Julien Lourau - The Saloon

More about the album that this tune comes from (The Rise) here. Interesting to see that Lourau has performed in Henri Texiers bands and that Texier plays bass on this album.

Million Faces - Contemporary Noise Quintet

The first of our European block. CNQ is a Polish band. They create a a great tune out of a simple riff repeated. It's all about the ensemble and the way that it is arranged. This tune is from the Pig Inside the Gentleman album. More info here:

Some of the bands / tunes in this block will be North European in origin. Possibly because of the language barriers and difficulty in pronouncing, let alone remembering, the names means that we overlook this great pool of talent and the new perspectives that their different musical traditions bring. Jan Garbarek is only a well known name here because of his work with Keith Jarrett. The same could be said of other better known North European jazz musicians, that their international status has only been confirmed by working with American artists. It is therefore great to see that the fabulous Finish trumpeter Verneri Pohjola, has been signed to Edition Records. Check out some of his work on Soundcloud.

Week 12 14-02-14 Gato

harmony

The opening section of Gato uses just two chords rocking back and forth, typically described as Im7 bIImaj7  (in concert  Em7  Fmaj7).

In our session I suggested various options for soloing over these chords:

option 1)  minor pentatonic  1  b3  4  5  b7  8  built from root of minor seventh chord  (in concert  E  G  A  B  D  E  )

The minor pentatonic fits the first chord minor seventh very closely (ie 1 b3  4  5  b7  8 ) and played against the second chord major seventh gives lovely extensions, aka colour notes (ie major 7, 9, 3, #4, 6 and back to major 7 ).

Within the minor pentatonic we explored both step-wise movement and broken thirds/fourths.

Jim also mentioned the idea of 'thinking about' the relative major, built from the minor third  1  2  3  5  6  8  (in concert  G  A  B  D E  G ).  Same notes, but  different starting point.

option 2)  phrygian scale 1  b2  b3  4  5  b6  b7  8  built from root of minor seventh chord  (in concert  E  F  G  A  B  C  D  E )

The phrygian scale is the third mode of the major scale  (in concert E phrygian is the third mode of C major ). This scale can also be played over the second chord major seventh where it becomes the lydian scale  1  2  3  #4  5  6  7  8  (in concert F  G  A  B  C  D  E  F ). The lydian scale is the forth mode of the major scale (in concert F lydian is the fourth mode of C major ). Although knowledge of both scales is useful it is perfectly possible to improvise using just one (if you know they can be related to each other). In principle you could use either the phrygian scale, or the lydian scale, or indeed the related major scale (sometimes called 'parent scale'). Just thinking about one scale for both chords can help with melodic playing (THIS IS A GOOD THING!)

option 3)  changing scales for each chord

We didn't get on to this in our session. However, another way of playing over these chords would be to use different scales for each chord. The first chord minor seventh could be played with the aeolian scale  1  2  b3  4  5  b6  b7  8 .  This scale has a natural 2 (rather than a b2 as in the phrygian scale). The second chord major seventh would normally be played with lydian scale as above (Ash asked about using a regular major scale  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  but I think the 4 will sound 'odd' whereas the #4 will sound more appropriate - always subjective though!)

  rhythm - groove

Rhythmically this piece draws on a variety of 'latin music' elements (particular Cuban) with the crotchet anticipations in the bass (bars 2, 4 etc) and also the two quaver hits at the end of bar 16. I thought our rhythm section made a thoroughly fine job of this in our session :-)

I have just noticed a mistake in bar 21, please remove the tie between quaver and the following crotchet.

form

In all fairness to Finn Peters I should acknowledge the fact that I blatantly disregarded a whole section of his composition - a beautiful set of chord changes which give this piece yet another dimension. It is in fact over these chords that the soloing takes place (and not the intro chords as we did). Steve mentioned this (and quite rightly so). If anyone is interested to look at these chords then why not have a go at working them out yourself. I will also have a look at them and we can, if you wish, compare notes in a couple of weeks. 

Excellent work from everyone during this block - well done.

No session next week but we resume with our next block of four on Feb 28th (then March 7th, 14th, miss a week, finish on March 28th). Info about the tunes to follow soon!

