Andrew Green Jazz Guitar Technique Pdf Editor
Author interviews, book reviews, editors' picks, and more. Jazz Guitar Technique: Breaking the Skill Barrier by Andrew Green Paperback $19.99. Jun 18, 2011 This is from Andrew Green's Jazz Guitar Structures Demonstration of jazz blues guitar solo using minor 7th, 1235 and 1234 minor tetrac.
Page i 'Larry's vast knowledge of guitar playing is awesome. His harmonic concepts and improvisational genius have always established Larry as a true master! This book should open the door to a better understanding in our quest for advanced guitar playing.' —Al DiMeola 'I recall a 1960s jam session in Seattle where, for at least three hours in a quiet spot away from the main session, a talented kid with his guitar hung out with an older gentleman and his guitar. The kid was Larry Coryell; the older gentleman was the jazz guitar master, Wes Montgomery. Now years later, you have the opportunity to hang out with and learn from the jazz guitar master, Larry Coryell. What a trip!' —Jerome Gray 'As a professional musician, scholar and jazz educator, I consider Larry Coryell's jazz guitar book one of the most comprehensive text books available to the young jazz musician. This book is not only great for guitar players, but it helps saxophone players and other instrumentalists understand the role of the guitar in comping, soloing and improvising.' —Nathan Davis, Ph.D., Director of Jazz Studies, University of Pittsburgh 'An easy to understand text from one of the 20th century's greatest improvisors.' —Vic Juris
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Dedication
This book is dedicated to John LaChapelle, my first guitar teacher Jerome Gray, my first jazz teacher To my mentor in life, Daisaku Ikeda, who taught me the real value of education
Acknowledgments Greg Hofmann, for helping to shape the text Jesse Gress, for his high standards in music notation The Larry Coryell signature model guitar, LCS-1 by Cort, was used to record the instructional CD.
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Jazz Guitar Creative Comping, Soloing, and Improv Larry Coryell
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Published by Miller Freeman Books 600 Harrison Street, San Francisco, CA 94107 Publishers of Keyboard, Bass Player, and Guitar Player magazines
Copyright © 1998 Larry Coryell. All rights reserved. No part of this book covered by copyrights hereon may be reproduced or copied in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews. For information contact the publishers. Distributed to the book trade in the U.S. and Canada by Publishers Group West, P.O. Box 8843, Emeryville, CA 94662 Distributed to the music trade in the U.S. and Canada by Hal Leonard Publishing, P.O. Box 13819, Milwaukee, WI 53213 Design and Typesetting: Greene Design Editor: Greg Hofmann Music Editor: Jesse Gress Music Typesetting: Chris Ledgerwood Cover Photo: Larry is pictured on the front cover with the Larry Coryell signature model, LCS-1 by Cort. Coryell, Larry. Jazz guitar: creative comping, soloing, and improv / by Larry Coryell. p. cm. ISBN 0-87930-550-9 1. Guitar—Methods (Jazz) 2. Jazz—Instruction and study. I. Title. MT582.C695 1998 787.87'165'143—dc21 98-41679 CIP MN Printed in the United States of America 98 99 00 01 02 03 5 4 3 2 1
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Contents Introduction
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Chapter One Jazz Basics: The Blues
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Chapter Two Integrating Chords and Scales into Jazz Language
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Chapter Three More Scales and Fingerings
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Chapter Four Elements of Improv
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Chapter Five Playing and Listening
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About the Author
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What's on the CD
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Introduction If you're a guitarist who wants to improve your ability to play over changes, better understand jazz harmony, and expand your jazz vocabulary, this book is for you. My intention is to show you how I developed my own learning process over the years, and to point out what's important in order to get more inside the changes, to get inside the process of creating an improvised line and the thinking that goes along with developing skills in specific areas. For instance, everyone knows and loves the blues, but jazz blues can be approached many ways, and there can be several kinds of changes, plus substitutes for those changes. And there's the whole area of improv—knowing and making up phrases that serve a particular role, and knowing how to be flexible within certain rules in order to avoid too many clichés that don't take the music forward. We'll walk the fine line between respecting cliches in order to sound authentic and breaking out of more predictable ideas to create a modernity in the music, to be 'forwardsounding.' I want to teach—as much as is possible to teach—about the feeling involved in this music, and I hope that the playing on the CD will help; sometimes, if you can hear what's on the printed page, you're better able to understand it. If you want to learn how to comp alone, and within a group context, as well as learn how to solo in single lines and in chords, I expect you to work. We begin by plunging directly into realistic jazz subjects, advancing step by step and working only with ideas and techniques that I think are essential to the creative process. There are many wonderful methods of learning guitar, but let's shelve the nonessential areas for other times and other books.
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You should have a working knowledge of theory, at least some theory (that's all I have), and I'll assume you know some jazz chords and the fundamental major, minor, augmented (whole tone) and diminished scales and arpeggios. If you're less than solid in some of these areas, don't worry—I'll explain these elements as we go along. The material covered here is sometimes easy, but some of it gets involved and there are some examples/exercises I hope will challenge you and open you up to play things maybe you didn't think you could play. That's how I felt when I first heard jazz players make this amazing music on their guitars—I had no idea how it was done, but I had to try to learn it. If this rings a bell with you, let's go and make some music.
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Chapter One— Jazz Basics: The Blues I think it's important to be able to play accompaniment (or 'comp') with chords and bass-line phrases before you try your hand at soloing. Let's start with some chords and bass lines over a standard twelve-bar blues progression. There are many possibilities, but Example 1.1 is a middle-of-the-road set of changes that will give you something to work with. This chord progression uses the idea of playing two chords per measure.
Ex. 1.1
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Let's look at the bass line. In the first three bars, we have a walking bass line that should sound familiar, going from C down to E then moving up in half-steps to G. We want to use recognizable phrases from the vast pool of jazz and blues vocabulary to ensure that it sounds 'jazzy.' The bass lines in Example 1.1 are meant to create, in tandem with the syncopated upper structure of two- and three-note chords, a moving 'carpet' of rhythm and harmony. We can also track chord movement using Roman numerals to name the chords as they function within the key signature, and Arabic numerals to show intervals within chords or between melody notes. Starting with C as I, we can spell out the progression as 17 for 2 beats, 17/3 for 2 beats, IV7 for two beats, #IVdim7 for 2 beats, and so on. Example 1.2 shows the progression of Example 1.1 using this system. The Arabic numeral under the Roman numeral names the interval used as the bass note; in other words, in bar 10 the #IV/3 means an F# major chord (the #IV chord) over an A# bass note (the 3 of F#). I suggest you learn this naming system because it helps when you transpose progressions to other keys or when you need to tell another player, 'Play a II-V-I in A,' or 'Take that III-VI-II-V/3 progression up a whole-step.'
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Ex. 1.2
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A word about the '9sus4' chord. Don't confuse this with a chord spelled 1-4-5, bottom to top, which is technically a suspended 4th chord with no 3rd. What is meant here is 1- 7-9-11 (as in the first chord of bar 4 in Example 1.1) or 1-4- 7-9 (as in the first chord of bar 13— the same voicing comes again in bar 16 and the same voicing, this time in E, is in bar 20). Now listen to Example 1.4, which combines the comping thing we did in Example 1.1 with solo passages. This is a sample of how to shift from the comp mode into solo mode and back. First, here are the scales that are used for the single lines; when improvising, one needs to know the scales for the chords, and, more importantly, how they are used: Ex. 1.3a
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Ex. 1.3b
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I'll show you some more scales in Example 2.1, but now let's look at the full comp-and-single-line example:
Ex. 1.4
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The first solo phrase (in bars 2–4) draws from F Mixolydian; just after that, the four notes in the extra first half of bar 4, E-G-D-C, come from C Mixolydian. When I got to bar 9, I played a C# leading tone into a Dorian ascending scale, which is connected to the C Ionian mode, or CMaj, scale. There are many improv occasions where we will use the scale as the basis for an idea. For example, I threw in some chromatic notes (leading tones) between the mode notes to lead up to that C in bar 11. I used the half-whole diminished starting from B for bars 17 and 18 to cover the F7(IV7) going into the F#(#IV) diminished. In the 20th bar, I used part of a D harmonic minor scale with A as the tonal center—that covered the VI chord. I soloed through the turnaround (the last two bars of 12-bar form) of the first chorus with C pentatonic and C Mixo. We'll look at another way to solo through a turnaround when we get to the end of the first chorus of Example 2.2. Example 1.5 mixes comping with solo passages, but this time the passages are chords in the upper register. There are times when the left hand should stay put, but many more occasions (like this one) where we need to move around the neck quickly. The chord-solo passages are played with traditional big-band phrasing.
Ex. 1.5
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In the first chorus, all the solo-voiced chords are on strings one through four. There is minor-third sliding (like the F#dim7 to Adim7 in bar 6) and different voicings for essentially the same chord (Dm7 in bars 9–11). In the second chorus, there are more minor-third slides with diminished chords (played on strings two through five in bar 16) and again, the first four voicings in bars 21–22 are essentially Dm7. I try to be faithful to big-band phrasing by inserting a few single notes in the chord-solo passages, as in bar 17; take away the harmony notes, and you have the single line shown in Example 1.6.
Ex. 1.6
There's a similar example of this four and one-half bars later:
Ex. 1.7
Add the harmony to these single lines and you get a big-band sound. We've looked at some blues ideas and variations to give us points of reference. Comping and soloing are two sides of the same coin. One supports and depends on the other and, in a sense, soloing is responding to comping by creating good phrasing. Of course, the comping has to be good in order for the soloist to do his or her best work. We will go deeper into comping in Chapter 5. At this juncture, however, there are more elements of the blues I want to show. First, let's look more closely at the scales that relate best to the chords we've been playing, and also at some chord-scales.
