[TPIN] Good or bad,..here it is

[Mark Deaton]

Speaking of transcriptions, I've been doing a study of Chet Baker's work
recently, and have taken it upon myself to transcribe the solos off his
"Chet Baker in Tokyo" album -- a fantastic piece of work!  I just started
working on the first cut, which is Miles Davis' Four.  After the break, he
lands squarely on a C-flat whole note over an FM7 chord.  Fascinating!
That's not something I would have thought to do, for sure.  I'd be happy to
share the transcription with anyone who wants a copy when I'm done (I can
scan it to a PDF doc and e-mail it).  It should take me another couple of
days to wrap it up.  It's a great solo, and he consistently plays... ahem...
"wrong notes" in places that make my head spin.  What a brilliant musician
he was!!

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: tpin-bounces at tpin.okcu.edu [mailto:tpin-bounces at tpin.okcu.edu] On
Behalf Of Jeff Helgesen
Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2006 6:53 PM
To: Jon Trimble
Cc: tpin at tpin.okcu.edu
Subject: Re: [TPIN] Good or bad,..here it is

Jon:

Okay, I'll keep prattling a bit and hope that others will chime in as well.
All of my comments should be taken with a grain of salt, I'm not an educator
or even a full-time player anymore, just someone who likes to think about
these things in the hopes that I can answer a question once in a blue moon.
:-)

"Inside playing" is all about reinforcing chord tones.  The most inside
improvised solos will, more often than not, reinforce (play) chord tones or
inferred chord extensions on the beats.

Practically speaking, it's almost impossible to play a convincing jazz solo
following this "rule", so we incorporate things like anticipation/delay of
resolution and other devices (e.g., rhythmic devices, quoting tunes or
"cliches" [licks passed along through performance practice], etc.) to make
the solo more interesting.

Alot of this can be absorbed through >>very focused listening<< and
>>transfer to the horn<<.  Loading up the iPod or whatever with Blue
Mitchell is all well and good, but unless you get into the nuts and bolts of
the devices being used (you may be doing this, I'm speaking generally), you
don't get a whole lot out of this.  It's kind of like trying to learn about
movie making by watching a movie...you have to focus your observation and
then try and generalize what you observe in ways you can apply.

I hope that doesn't sound more complicated than I mean it to be.  But you're
basically trying to learn and apply very basic compositional practices to
performance on the fly, and it requires some rewiring of the head to do it.

As evidenced by the samples you provided, you are already "making the
changes".  This is a good place to be.  At this point, I'd be adopting a
sound model (Derek, my mind's eye sees you generalizing a response already)
and coming up with a plan for trying to do a compare-and-generalize plan for
trying to incorporate what you like from the player you choose.

I hate to beat a dead horse, but memorization/transcription is a great way
to do this.  Your time constraints may make transcription impossible.

My recommendation would be to pick a tune over which you anticipate having
to solo over the next week(s)/month(s), find a solo that represents some
techniques you'd like to master, and then we can talk about how you can go
about approaching that.  Does "Perdido" fit that bill, and if so, do you
have any recordings of players soloing over the tune that you like alot?
(It might even be someone you're playing with -- it's okay to steal from
your neighbor in this case -- :-] ...)

Cheers,
Jeff
(happy to have something to contribute for a change...)

--
Jeff Helgesen
Buy our CD at http://cdbaby.com/cd/jazzmayhem
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