Lester Young on "Pennies From Heaven," 1950

http://youtu.be/9vDW0ANRim8 This is the link to a gorgeous solo that Lester Young (aka "Prez") played in 1950 over the chord changes to "Pennies From Heaven." Believe it or not, the recording is pitched in B major. Knowing of most musicians' aversion to the key of B-major and looking at the different players' hands (even though they're trying to "lip-synch" to a pre-recorded track done the day before), I'm guessing it was really in Bb, though I've rendered it in C, which seems to be the "stock" key these days, and makes the lowest note in this transcription our open low D. All the articulations in the notation staff are conjectural; the ones I'm suggesting for the banjo are in the TAB staff.  Here 'tis: I'm hesitant to get too analytical with Lester Young. Not that there isn't a lot here to pick apart, it's just that it's so much more fun to ponder the mysteries: the way he can make three notes do the work of two bars, how two bars can be all about one note, or how he'll seemingly "toss off" a simple fragment - say, CDEFG in eighth-notes - and it sounds like the lost Eleventh Commandment. The casual-sounding way he can make musical statements that are, upon inspection, breathtaking in their organization and balance - there's nothing "casual" about them! Listen for how he scoops up to some notes, and how he hits some right on the money, also how he changes his relationship to the beat. The received wisdom is that he tended to play his solos "behind the beat," but then you hear at measure 27 for example, the way he stabs the D on beat one a little bit in front.   As you play through this, keep in mind that accents in jazz usually occur on the peaks in the melodic contour, and on the last note in phrases ending on the "and." Listen in this solo for the interplay between downbeat and upbeat accents. Above all, listen to the way that it all seems to be wrapped in a calm assurance that this note, this one right here, is precisely the one that needs to be played at precisely this instant.  One of my favorite moments is at measure 63 and 64; I've notated it as a B, and theoretically speaking B or Bb would work just fine here, but he plays basically a B half-flat, which he smears up a tiny bit (but not up to B), then down towards the following A. My suggestion is to play it as a Bb, bent up slightly. It's a fascinating moment! I like the idea that, having made prominent use of Bb in bars 56 and 57, and knowing a B-natural is imminent (it's in three of the solo's last four bars), he split the difference in bar 63, neither repeating the Bb nor reaching the B-natural too soon.  Prez once said that it bugged him to be at jam sessions and have the piano player calling out chord changes because "that's not what I hear." He knew what the changes were, but he seems rather to have gone to the DNA of the tune (perhaps this accounts for the illusion of simplicity), and is showing us how to really hear it.  Can you tell I love Lester Young?

Bluesette: chord solo

OK, no analysis, just the tune. 

Generally it's played like this: at the beginning you play the head twice without taking the coda, which only happens the very last time through. Here's the original:https://youtu.be/Oi4G6UmYK9U  And check out a few of my old Twin Cities friends and colleagues from about 10 years ago https://youtu.be/NJe4MKhHtbs. There's a variation that singers like to do; the part that starts with "Pretty little Bluesette/ Have you heard the news yet..." at about 1:50 in the second version. 

Music theory for banjoheads, pt. 5, On Beyond Zebra (9ths, 11ths, and 13ths, alterations...)

"On Beyond Zebra" is the name of my favorite Dr. Seuss book from when I was a kid. In the beginning a little boy, one Conrad Cornelius O'Donald O'Dell, is standing on a chair writing the alphabet on a blackboard and telling a bigger kid what each letter stands for. The other kid is like huh, is that all you got?

"I'm telling you this 'cause you're one of my friends

My alphabet starts where your alphabet ends!"

Spoiler alert: You use the letter "yuzz" to spell yuzz-a-ma-tuzz.

We won't be imagining new worlds or Seussian zoology here, but my "what-you-need-to-know-to-play-in-my band" series usually ends with 7th chords, and we need to press ahead a bit further. So...

Ninth chords

In part 2 (intervals) we identified the interval of a ninth as a second plus an octave (2 + 8 = ......9!). The reason why it's a ninth chord and not a "second chord" - even though we're talking about the same note above the root - is this: The "ninth" in the chord is arrived at by stacking another third on the "root-third-fifth-seventh" ladder. So a "ninth chord" is a five-note chord, R 3 5 7 9.

