Double Bass What is PC Doing Here? (Descending Dom7 Chords)

[DoubleMIDI]

If analyzing stresses you, you can listen and play. But to get a better understanding of how things work, a look at the paper where you can see a longer section of music and have all the time you need to understand what happens can be very useful to incorporate ideas (not only tone sequences) into your own playing.

As always, it is easier if you already have some knowledge of theory and transcribing. And if you can hear and analyse from memory, no transcribing is needed, but there are situations where the section is too long to memorize or the tempo is too fast.

It’s like practicing, you do it slowly at home, so that you understand what and how to do it and can then play that faster and with less thinking with the band.

 

[fu22ba55]

It's useful to analyze stuff, but the main thing IMO is to listen and play without overly stressing the analysis. It gets a little too academic for me. Others may differ.

Yeah, it's a delicate balance for me:

Everyone says "Transcribe, transcribe, transcribe: all the answers you seek are in the old recordings."

But then when I find something I can't comprehend, it's hard to chalk it up to "just feel the vibe, man." Part of me still wants to know how it works.

But at the end of the day, whether I understand it or not, I've definitely discovered that the best way to internalize it and make it (sort of) part of my vocabulary is just repetition and shedding, same phrase over different keys, to get the sound under my hands (even if I don't know "why" it sounds good).

 

[Bruce Calin]

If analyzing stresses you, you can listen and play. But to get a better understanding of how things work, a look at the paper where you can see a longer section of music and have all the time you need to understand what happens can be very useful to incorporate ideas (not only tone sequences) into your own playing.

As always, it is easier if you already have some knowledge of theory and transcribing. And if you can hear and analyse from memory, no transcribing is needed, but there are situations where the section is too long to memorize or the tempo is too fast.

It’s like practicing, you do it slowly at home, so that you understand what and how to do it and can then play that faster and with less thinking with the band.

As someone whose done a fair share of transcribing and analyzing, my point is that too much effort to put what someone played in the moment into some sort of theoretical system can lead down some pretty deep rabbit holes. The aim for me is to develop your own voice and not get too hung up on why someone played what they did other than it's what they heard at the time. I have had this discussion with other musicians over the years and it never gets resolved to anyone's satisfaction. I believe that jazz or any improvised music is learned mostly by listening and ear development. Like I said, others have different methods and this is fine, but IMO getting hung up on too much theoretical analysis of improvised music is a distraction. We're just going to have to agree to disagree on this.

 

[DoubleMIDI]

I just keep the essence when I analyse things (not very often on paper, and sometimes if I hear something).
It is interesting to know that you can do a certain thing and what function the notes have or can have. You can use that principle at a certain point if you think it might fit, but you don’t need to.

But I’m good at prehearing single note lines, analyzing harmonies (probably better than playing bass) and think a bit in advance where to go and how.
I know that is not the typical way for a bass player, so everybody had to find out what works best. But a few hints to try, even if they don’t help now, might be useful for some.
I know from myself that things that are (more or less) learned theoretically need some time to get fully understand and some more time to use it in practice.

Using transcriptions from others and play them in a way that they get alive is a different thing. It is not your concept and playing by first sight often doesn’t make music from it. The intentions behind must be first be understood to play it well.

 

[Wasnex]

Check out the extended descending harmonic sequence here.

 

[Groove Doctor]

Yeah, it's a delicate balance for me:

Everyone says "Transcribe, transcribe, transcribe: all the answers you seek are in the old recordings."

But then when I find something I can't comprehend, it's hard to chalk it up to "just feel the vibe, man." Part of me still wants to know how it works.

But at the end of the day, whether I understand it or not, I've definitely discovered that the best way to internalize it and make it (sort of) part of my vocabulary is just repetition and shedding, same phrase over different keys, to get the sound under my hands (even if I don't know "why" it sounds good).

Very true.

The sooner we learn to throw the Real Book chord chart out the window AND LISTEN the better. These cats weren’t reading music - they were creating it.

They are allowed to have more than two chord sequences in-between the major chord landmarks. Some sound more obvious, some more ambiguous/implied.

A RB chart is only an approximation of a recording, a basic starting point, a low entry point to gather around, It’s not ‘Gospel’, it’s not set in stone. Make it your own, add your own personal touches. We have to step away from what we’ve enshrined as ‘correct’ before we can enter a state of altered consciousness where we accept, understand and live in the moment. The higher self kicks in and shows us the way. That is where jazz lives.

