begins to mix up the octaves that he uses to play the melody, jumping up and then back down and using melodic fills to move around. Overall his statement of the melody is loose and peppered with short licks in between the important melodic passages. While the original melody covers a ninth, from D below the staff to E an octave up, Sonny’s version covers an octave plus a sixth, from D below middle C up to the B above middle C.
MM.36- The break is what made me want to transcribe this solo. It’s such a great use of the minor pentatonic where many other players would tend to use some sort of D7 lick. The repetition of the Bb contrasts with the B on beat one of the form, when Stitt outlines the G triad from the third up.
MM.40- It’s clear from looking at the lines in measures 40-41, 56-57, 72-73, and 88-89 that Stitt is thinking of the ii-V in Ab as a Bbmin7 chord. He never really outlines the Eb7, completely avoiding the third (G, the tonic of the overall key) in every case. Also, the way that he transitions back to the tonic key with double chromatic enclosures in measures 41, 57, and 89 is ingenious. In all cases he uses two notes that are diatonic to the Ab scale to enclose a chord tone from G. What a great way to employ chromaticism diatonically!
MM42- I always learn something new when I transcribe. I never would have thought to treat the G chord in measure 5 of the first eight as a G7, especially considering the F# in the melody, but that’s exactly what Stitt does and it sounds great.
MM.50- Thanks to my student Ben Collins for showing me that you can slow a Youtube video down to half speed! He also helped to transcribe this lick when my ear was failing me. Mastering the double time licks in this solo is not easy. You will need to pay close attention to your right hand technique and decide for yourself where you want to slur. I like to slur as little as possible to maintain clarity. Note that the lick in measure 52 starts out the same as the one in measure 50 except it is down a half step, missing the first note, and is not in double time. I put the octave slide here in measure 53 to reflect the way that Sonny does it on the tenor.
MM.66- Although the changes here are iii – biii dim – ii – V, which is a very common chord progression in standard tunes, Sonny outlines a iii – bIII – ii – bII and quotes a bit of the Charlie Parker tune “Ornithology”. Both sets of changes get you back to the tonic efffectively.
MM.70- Guitarists know that playing the same note on two different strings yields a different tone. Saxophonists also have alternate fingerings for certain notes and Stitt bounces back and forth between two different B notes here. If you refuse to use open strings then catch this on the G and D strings.
MM92- This is another difficult lick. I found that in order to smoothly execute the sixteenth note Bmin arpeggios I had to play them all as an upstroke sweep. You might try down-up-up-up, but that didn’t work for me.
MM100- For some reason I didn’t learn how to effectively wrap up a solo until way after college. I guess it was when I started recording and realized that all of my solos just stopped without any resolution. Sonny Stitt uses a nice major pentatonic (mostly) lick to close out two choruses of great improvising.
When learning this solo, remember that you are copying someone else’s phrasing and feel. Work on playing along with the recording. If you just try to learn the licks off the page without listening to the record, you are completely missing the point. Good luck, have fun, and when you’re done, find another solo to transcribe on your own! It’s enjoyable and educational!
Looking at jazz standards, the chord progressions can be daunting. But most of the chords fall into one of four categories – diatonic 7th chords, secondary dominants and their tritone substitutions, borrowed chords, and diminished passing chords.
Diatonic 7th chords are chords that are found in the key that the song is in. I, ii, iii, IV, V and vi. You can usually improvise in the key of I over these chords. Of course it helps to know the arpeggios and to be able to find the chord tones.
Non-diatonic chords are everything else. If a chord has at least one note in it that is not in the key of I, it is a non-diatonic chord. Secondary dominants are the most common.
Secondary dominants are chords that are V in relation to something other than I. V/ii, V/IV, V/V and V/vi are the most common. In C, those chords would be A7, C7, D7, and E7, respectively. If you can superimpose those arpeggios over the key of I (changing notes that clash) you can usually generate a very useable scale. For example, if you are in C and the chord is A7, all you need to do is change the C to a C# and you have a nice D melodic minor scale which sounds great. If the chord has been tritone subbed (replaced with the dominant 7 chord a b5 away) you can still use that trick. Eb7 superimposed over C major would be Eb F G A Bb C Db, or Eb lydian dominant.
Borrowed Chords are chords that come from the parallel minor scale. In jazz, the most common of these are the minor iv chord and the dominant bVII chord, but the bVI and the bIII are also heard. Another common example of borrowed chords would be the use of a minor ii-V resolving to a major I. For example, Dm7(b5)-G7(b9)-CMaj7. In all these cases using the parallel minor scale works really well. There are other great choices as well, such as harmonic and melodic minor and sometimes altered scales.
Diminished passing chords are diminished chords that are placed in between two other chords. The most common location is between iii and V/V. In C that would be Em7-Ebdim7-Dm7. The Dm7 then usually goes to G7, and resolves to C. It’s important to note that diminished chords with the root a half step lower than the next chord are usually substitutions for secondary dominants. Cmaj7-C#dim7-Dmin7 is not a diminished passing chord but is really a version of A7(b9). Easy ways to navigate diminished passing chords are the diminished arpeggio as well as the whole/half diminished scale (1 2 b3 4 b5 b6 6 7).
