Thinking in Jazz
Page 77
Davis’s performance illustrates the soloist’s diverse expressive options, even when remaining close to the melody overall. In bars 1–4, he rephrases the melody, characteristically, by anticipating or delaying the performance of phrase components, inserting rests between them, and compressing or stretching their rhythmic features. Pronounced timbral changes within pitches and an emphatic grace note animate Davis’s first gesture; the second, he infuses with speechlike inflections and rhythmic shape. In bars 5–8, Davis takes liberties of another nature by varying the melody. He raises the arch of the initial phrase component, rests, then embellishes the second component with vocalizing slides and microtonal inflections. His concluding pitch, a tritone away from the chord root, is especially affective. Fall–offs at the end of this and previous phrases establish subtle continuity from one to the next. In bars 9–10, Davis rephrases the melody with dramatic rhythmic motion, flirting with double time and inflecting some pitches.
In bars 11–16, Davis departs from the melody, creating a new phrase reminiscent of earlier arch-like formulations. Its highly vocalized descent in bars 13–14 uses the reiterated melody pitch E and its octave displacement as a frame and includes other prominent melody pitches as well. In bars 15–16, Davis rephrases the first melody component, then varies the second. In bars 17–18, with a dynamic swell of sound, he applies his familiar technique of extending the arch of the melody, this time concluding the figure with a sixteenth-note gesture hinting at the group’s impending shift to double time.
In bars 19–22, Davis reinforces the tempo change with a dramatic leap and emphatic quarter-note descent that once again adopts the octave displacement of a repeated melody pitch as a frame. Subsequently, he generates great rhythmic momentum by transforming the sustained melody pitch into a metrically displaced hemiola-like pattern, effectively highlighted by the use of fall-offs and increasing dynamics. In bars 23–25, Davis creates contrast through a series of climbing, scalar patterns that primarily avoid melody pitches and whose peaks form an ascending step progression. Then, in bars 26–28, he improvises a sequence whose peaks form a descending step progression spanning octave-transposed melody pitches. In bars 29-32, Davis continues the descending step progression by improvising a short melodic fill, which leads into a melody paraphrase reminiscent of his treatment of the same passage at the initial tempo in bar 9. (In the melody’s last statement on the recording, his performance of a comparable figure suggests that it is a precomposed variant.) In bars 33–37, Davis uses an octave transposition of the repeated melody pitch as the frame for a powerful ascending gesture that probes the trumpet’s upper register. Immediately, he develops the idea by probing even higher to create a dramatic climax of the solo (at nearly the same position at which the melody reaches its highest point) before resolving its tension through a scalar descent to the sustained melody pitch.
In bars 38–43, Davis explores another extreme by resting, then leading, through a radically rephrased variant of the melody, to his performance’s longest sustained pitch, highly animated with vibrato, timbral changes, and inflections. In bars 44–50, Davis changes approaches yet again by improvising a series of short, bluesy call and response phrases whose off-beat, triplet phrasing imbues the performance with a strong swing feeling. In bar 51, Davis prepares to close his solo by recapitulating ideas introduced earlier in the performance. Two evocative cries, reaching once again into the high trumpet register, then descending with ever-diminishing dynamic levels, lead to the final phrase, whose expressivity recalls earlier gestures as much spoken as performed. The solo overlaps with the second chorus structure by five measures at the original tempo.
Example 3.4 Alternative representations of harmonic form
Example 3.5 Comparing harmonic movement within blues and AABA compositions
Example 3.6 A sample of chord voicings
Example 3.7 Embellishing chords
Example 3.8 Substitutions: harmonic alteration chords
Red Garland accompaniment, “Blues by Five” (all excerpts =176)
Example 3.9 Substitutions: chords having different roots
Example 3.10 Substitutions: harmonic insertion chords
Example 3.11 Blues effects of substitute chords
Red Garland accompaniment, “Bye Bye, Blackbird”
Example 3.12 Elastic interpretation of harmonic form
Red Garland accompaniment, “Blues by Five” (all excerpts =176)
In relation to the regular recurring chunks of a model progression, pianists commonly alter the form’s harmonic-rhythm subtly through delaying or anticipating chord changes by half a beat or more. Additionally, the relative rhythmic density of pianists’ figures and their precise mixture of on-beat and off-beat accents can provide discrete chord areas or larger harmonic phrases with unique complexions. At one extreme, pianists may sustain a chord or play quarter notes on every beat to define the form. At the other extreme, they may treat the form allusively by withholding the performance of a chord altogether, or resting for most of its duration, or playing various kinds of chord substitutions: chords with different roots (cdr), harmonic insertion chords (hic), and harmonic alteration chords involving a change of chord quality (hac), to use Bill Dobbins’s classification.