The lesson is - Put the RB down. There are opportunities where you and others are free to Reharmonise small passing chord sequences in the moment when the opportunity presents itself. Learn to lookout for them, hear them and play along with them in recordings - it’ll prepare you to be able to hear and adjust to them in real time when playing live.

 

[crd]

Yeah, it's a delicate balance for me:

Everyone says "Transcribe, transcribe, transcribe: all the answers you seek are in the old recordings."

But then when I find something I can't comprehend, it's hard to chalk it up to "just feel the vibe, man." Part of me still wants to know how it works.

But at the end of the day, whether I understand it or not, I've definitely discovered that the best way to internalize it and make it (sort of) part of my vocabulary is just repetition and shedding, same phrase over different keys, to get the sound under my hands (even if I don't know "why" it sounds good).

Good on you for checking this stuff out in a deep way. If you don't understand "why" it sounds good, it is really hard to do more than just copy things. Miles Davis and the people he was playing with during this era knew exactly what they were doing. They sat at the piano and thought a lot about why certain things worked and other things didn't. You can be certain at this level of playing, all the choices are deliberate and worth really thinking about why. P.C. didn't write some of the greatest walking basslines in the history of the music by accident. Don't buy the "just feel the vibe, man" interpretation of improvised music. No offense to people who love jam band music, but this ain't that.

 

[fu22ba55]

Check out the extended descending harmonic sequence here.

This is great, thanks for reminding. My next task was to find similar passages and transcribe, so I'll grab some of these as well and post.

 

[fu22ba55]

Miles Davis and the people he was playing with during this era knew exactly what they were doing. [...] P.C. didn't write some of the greatest walking basslines in the history of the music by accident.

Thank you.

This is my thinking precisely, and my reasoning for this thread. I need to be careful not to go full-rabbit-hole, but I definitely owe it to myself to spend SOME time looking under the hood before moving on.

 

[DrCannabass]

You can be certain at this level of playing, all the choices are deliberate and worth really thinking about why. P.C. didn't write some of the greatest walking basslines in the history of the music by accident. Don't buy the "just feel the vibe, man" interpretation of improvised music. No offense to people who love jam band music, but this ain't that.

+1 ^^^
That whole Detroit/NYC gang of jazz musicians thought of themselves as modern composers/musicians pulling from a wide range of cultured art music from Bach to Tchaikovsky as well as the blues.

 

[Bruce Calin]

Good on you for checking this stuff out in a deep way. If you don't understand "why" it sounds good, it is really hard to do more than just copy things. Miles Davis and the people he was playing with during this era knew exactly what they were doing. They sat at the piano and thought a lot about why certain things worked and other things didn't. You can be certain at this level of playing, all the choices are deliberate and worth really thinking about why. P.C. didn't write some of the greatest walking basslines in the history of the music by accident. Don't buy the "just feel the vibe, man" interpretation of improvised music. No offense to people who love jamy band music, but this ain't that.

This is exactly what I disagree with. There may have been discussions of some road maps or harmonic variations. At that high level of musicianship, I believe the players had even more freedom as far as note choices and chord voicings,etc. What we hear is what they played at the time. With the availability of alternate takes on some CDs on some of the iconic albums, you can hear that the basic framework may have been similar but the actual playing could be quite different. To call it "feel the vibe" or "jam band" diminishes what good improvisers are capable of in the moment. I don't agree that a line or interpretation of a chord has to be planned to sound great. No disrespect to anyone, but to hear the great players of any era really stretch out live, it demonstrates how spontaneously creative they can be. We can study the music after the fact, but it is after the fact.PC didn't "write" his lines. He played what he heard. As I said before, others may differ.

 

[DoubleMIDI]

I’m a bit more on the improvising is (short sections of) instant composing (by mind-planning or pre-hearing,which is just a little bit different) than the I play pit on one and mostly chord notes on the other beats, because they always fit.

If you have a goal where to go like in a single direction step by step this is already a short-term planning. Regardless if by pre-hearing or mind-planning.

Theory knowledge as well as experience (what has worked and what didn’t) help for good lines. Both is possible and both together are more helpful than one alone.

