I wrote this for a couple of my younger students— it’s a collection of simple jazz patterns that we went over verbally in a lesson. It’s meant to be very loose introduction to a type […]
Category: jazz
Non-mistake mistakes
“Honor Your Mistake as a Hidden Intention.” – Brian Eno, Oblique Strategies “It’s not the note you play that’s the wrong note – it’s the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong.” […]
Daily best music in the world: Al Harewood fast
Digging around for some Al Harewood— I mostly know him from the 60s Blue Note records he’s on, but he was active into the 90s— I found this killing live track from George Benson, in […]
Reed interpretations: new uptempo method
All right, I found the way to use Reed at faster jazz tempos. My “the way”, anyhow. I’ve mostly been winging my uptempo jazz comping until now— I never had materials I really liked for […]
Transcription: Art Blakey – This Is Life
From maybe the first jazz record I ever checked out on my own, Golden Boy by Art Blakey. Kind of an obscure record on the Colpix label, that I dug out of my dad’s record […]
Transcription: Elvin Jones – Chasin’ the Trane – 07
I’m finally half done with this. This project is definitely streamlining my transcription methods. I use the program Transcribe, and loop two measures at a time, usually starting with the playback speed at 75%. Everything […]
Transcription: Elvin Jones – Chasin’ the Trane – 06
Part 6 of the Chasin’ the Trane transcription project. Elvin Jones playing on that eternal classic track from John Coltrane Live at the Village Vanguard. My head isn’t fully back into this series, so I […]
Philly Joe kicks and set ups
Companion to the Philly Joe Jones appreciation from the other day— I’ve transcribed some kicks and setups from the tune Soft Winds, from Chet Baker In New York. Jones plays figures all through the head; the time […]
Key players: Philly Joe Jones
This series is difficult for me, because it means writing a lot of words about somebody’s playing, at which I am not good. I never felt a need to put it into words. It also […]
Transcription: Jack Dejohnette – Mr. Clean
Took a break from the really long and hard Elvin Jones transcription and did something else really hard. From the Freddie Hubbard album Straight Life, this is Jack Dejohnette playing behind Joe Henderson’s solo on […]