DECONSTRUCTING CHRIS POTTER An study of Chris Potter’s approach to jazz standards By Jordi Ballarín
Master of Music program. Main subject: Jazz saxophone Main subject teacher: Simon Rigter
Artistic Research Question
How can I acquire a contemporary improvisation vocabulary and improve my jazz phrasing through studying Chris Potter’s playing, focusing on his approach to jazz standards?
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Table of Contents INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 5 WHO IS CHRIS POTTER? .................................................................................................... 6 BIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................................... 6 ARTISTIC PERSONALITY AND MAIN INFLUENCES ............................................................. 7 TRANSCRIPTIONS ................................................................................................................ 9 PHRASING ............................................................................................................................ 40 PRELIMINARY CONCEPTS ........................................................................................................ 40 ANALYZING CHRIS POTTER PHRASING ............................................................................... 40 PRACTICING THE PHRASING .................................................................................................. 47 RHYTHM .............................................................................................................................. 51 TIME AWARENESS ...................................................................................................................... 51 TRAINING TIME AWARENESS ................................................................................................. 54 THE MIXED METER .................................................................................................................... 66 CREATING LINES ......................................................................................................................... 70 RHYTHM VARIETY ..................................................................................................................... 72 SOME TIPS FOR WORKING ON RHYTHMIC VARIETY ...................................................... 74 MELODYC DEVICES ........................................................................................................... 75 DIVIDING THE OCTAVE ............................................................................................................. 75 INTRODUCING VARIATIONS ................................................................................................... 79 HOW TO USE THIS OVER TUNES? .......................................................................................... 81 MORE ABOUT MOTIVIC DEVELOPMENT ............................................................................. 84 CREATING LINES 2 ...................................................................................................................... 86 MORE HARMONY ............................................................................................................... 87 TRITONE SUBSTITUTION ......................................................................................................... 87 OTHER REHARMONIZATIONS ................................................................................................ 90 THE Vb9, 13 CHORD .................................................................................................................. 92 PENTATONICS AND CONSTRUCTIONS IN PERFECT 4THS ............................................. 92 REFLECTION IN THE PLAYING ...................................................................................... 96 REFLECTIONS IN COMPOSING .................................................................................... 104 TUNE 1: BUT IT DID NOT HAPPEN. EXPERIMENTING WITH PHRASING. .............. 104 TUNE 2: ROTTERDAM BLUES. WORKING WITH DIVIDING THE OCTAVE AND RHYTHMIC DEVICES. .............................................................................................................. 111 COMMENTS ............................................................................................................................................. 116
CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................................... 118 AUDIO AND VIDEO MATERIAL TRACK LIST. .......................................................... 120 MEDIA REVIEW ................................................................................................................ 121 LITERATURE ............................................................................................................................. 121 CDs ................................................................................................................................................ 121 INTERNET .................................................................................................................................. 122
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INTRODUCTION
“There is something I found out about people I really respect how they make music and how they look at things, and it is that they are opened. They are curious and keep on checking stuff out. This how they got there in the first place, because they were curious and they wanted to learn. That is what I want to do and if I am a traditionalist in any way is that I want to try to follow the same process that seemed to get my heroes to be able to play something beautiful.” Chris Potter.
Why to choose Chris Potter as a subject for an Artistic Research? It comes from me listening to his playing and thinking: “I want to be able to do that”. To do what? To transmit the impression of being free when improvising. Playing pretty much inside the changes when I want and being able to go somewhere else if I feel like that is what the music needs, and all that in a fluent and coherent way. Of course, the goal of the research is not playing like Chris Potter. This is not going to happen, and that is not a bad thing. The goal is to check out his playing, try to figure out for which processes he went through to play the way he does, and see how can I apply it myself, finding my own ways through. Probably some things that worked for him will not work for me, or will work in a different way, or will bring me somewhere else, and that is fine. What I hear when listening Chris Potter play over jazz standards is a player with a deep knowledge of bebop with a very open-‐minded attitude that makes him look for new sonorities, new rhythms, new concepts to expand his playing. In this report I will put special attention on those elements that expand his playing from bebop into somewhere else. Anyway, I will always come back to jazz tradition, there is a whole world of things to learn for me there.
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WHO IS CHRIS POTTER?
BIOGRAPHY
Chris Potter was born on the first of January of 1971 in Chicago, and moved to Columbia, South Carolina, at a very early age. His parents were not musicians but they had a fairly good and heterogenic record collection. He remembers some Western Classical music records from Bach, Stravinsky or Bartok; some blues records, The Beatles, Bob Dylan…. And also some jazz records from Dave Brubeck, Charles Lloyd, Miles Davis or Eddie Harris. “The first music that grabbed me was the blues. My parents had some blues compilations from musicians from Chicago. Then went deep into The Beatles and was some years later that I discovered the jazz records and decided that I wanted to play the saxophone and I just kind of bugged my parents until they bought me a horn. So it was the saxophone that drove me deeper and deeper into this particular style of music but I think I always carried with me that idea that I just liked music. But of course was trying to learn to play the saxophone that I went deep into all the greats”.1 He started playing piano by him own at the age of 7 and saxophone at 10, first inspired by saxophone players like Johnny Hodges, Lester Young or Coleman Hawkins. It took a while, he says, until he understood Charlie Parker. But when he got it he went deep into figuring out how to play like him for some years. At the age of 15 he was playing regularly in his hometown. He remembers having two weekly gigs in the same place. One with a very traditional jazz band with which he remembers as a very good opportunity of learning how to play jazz in a traditional way; and other with a more experimental people with whom he played a more eclectic repertoire: maybe a standard and then playing free for a while and after that a Rollin’ Stone song. A prologue of the musician to come: a very opened minded player with a very deep knowledge of bebop. In 1989, at the age of 18 years old, he moved to New York and spent one year studying in the New School and two years in The Manhattan School of Music, graduating in 1993. During these years he joined the band of Red Rodney, the trumpet player that played in Charlie Parker’s band. He spent four years playing and learning at the side of the “the guy on the Charlie Parker record”. After graduation from Manhattan School of Music, Potter started a long series of sideman activities with many artists such as Ray Brown, Jim Hall, Dave Douglas, Mike Manieri, Dave Holland, Steely Dan or Paul Motian. Although he recognizes the influence of all the good musicians he worked with, through different interviews he emphasizes his admiration for Paul Motian, especially 1 Transcription from a Master class in the Filmmuseum, Amsterdam, 2008.
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because of his approach to music to not wanting to have a plan of what is going to happen. Being as un-‐analytical as possible. Chris Potter released his firs record as a leader in 1994: Presenting Chris Potter (Criss Cross). And there had been 14 in total including his last release on 2009: Ultrahang (Artistshare), recorded with his band called Underground, with Adam Rogers on guitar, Craig Taiborn on Rhodes and Nate Smith on drums. Through all this records we can recognize a very unquiet and curios musician in a constant search of new ways of self expression and enjoying challenging himself one way or another.
ARTISTIC PERSONALITY AND MAIN INFLUENCES
It is maybe a bit dangerous to describe somebody’s personality without knowing him, so maybe is smarter to write down what Chris Potters says about his musical identity: “My aesthetic is based in Bird and Lester Young and Sonny [Rollins]. I want my music to have that emotional impact. What I learned from them in terms of phrasing, sound, approach to rhythm will never be outdated. I would like to basically use the same aesthetic sensibility with more contemporary harmonic and rhythmic concepts, being influenced by classical, world music, funk, rock, rap, country, whatever...digesting new ideas, new influences to keep the freshness alive.”1 I think this defines quite well what I hear when listening Chris Potter (CP) play. Is quite obvious that his main musical background is traditional jazz, especially bebop, and at the same time is a person that likes music, no matter what style. If there is something that grabs his attention he wants to check it out. “Style is important, but it is more important to see things in common, things that speak to people in different styles.”2 In this sense, CP is a musician that wants to be influenced by a lot of different musical expressions. But the things that grabbed him at an early age seem to be the thread that connects all this influences. Charlie Parker is probably his biggest influence as a saxophone player, his main source of bebop vocabulary: “I always try to find a feeling of forward motion. Obviously bird found a tremendous way (…) it feels like it just has to keep going. Learning how
1 http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/musician.php?id=10384 2 Chris Potter Master Class DVD, Roberto’s Winds, New York, 2009.
