January 2015 – The Woodshed | Jazz Improvisation

Live in LA: Ben Wendel Quartet, Jeff Parker w. Eric Revis, & Kendal Moore’s Octet

After 5 action-packed days in Los Angeles, I’m rejuvenated. Yes the beaches were amazing, the sunsets made for beautiful sky porn* (like this shot I took after almost running out of gas just north of Malibu), and the sushi was scrumptious. But even better was the music. All three shows I checked out while visiting were inspiring, so I thought I’d share some crappy iPhone recordings I took.

Ben Wendel Quartet

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m pretty much in love with pretty much anything Ben Wendel. Pretty much. But I had the privilege of hearing him with Eric Harland, Taylor Eigsti, and Harish Raghavan at the Blue Whale. Ben’s compositions and playing were tasty, Eric Harland and Taylor Eigsti obviously blew me away, but I was most taken by how elegantly Harish was able to hold everything down on bass. ...read more

50 Living Sax Players You Need to Check Out. Right Now.

Preface: The following list represents a group of today’s amazing jazz saxophonists. This is by no means the gold standard, it’s entirely my opinion, and the exact rank order should be taken with an extra-large grain of chunky sea salt; it’s just a guide. There may be 50 other guys who I’ve never heard or I’ve inadvertently omitted who are equally deserving of praise. Regardless, you should still check these fine players out.

The aim is to provide a window into some of the top guys on the scene today.

Sorry, no Charlie Parker here. This is meant to be representative of how each musician is currently playing, which means every individual is living and making incredible music.

Hopefully this helps you discover new artists. If any one of these guys is playing near you, please go check them out! ...read more

300 Tunes to Know: Prioritized, Categorized, and Organized

Tunes are our shared language. One of the most beautiful and unifying aspects of jazz is this common musical familiarity that enables any group of seasoned musicians to get together and immediately start making music. I’ll cover the pros and cons of learning tunes as well as the right approach to building a solid base of tunes in your arsenal. At the end I give a list of tunes to learn, separated out by their importance based on the frequency with which they get called at sessions/gigs.

=&0=& Why limit your pool of gigs? =&1=&Learning to navigate myriad harmonic, rhythmic, and structural intricacies of various tunes makes you a more well rounded improviser and better musician. Your compositional foundation comes from the tunes you have studied. You will use the melodies, forms, and harmonic standards should you choose to start composing (highly recommended!). Put your listening into context. Once you know a tune, listening to a recording/show of somebody playing that tune becomes far more meaningful. You will be an engaged, active listener, and you will begin to understand the choices the improviser is making

The Dark Side of Tunes

Knowing a shared set of tunes can be a crutch. An unrehearsed group of guys gets on the bandstand, takes 10 minutes between songs trying to figure out a tune to play next, then eventually agrees on something everybody knows and doesn’t consider too lame. We’re all guilty of this from time to time. Not only does this come across as extremely unprofessional, but also consider that the portion of your audience that’s not musicians is probably already a bit confused by jazz in the first place. Why further alienate them? Check out some of the veteran guys on the scene to learn how to play a pure tunes gig while still putting on a good show. ...read more

Roy Hargrove: Playing “Out”

Say what you will about Roy Hargrove’s current lifestyle choices; the man has blown some serious trumpet in his day. Roy’s ability to effortlessly glide between playing “in” (playing notes that fit the harmony) and “out” (creating tension by playing notes that don’t fit) has always impressed me, so I recently decided to pick a few lines to analyze his various harmonic devices.

Although he released a slew of post bop material throughout the 90’s, I reached for his more groove-oriented stuff in order to cut to the core of his soulful harmonic concept. His solo over Rich Man’s Welfare off RH Factor’s “Strength” fit the bill nicely.

But First, A Few Observations

Before getting into the meat of the analysis, I want to note a few keys to Hargrove’s playing in this era that made it all work. His time is impeccable, he shapes his lines with clean, clear articulations, and his style is…well he really swings. ...read more

Playing Over Half-Diminished

When I was first exposed to the half-diminished chord, I was told to simply play the major scale a half-step up, thus giving me the proper chord-scale relationship. After giving a number of other approaches a shot in between with mixed success…

I’ve started thinking about the half-diminished chord in a new way that really opened up my playing: think about simply playing the dorian minor starting on the third of the root

(i.e. for Emin7b5, play your G-dorian). You will give weight to the proper chord tones and start feeling more free over this complex-sounding harmony. More explanation down below.

Hold Up, What’s a Half Diminished?

Don’t feel bad if you have no clue what I’m talking about. In traditional jazz harmony, minor and major tonalities are tonicised (made sound like the key / landing point) with specific cadences (one or two chords that lead to the root). Take C-major. The standard cadence leading to it is a ii-V7-I (Dmin – G7 – Cmaj), where you can just move up and down the white keys to find the different modes of the major scale that fit each chord. ...read more