Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Thelonious Monk’s beautiful ballad “Round Midnight” is said to be the most widely recorded and performed jazz tune — that is, a tune that was written specifically for jazz, not an adaptation of a showtune or pop song. It’s a testament to its popularity that it’s one of exactly two songs that Dave Chappelle knows [...]
Filed in Composition, Improvisation, Music
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Also tagged ballads, bebop, bud powell, carmen mcrae, Composition, cootie williams, dave chappelle, ella fitzgerald, hip-hop, jazz, john coltrane, krs-one, linkedin, miles davis, oscar peterson, Sampling, singing, thelonious monk
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Typical jazz compositions are written expressly as vehicles for improvisation. Mainstream jazz tunes since the 1940s take the form head-solos-head. The head is a written melody, and the solos are improvised around the chord changes of the head. Scores for these kinds of tunes take the form of lead sheets, like the ones found in [...]
Filed in Composition, Improvisation, Music
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Also tagged benny goodman, Composition, duke ellington, Improvisation, jazz, john coltrane, miles davis, quora, thelonious monk
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Saturday, January 22, 2011
When you first set out to learn your scales, it can be discouraging. There are so many of them, and their names are so bewildering. The good news is that when you learn one scale, you get a bunch of other scales that you get “for free.” This is because many scales share the same [...]
Filed in Music, Music Teaching, Music Theory
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Also tagged beatles, benny golson, bjork, blues, classical, jazz, lynyrd skynyrd, miles davis, modes, Music Theory, rock, samuel barber, scales
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My neighbor and friend Diéry Prudent is working on a documentary on the bebop saxophonist and flutist James Moody, best known for his 1949 recording “Moody’s Mood For Love.” It’s an improvised solo over the changes to “I’m In The Mood For Love,” one of those off-the-cuff jazz solos that came out so tightly structured [...]
Filed in Composition, Improvisation, Music, Sampling
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Also tagged bebop, cosby show, hip-hop, james moody, jazz, lambert hendricks and ross, remixes, transcribing, vocalese
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