Obviously you can't play all five notes on the banjo, nor should you feel obligated to. Most of the time, the three notes you want to be sure to have in your voicing are the 3rd, 7th, and of course the 9th. Here are the spelling of some ninth chords built on C:

Cmaj9 - C E G B D (maj7 + 9th interval)

C9 - C E G Bb D (dominant 7 + 9th)(the "James Brown" chord)

Cm9 - C Eb G Bb D (min7 + 9)

I'll be following each section with some 3- and 4-note ideas for playing these; here are some 9ths:

There is such a thing as an "added 9" chord, these days frequently referred to as a "2." This is where there's a ninth (or indeed, a 2nd) in the chord that hasn't been arrived at by stacking thirds. It's an added note chord. So C add9 or C2 is CDEG

Something to always keep in mind...

With any of these extended harmonies you are free to just use the 7th chord.

In other words, at any time you may ignore any and all chord tones above the 7th without changing the harmonic sense. And it is sometimes a good idea to keep it simple if you are sharing the stand with another player who is using a lot of extended voicings. 

Eleventh chords

Where a min7 or min7b5 is involved, you will use a P11, so:

Cm11 - C Eb G Bb D F

Cm7b5 - C Eb Gb Bb x F (ninths are a little awkward in this chord)

Anything with a major third, you want to use a #11.

Cmaj9#11 - C E G B D F# 

C7#11 - C E G Bb D F#

Look at the top four notes of Cmaj9#11 C E G B D F#.  Gmaj7, yes? So you can use that to voice an extended Cmaj7, so long as there's a big fat C in the bass (or otherwise implied). Don't go memorizing all those combinations, that's one of the things you can work out in the trenches!

The designation "b5" is not the same as a #11! A #11 implies the presence of a 5th in the chord, while "b5" means the 5th itself has been changed. C7b5 = C E Gb Bb.

A P11 in one of those major chords replaces the third and is then called a "suspended fourth" or just "sus four."

C7sus4 - C F G Bb 

C9sus4 - C F G Bb D (both are interchangeable)

There is a plain sus4 triad:

Csus4 or C4 - CFG

which usually resolves to major, like in the intro to "Tommy." In the original version, it happens at 0:18. https://youtu.be/UFrDpx7zLtA?list=RDUFrDpx7zLtA

When 11th or 13th chords are indicated in the chart, the 11th or 13th is usually a melody note, so again, if you don't think you need to play it you can leave it out. As a matter of fact, if you don't think you need to play it please do leave it out!!

Thirteenth chords

Here's the one you're most likely to see:

 C13 - C E G Bb D x A (if anyone wants the #11 they'll write it C13#11)

Of course, root-3-5-7-9-11-13 takes in every scale tone, so again, the 

third, seventh, and thirteenth

are the only ones you need to make sure to have in there.

The next section applies to dominant seventh chords, which come in two basic families: the ones we've looked at, i.e., regular old 9ths and 13ths: and

Altered 5ths, 9ths and 13ths

or just "altered dominants." Pretty much any of these will be interchangeable in all their forms - G7#9b5, G7b9#5, G7#9b13...Sometimes you can just write "G7alt." For your purposes right now, moving the fifth and/or ninth in either direction will give it an "altered" feel.  Soon I'll go into "tritone substitution," which will give you a bit of extra insight on these kinds of chords. For now, notice how  dominant 7ths at the distance of a tritone from one another start looking alike.

The #9 chord deserves a special mention. Here's G7#9 - G B D F Bb. Yes the sharp-nine is technically A#, but it's usually thought of as a minor third. In your voicing of the chord you need at least the 3rd, 7th, and #9. The #9 should be voiced higher than the third. Along with a ninth, a very useful chord for one-chord funk jams.

The best way to learn to use these kinds of chords is to learn a lot of tunes as chord-melody solos. Stay tuned.

Getting into major scales, pt 3: the Honorary Notes

Let's continue the thought we started with that Lester Young example in part 1, that a scale is a framework rather than a prescription.  I've always wondered if a trumpet picker could somehow "see" a scale as a shape the way we can see a pattern on the fingerboard.

So when you play something "in a major scale" you are giving the broad impression of do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do without having to limit yourself to those seven tones (see the examples in the first post in this blog). Beautiful beautiful BEE-yoo-T-ful music is made with just those seven tones https://youtu.be/duy85obJhLk, but making good jazz requires us to approach "scales" and even the idea of pitch and intonation a bit more loosely.

Let's look at some notes which aren't actual members of the major scale but, shall we say, have pool privileges if they come with one. The "blue" notes - the minor third, aug4th/dim 5th, and minor 7th - are pretty easy to fit in.  We'll continue using the pentatonic scale as our template, adding or changing notes to suit. Notice that none of these "scales" go in straight scale-wise motion.