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Chapter Two— Integrating Chords and Scales into Jazz Language When I first started playing, I transcribed solos from records—Barney Kessel, Tal Farlow, Kenny Burrell, Johnny Smith, and especially Wes Montgomery. I didn't have any jazz vocabulary at the time, and I didn't have any idea of the subtle elements that make up a good solo. So, first by learning and then by analyzing the musical thinking of these accomplished players, I began to see how improvisations were constructed. I would transcribe one of Wes's pieces, and then I'd see, 'Aha, here he's playing a substitution for the tonic,' or 'That augmented arpeggio works well on the altered chord.' It was hard work, but it paid off. In this chapter, I'll take you through some musical analysis in detail, working with the blues we started learning in Chapter 1—both single-line and chord work—and then getting into an area beyond the blues. First, have a look at the scales in Example 2.1. Ex. 2.1
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Ex. 2.1
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These scales are similar to those introduced in Example 1.3. However, I 'charged up' the C Mixo, which is now chromatic between the 3 and the 5, and the F Mixo, which now has a fragment of the half-whole diminished starting from B. A C pentatonic fits inside both scales; I renamed them 'charged-up' C Mixo and 'charged-up' F Mixo. They can also be defined as C Mixo-pentatonic- 5 and F Mixo5. There's now an A Superlocrian scale for playing VI7 chords; if you start this scale from B you have the parent mode, B jazz minor. Example 2.2, which is a solo over the 'basic track' of Example 1.1, shows all the scales in Example 2.1 at work.
Ex. 2.2
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In bar 7, we used a straight C Mixo, arpeggiating a C9 into the Em7 5 in the first half of bar 8. For the second half of bar 8, I arpeggiated the A Superlocrian mode. Only a part of the G Mixo is used in bar 10 and in bar 24. For the first turnaround (bars 11–12), I drew from the four Dorian scales to play the B 13-E 9-A 13-D 9, with each scale starting from the fifth degree of the chord root. The B major scale (lonian mode) is a substitute for a simple C Mixo in bars 15–16 and the G major (only two notes are used) fits in the E9sus4, bar 20. In the 2nd chorus turnaround, the blue notes (B , G , and E ) in the C Mixo-pentatonic- 5 work in VII7 (B 13) and III7 (E 9) as well as the IIm7 (Dm11) in bar 24; a blues phrase with an E works here even though the Dm11 is straight diatonic. OK, we've looked at how to apply some single-note scales to the jazz language. Now let's work with chord-scales. Example 2.3 gets us started with something easy: a chord-scale in C diatonic tonality—just the white notes on the piano. Play it as written, ascending, and take it back down the same way.
Ex. 2.3
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Example 2.4a shows a C Mixo chord-scale that goes up using one set of voicings and descends with different voicings. Example 2.4b gives you six substitute voicings for the first three bars to show some of the options in situations like this.
Ex. 2.4a
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Ex. 2.4b
You should know about alternate voicings within a chord-scale because you want to be able to go outside the Mixo mode. For example, in the fourth chord in the 2.4a sequence you might want to play an F7sus4 (with an E on the third string rather than the E natural that's there now). Let's work more with this idea of alternate voicings within a chord-scale. Example 2.5 is a C Dorian chord-scale:
Ex. 2.5
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A couple of comments: Using the bottom note of each chord as the guide-note, the scale goes up one full octave plus another three steps, stopping on F. Also, all the m7 chords are actually m7sus4s. The 3rd degree chord in the second octave, E maj7, is different than its counterpart in the first: F13 (which has no F in it—the root is assumed). Now that we have the C Dorian chord-scale, we can divide an F7 into related voicings. Let's see what we can do with it—maybe take it out of a strict blues context without losing the blues essence. Example 2.6 shows one way.
Ex. 2.6
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In bars 1–3, the thinking process goes like this: Start by splitting the F7 into Cm7-F7, then extend those chords into E maj7, F9, Cm/maj7, Cm7, F9#11, and so on. With the Cm/maj7 and F9#11, we go briefly into the C jazz minor mode, C Dorian's neighbor. The example also goes out of the mode for an instant in the 2nd bar, 3rd beat with the descending Gm7 to G m7 (out of the mode right there) to the F7sus4 (back in). Now look at bar 4. This is our half-whole diminished scale dressed up in chords, only the sequence begins with whole-half—C to D to E to F to G , and so on. The single notes, 4th beat, bar 4 lead to a descending chord passage in the same diminished scale. The diminished chord tonality goes up a half step, 1st chord, bar 6, then returns to the half-whole starting from B tonality with the 2nd chord. The Bmaj/C, 2nd half of bar 6, is another chord that fits in that 'half-whole starting from B' tonality. In bar 7 of Example 2.6, the voicing of the first chord, Cmaj7 5, is similar to the Bmaj/C chords in bar 6. Now, by dropping the C down a half step to B, the tonality becomes E minor.
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Chapter Three— More Scales and Fingerings When I was touring with saxophonist Benny Golson a few years ago, we were looking for some new tunes to play, so I wrote out a minor blues called 'Turkish Coffee' and took it up to his room. I was amazed at the way he played through the changes using scales and arpeggios, choosing the most meaningful intervals to define the chords. For some reason, I thought that he would just gloss over the progression and play some blues-by-ear to the chords, but the way he dug into the harmony in detail brought me back to the reality of who I was working with—a true jazz giant whose proximity to other tenor players like Coltrane and Jimmy Heath (the Philadelphia school) helped form his own prodigious concept of improv. So let's dig deeper into these chords, get inside some of the changes, and try to extract some music from them, the way Benny Golson did. Example 3.1 shows a standard minor blues progression. Ex. 3.1
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Now let's look at 'Turkish Coffee,' a minor blues, with a chord for every beat (except the last half-measure).
Ex. 3.2
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Wow, that's a lot of changes, you say. Well, on a blues like this—and it's still primarily a blues—you have to pick the spots where to go in and spell out each change, and where to just 'ride' over the harmony with pentatonic ideas. I'll try to show you what works where—for instance, here's an actual playing sample of improv over the first four bars where I approach it more like the progression in Example 3.1— implying a B7, second half, bar 2, and then playing an E7 9 idea 2nd half of bar 4. On the CD, for Examples 3.2–3.5, I play the single lines with the chords first, then follow up a second time with only the chords, so you can practice the singleline part.
Ex. 3.3
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Now, for bars 5–6 (the IV section in any 12-bar blues), I suggest practicing the descending II-V7s by playing E Dorian for the Am7-D7 and continuing the same idea descending with the progression, as in Example 3.4a. For actual improvising, however, I vary the phrasing rhythmically and harmonically—see Example 3.4b. I drew from an E Superlocrian to play over the Am7-D7, and I left some holes (last 8th of bar 1, for instance) and held some notes (1st half of bar 2).
Ex. 3.4a
Ex. 3.4b
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For bars 7–9 you can arpeggiate the changes (substituting relative minors for the majors—Am for C/E and G#m for B/D#, for instance), but you can also just play the blues—it won't clash. Example 3.5 is a trial run for bars 10–12; practice outlining the changes using the mode/scales indicated, then look at the actual lines I used.
Ex. 3.5
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I transcribed two passes in Example 3.6 to show how it can be different each time you play, if only just slightly—both bar 11s are the same, except for the placement of a sixteenth rest in the third beat, but notice the difference in bar 10: Example 3.6a arpeggiates more, whereas Example 3.6b runs the scales. Interesting to note is how, in 3.6b, the C#7#9 and the following D9 are covered by an ascending D Dorian scale; also, in 3.6a the idea on the E 7 9 in bar 10 has an E natural on the end, while the same place in 3.6b has an E —both notes work—that's the nature of dom7 9.
Ex. 3.6a
Ex. 3.6b
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OK—we've gone through the changes to 'Turkish Coffee.' Now go back and try your own solo ideas on this change-laden minor blues— you've got my support track on the CD, so take as many passes as you like until you start getting somewhere. Now let's look at another chord progression that uses more II-Vs. Example 3.7 is a composition called 'Arubian Nights.'
Ex. 3.7
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Bireli Lagrene, Richard Bona, and Billy Cobham with Larry in 1997.
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This is different from the blues progressions we've been using, with more V and II-V movement. Without going through the whole progression of 'Arubian Nights,' I want you to see that although this is a different song form, the same scale-rules we used playing over the blues still apply. You don't have to play a new scale for every chord change to get into a solo, but you have to know where the tonal centers are. Looking back at the beginning of 'Nights,' the 1st bar tonal center is E major/C minor, the 2nd bar is D7 9, the 3rd bar tonal center is G7, and the 4th bar tonal center is C7 9. Once you get to the Fm7 in bar 5, your tonal center is E . Example 3.8 is a little counterpointtype exercise to illustrate how to go through this.
Ex. 3.8
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Notice the lower voice 'guides' the way through the changes with harmony notes; in bar 2, the 5 of Cm (G) to the 3 of D7 (F#) and so on. The top voice is improvising, but stays close to the melody. On the CD I play the counterpoint by itself first, then a second time with the bass line. The first time I became aware of the importance of changing scale-positions was when I was about sixteen. A 'demo' player for Gibson named Andy Nelson came to our little town and played with backing tracks. He followed Johnny Smith in terms of technique, and I watched in sheer astonishment as he played ascending major-7 arpeggios at lightning speed, clean and musical. Years later, I moved to New York and become a Gibson endorsee. I was playing with the Gary Burton Quartet at the Village Vanguard, and Andy Nelson came into the club—I guess he was still working for Gibson, because he ordered one (a cocktail, that is). Anyway, I'm indebted to Andy for his wonderful playing and for turning my attention to the great Johnny Smith, from whom I took a lesson many years later. The interesting thing is that when I asked Johnny to play those major-7 arpeggios, his fingering was different! For about thirty years, I'd been playing them 'wrong.' And I still am! This is all about the role of inspiration in learning. I was inspired to emulate something that knocked me out, and in the process I developed my own fingering. As Johnny Mac once told me (when we were messing around with 'Giant Steps' changes), 'Fingering is everything.' So let's get into some fingering as we start to connect scale positions on the neck; we'll use a C-major scale and use C, E, and B as our starting notes. The Phrygian and Locrian scales are marked for reference only—the important thing here is shifting around the fingering to scale (pun intended) upward. We'll start with some common C chord placements in Example 3.9; the scale variations will relate to these positions. Ex. 3.9
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The position of a scale is determined by where the first finger is. In other words, the first Cmaj7 chord has the first finger on the third fret; but when we play the scale, the second finger goes to that same fret, fifth string, and the first finger goes to the second fret, fourth string. So this scale is played from the second postition. Example 3.10 uses the second and fifth positions, with an 'option' scale route that has you jumping to the 2nd string earlier, on the D of the second octave. Ex. 3.10
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Example 3.11 starts in the 2nd position like the previous variations, but it quickly passes through several positions on its way to high C; an alternate route is to do the first seven notes from the fifth position (starting on the eighth fret of the sixth string). The descent involves some downshifting and finger-shifting (marked by an 's'). A 1-1 shift, for instance, means to move the first finger from fret to fret. Ex. 3.11
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Example 3.12 takes bars 9–12 from Example 1.4 to show an elementary example of position-shifting; the line starts with a sliding pickup into the 5th position, goes to an 'adjusted' fifth position (like playing the first 2 chords in Example 3.9) and descends in the third bar down the first string into the first position: Ex. 3.12
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Example 3.13 starts from, first, the third degree (E), then the seventh degree (B) in the 7th and 12th positions. Ex. 3.13
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Example 3.14 goes from middle E to high A in the little-used 10th position. Notice the two whole step jumps on strings five and four; the fingering can be 1-3-4 or 1-2-4 at those points. Ex. 3.14
After you've looked at these positioning-fingering variations, take them into keys other than C, and play minor variations as well. You'll find you may want to make adjustments to your technique, using more 'uncomfortable' jumps, successive fingering, and downshifting to be able to connect all the various positions on the neck. Then, when you're creating ideas on the spur of the moment, you'll be better prepared to execute the needed technique. To show you what I mean, I want to go deeper into the improv tools we've looked at so far and expand the harmonic and rhythmic possibilities.
