tgcleary commented on the post, A message from the future of jazz: Camille...
James, thanks for this eloquent reply. I should acknowledge here that it’s thanks to you that I first got to collaborate with the fantastic trumpeter and vocalist Jennifer Hartswick, one of many...
View Articletgcleary commented on the post, A menagerie of intervals, on the site BirdFeed
Jesse – Check out these two short podcasts, which explain how different amounts of repetition in Chickadee calls send different messages…
View Articletgcleary commented on the post, A menagerie of intervals, on the site BirdFeed
Good call, Eli. The ‘enharmonically correct’ way to state the interval you mentioned is D# to B, as Coltrane is playing over an Emaj7 chord, and E is a sharp key. Your comment also made me think of how...
View Articletgcleary commented on the post, A menagerie of intervals, on the site BirdFeed
James, I think it’s likely that birds mimic human music, given that birds such as parrots can imitate sounds and voices with amazing accuracy. Check out the story of a parrot named Alex in this...
View Articletgcleary commented on the post, A menagerie of intervals, on the site BirdFeed
Liam, Here’s a video of Hermeto using a flute to converse with some birds at a zoo, in much the way that Roland Kirk does in the video I linked to in the post: The video also includes some of his tune...
View Articletgcleary commented on the post, A menagerie of intervals, on the site BirdFeed
Sydney, you’ve made me wonder whether that opening phrase might have been meant to evoke a bird call – it certainly is evocative of birds. Nice example. In the second half of your comment, I think you...
View Articletgcleary wrote a new post, The Art of the Duo, on the site BirdFeed
The following is a list of recordings by great improvisers who chose to collaborate in duo settings, often with one chord instrument (bass, guitar or piano) combined with a melody instrument (trumpet,...
View Articletgcleary commented on the post, The Art of the Duo, on the site BirdFeed
Thanks for the comment, Daniel. Please add a link to the duo recording you mentioned. It might be helpful to a full band tune and a duo version of the same one to compare…
View Articletgcleary commented on the post, The Art of the Duo, on the site BirdFeed
Hi Liam, Glad you are enjoying the duos. Please add a link to the Redman and Blackwell album.
View Articletgcleary commented on the post, The Art of the Duo, on the site BirdFeed
These are great duos to add to the list, Asa. Please add a link to one of the more standard tunes from one of the albums you mention and comment on the accompaniment styles used.
View Articletgcleary commented on the post, Charlie Parker and Alan Turing: cracking the...
Hi Matt, Thanks for your comments. I have another post on Ornithology: In short, I think this tune is the first in a string of tunes that quote Charlie Parker phrases, written by players who were using...
View Articletgcleary wrote a new post, An excerpt from Shirley Horn's solo on 'What Would...
The great jazz vocalist and pianist Shirley Horn was best known for her unmistakable vocal sound, her ability to re-invent songs, often at unusually slow tempos, and her ability to accompany herself on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
tgcleary wrote a new post, 'Winter Sun' - a tune on the changes to...
Like George and Ira Gershwin’s ‘I Got Rhythm’ and W.C. Handy’s ‘Saint Louis Blues’, the song ‘Summertime’, composed in 1934 by Gershwin with lyrics by DuBose Heyward (originally for the opera Porgy and...
View Articletgcleary commented on the post, Root systems, part 2 / Take three at a time:...
I’m glad to hear that!
View Articletgcleary commented on the post, 'Winter Sun' - a tune on the changes to...
Thanks for the comment, Alden, these links are a great addition to the music mentioned in the post.
View ArticleClik here to view.
tgcleary wrote a new post, From Watermelon Man to Cantaloupe Island and...
Herbie Hancock and I after his February 2019 show at the Flynn Center In 1962, the first film in the James Bond series, ‘Dr. No’, was released. As ‘Dr. No’ was a great success at the box office, Bond...
View ArticleClik here to view.
tgcleary wrote a new post, 'Outer Peace' - a blues in G, on the site BirdFeed
‘Outer Peace’ is a melody line on the twelve bar jazz blues progression in G. I wrote it originally as a countermelody in an arrangement of Harry ‘Sweets’ Edison’s blues ‘Centerpiece’. Edison’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
tgcleary wrote a new post, A history of the chord progression from Bobby...
I began writing this post on November 23rd, 2o19, one day after the anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. According to an interview with composer Bobby Hebb, it was that...
View Articletgcleary wrote a new post, In praise of hibernating, returning to old...