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to play bebop is how I became able to create this feeling of constant motion”1
With Sonny Rollins I really hear a connection in terms of phrasing, especially in the strong articulation that they both use quite often. Also some harmonic solutions make me hear a thread in between CP and Rollins or Steve Grossman type of playing. CP often expresses his admiration for Lester Young and his ability of making beautiful music with very simple ideas and little material. Connecting with that idea, he often explains how much he learned from the works of Western Classical composers as Bach, Bartok or Stravinsky, mainly in terms of what level of complexity are you able to reach working out very simple ideas. “Complex things are just a bunch of simple things putted together”, he says. In the documentation process I did not listen or read from CP a reference to Michael Brecker as an important influence. Maybe it wasn’t for him, but I hear clear things in common in their playing. Similar ways of timing, with a big articulation variety and similar ways of dealing with material that connects them both with Coltrane and his experimentations with the harmonic and melodic possibilities of the different subdivisions of the octave. Being aware of all this musical and personal background of CP is very important because gives a perspective and a context to his artistic expressions that we will go through in this work and also makes me see CP playing as a very interesting subject of study by itself, but at the same time as a door by which I can connect myself with other beautiful musical expressions.
1 Chris Potter Master Class DVD, Roberto’s Winds, New York, 2009.
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TRANSCRIPTIONS CHRIS POTTER ON STANDARD JAZZ TUNES “Playing standards is a big thing on how do I approach everything. I don’t do it so much anymore, but that is so much in my background. And it is very often the framework that I will work whatever thing I want to work on”.5 Transcribed material from: Woody ‘n You • Red Rodney (1992), Then and now, Chesky Records. Airegin • Chris Potter (1993), Sundiata, Criss Cross. Amsterdam Blues • Al foster (1997), Brandyn, Laika records. Anthropology • Tom Cohen (1999), Digging in, digging out, Double time jazz. Stella by Starlight • Jim Hall (1999), the jazzpar quartet, Storyville. Star Eyes • Chris Potter (2001), Gratitude, Verve. Blues Nouveau • Jim Rotondi (2003), New Vistas, Criss Cross. All the things you are • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngoE1hreStc&feature=related Giant Steps • Bootleg recording in Denmark
5 Transcription from Chris Potter Online Lessons, www.artistshare.com
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PHRASING
PRELIMINARY CONCEPTS
“A lot of times I am just working on sound and articulation. I think I spent a lot on time on this, because this is the first thing people hear, and it is a life long thing. As much there is to learn about harmony and rhythm and form there is at least as much to learn in just sound and how to get from one note to the next.”6
Normally when talking about somebody’s “sound” on the horn we are not talking just about tone quality but of a whole picture: tone quality, timing, articulation… Sound and phrasing make as able to recognize Parker, Coltrane or whatever player we know after hearing a few notes coming out of their horns. It is a substantial part of “the voice” of each player. Nobody gets the same tone out of the horn, and there are not two players that phrase exactly the same way. We are going to categorize this concept of phrasing in 3 different aspects: • Timing: Placement of the notes in the context of a pulse. • Articulation: Attacks and releases of the notes. • Dynamics: The use of sound volumes. It is worth to say that all this aspects are not absolute things in any player. They might change depending on the specific situation: The mood of the player on that moment, which piece is being played, the tempo, relation and reaction to the other players, etc.
ANALYZING CHRIS POTTER PHRASING
CP phrasing is, to my ears, directly connected with Sonny Rollins and Charlie Parker, who actually was Rollins’ main influence as well, and developed it further on probably as a consequence or other rhythmical devices he implemented in his playing and that we well study with more details in the next chapter. 6 Chris Potter Master Class DVD, Roberto’s Winds, New York, 2009.
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Timing Talking about the eighth-‐note feel7, we could say that CP is very aware, in a conscious or unconscious way, of the relation of his playing with the pulse given by the rhythm section. As most of the great players, he is able to play on top of the beat, of push it forward, or lay it back depending on the moment, listening to what the phrase needs. And the same thing happens with his swing feel, normally played on a quite straight way, and in concrete spots with an emphasized triplet feel. The following example shows what looks like a constant in CP playing: Playing on top of the beat and laying back the ends of the phrases. Example 1: Fragment of Chris Potter solo on Woody n’ You.
This feeling of laying back the end of the phrases is often mixed up with a more accented swinging intention: Example 2: Fragment of Chris Potter Solo on Woody n’ You.
7 Eighth note feel: this expression makes a reference to the placement of consecutive eighth notes in the context of a pulse and groove, and in this particular case we are talking about swing grooves.
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The so called swing feel tends to appear in a more clear way when CP goes into more simple lines, where he deals with few notes, creating a sensation of going with the groove. Example 3: Fragment of Chris Potter solo on Stella by Starlight
In the next example we can hear very clearly how he is playing in the backside of the beat for a whole blues chorus and immediately changing the time feel from the beginning of the next chorus. Example 4: Fragment of Chris Potter solo on Amsterdam Blues.
Articulation In the context of saxophone playing, articulation has mainly to do with the decisions made on how and when to put your tongue on the reed, what is know as tonguing. Articulation is very tight up with the timing, or better to say, with the time feel. The choices the player does on how to articulate the line will influence the time feel. Traditionally, the basic articulation when playing jazz, talking about consecutive eighth notes, would be like this:
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Consequently with the articulation there will we an accent on every upbeat eighth note, which would be more or less obvious depending on the player. This type of articulation creates a kind of swing feel, even if the timing of the eighth notes goes more on the straight side. Example 5: Fragment of Chris Potter solo on Blues Nouveau
In CP playing, at least in the material analyzed in this research, that is all playing over swing grooves, this is also the main articulation technique. But we find very often eighth notes lines where all the notes are articulated, in a way that reminds me a bit to Harold Land’s phrasing. Example 6: Fragment of Chris Potter solo on Stella by Starlight
This kind of articulation emphasizes a lot the straight feel of the eighth notes. It is less common in higher tempos, where is harder to play and maybe not that nice. Of course there are many places in the middle of these two described articulation techniques and CP came out to be a very flexible player in this issue, as we can see in the following transcription of a chorus over Star Eyes.
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Example 7: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Star Eyes.
Dynamics Dynamics related to music blocks is something normally underused in straight ahead jazz, unless we are talk of ballads. We don’t hear very often crescendos or diminuendos in this music, or a whole phrase played forte and the next one pianissimo. There are always exceptions, but this is the most common situation. In the other hand, there is and important roll of dynamics inside the traditional bebop line: the creation of accents in certain notes. This part of
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dynamics is again closely related with the articulation, because most of the times this accents are created not only by playing louder, but also by attacking the note (tonguing). The combination of these two elements will create a stronger accent, a very ruff one, or one very subtle. If we focus again in CP playing we listen a quite aggressive way of attacking the notes and very pronounced accents, that connects him again with players such as Sonny Rollins or Steve Grossman. This connection is even more clear to my ears when listening a way of phrasing some lines that I think is like a sort of trademark of this kind of playing. Putting it in to words, I am talking about arpeggios played in eighth notes or eighth note triples were the target note has a strong accent and the eighth note just before that is played staccato, in a more or less exaggerated way depending on the particular case. Described like this sounds very confusing, maybe is better just to listen to some examples. Example 8: Fragment of Chris Potter solo on Blues Nouveau.
