"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 …
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