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You want to hear a train wreck? Listen to the Giant Steps one. Only the drummer and I kept the form the entire time (of course the drummer doesn't really have to anything special).

I can't understand why the guitar player just didn't lay back if he can't play it. Is it ego? He told me he can play it. The bass player caught on though.

Yeah totally. Kenny said Herbie was one of his fav players. What specific things about his playing reminds you of Herbie? I have my own thoughts but want to hear an unbiased opinion first.

His syncopation and swing has so many Herbie elements. It's just something I studied about Herbie so it just sticks out.

There's something about his lines too but I'd have to listen more.

yeah I find his rhythm similar to Herbie's. And I like how he uses dissonance, his chord voicings and note choices.

Great playing from Kenny, but the recording does remind me how I really really dislike 2-and-4 on the hi-hat.

The drumming here however . . . Listen how DeJohnette leaves space for Jarrett's piano.:
[video:myspace]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io1o1Hwpo8Y[/video]

I suggest you all bring along a RealBook, if you get some jazz fans, they do tend to come up with requests.

Which can be fun but also a tad harrowing . . .

We'll have our real book! I'm getting baptized in this at the jam sessions. It's getting easier doing new tunes. I can improvise on anything but the issue is always playing the melody though. I'm no sight reader so I can't pick up a melody I haven't heard/learned that fast.

Good example is 500 miles high. Someone else played it at the last jam and he had the same problem I did. It's one of these tunes that if you hesitate on the melody, you can't remember where to enter again in the middle.

Same with Whisper Not. I could solo on this easily but the melody is a little complex so it takes awhile to learn.

I guess there's no shortcuts to some of these.

Most I can play by ear (Jobim's stuff for example).

Practice and more practice Grasshopper!


ps: for gig such as yours, I make a playlist in iTunes of all the tunes and listen obsessively to them on my iPod (washing up, cooking dinner, out for a walk, washing the car, beating up the neighbour, . . )

I had very illuminating lesson today. I haven't seen my teacher since I've done several jams so I actually had him listen to what I was doing and gave me like an offline masterclass.

Mostly, the feedback was positive so I'm glad I didn't shame him with my playing at these jams. But I guess against the bad guitar players, maybe anyone of us can sound good

But some of the comments were interesting. He would note the contrasting rhythmic feels of the bass player, drummer and comping, how some of the rhythms were fighting each other. Examples were 12/8 feel vs. shuffle vs. Ballad feel. He said it was hard for me to play well in that environment because no one is listening and adapting to each other. However, it's not something I can change so I just have to adapt to the situation.

The most significant comment though was what I would call overplaying. Maybe in the effort to impress, it's always about too many notes. So we actually played some of the tunes in the jam while my teacher comped. And when I laid back and played less, the impact was humonguous. I'm talking about Miles Davis style playing which I don't do much of. Like my Blue Bossa with streams of 8th notes.

I forgot about my basic lessons like syncopation, space and long lines. When I actually thought about it and played, towards the end of the lesson, even I felt I was sounding really good.

So if I can just apply this to a jam or recording, I will make a huge jump. I can do it as proven by what I played with my teacher but it has to be the focus from here on. I can play fast things now but maybe now that I can do that, it is less important.

BTW - Chris, I would do well if I played like you did in your Trio recordings. No overplaying there so it sounded great.

Great points from your teacher. And thanks for those kind words.

Hey Scep, are you around?

Didn't you do Blue in Green at some point in here (too far back to search)? Or at least were discussing it? I was working on two handed voicings on this and wanted to know what you were figuring out on this tune.

BiG would be a great topic to discuss . . . for all of us.

Well let's do that. First, anyone reharmonizing this? Or should we talk about voicings?

haven't played this before as far as I remember. I'll call it tonight. Hopefully someone will record (haven't received the zoom yet )

How about we start with a list of the basic changes and move from there? I assume you use the real book changes? They look pretty good.

I haven't played the song myself. I might give it a try tonight.




b.t.w. I hope its ok that I am interjecting here. First time posting to this topic. I think its a great idea...

No no no!
No re-harmonizing BiG!! That's sacrilege!

LOL! I think Scep was reharmonizing it.

s_winitsky, I'm glad to to see you here. This is the only thread were we can really dig in and talk specifics.

I played Blue in Green at the last jam (recording previously posted) and I've never played this before. The interesting thing was that after 3 attempts at the jam (2 by other players), they've never gotten it right. I'm talking about the form. The form is so unusual that it is easy to get lost. Well, when I played this, I made sure to stick to my tempo until everyone followed me. If you listen to the jam recording, it apparently worked. And as long as I was playing a regular and predictable comping, no one got lost. It was the only successful try of this.

I played it only with mostly standard rootless voicings since I haven't really gotten the chance to examine it in detail. So the last couple of days, I started reading some commentary on Levine's book on Blue in Green and I tried out some voicing suggestions.

So for all the minor 7 chords, I tried the 'So What' voicings (5th + stacked 4's + 3rd). I used some open and rooted two handed voicings on the Alt chords. On Maj7 I used 1/5 at the bottom and a stack of 4ths on top. That's what I got to try so fast based on Levine.

Some of the so-what voicings don't work too well because of the melody so I'll have to rethink that. And I haven't done it as block-chords although that will probably work well on this tune.

Any more voicing ideas?

Now playing this is a different matter. If you listen to my recording, I started playing around with diatonic intervals for each chord to provide motion. It was particularly easy on the white note chords of which there are several.

I think this tune can be overplayed. It has the potential for that. But it is beautiful even when done simply.

This is what would play.
I just love this piece as it is, it has a beautiful meditative quality about it - and I find it hard to do a re-harm.
(though "friend-of-order" will notice that I choose a Gm and not a Bb as the first chord also; the bass notes are just put in there as a guide)

I was just playing around quickly with the tune. Yeah I could imagine it would be easy to get lost in this tune.

I think with the second d minor 7th chord, I used the Kenny Barron voicing

I seem to use that voicing a bit too often.

Yup, still around, just mostly lurking though.

As for Blue in Green, I have played that and was working on it back in March (I think?), but never posted anything. It's a great tune, but pretty difficult to sound decent on without some real direction in the solos.

I believe the tune was written with the ambiguity of the chords in mind. It never really cadences giving the impression of a never ending tune. With this in mind I've found it necessary to think about how to have this floating quality, but at the same time make it interesting enough to listen to.