[Dixielandjazz] A Possible Way to get better as a musician

[Graham Martin]

Steve Schwartz said:

["Dick Hyman's 2 books have great changes if you need to be sure of chords; of course you can use other sources but usually the original sheet music doesn't work that well as many tunes have changed with usage."]

I don't know that I agree entirely. I have collected the various up-market song books of professional chord changes and substitutions, real books etc and then put them into Band-in-a-Box to use as backing for my practicing. But I have now come to the conclusion that the chords are much too difficult to memorise. And I find that even the Beboppers (and ilk)  don't use anything as complex when they are improvising. If they do, the soloist will use his own enhancements and expect the rhythm section to follow. 

I now that Dick Hyman has shown us the useful adaptions that have taken place for modern harmonic and rhythmic taste, but surely the best way is to learn the melody off by heart - the way it needs to be played for the style of music one is normally performing? There is no need to write it down.

As far as the Hyman progression go, take something that all OKOMs have played a zillion times, like "I Can't Give You Anything But Love". Hyman says the first 8 bars are

| Ab \ \ \ | Ab/C \ Bdim \ | Bbm7 \ \ \ | Bbm7/Eb \ \ Eb7b9 | Ab \ \ \ | Ab/C \ Fm7 \ | Bbm7 \ \ \ | Bbm7/Eb \ \  Eb7 ||

He also shows a substitution for bar two of Cm7 and for bar 6 as | Cm7 \ \ Adim |

Gees, I hate to think what David Baker would come up with!

Silly me, and in any case most people do it in 'F', but I thought the chords were:

| F \ \ \ | Abdim \ \ \ | Gm7 \ \ \ | C7 \ \ \ | Repeat 4 bars... ||

Eric Holroyd (and I wouldn't mind betting Sheik) would agree with me.

Plus, I am pretty convinced that the OKOM audience does not like to hear a lot of modern chord substitutions either. Yes, I do think they notice! But maybe only a subconscious annoyance.

I am also sure that most of my banjo-playing friends do not have enough strings or fingers for the more complex progressions. Not that I am a huge fan of the banjo, much preferring a Condon-style guitar, as I may have remarked previously. 'Horses for courses', of course. 

I will give you that the up progressions sound fine during the piano solo and I would certainly have to use something a bit more harmonically complex if I was doing a big band arrangement. But when I am playing Traditional Jazz/Dixieland pu-lease don't play them behind my solo!  

Best,

Grah 

Graham Martin
COOCHIEMUDLO ISLAND
Queensland, AUSTRALIA