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Chapter Four— Elements of Improv There's a sweet sadness and melancholy beauty to minor chords, so let's explore that sector of the harmonic universe. The lesson here is finding substitutions in a minor key and applying the appropriate scale/arpeggio to each chord change. The analysis presented in this chapter may seem rather theoretical, but this is not something I decided to throw in just to disseminate information. Through the process of analysis and study, you eventually learn to respond quickly to a chord. It takes some time—in my case, it has taken a lot of time, especially to avoid the trap of shifting into 'intellectual' gear in the middle of playing viscerally. This is one of the most important ideas in improvising: You have to study the more difficult aspects of jazz in order to train yourself to altered harmonies in response-time and ear-sensitivity. Use your mind as much as possible when studying these rather gnarly topics. When it comes time to go out and play, turn your mind off and just go with the intuitive side. In other words, have fun, but the 'fun' will become more musically advanced because you've broken down the difficult elements into small parts and worked out the details that would otherwise give you fits on the bandstand. This is not to say you don't use your mind at all when performing—you still have to know the changes, the form, etc.—but you're not in 'study mode.' It's a bit like extemporizing in a foreign language that you've studied and practiced. Now to work. Play through Example 4.1 and notice that the chromatic movement of the 5 (B) up to the 6 (C#) and back is the defining harmonic element. (lesson continues on next page)
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Ex. 4.1
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The first arpeggio starts on a B, although the tonal center is E minor; this is straight Em7, no need to think in terms of the mode. The second arpeggio is Cmaj7, and it also defines the E Aeolian mode (that's the minor mode, to refresh your memory, with the 7 and the 6). This chord could just as well be spelled as Cmaj7#4. The Em6 uses the Locrian mode, and that arpeggio also fits in a C#m7 5 chord. For a different approach to playing this progression, I constructed accompanying arpeggios in Example 4.2. You can double this with me on the CD, or solo for yourself in the open spaces. I put a simple melodic improv over one pass of the progression to give you an idea of what to do; just make sure your scales go from E minor to Cmaj#4 to G Lydian and back to Cmaj#4 every two bars. The mood here is 'ballad' style, and I think it's a clear way to see how, as the substitutions change, so do the lines and arpeggios.
Ex. 4.2
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Now let's try some diminished arpeggios and phrasing that are a little more involved. Diminished exercises can be very dry, so I wrote an exercise I hope you'll find interesting. 'Diminished Devil' has its own little form, a motif with variations: The first 2-bar phrase is played four times, but the second note starts a minor 3rd higher each time.
Ex. 4.3a
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Ex. 4.3b
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The whole thing can be thought of as playing over one long E7 9#9. Rhythmically, we have some 3-against-4 chords and bass note pedals going on in measures 11–12: Count one-two-three-one-two-three-one-two for bar 11, then one-two-three-one-two-three-rest for bar 12. For bars 15–18, know that the unaccented A# in the beginning of measure 16 is your downbeat—just don't accent it. Diminished phrases can sustain interest in their own right as well as being used as passing chords and supporting dominant-7s. Listen to the CD for the timing and remember—respect those accents to liven up the phrasing. 'Diminished Devil' prepares you to go back to 'Arubian Nights' (Example 3.7) and create arpeggios for each chord, using diminished arpeggios to help define the D7 9, C7 9, and Gm7 5 to C7 9. Example 4.4 is a sample over the first 12 bars. First we play the single notes only, then there's another pass with the chords. We'll do this at a slower tempo first, then bring it up to speed on the second pass.
Ex. 4.4
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Another challenge is to create different arpeggios in the same mode in the course of negotiating substitutions. Example 4.5 shows the first four bars of 'Turkish Coffee' where I've arpeggiated every change, the first three being different inversions in the E Dorian mode.
Ex. 4.5
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Sometimes you have to change registers when you're moving from one arpeggio to the next; the Cm7 arpeggio in the fourth beat of bar 3 leads upward, so the following Bm7 sounds more natural up an octave. These last few exercises and examples are designed to go a little overboard as we investigate the many possibilities that can arise in the course of using a specific technique like arpeggiating. Example 4.6 is a real-world example, a recorded solo of the bridge of 'Arubian Nights,' that shows how I actually put arpeggios to work among single-line phrases.
Ex. 4.6
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I especially like the last two phrases that are played over the Cmaj7 to Fmaj7; these arpeggios can also be used to play over Am7 to Dm7, since they're synonymous with their respective major-minor tonal centers—that is, C major with A minor and F major with D minor. Now I want to show how there can be different harmonic conclusions from the same or similar chords. In particular, we'll look at what I call the jazz minor scale, which is an Ionian scale with a minor 3. Let's start with 9th and m7 5 chords and see how changing them slightly can let you use an altered scale like the jazz minor. Example 4.7 shows chord voicings (in three positions) for a C9 and an Em7 5; then it shows the same thing for a C9#11 and an Em7 5/9—the same group of notes can be given either name. So you don't have to think of a different scale for a 9th chord as opposed to a m7 5 chord—one scale will work. A C9 or Em7 5 chord can be played with an E Locrian scale, which is the same as a B Lydian scale, which is the same as F Ionian. Similarly, you can use the G jazz minor scale with a C9#11 or Em7 5/9 chord. Ex. 4.7
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The same G jazz minor phrase can be used with a C9#11 (leading to an F13 resolution), as in Example 4.8a, or it can be used with Em7 5/9 (leading to a G13 resolution), as in Example 4.8b. The first time includes the single line; the second time is with only the chords.
Ex. 4.8a
Ex. 4.8b
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In Example 4.8a, we went to C jazz minor to cover the F13 in the third measure, while in Example 4.8b we use D harmonic minor with A as tonal center in the second measure. Here's the same idea again: In Example 4.9a, the first phrase is a B Lydian idea, two bars long, that can work with either a C9 chord or an Em7 5 chord (or a Csus for that matter), which can lead to either an F13 or A7. Again, the first pass on the CD includes the single line; the second time is with chords only.
Ex. 4.9a
Ex. 4.9b
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In Example 4.9b, we substitute F#s for Gs, going from B Lydian to the Phrygian mode of the G jazz minor scale, and, once again, this can lead to the two different resolutions, F13 or A7. Example 4.10 arpeggiates six chords in a span of four bars, the last five using variants on the G jazz minor scale. This gives you an idea of how many ways chords out of the G jazz minor mode can be defined.
Ex. 4.10
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Example 4.11 uses some additional chords that call for a G jazz minor phrase, accompanied by a little line/arpeggio to define the chord. Notice how often augmented ideas pop up; there are a number of 'training' features in this exercise. In bar 10, there is alternate fingering for the same phrase in bar 9. At bar 13, we use some double-stops through bar 16, leading to two voices moving (bar 18), which leads to a 'composed' final four bars still using only the notes from the G jazz minor scale. Play the last note, the E harmonic on the twelfth fret, sixth string, with your right hand, while continuing to sustain the final B Maj7#5 chord.
Ex. 4.11
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Chapter Five— Playing and Listening You may wonder how a guitarist can develop a musical understanding of another instrument like a trumpet or saxophone. Well, I don't know exactly how it's supposed to happen, but in my early days I hung with the horn players in town and tried to absorb how they approached playing. When I'd comp for a trumpet player, the only single-note stuff I played was when I'd double be-bop heads with the horn. I concentrated on providing the harmony and rhythm, and when I'd play something that threw the horn player, he'd let me hear about it. So I learned that I really had to develop sensitivity and consideration as part of my evolution as a supporting player. I got respect from players who were more advanced than me because they could see I really wanted to learn. Later on, I started to dig the nth-degree guitar/sax combinations like Gabor Szabo with Charles LIoyd, and Jim Hall with Paul Desmond. Those collaborations paved the way for later hookups I would have with Steve Marcus and, more recently, Donald Harrison. The basic 'rules' for comping: 1. Don't step on the soloist by making your comp too busy. 2. Use space—the rhythmic choices should be off the beat and between the beats. You don't want to begin each measure by coming down on the one—it's too obvious and square. 3. Stay out of the soloist's register; play below (in pitch) or above. There will inevitably be some clashes, but keep them to a minimum (and sometimes they turn out OK—nice accidents happen all the time in improvised music). 4. When the soloist is playing the melody, don't double the melody notes unless it's part of an arrangement. Stick to your part and let a soloist do his or her thing. 5. Choosing how many notes are in the chords is important—sometimes two- or three-note chords are appropriate, other times you need more notes, or more open-voiced chords, or upper- or lower-voiced chords.
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To show these rules in action, let's work with a bossa-nova, 'Old City, New City,' a straight, no-frills samba with lots of good chords. I wrote it for a Brazilian project in the early '90s called 'Live from Bahia.' Example 5.1 shows the first 12 bars.
Ex. 5.1
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As you can see, the tune is not linear—it's arpeggiated all over the place. Nevertheless, if you're a second guitarist supporting the piece, you can do a simple Brazilian pattern of anticipatory punched chords that work underneath the written line and avoid doubling any of the melody, as in Example 5.2. On the CD, the first comp is alone; the second time, the comp is with the melody.
Ex. 5.2
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The bass notes generally come down on one and three all the way through, with the exception of bar 8, where the bass adjusts to the melody at that point. Now let's put in a solo and pretend we're playing in a small group situation. Notice how the approach changes drastically in Example 5.3. The comping guitar uses more space, holds chords longer, and then changes things up with some rhythmic hits, as in bars 7–8, adjusting to that little jog in the melody. Again, the idea is to keep it simple and supportive for the soloist.