It is also very common to listen one staccato eighth note as a kind of pick up for the note on the beat. Example 9: Fragment of Chris Potter solo on Airegin.
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Phrasing as rhythm creator
The basic of bebop language is build up from eighth note lines, combined with eighth note triplets. To emphasize target notes of the line, normally the top notes, an accent is played. Example 10: Fragment of Charlie Parker solo over Bloomdido
This implies a certain rhythm. These rhythms are created basically by putting an accent either on a note on the beat or on a note on the upbeat, creating combinations of groups of two, three or four eighth notes. As I already said, bebop is CP’s main musical background, and this motion implied in the phrasing is a very important characteristic of his playing. Actually he has developed this because of implementing different rhythmic devices, as groups of 5, 6 or 7 eighth notes, into his playing. These groupings also create sequences of two, three or four notes, but somehow they generate different sequences that create rhythmic progressions over the bar line. Example 11: Fragment of Chris Potter solo on Blues Nouveau
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Example 11: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Giant Steps
As you can see in the examples, this rhythms are implied in the line, but actually the choices of where to put the accent and how strong would this accent be can change completely the meaning of the phrase and suggest another rhythm implied on the phrase. One of the constants that appear when listening to CP talking about his approach to music is the will of creating contrast and a feeling of what he calls forward motion. The variety on the phrasing described on this chapter is a huge tool for generating contrast: Playing on the bit, and pushing it forward or laying it back depending on the moment, emphasizing the swing feel on a certain spot an after that playing some very straight articulated eighth note line, etc. To be able to combine all this elements in an organic way makes the musical speech way more interesting.
PRACTICING THE PHRASING
“I listen and try to copy a lot of different people. I play along with records of Bird, Lester Young, Miles, Louis Armstrong, Stan Getz, Coltrane, Sonny, Wayne… And just feel how that time feel feels like. Sometimes is surprising.”8 This is the hard part when talking about time feel. I can think to play more in front or more laid back but at the end of the day you just have to feel it; it is not something that you can grab from words. I am not discovering nothing new if I say that a great way of doing that is to play the solo transcription with the 8 Transcription from Chris Potter’s Master Class in Humber College, Toronto, Canada, 2009.
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record and try to play as close as possible, being even more important to play with the same type of phrasing that playing all the correct notes. Or just play along with the record, and try to put the feel of the phrasing into your own playing. In this particular case, playing through CP solo transcriptions has been a very challenging thing to do. CP is a player that really masters the instrument on a technical level and I found walls I decided not to try to climb during this one and a half year research. Playing fluently as he does in the altissimo register has been the highest wall, and I decided to not deal with that in this research. Another thing that was quite new for me was the level of activity of the tongue. Not only in the intensity of the articulation but mainly in its flexibility. My playing was based in the standard jazz articulations and I found extremely enriching to practice CP solos for this issue. I also wrote down some articulation sequences for consecutive eighth note lines that I incorporated in my practicing routines, that I found very useful to improve my flexibility on this subject:
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This can look like a pretty basic thing for a classically trained player. They are more used to train articulation flexibility, but it is something generally left apart by jazz musicians. I did not try to practice all the lines or all the scales with all the different articulations given. But I found it an interesting thing to experiment while practicing, to listen how they change the meaning of a specific line, or a concrete scale pattern. Sometimes some of them will work very nicely and others just wouldn’t fit the concrete line. I like to thing about this also as a way of ear training, understanding it like hearing a specific “sound”, with all the implications that word has. Also found interesting to try out articulation sequences that imply an uneven when the line doesn’t suggest it.
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Example 12: Line with a 7 eighth note grouping.
Example 13: Same articulation in a scale
This would be a clear example of how phrasing can emphasize a certain rhythmic structure, either implied on the line or not. For seeing further experimentations with phrasing go to the chapter Reflections on composition.
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RHYTHM
Rhythm is probably the central issue in CP’s playing. He really developed a very rich and complex rhythmical concept that came out of trying to implement in his bebop playing different kind of influences from other music styles. “First I was just thinking this down the middle bebop thing, and then gradually bringing some other things in there: how tabla players would play some groups of sevens, put the triplets in a slightly different spot in the bar, how some Cuban musicians play over the bar line (…) I started to think how can I still be playing confirmation or whatever, but start to use those things. And I think started first by singing this rhythms and trying to figure out what notes could work”.9 He also names western classical composers as Bartok or Stravinsky as very important influences to develop his rhythmic concept: “They used this groupings of notes, maybe 7 notes over a 4/4, creating all this complicated polyrhythms. This was very new for western classical music but not in other cultures like African music. But not used in this kind of odd meter, it was usually related to some kind of 4 and 6. And as far as I know this music was an important influence for Stravinsky to write The Rite of Spring”.10 Listening to CP’s discography is quite obvious that he also developed a very fluent speech improvising in uneven measures. In this research I will not go through that, I will focus on figuring out how applies the mentioned influences in a 4/4 context. We well go through that developing two concepts: Time awareness and rhythmic variety.
TIME AWARENESS
I use this concept referring to everything that implies over imposing a certain rhythm, either melodically or harmonically, which suggests a different division of time than the one implied in the given time signature. Normally these are called cross rhythms. In CP’s playing we can listen this happen constantly. I organized the rhythms he plays attending to the length of the whole patter, distinguishing three different categories: • Cross rhythms with the length of 5 eighth notes. • Cross rhythms with the length of 6 eighth notes. • Cross rhythms with the length of 7 eighth notes. 9 Chris Potter Master Class DVD, Roberto’s Winds, New York, 2009. 10 Chris Potter Master Class DVD, Roberto’s Winds, New York, 2009.
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Let’s see some examples: Example 1: Chris Potter playing rhythm in 5 over the first four bars of Airegin’s B part.
Example 2: Chris Potter playing rhythm in 6 over Giant Steps
Example 3: Chris Potter playing rhythm in 6 over All the things you are.
Example 4: Chris Potter playing a rhythm in 7 over Giant Steps
This last one is just happening for two bars and actually sounds more like a variation of one idea. But I am pretty sure he started to hear this kind of things by moving a rhythm like that for longer periods over the bar line. The three examples shown above demonstrate how to play this cross rhythms keeping the harmonic rhythm. I also noticed that CP is able to anticipate or delay harmonic changes without loosing track of where is the one. I do not know if he developed this ability from this approach but for me it is definitely related.
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Example 5: Fragment of Chris Potter Solo over Blues Nouveau.
In this example we can observe how the target notes are a bit displaced from where we normally would expect them to be. The note B in the G7b9 is in the forth beat, and the resolution in the third of Cm7 (note Eb) is delayed till the third beat of the bar. And because of the context we can notice that it is not an accident. He is perfectly aware of where he is. This is even clearer in the following example. Example 6: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Amsterdam Blues.
Starting from the 7th bar of the form, we could say that he is playing some different changes. Instead of F7, D7b9, Gm7, C7, he is playing A major, Ab major, G major, C7. But at the same time he is outlining these alternate changes on groups of 6 consecutive eighth notes starting on the upbeat of the third beat of F7, creating a harmonic rhythm in ¾ that lands on the first beat of the C7. Of course he is not thinking all these things on that moment, but for sure he spend some time in the practice room figuring out how to do that till reaching the point of just hearing that kind of lines during the playing.
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TRAINING TIME AWARENESS
The first difficulty presented when dealing with cross rhythms is to be able to feel the two different layers going on at the same time. This means to be able being able to play the 5, 6 or 7 without loosing the one of the 4/4 bar. For these I found very useful to work out some exercises without the horn:
This would be the basic schema for a 6 eighth note cross rhythm over a 4/4. The idea is to play both rhythmic layers being able to feel them independently, so we know in which beat of which bar are we in any moment. Once we are able to do it as it is written we can try to change one rhythm from one hand to another, or play the bottom line with the feet and clap the upper one, or whatever other combination that comes to our mind. And then try to switch from one set put to the other without stop. All this kind of games will keep our brain active and will help internalize the relation in between the two rhythms. The same approach should be done with the basic outline of fives and sevens:
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The next thing I did is try to figure out different rhythmic patterns that imply this kind of over the bar line divisions. I tried to go from the very simplest ones to the busiest ones.
