Reed:
Excellent solo. If you took away the chords, the improvisation may sound
like it was all over a Db chord. Chet seems to avoid being specific with
all the chords in the piece, choosing instead to generalize the piece using
notes of the Db triad and Db major scale with a couple of chromatic
leading, passing and neighbor tones.
I presented a solo to a graduate theory class once that was almost totally
constructed using motivic development. No guide tones, no outlines, no
paraphrasing of the melody. One of my students brought in a solo in which
he tried and tried to find motivic development, and was quite frustrated.
There was no motivic development in the solo. In analysis of any kind one
asks questions. Sometimes the answer is "no." Then you move on to the next
question.
In the introduction to my book I wanted to be clear about where the subject
of the book fit into the larger scheme of things. Outlines and guide tones
are a part of improvisation, but in no way the whole. I included a chart of
what I feel the choices are when approaching improvisation. I want to
include that here and relate it to the Chet excerpt.
Improvisation Choices
I. Paraphrasing
This includes adding to the melody, changing the rhythmic character and
ornamentation and elaboration.
Often this is the only approach used. Miles takes some great solos where he
is actually playing variations and elaborations on the theme. Not exactly
unique to jazz. Reed exhibits this is some of his posted solos. This often
neglected area of improvisation should be practiced more.
II. Playing with the Harmony
Sometimes jazz improvisers never refer to the melody after playing it once,
instead relying on the harmony as a vehicle for their improvisations. There
are variations by Bach, Beethoven and others where the variation is more
about the harmony than the original theme, so again this approach is not
unique to jazz.
Under the category of Harmony are some subdivisions:
A. General
1. blues lines as generalization
2. triadic generalization (Dm7-G7-C all in the key of C,
playing C triadic melodies and embellishments not necessarily referring to
each individual chord in the progression.) It is this approach that Chet
seems to use more than being specific in this particular excerpt.
B. Specific
1. using specific arpeggios
2. using guide tones and outlines
(guide tones can refer to the 7ths resolving to the 3rds but also to 5ths
and 9ths.)
III. Motivic Development
Motives may be derived from the melody or newly invented. List of devices
follow:
There is a little motivic development at the end of the Chet excerpt. (He
sounds almost like he's going to quote "Tenderly.")
A. Repetition
B. Transpose
C. Mode Change
D. Fragment
E. Add to (Before, in the middle, after)
F. Sequence
G. Embellish or ornament (keeping the general contour, using
neighbor-tones and other devices, still keeping the motive recognizable)
H. Augmentation (making the rhythmic unit or the pitch
interval larger)
I. Diminution (making the rhythmic unit or the pitch interval
smaller)
J. Invert (upside down: what goes up comes down)
K. Retrograde (play backwards)
L. Retrograde inversion (upside down and backwards)
M. Displacement (pitch and & octave displacement; rhythmic
displacement)
These three areas answer the question "on what do you improvise?" Many
improvisations will focus on one area more than another, but others may
have elements of all three in some kind of balance. Most of theory
discussion will point back to one of these areas.
Analysis of a Clifford Brown solo may yield more outlines and guide tones;
analysis of a Stanley Turrentine solo yields more blues generalizations;
analysis of Sonny Rollins, Coltrane and some Miles may yield examples of
motivic development that may ignore the harmonic implications. So I do not
have nor advocate a unified singular approach to jazz improvisation. I
agree with Reed that transcribing solos that you find meaningful will help
you sound the way that you want to sound. I like Reed, am not interested in
statistical analysis type theory. But, I find it helpful to sort out what I
find and put it into some categories which help me incorporate the ideas
into my playing.
_______________________________________
Bert Ligon
Director of Jazz Studies
_______________________________________
School of Music
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC 29208
Voice: (803) 777-6565
Fax: (803) 777-6508
bligon@mozart.sc.edu
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