I recently discovered an awesome book by NYC alto saxophonist / composer John O’Gallagher, entitled “Twelve Tone Improvisation” (Advance Music) after stumbling upon it via a Dave Douglas podcast. O’Gallagher is a monster alto player with a fresh & unique concept. After hearing some of the music from the podcast off of his latest CD “The Anton Webern Project” and how “sophisticatedly funky” it sounded (Anton Webern gets jacked by Ornette meets Sun-Ra meets Bitches Brew), I got so excited I bought both the book & the CD. Although I’ve previously had some minimal exposure to twelve tone rows in … Read More
Category Archives: FreeB’s
From the mid 1970’s until the early ’80’s I lived in Munich, Germany. Aside from being a beautiful, culturally oriented city lying at the foothills of the Alps, Munich hosted (somewhat unceremoniously, it seems in retrospect) one of Europe’s premier jazz venues at the time, known as the “Domicile” The “Domicile” was on par with Ronnie Scott’s in London, the Montmartre in Copenhagen, and several other major European clubs. It was part of “the circuit”, so one got to see all the major jazz legends who came over from the States (plus some of the top European musicians), on a … Read More
Part 1 Part 2 When “Midnight Love” finally hit the streets in the autumn of 1982, it marked the triumphant return of Marvin Gaye. I first got wind of it when, half asleep in the back seat of a car riding through Belgium on a November afternoon, en route to a gig in Luxembourg, I heard this tenor saxophone coming over the radio and, in my half conscious state, thought it sounded like Michael Brecker on one of his top forty disco type solos of that era. … Read More
After seemingly scoring some points with Marvin (Gaye) and Harvey (Fuqua) with a brief tenor solo on “‘Til Tomorrow” (see Part 1), I talked my way into having them invite me back for some more fun the next day. When I found out they were going to be recording in Munich for a few more days, before Marvin headed back over to Ostend, Belgium, I had to try to convince them I could still be useful; and while I don’t consider myself one of those individuals born with the gift of gab, whatever I told them worked. … Read More
It was a typical Munich summer’s afternoon in 1982 when I got back to my apartment and found a message, that I was to call Arco Studios back about a “Marvin Gaye Session”. I had been doing a modest amount of studio work in those days, mostly as a tenor saxophone soloist, as saxophone solos were common on many pop recordings of the ’70’s & ’80’s. Munich, as far as Europe went, was a pretty major recording town. It was a center of the “Disco” boom of the ’70’s, and the city boasted several film music recording studios, hosting rooms … Read More
Here’s a groovy little line, based on 3 note groupings of diatonic 4th intervals of the Melodic Minor scale, which morphed into being today as I waxed saxosophical. In my recent series of posts entitled “Melodic Minor: Major’s Evil Twin”, Pts. 1 -5, it was mentioned that: 1) The Melodic Minor scale system does not contain an unbroken row of 6 perfect fourths, as does Major (i.e. C Maj: B-E-A-D-G-C-F). As a result of altering the Maj. 3rd “E” to “Eb”, the newly created C Melodic Minor scale now has 4 perfect fourths, 2 tritones (Eb-A, F-B) and a diminshed … Read More
This is a basic, fundamental exercise dealing with Major Triads and their inversions. The triads are spaced a whole tone apart with the scheme being ascending / descending in an upwards direction for 2 octaves, then ascending / descending back down. Each inversion is presented in four groupings, as each measure is a Major Third apart, thus dividing the octave into 3 equal parts. Therefore, the triads repeat after the fourth grouping. Triads are one of the more basic tools in an improviser’s arsenal. A good technical facility, as well as a basic theoretical understanding of their usage both in … Read More
As we continue the saga of MM (aka Melodic Minor), our “Major Modal Mutant”, and cast a brief glance over our shoulders for a quick recap, we remind ourselves that: MM was formed by lowering the 3rd degree of a Major Scale, which altered it’s internal intervalic relationships. Whereras Major has 6 perfect fourths and one tritone, MM now possesses 4 perfect fourths, a diminished fourth (Maj. 3rd), and 2 tritones. MM contains substantial pieces of both the whole tone, and diminished scales. … Read More
In Pt. 1, we saw how M.M. was created from the ribs of a Major scale by simply dropping the Maj. 3rd a half step, and in the process, changing the interval relationships (and therefore the tensions) within the scale itself. Using C Melodic Minor as an example, the sound of MM is now darker and more mysterious than Major, due mainly to the added whole tone (creating an augmented triad, (Eb-G-B), and the diatonic presence of two diminished triads (A-C-Eb & B-D-F), meaning that our new scale now possesses two tritones (A-Eb & B-F). Besides the tritones, we also … Read More
Friend and fellow tenorman, Chicago native and long time NYC resident, Russ Nolan features a very concise and insightful look into some of the processes that go into both jazz composition and improvisation, as well as highlighting similarities of bot Russ refers to composition as “improvisation out of time” and improvisation as “composition in real time”. Being an accomplished composer as well as a world class improviser, he knows well of which he speaks. Check out his 3 part post, and learn more about Russ. … Read More