Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Rather than attempting the impossible task of explaining how everything in jazz works, I’m going to pick a specific, fairly mainstream tune and talk you through it: “Someday My Prince Will Come” by Miles Davis, off the 1961 album by the same name. First of all, here’s the original version from Snow White. Once you’ve [...]
Filed in Improvisation, Key Musicians, Music
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Also tagged disney, hank mobley, jazz, jimmy cobb, john coltrane, linkedin, miles davis, movies, Music, paul chambers, quora, wynton kelly
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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, duke ellington, herbie hancock, jazz, john coltrane, max roach, miles davis, quora, soul
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Friday, November 18, 2011
Ella Fitzgerald lost some of her range as she got older, but her soul and phrasing got deeper and deeper. The series of duet albums she did with Joe Pass late in her life are exquisite.
Filed in Key Musicians, Music
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Also tagged age, drumming, ella fitzgerald, funk, jazz, joe pass, max roach, miles davis, quora, soul
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Thursday, November 17, 2011
There’s a certain jazz lick that’s so heavily used that it’s just known as The Lick. It’s the only jazz lick I know of that has its own Facebook page. Here’s a greatest hits compilation:
Filed in Copyright and Authorship, Music, Sampling
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Also tagged akon, bobby hutcherson, classical, cliches, digging the crates, Evolution, facebook, freddie hubbard, grant green, jazz, john coltrane, memes, miles davis, Music, player, pop, reggae, rock, santana, stravinsky
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Tuesday, November 1, 2011
For me it’s a tie between two John Coltrane recordings. First, the Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings, featuring some of Eric Dolphy’s finest work.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Improvising music is like giving a speech off the cuff. Before you can do it, you need to know some vocabulary and grammar. In music, the vocabulary is riffs, phrases, scales, sequences and other melodic building blocks. The grammar is music theory. It’s not necessary to learn either one formally, you can figure them out [...]
Thursday, August 18, 2011
I’ve tried a variety of different songwriting methods. I’ve written a set of lyrics and then tried setting them, or been handed a set of lyrics and told to make them work. I’ve come up with melodies and then set lyrics to them, found chords for them and so on. I’ve worked out basslines or [...]
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, duke ellington, jazz, john coltrane, miles davis, quora, thelonious monk
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Back in June we went to see the incomparable Reggie Watts perform at Central Park Summerstage. I think Reggie is one of the most exciting artists of our time, but it’s difficult to verbalize exactly what he does. His performances combine improvisational music and absurdist standup comedy into a free-associative yet oddly coherent and impactful [...]
Filed in Hardware, Improvisation, Key Musicians, Music, Race and Identity, Recording, Sampling
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Also tagged comedy, hip-hop, jake lodwick, jazz, looping, reggie watts
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The other day Brian Eno was on NPR talking about his process. He likes to have people walk into the studio without any preconceived ideas or written out material. Then he has the musicians improvise within certain constraints. Usually these constraints are more about a mood or a vibe than a particular musical structure. After [...]
Filed in Autobio, Hardware, Improvisation, Interfaces, Music
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Also tagged brian eno, buddhism, comedy, electronica, groovebox, guitar, intuition, meditation, revival revival, singing, upright citizens brigade
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