Urban Renewal Jazz
  • Home
    • Join List
  • Mission
  • Meet the Bands
    • Urban Renewal Big Band
    • Urban Renewal Cool Jazz Octet
    • The Finnell Factor
    • Yvonne Allu & Friends
  • Blog

Urban Renewal Jazz notes

Virtual Jam Session - Triste

6/29/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Jam to "Triste"

Why does it seem like every other jazz standard is written by Antonio Carlos Jobim?  Because he was a stinkin' genius.  He combined interesting rhythms, beautiful melodies, luscious harmonies and cerebral lyrics.  A perfect example of all these elements in Triste.  This song should be in every player's bag of tricks.
Like most Jobim songs, Triste takes an excursion through various key centers, but does it so elegantly that the player can easily be tricked into thinking this is simple harmonically.  It isn't.  You really have to learn the melody and the chords internally.  Nearly half the chords are part of a ii-V pattern.  Whenever you see a ii-V pattern, you can consider it to be a single chord, so the chord changes don't come as quickly at may appear at first glance.
The song form is a straightforward 32-bar ABAB, except that bars 31 & 32 are usually repeated, making a 4-bar vamp, or a total chorus of 34 bars. 
0 Comments

Virtual Jam Session - "Freddie Freeloader"

6/28/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Jam to "Freddie Freeloader"

This Miles tune is a simple "almost" blues.  It is mostly the familiar 12-bar pattern, but notice that the song form is a double-chorus.  And most importantly the first chorus does not end up on the root chord. 

The song is in Bb concert, so you would expect bars 11 and 12 to be some flavor of Bb, but instead that first chorus moves down to Ab7.  The soloist (and band) must keep track of the even and odd choruses to make that distinction on the even choruses.
0 Comments

Virtual Jam Session - "Nica's Dream"

6/20/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Jam to "Nica's Dream"

Here is another Horace Silver classic, Nica's Dream.This has a harmonic minor vibe (minor with a major 7th) vibe throughout.  In this case, it is built around the concert Bbmi(Maj7) chord, with that scale being:

 Bb - C - Db - Eb - F - Gb - A NATURAL - Bb

Practice that scale thoroughly before trying to improvise on this tune.  It is an awkward key (5 flats concert) for wind players.  This is another of those songs where the bridge is more conventional than the A sections.  Simple AABA 32-bar song form.
This song is often done in swing , or with the A sections in Bossa and the B section swung.  In this arrangement, we stay in the Bossa pattern throughout.

0 Comments

Virtual Jam Session - "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square"

6/17/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Jam to "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square"

"Nightingale" is a popular jam session tune.  It is a lovely tune with interesting harmonies. This song is often played (sung) as a balled or medium swing.  But it can also be played straight or up-tempo.  This arrangement has a fusion vibe, and we've done some aggressive re-harmonization to give this old classic a modern life.
The song is rather straightforward.  It is AABA song form.  The A sections are each 10 bars.  The bridge is a very conventional 8 bars.
Enjoy.
0 Comments

Virtual Jam Session - "A Child is Born"

6/14/2020

1 Comment

 
Picture
Groove to "A Child is Born"

Here is a great tune for a lazy summer afternoon.  There are many jazz standards where the music was written first, then years later after the melody became famous, somebody wrote lyrics.  The lyrics to this song are so sympathetic to the melody that is is hard to believe they were not written together.  Thad Jones wrote this beautiful melody.  Years later, Alec Wilder wrote the lyrics, evidently not as any organized collaboration, but they fit perfectly:
   Now, out of the night, Soft as the dawn, Into the light
   This Child, Innocent Child, Soft as a fawn, This Child is born
   One small heart, One pair of eyes, One work of art, Here in my arms,
   Here he lies, Trusting and warm, Blessed this morn, A Child is born.