First the aug4th/dim 5th. This is also called the "tritone," because this interval is three whole steps (or whole tones) above the root. We'll be treating this as an augmented 4th (F# in the key of C).

This is usually called "Lydian mode," a major scale with a raised 4th. Later on I'll go into more detail as to why this is a confusing and limiting way to look at it, but for now suffice it to say that it doesn't mean you're suddenly in Lydian mode every time a fourth gets raised. I prefer you to think about raised fourths as a thing that occasionally happens to fourths.

And it's the same with thirds! Now the blue third. Notice here that instead of the maj3 being hit dead on, it is preceded by the 4th, then the min3. Approaching a note this way, by means of a scale step above, and a half step below, is an effective way of emphasizing it. So in C-pentatonic, instead of C D E G A... you have C D F-Eb-E G A. Descending, you do the same thing: C A G F-Eb-E D C.

Let's add the "blue" (minor) 7th to the above.

You can get a cool effect by flatting 6ths as well.

A "blue sixth" would fall somewhere in between: a major 6th sung a little flat.

After all this, if you still want to run major scales, you have what you need here. But why? And for whom? By way of an answer, let's consider the Pittsburgh Steelers. Every member of the team spends serious time lifting weights; it's an important part of being a good football player. But once it's game time, if they get on the field and start lifting weights, it's going to make for some lousy (and losing) football.

seeeeeeya!

Basie-style comping

Also known as “Freddie Green” style, after the longtime guitarist in Count Basie's band who, almost as much as Basie himself, defined the band's sound. Here he is in the mid 50’s (https://youtu.be/L31pDORVifQ) with the Basie band and vocalist Joe Williams. 

What you’re hearing is Green playing three-note chords spanning the bottom (3rd - 6th) four strings on the guitar - usually the 5th string is muted. And as simple as the job seems, it can be done well or badly. Freddie did it so well that when electric guitars first became available, he got one and started playing solos. Problem was, the band was so dependent on his rhythm playing that, as Sweets Edison told it “…whenever Freddie would lay out of the band to take his solo, the whole rhythm section used to fall apart.” So they started sabotaging his amp. He’d get it fixed, and someone would do it again, until finally he said OK the hell with it. As Sweets said, “He probably could have been one of the best at that time, but we had to sacrifice him for the good of the band.”

That’s right. A guy playing primarily three-note voicings in quarter notes was vitally important to the sound, and mental/musical health of the whole band. So let’s look at this.

The easiest way to get a good voicing for these types of chords is to be in gCGDB tuning. You want to leave a little space between the quarter notes, but not too much! You’re imitating the sound of an acoustic archtop guitar with high action, and the sound you want is kind of like “fump - fump - fump - fump.” Here’s a II-V-Imaj7-I6 progression in D:

Sooner or later you’re bound to start thinking, “Isn’t this gonna get a little monotonous? Should I put in a little, y’know, razzmatazz…?”  No and no. Your job here is not to be “interesting.” Your job is to be the thing against which someone else is interesting. Think of it as being the answer to the musical question

“as opposed to what?” 

So: “Wow that soloist is very rhythmically interesting.” as opposed to what?  You and the bass player. fump-fump-fump-fump…

Or: “Wow that soloist is pretty harmonically adventurous.” as opposed to what?  You and the bass player. fump-fump-fump-fump…

Or: “I love how that arrangement goes from soft, to loud, back to soft…” as opposed to what?  You and the bass player!

Without as opposed to what? everything is in danger of being a mishmash, and mishmashes are usually BORING!

The idea of counterpoint extends beyond contrasting musical lines; there are also contrasting levels of emotion. Listen again to “Every Day…” and to how Freddie’s guitar remains emotionally constant through it all, yet always intense, never lazy, never uninvolved. On the banjo you can strum or use TIM.

Here’s a blues progression in Eb.

Yes, you could stick a fourth note into many of these chords, but the fact is, the three-note versions seem to cut through better. Besides, you'll notice that a lot of these shapes represent more than one chord. Check this out:

You can use this one shape for Bm, Bm7, Bm6, Gmaj7, D6.

This one for Ebmaj9, F13 (over Ebmaj7 and F7 respectively).

This could be Dm7, Dm7b5, Bbmaj9 (same as Bb maj7).

And this useful one can be G7, Bm7b5, Dm6, Fdim7, Abdim7, Bdim7, Ddim7, E7b9, G7b9, Bb7b9, and Db7b9!

