Music Archives - Page 4 of 7

Lee Konitz

on August 1, 2014August 1, 2014 By Jon De Lucia 1 Comment

Last night I attended an increasingly rare Lee Konitz performance, his second and last NY show of the year for now. The location was the Jazz Gallery in Manhattan, and the house was full for both sets. The band included Dan Tepfer, Jeremy Stratton and George Schuller, w/ special guest Tim Hagans.

Lee never fails to impress with his absolute dedication to the connection of voice and instrument. Tunes become ragas, and it feels as though the form of the tune is a puzzle that he and his band will approach differently at the top of each chorus. Lee will sing throughout, reinforcing the connection to the voice. When he plays it just sounds like a fuller extension of the same musical persona. As it should! A reminder to sing, never to forget that connection, and always approach things freshly. Thank you Lee.

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Studies in Hot Playing

on February 17, 2014May 26, 2020 By Jon De Lucia

I really enjoyed looking at this pamphlet shared by a user on the Sax On The Web forums, titled “Studies in Hot Playing” by R.A. Schwab, 1926. It sets out rules for embellishing a melody: note above, note below, various eighth note embellishments. I think it’s great, and pretty straightforward and relevant to beginner students even now. Here’s the introduction:

Don’t get too hot!

And here’s one of the later examples:

This reminds of an article Lee Konitz did for Downbeat a while back, explaining his various stages of embellishing a melody, the last one being an entirely new melody. I always thought that was a great way of looking at improvisation, versus a chordal approach. Here’s the article: http://www.melmartin.com/html_pages/Interviews/konitz.html

UPDATE 2020! The original site is down now, so here are the images of the Lee Konitz material. RIP Lee:

‘Til next time, happy practicing!

Name Brand Method Books Pt. 2

on January 21, 2014January 21, 2014 By Jon De Lucia

Hello and Happy New Year! I’ve been meaning to return to my Method Books theme for over a month now, and finally can after a busy December touring with Christmas Celtic Sojourn up in Boston. Here I’ll cover the Clarinet Method of Benny Goodman, along with the Saxophone Method of Jimmy Dorsey. Two Swing Era stars, their books are in very similar formats.

Benny Goodman’s Clarinet Method

I was first drawn to the Benny Goodman book after reading that Paul Desmond was practicing out of it in the 40’s, when he was still a clarinetist primarily. He also mentions the Baermann book, a favorite of mine and one that I’m practicing out of quite a bit currently.

Goodman stays pretty standard for the first half of the book, long tones, dynamic range exercises, scales in all keys and intervals followed by some diatonic tunes for phrasing. He then includes a bunch of 2 measure repetitive fingering exercises, similar to the Baermann, which are great for working out technical issues and going into a Phillip Glass-esque trance at the same time.

It gets interesting towards the end. The last few pages before the transcriptions are what he calls “Modern Studies in Rhythm” The rhythms are mostly 8th notes in bizarre chromatic motion. A lot of not-quite patterns abound and nothing implies a very clear chord structure. I’m not sure if these are meant to be Modern, as in jazz, or Modern, as in 20th Century Classical music. Also unclear is whether these exercises should be swung, as in the Artie Shaw and Jimmy Dorsey books. Here’s a recording I made of one of them, it made a little more sense to me.

There’s not much else to this one, no words of wisdom, some full band transcriptions towards the end of some of Benny’s biggest hits.

Jimmy Dorsey’s Saxophone Method

Jimmy Dorsey was a great big band leader, who broke off from his brother Tommy Dorsey, and moved out to Hollywood, where his band would appear in films. Like this one:

He has a clarinet-like sound and approach, which you can hear above. There are some nice things in this book: an exhaustive amount of scales, tonguing exercises, and arpeggios along with some nice little pieces aimed at learning legato swing tonguing. Then he goes into the usual etudes for learning syncopation and new time signatures, similar to the Goodman book, but the melodies are of the more cute variety.

What’s really interesting is the second half of the book, which explains the various types of dance music, and how to start to improvise through chord progressions. This has to be one of the first books to discuss that. He talks about the Foxtrot, Tango, Rumba etc., explains chord structure, then gives a bunch of sample chord progressions to be studied. This is followed by phrases on different chords, following the line where he says, “the notes which may be used to form the melodic line of your improvisation are the notes forming the chord plus embellishing notes.” The licks are nothing too exciting, but a good insight into early swing big band vocabulary. Finally there are transcriptions, including this tune, Tailspin, where Dorsey takes a couple of burning solo breaks!

Both of these books are still in print, and while they may not break any new ground for the modern woodwind practitioner, I still think they are worth having in the library.

Name Brand Method Books, Part 1

on October 28, 2013October 28, 2013 By Jon De Lucia 4 Comments

I’ve wondered recently why the method books put out by some of the biggest names in jazz never seem to be used anymore and many have gone out of print. I’ve made an effort to unearth some of them, to augment my teaching and to gain insights into what players coming up in the 40’s-60’s were practicing out of.
The book that started my search was the now out of print Jazz Phrasing and Interpretation, by the late great Jimmy Giuffre.