Ex. 5.3
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Next, I want to show you a real-life example from a concert featuring altoist Donald Harrison on a tune of mine called 'Dragon Gate.' Example 5.4 shows how my comping relates to the alto solo: It stays underneath, keeps some open spaces, and, when appropriate, offers a little reply or echo to what the horn is doing.
Ex. 5.4
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The guitar answers the horn in bars 13–17; notice the guitar is quiet when the horn is busy. In the second chorus (starting at bar 17), the guitar avoids playing on the downbeat—important. The horn is blowing in one rhythmic pattern while the guitar does its own pattern underneath, based on a four-against-six polyrhythm (see Example 5.5).
Ex. 5.5
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The chords follow a chord-scale where the first five steps are C Dorian and the final three steps are C Aeolian. Now, because I don't want to infringe on the soloist's register, I hardly ever use the final two chords of the scale, stopping instead at the VI. It turns out that the VI chord form, an Fm6 without the root but an Fm6 nevertheless, becomes a substitute for the Im (Cm). Of course, this applies only to the Cm portion of 'The Dragon Gate' progression; the Dorian-Aeolian chord-scale moves up a half-step when we go to the C#m. The guitar lays out in bars 26–29; the rhythm section is churning behind the horn. When the guitar enters, it's on beat 2, not the downbeat. Those D 13#11 and B13#11 chords in 30–31 may not be known to you, but grab on to that voicing—it's very effective. Notice the root is not played; the bass takes care of that. The chord sequence from the four-against-six has an additional use in the out-vamp of the piece; this section also shows how the soloist (alto sax) and comper (guitar) can switch roles; the horn repeats the vamp figure while the guitar plays a free-floating single line (first four bars of Example 5.6) followed by eight bars of the minor-scale chords from bars 17–25 in Example 5.4. In the out-vamp, however, there's no Fm chord substituted after the V interval; it's a straight Cm6/9 played on strings five through two.
Ex. 5.6
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So the guitar is actually carrying the ball melodically here while the alto provides an ostinato support. It's not a solo per se, since the dynamic level of both instruments is mp; it's a form of interplay. There's another form of interplay that can arise in the horn/guitar combination. The guitar can start out in its traditional role of staccato chord support and then ease up into the horn's register (rules are made to be broken, and here's an example) and the two can hit some phrases together spontaneously. These accidents of togetherness occur because both players are interpreting the rhythm the same way. Example 5.7 is a fragment of an opus called 'Good Citizen Swallow,' which has several between-the-beat accents in the melody.
Ex. 5.7
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Each chorus is fifteen bars long. When you throw in those pushing accents in an odd-numbered bar form, you can get choruses like Example 5.8.
Ex. 5.8
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Note that when the alto is playing a lot of notes in the first chorus, especially bars 9–15, the comping guitar really has to be sparse. Notice also that at the beginning of the second chorus (bar 16) the guitar has moved from the middle part of the neck to around the 10th fret; at that point, the nucleus of the A13 and G13 chords is fingered on strings six, five, and four, and the left hand pinky covers the 4ths on strings two and one. Even at the climax of the interplay between alto and guitar, the guitar still avoids coming down on the one (look at bar 16—half-measure rest before hitting that three and chord hit). The comper—that's me—does come down on the one in this section (1st beat, bar 18, for example) but a lot of that is because I'm phrasing together with the horn; once that little spontaneous unison section subsides, the guitar goes back to its supporting role (bar 25) and plays some of the same comp-phrases as before (look at the similarity between bars 27–28 and bars 12–13). Final Word Let's pull back from the details of comping for an overview of what we've been doing: We've looked at the blues and some necessary theoretical principles and devices to learn a musical language and communicate in that language. We've worked with specific scales and chords and chord scales as well as exercises to develop playing; many more exercises and lessons are out there. Look at them and see how they relate to what you've learned in this book—it's an ever expanding quest. We've also taken certain song forms and broken them down for analysis to develop subtle ways to improvise. You'll be able to recognize the basic ideas that run through most progressions, so you can tackle most any tune or composition. Now you should be solidly grounded in the fundamentals of what it takes to play jazz. I encourage you to go out and play with some other musicians and test yourself; when you play with musicians who are more experienced than you, be sure to ask questions. You never stop learning. Keep this seeking spirit with you. This music we play is rich in choices and nuances; you never (at least in my opinion) will arrive at the ultimate plateau and say, 'I don't need to learn more.' As a bassist told me years ago, 'In jazz you have to play the percentages.' This means that you're allowed to always try for that 'perfect' solo or 'perfect' performance. But in all likelihood you're not going to get it—just a piece of it. The reward comes in trying—going for it. So I'll close now by saying to you: go for it—do your best—and remember that no effort in pursuit of quality playing is ever wasted. All the best . . . peace.
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One of the pioneers of jazz-rock, Larry Coryell's eclectic musical career began when he was a teenager playing in a band led by pianist Mike Mandel. By 1965 he replaced Gabor Szabo in Chico Hamilton's band. In 1966, he debuted on Hamilton's The Dealer album and played with a proto-jazz-rock band, the Free Spirits. In 1967-68 Coryell played with Gary Burton's combo, and was one of the most prominent solo voices on Herbie Mann's popular Memphis Underground album (recorded in 1968). He, Mandel and Steve Marcus formed a group called Foreplay in 1969 (no relation to today's Fourplay), which by 1973 had become the core of the jazz-rock band Eleventh House. In 1975, Coryell, concentrating on acoustic guitar, produced a series of duo and trio sessions with Philip Catherine, Emily Remler, John Scofield, Joe Beck, Steve Khan and John McLaughlin. In the mid-'80s, Coryell toured with McLaughlin and Paco DeLucia, and in 1986 participated in a five-way guitar session with Tal Farlow, Scofield, Larry Carlton and John Abercrombie for the Jazzvisions series. Coryell has also recorded with Stephane Grappelli, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins and Kenny Barron, and has taped Brazilian music with Dori Caymmi for CTI, mainstream jazz for Muse, solo guitar for Shanachie, and (for Nippon Phonogram in japan) an album of classical transcriptions of music by Stravinsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. —Excerpted from the All Music Guide to Jazz, 3rd Edition
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Dedication
This book is dedicated to John LaChapelle, my first guitar teacher Jerome Gray, my first jazz teacher To my mentor in life, Daisaku Ikeda, who taught me the real value of education
Acknowledgments Greg Hofmann, for helping to shape the text Jesse Gress, for his high standards in music notation The Larry Coryell signature model guitar, LCS-1 by Cort, was used to record the instructional CD.
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Jazz Guitar Creative Comping, Soloing, and Improv Larry Coryell
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Published by Miller Freeman Books 600 Harrison Street, San Francisco, CA 94107 Publishers of Keyboard, Bass Player, and Guitar Player magazines
Copyright © 1998 Larry Coryell. All rights reserved. No part of this book covered by copyrights hereon may be reproduced or copied in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews. For information contact the publishers. Distributed to the book trade in the U.S. and Canada by Publishers Group West, P.O. Box 8843, Emeryville, CA 94662 Distributed to the music trade in the U.S. and Canada by Hal Leonard Publishing, P.O. Box 13819, Milwaukee, WI 53213 Design and Typesetting: Greene Design Editor: Greg Hofmann Music Editor: Jesse Gress Music Typesetting: Chris Ledgerwood Cover Photo: Larry is pictured on the front cover with the Larry Coryell signature model, LCS-1 by Cort. Coryell, Larry. Jazz guitar: creative comping, soloing, and improv / by Larry Coryell. p. cm. ISBN 0-87930-550-9 1. Guitar—Methods (Jazz) 2. Jazz—Instruction and study. I. Title. MT582.C695 1998 787.87'165'143—dc21 98-41679 CIP MN Printed in the United States of America 98 99 00 01 02 03 5 4 3 2 1
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Contents Introduction
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Chapter One Jazz Basics: The Blues
9
Chapter Two Integrating Chords and Scales into Jazz Language
23
Chapter Three More Scales and Fingerings
35
Chapter Four Elements of Improv
53
Chapter Five Playing and Listening
75
About the Author
94
What's on the CD
95
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Introduction If you're a guitarist who wants to improve your ability to play over changes, better understand jazz harmony, and expand your jazz vocabulary, this book is for you. My intention is to show you how I developed my own learning process over the years, and to point out what's important in order to get more inside the changes, to get inside the process of creating an improvised line and the thinking that goes along with developing skills in specific areas. For instance, everyone knows and loves the blues, but jazz blues can be approached many ways, and there can be several kinds of changes, plus substitutes for those changes. And there's the whole area of improv—knowing and making up phrases that serve a particular role, and knowing how to be flexible within certain rules in order to avoid too many clichés that don't take the music forward. We'll walk the fine line between respecting cliches in order to sound authentic and breaking out of more predictable ideas to create a modernity in the music, to be 'forwardsounding.' I want to teach—as much as is possible to teach—about the feeling involved in this music, and I hope that the playing on the CD will help; sometimes, if you can hear what's on the printed page, you're better able to understand it. If you want to learn how to comp alone, and within a group context, as well as learn how to solo in single lines and in chords, I expect you to work. We begin by plunging directly into realistic jazz subjects, advancing step by step and working only with ideas and techniques that I think are essential to the creative process. There are many wonderful methods of learning guitar, but let's shelve the nonessential areas for other times and other books.
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You should have a working knowledge of theory, at least some theory (that's all I have), and I'll assume you know some jazz chords and the fundamental major, minor, augmented (whole tone) and diminished scales and arpeggios. If you're less than solid in some of these areas, don't worry—I'll explain these elements as we go along. The material covered here is sometimes easy, but some of it gets involved and there are some examples/exercises I hope will challenge you and open you up to play things maybe you didn't think you could play. That's how I felt when I first heard jazz players make this amazing music on their guitars—I had no idea how it was done, but I had to try to learn it. If this rings a bell with you, let's go and make some music.
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Chapter One— Jazz Basics: The Blues I think it's important to be able to play accompaniment (or 'comp') with chords and bass-line phrases before you try your hand at soloing. Let's start with some chords and bass lines over a standard twelve-bar blues progression. There are many possibilities, but Example 1.1 is a middle-of-the-road set of changes that will give you something to work with. This chord progression uses the idea of playing two chords per measure.
