July Jazz Listening

Here you go, Jazz Band members! Listen and reply by email. Enjoy!

For your July dose of jazz listening, I want you to begin with some big band music. Remember, 99% of the high schools in America have a big band as their main ensemble. That means 5 saxes, 5 trumpets, 5 trombones, and rhythm. Everybody plays off of sheet music, just like in concert band, and there are a few students who improvise. The focus (usually) is on learning the charts, note for note, with proper jazz style, blend, and balance. At its worst, it becomes the same thing as a concert band rehearsal. Our model focuses on everybody learning to improvise and creating our own arrangements of classic jazz combo tunes.

In any case, you should be familiar with the big band style and sound, and the Count Basie Orchestra is a great place to start. His album, Straight Ahead, is a classic, and it is filled with tunes that high school bands play often. After listening, write me an email about how this differs from a typical combo recording and provide your own thoughts and opinions.

Straight Ahead - Count Basie

If you have never listened to Kind of Blue by Miles Davis, please read on. You don't need to do album three. If you know the album well, skip to recording number three.

This album is considered by many critics and jazz aficionados to be the greatest/most important album of all time. Listen to how the three main horn soloists, Miles Davis on trumpet, Cannonball Adderley on alto, and John Coltrane on tenor, differ in their approaches. Compare the two pianists, Wynton Kelly on "Freddie Freeloader" and Bill Evans on all the other tracks. Notice how the chord progressions move very slowly, especially in "So What." This was the birth of modal jazz, when Miles and others decided to focus on improvising interesting melodies by limiting the number of chord changes they had to navigate. That allowed them ample time to explore a single scale or mode. After listening, write up your thoughts about the three horns, two pianists, and any other thoughts you might have.

Kind Of Blue - Miles Davis

If you've already explored Kind of Blue in the past, listen to this greatest hits package by pianist/composer Thelonious Monk. His tunes are some of the most often played in all of jazz, and his playing style is very individual. Note how he uses clusters (dissonant bunches of closely-spaced notes), little flourishes on whole tone scales, and a very punchy touch on the keyboard. He is also a master of rhythmic displacement, meaning he will play a lick on one beat of a bar and then repeat it on another beat in a later bar, giving it a new perspective. You'll especially hear this in the main theme of "Straight No Chaser." Write up your impressions of his playing and tell me about one or two of your favorite tunes.

The Very Best - Thelonious Mon...