Re: Learning jazz

reed ( (no email) )
Tue, 20 May 1997 04:30:45 +0100

At 05:47 AM 5/20/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Antoinette Denofrio wrote:
>>
>> I'm not to sure where the reference of Reed saying the little bit about the
>> sixteen year old learning jazz. I'm not even to sure if this is what you
are
>> talking about, but here it goes! I am 16 and I have been playing jazz for
>> about 2 years. I'm said to be the best jazz artist at my school. To tell
you
>> the truth, I really couldn't tell you one thing about cord changes or
dorian
>> modes or any of that stuff. I think that to be a good jazz player, you have
>> to 1.LISTEN!!! All I do is listen to other cd's of jazz greats, and 2. Play
>> what fits, not only with the style but with the key. Jazz improve is an
>> expression of yourself and thats that.
>>
>> Antoinettte
>> "Winning isn't a sometime thing, its the only thing."
>
>Antoinette,
>
>I hope you will take the time read this and my previous post on the
>subject. I am going to attempt to offer some constructive criticism,
>which I do not intend as a slight on your abilities or accomplishments
>to date.
>
>You state that you know nothing about changes or modes, and that you are
>considered the best jazz player at your school. Unless you are attending
>an arts magnet school in a major city this is probably not too
>significant. I was head and shoulders above my peers after a couple of
>years of playing also, but the truth is most high-schoolers are not
>putting much time and study into really learning to play. I know I was
>still woefully green as a musician at that time, no where near able to
>play gigs with accomplished players. And, in the last 20 years of
>teaching lessons I've taught hundreds of students, many of them the best
>players in their high school, but I only know of two who went on to be
>professional level jazz players.
>
>In my opinion pursuing jazz study in a serious way mandates that you
>learn about all the aspects, including things like harmony and
>chord-scale relationships. You would be very hard pressed in this day
>and age to name a contemporary jazz musician who hadn't studied these
>things. I've seen a lot of talented but unstudied players, particularly
>horn players, fall flat on their asses when they got out of the realm of
>tunes and keys that they know well. This is not the '50s, and I think it
>is naive to assume your ear alone is going to get you by, especially
>when you are going to find players with extremely well developed ears
>who also know everything there is to know about theory and such. Don't
>carry a chip. Learn harmony and theory. Be humble. You probably still
>have a long way to go.
>
>--
>Clay Moore
>

Clay,

I agree that it makes sense to become musically literate and certainly
as a practical matter, you need to be able to read charts, play tunes
that you can't really play by ear like "Giant Steps" or say Wayne
SHorter tunes, etc...

However, let me ask you this.

What jazz textbook or course that you've taken explains that for
bepop style playing (say Bill Evans, Chet Baker, Wes Montgomery,
Jim Hall, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, CAnnonball Adderly, Clifford
Btown, etc.....) that these players essentially see tunes as the smallest
possible number of major key centers??

When you transcribe and do analysis it's obvious that this is going on.
You can't explain the choice of notes, tensions etc, in any other way.
And in this way everything in the solo is so simple and obvious.

When I teach, the first solo I ever analyze with students is Bill Evans
solo on "Little Lulu". It's about as hip a jazz solo as you could hear
and in the whole solo I think there is literally one note that is not
either a note in the key of C or a chromatic approach note for the
key of C. There are no chord scales being used whatsover!

He's just playing in C.

There are no chord scales being used. That's about the furthest thing
from Bill's mind.

I've never seen that in any book and have only heard it from one
teacher in my whole life.

What I do see are endless discussions of chord scales. Where are the
transcripions that show that great players were thinking that way?
I've sure never seen any.

Of course, ear players all now this but they arent teaching or writing
books.

When you tell an ear player that you are playing a tune in Bb, if he
thinks about anything it will be Bb major. Maybe the tune modulates
in the bridge so he knows that.

It's so simple! That's how people can play by ear.

This is my beef with teaching people jazz theory.

Just precisely what theory is being taught?

Does it accurately reflect what is in transcripions?

How many people teaching jazz theory can realistically say that what
they are explaining is the result of their personal transcriptions,
soul searching and verification that the theory is thus justified?

I would say that this number of people is as near to nil as one can
expect to find.

What is taught is the same watered down inaccurate theory that has been
taught for the last 40 years.

It does more harm than good in many cases because it's just wrong.

reed

Reed Kotler
reed@justjazz.com
http://www.justjazz.com