Coltrane Semper Coltrane...

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Ian i am sure that a methodology never represents/constitutes or defines genius ... which in Coltrane's case as a jazz artist would be evident in the performances and therefore to some lesser extent the recordings ..... but the point that the analysis makes is that Coltrane used two different ways of cycling harmonic steps; the one brutal and unmeliorated in Giant Steps, the other smoother and 'filled' to a balladic smoothness so the methods support the expression and therefore the performances

[Alyn_Shipton]

BN, thanks for the Cedar W transcription. If you have your box of C60s to hand, you can hear Tommy Flanagan's account of how HE cut Giant Steps on the Jazz Legends I did with him that was eventually broadcast on 8 Oct 2004, three years or so after his death. Sadly these shows have not gone on line like the Jazz Library editions.

[Serial_Apologist]

A remark by Wayne Shorter on it may have been Jazz on 3 the other week, praising the "Greensleeves" theme along with its "composer" (sic) Vaughan Williams, has had me thinking. Coltrane would presumably have only known of the 16th century theme via its Vaughan Williams setting, and VW's personal way of handling harmonies modally - for which there was no equivalent in the American classical tradition. In dealing with this "return to modes" some authors have proclaimed African Americans' quest for connection with melodic as well as rhythmic forms predating the influence of white Western classical harmonic major/minor forms imposed on jazz by way of Tin Pan Alley and Broadway. It may just be coincidental - a case of "eureka" if you will - but may there be an alternative route to understanding modal jazz? When Skid mentioned "Giant Steps" as prompting him to return his sax to the shop, the person running that gig happened to put some recorded Coltrane on the PA during the interval. I can't remember now what track it was - probably "Resolution" from "A Love Supreme" - it being the one track that's closest of the album's four to fully respecting chord changes in a relatively conventional way. I turned to Skid and asked what it was about 'Trane's improvising that seemed to "work" here, despite the newness of its approach and difficulty for comparison purposes, and the answer he gave me, that Coltrane approached the improvisation through a freely modulating web of interrelated key centres, (maybe not Alan's exact words but the gist of them), relates both to the topic in hand here, and also the wider matter of the modal jazz improvisation introduced in the practicality by Miles and 'Trane' in place of the chromatic chord extensions based on natural harmonics which had been the bebop way. In other words, it wasn't that Coltrane's improvisatory approach introduced anything of itself new into music, but rather that it had not occurred previously to anyone to think up such a way of improvising on chord changes. Until modes changed the chords one would choose (possibly starting with Bill Evans's fourth-based chords underpinning "So What"), jazz musicians only had diatonic major/minor chords of popular tunes and standards - including blues! - as the default position from which to think harmonic extensions. Why the improvisation worked, according to Skid, and according to the article linked to by calum, lies in what theoretically has long been viewed as proximate and distant key relationships and scalar and intervallic relationships to be drawn from those relationships of key. That is of course as far as the linked article goes, dealing as it does with only two tunes. To what extent these are used by the article author as prototypical of 'Trane's improvsational methodology as a whole is not made clear; I would have thought that Coltrane thought in terms of several different approaches, including and beyond these two, using them in different ways and at different times. Taking the duet improvisastions with Rashied Ali on "Interstellar Space", one of the last recordings, we find modal and polytonal improvisation freely deployed - polytonal in terms of an unfixed compression or condensation of the swift modulatory switches approach applied within the fixed chord changes context of "Giant Steps". Our ability to appreciate these improvisations rests, I believe, on having been able to keep up with the evolution of Coltrane's musical thought.

[Alyn_Shipton]

SA there's some revealing stuff in Trane's 1960 Down Beat interview with Don DeMichael. The gist (I think) of what you are suggesting as switching between improvisational methods in the Rashied duets was nothing new, even in 1960. He said: "I could stack up chords — say on a C7 I sometimes superimposed an Eb7, up to an F sharp 7, down to an F. That way I could play three chords on one. But on the other hand if I wanted to I could play melodically." Also according to McCoy (see the interview in my New History) says that it is he who introduced Coltrane to Greensleeves and did the quartet's modal arrangement of it. It was something he and I discussed further in the Jazz Library edition on McCoy, but unfortunately this one doe not seem to be included in the podcasts on line.

[Serial_Apologist]

SA there's some revealing stuff in Trane's 1960 Down Beat interview with Don DeMichael. The gist (I think) of what you are suggesting as switching between improvisational methods in the Rashied duets was nothing new, even in 1960. He said: "I could stack up chords — say on a C7 I sometimes superimposed an Eb7, up to an F sharp 7, down to an F. That way I could play three chords on one. But on the other hand if I wanted to I could play melodically." Also according to McCoy (see the interview in my New History) says that it is he who introduced Coltrane to Greensleeves and did the quartet's modal arrangement of it. It was something he and I discussed further in the Jazz Library edition on McCoy, but unfortunately this one doe not seem to be included in the podcasts on line.

