Colin Bates

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Collin Bates

Pianist Colin Bates

A friend of mine recently forwarded me a few out of print records that his jazz pianist uncle, Colin Bates played on. Colin Bates was an Australian pianist who moved to the UK and played with pretty much everybody there during England’s postwar ‘swing renaissance’. Two of these records are George Melley recordings. Melley, who just passed away, was England’s version of a top Vegas showman and these recordings are very fun to listen to if you have any appreciation for the humorous, boozy side of Dixieland. The other is a trio recording entitled ‘Troubadour’ where Bates shows that he possessed a broad talent and could conjure up many styles in one song. His powerful and subtle musicianship would have surely put him on the short lists on this side of the Atlantic. Be on the lookout for these records. Meanwhile here is a great video of Bates performing with Bruce Turner’s jump band.

The Prowler

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Target Show : Knight Rider
Target Year : 1982

I got into an early 80′s cheesefest one Sunday that lead to this. It also lead to some complaints in my apartment building but that is only because some people just don’t get it and never will. I always thought the Knight Rider theme was hilarious but also kinda cool. I appreciate it’s techno minimalism and slightly Arabic cadences.

The Prowler

Spiders on the Keys

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Spiders on the Keys

James Booker: Spiders on the Keys

Listening to James Booker, half crazy and in the final years of his hard life make spine tingling music on this horrible saloon upright takes the term ‘it is a bad craftsman who blames his tools’ to a new level. These recordings were taken from hundreds of hours of tapes from Booker’s ‘77-82 solo piano performances at the Maple Leaf bar. He dances effortlessly all over the style map from Chopin-meets-gypsy to Spanish influenced boogies and seems simultaneously possessed by what seems to be both demon and angel these performances. Booker is a master at setting up seemingly untenable grooves and making them work without letting them box him in a corner. He creates a sublime paradox of lightness and rock hard percussiveness that seems to defy the laws of piano physics. There is only a smattering of drunken applause at the end of a lot these performances. Many great moments in music come and go without anybody noticing. It is the curse of an art form that exists so stubbornly in present time. Recordings are often bad representations of what was happening in a room – especially a live performance with a personality of this size. Despite all of that, we should be grateful that someone set up a cassette deck on this particular mixing board.

Sounds and Scores – Mancini

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Sounds and Scores - Mancini

Sounds and Scores: Henry Mancini

This is Henry Mancini’s famous book on orchestration. Every musician should own a copy. It has been around for many years in many formats but exists now as a book with accompanying CD. Sometimes I just like listening to the example CD and reading trough the score like it is a very cool story album. Mancini is great at describing the textural effects that can be achieved with different unconventional big band/orchestral instrumentation and how that could map to certain moods or visual cues in a soundtrack. He describes the philosophy and uses of some of his signature colors like alto flute + alto sax. He also walks through single pieces with different voicing and instrumentation structures so you can hear the result of certain decisions. There are extremely cool, useful tricks to be had here that could apply to almost any style of music and this type of knowledge is also highly applicable to jazz piano voicing/comping.

Continental Divide

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Target Show : Dallas
Target Year : 1979

The Dallas theme song really kicks ass. Here I have written something that attempts to maintain the epic scope and make things a little more overtly ‘western’ without getting into Morricone turf.