The point here is not that all jazz tunes are easy. They are not. The point is that most chord progressions are relatively standard. Chords function in predictable ways. That’s why we call it functional harmony. If you know your major and minor scales and your dominant seven and diminished arpeggios you can navigate a lot of changes. If you learn a lot of tunes you will start seeing the patterns. That doesn’t make you a master of improvisation, it just means you are keeping your wheels on the road most of the time. From there you still need to develop creative ideas, phrasing, tone, a sense of direction, and lots of other wonderful concepts. As a person who is in the middle (I hope) of his musical journey, I can say it’s a really fun ride!
The view across the Walensee.
Sound check at Hotel Sternen, Obstalden.
Day one of the this tour has come to a close. I am sitting at Hotel Baeren in Laupen. This is a great little place where we always stay when we play at Die Tonne. I’m enjoying a glass of GlenDronach single malt scotch with Keith. Today was very long. We rented the van in Zurich…
arrived at Brambus Records HQ in Muhlehorn by 9:00 AM…
enjoyed some coffee and loaded up more gear with Paul Rostetter, label founder, president, and sole employee…
and then drove out to Laupen where Keith met a cat.
Although he is quite allergic he will still play with them as though they are his best friends in the world. I should mention that Keith is also blogging this tour at keithmeisel.com.
I had not realized how energetic our sets were. There are a few mellower numbers but we really packed some rockers into our show. The venue was about 3/4 full and we played well. There are a few kinks to work out. I was exhausted (we all were) but as soon as we started I woke up. I love the feeling of playing good songs for an appreciative crowd. Keith, Kevin and Rob are excellent musicians and very fun to play with. Our hosts Anita, Meret, and Yvonne were very helpful and kind, and we sold nine CDs which is good for a small venue. We’re close to Bern tonight but tomorrow we head east to Sennwald for a house concert at the home of Beth Wimmer, an American expat who has been here for years.
I really need sleep.
I’m writing this post from somewhere over the Atlantic. We left Detroit this morning on a tiny eighteen seat Beechcraft 1900d (we were informed by the captain, who could not quite stand up fully in the cabin, that the D has a little extra headroom). There were no overhead bins so we had to gate check our guitars. Arriving in Toronto we had a five hour layover during which time I learned the following truths: Keith does not like to lose at cribbage. Toronto airport has the best burgers. Airport Wi-Fi is not all that it is cracked up to be. Kevin does not consider Tim Horton’s coffee to be high quality. I also spent some of my free time making a new handle for my modeler out of duct tape. Never travel without duct tape, kids.
We boarded this giant Boeing 767-300 at five pm EST and will arrive sometime tomorrow morning (though it might be yesterday by the time this gets posted). High point – we were allowed to carry on our instruments. In Zurich we will pick up our van and drive to Brambus Records headquarters to get our gear and do a telephone interview, and then head out to Laupen. I’m tired and looking forward to the playing music part of this tour.
I’ve just finished packing for the upcoming two-week tour of Switzerland. It’s 2 AM. Keith will be here at 6:30 to drive me to Kevin’s house. We’ll meet Rob at the airport at 8:00 and take off at 10:10. We have a long layover in Toronto – I am not sure why I set up the flight that way but it is definitely my fault – and from there we fly into Zurich. I’ve managed to get a telecaster, a lap steel, the netbook that I will be using to write the rest of these posts, plus all of my clothing into the gig bag. The black bag holds my Vox Tonelab LE, which replaces an amplifier – it is basically a digital amp modeller/effects unit. Way easier for overseas touring than my usual tube amp. The road case holds all the cables and tools and miscellaneous stuff I might need. All in all I think I packed pretty small.
This tour is fifteen dates, starting in the town of Laupen – near Bern – at a little place called Die Tonne. We have played there on three other occasions and so it will be a nice way to start the tour. Christian von Erlach is our contact and he always makes sure we are well taken care of.
I’ll try to make this tour blog as interesting as possible and I will also try to update daily, though I may miss a few. Here is our complete tour schedule. You know, in case you happen to be in any of these towns in the next few weeks,,,
Samstag, 1. Nov. 2014 CH-LAUPEN, Die Tonne
Sonntag, 2. Nov. 2014 CH-Beth Wimmer‘s House-Concert
Montag, 3. Nov. 2014 CH-WINTERTHUR, Esse-Bar
Dienstag, 4. Nov. 2014 CH-OBSTALDEN, Sternen
Mittwoch, 5. Nov. 2014 CH-CHUR, Werkstatt
Donnerstag, 6. Nov. 2014 CH-REGENSDORF, s’Gwölb
Freitag, 7. Nov. 2014 CH-FEUERTHALEN, Dolder2
Samstag, 8. Nov.2014 D-01979 LAUCHHAMMER, Real Music Club
Sonntag, 9. Nov. 2014 D-Kötz, CWF
Montag, 10. Nov.2014 CH-THUN, Sekundarschule
Dienstag, 11. Nov. 2014 A-FUGEN-BINDERHOLZ
Mittwoch, 12. Nov. 2014 A-SCHARNITZ, Alte Mühle
Donnerstag, 13. Nov. 2014 A-INNSBRUCK, Bogentheater
Freitag, 14. Nov. 2014 CH-STAEFA, Rössli
Samstag, 15. Nov. 2014 CH-FLAWIL, Kulturpunkt Flawil
Alex Anest 