Ex. 1.1
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Let's look at the bass line. In the first three bars, we have a walking bass line that should sound familiar, going from C down to E then moving up in half-steps to G. We want to use recognizable phrases from the vast pool of jazz and blues vocabulary to ensure that it sounds 'jazzy.' The bass lines in Example 1.1 are meant to create, in tandem with the syncopated upper structure of two- and three-note chords, a moving 'carpet' of rhythm and harmony. We can also track chord movement using Roman numerals to name the chords as they function within the key signature, and Arabic numerals to show intervals within chords or between melody notes. Starting with C as I, we can spell out the progression as 17 for 2 beats, 17/3 for 2 beats, IV7 for two beats, #IVdim7 for 2 beats, and so on. Example 1.2 shows the progression of Example 1.1 using this system. The Arabic numeral under the Roman numeral names the interval used as the bass note; in other words, in bar 10 the #IV/3 means an F# major chord (the #IV chord) over an A# bass note (the 3 of F#). I suggest you learn this naming system because it helps when you transpose progressions to other keys or when you need to tell another player, 'Play a II-V-I in A,' or 'Take that III-VI-II-V/3 progression up a whole-step.'
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Ex. 1.2
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A word about the '9sus4' chord. Don't confuse this with a chord spelled 1-4-5, bottom to top, which is technically a suspended 4th chord with no 3rd. What is meant here is 1- 7-9-11 (as in the first chord of bar 4 in Example 1.1) or 1-4- 7-9 (as in the first chord of bar 13— the same voicing comes again in bar 16 and the same voicing, this time in E, is in bar 20). Now listen to Example 1.4, which combines the comping thing we did in Example 1.1 with solo passages. This is a sample of how to shift from the comp mode into solo mode and back. First, here are the scales that are used for the single lines; when improvising, one needs to know the scales for the chords, and, more importantly, how they are used: Ex. 1.3a
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Ex. 1.3b
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I'll show you some more scales in Example 2.1, but now let's look at the full comp-and-single-line example:
Ex. 1.4
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The first solo phrase (in bars 2–4) draws from F Mixolydian; just after that, the four notes in the extra first half of bar 4, E-G-D-C, come from C Mixolydian. When I got to bar 9, I played a C# leading tone into a Dorian ascending scale, which is connected to the C Ionian mode, or CMaj, scale. There are many improv occasions where we will use the scale as the basis for an idea. For example, I threw in some chromatic notes (leading tones) between the mode notes to lead up to that C in bar 11. I used the half-whole diminished starting from B for bars 17 and 18 to cover the F7(IV7) going into the F#(#IV) diminished. In the 20th bar, I used part of a D harmonic minor scale with A as the tonal center—that covered the VI chord. I soloed through the turnaround (the last two bars of 12-bar form) of the first chorus with C pentatonic and C Mixo. We'll look at another way to solo through a turnaround when we get to the end of the first chorus of Example 2.2. Example 1.5 mixes comping with solo passages, but this time the passages are chords in the upper register. There are times when the left hand should stay put, but many more occasions (like this one) where we need to move around the neck quickly. The chord-solo passages are played with traditional big-band phrasing.
Ex. 1.5
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In the first chorus, all the solo-voiced chords are on strings one through four. There is minor-third sliding (like the F#dim7 to Adim7 in bar 6) and different voicings for essentially the same chord (Dm7 in bars 9–11). In the second chorus, there are more minor-third slides with diminished chords (played on strings two through five in bar 16) and again, the first four voicings in bars 21–22 are essentially Dm7. I try to be faithful to big-band phrasing by inserting a few single notes in the chord-solo passages, as in bar 17; take away the harmony notes, and you have the single line shown in Example 1.6.
Ex. 1.6
There's a similar example of this four and one-half bars later:
Ex. 1.7
Add the harmony to these single lines and you get a big-band sound. We've looked at some blues ideas and variations to give us points of reference. Comping and soloing are two sides of the same coin. One supports and depends on the other and, in a sense, soloing is responding to comping by creating good phrasing. Of course, the comping has to be good in order for the soloist to do his or her best work. We will go deeper into comping in Chapter 5. At this juncture, however, there are more elements of the blues I want to show. First, let's look more closely at the scales that relate best to the chords we've been playing, and also at some chord-scales.
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Chapter Two— Integrating Chords and Scales into Jazz Language When I first started playing, I transcribed solos from records—Barney Kessel, Tal Farlow, Kenny Burrell, Johnny Smith, and especially Wes Montgomery. I didn't have any jazz vocabulary at the time, and I didn't have any idea of the subtle elements that make up a good solo. So, first by learning and then by analyzing the musical thinking of these accomplished players, I began to see how improvisations were constructed. I would transcribe one of Wes's pieces, and then I'd see, 'Aha, here he's playing a substitution for the tonic,' or 'That augmented arpeggio works well on the altered chord.' It was hard work, but it paid off. In this chapter, I'll take you through some musical analysis in detail, working with the blues we started learning in Chapter 1—both single-line and chord work—and then getting into an area beyond the blues. First, have a look at the scales in Example 2.1. Ex. 2.1
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Ex. 2.1
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These scales are similar to those introduced in Example 1.3. However, I 'charged up' the C Mixo, which is now chromatic between the 3 and the 5, and the F Mixo, which now has a fragment of the half-whole diminished starting from B. A C pentatonic fits inside both scales; I renamed them 'charged-up' C Mixo and 'charged-up' F Mixo. They can also be defined as C Mixo-pentatonic- 5 and F Mixo5. There's now an A Superlocrian scale for playing VI7 chords; if you start this scale from B you have the parent mode, B jazz minor. Example 2.2, which is a solo over the 'basic track' of Example 1.1, shows all the scales in Example 2.1 at work.
Ex. 2.2
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In bar 7, we used a straight C Mixo, arpeggiating a C9 into the Em7 5 in the first half of bar 8. For the second half of bar 8, I arpeggiated the A Superlocrian mode. Only a part of the G Mixo is used in bar 10 and in bar 24. For the first turnaround (bars 11–12), I drew from the four Dorian scales to play the B 13-E 9-A 13-D 9, with each scale starting from the fifth degree of the chord root. The B major scale (lonian mode) is a substitute for a simple C Mixo in bars 15–16 and the G major (only two notes are used) fits in the E9sus4, bar 20. In the 2nd chorus turnaround, the blue notes (B , G , and E ) in the C Mixo-pentatonic- 5 work in VII7 (B 13) and III7 (E 9) as well as the IIm7 (Dm11) in bar 24; a blues phrase with an E works here even though the Dm11 is straight diatonic. OK, we've looked at how to apply some single-note scales to the jazz language. Now let's work with chord-scales. Example 2.3 gets us started with something easy: a chord-scale in C diatonic tonality—just the white notes on the piano. Play it as written, ascending, and take it back down the same way.
Ex. 2.3
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Example 2.4a shows a C Mixo chord-scale that goes up using one set of voicings and descends with different voicings. Example 2.4b gives you six substitute voicings for the first three bars to show some of the options in situations like this.
Ex. 2.4a
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Ex. 2.4b
You should know about alternate voicings within a chord-scale because you want to be able to go outside the Mixo mode. For example, in the fourth chord in the 2.4a sequence you might want to play an F7sus4 (with an E on the third string rather than the E natural that's there now). Let's work more with this idea of alternate voicings within a chord-scale. Example 2.5 is a C Dorian chord-scale:
Ex. 2.5
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A couple of comments: Using the bottom note of each chord as the guide-note, the scale goes up one full octave plus another three steps, stopping on F. Also, all the m7 chords are actually m7sus4s. The 3rd degree chord in the second octave, E maj7, is different than its counterpart in the first: F13 (which has no F in it—the root is assumed). Now that we have the C Dorian chord-scale, we can divide an F7 into related voicings. Let's see what we can do with it—maybe take it out of a strict blues context without losing the blues essence. Example 2.6 shows one way.
Ex. 2.6
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In bars 1–3, the thinking process goes like this: Start by splitting the F7 into Cm7-F7, then extend those chords into E maj7, F9, Cm/maj7, Cm7, F9#11, and so on. With the Cm/maj7 and F9#11, we go briefly into the C jazz minor mode, C Dorian's neighbor. The example also goes out of the mode for an instant in the 2nd bar, 3rd beat with the descending Gm7 to G m7 (out of the mode right there) to the F7sus4 (back in). Now look at bar 4. This is our half-whole diminished scale dressed up in chords, only the sequence begins with whole-half—C to D to E to F to G , and so on. The single notes, 4th beat, bar 4 lead to a descending chord passage in the same diminished scale. The diminished chord tonality goes up a half step, 1st chord, bar 6, then returns to the half-whole starting from B tonality with the 2nd chord. The Bmaj/C, 2nd half of bar 6, is another chord that fits in that 'half-whole starting from B' tonality. In bar 7 of Example 2.6, the voicing of the first chord, Cmaj7 5, is similar to the Bmaj/C chords in bar 6. Now, by dropping the C down a half step to B, the tonality becomes E minor.
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Chapter Three— More Scales and Fingerings When I was touring with saxophonist Benny Golson a few years ago, we were looking for some new tunes to play, so I wrote out a minor blues called 'Turkish Coffee' and took it up to his room. I was amazed at the way he played through the changes using scales and arpeggios, choosing the most meaningful intervals to define the chords. For some reason, I thought that he would just gloss over the progression and play some blues-by-ear to the chords, but the way he dug into the harmony in detail brought me back to the reality of who I was working with—a true jazz giant whose proximity to other tenor players like Coltrane and Jimmy Heath (the Philadelphia school) helped form his own prodigious concept of improv. So let's dig deeper into these chords, get inside some of the changes, and try to extract some music from them, the way Benny Golson did. Example 3.1 shows a standard minor blues progression. Ex. 3.1
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Now let's look at 'Turkish Coffee,' a minor blues, with a chord for every beat (except the last half-measure).
Ex. 3.2
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Wow, that's a lot of changes, you say. Well, on a blues like this—and it's still primarily a blues—you have to pick the spots where to go in and spell out each change, and where to just 'ride' over the harmony with pentatonic ideas. I'll try to show you what works where—for instance, here's an actual playing sample of improv over the first four bars where I approach it more like the progression in Example 3.1— implying a B7, second half, bar 2, and then playing an E7 9 idea 2nd half of bar 4. On the CD, for Examples 3.2–3.5, I play the single lines with the chords first, then follow up a second time with only the chords, so you can practice the singleline part.
