Charlie Parkers's Solo on "Bloomdido" Analyzed

So I have been hammered by what appears to be flu cancer and have been totally sick for a week, so it got me in front of my computer to do some nerd stuff with a very cool set of tools for music analysis called Music 21. It is written by some smarty pants that go to M.I.T, well, la de da, but they make it available for free, so when the revolution comes, we won't put them up against the wall. Not first anyway.

Music21 is a set of Python libraries (its a computer language) that knows about music. And boy, does it know stuff. This thing was written to analyze music and it can slice and dice musical info every way you want from last Tuesday.

Want to know the key of a tune? Psh. Easy.
Want to know how many "C" notes there are that are also 16th notes? Make me do something hard. Done.
What to label every note of a Charlie Parker solo so you can see what the relationship of each note is to the chord is played on?

Whaaaaa?

Yup, it can do stuff like that.

So for your analytical pleasure, I give you from the "Omnibook" Charlie Parker's solo on Bloomdido (a blues) with all of his notes labeled against each chord.

So what.

SOOO, this lets you break down and see the recipe for his licks.

For instance, instead of thinking of a lick as going "G A Bb C D C D", if you can see the relationship that those note have against a chord, say in this case G min, then you can use that lick on ANY minor chord. Rather than note names, if you think of the relationship these notes have, "Root, 9th, b3, 11, 5, 11" rather than just their names, this lets you see how they work against that chord, what their function is. If you want to do this lick in D minor now, play those notes - R, 9, b3, 11, 5, 11. It's a lot faster.

So here is the full pdf for your viewing pleasure. The file was taken from a Finale file someone posted on the internet, and I don't know where I got it, so if it was you, thanks.

Bloomdido Solo Analyzed

And here is Bird and Diz playing it, also with notation. This uses the Omnibook, and its not exactly the same as the version I got, but it is really close.

Music21 is pretty powerful and interesting, so if you are into music analysis and computers, check it out. More stuff to come using it in the future for sure. And if anyone has a solo or a bass line they want analyzed, just let me know. It needs to be in either a notation file format (Sibelius, Finale, etc.) or in MusicXML, with chord symbols on every measure, no empty measures.

Enjoy!

Send Some Good Thoughts in Justin Raines Direction

Justin Raines, bass player for Israel and New Breed and a very funky and melodic bass player has some health issues going on right now.

So follow him on Twitter and send him a note and let him know you are a bass player thinking about him. Let's send him some good thoughts, and if any of you have an extra kidney in good working condition you are not doing anything with...well, you should talk to Justin.

Check out Justin in action, and even if gospel ain't your thang, he brings it. C'mon that is some serious bass playing. Gorgeous.

The Pentatonic Lick Factory

UPDATE - added a PDF that shows a bunch of examples

You can never have too many pentatonic licks. Ever.

But, in the real world what usually happens is first you learn the little box shapes, okay cool, then maybe some of the other shapes, the ones that start on notes other than the root, and then.....it kinda tapers off.

What can happen after a while is you just keep playing the same box-shape licks over and over. And over and over and over. Or maybe you find another pattern that fits under your fingers, but you only have one or two familiar patterns you default back to or they are the ones that fit under everybody's fingers. I mean, I certainly have never done that. Of course not. Never. Okay, I totally have.

Then the question becomes - Well, how do I make/invent/discover/create new material anyway? If only there were some repeatable, step-wise process one could use to generate new licks and phrases for use in solos. Oh what a great world it would be...

Of course there is.

And I am going to show y'all one.

Links for Approach Tones

Here are a couple of links to more info on using approaches to chord tones in your solos:

1. A detailed post from a guitar forum (I know, just pretend it isn't) about various approach tones and using chord tones as targets.
   
2. A supposed Mike Stern lesson on approach tones. Written in god-awful brain damaging tab for your mental anguish, but it re-enforces some of the stuff about approach tones and shows a few more kinds.
   
3. This one has notation and a midi file.
   

Hadrian Destroying It At the Baked Potato

Good Lord. Utterly terrifying.

Hadrian Feraud taking a solo "Marching Powder" at The Baked Potato in Los Angeles (his new home town, apparently).

Daily Licking 033: Bridge and Last 8 of Bill Evans on Oleo

Without further ado, let us continue. We left our hero approaching the bridge to Oleo, with 8 full measures of nothing but dominant chords for him to smite and lay waste to. Let us witness the destruction that ensues!

I added the generic Rhythm Changes for the bridge, just so you can see how many altered notes he plays against the standard chords. Again, no nice little box patterns in this solo for bass, it is all about melodic shapes that don't come from Bass-land. Knock yourself out analyzing those notes against those bridge chords. For instance on the D7 he plays F naturals, A flats, D flats - its a free for all!

Daily Licking 032: 16 Measures of Bill Evans on "Oleo"

Happy Pi day. And Albert Einstein's birthday. So if you saw a black hole today, thats why.

And speaking of Nobel-prize winning german physicists and the speed of gravity, how about some Bill Evans licks?

I took this one from "Oleo" off his record "Everybody Digs Bill Evans". I predict that after listening and checking out what he did in just the first 16 measures of the tune you will see why the title of that record is very accurate. It was a trio with Sam Jones and Philly Jo Jones.

Y'all wanna hear a little bass? Damian Erskine with Alice Dimicele.

Mr. Erskine soloing over singer/songwriter progression #3 : D - C - G. Sounds pretty tasty though, simple doesn't mean lame. It's nice to hear what chops like that sound like over a "normal" progression that anyone in a cover band might come across.

This must be from relatively recent because he is playing his signature model 6 string.

Jaco Playing "All The Things You Are"

It's pretty rare to hear Jaco playing a standard from this era (or at all really, there are few but not many) the original poster claims this was in 1974, two years before his solo album came out, and would put Jaco at 22 years old. It's bootleg quality but pretty good.

It is with the same trio he recorded "Bright Sized Life" with, (metheny and moses) and he of course sounds freaking awesome. Pat does too. Heck, they all do.

This might be at Poo's Pub in Boston perhaps. Don't know.

Jaco and Hiram

I hadn't heard this track, and I thought I had heard all the Jaco in NYC stuff.

Jaco sounds pretty darn good, considering when this was in his life and the pharmacological implications of all of that. Some of his NYC stuff is painful to hear.

He does a few of his standard go-to pentatonic lines, but he sounds pretty cohesive and grooving.

I think this is called "Son of Creeper" anyone know? Not sure of the title, but Jaco gets two nice solos and Hiram and him trade licks as well and play what each other just played.

Larry Grenadier on "All The Things You Are"

Larry Grenadier is your basic total bad ass bass player. He has played with some of the heaviest of the heavies in jazz - Pat Metheny (was in his Trio 00) and has been Brad Mehldau's bass player for about ten years. He has some serious swing and is super melodic without having to resort to just chops. He plays what sound like simple solos but they are incredibly melodic at the same time. That is the hardest thing there is to do.

Smalls Jazz Club records their shows, and in the link below, Larry takes a chorus on the standard All The Things You Are. Hear how it's done in NYC.

Small's Jazz Club Live Shows - Larry Grenadier.