Glenn Gould’s iconic 1955 recording of J.S. Bach’s ‘Goldberg Variations’ was followed by a concert and recording career that accelerated at a feverish pace for the next decade, leading to his...
View ArticleClik here to view.
tgcleary wrote a new post, 'Ella's House of Tonic Tones' - another tune on...
I composed the tune below, ‘Ella’s House of Tonic Tones’, while teaching a class called ‘Ella-vated Improvisation’. It’s based on the ‘solo changes’ (the chords used for improvising) to Sonny Rollins’...
View ArticleClik here to view.
tgcleary wrote a new post, The State of The Blues, Part Six: Gabrielle...
Gabrielle Stravelli is a New York City based vocalist and songwriter who I had the honor of performing with in 2016. She has recorded jazz interpretations of a wide range of songs, from the ‘standard’...
View ArticleClik here to view.
tgcleary wrote a new post, Musical Neighbors: Mary Lou Williams, Thelonious...
Mary Lou Williams and Thelonious Monk Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell Bertha and Elmo Hope Although jazz musicians are usually understood either as solo artists or members of bands, there is another […]
View Articletgcleary commented on the post, A menagerie of intervals, on the site BirdFeed
from Raphael Weiner via email: A tune I find intriguing featuring an interval is Bright Mississippi (By Thelonious Monk performed by Allen Toussaint https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCHddHp8OAw). The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
tgcleary wrote a new post, Emulate, Assimilate, Innovate, Part 2: Bud Powell...
On May 8, 1947, pianist Bud Powell made his only studio recording with Charlie Parker, at a time when the saxophonist’s fame as a soloist and bandleader had recently begun to rise. He had recorded...
View Articletgcleary wrote a new post, Emulate, Assimilate, Innovate part 1 - stepwise...
Trumpeter, composer and educator Clark Terry, who I got to play with briefly in the early 2000s when he visited UVM, often used the phrase ’emulate, assimilate, innovate’ to describe the process by...
View ArticleClik here to view.
tgcleary wrote a new post, A history of the 'Autumn Leaves' progression (with...
Two of the most iconic jazz versions of Autumn Leaves combine the tune’s melody and chord progression with a rhythmic figure idiomatic to jazz sometimes called the ‘Charleston rhythm’. This title...
View Articletgcleary commented on the post, Sonatinas and other two-sided stories, on the...
Hi Jackson, Your mention of conversational echoes in Clementi op. 36 no. 1 is perceptive. While in a few places the left hand echoes something played earlier in the right hand with a similar phrase (as...
View Articletgcleary commented on the post, Emulate, Assimilate, Innovate part 1 -...
I’m glad you enjoyed Ella’s classic How High The Moon solo. There’s more where that came from in terms of her long form, tour de force solos. Check out her solo on C Jam Blues with the Count Basie...
View Articletgcleary commented on the post, From Watermelon Man to Cantaloupe Island and...
Hi Katie, Thanks for the comment. Your mention of modern revisions of Shakespeare as a parallel to Herbie Hancock’s reinventions of his own tunes is fascinating. There is also a great...
View Articletgcleary wrote a new post, Emulate, Assimilate, Innovate, Part 3: echoes of...
On December 3rd, 1941, the Duke Ellington Orchestra made their first recording of ‘Rain Check’, a composition by Billy Strayhorn, who had joined the Ellington organization as staff composer and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
tgcleary wrote a new post, An excerpt from Harvey Diamond's solo on 'Tenor...
Harvey Diamond is a Boston-based jazz pianist who has played with artists including Dave Liebman, Sheila Jordan and Art Farmer and two bassists I’ve also worked with, Harvie S and Jamie MacDonald....
View ArticleClik here to view.
tgcleary wrote a new post, 'Sideslipping' in clave: Arturo O'Farrill's solo...
Arturo O’Farrill is an amazing pianist and composer who has had a long recording and performing career and recently released his first album on Blue Note records, ‘Dreaming In Lions’. He is also the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
tgcleary wrote a new post, Ellavolution: Ella Fitzgerald's Evolution as an...
Many thanks to Professor Judith Tick, a music historian at Northeastern University, for providing the inspiration for this post. Most of the transcriptions shown here were commissioned as research...
View ArticleClik here to view.
tgcleary wrote a new post, Tonight these chords belong to me: a history of...
British bandleader Ray Noble published his tune ‘Cherokee’ in 1938. The tune begins with a chord progression that could be described as I – I7 – IV – iv – I. In this progression, the tonic chord...
View Articletgcleary commented on the post, A history of the 'Autumn Leaves' progression...