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We got here a lot of different possibilities of outlining cross rhythms in five, six and seven. The next step would be to be able to play these patterns over a tune without loosing track of the harmonic rhythm. For that I found very useful as a first step and exercise I got from Steve Coleman. The idea is to play the same patter over the tune, and first play only the bass notes of the changes. Once you are able to do that you can start to go to different layers, outline a certain voice leading and slowly get into improvising melodies.
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CD 2/TRACK 1
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On the last chorus of the last demonstration I tried to outline a complete voice leading over the changes. By doing that combined with this cross rhythm concept I started to get some melodic structures that remind me somehow to CP playing. I guess when he says that some harmonic things from his playing came out of developing these rhythmic concepts one of the things he is talking about is this. In the following example we can see a line with sort of the same approach, combining a clear outline of chord changes with a cross rhythm in 6. Example 7: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over All the things you are Track and time
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The following demonstration over a rhythm changes takes the same kind of approach, but the rhythmic patter is changing in every section by adding an extra eighth note.
CD2/TRACK 2
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This is a nice way of practicing for me. Putting obligations in order to force myself to do thing I cannot do. Hopefully by doing that a lot it starts to get into my playing in a natural way. I also notice that being able to play these rhythms in a fluent and organic way creates a kind of motivic type of playing, because actually is just about moving a rhythmic sequence and displace it over the bar line. The image showed in the following page is a fragment of an exercise written by Chris Potter himself. I downloaded it from www.artistshare.com. It shows pretty clearly that he went in this direction to work on this cross rhythm thing. Again he emphasizes that the purpose of this exercises is not to play them exactly. They should be considered as a blueprint from where start building up our own solutions to find a way through the changes and the rhythmic patter at the same time.
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THE MIXED METER
Till now we just talked about playing a cross rhythm melodically, but respecting the harmonic rhythm. Another possible thing to do is to play a cross rhythm in a harmonic sense. The following exercises are based on this concept that I learned from Simon Rigter. The starting idea is to impose a harmonic rhythm in ¾ over the normal 4/4 structure of a song. Is possible to keep this two layers going on for as long as you want. At the beginning I started doing it during three 4/4 bars, that is the length that this game needs in order to make the match again the first beat of the two time signatures. Like this sounds very complicated, let’s see a practical example. This is the harmonic structure of the B part of Airegin, by Sonny Rollins:
So if we change the harmonic rhythm of the first three bars of the first and second pentagram we would get the following harmonic rhythm:
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Having this schema in mind we will come with lines like this one:
CD2/TRACK 3
Looking at it can seem to be very awkward thing to do. But it actually sounds pretty normal outlined this way. In fact the only thing that is happening is that some chords are being anticipated and some resolutions are being delayed. Charlie Parker was already doing that without maybe thinking of it. Depending on which form we want to do this mixed meter, we will not have enough chords to fill in the ¾, so we will have to add some, like we can observe in this line Simon Rigter made up over All the things you are during a lesson I had with him:
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CD2/TRACK 4
For now what we this is make an alternate harmonic rhythm in 3 over the 4/4. But it has not to be necessarily like that. We can think about other harmonic rhythms, and we can make them also in a not regular way. This is an example of that over Giant Steps:
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CD2/TRACK 5
Also dealing with groupings of 5 and 7 consecutive eighth notes can be approached with a harmonic implication. Basically it works more or less the same way, creating a delay in the harmonic rhythm. But is very hard to keep it for long periods, so I just worked it out in little environments like a II V I progression.
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Example 7: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Anthropology.
CREATING LINES
This kind of lines I found transcribing CP made me try to figure out how can I do it myself. Normally all the shapes we practice over the scales or all the lines we try to be able in every key through the horn are based on structures in two or four, and sometimes in three. And consequently these are the things that, at least in my case, come to my ear and to my fingers while improvising. So I started to look for lines and shapes in five and seven, first just adapting material I already know. For example, a II V I line like this one:
Can become a five-‐note groupings line just by changing all that seventh chords into ninth chords:
As I said before, lines like that imply again a delay in the harmonic rhythm. In this case the line resolves to the first degree in the third beat of the third bar. I also found quite handy to adapt some octatonic shapes in similar ways:
into:
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All this kind of shapes, applied to whatever scale can be isolated and worked out as technical exercises. I am writing them on the context of changes because at the end this was the tricky part for me. In the example written above the octatonic sequence is repeated five times being the last note of the last group in the first beat of the fourth bar. Notice also that harmonically, the lines implies a dominant sound that actually doesn’t resolve to the one, goes over it till reaching the next dominant chord. Lines with this kind of approach can be founded in CP playing: Example 8: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Airegin
Going back to where I was, talking about creating lines in fives and sevens, I came up with some kind of “rules” to be able to make a smooth transition to the real pulse. Not in a very systematic way like trying to figure out all the possibilities, just realizing some constants that made the lines work for me. So I know that if play five eighth notes three times I need an extra passing tone to reach the one of the third bar:
Or, like we already saw, playing five eighth notes four times we get to the third beat of the third bar, or five times and the last note of the last grouping is in the first beat of the forth bar. Or playing two times seven eighth notes, starting in the second beat and finishing on the first beat of the third bar.
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Playing three times seven and the last note of the last group is the third beat of the third bar.
Starting in the upbeat before the one, playing three times seven we land on the third beat of the third bar.
Through these mental games I create lines over II V I progressions or turn arounds. Lines to play through the twelve keys in order to build up a bit of vocabulary based on this concept. I think working on all this things we talked about till now in this chapter are very helpful. First, because it causes a huge enrichment of your playing in a rhythmical sense; and second, because they contribute in training the ear in a rhythmical and time perception aspect. This helps to be aware of which moment of the bar you are in every moment without needing to rely in the rhythm section for that.
RHYTHM VARIETY
Closely related to this search we just saw in the previous section, CP has developed a very rich pallet of rhythms that he uses in a very surprising way, looking for the creation of contrast in his playing. Example 9: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over All the things you are.
The use of quarter note triples, mixed up with eighth note triplets is a trademark of CP playing. Also the use of sixteenth notes combined with triplets is very common, giving a feeling of tension. Example 10: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Anthropology.
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He also likes to play with rhythmic patterns that are on the limit in between the binary subdivision and the ternary subdivision. Sometimes this is just insinuated by the timing, and sometimes is very clear. Example 11: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Giant Steps
In this last example we can hear the effect of a syncopated pattern turning on a quarter note triplet. This connects again with the concept of rhythm as a tool to develop a single idea. This happens very clearly in the following examples. Example 12: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Blues Nouveau.
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Example 13: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over All the things you are.
SOME TIPS FOR WORKING ON RHYTHMIC VARIETY
The tips I received from different people in my network about how to develop rhythmic variety have a lot to do with practice improvisation with obligations. In lessons with Jasper Blom we established the following possible parameters: • Play phrases starting only on the first beat, and after that in the upbeat of the first beat, in the second beat, and so on. • Use the same approach but applied to the endings of the phrases • Be aware of the different rhythmic figures (half note, dotted quarter note, quarter note, quarter note triplet, eighth note, eighth note triplet, sixteenth note, sixteenth note triplet) and improvise trying to use them all. • Play only in eighth note triplets, or in quarter note triplets. Seamus Blake proposed me also to think as a drummer when improvising, and as a kind of exercise limit myself to three or four pitches as if they where the tombs of the drum kit, to focus in the rhythmical phrasing. CD2/TRACK 6: Example of improvising using different rhythmic figures over an F blues.
