RIP Wayne Shorter

In 2013, Wayne Shorter said, “The word ‘jazz’ to me only means ‘I dare you.’” I love Wayne’s playing and writing without always understanding it. I got exposed to both via Miles Davis, who put Wayne’s tunes at the center of his late 1960s albums. Here’s “Orbits” from Miles Smiles.

And here’s an orchestral arrangement of the same tune recorded 36 years later on Wayne’s album Alegría. (It includes Brad Mehldau on piano.) Check out Wayne’s multiphonics at 1:55!

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The freakiness of melodic minor

My last post on minor keys covered the three scales you need for most situations in rock, pop, and film scores: natural minor, harmonic minor, and Dorian mode. There’s also the blues scale, which sounds good in any key, major or minor. For musical Jedi masters, there’s one more valuable minor scale. It’s called the melodic minor scale, and if you want to push your playing or writing in a more adventurous, exotic and challenging direction, it’s a good one to have in your musical toolbox.

Note that the scale is symmetrical along a line drawn through D-flat and G. The scale has the same symmetry if you write it on the circle of fifths too.

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