What Jazz are you listening to now?

[burning dog]

SA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_Z0imrQeaI

I was shown this by my Dad's cousin, who was quite a bit younger than him, abut 20 when I was 7. He played in a mod band similar to Georgie Fame and Manfred Mann. He was showing me this the day of Winstons Churchill's funeral, rather a long time ago! It confused me when people made a big point about the major 6th, of course it's major, It's C major with blue notes at 3 and 7! I guess I thought of the Dorian Blues as "normal".

[Serial_Apologist]

SA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_Z0imrQeaI

I was shown this by my Dad's cousin, who was quite a bit younger than him, abut 20 when I was 7. He played in a mod band similar to Georgie Fame and Manfred Mann. He was showing me this the day of Winstons Churchill's funeral, rather a long time ago! It confused me when people made a big point about the major 6th, of course it's major, It's C major with blue notes at 3 and 7! I guess I thought of the Dorian Blues as "normal".

It only becomes major if you "resolve" the E flat and the B flat onto E natural and B natural!

C D E flat E natural F G A B flat B natural C

[Ian Thumwood]

I am quite intrigued by the history of modes. The Dorian mode is named after a tribe of ancient Greeks as are a number of the other modes and I can recall once seeing a nice and tidy map illustrating the geography of their origin. It is interesting than modes were not described until 2nd century AD by the Greek polymath Ptolemy which always seems to me to probably be quite significantly after the time when they probably came about. As someone who is also interested in the Romans, it is fascinating to see carvings on things like sarcophagi of musicians playing instruments from antiquity but I am sceptical that people are able to replicate the music made with any accuracy.

When you delve back in to the origins of modal music , it is intriguing to find out that it was prominent in folk music and not too difficult to come to the conclusion that maybe jazz musicians who adopted modes from the 1950s onwards were being a bit retrograde in comparison with the rest of the musical world.

The odd thing about the Dorian mode is that it may include a flattened 3rd and 7th yet the scale does not particularly sound bluesy.

[Serial_Apologist]

I am quite intrigued by the history of modes. The Dorian mode is named after a tribe of ancient Greeks as are a number of the other modes and I can recall once seeing a nice and tidy map illustrating the geography of their origin. It is interesting than modes were not described until 2nd century AD by the Greek polymath Ptolemy which always seems to me to probably be quite significantly after the time when they probably came about. As someone who is also interested in the Romans, it is fascinating to see carvings on things like sarcophagi of musicians playing instruments from antiquity but I am sceptical that people are able to replicate the music made with any accuracy.

The "old modes" as they seem to be called, maybe to distinguish them from the modes in other musical cultures, are often explained by saying each mode begins on a different pitch on the white keys. When I was first on this forum I asked, how did the devisers of the modes manage to devise them before there were keyboards with the standard regular arrangement of the black and white keys? Presumably one needed such a keyboard in the first place, in order to "discover" the modes? Nobody came back with an answer.

When you delve back in to the origins of modal music , it is intriguing to find out that it was prominent in folk music and not too difficult to come to the conclusion that maybe jazz musicians who adopted modes from the 1950s onwards were being a bit retrograde in comparison with the rest of the musical world.

I've often wondered about that too. With European comoposers wanting to escape the heavy influence of post-Wagnerian chromaticism, it's not difficult to see how returns to the pre-diatonic modes would re-connect with folk music traditions that, for them at that time, signified national renaissance. Could it have been part and parcel of black Afro-Americans wanting to reclaim the pre-enslavement pre-western white colonial connection with Africa?

The odd thing about the Dorian mode is that it may include a flattened 3rd and 7th yet the scale does not particularly sound bluesy.

I would say that the "bluesiness" arises when the flattened intervals are juxtaposed with their resolution, C > E flat > E natural, or not resolving creating characteristic bluesy dissonance. Play a chord of C natural and E natural in the middle register with the left hand and at the same time a chord of E flat and G natural an octave above with the right hand, and the unresolved harmonic tension gives you that bluesy feeling.