Ex. 3.3
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Now, for bars 5–6 (the IV section in any 12-bar blues), I suggest practicing the descending II-V7s by playing E Dorian for the Am7-D7 and continuing the same idea descending with the progression, as in Example 3.4a. For actual improvising, however, I vary the phrasing rhythmically and harmonically—see Example 3.4b. I drew from an E Superlocrian to play over the Am7-D7, and I left some holes (last 8th of bar 1, for instance) and held some notes (1st half of bar 2).
Ex. 3.4a
Ex. 3.4b
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For bars 7–9 you can arpeggiate the changes (substituting relative minors for the majors—Am for C/E and G#m for B/D#, for instance), but you can also just play the blues—it won't clash. Example 3.5 is a trial run for bars 10–12; practice outlining the changes using the mode/scales indicated, then look at the actual lines I used.
Ex. 3.5
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I transcribed two passes in Example 3.6 to show how it can be different each time you play, if only just slightly—both bar 11s are the same, except for the placement of a sixteenth rest in the third beat, but notice the difference in bar 10: Example 3.6a arpeggiates more, whereas Example 3.6b runs the scales. Interesting to note is how, in 3.6b, the C#7#9 and the following D9 are covered by an ascending D Dorian scale; also, in 3.6a the idea on the E 7 9 in bar 10 has an E natural on the end, while the same place in 3.6b has an E —both notes work—that's the nature of dom7 9.
Ex. 3.6a
Ex. 3.6b
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OK—we've gone through the changes to 'Turkish Coffee.' Now go back and try your own solo ideas on this change-laden minor blues— you've got my support track on the CD, so take as many passes as you like until you start getting somewhere. Now let's look at another chord progression that uses more II-Vs. Example 3.7 is a composition called 'Arubian Nights.'
Ex. 3.7
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Bireli Lagrene, Richard Bona, and Billy Cobham with Larry in 1997.
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This is different from the blues progressions we've been using, with more V and II-V movement. Without going through the whole progression of 'Arubian Nights,' I want you to see that although this is a different song form, the same scale-rules we used playing over the blues still apply. You don't have to play a new scale for every chord change to get into a solo, but you have to know where the tonal centers are. Looking back at the beginning of 'Nights,' the 1st bar tonal center is E major/C minor, the 2nd bar is D7 9, the 3rd bar tonal center is G7, and the 4th bar tonal center is C7 9. Once you get to the Fm7 in bar 5, your tonal center is E . Example 3.8 is a little counterpointtype exercise to illustrate how to go through this.
Ex. 3.8
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Notice the lower voice 'guides' the way through the changes with harmony notes; in bar 2, the 5 of Cm (G) to the 3 of D7 (F#) and so on. The top voice is improvising, but stays close to the melody. On the CD I play the counterpoint by itself first, then a second time with the bass line. The first time I became aware of the importance of changing scale-positions was when I was about sixteen. A 'demo' player for Gibson named Andy Nelson came to our little town and played with backing tracks. He followed Johnny Smith in terms of technique, and I watched in sheer astonishment as he played ascending major-7 arpeggios at lightning speed, clean and musical. Years later, I moved to New York and become a Gibson endorsee. I was playing with the Gary Burton Quartet at the Village Vanguard, and Andy Nelson came into the club—I guess he was still working for Gibson, because he ordered one (a cocktail, that is). Anyway, I'm indebted to Andy for his wonderful playing and for turning my attention to the great Johnny Smith, from whom I took a lesson many years later. The interesting thing is that when I asked Johnny to play those major-7 arpeggios, his fingering was different! For about thirty years, I'd been playing them 'wrong.' And I still am! This is all about the role of inspiration in learning. I was inspired to emulate something that knocked me out, and in the process I developed my own fingering. As Johnny Mac once told me (when we were messing around with 'Giant Steps' changes), 'Fingering is everything.' So let's get into some fingering as we start to connect scale positions on the neck; we'll use a C-major scale and use C, E, and B as our starting notes. The Phrygian and Locrian scales are marked for reference only—the important thing here is shifting around the fingering to scale (pun intended) upward. We'll start with some common C chord placements in Example 3.9; the scale variations will relate to these positions. Ex. 3.9
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The position of a scale is determined by where the first finger is. In other words, the first Cmaj7 chord has the first finger on the third fret; but when we play the scale, the second finger goes to that same fret, fifth string, and the first finger goes to the second fret, fourth string. So this scale is played from the second postition. Example 3.10 uses the second and fifth positions, with an 'option' scale route that has you jumping to the 2nd string earlier, on the D of the second octave. Ex. 3.10
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Example 3.11 starts in the 2nd position like the previous variations, but it quickly passes through several positions on its way to high C; an alternate route is to do the first seven notes from the fifth position (starting on the eighth fret of the sixth string). The descent involves some downshifting and finger-shifting (marked by an 's'). A 1-1 shift, for instance, means to move the first finger from fret to fret. Ex. 3.11
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Example 3.12 takes bars 9–12 from Example 1.4 to show an elementary example of position-shifting; the line starts with a sliding pickup into the 5th position, goes to an 'adjusted' fifth position (like playing the first 2 chords in Example 3.9) and descends in the third bar down the first string into the first position: Ex. 3.12
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Example 3.13 starts from, first, the third degree (E), then the seventh degree (B) in the 7th and 12th positions. Ex. 3.13
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Example 3.14 goes from middle E to high A in the little-used 10th position. Notice the two whole step jumps on strings five and four; the fingering can be 1-3-4 or 1-2-4 at those points. Ex. 3.14
After you've looked at these positioning-fingering variations, take them into keys other than C, and play minor variations as well. You'll find you may want to make adjustments to your technique, using more 'uncomfortable' jumps, successive fingering, and downshifting to be able to connect all the various positions on the neck. Then, when you're creating ideas on the spur of the moment, you'll be better prepared to execute the needed technique. To show you what I mean, I want to go deeper into the improv tools we've looked at so far and expand the harmonic and rhythmic possibilities.
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Chapter Four— Elements of Improv There's a sweet sadness and melancholy beauty to minor chords, so let's explore that sector of the harmonic universe. The lesson here is finding substitutions in a minor key and applying the appropriate scale/arpeggio to each chord change. The analysis presented in this chapter may seem rather theoretical, but this is not something I decided to throw in just to disseminate information. Through the process of analysis and study, you eventually learn to respond quickly to a chord. It takes some time—in my case, it has taken a lot of time, especially to avoid the trap of shifting into 'intellectual' gear in the middle of playing viscerally. This is one of the most important ideas in improvising: You have to study the more difficult aspects of jazz in order to train yourself to altered harmonies in response-time and ear-sensitivity. Use your mind as much as possible when studying these rather gnarly topics. When it comes time to go out and play, turn your mind off and just go with the intuitive side. In other words, have fun, but the 'fun' will become more musically advanced because you've broken down the difficult elements into small parts and worked out the details that would otherwise give you fits on the bandstand. This is not to say you don't use your mind at all when performing—you still have to know the changes, the form, etc.—but you're not in 'study mode.' It's a bit like extemporizing in a foreign language that you've studied and practiced. Now to work. Play through Example 4.1 and notice that the chromatic movement of the 5 (B) up to the 6 (C#) and back is the defining harmonic element. (lesson continues on next page)
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Ex. 4.1
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The first arpeggio starts on a B, although the tonal center is E minor; this is straight Em7, no need to think in terms of the mode. The second arpeggio is Cmaj7, and it also defines the E Aeolian mode (that's the minor mode, to refresh your memory, with the 7 and the 6). This chord could just as well be spelled as Cmaj7#4. The Em6 uses the Locrian mode, and that arpeggio also fits in a C#m7 5 chord. For a different approach to playing this progression, I constructed accompanying arpeggios in Example 4.2. You can double this with me on the CD, or solo for yourself in the open spaces. I put a simple melodic improv over one pass of the progression to give you an idea of what to do; just make sure your scales go from E minor to Cmaj#4 to G Lydian and back to Cmaj#4 every two bars. The mood here is 'ballad' style, and I think it's a clear way to see how, as the substitutions change, so do the lines and arpeggios.
Ex. 4.2
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Now let's try some diminished arpeggios and phrasing that are a little more involved. Diminished exercises can be very dry, so I wrote an exercise I hope you'll find interesting. 'Diminished Devil' has its own little form, a motif with variations: The first 2-bar phrase is played four times, but the second note starts a minor 3rd higher each time.
Ex. 4.3a
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Ex. 4.3b
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The whole thing can be thought of as playing over one long E7 9#9. Rhythmically, we have some 3-against-4 chords and bass note pedals going on in measures 11–12: Count one-two-three-one-two-three-one-two for bar 11, then one-two-three-one-two-three-rest for bar 12. For bars 15–18, know that the unaccented A# in the beginning of measure 16 is your downbeat—just don't accent it. Diminished phrases can sustain interest in their own right as well as being used as passing chords and supporting dominant-7s. Listen to the CD for the timing and remember—respect those accents to liven up the phrasing. 'Diminished Devil' prepares you to go back to 'Arubian Nights' (Example 3.7) and create arpeggios for each chord, using diminished arpeggios to help define the D7 9, C7 9, and Gm7 5 to C7 9. Example 4.4 is a sample over the first 12 bars. First we play the single notes only, then there's another pass with the chords. We'll do this at a slower tempo first, then bring it up to speed on the second pass.
Ex. 4.4
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Another challenge is to create different arpeggios in the same mode in the course of negotiating substitutions. Example 4.5 shows the first four bars of 'Turkish Coffee' where I've arpeggiated every change, the first three being different inversions in the E Dorian mode.
Ex. 4.5
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Sometimes you have to change registers when you're moving from one arpeggio to the next; the Cm7 arpeggio in the fourth beat of bar 3 leads upward, so the following Bm7 sounds more natural up an octave. These last few exercises and examples are designed to go a little overboard as we investigate the many possibilities that can arise in the course of using a specific technique like arpeggiating. Example 4.6 is a real-world example, a recorded solo of the bridge of 'Arubian Nights,' that shows how I actually put arpeggios to work among single-line phrases.