Yes that is most interesting, Alyn. I'm sure that a few people on other threads who in the past have written their praises of Olivier Messiaen, might have cause to at least take note of Coltrane as having pursued comparable lines of thinking! Not that Messiaen was very complementary about jazz - but maybe Boulez came along and put him off it! Now that you come to mention it, I do as happens remember an interview, maybe there's a utube of it, from a radio programme, in which Coltrane speaks in a visionary way of wanting to try and combine all harmonic approaches simultaneously.

[Ian Thumwood]

SA

I wonder if you have read / used this book:[-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intervallic-Improvisation-Modern-Walt-Weiskopf/dp/B0058UB9Z2/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1391639773&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=intervallic+improvidation

I bought this about 3 years ago but have not had much chance to study it. The first 20 or so pages are useful in working out the triad pairs that derive from the scales which themselves derive from chords. Essentially this is about building triads in either the same or different keys depending upon the scale. I found the permutations impossible to memorize but have written the scales / triads out on about 20 tunes I rehearse with friends. It is interesting and offers a solution from the fixed tonal centres of modes. The task is labourious and I wonder how jazz musicians manage to internalise all this information.

I've got to say that I find playing modes difficult and limiting but this book offers some but worth recognising that minor 7 chords offer triads on minor 3rd and fourth so dmi 7 will produce F and G triads. Dom 7's offer triads on tonic and flattened 7th. This isn't too interesting but the triads on altered chords and major chords make a contrast.

I can see modal music offered an opening up for improvisation and is perhaps more interesting than II-V-I patterns yet I can also appreciate why modal jazz seemed to have a limited shelf life. Coltrane was life~affirming but hearing Antonio Sanchez'a current quintet doing the 'Trane modal stuff in 2013 sounds depressingly unoriginal.

I can recall the avuncular Simon Purcell explaining in a workshop about Hildegard of Bingen writing music in the Aoelian mode ~ Coltrane was about 800 years too late!

I would also have to pick you up on jazz musicians using major / minor /dominant chords before Coltrane. People like Tatum, Teddy Wilson and Hawkins had as firm a grasp of harmony as Coltrane and Hawkins was jamming on diminished chords with Red Allen on a piece like "Queer Notions" in 1934 ~ diminished chords obviously not belonging to either of the normal 12 major / minor keys. Bix was alleged to have been playing whole tone scales as a 16 y.o. in 1919 and this was nearly 30 years before Monk. You can also play about five sets of pentatonics on each dominant chord too.

I'm a bit sceptical of modal jazz being some kind of panacea as , for me, it is improvising on non standard chords / scales that provides the interest. I would tend to suggest that Yusef Lateef, Miles / Gil, Herbie Nichols using scales from Asia, Spain, Eastern Europe, etc is perhaps more musically interesting / rewarding than dorian scale on "So what."

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Lots of good stuff but Coltrane also had an exterior "awareness/context"...


"It is
interesting to read Porter's citation
of an interview Coltrane gave to
Benoit Quersin, in which he said of
Coleman:
"I'm following his lead. He's
done a lot to open my eyes to
what can be done."
Porter's citation continues:
"I feel indebted to him, myself.
Because, actually, when he
came along, I was so far in
this thing [“Giant Steps”
chords], I didn’t know where I
was going to go next. And I
don’t know if I would have
thought about just
abandoning the chord system
or not. I probably wouldn’t
have thought of that at all.
And he came along doing it,
and I heard it, I said, "Well,
that must be the answer."


BN.

Its one of the many things I admire about Trane. Even in the fifties interviews he was hugely aware of what others were doing even if they were far removed in style.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

my favourite things examined

[Tom Audustus]

SA

I wonder if you have read / used this book:[-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intervallic-Improvisation-Modern-Walt-Weiskopf/dp/B0058UB9Z2/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1391639773&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=intervallic+improvidation

I bought this about 3 years ago but have not had much chance to study it. The first 20 or so pages are useful in working out the triad pairs that derive from the scales which themselves derive from chords. Essentially this is about building triads in either the same or different keys depending upon the scale. I found the permutations impossible to memorize but have written the scales / triads out on about 20 tunes I rehearse with friends. It is interesting and offers a solution from the fixed tonal centres of modes. The task is labourious and I wonder how jazz musicians manage to internalise all this information.

I've got to say that I find playing modes difficult and limiting but this book offers some but worth recognising that minor 7 chords offer triads on minor 3rd and fourth so dmi 7 will produce F and G triads. Dom 7's offer triads on tonic and flattened 7th. This isn't too interesting but the triads on altered chords and major chords make a contrast.