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MELODYC DEVICES
It is quite artificial to separate rhythm from melody, and both from harmony. Decisions made in one or another of this categories affect unavoidably the others. In this chapter we will focus very specifically on how CP develops melodic devices from very simple ideas, because I think this is one of the main aspect that made his playing develop from the bebop language to other kind of melodic shapes. These constructions built up from little cells have interdependent with harmonic and rhythmic choices, but I think the process I will describe in this chapter has the melody as a starting point.
DIVIDING THE OCTAVE
Dividing In Equalin Parts This is a concept CP The talks Octave about repeatedly different workshops and master classes. The idea of the division of the octave in equal parts is a concept that became very popular in jazz music after the research made in this field by Dividing The Octave In Equal Parts John Coltrane. He first applied this principle harmonically, creating chord progressions related to dividing the octave in three equal parts, obtaining three ˙ the other. Compositions like Giant & cdistance one from Tonics in a major third ˙ Steps, Countdown, 26-‐2 or Satellite are based on this principle. On later works Coltrane did not “need” to have this progressions in the rhythm sections to be ˙ &c able to hear similar relations in his improvised melodies. Coltrane is one of the ˙ Probably the first step one can make, if he or she wishes to depart from the use of traditional tonal and modal most influential saxophonist of the XX century, and many other great musicians, progressions and melodic structures, is to delve into material derived from the division of the octave into intervals like for example Michael Brecker, got inspired by his playing and developed his of equal value. concepts on their own way. The intervals that step divideone thecan octave equal parts are the the first make,into if he or she wishes to following... depart from the use of traditional tonal and modal Probably progressions and melodic structures, is to delve into material derived from the division of the octave into intervals The main source of inspiration for Coltrane relating this subject was the of equal value. work Thesaurus of scale and melodic patterns, by Nicolas Slonimsky, a The intervals that divide the octave into equal parts are the following... compilation of material based on symmetric relations. The first part of this work The Minor Thirdoctave in equal Major Third The deals with mtritone. aterial generated fThe rom the idea of the division of the 7thmajor arpegio.) thirds (an (Augmented parts. The octave can be divided in arpegio.) two tritones, (Diminished in three 3 ˙ minor thirds (#diminished œ steps augmented four seventh chord), sœix whole & œ œ bMinor œ Third #triad), ˙ œ b œ The ˙ œ œ The Major Third The tritone. (whole tone scale) or twelve half steps (chromatic scale). (Diminished 7th arpegio.) (Augmented arpegio.) 3 &
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3 Using the above material as a creative basis of harmonic progressions, melodies and scales, or even as tools for 3 3 If wreharmonizing e consider more than one will octave, we get the est of tused he iinntervals voicing and/or tonal or modal melodies, sound different from the rtechniques Tonal and whit Modal textures. The reason foroctaves this fact, is are that tonal and modalin concepts, areminor based on the way theintervals, Overtone Series in the octave. Two divided three sixth what is shaped, whch a utterly natural structure-therefore while this concept based on Symmetry Alone. actually is isan augmented triad in an Asymmetric, open inversion, so isconsequently closely Using the above material as a creative basis of harmonic progressions, melodies and scales, or even as tools for Cadences, "Musical Gravity", Tonal Centers (Not always), Functions and all other aspects that define music as a voicing and/or reharmonizing modal but melodies, sound different from the techniques used in Tonal and language, are needless to saytonal still or present, with a will very different character. Modal textures. The reason for this fact, is that tonal and modal concepts, are based on the way the Overtone Series is shaped, whch is a utterly natural structure-therefore Asymmetric, while this concept is based on Symmetry Alone. (Not©always), Functions and all other aspects that define music as a75 Copyright 2005 dlazaridis.com Cadences, "Musical Gravity", Tonal Centers language, are needless to say still present, but with a very different character.
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related to the division in major thirds11. Three octaves can be divided in four major sixth intervals, what actually is an unfolded diminished chord. The perfect fifth is one-‐twelfth part of seven octaves, and the perfect forth is a twelfth part of five octaves. So by these divisions we get again the twelve notes in the octave. Also with the major sevenths, which actually are the inversions of the minor seconds, and represent the division of eleven octaves. The minor seventh is the division of seven octaves into six parts. These divisions of the octave are directly related to scales and harmonic progressions. We just saw that the whole tone scale and the chromatic scale are the division of the octave in six and twelve parts respectively. Some other scales, if not coming from this idea, they are unavoidably related to it, like the hexatonic scale and the octatonic scale outlined here, that in fact come out of over imposing on a minor second distance two augmented triads and two diminished seventh chords respectively:
There are also harmonic relations related to this idea of dividing the octave. The famous circle of 4rths or fifths is a good example of how tonal music is related to this. I already mentioned the progression known as Coltrane changes, but actually all the progressions based on parallel movements can be also related to this concept. I do not want to go deep into this. It would take too long. I just wanted to show the idea because in spite that I will develop this idea from a melodic point of view, it is impossible to ignore the harmonic connotations of these melodic sequences that, depending on how we apply them, are more obvious or less. So, going back to CP’s practicing tips. The idea is very simple. We choose a simple motive and we transpose it symmetrically through the horn in different intervals: Minor seconds, major seconds, minor thirds, major thirds, perfect fourths and tritones. Eventually also in fifths, sixths and sevenths, but actually this ones are inversions of the others. Let’s do it with a very simple cell: a perfect 4th
11 Starting from the tritone, all the intervals have a mirror. So the perfect forth is the inversion of the perfect fifth, the major third is the inversion of the minor sixth, minor third – major sixth, major second –minor seventh, minor second – major seventh. Because of these relations we get the same amount of intervals till we reach again the starting tone.
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Notice I skipped the perfect forth division, just because it meant repeating a note in this concrete case. But it could be done of course. Also we can do that in sixth and seventh intervals if we want to. Also notice that in this specific case we get some lines that fit certain scales. A perfect forth moved in minor thirds fits the diminished scale and moved in major thirds fits the hexatonic scale written before in this chapter (half step below).
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To go through all the possibilities we should do it also starting from C# when doing it in whole steps, and from C# and D when doing it in minor thirds; C#, D and Eb for the major thirds; and C#, D, Eb, E and F for the tritone. Of course there is a technical aspect in being able to play fluently this ideas through the register of the instrument, but the main thing of this is to train your brain and your ear to be able to move whatever idea to the layer you want in a fluent way. This is another example with a bigger cell:
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This would also be a clear example of harmonic connotations of this process. Even if we just think that as a melodic cell constructed by a major second, a minor third and a major third, we are actually outlining a minor seventh chord on a third inversion, or a major six chord in the second inversion. So actually moving this cell implies creating this harmonic movement very clearly.
INTRODUCING VARIATIONS
We can modify whatever cell in a melodic level in the following ways: Given cell:
Retrogradation:
Inversion:
Retrogradation of the inversion:
Changing the order of the notes:
This way we find multiple variations from one idea that we can again transpose in different intervals in the same way we did with the original cell, or we can try to mix them up:
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These variation processes and the possibility of mixing them up create a crazy amount of combinations. There is no sense in trying to practice all of them, but is good to be aware of the endless possibilities of a little idea like this. It is a good way to find material that maybe I wouldn't find relying only on my intuition. Through this system I find things that I like and then I go with them. Other things just don't work for me and I leave them. It is maybe nice also to try to mix these variations randomly while improvising, or jumping form one to the other not always in the same interval but in whatever interval comes to your ear. CD2/TRACK 7: Improvising with a three note cell over an F blues. Another thing I tried to do while practicing these things is to combine it with the rhythmical material we talked about in the previous chapter. Four note patterns would fit the line in different cross rhythms like this:
Also is possible to use rhythmic patters that imply more notes, crossing on the cell as well, what can make the structure less comprehensible, if maybe that is what you want:
Something I found out also while checking out CP’s solos is the possibility of generating a cell from this logic and then transpose it in minor seconds, major seconds, etc. Making a kind of division of the divided octave.
