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Real Book Fun!!

#121
PlanetEarth said:
Road callouses....???? ;)

Just to play devils advocate: perhaps it's the delivery, players, enthusiasm, etc. that are old and tired.

FWIW: Was up in DC 2 weeks ago for a trio hit: bass, drums, sax - 90% book stuff. Was an all ages event in the early eve. All night the young kids dancing around and having a blast, afterward a group of parents approached saying they've never seen the children so interested and excited about hearing music. "We listen to the radio at home and in the car, mostly rock stations", etc... "If we buy them some music like this what would you recommend", yada, yada yada. You get the picture. I don't even remember what the clip paid because whatever it was was not worth more than having reached even a few people in that way.

Now NOT BY ANY MEANS am I claiming to have delivered some musical revelation to this audience. But here's what I do know, myself and the people I play with have an undeniable passion for this music and I know when we get together it's infectious.

So, again just to play devil's advocate: I'd argue that given; "nice tool to use when freelancers got together for a quick gig in a restaurant".... Can't say I'm surprised.... :hiding: I mean, more abstractly - if that's what it is to someone, then that's what it is, right...? And if you're the performer then that's what you make it for your audience too..??

Anyway, not trying to argue and partly thinking out loud... Maybe I'm just green... :)



-PE
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Your points are all valid... however playing 60 year old versions of 80 year old tunes, no matter how 'inspired' will leave some audiences cold.

+1 though... when I play, I come to PLAY. That is a big part of why I get called... energy and attitude, since I am an average player at best.

Any music can be made to suck. +1
 
#122
Agreed. The Real Book is what you make it. As the framework for awesome music, it's a terrific universally accepted device. But...GIGO applies. If all you do is read down "Satin Doll" you're leaving yourself short. Correct changes are often a moving target as well. Sometimes there are some inaccuracies. If you explore the history of how the book came to life, it's a surprise there aren't more issues. Later volumes and editions have addressed most of these. However, that doesn't mean you can't appreciate "Four" - or any other tune - as written. Just as 'Days of Wine & Roses' has been interpreted with substitution after substitution (personally, I LOVE the F-Ab/ F#-A movement in bars three and four), every other tune is wide open. And Mancini is but one example. Compare the Rogers & Hammerstein original changes to "My Favorite Things" to what Coltrane did, and you may as well be playing a different tune. ;)

FWIW...Great "newbie" tunes...with accurate enough changes:

Autumn Leaves
Blue Bossa
Anything by Jobim, but 'How Insensitive' and 'Wave' will keep you busy (and happy) hour after hour.
Any blues....Stolen Moments, All Blues, and of course, Blues for Alice when you want a big workout.
 
#123
VroomVroom said:
...(personally, I LOVE the F-Ab/ F#-A movement in bars three and four)...
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Yet another teachable moment, Jerry - lucky you! I get the Ab to A as the b5 to 5, but how are you coming up with F to F#? Isn't the 9 of D7 an E? So the flat 9 would be Eb? Color me confused yet anxious to learn... mauve?

VroomVroom said:
FWIW...Great "newbie" tunes...with accurate enough changes:

Autumn Leaves
Blue Bossa
Anything by Jobim, but 'How Insensitive' and 'Wave' will keep you busy (and happy) hour after hour.
Any blues....Stolen Moments, All Blues, and of course, Blues for Alice when you want a big workout.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that, I'm keeping an eye out for what's next! :hyper:
 
#124
Doh...typo! Sorry, Greg, but thanks for catching that. I forgot the # after the 'F' in bar three. F#-Ab / F# A. In retrospect, that was kind of a Freudian typo, though. :D I like to voice those chords as D-Ab-C and then D-F#-C, but when soloing I do love the A-Ab movement. However...now you have me thinking. I'm gonna' throw the 'F' in there next time I play the tune. No wrong chords in jazz, right? :ninja:

Another great tune..."In a Sentimental Mood." Actually, any Duke tune is wonderful to study, but this one is an absolute favorite. Lots of room to explore - the downward chromatic movement in the bass, the key change at the bridge...the exposed nine in the melody (E over D7)...
 