This is a simple ABAB song form of 32 bars.  The only complication is that conventionally, the solo choruses use a 30-bar form, leaving off the the final two bars.  In this arrangement, all choruses are a full 32 bars.
1 Comment

Virtual Jam Session - "Four"

6/10/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Jam to "Four"

Miles Davis played so many great tracks that it is hard to say what song is his most notable.  "Four" is one of his most popular jam session tunes.  It is a simple ABAB 32-bar song form except for an optional tag to the final chorus. 
The harmonies aren't terribly difficult once you get settled with the ii-V-I progressions.  This is probably the most common chord sequence in all of music.  Composers have used this pattern almost since they began writing music.  Classical musicians may prefer to call this the sub-dominant, dominant, root sequence or something like that.  But the concept of "root" doesn't apply so much in jazz because people like Miles used the ii-V-I pattern as a way to move gracefully between otherwise disconnected key centers.
We find ii-V in the A section in bars 3-5 to get us from Eb major to Db major. In the B section we have the ii-V (of E) with the F#m7 - B7, but in this case, Miles takes us not to E major, but to F minor.  It is unexpected, but elegant.  The important thing about these patterns is to make sure you land strongly on the chord after the dominant.  If it is a true ii-V-I, that is easy because all three chords are tightly related, using the same notes.  But if the landing chord is not the expected "root" chord, you must prepare for the surprise landing.
In reality, the song isn't as complicated as all that, and you might do well just to become very familiar with the melody and let your ears guide you.
0 Comments

Virtual Jam Session - "Bésame Mucho"

6/7/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Jam to "Bésame Mucho"

An old classic, Bésame Mucho, arranged in a Brazilian bolero style.  This is a relatively easy song for improvisers because the song remains in the same key center throughout.  There is no crazy bridge that goes off into some distant key.
The song form is ABA with the A sections having 16 bars each.  The bridge is 8 bars, giving a total of
16 + 8 + 16 = 40 bars.
0 Comments

Virtual Jam Session - "Along Came Betty"

6/6/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Jam to "Along Came Betty"

Benny Golson is a living legend, one of the few musicians alive who has not only seen the entire modern jazz era, but actually played a major role in the development of the art form.  Although he is relatively unknown outside the jazz aficionado world, his influence has been immense.  As a composer, he is probably best known for "I Remember Clifford" and "Killer Joe".  But he has composed many great songs, including "Along Came Betty".
When you see the name Benny Golson on a piece of music, you will know two things immediately:
  1. It is a carefully crafted piece with a catchy, memorable melody.
  2. Even though it makes perfect musical sense and sounds like it might be easy, it is probably actually very challenging for the improviser.
That is certainly the case with "Along Came Betty".  The song form is fairly conventional.  One might call it AABA, although the second A section is only reminiscent of the first.  The B section is distinctly a bridge.  The final A section starts like the first A section but has extended phrases.  That gives us a measure count of 8 + 8 + 8 + 10 = 34 bars.
The changes are not complex harmonies, but they are less predictable than in many standards.  There are several places where the music shifts up 1/2 step and then back down.  These are important moments you find in measures 1-4, 9-12, and 25-28 -- or about 1/3 of the chorus.  To get started improvising on this piece, it would be effective to find a comfortable line for measure 1 and then play that same line up 1/2 step in measure 2 and so on, then depart from that simple pattern as you get more familiar with the changes.
There really are no great shortcuts on a song like this.  Just keep practicing it until everything comes automatically.
It is worth mentioning that this song is usually done as a medium swing.  This arrangement is a straight-8th smooth jazz treatment.
0 Comments

Virtual Jam Session - "Blue Monk"

6/1/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Jam to "Blue Monk"

This is a straight-ahead 12-bar blues.  The melody line is classic Monk: simple, but twisted.
0 Comments

Virtual Jam Session - "It Could Happen to You"

6/1/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Jam to "It Could Happen to You"

This tune is a jam session favorite because most people know it, it has a simple song form, simple melody, and predictable chords.  This song is full of ii-V patterns -- bars 2, 4, 7, 12, 13, 15, and so on.  The nice thing about ii-V and ii - V - I patterns is that you can treat that entire sequence as if it was a single chord.  The ii, V, and I are all based on the same scale.

This arrangement is a little different, with a reggae feel at a very laid-back tempo.  Get yourself into "Island time" and don't try to play too many notes.
0 Comments

    Archives

    January 2023
    June 2022
    May 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    June 2019
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
    • Join List
  • Mission
  • Meet the Bands
    • Urban Renewal Big Band
    • Urban Renewal Cool Jazz Octet
    • The Finnell Factor
    • Yvonne Allu & Friends
  • Blog