PJN Recording Session 9/09

We just spent a good long day in our favorite studio here in Chicago working on some new tracks. There'll be some jazz standards (including Doxy, Half Nelson and Groovin High), some challenging tunes and progressions in 5/4, 7/4 and 7/8, and a wacky sounding (but very helpful) 12 key trip through all the M7 #5 chords.

We'll be mixing and getting things ready for the release of these new playalongs sometime around Halloween.



For more pix of the trio hard at work, please go HERE.

Labor Day 50% OFF Sale

PlayJazzNow invites you to our first ever Labor Day Weekend Sale.

SAVE 50% Sept. 5-7 2009

From 'round midnight (CST) on Saturday, Sept. 5 through the the final minute of Monday, Sept. 7 SAVE 50% on ALL* of our great tracks, including BLUES, RHYTHM CHANGES, STANDARDS, TURNAROUNDS, TRANE TRAX, JAM SESSION TRAX, and STARTER TRACKS.

*Just place a minimum of $12 worth of tracks in your shopping cart and your 50% discount will appear immediately. The more you buy, the more you save!

More Jazz Poetry: Sonny and Joe

I've just posted a couple of wonderful poems by Illinoisian Paul Freidinger HERE. The first piece references the life of Sonny Rollins; the second Joe Henderson.

Jazz Education Network

I am certainly not one to get all weepy over the demise of the International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE). For a variety of reasons I was not a big fan of that organization, which, it seems to me, had outlived its usefulness and grown far too unwieldy for its britches.

However, I do have reasons to believe that IAJE's successor organization, the Jazz Education Network, will do a far better job for all of us who play, teach and love jazz. JEN's mission statement reads:

The Jazz Education Network is dedicated to building the jazz arts community by advancing education, promoting performance and developing new audiences.

It seems like the folks behind the Jazz Education Network have the right idea, in terms of starting small and using the experiences gleaned from IAJE to do things a better way. There are some excellent people involved in the new project, which is just over one year old.

PlayJazzNow is a proud member of JEN, and I invite you to visit their website and join with your fellow musicians in making this organization a success.

Freedom from Harmony: Improvising Without Chords

Lately I've been thinking about some of the great jazz music that has been made without a chording instrument in the ensemble. Traditionally, the jazz rhythm section has included at least one instrument capable of easily executing chords - piano, guitar or vibraphone. Many bands feature more than one harmony provider (Modern Jazz Quartet, Oscar Peterson's Trio with Barney Kessel, Gary Burton's groups with guitar, Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays, etc etc). A lot of beautiful music has been made this way and harmony is, of course, one of the essential elements of musical language. But there have also been many jazz musicians who have chosen to perform without piano, guitar or vibes present.

This category has to include so-called avant garde music, some of which is composed specifically excluding functional harmony. The music of Ornette Coleman, The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Anthony Braxton and Albert Ayler are examples of this kind of jazz.

There are also plenty of jazz musicians who play traditional song forms without a chording instrument, so that the harmonies are implied rather than stated. Sonny Rollins, Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Lee Konitz, Charles Mingus and Eric Dolphy are some of the jazz masters who have played traditional tunes this way. The players (and listeners) are challenged to hear the "changes" via the interplay between the soloist's melody and the bass line. In other words, it is the counterpoint between the two (or more) instrumental voices that creates the impression of harmony.


Sonny Rollins ----------------- Gerry Mulligan -----------Lee Konitz

A certain kind of textural transparency and harmonic freedom is created when there isn't someone providing chordal accompaniment throughout a jazz performance. European "classical" music provides a good aural analogy: think of how the "sound world" of J.S. Bach's keyboard music compares to that of, say, Claude Debussy. Despite the functional harmonic simplicity of Bach's music, there is a complexity in the texture created by the disparate lines of melody that can be both challenging and fascinating to follow. Debussy's harmonic language is much less directly functional, but the overally impression (sorry about the pun) is one of density of harmony and an absence of linear clarity. Another way to state this might be that Debussy's music depends a lot more on vertical (chordal) texture than does Bach's.

Playing jazz without piano, guitar or vibes requires a set of skills that aren't always put to the test when those chordal instruments are present. For bassists, simplicity and clarity generally have to take precedence over the other aspects of creating satisfying bass parts. I recall reading an interview with the great bassist Ron Carter, in which he said (and I'm paraphrasing here) that one should be able to tell what tune is being played by hearing the bassist walk through the changes without any other accompaniment. Now that's clarity in a bass part!

For melody players, the challenges are many: The soloist no longer has the cushion of chordal textures to provide context for his lines. Neither will there be anyone there filling in the aural space when the player takes a breath. No one will be suggesting alternate harmonies, rhythms or melodies in the way that most jazz players are probably used to. The bassist can only do so much as a single line instrument to help keep the form of the tune straight, both harmonically and rhythmically. So soloists have to take on more responsibility for these important formal considerations if the music is to not only cohere but fly.

Brass and woodwind players: You're invited to work on your "no chordal instrument" chops by going HERE. You'll find a nice selection of jazz standard play along tracks with bass and drums as your rhythm section cohorts. You can also choose to purchase these tracks and get the same tunes with piano for half price. Like everything else in your musical life, playing sans chords requires practice; our tracks (and FREE charts) make it easy to get started.

Here's a list of some great traditional (non avant garde) jazz recordings without a chordal instrument:

Sonny Rollins: Night at the Village Vanguard, Way Out West, East Broadway Run Down

Chet Baker: Deep In A Dream: The Ultimate Chet Baker CD Collection

Lee Konitz: Duets, Konitz Meets Mulligan

Gerry Mulligan: The Original Quartet with Chet Baker

Charles Mingus: Presents the Charles Mingus Quartet (which seems to be criminally unavailable at the moment)

Eric Dolphy: Out There

Joe Lovano: Trio Fascination

Here is some very rare video footage of a bebop performance without piano or guitar:



Booker Little, trumpet
George Coleman, tenor sax
Ray Draper, tuba
Art Davis, bass
Max Roach, drums

Jazz Humor: You Don't Know Where One Is

If you know who wrote this please let us know. We like to give credit where its due.


[Sung to the tune "You Don't Know What Love Is"]

You Don't Know Where One Is

You don't know where one is.
You never know the changes or the form.
Your playing is so far below the norm.
You don't know where one is.

You don't know what beats are.
You cannot tell beat one from that of three.
Just how lame can one poor fellow be?
You don't know where one is.

Don't you know the key or chords
For tunes that you claim you are knowin'?
No wonder you sound so lost
Once you've started blowin'.

I can't tell from your line
Whether you're in three or in five four.
I tell you this and tell you one thing more,
You don't know where one is.

More Giant Steps stuff

Here's a nice post celebrating the 50th anniversary of the release of John Coltrane's Giant Steps. There are links to some entertaining and enlightening videos plus some cool info to go along with my previous posts regarding this wonderful, challenging tune.