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We would continue this in minor thirds, major thirds and so on. Also could figure out variations of this.
Again we could see these lines like something by themselves or just as another step in this game to train transposing and modifying little melodies.
HOW TO USE THIS OVER TUNES?
We are going back to CP’s solos to figure out how he uses this material in his playing. Sometimes these sequences are very nice just by themselves, and they have an enough strong statement in order to sound good even if they have
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“wrong notes” that do not fit the harmony. If the idea is clear and it is played with intention works. Simply moving something chromatically can be a very handy tool to create some tension. Example 1: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Airegin
Here and example of playing with a perfect forth in different layers and directions, on a sort of Eb modal context. Example 2: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Star Eyes.
In the following example we can see again a perfect forth being moved chromatically combined with a cross rhythm in six. Example 3: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Blues Nouveau.
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The structures generated with these sequences can be played completely unrelated to the harmony, or also in a way that keeps somehow a relation with it. Example 4: Fragment of Chris Potter solo on Anthropology
The following example is the fragment from where I took the example to show the division of the divided octave. Example 4: Fragment of Chris Potter solo on Amsterdam blues
Another way of using this material is sneaking them into a more harmonically clear line, creating a kind of spicy moment in the line. Example 5: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Giant Steps
In the example above we can observe, in the third bar of the second pentagram, a symmetric idea that doesn’t fit the harmony. It is just a tiny moment of outside playing inside a line where the harmony is very clearly outlined. This is maybe more clear in the next example.
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Example 6: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Blues Nouveau
As I said when explaining the way of practicing these ideas, one of the main goals is to gain fluency in transposing and introducing variations in a simple motive, what actually helps a lot in developing a motivic concept in your playing. Example 7: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Airegin
Of course when talking about motivic development fitting the harmony, the symmetries “suffer” some corrections in order to fit the chords, and also other motivic variation tools have to be considered.
MORE ABOUT MOTIVIC DEVELOPMENT
“In a jazz solo there is enough material to write ten symphonies if you use this material as a thematic thing. So maybe sometimes we are just working too hard. The problem is not that I am not generating enough material, the problem is that I am not working with the material that I have in an intelligent enough way that I can do something with it. What I specially like about this way of thinking is that you are creating areas of certain continuity and an area of contrast.”12 12 Chris Potter Master Class DVD, Roberto’s Winds, New York, 2009.
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We already talk a bit about motivic development. We saw how playing cross rhythms have a motivic connotation and we also so some possibilities of melodic variations of a motive in the previous section: Transposition, retrogradation, inversion and inversion of the retrogradation. The combination of these melodic and rhythmic concepts gives already a lot of possible material, but there are some more elements to consider, like changing the rhythms of the phrase, repeating notes, condense or amplify the phrase by adding or quitting notes, make the intervals bigger or smaller, etc. Example 8: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Stella by Starlight
This is a clear example where some of the mentioned things are being used. Improvising is composing in the moment, so all the studies about how to develop and connect motives can be related to improvisation. I did not go deep into that because it could be a single research by itself. I particularly like to work this kind of playing based on intuition, and practice it by improvising. This is something I did in lessons with Jasper Blom, and it is also something that Chris Potters says he does a lot: Just take a very simple idea, two or three notes, and try to develop it in an organic way through a form or even just freely. CD 2/TRACK 8: Developing a motive over Stella by Starlight I want to insist also in how all the material we are talking about refers to the concept of creating contrast in the improvisation. Creating a certain image with your playing and then introducing something new that changes this image, and in fact this new element acquires a different relevance because its relation
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with the previous image. It is about having a palette with a lot of colors and being able to combine them in a smart way to obtain a more interesting painting.
CREATING LINES 2
Following the routine described in the previous chapter, I also tried to figure out some lines based in the symmetric movement of lines. Besides the possible applications described, when looking for lines I was trying to keep a kind of relation with the harmony, looking for ways of outlining the chords with this kind of structures. Actually works very well to combine these symmetric lines with the groupings of five, six and seven notes.
This line is built from playing something around Gm7 and then moving it in minor thirds to Bbm7 (that is the same than Gm7b5) and then to Dbm7, that is kind of C7alt. The line continues with Em7 over Fmaj7, where only the F# is a “wrong note”. The following line is based on the same idea but in groups of five.
Other ideas:
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MORE HARMONY
We already saw that the development of the rhythmic concept described and the octave division have consequences in the harmony. But there are more things to talk about.
TRITONE SUBSTITUTION
This is something used very often in jazz improvisation, and definitively something that appear many times in CP’s playing. For those who are not familiar with the concept, the tritone substitution consists in replacing a given dominant chord for another one on a tritone distance. These chords have in common the tritone interval created in between the third and the seventh, that is what actually gives the dominant sound that needs to resolve.
Based on this relation, is very common to play a II V line of the tritone instead of the “normal” one. Example 1: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Star Eyes
In the third bard of the example, the line clearly outlines a C#m7 F#7, resolving to Fmaj7. There some spots in some tunes where this kind of substitutions became a sort of standard reharmonization. For example, in All the things you are, playing a D7 to go to Dbmaj7, instead of the original Abmaj7. Example 2: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over All the things you are.
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Sometimes not the whole II V is substituted, and the both layers are combined. In the following example, CP plays B7 (tritone V), to Cm7 to F7. Example 3: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Stella by Starlight.
The original chords and their substitutions can be combined and connected in different ways. In the next example the tritone V is played after the normal V, getting into next bar. Example 4: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Blues Nouveau.
We also can find tritone substitutions played on different beats of the bar, creating again a certain delay in resolving to the one. Example 5: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Stella by Starlight
Starting on the third beat of the second bar, CP plays an E7 chord that connects with a Dmaj7 that resolves to Ebmaj7 on the third beat of the third bar. The Dmaj7 is just an extension of E7, attending to Barry Harris explanations about chord outline:
Attending to this explanation Dm7b5 (VII), Fm7 (II), and Abmaj7 (VI) are extensions of Bb7 (V). And the same logic can be applied to its tritone substitute, E7.
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Actually, many times we listen lines like this one: Example 6: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Stella by Starlight
The Ab7 is expanded till the third beat of the third bar, resolving to A major triad that resolves to Bbmaj7. This A triad could be considered as the upper structure of B7 going to Bbmaj7. It also could be understood as A7 going to Dm7, which is an upper structure of Bbmaj7. But because the dominant sound is not there (no minor seventh or flat ninth), I rather think that these types of line are coming from tritone substitutions. Example 7: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Anthropology
This example is much more clear. As an extension of Bb7, CP plays Dmaj7 (upper structure of E7) and then plays C#m7, that would be third degree of A major, the “original” tonality where this E7 belongs. This extension of the dominant sound played over the I chord happens very often in CP. Sometimes it happens for one or two beats, and sometimes it takes much more space. Example 8: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Airegin
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OTHER REHARMONIZATIONS
In certain forms we found CP playing different changes than the standard ones and adding chords that are not played by the rhythm section Example 9: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Amsterdam blues.
A form schema we could deduct from this chorus would be something like that:
Actually these changes are pretty much based on tritone substitutions: E7 is the tritone substitute of Bb7, F#7 of C7 (commonly played in the third bar of a blues), B7 of F7 and Ab7 from D7.
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Following example shows some alternate changes also over the A sections of rhythm changes: Example 10: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Anthropology
The chord schema CP is playing here is:
Example 11: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Anthropology
A form schema we could deduct from this chorus would be something like that:
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THE Vb9, 13 CHORD
This is a very common chord, with a very characteristic sonority, associated to the fifth degree of the major harmonic scale and also to the octatonic sound. The normal choice is to use this kind of sonority when resolving to a major chord, but CP uses it very often when resolving to a minor chord. Example 12: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Anthropology
Or also likes to play with both 13 and b13 sound at the same time. Example 13: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Airegin
PENTATONICS AND CONSTRUCTIONS IN PERFECT 4THS
Pentatonic scales appear sometimes in CP’s solos as a tool to emphasize a certain color of a chord. Example 14: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Stella by Starlight.