Continental Divde

Remembering Michael Brecker

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Remembering Michael Brecker

Michael Brecker

My Highschool had was a music ‘listening room’ with a bunch of tapedecks, record players, reel-to-reels and library of jazz records and tapes. It was a hidden and underutilized place. Only me and a few other megamusicnerds ever used it and I was usually in there completely alone. I used to hide out in there to wearing headphones in the dark to avoid the wrestling unit in gym and anything else I thought was uncivilized and humiliating. One of my favorites discoveries from these secret escapes was Brecker Bothers self-titled 1975 album. What was this? Jazz? funk? I’d never heard anything like but I felt it was crazy cool music. I clearly needed to get to know these Brecker brothers. I was trying to figure out not only how jazz ‘worked’ as a language and, like any teenager. I was also trying to figure out what kinds of music I was into. I trusted my newfound Jazz idols to help steer me through the miasma. If a jazz musician that I liked was credited as a session player on a record, [ANY record] that was generally a good reason to buy it used and check it out. Michael Brecker was one my favorites for this game of musical treasure hunting. I would spend a lot of time at used record stores looking for stuff that he played on. It didn’t matter what the artist was – I was looking at the sideman credits. I found some great pop music this way – following the Brecker trail. Franz Zappa, Paul Simon, Steely Dan, the list is endless. I also discovered Steps. Steps served as proof to me that it was possible to create something like fusion that has some balls and didn’t sound like hotel lobby background music. I wore those records out. My adult relationship with Michael Brecker has been more focused on his own recordings. The quality of these records is almost universally phenomenal. If you have not any Michael Brecker albums, you really should pick one up. Start with this one and proceed. There is one final album coming out in a few months that Michael managed to record last summer even though he was pretty sick. Based on the little snippet I was fortunate enough to hear it is a thrilling and moving final performance and I am looking forward to hearing the rest.

Keep On Truckin

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Target Show : Sanford and Son
Target Year : 1973

Quincy Jones really nailed it with the Sanford and Son theme (“The Streetbeater”). This is something I wrote in the style. I really wanted to use a nasty Miles Davis ‘Live-Evil’ wah trumpet for the lead but my trumpet samples did not cut it so I added wah to synth brass.

Keep On Truckin’

Naturally – Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings

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Naturally - Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings: Naturally

I have had this CD lying around for a while and finally listened to it. What a refreshing blast. This Brooklyn band is really doing oldschool soul/funk right. The band is as relaxed-tight and Tower of Power. There is neither ensemble overplaying nor any gratuitous displays of individual instrumental virtuosity. Sharon Jones is a powerfully musical soul singer who has not bought into the post-Maria Carey vocal ‘stylings’ that has made a whole generation of female R&B singers sound like they got signed out of the same wedding band. This CD is recorded warm and analog dirty – just like the old records. I am going to check out more of the stuff on the Daptone label because this is the real deal.

Making Friends with the Whole Tone Scale

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Making Friends with the Whole Tone Scale

Whole tone scales

This is an interesting scale that can be both used and abused in jazz and can create an ethereal ‘dreamy/spacey’ quality in soundtrack compositions. Key properties:

  • Six note and Symmetrical (equal degrees between notes)
  • Only two them cover all of the keys. (WT0 and WT1)
  • Impossible to construct either a major or a minor triad with the scale.
  • Can be seen as containing two overlapping augmented triads. (See example)

The most common improvisational usage is over the dominant seventh chord because the whole tone contains both the sharp and flat fifths of the chord. Some find it so tempting to travel from a dominant flat fifth to the tonic via the whole tone scale that it is done to wanton excess and becomes an improvisational ‘rat run’ so be careful. On the piano, it is difficult to pull off multi-octave whole tone scale runs without sounding like a Monk hack but it is still fun and good practice to be able to finger the scales correctly. I generally use 121234 on WT0 starting on C and the same fingering on WT1 starting on F but there are probably other RH fingerings that work as well. A lot of interesting WT patterns can be created over 2-5-1s because of the above properties so enjoy experimenting.

Red Garland Block Chords

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Red Garland Block Chords

Block chord voicings

Red Garland’s block chords are arguably his most famous stylistic contribution to jazz piano. While overuse tends to make you sound a bit on the loungy side of things and can make you sound like a Garland wannabe (for better or worse), judicious use of this trick can come in handy in a number of band configurations. It obviously sounds great on the Workin/Cookin/Steamin/Relaxin session where Garland’s understated playing provides contrast to the Horn solos and offers space to let the Philly Joe and Paul Chambers push. On a practical level, this particular block chord style is relatively easy to implement and can get you a big sound without banging when you are on a lousy upright and feel like you are fading into the curtains. Here is the recipe:

  1. Right Hand: Octaves with ‘locked 5ths’ above bottom note. (Maintain a perfect fith from the bottom note of the octave at all times)
  2. Left Hand: Rootless voicings (see this entry) sounding on every note that the right hand plays.

This produces some weird dissonances at times (see the fifth above the third on the C7 in the simple example) but don’t let that stop you. It is part of the style.