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GREEN DOLPHIN STREET DECONSTRUCTING A CHART
Okay. We've taken a look at the basic four voice chord forms employed by jazz guitarists since the fifties. This was common knowledge in the first place. We've also looked at a grand total of eight scalar/modal patterns.
Although we know that we have just scratched the surface, we also know that many of the "greats" have done spectacular work with fewer tools. How is this accomplished, short of an appeal to nebulous terms like "soul?"
TO SKIP THE MEANDERING AND VIEW SOME SUGGESTED COMPING VOICINGS. BUT REMEMBER THESE ARE ONLY A MICRO RXPRESSION OF THE POSSIBILITIES. THE MEANDERINGS ARE DESIGNED TO REMIND YOU OF HOW MANY MORE THERE ARE YET TO BE DISCOVERED.
Guitarists in particular often become so preoccupied with overintellectualizing theory that they forget where the instrument's greatest expressive powers reside: shaping a note with the right hand and angle of approach to a note from the left employing knowledge of scalar patterns. A pattern alone is nothing but a sterilizing influence without a guiding intelligence.
When you hear about the "lyricism" of great soloists like Parker and Coltrane, it is worthwhile to realize that much of that mystical sounding term means nothing more than the investment of personalized licks against the original melody itself.
Paul Hindemith once pointed out that at the end of the day, no musical conception, no matter how intricately and studiously arrived at, has value at all, if it cannot be hummed. There is no magic bullet for originality. All that the tools we have so far can do is shuffle and reshufle notes like a deck of cards. Your originality will reside in which of the "hands" you find suit you most effectively.
Towards that end, when we begin to break down a chart, we will find that the most powerful can opener of all will be simplifiying it, rather than introducing a multeity of passing chords and substitutions.
In keeping with the KISS (keep it simple stupid) rule, let's examine one of the simplest and richest tunes of all: Green Dolphin Street.
Reviewing this chart reminds me of what Itzhak Perlman said of playing Beethoven. The difficulty resides in the feeling one has that there is barely anything tangible there at all.
I believe that the average four bar to the line chart for verse one of this notorious improvisation template (which you've no doubt already heard butchered by countless clinics and workshop groups) looks like the following in the key of C Some of you may notice I have studiously avoided the final "tag". We'll get to that later.
Looking for ten thousand passing chords in the first four bars will hobble the budding improviser. And don't worry, we've got thousands of those available from the wealth of work already accomplished by a half a century of post bop keyboard players. (I would especially refer you to Bud Powell.)
You can also hop on over to the plague bunnies section for entertaining parallel voicings that may be applied after other dominant voiings have grown tiresome.
Take the long shot for a second, and think simply. The movement from two bars of Cmaj7 to two bars of Cmi7 is really nothing more than a major sale to minor built on the same root. However, if you look at CMi as equivalent to Eb major(relative minor from lesson 4) for some reason this catalyzes other angles on runs that already lie easily under the hands. In other words you will play any notes in C major for the first eight beats, and any notes in Eb major for the next two bars. Juggling these as permutations provides different angles on your target lyrical sounds much as a skillful pool player takes different angles on the cue ball.
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