Currently available for the low low price of $75 (for a 60 page book) on Amazon, I had to make a request at the New York Performing Arts Library to be allowed to view this book. After they called my number and handed me the book I was then allowed to take cell phone pictures of each page, but no photocopies. (I ended up taking a photo of every page and creating a pdf if anyone is interested). The book has some interesting exercises, aimed at teaching a class, or individual, jazz phrasing, swing feel and various embellishments. It’s also full of such wisdom as this:

2. The Flowing Beat – Stand back. Take in the music as a whole, in terms of the over-all movement: sing it…feel it…relax your mind and body. Feel the time as it rolls by — nothing else… There should be a dance in the music.

Now, when you begin to play, keep this calmness and lack of tension – but don’t lose hold of your own strength and intensity. From that inner power plat let a constant supply of energy flow through your whole being, effortlessly… music from the core of your body, not its surface!

Just typing this makes me want to spend more time with this book, I’ve only scratched the surface. I don’t know how books like this fall out of print when the market is flooded with other books on how to play jazz but my advice is to seek these books out. They are a great way to learn about a specific players methods and views. Here’s an excerpt from the conclusion of Giuffre’s book:

What hits me is that when the jazz player picks up his horn or sits down at his instrument it is just a continuation of his living. There’s no separation…and I believe that comes through to the audience.

Jazz sounds like it’s being lived.

Just for fun I recorded one piece from the book. Crazy notes, but it works! Here’s Exercise 14 D:

I think I’ll make this a series. Next week, I’ll cover the Benny Goodman book, followed by Jimmy Dorsey, and Artie Shaw. Obviously I have a wind player bias, but please share any other exceptional books you’ve found helpful by well known jazz players.

Pete Brown’s Talk Of The Town

on October 20, 2013October 21, 2013 By Jon De Lucia 1 Comment

Those that know me know that I’ve been spending a lot of time practicing and playing standards from the swing era lately. In the process I’ve discovered a lot of great tunes that are seldom played, great recordings seldom heard and players that have been largely forgotten. I thought that I would cover all three in today’s post by sharing a transcription I just finished of the great swing ( or “jump” according to friend and bassist Murray Wall) altoist Pete Brown.

I first heard about Pete Brown earlier this year while reading the only biography published of Paul Desmond, by Desmond’s friend Doug Ramsey. Paul lists Pete Brown among his main influences. Ramsey and other writers at the time didn’t see the connection between Pete Brown’s growling swing alto and the lighter Desmond but I think they’re looking at it superficially.

Pete Brown was a master of simple motifs and beautiful melodic shapes played with strong rhythm and swing. I learned this from a record I picked up featuring 4 tracks from Pete Brown (along with 4 from Benny Carter, and 4 from Willie Smith).

This led me to this great track, It’s the Talk of the Town, featuring Joe Thomas on Trumpet, Kenny Kersey on piano, with Milt Hinton and JC Heard rounding out the rhythm section. Recorded in 1944. Check out Pete’s double time chorus.

I’ve included the solo in Eb transposition here. It’s a fun one to play along with, watch out for those whole tone runs:

I’ll end with a brief bio of Pete Brown:

James Ostend “Pete” Brown was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on November 9, 1906. A son of musical parents, he received tuition from an early age. Besides alto sax, Brown also played piano, violin and trumpet. He worked his first job at a cinema in Baltimore and played with the local theater orchestra. In 1926, he briefly joined the Baltimore Melody Boys and Johnny Jones’ band. After a residency in Atlantic City with Bernie Robinson, Brown also played with the latter in New York. The alto saxophonist stayed on and began to work intermittently with pianist Charlie Skeets in 1930. In the early thirties, he also regularly appeared with drummer Fred Moore’s trio. It is possible that Pete Brown recorded with Clarence Williams in the mid-thirties, but he probably did not make his first records until 1937. In May of that year, he became a member of John Kirby’s small band, staying with the bassist for a year. Pete Brown then formed his own combo and was quite often recorded, albeit never under his own name. Many of his best performances were for Frankie Newton’s band, one of his closest friends. In the early forties, he formed another group of his own that played at various clubs in Manhattan. In 1943, he fronted fellow altoist Louis Jordan’s band for a short time. With his own combo, Pete Brown then worked in Chicago but was mostly heard at clubs in the Bronx and in Brooklyn. From the early fifties on, ill health forced him to limit his appearances. He was rediscovered by a wider audience in 1957, when he participated in the Newport Jazz Festival. Throughout his career, Pete also worked as a teacher, his most famous students including Flip Phillips and Cecil Payne. In 1961, Pete Brown made his last recordings, already marked by his bad health. He died in New York on September 20, 1963.