2/20/2023 0 Comments Mccoy tyner equinox transcription![]() (This is another reason I’m suspicious about the iRealBook, which lacks key signatures.) If I wanted to play B -flat rhythm changes with a bassist who didn’t know the form, I might write a bass clef and two flats before filling in the chord symbols, even if it was just on a piece of scratch paper. If the chart is nothing but chords, I still like seeing a key signature: After all, “D minor 7” means something different if it is in C, F, or G. Last week, bassist Mats Ingvarsson sent me the first page of what Allen quickly wrote out for the changes to “Dolphy’s Dance.” I didn’t include chord symbols, but just put “rhythm changes” at the top and figured the bass clef would explain the rest. When I transcribed Geri Allen’s magnificent “Dolphy’s Dance,” I notated my best guess about the very fast and abstract melody plus the obvious bass notes. “Oh, you should always include the chord changes,” she said. I kind of joked about this to Carla a bit, and she looked at me like I was crazy. To my surprise, there were also chord symbols in almost every measure. ![]() Her piano parts were completely written out: Pages and pages of beautiful pitches notated in equally beautiful script. Recently I shared a bill with Carla Bley and her trio with Andy Sheppard and Steve Swallow. Of course, most contemporary jazz people would disagree. ![]() I like to stake out extreme positions, and sometimes I argue for abolishing chord symbols entirely, citing Lester Young and Duke Ellington as two who ignored them. They were always shorthand, they were always meant to be changed in the heat of the moment. Jazz chord symbols are particularly cheap and impure. Every truly great composer or improvisor forms a private relationship to the sounds that makes sense to the creator but not to the observer. (Another teaching post for my students at NEC, more of ’em here) ![]()
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