Posts Tagged ‘jazz music’

Do Jazz & Gospel Music Go Together? You Be The Judge.

Monday, September 1st, 2008

This Is Pat Moran
When I was a teenager I owned a record album titled “This is Pat Moran” which I absolutely loved and couldn’t get enough of. Pat Moran was known as “the little girl of jazz” not only because she is short of stature, but also because she was so young — playing with seasoned jazz artists twice her age. She came from a musical family and studied classical piano at Phillips University and then at Cinncinnati Conservatory of Music with the goal of becoming a classical concert pianist. She was so gifted with improvisation abilities that she soon switched to jazz, formed a group and played in jazz clubs in New York (including Birdland, home of Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Monk, Dizzy, and others) Chicago and Los Angeles. She played for a stint with the Terry Gibbs big band, but most of the time fronted the Pat Moran trio and vocal quartet. She has played with jazz greats such as Ray Brown, Shelly Manne, Scott LaFaro, Herb Ellis, Barney Kessel, and many others.
Pat Moran at Birdland in New York
After I was married we moved to Oregon to pursue my Masters Degree at Southern Oregon University and to my delight, discovered that Pat Moran was really Patti McCoy, who lived in Ashland close to the University, and played occasionally in concerts and regularly at church. With my heart in my throat I knocked on her door one day and introduced myself as a fan. She invited me in, played a couple tunes for me, and gradually we became good friends. When it was time to do my Master’s thesis, she agreed to work with me in producing a book and a cassette on the history of piano jazz. It was a great experience, and my professors of course were delighted. We later transfered the cassette interview with Patti to CD and it is still available at Piano Improvisation From Ragtime To Contemporary. In it we take a walk through the history of jazz piano, with me asking her questions and she responding and playing many examples of different types of jazz, including boogie, ragtime, swing, be-bop, Garner style, and contemporary styles such as Chick Corea.

Here is a video of her playing an old gospel song “When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder” at a church in Los Angeles pastored by another great gospel musician, Andre Couch:

To repeat, you can get the full interview which includes lots of Patti playing various kinds of jazz at Piano Improvisation From Ragtime To Contemporary

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Swing Bass for Piano: Get Your Left Hand In Action

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

Left hand swing bass
It is called “swing bass” because your left hand swings back and forth between a low note (or group of notes, such as a 10th, alternating with a chord in the area right below middle C.

You definitely know the sound of swing bass when you hear it, even though you may not know its characteristic name. The swing style of playing is great for the piano because of the left-hand, right-hand ability the piano affords. You can play swing bass on the piano with the left hand while the right hand improvises a melody over it.

Swing bass starts with an underlying lower register note feel given to a song. Its roots are in jazz from the 1920 to 1940 era. During the 1920s, dance music was very popular in North America. This dance music was of the jazz form. During this 20-year period, some of jazz music’s most creative musicians and composers stretched the limits of this music.

Dance music tradition dictated sticking to melodies as written. The pioneers of swing music and swing bass arrangements felt that melodies needed each individual musician’s interpretation. Improvisation became the norm, and jazz had a new form that gave musicians a lot of freedom for personal music expression.

Of course, these freer melodies required a supporting bass line that fit the swing style. The swing bass style developed based on rhythm, harmony, and melody elements. Other names for swing bass are “stride” or “striding bass.” The harmonic unit for swing bass is sometimes tenths in the left hand. The piano player plays notes that are 10 scale notes apart from each other, often with the 5th of the chord included between the root and the 10th (10th is the same as a 3rd, except an octave higher)taking big strides from the low group of notes up to the chord somewhere around or below middle C. Often on the 3rd beat of a measure the 5th of the chord is used as the low note, followed by another chord on the 4th beat.

The harmonic unit for swing bass is a combination of half-note swing bass and quarter note “walk bass.” The “walk bass” involves playing the fundamental, third and fifth notes of a chord. The leaps are not as extreme in the walking bass. Therefore, a pianist can mix the great striding sounds of swing with the shorter leaps of sound of the walking bass. This lends variety to a swing piece and gives it that unique jazz feel.

The melodic unit of swing music to improvise over the swing bass are quarter, eighth, sixteenth and triplet notes. Again, playing around with these note values to shorten or lengthen note sounds is at the heart of swing playing and jazz improvisation. A piano player can jazz up even the most basic popular song by adding swing elements to a piece.

The swing bass sound and feel is great for the piano because of the lower notes. A piano player can give a bass feel to a song without a string bass player present. The style a bass player would use can be part of the song, although the tone will be different. This is because string bass creates a warmer sound, while the piano makes a more percussive sound. While a string bass player can swing by bending strings and doing glissandos, a pianist cannot. The pianist can give the swing bass sound a more articulated, harder edge with the percussive abilities the keys afford.

When should piano players use the swing bass style? It’s ideal when a song needs jazzing up in a solo performance. Without accompanying musicians to provide support, pianists can lay down their own swing bass line. In addition, a band missing the services of their bass player can have their pianists perform emergency swing bass services. They can vamp away with their left hand and still have the freedom to create right-hand melodies.

Swing bass is great for changing the mood of a song for jarring contrast. Staid classical or traditional popular songs are great for this. Your listeners expect the next logical sounds to emanate from the piano, as is normal for the piece you’re playing. They are familiar with the tune and have pre-conceived expectations of how it will sound. You can surprise them by tossing in a section with swing bass and swing melody. It will delight and surprise them and keep them alert for any other surprises in the rest of your playing.

Consider the swing bass style for some of your piano playing. It is a great tool for lending spark and variety to songs. You’ll hit your stride as you practice this technique more and keep your audience swinging with your music.