Cheers Mark

mark@markbassey.com

Ropetackle Workshops 2013-14 Week 11 07-02-14 The House Always Wins

"Dave Stapleton, the Cardiff-based pianist-composer, has been described by Jazzwise as "a real find for British Jazz...a young musician of real maturity and vision". 'The House Always Wins' is Stapleton's fourth album as leader and his previous releases have given rave reviews in the Guardian, Observer and Jazzwise. In 2006 he was one of the young musicians chosen for the prestigious Jerwood / PRS Foundation 'Take Five' initiative, recognising his abilities and acknowledging his potential. As a musician there's a strength and virility to his playing, matched by an innate capacity for tenderness and reflection. As a composer, he draws upon a formidable grasp of jazz, classical and world music styles, yet transforms these raw materials into something richly personal. With the exceptional talents of Paula Gardiner on bass and Elliot Bennett on drums, `The House Always Wins' is an album of powerful, driving rhythms and lingering melodic hooks. With the highly individualistic sound of Jonny Bruce on trumpet and impressive multi-instrumentalist Ben Waghorn on reeds, Stapleton has put together a band of high-rollers and high stakes winners."

This week's piece The House Always Wins is actually quite a long track with three contrasting sections. In our session we only looked at the first of these which I would describe as being 'modal' (this term is usually used to describe any composition where the chords remain constant for 4 bars of more - in other words the harmony is relatively slow moving). Section A actually has no chord at all - it uses a repeating 2 bar bass pattern (which comes three times making a 6 bar phrase). Section B has 4 bars of a 'dominant 7 sus chord' (mixolydian scale) followed by 4 bars of a 'dominant 13 chord' (mixolydian scale) and finally 4 bars of a 'dominant 13 #11 b9 chord' (diminished half-whole scale) returning to the original bass line. Section B is to my ears gently reminiscent of Maiden Voyage (a classic 'modal' composition).

The soloing on this track (just one soloist - trumpet) is over an open-ended A section (using the 'dominant 13 #11 b9 chord') and section B is on cue where the solo continues. The use of the 'dominant 13 #11 b9 chord' for the improvising in this modal way is most unusual. This chord is full of tension (dissonance). It is used frequently in non-modal sequences (pieces with standard chord changes) but always at cadence points (main example being II V I where chord V would be  V13#11b9  eg  Dmin7  G13#11b9  Cmaj7 ). It is rare for a chord with this amount of tension to be used modally. This scale most closely associated with this chord is the diminished half-whole scale (see below). This scale contains 4 semitones, any pair of notes a semitone apart can be used to create tension melodically or harmonically (chords can be built using all 4 semitone pairs, ie all the notes in the scale!) Traditionally, modal pieces tend to favour chords with less tension (such as 'minor7' using dorian scale, or 'dominant7 sus' using mixolydian scale  eg So What, Impressions, Maiden Voyage, Passion Dance).

A major focus for this session was exploring the 'diminished half-whole scale' (also known as 'eight note dominant scale' - I like this name because the primary use of the scale is over dominant chords and not diminished chords, more on this another time). The scale is constructed as follows:

diminished half-whole scale 1    b2    b3     3    #4     5     6    b7     8

(aka  eight note dominant scale)

eg  G13#11b9           G   Ab   Bb   B    C#   D    E    F    G

notice the symmetry in the intervals          half whole half whole half whole half whole

In our session I asked everyone to work out the 8 triad shapes that occur in this scale (for G13#11b9 the triads are G  Gm  Bb  Bbm  C#  C#m  E  Em ). I then recommended picking just two triads and writing the notes down in an ascending sequence making a short scale of 4,5 or 6 notes. Finally, I suggested using these notes to improvise with, trying to create simple melodic lines (step-wise movement within the chosen group of notes, and larger jumps).

This concept of working with a smaller selection of notes from a scale can be applied to any scale. Looking for triad shapes within a scale can also help create new structures for building melodies (and of course voicings). It must be almost time to examine 'upper structure triads' - exciting stuff …

 

Cheers Mark

mark@markbassey.com