RAFAEL'S LESSONS
Jan 19, 2025
Hi Rafael - at the moment let's just focus on your college jazz audition material, which is all in the TUNES section below. we'll ultimately get back onboard with all regular assignments when we can.
listen to this
a lot!!
EXERCISES-
Get to work on both of these sheets - really pay attention to articulation:
We'll keep this here so you can go over it sometimes - you just need to get your brain and fingers working together in this range:
These 3 pages show how The Blues can use basic harmony with few chords or can use much more complex harmony with lots of chords, yet somehow it's still always The Blues:
This link has the info that I was showing you a while back about how to sit at the piano and do basic jazz comping - with the chord root in the left hand and the 3rd + 7th in the right hand:
TUNES-
Always try to match the groove/pocket and the articulation/style of the recordings your are studying.
ALWAYS USE HEADPHONES when playing along with recordings.
Jazz audition material
1) blues on clarinet: Billie's Bounce
2) early jazz on clarinet: Bye Bye Blackbird
3) Ballad on tenor: Body and Soul
4) standard on tenor: St. Thomas
Below are lead sheets and recordings of these tunes - Blackbird and Body and Soul have lyrics - listen carefully to the vocal recordings and learn these lyrics:
Some Jazz clarinetists: Sidney Bechet, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Paquito D'Rivera, Buddy DeFranco, Anat Cohen, Ken Peplowski, Gregory Agid
Some Jazz tenor saxophonists: Sonny Rollins, Eric Alexander, Sonny Stitt, John Coltrane, Dexter Gordon, Coleman Hawkins
You memorized the head to Saints today - can you remember it without looking at the lead sheet? Saints is typically in the key of F concert.
Try playing the guide tone line in the 2nd half of the tune.
You memorized the head to Second Line today - can you remember it? It's a blues form in Bb concert with the most basic chords.
Blues By Five which is a blues recorded by The Miles Davis Quintet in 1957. MEMORIZE Miles' 1st solo chorus and play it in all keys.
This solo uses a couple of melodic devices that are very common in the blues:
- flatted-3rd to natural-3rd
- 6th to root