[Dixielandjazz] Chord simplification question

[Augustine Daniel]

Ken (c: DJML)--
    Ever since i started reading leadsheets, the naming of chords has occasionally been problematic for me as a tuba player.  If the chord in the original song is a C-E-G-Bb-Db and the C is in the bass, calling it an E-chord makes me play what to me is the 3rd of the chord and sounds wrong to me.
    The piano player in my band and i sometimes disagree on what the chord is (or should be named), as he is a big-band and cocktail-piano player, and i'm a tuba player who has never played that kind of music.  I don't (can't) do substitution-chords.
    Glad your bass-player can figure out by ear what note to play, but on an unfamiliar song -- or on a song i've played for years that somebody's put 9th and 11th-notes into -- i'm lost as to what note to play.

    Dan
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On Jan 16, 2015, at 3:28 PM, Ken Gates <kwg915 at gmail.com> wrote:

I make lead sheets for our play-for-fun group of six.
We play for fun but take seriously that we want to
sound as could as we can,  which includes playing
"proper" chords.  We have two very good guitar/banjo players.
Sometimes my choice for making the lead sheet (musescore)
is a source that uses chords that are more sophisticated
than our tunes or our level of musicianship require.

So I simplify.  For example---if a see a C7-9 I recognize
that the top four notes make an Edim7.   So I substitute
that for the C7-9.

Here's the question.   Is that a satisfactory substitution or
should I consider other alternatives for that chord?  When
I play the five notes of C7-9 on a keyboard the Db sure
makes it sound like a dim chord.

I did reference a guitar book with 14 possible fingerings
for C7-9.  Three of the 14 chose the 4 notes I chose (eliminates
the root note).  Six of the 14 did play all 5 notes.  The remaining
five of 14  removed either the E , G, or Bb.   Note--our bass player
finds his good notes by ear, I don't know what he would choose
but he rarely misses.  Of course, when the banjo is used, there
are only 4 strings involved.

Ken Gates (clarinet)
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** Dan Augustine  --  Austin, Texas  --  ds.augustine at mail.utexas.edu
**     "What is strange is this."  --  Gertrude Stein          
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