I can see modal music offered an opening up for improvisation and is perhaps more interesting than II-V-I patterns yet I can also appreciate why modal jazz seemed to have a limited shelf life. Coltrane was life~affirming but hearing Antonio Sanchez'a current quintet doing the 'Trane modal stuff in 2013 sounds depressingly unoriginal.

I can recall the avuncular Simon Purcell explaining in a workshop about Hildegard of Bingen writing music in the Aoelian mode ~ Coltrane was about 800 years too late!

I would also have to pick you up on jazz musicians using major / minor /dominant chords before Coltrane. People like Tatum, Teddy Wilson and Hawkins had as firm a grasp of harmony as Coltrane and Hawkins was jamming on diminished chords with Red Allen on a piece like "Queer Notions" in 1934 ~ diminished chords obviously not belonging to either of the normal 12 major / minor keys. Bix was alleged to have been playing whole tone scales as a 16 y.o. in 1919 and this was nearly 30 years before Monk. You can also play about five sets of pentatonics on each dominant chord too.

I'm a bit sceptical of modal jazz being some kind of panacea as , for me, it is improvising on non standard chords / scales that provides the interest. I would tend to suggest that Yusef Lateef, Miles / Gil, Herbie Nichols using scales from Asia, Spain, Eastern Europe, etc is perhaps more musically interesting / rewarding than dorian scale on "So what."

Having dabbled in jazz guitar for quite a few decades, one trick I was shown very early on was how to get those extensions and altered extensions on dominant chords without really trying. Just play a line based on the major seventh apeggio of the IV chord over the II -V and resolve it for the I chord. To get the altered extensions just transpose the line up by a min 3rd (dead easy on a guitar).

So 251 in C, play an Fmaj7 arp line.
For a 251 in Cm play an Abmaj7 arp line, this will give you a sound similar to using the altered scale over the altered dominant.

[Tenor Freak]

Having dabbled in jazz guitar for quite a few decades, one trick I was shown very early on was how to get those extensions and altered extensions on dominant chords without really trying. Just play a line based on the major seventh apeggio of the IV chord over the II -V and resolve it for the I chord. To get the altered extensions just transpose the line up by a min 3rd (dead easy on a guitar).

So 251 in C, play an Fmaj7 arp line.
For a 251 in Cm play an Abmaj7 arp line, this will give you a sound similar to using the altered scale over the altered dominant.

The trouble with shortcuts like that is that you can get stuck in a rut and keep on doing the same thing, especially when inspiration is in short supply. Also you have to watch out for clams - playing a F major over Dm7 means playing an Aeolian mode where most people might play Dorian (nowt wrong with that) but if you end up on a F when in C major it'll sound awkward until you get to a resolution, eg down a semitone to E or up to G.

[Tenor Freak]

Came on here to talk about Trane and why he was a genius. It's not about the ii-V-Is - I doubt even Trane thought that the changes on Giant Steps were terribly original given that he would have known the changes to "Have You Met Miss Jones?" where the bridge is similar and moves about a bit between G flat and D and back again: Bb major/Ab-7 Db7/Gb major/E-7 A7/D major/Ab-7 Db7/Gb major/G-7 C7. Giant Steps was more a test of what could be done and I doubt there was a pianist in New York (except perhaps Art Tatum - but he was already dead) who could have played on it with the same level of fluency as Trane, who was so far ahead of everyone else. Consider this: we are still working through the concepts he developed, and then discarded over 50 years ago. Don't forget Trane was at his peak for a very short period of time - between his "awakening" in 1957 and his death in 1967 there was only a decade yet he burned through chordal-based improvisation, modality and freer approaches.

I've been plodding through the solo on Giant Steps and in that nearly forensic examination of his work (at 69 BPM! - just over quarter speed of the original) it's clear that he was still recycling stuff he was playing on Blue Train and Moment's Notice 18 months earlier, both in terms of patterns but also rhythmic shapes, albeit much faster and with greater fluency. Also, on playing it with the metronome you get a clear idea of the changes as he is pretty much outlining them. The shapes are always slightly different each time, but the same motifs pop up frequently.

Trane was a genius to me because he was a game-changer, in the same way as Armstrong and Bird before him. The music was never going to be the same after him. To my mind he brought spirituality and an incredible work ethic along with a keen intellect, which meant he did not stand still. Musicians I've talked to still hold him in awe, and although he does not dominate the music as much as he did, his influence is still there: after all why would I bother learning one of his solos?

[Tenor Freak]

BTW my favourite Trane quartet LP is probably Crescent...

[burning dog]

BTW my favourite Trane quartet LP is probably Crescent...

Definitely my favourite of the Quartet's studio albums Bruce.

[Tenor Freak]

Definitely my favourite of the Quartet's studio albums Bruce.

Very nice too...I've just put 6music on and to his immense credit Tom Robinson is playing pretty much all of Blue Train.. I was singing along to Trane's solo...best I could anyway after a couple of bottles of vino rouge