Friday, September 28, 2012
A while ago I wrote a post explaining how jazz works. In response, someone asked me to name my favorite hundred jazz tracks. So here’s my list. It’s totally subjective and necessarily incomplete, but I can guarantee that any of these tunes will make your life better. Hear them on Spotify.
Filed in Key Musicians, Music
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Also tagged america, art blakey, art tatum, bebop, billie holiday, blues, bud powell, cannonball adderley, carmen mcrae, cecil taylor, charles mingus, charlie parker, clifford brown, Composition, count basie, digging the crates, dixieland, dizzy gillespie, django reinhardt, drumming, ella fitzgerald, eric dolphy, free jazz, gil evans, hank mobley, herbie hancock, horace silver, jazz, jimmy smith, joe pass, john coltrane, louis armstrong, max roach, mccoy tyner, miles davis, nat adderley, oliver nelson, sidney bechet, singing, sonny rollins, soul, standards, swing, thelonious monk, wayne shorter
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Saturday, December 3, 2011
Improvisation Charlie Christian – “Waiting For Benny”
Filed in Composition, Improvisation, Music
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Also tagged art blakey, blues, charlie christian, clifford brown, Composition, count basie, herbie hancock, Improvisation, jazz, john coltrane, max roach, miles davis, quora, soul
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Monday, November 14, 2011
For my tastes, you can’t beat the Ellington Nutcracker. Ellington’s Peer Gynt suite is also pretty wonderful. This one has inspired some remixing from me.
Filed in Music
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Also tagged aaron copland, chick corea, classical, django reinhardt, eumir deodato, jazz, john coltrane, oliver nelson, quora, remixes, sibelius, uri caine, wayne shorter
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Thursday, October 20, 2011
The bassline is neglected by most non-musicians. But if you want to write or produce music, you quickly find out how important it is. The bassline is the foundation of the whole musical structure, both rhythmically and harmonically. The best basslines interlock with the drums and other rhythm instruments to propel the groove, without you [...]
Filed in Composition, Dance, Improvisation, Key Musicians, Music, Sampling
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Also tagged 808, art blakey, bass, beatles, black sheep, bootsy collins, charles mingus, daft punk, dance, digable planets, electronica, funk, groove, herbie hancock, hip-hop, james brown, janet jackson, jazz, john coltrane, kanye west, ladysmith black mambazo, looping, michael jackson, miles davis, morphine, paul simon, pop, rock, sequencing, talking heads, teddy riley
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Sunday, September 4, 2011
The phenomenon of annoyingly persistent earworms is a great introduction to the meme theory: the idea that songs (and all other forms of cultural expression) are self-replicating informational “viruses” that use the mind as their host, the way DNA viruses use living cells and software viruses use computers. The best overview of this theory is [...]
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, dizzy gillespie, Improvisation, jazz, john coltrane, miles davis, quora, thelonious monk
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Today is the Fourth of July, and I can’t think of anything more patriotic than a post about our most significant contribution to world musical culture: swing. The title of this post refers to the classic Duke Ellington tune, sung here by Ray Nance. Check out the “yah yah” trombone by Tricky Sam Nanton. The [...]
Filed in Dance, Emotion, Music, Music Teaching
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Also tagged america, charles mingus, classical, count basie, drum machines, ella fitzgerald, funk, hip-hop, janet jackson, jazz, louis armstrong, ray nance, rhythm, soul, swing, syncopation, tchaikovsky, time, tricky sam nanton
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There’s no music I love more in the world than Duke Ellington’s. When I was a kid, the New York Transit Museum had a commercial in heavy rotation on local TV that used “Take The A Train” and I remember being riveted by it. I should point out that Billy Strayhorn wrote this tune, not [...]
Filed in Music
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Also tagged andy jaffe, billy strayhorn, charles mingus, jazz, john steinbeck, max roach, nyc, remixes, soundcloud, subway, synths, tchaikovsky
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Wednesday, February 9, 2011
The blues is a good entry path for beginner guitarists. If you learn the standard fifteen chords and the blues scale, you’ll be well on your way. However, there’s one crucial piece of additional music vocabulary you need to do the blues justice, and that’s diminished chords. To make a diminished chord, you start on [...]
Filed in Music, Music Teaching, Music Theory
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Also tagged blues, bob dylan, chords, ella fitzgerald, fats waller, jazz, lambert hendricks and ross, Music Theory, robert johnson, roots, symmetry, thelonious monk
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Since I’m teaching the twelve-bar blues to some guitar students, I figured I’d put the lessons in the form of a blog post. Blues is a big topic and this isn’t going to be anything like a definitive guide. Think of it more as a tasting menu. Blues is a confusing term. You probably have [...]
Filed in Music, Music Teaching, Music Theory
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Also tagged aretha franklin, batman, blues, chords, country, Emotion, flatt and scruggs, guitar, hank williams, harmonica, herbie hancock, jazz, john coltrane, john lee hooker, louis armstrong, memes, modules, muddy waters, Music Theory, race, thelonious monk, tritones
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