/ Bbmaj7 F7+/ Bb6 G7b9 / Am7b5/ D7#9 D7b9 /
/ Em7b5 / A7b9 / Dm7, Fm7 / E7 /
/ Ebmaj7 / Eb6 / Ebm7 / D7 /
/ Dbmaj7 / Db6 / Dbm7 / C7#9 C7b9 /
/ Cbmaj7 / Cb6 / Cm7 / Cb#11 /
/ Dm7 / G7#9b13 / Cm7 / F7#9 /
Frank,
It takes alot of courage to get up in front of so many
people with a reharmonization so I hope that my remarks
will be taken as a learning experience and since you did
ask me in particular my opinion. I hope that my comments
won't discourage you (or others) from future posting.
Also, this forum isnt private lessons so if I'm going to
take the time to answer, everybody gets to benefit.
I may just be not understanding what you are trying to do
but yet I have to give my opinion.
That said....
Your subs don't really make sense to me. Not intellectually
nor with my ear.
The tippoff before even thinking about this is the at times illogical
bass motion. As I've said before, succesful reharmonization comes
from finding a more interesting bass line. Though the bass line
has to make sense.
For example in measure 2, how can a g7b9 chord move to an ami7b5 chord?
And then later, how do you get Dmi7,Fmi7 E7?
The rest is theoretically okay in the sense that you are just making
tritone subs but
to me they don't add anything to the piece and disturb the basic
simplicity of it. Tritone subs don't always sound good.
On a tune like this, except for perhaps an orchestrated arrangement,
you are basically locked in to the original changes.
You can change chord qualities (mi7->7) and some of the turnaround but
I don't see much else that you can do and still have it sound okay.
You know alot of things about harmony but alot of it seems
too theoretical to me. You seem at times to be convincing your ear of
things because you have some compelling intellectual belief in
whether something should sound good or not.
For example those comments you kept making about my b9 chord in
"When You Wish Upon A Star". I mean they seemed to be a misunderstanding
of the b9 rule and certainly I couldnt hear any problem there. I'm not
an expert singer accompanist so I kind of played along because I thought
maybe you were and I was missing something. I talked to two friends that are
two of the best singer accompanists in the world and they just echoed what I
told you.
Ill show you some basic subs I came up with for this tune.
Bbmaj7 / E7 / A7 / D7 /
Gm7 / C7 / Fm7 B7/ Bb7sus Bb7 /
Ebmaj7 / Eb6 / Ebm7 / Ab7sus Ab7 /
Dbma7 / Db6 / Dbm7 / Gb7sus Gb7 /
Cbmaj7 / Cb6 / Cm7 / F7 /
Dm7/ Db7 / Gbmaj7 / B7 /
Keep those posts coming.
I hope that you take these comments in the spirit that they were
given.
reed
Reed Kotler
reed@justjazz.com
http://www.justjazz.com