Interpreted in terms of these multiple operations, Garland’s accompaniment sometimes underplays features of the conventional progression by introducing substantial rests into the performance (a1, a4), or simplifies its structure by continuing a particular chord’s performance through the subsequent chord’s area (a2). Alternatively, he adds complexity to the model through chord insertions and chords with different roots (a3), in some such instances producing unique effects by forming his part around a descending, linear, right-hand progression (a4), encasing alternating sixth and diminished chords within an octave-doubled, tonic pedal (b3), or harmonizing the ascending chromatic portion of a common blues figure (b4). In still other cases, he chooses to remain close to the original structure (bl, b2). Sometimes, he emphasizes off-beat phrasing (b2); sometimes, on-beat phrasing (b3); as often, he mixes the two (a1, a2).
a. Blues samples, mm.1–4
b. Blues samples, mm. 11–12
Example 4.1 Joe Oliver’s “Dippermouth Blues” solo and its re-creations: 1923–1937
transcr. Witmer (rev. Kirkwood)
Example 4.2 Diversity of jazz ideas or vocabulary patterns
Example 4.3 Sources of vocabulary
a. Classic blues figures
b. Arranged shout pattern
Billy Eckstine band members, “Baby, Won’t You Make Up Your Mind?” 18 Oct. 1946
c. Common bebop figure
Dave Young solo, “Lullaby for Realville,” 12 July 1956
d. Compositional quotations
e. Quoting other soloists
Example 5.1 Dizzy Gillespie’s complex approach to rhythm
Dizzy Gillespie solo, “Blues for Bird”
Example 5.2 Different approaches to melodic invention
a Vertical approaches
b Horizontal approaches, both transcr. Porter
Example 5.3 Features of different vocabulary stores
a. Common chromatic blues figure
Kenny Dorham solo, “Soft Winds”
b. Rhythmic tremolo patterns
Lee Morgan solo (notated B trumpet), “Moanin’” (take 1)
c. Cadential figures in Kenny Dorham solos
d Recurring cadential figure in Charlie Parker solos
“Billie’s Bounce,“ transcr. Aebersold and Slone
e. Distinctive patterns in Booker Little solos
f. Common gesture serving as Booker Little signature pattern
“Life’s a Little Blue”
Example 5.4 Approaches to invention for solo piano
a. Horn-like linear approach
Bill Evans solo, “Who Can I Tum To?” arr. Evans
b. Orchestral or pianistic approach
Art Tatum solo, “If I Had You,” arr. Tatum
; c. Block chord approach
Chick Corea solo, “Now He Beats the Drum, Now He Stops,” transcr. Dobbins
Example 5.5 Approaches to invention for solo drums
a. Horizontal or linear approach
“Philly” Joe Jones solo, “Gone with the Wind”
b. Vertical approach
Max Roach improvised fours, “Jordu”
Example 5.6 Personalization of a vocabulary pattern
Example 6.1 One-noting improvisations
Example 6.2 Rhythmic phrasing in relation to harmonic form
Charlie Parker solo, “Mohawk” (No. 1), transcr. Aebersold and Slone (arr. author)
Example 6.3 Animating the features of phrases
a. Backbeat and off-beat accentuation schemes
b. Gestural contour accented by rhythmic displacement
Charlie Parker solo, “Mohawk” (No.2), transcr. Aebersold and Slone
c. Articulation transforming triplets into polyrhythmic groupings
Lee Morgan solo, “Blue Train”
d. Timbral variation and pitch inflection
Example 6.4 Unpredictable, playful use of rests
Sonny Rollins solo, “St. Thomas”
Example 6.5 Elastic manipulation of rhythm
Joe Henderson solo, “Out of the Night,” transcr. Sickler
Example 6.6 Melodic application of chord substitutions within blues structure
Example 6.7 Barry Harris’s dictation of scale transformation by chromatic
and mordent ornamentation
Figure created by extending scale with chromatic embellishment between tonic and flatted seventh
c. Figure embellished with inverted mordents
Example 6.8 Charlie Parker’s practice of pivoting
both transcr. Aebersold and Slone
Example 6.9 Barry Harris’s derivation of rules from Charlie Parker solo
“Sweet Georgia Brown,” transcr. Harris
Deriving improvisation “rules” and exercises from his analysis of Parker’s initial phrase, Harris recommends that students learn “the F minor arpeggio and the harmonic minor scale” by practicing the former’s inversions and the latter’s relative modal scales. Additionally, Harris interprets the descending phrase fragment in bars 25–26 as Parker “running an E7 scale to the third of a C7 chord” and suggests practicing the same maneuver. Next, Harris identifies a “D major arpeggio” in bar 28, indicating that students should practice all major arpeggios and their inversions. The most important arpeggios used by jazz players, he adds, are “generally” those constructed on the, root, the fifth, and the seventh of the underlying dominant seventh chord.
In bar 29, the recurrence of an “F minor arpeggio” reminds Harris of the importance of “practicing all scales in [intervals of] thirds,” as well as mastering the triads found on each degree of the scale, in this case the A major scale, which is related to the underlying chord. He goes on to identify Parker’s ascending gesture in bar 30 as “a chord up from the third of F7 with a little hump in it.” Correspondingly, players should “practice all chords on scale,” in this case those built on each degree of the F7 scale. The first gesture in bar 31 illustrates once again the “importance of learning to chord up from the third,” whereas the second suggests an important rule concerning the application of diminished chords. Students should practice arpeggiating “all the diminished chords” so that they can readily apply them to their related dominant seventh chords, that is, those chords whose third degree they share as a common tone.
