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SongTrellis |
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Checkout The Rhythms! We've reorganized The Rhythms in a way that we hope you find useful. Before this change, if there were versions offered at different tempos, they would each be listed separately. This cluttered the list and made it hard to find examples from the different rhythm families. In the new format, a master heading for each of the rhythms appears above descriptive text for that rhythm. The most characteristic version from that rhythm family that we list is linked to the family heading.If there are variants played at different tempos, links to those versions are placed in a labelled horizontal array under the descriptive text. Here's the big change: we have begun to create MIDI files that demonstrate the subrhythms of each ensemble rhythm. We have all of the subparts of Abakua, Aconcon and Acpala listed now. We'll go through the list in order every few days and add MIDIs for the subrhythms of two or three of the ensemble rhythms listed until they are all broken down into their constituent parts. When subparts for ensembles are available, links to these appear in a labelled horizontal array below the variants at different tempos. Changin' The Changes I've just added new chord progressions for two tunes that I'd been looking for for months: Jimmy Rowles The Peacocks and Keith Jarrett's Prism. Jimmy Rowles was recognized by the knowledgeable as one of the greatest accompanists for singers in jazz. He was Billie Holiday's regular pianist for the last few years of her life. He played on one of Carmen McCrae's greatest recordings "The Great American Songbook". A singer's accompanist unfortunately rarely registers in the mind of the listening public. If they were earthquakes they would come in at Richter 2 or 3. Rowles was very good in this role, was in great demand, got lots of work (by jazz standards), and is quickly being forgotten. He was however a completely amazing composer of jazz tunes. Reputedly, he wrote hundreds of them. Very few of them were recorded. The only one I could find before now for The Changes was his 502 Blues (Drinkin' And Driving), a jazz waltz that Wayne Shorter first introduced on his Adam's Apple album. That was quite a tribute because Shorter was a prolific composer who used his Blue Note recordings to introduce his own compositions. He only rarely played other composers work during that whole incredible run of recordings. Once he played a song his brother Alan composed. He played a song that Gil Evans composed with Shorter in mind. He played Rowles' "502 Blues". He played Jobim's Dindi when he was becoming interested in Brazilian music. The Peacocks is perhaps Rowles' most recorded composition. Stan Getz interpreted it first on a recording with Rowles.. Bill Evans made it a regular part of his performances. Shorter and Herbie Hancock did a version for Travinier's film Round Midnight. Branford Marsalis has played it. The tune mimics the call of peacocks with a very unusual chromatic melody. Prism is a piece that Keith Jarrett first played live with Jan Garbarek and then later with his Standards trio with Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette. It has a very slow beautiful melody played over a fascinating 32-bar chord progression. To the inattentive ear it sounds like it sounds like the melody of the tune is actually 16 bars long repeated twice with a different variation played towards the end of each repeat. In actuality the supposed second repeat causes the initial melody to be played a half step lower. The harmonic rhythm is so slow and the changes of harmony are so gradual that we're in a different key but haven't sensed that the key change has taken place. Also the harmonic pattern used in the second half of the tune does not resemble the pattern of the first half but still feels similar. There's a lot of mysterious things going on in the harmony of this tune that I don't understand yet. I'm sure it's going to teach me a lot. Anyone want to help me work this one over? Other Changes
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Last update: Thursday, March 8, 2001 at 10:47 PM. |
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