#125
Ah, so you keep the major third steady (F#) and move b5 to 5... so do you just ignore the b9 to 9 part? Or is that an either or kind of thing? I had both in my piano part, but I had to delete the b5 to 5 to make it sound OK. I didn't try deleting the b9 to 9, though, so maybe that b5 to 5 would have worked if I got rid of the 9's?
 
#126
I can definitely see the b5 clashing against the melody. One of the things that may come into play, however, is the rhythmic thing going on underneath. Let's see if I can explain this...during the first four bars of the head, the changes are played on beat 3 and the 'and' of 4...of bars 1 and 3. It's your call whether to hold the 'and' of 4 over the next bar as a half-note.

If it's of any value, here are two gig recordings from last year where I played this tune. The first is a pretty traditional take on the head and feel:

Days of Wine 1

This is a cha/mambo/bossa kind of deal, with different players (and a lot of ambient noise).
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As always, excuse the bass playing, but hopefully dig the tunes. :D

Cross-posting against the Roscoe forum here, but FWIW, here are three standards I played on a gig earlier this week. Changes are pure Real Book Vol. 1, but we toyed with the feel of each one. The 6/8 on All Blues is a two feel, with a fusiony-kinda-sorta Afro Cuban vibe. Round Midnight has a cha thing happening, and Don't Get Around is a Nawlin's 3/2 second line thing.

All Blues

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#128
^ Yeah man! Jerry put it best so far - the voicing (nicely led) with descending motion from the b5 to the M3rd and the A/Ab for the solo, true to the motion of the melody.

And my bad for talking about an E in the melody earlier - Thinking in the wrong clef... :(

Just food for thought - before you abandon the altered tensions, did ya try them in different octaves?

-PE
 
#130
FWIW...'Days of Wine...' was first on my list of things to cover in tonight's practice session. Had a lot of fun with the movement in those first four bars...plenty of food for thought there. The b5 and b9 seem to fit fine over the D7...as does the minor third, for that matter. Greg, maybe thinking of it as tension and resolution? I know it's hard to think of a maj7 chord as tension, but if you can hear it resolve to the Eb7, the D7b5b9 (or even Dm7b5b9) then resolves nicely to that big fat D7+9.

Damn. Mancini wrote some really pretty stuff, huh? I'll remember that next time I have to play 'Moon River'. ;)
 
#131
I trust your good judgement, Jerry, so I'm guessing it's just my ear that's letting me down. Here's what it sounds like when I program the b5/b9 to natural 5/9 in Bar 3:

"Days Of Wine And Roses"

That first chord in Bar 3 sounds like a$$ to me, but I could be made to believe that it's just full of tension... :rollno::D

Here are the notes I programmed for the D7 (b5/b9) with the numbers indicating the octave on the keyboard:
F#4 C5 D5 Ab5 Eb6

That first chord in Bar 3 sounds like me when I was 8 years old and first learning to play the piano... blech! I feel like I must be missing something.
 
#132
Greg, I think it's the voicing muddying the waters a bit. You've got the tritone flavor happening with the F#-C, and then a 'cluster' with the C-D "cluster." FWIW, here's my voicing, low-high, on the sixer...

D - Ab - C - Eb >> D - F# - C - E

Obviously I'm no pianist, and it's frighteningly unhip to voice chords like this, but it seems to work.
 
#134
So you're dropping the major third (F#) in the first chord of Bar 3 and rearranging the notes a bit. Cool, can do. Here's what I get when I play the voicing you suggest:

"Day Of Chords 2"

I hope I'm not beating a dead horse, but that still sounds off... That b5 is just killing my ear, everything sounds better when it goes away... I must be missing something stupid...
 
#137
And I guess I should add that I read into those last 3 chords (in Bars 3 and 4) an ascending trend as soon as I saw the b5b9 transition to nat5nat9. I just kept that motion/trend going into the D7 in Bar4 by extending the voicing of the D7 further up the keyboard. That makes sense, doesn't it? And dare I say it's musical to boot?
 
#140
VroomVroom said:
Not sure if this helps, other than to cure any insomnia you may be suffering, but here's a chord-melody version I recorded a few years ago, right after I got my little M-Audio handheld.

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Jerry - this is soooo cool! Thanks for sharing. I just might set my mind to producing something similar, seems like a great exercise.

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to do this for every tune in the book?!? T minus 15 years or so, I'd say!
 

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