Ex. 4.6
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I especially like the last two phrases that are played over the Cmaj7 to Fmaj7; these arpeggios can also be used to play over Am7 to Dm7, since they're synonymous with their respective major-minor tonal centers—that is, C major with A minor and F major with D minor. Now I want to show how there can be different harmonic conclusions from the same or similar chords. In particular, we'll look at what I call the jazz minor scale, which is an Ionian scale with a minor 3. Let's start with 9th and m7 5 chords and see how changing them slightly can let you use an altered scale like the jazz minor. Example 4.7 shows chord voicings (in three positions) for a C9 and an Em7 5; then it shows the same thing for a C9#11 and an Em7 5/9—the same group of notes can be given either name. So you don't have to think of a different scale for a 9th chord as opposed to a m7 5 chord—one scale will work. A C9 or Em7 5 chord can be played with an E Locrian scale, which is the same as a B Lydian scale, which is the same as F Ionian. Similarly, you can use the G jazz minor scale with a C9#11 or Em7 5/9 chord. Ex. 4.7
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The same G jazz minor phrase can be used with a C9#11 (leading to an F13 resolution), as in Example 4.8a, or it can be used with Em7 5/9 (leading to a G13 resolution), as in Example 4.8b. The first time includes the single line; the second time is with only the chords.
Ex. 4.8a
Ex. 4.8b
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In Example 4.8a, we went to C jazz minor to cover the F13 in the third measure, while in Example 4.8b we use D harmonic minor with A as tonal center in the second measure. Here's the same idea again: In Example 4.9a, the first phrase is a B Lydian idea, two bars long, that can work with either a C9 chord or an Em7 5 chord (or a Csus for that matter), which can lead to either an F13 or A7. Again, the first pass on the CD includes the single line; the second time is with chords only.
Ex. 4.9a
Ex. 4.9b
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In Example 4.9b, we substitute F#s for Gs, going from B Lydian to the Phrygian mode of the G jazz minor scale, and, once again, this can lead to the two different resolutions, F13 or A7. Example 4.10 arpeggiates six chords in a span of four bars, the last five using variants on the G jazz minor scale. This gives you an idea of how many ways chords out of the G jazz minor mode can be defined.
Ex. 4.10
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Example 4.11 uses some additional chords that call for a G jazz minor phrase, accompanied by a little line/arpeggio to define the chord. Notice how often augmented ideas pop up; there are a number of 'training' features in this exercise. In bar 10, there is alternate fingering for the same phrase in bar 9. At bar 13, we use some double-stops through bar 16, leading to two voices moving (bar 18), which leads to a 'composed' final four bars still using only the notes from the G jazz minor scale. Play the last note, the E harmonic on the twelfth fret, sixth string, with your right hand, while continuing to sustain the final B Maj7#5 chord.
Ex. 4.11
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Chapter Five— Playing and Listening You may wonder how a guitarist can develop a musical understanding of another instrument like a trumpet or saxophone. Well, I don't know exactly how it's supposed to happen, but in my early days I hung with the horn players in town and tried to absorb how they approached playing. When I'd comp for a trumpet player, the only single-note stuff I played was when I'd double be-bop heads with the horn. I concentrated on providing the harmony and rhythm, and when I'd play something that threw the horn player, he'd let me hear about it. So I learned that I really had to develop sensitivity and consideration as part of my evolution as a supporting player. I got respect from players who were more advanced than me because they could see I really wanted to learn. Later on, I started to dig the nth-degree guitar/sax combinations like Gabor Szabo with Charles LIoyd, and Jim Hall with Paul Desmond. Those collaborations paved the way for later hookups I would have with Steve Marcus and, more recently, Donald Harrison. The basic 'rules' for comping: 1. Don't step on the soloist by making your comp too busy. 2. Use space—the rhythmic choices should be off the beat and between the beats. You don't want to begin each measure by coming down on the one—it's too obvious and square. 3. Stay out of the soloist's register; play below (in pitch) or above. There will inevitably be some clashes, but keep them to a minimum (and sometimes they turn out OK—nice accidents happen all the time in improvised music). 4. When the soloist is playing the melody, don't double the melody notes unless it's part of an arrangement. Stick to your part and let a soloist do his or her thing. 5. Choosing how many notes are in the chords is important—sometimes two- or three-note chords are appropriate, other times you need more notes, or more open-voiced chords, or upper- or lower-voiced chords.
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To show these rules in action, let's work with a bossa-nova, 'Old City, New City,' a straight, no-frills samba with lots of good chords. I wrote it for a Brazilian project in the early '90s called 'Live from Bahia.' Example 5.1 shows the first 12 bars.
Ex. 5.1
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As you can see, the tune is not linear—it's arpeggiated all over the place. Nevertheless, if you're a second guitarist supporting the piece, you can do a simple Brazilian pattern of anticipatory punched chords that work underneath the written line and avoid doubling any of the melody, as in Example 5.2. On the CD, the first comp is alone; the second time, the comp is with the melody.
Ex. 5.2
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The bass notes generally come down on one and three all the way through, with the exception of bar 8, where the bass adjusts to the melody at that point. Now let's put in a solo and pretend we're playing in a small group situation. Notice how the approach changes drastically in Example 5.3. The comping guitar uses more space, holds chords longer, and then changes things up with some rhythmic hits, as in bars 7–8, adjusting to that little jog in the melody. Again, the idea is to keep it simple and supportive for the soloist.
Ex. 5.3
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Next, I want to show you a real-life example from a concert featuring altoist Donald Harrison on a tune of mine called 'Dragon Gate.' Example 5.4 shows how my comping relates to the alto solo: It stays underneath, keeps some open spaces, and, when appropriate, offers a little reply or echo to what the horn is doing.
Ex. 5.4
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The guitar answers the horn in bars 13–17; notice the guitar is quiet when the horn is busy. In the second chorus (starting at bar 17), the guitar avoids playing on the downbeat—important. The horn is blowing in one rhythmic pattern while the guitar does its own pattern underneath, based on a four-against-six polyrhythm (see Example 5.5).
Ex. 5.5
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The chords follow a chord-scale where the first five steps are C Dorian and the final three steps are C Aeolian. Now, because I don't want to infringe on the soloist's register, I hardly ever use the final two chords of the scale, stopping instead at the VI. It turns out that the VI chord form, an Fm6 without the root but an Fm6 nevertheless, becomes a substitute for the Im (Cm). Of course, this applies only to the Cm portion of 'The Dragon Gate' progression; the Dorian-Aeolian chord-scale moves up a half-step when we go to the C#m. The guitar lays out in bars 26–29; the rhythm section is churning behind the horn. When the guitar enters, it's on beat 2, not the downbeat. Those D 13#11 and B13#11 chords in 30–31 may not be known to you, but grab on to that voicing—it's very effective. Notice the root is not played; the bass takes care of that. The chord sequence from the four-against-six has an additional use in the out-vamp of the piece; this section also shows how the soloist (alto sax) and comper (guitar) can switch roles; the horn repeats the vamp figure while the guitar plays a free-floating single line (first four bars of Example 5.6) followed by eight bars of the minor-scale chords from bars 17–25 in Example 5.4. In the out-vamp, however, there's no Fm chord substituted after the V interval; it's a straight Cm6/9 played on strings five through two.
Ex. 5.6
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So the guitar is actually carrying the ball melodically here while the alto provides an ostinato support. It's not a solo per se, since the dynamic level of both instruments is mp; it's a form of interplay. There's another form of interplay that can arise in the horn/guitar combination. The guitar can start out in its traditional role of staccato chord support and then ease up into the horn's register (rules are made to be broken, and here's an example) and the two can hit some phrases together spontaneously. These accidents of togetherness occur because both players are interpreting the rhythm the same way. Example 5.7 is a fragment of an opus called 'Good Citizen Swallow,' which has several between-the-beat accents in the melody.
Ex. 5.7
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Each chorus is fifteen bars long. When you throw in those pushing accents in an odd-numbered bar form, you can get choruses like Example 5.8.
Ex. 5.8
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Note that when the alto is playing a lot of notes in the first chorus, especially bars 9–15, the comping guitar really has to be sparse. Notice also that at the beginning of the second chorus (bar 16) the guitar has moved from the middle part of the neck to around the 10th fret; at that point, the nucleus of the A13 and G13 chords is fingered on strings six, five, and four, and the left hand pinky covers the 4ths on strings two and one. Even at the climax of the interplay between alto and guitar, the guitar still avoids coming down on the one (look at bar 16—half-measure rest before hitting that three and chord hit). The comper—that's me—does come down on the one in this section (1st beat, bar 18, for example) but a lot of that is because I'm phrasing together with the horn; once that little spontaneous unison section subsides, the guitar goes back to its supporting role (bar 25) and plays some of the same comp-phrases as before (look at the similarity between bars 27–28 and bars 12–13). Final Word Let's pull back from the details of comping for an overview of what we've been doing: We've looked at the blues and some necessary theoretical principles and devices to learn a musical language and communicate in that language. We've worked with specific scales and chords and chord scales as well as exercises to develop playing; many more exercises and lessons are out there. Look at them and see how they relate to what you've learned in this book—it's an ever expanding quest. We've also taken certain song forms and broken them down for analysis to develop subtle ways to improvise. You'll be able to recognize the basic ideas that run through most progressions, so you can tackle most any tune or composition. Now you should be solidly grounded in the fundamentals of what it takes to play jazz. I encourage you to go out and play with some other musicians and test yourself; when you play with musicians who are more experienced than you, be sure to ask questions. You never stop learning. Keep this seeking spirit with you. This music we play is rich in choices and nuances; you never (at least in my opinion) will arrive at the ultimate plateau and say, 'I don't need to learn more.' As a bassist told me years ago, 'In jazz you have to play the percentages.' This means that you're allowed to always try for that 'perfect' solo or 'perfect' performance. But in all likelihood you're not going to get it—just a piece of it. The reward comes in trying—going for it. So I'll close now by saying to you: go for it—do your best—and remember that no effort in pursuit of quality playing is ever wasted. All the best . . . peace.