Hi Ben, ‘Homage’ is indeed using the progression from the A section of Autumn Leaves. Although the lyrics have a cool ring to them, the music theory they are based on is sketchy. The first four chords...
View Articletgcleary commented on the post, What is this scale called: Charlie Parker,...
Hi Richard, Thanks for the comment. I use the term ‘E flat 7th seven down to the third of C’ because the E natural in that descending scale replaces the E flat in the ascending 7th scale. The ascending...
View ArticleClik here to view.
tgcleary wrote a new post, Afternoon River Bop: a line on the changes to...
‘Tune Up’, by the alto saxophonist Eddie ‘Cleanhead’ Vinson, is one of a number of tunes which Miles Davis claimed to have written but which were actually composed by others. Other tunes in this...
View Articletgcleary commented on the post, Root systems, part 2 / Take three at a time:...
Hi Hannah, A root position chord voicing has the chord’s root as its lowest note, and a rootless voicing is one that omits the root. In what I call the ‘three note root position voicing’ of the ii-V-I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
tgcleary wrote a new post, 'You have to take a breath': Bertha Hope's...
Recently I’ve been lucky to have connected with the great pianist and composer Bertha Hope. She has recorded three stunning albums as a leader, ‘In Search of Hope’ (1990) , ‘Elmo’s Fire’ (1991), and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
tgcleary wrote a new post, 'Blue Mercy Line': doubletiming bop language on a...
Blue Mercy Line is a tune I composed on a chord progression in the key of A which could be described as A7-D7 or I7-IV7. I wrote this tune as an exercise in using the melodic language of Charlie...
View ArticleClik here to view.
tgcleary wrote a new post, Wall, cardboard and paper pianos as practice...
In 1947, the great jazz pianist and composer Bud Powell was sent to Creedmoor State Hospital, ‘one of the largest and most highly populated psychiatric facilities in New York State at the time’, writes...
View ArticleClik here to view.
tgcleary wrote a new post, Broken Heart for Sale: a tune based on the changes...
The song ‘All of Me’ by Seymour Simons and Gerald Marks is a jazz standard which has been recorded by countless artists. Two versions which show the multiple possibilities the tune contains for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
tgcleary wrote a new post, Leading with the left: Blues solos by Tommy...
In a Keyboard Magazine article from 2011, George Colligan uses the term ‘hand-to-hand conversation’ to describe an aspect of Horace Silver’s style on piano. He demonstrates this with an example from...
View Articletgcleary wrote a new post, Emulate, Assimilate, Innovate, part 4: Taking the...
The ‘Cool Blues’ lick was a phrase Charlie Parker used in multiple improvised solos, including his March 1946 recording of Yardbird Suite and his May 1947 recording of Cheryl. In February 1947 he...
View Articletgcleary commented on the post, Emulate, Assimilate, Innovate, part 4: Taking...
From Norm Williams via email: I think I detect most of the “cool blues” lick at about the 1’33” mark of “Professor Bop.” I wondered if there’s some compendium of blues and jazz licks somewhere. Wasn’t...
View ArticleClik here to view.
tgcleary wrote a new post, A swingin' dialogue: two choruses of Emmet Cohen's...
Below is my transcription of the first two choruses from Emmet Cohen’s intro piano solo from the version of Joe Lovano’s tune ‘Big Ben’ played on Episode 56 of the YouTube series Live From Emmet’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
tgcleary wrote a new post, The Sixth Sense: major and minor sixths in the...
The melody of Thelonious Monk’s blues Misterioso is based entirely on ascending major and minor sixths. For most of the tune, Monk maintains perpetual motion by building ascending sixths off ascending...
View ArticleClik here to view.
tgcleary wrote a new post, Sevenths reaching for the heavens (or other...
In two well-known melodies, one from the late 1950s and another from the mid-1960s, the ascending minor seventh interval is used to symbolize reaching for a not-yet-attained goal. Leonard Bernstein...
View ArticleClik here to view.
tgcleary wrote a new post, One Time Only (in memory of Ellen Powell), on the...
In memory of my friend, mentor and musical colleague, the great Vermont jazz bassist Ellen Powell, I wrote ‘One Time Only’, a tune based the changes of the jazz standard ‘There Will Never Be Another...
View ArticleClik here to view.
tgcleary wrote a new post, How to write a 'one bar blues', on the site BirdFeed
Throughout his career as a composer, Thelonious Monk composed a number of tunes that use the twelve-bar blues progression. Among these are tunes based on one-bar motives or ‘riffs’ which Monk...
View Article