[Ian Thumwood]

SA

I don't see why you would need a keyboard to play a mode as it is simply a matter of being a sound. Musicians would have been appreciative of modes even of they were just playing something like a flute. I thought that the whole business of modes stemmed from the argument regarding the tempering of the notes and the spaces between the intervals. These arguments were being had in antiquity. I suppose that the most obvious "visual" aspect of appreciating modes would have come from instruments such as harps and lyres.

For me, the folk element of modes is really about ignorance of how diatonic music works. I think a lot of Western folk music is pretty naïve in this respect as reflects the modest nature of this music's origins. I don't really hold folk music to be that significant musically as any worth that it has is greater from a perspective of social history. Whenever I read about something being modal I must admit that I lose interest. Nothing duller than one or two chord vamps and after Coltrane's thorough explorations, there wasn't a great deal beyond this to say. Last year at Vienne, there was a preponderance of groups whose repertoire was based on just one chord. A music teacher behind me who came from Canada was pretty critical about this during the first concert and it did make me listen a lot harder to what was happening with other bands. I prefer music when I cannot understand what is happening musically! A lot of the stuff played last year was just a conceit.

[Richard Barrett]

When I was first on this forum I asked, how did the devisers of the modes manage to devise them before there were keyboards with the standard regular arrangement of the black and white keys? Presumably one needed such a keyboard in the first place, in order to "discover" the modes? Nobody came back with an answer.

If I'd seen the question I would have said that diatonic modes in Greek music theory were conceived as being based on harmonic ratios (Pythagoras) or tetrachords (Anaxagoras), some time before Ptolemy came on the scene, and that these didn't require keyboards any more than the modes used in Indian or Chinese music did. The vast majority of music in the world is modal!

[Stanfordian]

‘Down with It!’
Blue Mitchell with Junior Cook, Chick Corea, Gene Taylor, Al Foster
Blue Note (1965)

[Jazzrook]

A rare recording of legendary trumpeter Freddie Webster who was an early inspiration for Miles Davis & Dizzy Gillespie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADDkJNC5glM

JR

[burning dog]

It only becomes major if you "resolve" the E flat and the B flat onto E natural and B natural!

C D E flat E natural F G A B flat B natural C

The thing was impressed on me at that time is that the 6th is a white note in C when playing the blues, nothing deeper than that.

"I would say that the "bluesiness" arises when the flattened intervals are juxtaposed with their resolution, C > E flat > E natural, or not resolving creating characteristic bluesy dissonance. Play a chord of C natural and E natural in the middle register with the left hand and at the same time a chord of E flat and G natural an octave above with the right hand, and the unresolved harmonic tension gives you that bluesy feeling."

Yes that I understand. Unresolved dissonance,

[burning dog]

not too difficult to come to the conclusion that maybe jazz musicians who adopted modes from the 1950s onwards were being a bit retrograde in comparison with the rest of the musical world.

.

The rest of the musical world, or just "Classical" music?

BTW I agree two chord vamps can be tedious but is this really "modal music" or just called that by some jazz musicians?

[Joseph K]

This is incredible -

[Joseph K]

I recently bought again the boxed set 'Boss Bird (Studio Recordings 1944-1951)' by Charlie Parker. The second disk is my favourite, it starts with 'Donna Lee' - the era of Bird when he had got out of the psychiatric institute and returned to New York... and while it would be nice if Bud Powell had featured on more of these performances instead of just the first four, (and instead of the rather mediocre Duke Jordan) Bird is incredible, his tone and lyricism are awesome - it's also worth mentioning that the versions of these tunes on these disks are often not the same on youtube, so it's nice to hear these again.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Duke Jordan did play some lovely introductions. Miles (in his book) said Tadd Dameron or John Lewis would have beenfar better.

[Jazzrook]

John Coltrane Quartet plays 'Chim Chim Cheree':

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=UajVYaWDEeY

JR

[Boilk]

Still never tire of this astonishing 1999 track (even by his exmeplary standards) from Allan Holdsworth.
Aside from the great writing, he really gets this guitar solo as effortlessly fast and fluid as Coltrane's sax.