That Jazz - Monkey Max Music and File Download

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Part I: All That Jazz: A Tour of the Basics
Here’s an easy way to understand what I’m talking about.
1. Tap out a basic beat with your foot.
1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4. Keep it going steady.
2. Clap your hands twice on each beat.
As your foot goes down-up, down-up: clap-clap, clap-clap, clap-clap,
clap-clap.
Another way to subdivide those same basic 1-2-3-4 series would be to clap
your hands three times on each beat. Clap-clap-clap, clap-clap-clap, clap-clapclap,
clap-clap-clap. This basic polyrhythm adds richness while sustaining
the basic beat.
What you get from jazz depends as much on you as it does on the musicians
and their music. Go through the double and triple exercise again. The first
time, concentrate on the tapping of your foot, and notice how the double and
triple hand claps add variety. On the second time around, concentrate on the
double and triple hand claps, and notice how your foot taps add a new
dimension. With each listening to a piece of jazz, focus on a different aspect
of the music, and different parts come together in a new light.
Space is another important element in the structure of jazz rhythms. Whether
it’s a simple blues or a dense jazz tune with overlapping polyrhythms, places
where there is nothing create anticipation and force listeners to notice what’s
on either side of the space.
In the music of Bill Evans or Miles Davis, the choices they make about where
to put spaces (or breaks in the music) are as important as the ones they
make about where to play notes. Spaces are like musical picture frames that
focus your attention. When Davis surrounds one of his spare phrases with
silence, that phrase stands out like a sculpture in a garden nook.
Space helps create a “tension-and-release” drama. A song and its rhythms
climb to an emotional peak. Right after the peak, leaving a space allows the
emotion to register. It’s like a tense scene in a movie, where one character
has a dramatic line of dialog, and then there’s no dialog as what was said
sinks in.
Music is a subjective, individual experience. What you bring to it effects what
you take from it. To see what I mean, try out a completely different way of listening.
Put on a CD like Davis’s “Kind of Blue” and instead of listening to the
notes, listen for silences. You gain a new appreciation of Davis and other jazz
players as gifted sculptors of sonic clay.