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One of the pioneers of jazz-rock, Larry Coryell's eclectic musical career began when he was a teenager playing in a band led by pianist Mike Mandel. By 1965 he replaced Gabor Szabo in Chico Hamilton's band. In 1966, he debuted on Hamilton's The Dealer album and played with a proto-jazz-rock band, the Free Spirits. In 1967-68 Coryell played with Gary Burton's combo, and was one of the most prominent solo voices on Herbie Mann's popular Memphis Underground album (recorded in 1968). He, Mandel and Steve Marcus formed a group called Foreplay in 1969 (no relation to today's Fourplay), which by 1973 had become the core of the jazz-rock band Eleventh House. In 1975, Coryell, concentrating on acoustic guitar, produced a series of duo and trio sessions with Philip Catherine, Emily Remler, John Scofield, Joe Beck, Steve Khan and John McLaughlin. In the mid-'80s, Coryell toured with McLaughlin and Paco DeLucia, and in 1986 participated in a five-way guitar session with Tal Farlow, Scofield, Larry Carlton and John Abercrombie for the Jazzvisions series. Coryell has also recorded with Stephane Grappelli, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins and Kenny Barron, and has taped Brazilian music with Dori Caymmi for CTI, mainstream jazz for Muse, solo guitar for Shanachie, and (for Nippon Phonogram in japan) an album of classical transcriptions of music by Stravinsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. —Excerpted from the All Music Guide to Jazz, 3rd Edition
'Charleston' rhythm, simple rhythm commonly used in comping.[1]Play example
Comping (an abbreviation of accompaniment;[2] or possibly from the verb, to 'complement') is the chords, rhythms, and countermelodies that keyboard players (piano or organ), guitar players, or drummers use to support a jazz musician's improvisedsolo or melody lines. It is also the action of accompanying, and the left-hand part of a solo pianist.[3]
The term comping also describes the audio editing process whereby the best sections of several takes are combined into a 'composite' track. [4][5]
- 1Types
- 2Roles
Types[edit]
In a standard jazz combo, the pianist or guitarist typically comps during the horn and double bass solos by improvising chords and countermelodies.
The chordal accompaniment used in jazz is different from the chordal accompaniment style used in many types of popular music, such as rock and folk.
- In a rock or folk band, a guitarist or piano player will accompany by playing primarily root-positiontriads consisting of the notes of the chord known as the root, 3rd, and 5th. In the key of C, the G chord would include the notes G, B, and D (the root, 3rd, and 5th of the chord). In a hard rock or heavy metal music band, a guitarist often comps by playing power chords (root, fifth and octave, or for fast chord changes, just root and fifth).
- In a jazz band a guitarist or pianist will comp by playing a variety of chords that include the notes of the chord known as the 3rd, 7th, 9th, and 13th (jazz chord players often omit the root, because the bassist usually plays the root. The fifth of the chord is also omitted, except when the fifth is flattened or sharpened). In the key of C, the G7 chord in a jazz context might be performed by playing the notes B, E, F, and A (the 3rd, 13th, flat 7th, and 9th notes of the chord). As well, jazz compers may use altered chords that contain flattened or sharpened 5ths, sharp 11ths, flat or sharpened 9ths, and flat 13ths for some songs or soloists. For example, an altered G7 chord might be played with a basic voicing, often the 3rd (B) and 7th (F), along with some of the following notes A♭, A♯, C♯, and E♭ (♭9, ♯9, ♯11, ♭13), subject to the taste and style of the performer and/or the bandleader.
In combos with a guitar player, the guitar player usually comps for soloists. If there is both a pianist and a guitarist, as sometimes occurs in organ trios or big bands, they may either alternate comping or comp at the same time. Having two chordal instruments comp at the same time is difficult to do well. The two compers may make different, clashing interpretations of the same chord (e.g., the pianist may add a flat 13th, while the guitarist plays a natural 13th), or the texture may become overly cluttered. This may also result in a fight between the pianist and guitarist. One solution is for the two comping instrumentalists to play sparsely.
Chords[edit]
Comping is almost always improvised by the comping musicians based on a chord chart, lead sheet (which contains the chords written above the melody), sheet music, or, in country music, the Nashville Number System. The exception is well-known progressions (e.g., 12 bar blues) and jazz standards such as 'I've Got Rhythm', known colloquially as 'Rhythm Changes'. For well-known progressions, the bandleader may simply say 'solos on blues changes' or 'solos on Rhythm Changes', and the comping musicians are expected to be familiar with these chord progressions. Top soloists playing with the most advanced comping musicians may simply call out the name of jazz standards, and the sidemen will be expected to know the chord progression. For example, the soloist may request 'Autumn Leaves' without providing the compers with a chord chart or sheet music. The compers at the highest professional level would be expected to know this tune.
Since there are many variant versions of these chord progressions, the comping musicians will have to come to an unspoken consensus on which chords to use. For example, there are many different turnarounds used for the last two bars of a 12 bar blues; however, if the bandleader, playing Hammond organ, plays I/VI7/ii7/V7 for the turnaround, most skilled compers will hear these chords by ear and then replicate them in subsequent choruses (each full playing of the 12-bar progression is colloquially called a 'chorus').
Drums[edit]
During swing-feel songs, drummers will usually comp with one hand on the snare drum while playing time on the cymbals, typically on the ride cymbal (see drum kit). More skilled drummers often comp with even all three limbs excluding their right-hand ride pattern (snare drum, bass drum, hi-hats). They will most likely develop the simple jazz drum pattern and add a few 'bomb' bass drum notes for extra effect.
Horns[edit]
In small jazz ensembles ('combos') with more unusual instrumentation, horn players (e.g., saxophone, trumpet, etc.) can comp by playing the melody line in the background, or by playing a sequence of notes called 'guide tones' which outline the harmonic framework. Guide tones are usually the 3rd, 7th, or 9th notes of a given chord. Guide tone lines are constructed by descending (or ascending) through the guide tones of the chart, normally by semitone or tone. For instance, in a duo for saxophone and bass, the saxophonist might comp during the bass solo by playing guide tones.
For example, during the standard jazz chord progression ii7/V7/I/VI7 (in the key of C Major, this would be Dm7/G7/C/A7), a horn player might play the guide tones, in whole notes, C (minor 7th of d minor), B (third of G7), A (sixth of C; sixths are added to major chords and dominant seventh chords in jazz even when not specified) and G (minor 7th of A7). This is only one possible guide tone sequence. A second guide tone sequence (in whole notes) might be F (minor third of d minor), E (sixth of G7), D (ninth of C Major; as with sixths, ninths are often added to chord voicings even when not indicated), C# (major third of A7).
Drum solo[edit]
During a drum solo, the entire band may tacet (called 'laying out' in jazz slang). Alternatively, the pianist (and possibly the bassist and/or guitarist or organist) sometimes comps, often using a predictable pattern of rhythmically played chords called 'hits'. A well-known example is the second half of 'Take Five', with Dave Brubeck's piano vamp comping for Joe Morello's drum solo. During piano solos, pianists often comp for themselves, playing melodic lines and solos with the right hand while comping with the left hand.
Roles[edit]
While any jazz instrument can be used for comping, the chordal rhythm section instruments (piano, organ, and guitar) have developed the largest collection of pedagogical materials about comping. Since a jazz soloist has such wide-ranging harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic possibilities, chordal instrumentalists must have a similarly wide range of tools at their disposal to support the soloist properly.
Comping musicians must know many different types of chord voicings so that they can match the mood the soloist is trying to create. To support some soloists, a comper needs to use very simple voicings (such as the 3rd and 7th of a chord). However, for other soloists who play in a very dense, complicated style, compers may need to use chords with many additional extensions, such as 9ths, 13ths, and altered voicings; they may also re-harmonizechord progressions depending on the soloist, thus creating a feedback of idea exchange between the soloist and the comper. For the most sophisticated soloists, a comper may need to be able to respond in real time to newly improvised implied chord changes.
Compers must have an understanding of rhythm that allows them to respond to the rhythms and beat patterns the soloist plays, such as Latin or Afro-Cuban rhythms. As well, they must have a melodic sense based on a knowledge of a huge repertoire of different scales and scalar patterns, to be able to improvise countermelodies to supplement the soloist's melodies and fill in empty spaces.
By comping, pianists, organists, and guitarists provide the 'glue' that holds the rhythm section together. They take the soloist's improvised solos and melodies and add harmonies (as a bass player does) and rhythms (as a drummer does). By doing this, the comper helps ensure that the band is always at the same energy level as the soloist. Wynton Kelly and Herbie Hancock are examples of pianists who are responsive when comping. Oscar Peterson usually comped busily, while Count Basie comped sparsely. There is no single appropriate way to comp for a soloist.
Adapting to soloist[edit]
A comper adapts his or her style to that of the soloist. In a jazz band with multiple soloists, this may require different styles for different soloists. For example, the saxophone player in a band may imply many extensions and altered chords in his soloing (e.g., b9, b13, etc.). For this soloist, a comper may decide to play altered dominants and dense harmonies. The next soloist, a jazz guitarist, may play sparse, delicate melody lines, with lots of space. For this soloist, the comper may use open voicings, omit passing chords, and try to play mainly in the space left by the soloist. If a soloist starts implying a certain style or feel in his solo, whether this is Afro-Cuban music or hard-driving swing, the entire rhythm section may shift to this style to support him.
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In a tune, if a soloist starts playing in a jazz-rock fusion style, the comping musicians may adapt and shift into a rock-influenced groove. A guitarist who is comping may turn on an overdrive pedal to add rock music-style 'growl' to his tone. A guitarist may also use other effects units, such as a chorus effect. A keyboardist playing Fender Rhodeselectric piano or Hammond organ may turn up his preamplifier to produce a natural tube overdrive tone for his sound. A drummer may shift to a rock style of drumming.
Soloing[edit]
In all but the largest big bands, the comping sidemen in a jazz show are often called upon by the bandleader to improvise a solo. Here, the comper takes centre stage and performs an improvised melody line. For 1920s Dixieland and some Swing era jazz, the comper may embellish the melody line and improvise by ear during his solo. For Bebop-style groups, the comper playing a solo will often base his improvisations on the chord progression of the song. Bebop tunes often have one, two or even three chord changes per bar and some tunes change keys every few bars; as such, it is hard to solo 'by ear' on a Bebop song.
See also[edit]
- Organ trios, a type of ensemble which poses particular comping challenges, since there are usually two chordal instruments which have to share the accompanying tasks (e.g., Hammond organ and guitar)
Further reading[edit]
- Green, Andrew (2005). Jazz Guitar Comping. ISBN0-9700576-4-4.
References[edit]
- ^Hughes (2002), p.6.
- ^[1] 'Glossary of Jazz Swing' from Mezz Mezzrow's 1946 biography'
- ^Hughes, Fred (2002). The Jazz Pianist: Left Hand Voicings and Chord Theory, p.5. ISBN9780757993152.
- ^https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/what-is-comping/
- ^https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/crafty-comping
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