I saw different opinions on how to name different pentatonic scales. The line in the forth bar is, for me, an Eb minor pentatonic scale (Eb, F, Gb, Bb, C). It creates the color of an F7susb9 chord. Example 15: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Amsterdam Blues
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Here CP is playing a E major pentatonic scale over the four bars, giving a sound of C7alt, or F#7 (tritone substitute), that is expanded over the whole four bars. Related to this idea I got a practice tip from Rich Perry in a lesson during my visit to New York. The concept is to play very simple ideas based on an altered sound created by the use of pentatonics and play them on top of almost every chord. We did this over a minor blues.
CD 2/TRACK 9:
Little pentatonic ideas over minor blues creating
altered sound. His “trick” doing that was to play the idea as late as possible in the bar and getting into the next bar, so playing the altered sound on top or the chord in which the line resolves. The idea is pretty simple and this use of pentatonic scales to create altered sounds or other colors over specific chords can be found in many improvisation methods. But I found this creating a sound very close to what I hear sometimes in CP’s solos, first because of the idea of expanding the altered sound into the target chord, and second because of the relation of pentatonic scales with melodic constructions based in perfect 4ths, interval that appears very often in CP’s solos. For example, a C major pentatonic scale can be outlined using only perfect fourths, starting from note E (the third).
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This outline in fourths can be broken up:
This kind of shapes can be found in CP’s solos as a way of outlining chords. Example 16: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over All the things you are.
We can see how the Abmaj7 chord is outlined in perfect fourths, playing the notes of Ab major pentatonic. The following examples shows also chord outlines based on breaking up the line in fourths Example17: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Star Eyes
Going back to previous chapter, when talking about dividing the octave, motives coming from pentatonic shapes are normally very strong and useful to apply in that idea of transposing the motive in different intervals. And normally it is pretty easy to play lines related to the harmony, if that is what the player wants.
It is easy to relate it to harmony because there are different pentatonic scales you can play on every chord, what makes easier to find symmetrical relations • Am7: C pentatonic, G pentatonic, D pentatonic. • D7 (playing a tritone II V: Ebm7 Ab7): Gb pentatonic, Db pentatonic, Ab pentatonic. • Gmaj7: G pentatonic, D pentatonic, A pentatonic.
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Example 18: Fragment of Chris Potter solo over Amsterdam Blues
In this last example CP plays again with a C7 altered sound over the last four bars of a blues. He plays an idea over E pentatonic and repeats it over F# pentatonic.
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REFLECTION IN THE PLAYING With this report there is attached a DVD with different recordings of me playing in different situations. The recordings are in chronological order. First track is a version of Stella by Starlight recorded in the very beginning of this research process and that I show as a reference of my playing before this work had been done. Second track is a version of Woody ‘n You, by Dizzy Gillespie, from my first master recital. There we play the arrangement of this song from the record Then and Now from Red Rodney, song were I transcribed Chris Potter solo. In this first stage of the research process I can notice some “intention” from myself in developing certain aspects. For example in this passage I can hear more rhythmic variety than I used to have.
Or in this other passage there is a phrase with groupings of three and two notes that, without going over the bar line yet, was something not so common to hear in my playing.
I also start looking for structures in fourths for now fitting with the harmony.
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The third track is a version of Amsterdam blues, a major blues in F composed by Chris Potter that I transcribed the solo as well. From that transcription I took some ideas that appear in my solo.
In this example I played the same alternate changes I found transcribing CP’s solo over that piece. Also in the second four bars there is a line moved in minor thirds. The following passage shows also the use of E major pentatonic over C7 to create the altered sound, sound that is expanded over the last four bars of the form. Also in the beginning of the next for there is a three note motive played over F7, then transposed to Bb7 in the next bar, and then played backwards and moved two times in minor thirds and one time on a tritone distance.
The following line shows a three notes motive based on a perfect fourth moved in whole steps, creating a line that doesn’t fit the harmony.
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Fourth track is a recording of a concert with Morfitis Quintet. We are playing a song composed by Gergios Morfitis named “Purple”. In this solo there are some lines based on moving a motive in different intervals and with uneven groupings. The following example shows, from the third bar, a five note motive (four notes plus the eighth note rest), moved down and up in whole steps, starting on the third bar of the example.
The next example is a line based on perfect fourths, mostly in groupings of seven eighth notes, without an specific relation with the harmony.
I also used the idea of using a pentatonic to create an altered sound. In this specific case, the key center is Eb, so the dominant would be Bb7. Even if this chord is not played, playing a D major pentatonic works fine to create this altered sound when looking for creating some tension in the solo.
The fifth track is a recording or “Rotterdam blues”, a song composed by me, starting from the idea of making a minor version of Chris Potter’s “Amsterdam Blues”.
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This is a transcription from a part of the solo.
I can see in this solo the consequences of working in the time awareness. One of the ideas of working in the mixed meter is to get more freedom in outlining the chords, anticipating chords or delaying resolutions in the harmony without loosing track. Like here:
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Or in this chorus:
In the first line we can see a phrase going over the bar line, resolving to Gm7 in the third beat of the fifth bar by reaching the note Bb. In the seventh bar the line outlines an A7b9 on top of a Dm7. The idea of playing pentatonic scales to create an altered sound that I explained on the chapter dedicated to harmony is very clear in the following passage.
The sixth track is a studio recording of “Tan lejos y tan cera”, composed by Jose Atero. I show here a transcription of my solo on that track.
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In this solo some of the things worked out through this research are coming out. First line of the part shows a motive (an ascendant sixth) moved through the changes and rhythmically modified by playing a cross rhythm in seven (starting in the fourth beat of the second bar).
There are also many lines based on groupings of five eighth notes like this one:
Or this one:
Or this other one:
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There is also a line based on three perfect fourths played then backwards and a minor third down, played in a way that sound almost inside the harmony.
There is also a passage based on mixed meter.
This line is actually outlining this harmonic rhythm:
This following example is a very simple triton substitution I copied from CP’s solo over Stella by Starlight.
Over the G#7b9, I play D7 down from the fifth and Cmaj7 up resolving to C#m7.
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REFLECTIONS IN COMPOSING “Writing has been one of the best ways for me to practice. I feel like composing has helped my improvising a lot, just because I am thinking how to organize everything and I have enough time to go back and change my decision”.13
TUNE 1: BUT IT DID NOT HAPPEN. EXPERIMENTING WITH PHRASING.
This is a line I did based on the chord changes of It could happen to you. The construction of the melody did not come from material related with this research but more from trying to use chromatic passing notes in the scales. But once the melody was done I tried to figure out ways of phrasing it in a different way that how I would do it without thinking about it. The first thing I experimented with was about which notes to accent and which note in order to emphasize the rhythmic structures created by the lines or to create new ones only by the distribution of those accents. What we talked about when describing phrasing as rhythm creator. The possibilities I thought about were: • Putting an accent in the top notes of the line • Putting an accent in the low notes of the line • Putting an accent every three eighth notes • Putting an accent in the first, second, third or forth note of every group of four eighth notes The second thing I did was experimenting with a wider range of articulation combinations and time feel. DVD 3/TRACK 7: Experimenting with phrasing: Standard phrasing
DVD3/TRACK 8: Experimenting with phrasing: Phrasing as rhythm creator. DVD3/TRACK 9: Experimenting with phrasing: Articulation variety DVD3/TRACK 10: Arrangement based on phrasing as rhythm creator 13 Chris Potter Master Class DVD, Roberto’s Winds, New York, 2009.
