Jazz Intros/Emdings

[dmperry24]

In his new DVD on jazz bass playing, Ed Frieland mentioned typical endings used in jam sessions, and on the job. He also discussed beginnings, or intros. Which leads me to the following question:

Ed mentions endings similar to the one classically used on “Take the A-Train”, and the “Count Basie” ending. Ed mentions that all a bandleader has to do is say “5 Choruses of the tune, followed by an ‘A-Train’ ending, and that is the arrangement for what they will perform. I was wondering are there were other standard type endings that you jazz mavens call for? Same for intros. Ed mentioned Pedalling on a chord root, or playing the last four or eight bars of the tune. Are there other intro styles other than intros specific to certain tunes? Thanks for your help, I’m still floundering a bit with this jazz stuff.

[Ed Fuqua]

The BEST thing to do is keep your ears open.
There's the flat 5 ending (descend chromatically from the flat V chord), there's the half step resolution ending (Key of C, Ab to Db to C). You can move diatonically down form the IV chord, you can alter that by making the last change a half step (instead of F E D Cmaj, F E Db Cmaj).

But really, it's not so much about formulas as it is wit and inventiveness. And LISTENING.

[bassbuddie]

I have a question for you ED. When you say listening, what do you mean:
1- Do you mean listen to examples of different endings.
2- or do you mean listen to what is going on and react to it.

If its to react to what your ear, how do you do it? Let's say the piano player is playing that flat five ending, If I have some luck, I will ear it when the last chord is played. Do you anticipate the ending?

[Ed Fuqua]

More towards number two. The pianist I work with most often, Jon Raney, improvises most tags/outros to tunes we play. And they can be outside my ears' skill set. If I'm NOT hearing what he's doing, the best thing I can do is take my hand off the instrument until we get to a point where I can hear what's going on. A lot of what he does tends to be cycling dominant chords (say we're in C, he'll start on F7 and cycle through Bb, Eb, Ab, Db and then resolve to C) or some such. If I can hear the first movement, I have an idea as to where we are going. Sometimes we resolve to a key other than the one we started in, again the key is to hear the patterns of resolution. I ain't perfect, sometimes I do sometimes I don't. You just have to keep working on ear training. AND, find out if it's something I'll likely be hearing again. Sometimes that improvised tag becomes the arrangement.
But listen, listen, listen. If the harmony instrument is listening and is playing with meaning and intent, this stuff just doesn't come out of nowhere. They're going to be leading you to that path, setting up the tag, the outro. You just have to be alive to the nuance.

[mattfong]

A lot of the time, in certain songs, my trio's endings turn into vamps on the root chord, and then it doesn't actually end yet. We'll just jam on the vamp, and I'll make up cool groove lines and our songs kind of evolve like that. One or two times before they've ended up going free lol. Then to end that we'll rit to end, or piano solo end, or something like that. cliche, but we're newbies.

Now we wouldn't really do this that much gigging, maybe one or two songs at most, but we haven't started gigging yet I'm hoping to start playing shows around town soon. There's a 'jazz bar' that never has jazz (because there is no jazz around)... I'm sure we'll be quite welcome there!

[mattfong]

Oh and as Ed said, listening and reacting is extremely important. Non-verbal communication will be happening a lot.

[tomesim]

A common progression which can be used as an ending - instead of resolving to C, go thru the following chromatic sequence:

| F#m7b5 | Fm6 | Em7 | Ebdim | Dm7 | Dbmaj7 |
| C |

Could also be done as two chords/measure.

[Jeremy Allen]

David Baker's next method book, which should be coming out anytime, is on intros and endings. I assume he will turn his typically exhaustive (and sometimes exhausting) attention to the matter and codify a lot of the standard practice. And there will probably be a good discography included for interested parties to check out the material in action.

In the meantime...what Ed said.

[matthewbrown]

+1 to Ed's comment about taking your hand off the instrument; "when in doubt, lay out."
Endings are often just turnarounds that stop turning around, so learning a lot of turnarounds is helpful.