Example 7.1 Blues structure of improvised phrases
Lee Morgan solo, “Blue Train”
Example 7.2 Sample of melody rendition and its subsequent quotation
Booker Little solo, “Old Folks”
Example 7.3 Patterns combined with diverse harmonic backgrounds
a. Combinations within a single solo performance
b. Combinations within multiple solo performances
[C7] VS
[C whole tone cluster] M
[ Em7] CB
[E /G] LSL
[EØ7] OS
Example 7.4 Displacement and transposition of vocabulary within different compositions
all transcr. Owens
Example 7.5 Rhythmic transformations of an etude
Example 7.6 Expanding networks within a community of ideas
Charlie Parker gestures, transcr. Aebersold and Slone, Owens (arr. author)
Example 7.7 Interpretive extraction
Booker Little solo, “The Grand Valse”
Example 7.8 Truncation and contraction
a. Truncation of phrase endings
Booker Little solo, “Opening Statement”
b. Phrase contraction
Charlie Parker solo, “Tiny’s Tempo,” both transcr. Owens
c. Truncation and contraction combined with component substitution in the formulation of complex phrases
Booker Little solo, “The Grand Valse”
Example 7.9 Pitch substitution
a. Charlie Parker pitch substitution practices
Charlie Parker solo, “Tiny’s Tempo,” =ca. 210, both transcr. Owens
b. Booker Little pitch substitution practices
Booker Little solo, “Minor Sweet,” =126–132
Example 7.10 Conservative rephrasing
all excerpts (=ca. 215) transcr. Owens
a. Rephrasing without embellishing pitches Charlie Parker solo, “Red Cross”
b. Rephrasing with embellishing pitches
Example 7.11 Radical rephrasing
Example 7.12 Radical rephrasing with rest fragmentation
Miles Davis solo, “Barbados”
Example 7.13 Expansion by interpolation
Booker Little solo, “Minor Sweet” (all excerpts =ca. 126)
Example 7.14 Cadential extensions Charlie Parker solos, “Mohawk” (Nos. 1 and 2)
all transcr. Aebersold and Slone (arr. author)
Example 7.15 Improvising from finger patterns
Miles Davis solo (notated for B trumpet), “Motel”
Example 8.1 Repeating an idea while conceiving the idea to follow
Louis Annstrong solo, “Big Butter and Egg Man from the West”
Example 8.2 Running a figure into itself
Booker Little solo, “Who Can I Turn To?”
Example 8.3 Answering an idea by repeating it in a different octave
Louis Armstrong solo, “Struttin’ with Some Barbecue,” transcr. Tirro
Example 8.4 Creating sequences
Example 8.5 Repeating an idea and extending it with a cadential figure
Example 8.6 Repeating an idea approached through an introductory figure
Example 8.7 Balanced call and response phrases with altered response
Charlie Parker solo, “Thriving from a Riff” (take 3), transcr. Owens
Example 8.8 Interpretive extraction generating consecutive ideas
Example 8.9 Developmental sections based on ostinatos
Example 8.10 Developing ideas through rhythmic variation
Louis Armstrong solo, “Tight Like This”
Example 8.11 Variations on complex rhythmic–melodic material
Booker Little solo, “Who Can I Turn To?”
Example 8.12 Extensive call and response practices
Example 8.13 Multiple treatments of a Clifford Brown signature pattern
Example 8.14 Forty-six years in the life of a lick: 1946–1992
Example 8.15 Going away from and returning to a pattern
Booker Little solo, “Newport”
Example 8.16 Double-backing within an ongoing line
Example 8.17 Beginning a phrase with the last pitch of the previous phrase
Example 8.18 Working within particular intervals
Example 8.19 Balancing the phrase lengths of consecutive ideas Lee Morgan solo,
“Blue Train”
Example 8.20 Creating increasingly longer phrases
John Coltrane solo,
“Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise”
Example 8.21 Expanding the range of consecutive phrases
John Coltrane solo, “Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise”
Example 8.22 Unfolding development of a chordal improvisation approach
both transcr. Sickler
Example 8.23 Dynamic movements among different musical concepts
Example 8.24 Formulating a unique solo chorus from components of different choruses
Miles Davis solo, “Blues by Five” (all excerpts = 176)
To create a new chorus, students could perform the first phrase of Davis’s original solo, as given in a, then choose between second-phrase options bl or b2. Alternatively, they could formulate new second-phrase call and response figures by combining the first component of b1 with the second component of b2, or the first component of b2 with the second component of b1, perhaps lengthening the rest between them. For the last phrase of the chorus, they could select among options c1—c3 in their entirety, or try out such combinations as substituting the first bar of c2 or c3 for that of c1, or substituting the first bar of c1 for that of c2. Further diversifying their creations, students could add short extensions to the model patterns or substitute altogether new ideas for any of Davis’s.