“Rhythm changes” is what we call the chord progression to “I’ve Got Rhythm,” which in its various forms has been used for hundreds of other jazz and pop songs over the years, including “The Flintstones,” “Leave it to Beaver,” “Cottontail,” “Oleo,” “Sherry Baby” - on and on and on.  Mainly you want to concern yourself with "the lower chord tones," root, 3rd, 5th, and 7th, and you want to keep it as mid-rangey as possible.

Here are a couple of other great examples of that "emotional counterpoint." Listen to Fats Waller’s left hand here (https://youtu.be/dv2ktr-yc3o). Listen to the whole band behind Screamin’ Jay Hawkins (https://youtu.be/PwXai-sgM-s). Screamin’ Jay is going crazy and these guys don’t move, they keep it right there! You gotta be able to do that.

Most of the worst jazz is made when everybody is trying to be “interesting.” It’s like what happens when you mix all the colors: brown.

Getting inside of major scales, pt. 2: adding notes to the major pentatonic

OK, more stuff (my avoidance of the word "scales" is intentional).

So what we're trying to do here is locate and emphasize the different degrees of the scale. Now add the seventh degree ("ti") to your pentatonic patterns.

Now pentatonic with the fourth. As you check these out you'll notice that for example, the pattern for the C-chord above is identical to the one for the G-chord below. Your fingers will be well aware of this, but your brain and ears will doing an entirely different thing. You'll play over one in a "C-ish" way, over the other in a "G-ish" way. In visual terms something like this:

OK, now the new set of licks, pentatonic scales with an added fourth ("fa") degree.

So these are about seeing the fingerboard in a certain way and understanding the anatomy of major scales. Maybe you can see/hear a scale as being like a three-dimensional object - depending on where you are when you encounter it, you get a different take.

Of course "running scales," while rightly frowned upon as a way of playing a jazz solo, can still be great fun to do, there's no denying it! The patterns above, and the ones coming up in part 3 are patterns to play over. Running these (maybe as kind of a flourish) might come off better if you work out some melodic/Keith-style licks; for instance here's an E-pentatonic-with-D#, from the first example above (E F#G# B C#D#).

and the same exact notes, but played as a B-pentatonic-with-E.

There must be a shorter name for these... Maybe when we come back to them I'll use "Homer" and "Marge." The cool thing about these "gapped scales" - pentatonic or hexatonic - is that you can get away with "running scales" without quite sounding like you're running scales! Now on to part 3, and the "honorary" major scale tones.

Getting inside of major scales, and "Sometimes I'm Happy"

The Brazilian guitar virtuoso Yamandu Costa said that the banjo “…is an instrument which doesn’t offer security; no! it’s an instrument which proposes ideas." Okay, that was a little white lie: he was really talking about the violão de sete cordas, or 7-string guitar. But it's even more true about the banjo, upon which there seem to be skazillions of ways to play anything, in a vast array of styles. Like with jazz, looking at mastering the banjo can seem like a long slog, stretching to infinity. Which is correct.

sigh...

But the only thing to do then, is to cut infinity into manageable daily slices, and enjoy the journey. And realize this: You have the right to play jazz no matter how little you think you "know." If you keep this in mind you can avoid the habit many players get into of "practicing on stage." When playing for others, be where you are. It's a good place.

Let's take a manageable slice of the infinity of scales: the major scale, which we're going to build from the ground up while exploring some of its possibilities. We'll use three moveable chord positions, bar, D, and F, and go from the bottom to the top of the neck in the cycle of fourths. We'll start with the chords themselves:

See what's happening? Now arpeggiate these, starting on the root.

We're going to gradually locate each scale degree within the three patterns. Adding the second and sixth degrees gives us the major pentatonic scale:

And now you can play Lester Young's ending lick on his 1940 recording of "Sometimes I'm Happy." https://youtu.be/BNX6H7MRVjA

You notice that I put this up there as an example of a pentatonic melody, even though there are a few notes not strictly "in" the Ab pentatonic scale. A "scale," as it is used in improvisation, is more of a proposition, a way of saying "it's basically more or less this..."

Listen to this version of "Sometimes I'm Happy" by The Oscar Peterson Trio from 1961. https://youtu.be/eYLNrh_DsXE Oscar used that same lick for his intro and outro, and played the head (the melody) exactly like Prez (Young's nickname). Prez had that effect on players: once he got his hands on a tune you couldn't hear it any other way... Also compare the two bass solos, Slam Stewart from 1940, and Ray Brown in 1961, who incorporates Slam’s solo into his own.You could tell these guys wore out Lester Young's record!

Let's call this the end of "part 1" and take a breather.