 

[crd]

This is exactly what I disagree with. There may have been discussions of some road maps or harmonic variations. At that high level of musicianship, I believe the players had even more freedom as far as note choices and chord voicings,etc. What we hear is what they played at the time. With the availability of alternate takes on some CDs on some of the iconic albums, you can hear that the basic framework may have been similar but the actual playing could be quite different. To call it "feel the vibe" or "jam band" diminishes what good improvisers are capable of in the moment. I don't agree that a line or interpretation of a chord has to be planned to sound great. No disrespect to anyone, but to hear the great players of any era really stretch out live, it demonstrates how spontaneously creative they can be. We can study the music after the fact, but it is after the fact.PC didn't "write" his lines. He played what he heard. As I said before, others may differ.

I'm sorry I'm having a hard time following what you are saying. He played what he heard as opposed to what, playing things that he didn't hear? Did I somehow imply that Paul Chamber's and Miles Davis were not creative because they didn't BS and knew what they were doing?

Obviously, I did not mean to imply that PC wrote and memorized the entire walking line he played on this track. However, I can guarantee he played this song a million times, and he new that at the section the OP was asking about, substituting iii vi as a way of creating tension for the coming cadence was a great thing to do as a bass player. It was a spontaneous, spur of the moment decision and the kind of thing that he had Red Garland did on these types of tunes to keep them interesting and more open ended for soloing.

Part of the reason why PC's playing is so iconic is because he had a certain harmonic and melodic language that he pulled from. It was unique to him, innovative and very deliberate. Transcribe three PC solos and you will see a lot of the same material used in inventive and interesting ways.

 

[Groove Doctor]

Let’s be absolutely clear on which we are referring to. Asking for clarification really helps to prevent misunderstandings.


There is hatched-job improvising (hacks), mid-level improvising (us mere mortals), and then ethereal improvising (the legendary jazz greats)*.

* Those are my terms - has anybody written about these differences?. I’m happy to defer to generally accepted terms, if anybody knows of any.

 

[turf3]

Of course I haven't been inside the brain of Paul Chambers, Miles Davis, etc., but extrapolating from my own experience I believe that what we're all basically nibbling around the edges of is this:

1) Conceive a way of approaching a particular chord sequence, rhythmic passage, etc., based on musical theory.
2) Work out, in practicing, some actual things to play that follow that theory.
3) Get those patterns fully under the fingers and in the mind, so they become part of one's "working vocabulary".
4) Then, when on the bandstand actually playing a tune in the moment, the player selects items from their working vocabulary to use in their improvisation.

So BOTH things are true: the player ABSOLUTELY know what it is he's doing, AND he is listening to the music come along (both in the ears and in the mind, anticipating what's coming up) and reacting in the moment according to how it sounds.

I believe this is what is happening for all of us as we improvise.

 

[Whousedtoplay]

In "Bye Bye Blackbird", the first 4 bars of the B section are often this:

|F9 |E9 |Eb9 |D7(b9) |

Dom7 chords, one per bar, descending by half steps.

But in the Chuck Sher "New Real Book", those changes are in parenthesis, and they show Am7b5 for the first three bars, citing their version "As Played by Miles Davis":

View attachment 4693056

I transcribed some George Duvivier and Ray Brown lines over the "standard" descending Dom7 chords and those all make sense to me. (See linked PDF below).

But for the life of me, I can't figure out what in tarnation Paul Chambers is doing on the Miles version, even if I'm thinking Aø7:

View attachment 4693058

Sometimes it seems he's playing Am7b5 for the first three bars... sometimes it feels like he's playing D7 the whole time?

Does anyone have any insight into "what PC is thinking" over the first three bars? What's his harmonic strategy?

Here's Dropbox link to PDF of my transcription, including George Duvivier & Ray Brown's lines:

Descending Blackbird Lines PDF

Could you, please, point me the exact time of your question from the following video?

 

[fu22ba55]

Could you, please, point me the exact time of your question from the following video?

If you download this PDF, the second page is a transcription of each time the segment appears in the tune. (Ignore the first page).

It appears 7 times in the recording, but the changes on the transcription (F7, E7, Eb7,D7) are probably not audible (hence the question).

0:47 (Head)

1:50 (Davis Solo)

2:53 (Davis Solo)

3:56 (Trane Solo)

4:59 (Trane Solo)

6:03 (Piano Solo)

7:07 (Head Out, Trumpet Returns)

 

[Whousedtoplay]

It appears 7 times in the recording, but the changes on the transcription (F7, E7, Eb7,D7) are probably not audible (hence the question).

Your transcription says: Measure/Bar 33.
What time is that M33 on the above provided video?

 

[fu22ba55]

What time is that M33 on the above provided video?

0:47, under the head

 

[Whousedtoplay]

0:47, under the head

Thank you.