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How to Play Blues Piano: Getting Started

Monday, July 21st, 2008

Blues piano

The ability to play blues piano is usually not expected of beginning pianists. There are reasons why most beginning pianists start out playing old songs written by classical composers from centuries past. Many songs written for the piano by such composers as Mozart, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky were originally intended as pieces to be used for lessons. Plus, the conventions of classical music lead to chord structures, harmonies, and melodies that were comparatively straight-forward, perfect for students who were not musical experts.

Attempting to play blues piano presents new challenges for pianists. Many non-musicians don’t realize the technical difficulty of blues and jazz music, but in fact, to be an accomplished musician in one of these genres requires years and years of intense training and practice. Some would even say that these musical genres are actually more complicated than pre-20th century musical forms, which would mean that blues and jazz musicians are, in general, the most accomplished and versatile musicians out there.

So, as you can guess, the decision to take the plunge into playing blues piano should not be made lightly. In order to have a true understanding of blues, its scales, harmonies, and rhythms, one needs to have at least a basic understanding of more traditional musical forms. Blues isn’t a parallel form of music to Classical and other traditional genres; no, it’s an augmentation of traditional music. Just like jazz, blues actually complicates traditional music. Thus, unless you have a natural feel for the blues, your study of blues piano requires at least a solid bedrock of musical knowledge.

I presume that you already know, at the very least, about the traditional major scale. For example, in order to understand and play the C blues scale, you must know the C Major scale.

If you have that knowledge, then it’s pretty simple. The blues scale simply takes the major scale and adds three extra notes. That’s it. The three extra notes are a flatted third, a flatted fifth, and a flatted seventh. Thus, the C blues scale has all of the same notes as the C Major scale — that is, C D E F G A B — with the three additional notes being E flat (or D sharp), G flat (or F sharp) and B flat (or A sharp).

That’s right, if you look closely at the blues scale, you’ll find that there are only two notes that are not included. In the C blues scale, only C sharp and G sharp are not played.

If you want to play blues piano, learning the blues scale is your first step. Even doing nothing more than playing the scale, you’ll hear a “bluesy-ness” to the scale, and if you are a fan of blues, it will sound great to your ears.

Once you can do this, you are ready to play blues piano. The next step is to try improvising. Come up with a chord progression. C F G C is a standard blues chord progression, except — and here is another important point — it is fairly standard in blues music to turn nearly every chord into a seventh chord. So, this progression, in blues form, would be C7 F7 G7 C7. Of course, with the new notes added in, you must remember that, in most cases, these should be played as minor 7th chords. Thus, both the C7 and F7 chords use notes that are not in the traditional C Major scale.

Once you have your chord progression down, improvising is easy. Come up with a simple, bluesy melody, and go from there. Just remember that in order for the music to have that special blues quality, you need to utilize those extra three notes that are not in the traditional scale. Those are the notes that give blues its edge.

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How Jazz Got Started

Monday, July 14th, 2008

The birth of jazz in America

Though many associate the birth of jazz music with the city of

New Orleans, its origin may be a bit more ambiguous. Like many

other musical forms, jazz evolved over a period of years. Many

believe its evolution took place over decades. It’s widely

agreed, however, that jazz music as we know it today was born in

the southern United States. It is also accepted that it developed

from a variety of different influences, culminating in a style

that became its own genre.

Jazz’s major influence probably came from African slaves brought

to the United States in the 1800s. In fact, African music

influenced many styles of music, including rock and roll. The

form that evolved into jazz consisted specifically of call-and-

response singing, syncopation and improvisation. Ragtime, which

may be considered a precursor to modern jazz, drew upon many of

these elements.

Ragtime music originated after the emancipation of African

slaves. The newfound freedom of slaves was bittersweet. Though

freedom was deserved and appreciated, there were few job

opportunities for freed slaves. Many had no means of self-

support, and some simply stayed on with their former owners.

Others supported themselves through musical performance. Often,

this meant performing in dubious locations, like brothels and

minstrel shows.

It was these types of venues that gave rise to ragtime, which

enjoyed a brief period of popularity in the late 19th and early

20th century. Talented ragtime musicians like Scott Joplin were

generally recognized much later for their contributions to modern

jazz.

Though ragtime only graced the music scene for a few years, it

influenced what would become referred to in 1915 as jazz music.

While the actual origin of the term is uncertain, the name stuck.

Cities like New Orleans have since become synonymous with jazz.

This is not necessarily because it originated there, but because

its musicians have added a distinct flavor to jazz music.

Dixieland jazz bands still largely dominate the musical culture

of New Orleans. Thanks to modern artists like Louis Armstrong,

Winton Marsalis and Miles Davis, Dixieland-style jazz continues

to enjoy mainstream popularity.

Once jazz music became labeled as such, more variations

developed. Swing was one of those, which saw its height in the

1930s. Swing greats like Count Basie, Benny Goodman and Glenn

Miller are still covered by today’s musicians. Although swing

isn’t the genre it once was, it still has a big following today.

Because of its early association with brothels and speakeasies,

jazz music had a stigma to overcome in its early years of

development. Eventually, jazz became an accepted art form. Today

jazz is embraced and taught as its own branch of music.

Jazz music is most distinguished from other musical forms for its

reliance upon improvisation. The best jazz musicians have gained

notoriety for their ability to play without the aid of written

music.

They are able to make up music on the spot and off-the-cuff. It’s

entirely possible for a song to be different every time it’s

performed. This may be one reason that jazz fans believe that the

most talented of the world’s musicians are not classical

musicians, but purveyors of jazz.

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