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TRANSCRIPTION OF TRACK PHRASING AS RHYTHM CREATOR
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TRANSCRIPTION OF TRACK ARTICULATION VARIETY
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ARRANGEMENT BASED ON PHRASING AS RHYTHM CREATOR Later on I did this arrangement based on the version of the melody focused on phrasing as rhythm creator. The accents played on the melody on that version are converted into kicks for the rhythm section.
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TUNE 2: ROTTERDAM BLUES. WORKING WITH DIVIDING THE OCTAVE AND RHYTHMIC DEVICES.
The idea of this tune came by transcribing the theme of Amsterdam blues. This is an F blues composed by Chris Potter.
The melody in the first four bars is pretty much constructed by symmetrical relations of intervals, mainly fourths. What I did is to take the line in the first bar and try to make a melody over a minor blues in the relative key having the focus in: • Making a line based on symmetric shapes, with the forth as main interval. • Look for lines that do not fit the bar line, by the use of uneven groupings of eighth notes and cross rhythms. • The logic of the line is more important than playing notes that fit the harmony.
DVD 3/TRACK 5
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COMMENTS The melody is mainly based on constructions moved in different intervals.
This first line of the melody could be analyzed as a construction by two different motives. Motive one and its development
Motive two and its development
Motive one is based on fourths moved symmetrically and in different groupings. Second motive is inverted and suffers a little variation in the second bar. The ideas in second and third bar constitute a cross rhythm in five. The following line is also a cross rhythm, but this time in six.
The head finishes again with constructions in perfect fourths but this time fitting more the harmony.
Also the Coda is based in this kind of symmetries.
The arrangement of the rhythm section in the intro and the first eight bars of the head is based on moving an idea to different layers.
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This idea is repeated transposed to different layers with some little variations.
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CONCLUSION
In the beginning of this research process I thought that the subject of study was concrete enough in order to get a convenient amount of material to work on. Well, it definitively was not. It became a much more bigger thing than I expected. This selection of solos that became the central source of information for this research became a link to how Chris Potter has developed his musical concept as a player; and this, talking of a player that has reach such levels of technical virtuosity and musical complexity, is a really extensive subject. My feeling now is that I opened a lot of doors and passed through some of them, and with others I just took a look to check what was inside. Anyhow, I am a different musician now than the one that started this research. With strong and week points, but for sure with a different perception of where am I as a musician and with a more clear vision of where I want to go. I cannot overvalue the things I learn from recording myself on a regular basis, and how much it affected to further choices during the playing. It is still very tuff to listen to myself playing, but I am learning to learn from it, to listen in a constructive way. About this research the thing that grabbed me the most was the development of a rich rhythmic concept and its tight up relation with the phrasing and the timing. Rhythm is the most primitive aspect of music and is the thing that grabs you more in an irrational level. Many students, especially saxophone players, are mainly busy with what notes to play, looking for hip chord substitutions and all this kind of things. I am a pretty good example of that, I declare myself completely guilty. But now I really understand from a deep level that all this notes do not mean anything without the intention. Of course the more you know about harmony, melody and rhythm, and the better technique you have in your instrument, the more free you are to express yourself as an improviser or as a composer. Paraphrasing Chris Potter, the more colors you have in your pallet, the more interesting painting you can make. But, as Ben van den Dungen says, if you put all the colors at the same time what you get is just a big brown, and in the other hand, a picture in black and white can be extremely expressive. This research was about adding colors to my pallet, but more important than that is to know how to use them in a smart way to create an interesting dialogue, with tensions and resolutions, contrasting parts… and also to be able to react one way or another to what the rest of the band is playing. In this research I really when through material that was new for me, I probably I do not master it the way I would like to. But some things are slowly coming out in a natural way, and this is definitively a sign of having done part of the trip. It means they became somehow part of “my sound”. This concept, what Chris Potter calls “the sound in your head”, is also something I am trying to be more and more aware. This sound is a product of choices I make: my musical and
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personal background, what music I listen, the music I play, what and how do I practice… but actually I cannot choose the final result, it is just there, and should not fight it. Probably it does not fulfill the expectations I have, or the expectations I think the others have from me. This thoughts are just interferences. At the end of the day, in the moment of playing, after investing so many time and energy in looking for new things to play, you just have to be honest, shut down your mind, and listen to what you have to say. It is not an easy thing to do, at least for me, but is the only way to really find your place in the music. “If you try to force your own voice is not going to come from a deep level, I think you just have to let it happen. There is a lot of copying before you reach this level of proficiency where you are able to let it go and say to yourself: I don’t know if this is good or not, I don’t know if anyone is going to like it or if I like it, but this is what feels to me like the most natural way of doing it.” Chris Potter.
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AUDIO AND VIDEO MATERIAL Track list
CD 1: Transcribed solos
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
Woody ‘n You Airegin Amsterdam Blues Antrhopology Stella by Starlight Star Eyes Blues Nouveau All The Things You Are Giant Steps
CD2: Demonstrations
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
Playing cross rhythm in seven over All the Things You Are Playing cross rhythm in five over rhythm changes Playing mixed meter over Airegin’s B and C part Mixed meter line over All The Things You Are Mixed meter line over Giant steps Example of working in rhythmic variety over F blues Improvisation by moving a three note motive over F blues Developing a motive over Stella by Starlight Pentatonics over minor blues
DVD 3: Reflections on my playing and composing
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
The before the research: Stella by Starlight Work in progress 1: Woody ‘n You Work in progress 2: Amsterdam Blues Work in progress 3: Purple Work in progress 4 (and composition number 2): Rotterdam blues Work in progress 5: Tan lejos y tan cerca Experimenting with phrasing 1: But it did not happen. Standard phrasing. Experimenting with phrasing 2: But it did not happen. Phrasing as rhythm creator. 9. Experimenting with phrasing 3: But it did not happen. Articulation variety. 10. Composition number 1: But it did not happen.
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MEDIA REVIEW LITERATURE
• • • • • • • • • •
Bergonzi, Jerry (1998) Inside improvisation Vol 4. Melodic Rhythm, Advance Music. Bergonzi, Jerry (1994) Inside improvisation Vol 2. Pentatonics, Advance Music. Liebman, David (1991) A Chromatic approach to jazz harmony and melody, Advance Music. Crook, Hal(2002) How to improvise, Advance Music. Harris, Barry (1994) The Barry Harris Workshop, Bop City Productions. Schoenberg, Arnold (1967) Fundamentals of Musical Composition. London: Faber and Faber Limited. Slonimsky, Nicolas (1975)Thesaurus of scale and melodic patterns, Music Sales America. Geyn, Hein van de (2007) Comprehensive bass method for bass players, Baselinemusic. Ricker, Raimon (1983) Pentatonic scales for jazz improvisation, Alfred Publishing. Ricker, Raimon (1983) Technique Development in Fourths for Jazz Improvisation, Alfred Publishing.
CDs
• • • • • • • • • •
Red Rodney (1992), Then and now, Chesky Records. Chris Potter (1993), Sundiata, Criss Cross. Al foster (1997), Brandyn, Laika records Tom Cohen (1999), Digging in, digging out, Double time jazz Jim Hall (1999), the jazzpar quartet, Storyville. Chris Potter (2001), Gratitude, Verve. Jim Rotondi (2003), New Vistas, Criss Cross. Chris Potter (2006), Underground, Sunny Side Records. Chris Potter (2007), Follow the red line, Sunny Side Records. (2009) Chris Potter Master Class DVD, Roberto’s Winds.
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INTERNET
• • • • • • •
www.chrispottermusic.com http://tinpan.fortunecity.com/jazz/789 http://www.jazz.com/features-‐and-‐interviews/2009/3/23/in-‐ conversation-‐with-‐chris-‐potter http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/musician.php?id=10384 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngoE1hreStc&feature=related www.artistshare.com www.neffmusic.com
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