Week 23 27-06-14 The Sweet Yakity Waltz

This is another piece chosen by me. I found it in the library of the Sussex Jazz Orchestra. Ian Hamer used to work with Kenny Wheeler and acquired a number of his big band scores for the SJO (thanks to Patrick for archiving all this material). And Steve (Lawless) kindly put the Dave Holland version in the Dropbox.

Like many of Kenny Wheeler's compositions it has a simple melody (highly motivic - each phrase sits clearly in its own key centre) and a complex chord structure (often non-functional harmony).

Both the Dave Holland version and Kenny Wheeler's big band score present the melody with a single instrument playing freely, out of time ('colla voce'). The tempo is established in the last few bars of the melody statement. This can be an interesting way to start a piece. The individual playing the melody takes responsibility for setting the tempo (no one needs to do a count in). I invited some of you to do this in the session. Why not try this approach in your own group with a piece you already know well (a standard perhaps?) Check out the attached mp3 clip of Carl Fontana playing Soon - same idea, different style.

Rhythm and comping - this piece is a jazz waltz and is intended to go quite fast. During our session I encouraged our rhythm section to explore playing '1 in a bar' (= dotted minims), '2 in a bar' (= dotted crotchets), as well as walking '3 in bar' (= crotchets). I also suggested a more percussive approach to playing the chords to help the time and feel. Simplifying the sequence by missing some chords out would be possible but risky, the sequence could easily lose its shape. Stuart suggested playing simpler voicings (leaving out some of the tension notes) - more on voicings below.

Improvising -  the task of improvising over this chord sequence is challenging. There are times for 'jumping in' and 'having a go' (particularly if it's on a gig and you have no other choice!) but at other times you may wish to take a more organised approach. If so, you should consider all the elements that make the task challenging:

1 the time signature is 3/4 (which may be less familiar than 4/4) -  try playing on the chord sequence in 4/4

2 the tempo is quite fast - try playing at a slower tempo

3 the harmonic rhythm is quite fast (ie chords change each bar) - make the chords last longer (2 or even 4 bars per chord)

4 some of the chords may be unfamiliar (or there may be an usual scale you wish to explore) - work on just the one chord or scale, perhaps playing out of time to begin with

5 some sequences of chords may be unfamiliar - improvise on shorter sections, perhaps as a loop (as we did in our session on the first 2 bars of this piece)

Harmony and melody - these elements are seamlessly combined in this piece but to create new melodies over such a complex chord sequence is a challenge. Harmony is a vertical element, melody is a horizontal element. 'Ear players' work horizontally, trying to create good melodic lines (sometimes at the expense of chordal detail). Chordal players (piano, guitar etc) have to think vertically in order to create voicings. Finding good voicings for a piece like this is very important.

A voicing for a chord is usually created using the chord tones (root, third, fifth, seven) plus tension notes (eg ninth, eleventh, thirteenth). Tension notes may be specified or implied by the chord symbol, or they may be chosen in addition to the notated information just because 'they sound good'. A chord voicing does not usually have all the chord tones and all the tension notes as it sounds too dense (a seven note voicing will sound very thick). It is common to leave some notes out. Generally the third and seventh need to be included (but not always!)

Another way of creating a voicing is to work from a scale (usually seven notes) which must be chosen for the given chord. There are many factors which may determine this choice - the melody, the prevailing key centre, surrounding chords, style of the composition, style of the composer, and the final arbiter should be your ear. More on this another week ...

Some scales contain notes which are not always suitable for voicings. The scale of C major ( C D E F G A B C ) might be chosen for the chord C∆. Any notes from the scale could be used to make a voicing but the fourth note (F ) can make the chord sound 'wrong' (or not like C∆ ). Such notes are called 'avoid' notes (I prefer to call them 'be careful' notes). They are fine when used melodically but may be unsuitable when used harmonically.

The major scale and many of its modes contain 'avoid' notes (although jazz theoreticians hotly dispute some of them!) More on this another month …

By contrast, in the melodic minor and all of its modes there are no 'avoid' notes. These means any notes from these scales can be used to create voicings.

Kenny Wheeler often uses melodic minor harmony in his compositions as well as other scale sources.

Below is my own scale analysis of the chords in The Sweet Yakity Waltz. Where there are a number of choices I have tried to offer the most likely or stylistically appropriate.

The attached pdfs called "SYW Voicings" (in C, Bb and Eb) have typical voicings for these chords and they are all derived from the scale choices below.

SCALE ANALYSIS of The Sweet Yakity Waltz

bar1 Gm∆ G melodic minor

bar2 Em7b5 E locrian natural2 (6th mode of G melodic minor)

bar3 Fm9/Bb Bb mixolydian (5th mode of Eb major)

bar4 A7#5b9 A altered (7th mode of Bb melodic minor)

bar5 Dm13 D dorian (2nd mode of C major)

bar6 Bm11 B dorian (2nd mode of A major)

bar7 Am∆ A melodic minor

bar8 Am9/G A dorian (2nd mode of G major)

(I've ignored bass note in this context)

bar9 F#m7b5 F# locrian natural2 (6th mode of A melodic minor)

bar10 F∆#11 F lydian (4th mode of C major)

bar11 Em∆#11 E melodic minor #4 (4th mode of B harmonic major*)

(or E lydian b3!)

bar12 Dm11 D dorian (2nd mode of C major)

Why not have a go on your own at the remaining bars? Or sit back and enjoy a nice glass of wine like I'm doing right now . . .

* B harmonic major is  B  C#  D#  E  F#  G  A#  B

      fifth mode is  E  F#  G  A#  B  C#  D#  E

The harmonic major is constructed as follows:  1  2  3  4  5  b6  7  8   (ie major scale with a flat six). Like the other 'parent' scales (namely: major, melodic minor and harmonic minor) the harmonic major has a further 6 modes. So, we now have four parent scales which form a symmetric pattern (or paradigm) - check out the third and sixth of each scale.

                          major (3  6) | melodic minor   (b3  6)         

                  harmonic major (3 b6) | harmonic minor (b3 b6)

This gives us a grand total of 28 scales (4 x 7). All of these scales contain 7 notes and while some have 2 and others 3 semitone intervals, these are always separated by larger intervals (ie 2 semitones never occur next to each other within a scale). The matter of the semitones is particular significant when creating voicings. More on this in another lifetime ...