That Jazz - Monkey Max Music and File Download

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Part I: All That Jazz: A Tour of the Basics
As jazz became more technical in the bebop era (covered in Chapter 7),
songs used chords consisting of four or five notes, and players improvised
using notes from scales that fit those chords. Because bebop is so fast and
uses many chords, soloists needed to have dozens of scales memorized so
that they could recall them and use them instantly.
Players also invert chords. To invert a chord means to play the basic notes of
that chord in a different order. For instance, the C chord can be played with
the C note as its lowest root note, or it can be rearranged with C somewhere
else in the chord’s structure, such as choosing to play a C that is higher than
the E and G that round out the chord, instead of lower.
Eventually, instead of using the stock chords for a familiar tune, jazz guitarists
and pianists (who play the chords) use other chords that fit but sound
different. They also add extra chords between a piece’s primary chords.
Thus, guitarists and pianists may play some chords that aren’t part of the
original composition, while maintaining the piece’s basic chords.
Beboppers such as Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker were famous among
their peers for replacing the written chords with other surprising chords that
gave old songs a new twist. In the 1950s and ’60s, pianists and guitarists
invented exotic chord substitutions and sequences, and horn players used
these chords as a launching pad for new improvisational flights. In the ’60s,
John Coltrane and others pushed the approach even farther, using a different
chord on each beat as the basis for a solo.
Scaling the heights of jazz
Scales are ascending or descending series of notes and fit with a song’s
chords. Scales range from the major, minor, and pentatonic (five tones used
mostly in blues), to Lydian, Phrygian, and other exotic-sounding scales from
around the world. The pentatonic scale is a basic building block of jazz and
blues. On a piano, the scale ascends C, D, E, G, A.
By copying Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, you can sing a standard
eight-note major scale. Try it: Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do. Standard scales are
constructed from the notes on a piano. Starting with middle C, one octave on
a piano keyboard ascends like this: C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, B, C (# stands
for a sharp note). Those notes can be combined into all sorts of scale. Jazz
musicians also experiment with notes in between those standard notes, as
when guitarists bend a string, or trumpeters bend notes using a combination
of air and mouth position.