Interpreting a melody - My Funny Valentine (part 3) 

After getting the ball rolling with three worked-out versions of the first eight bars of My Funny Valentine, and then looking at how three singers performed them, it was only natural to find three great instrumental versions to look at.  Keep in mind that this is the first time the melody is being stated in the performance- although with a song like this there is a lot of familiarity with the original on the part of both listener and performer.

Sonny Stitt - from a Quincy Jones' collection.  It was really…Read more

New Music 

The Guilty Minds, a band I play in with Joe Brownrigg, Dan Junkins and Jeff Asselin, has some shows coming up, the first one on Sunday November 16, 2014 at The Daily Grind in Ottawa.  You can find more music by clicking here.

In anticipation of the show, here is a video of a new song Joe wrote.

Vocal phrasing of a melody - My Funny Valentine (part 2) 

This is really a continuation of my previous post about rhythmically worked-out backphrasing.  I thought it might be interesting to take some of my favourite singers' versions of My Funny Valentine and see exactly what they are doing. 

Here is Chet Baker from "The Best of Chet Baker Sings" - one of my first vocal jazz records.  On it are simple and beautiful versions of 20 songs every jazz musician should know.  Chet's phrasing leans towards triplet-type figures.  The exact rhythm in measure 5 is hard to…Read more

Video-A-Day 

In this crazy information age there is a high demand for internet content.  I remember years ago I barely struggled to keep a basic one-page website with my bio and a list of shows that didn't get too many months out of date.  Nowadays the music industry relies greatly on YouTube hits for booking artists to shows and contracts. 

Part of the reason that I figured I could at least maintain a weekly short entry into my own blog was that my brother-in-law, Tyler Kealey, took on the enormous challenge of posting…Read more

Tripletifying a melody - My Funny Valentine (part 1) 

Often I describe back-phrasing to singers as purposefully starting late and pulling on the time and catching up.  I've seen this work for many singers, but one of the dangers is that the resulting singing can end up completely lacking in rhythm or even get the band lost.

Something I've been meaning to do for a while is write out a 'tripletified' version of a melody -- essentially worked-out back-phrasing.  I used the first eight bars of "My Funny Valentine" as a basis.  You can click here to hear me playing…Read more

Binge Listening 

People are almost proud of epic TV-show watching sessions, or binge-watching.  In the last few years it seems watching Netflix, Hulu or even DVD box sets all night is a far more common an activity than going out. Yes, this does not bode well for the live entertainment industry- not just music, but sports, movies, even restaurants, which all are having a harder time beating the home-based experience. 

In music, people have been warning of this day since the radio was invented.  Why go out?  Musicians went onRead more

Blocking 

In acting, there is something in the world of improv referred to as 'blocking'.  The basic idea is that whenever someone introduces and idea you have to think "yes, and" as opposed to just "no".  The house is on fire! Yes and my cat is on the top floor, we have to save it!  If you don't know what to do with it you shouldn't just completely ignore it. Along the same lines it doesn't help just to stall and say yes its on fire and send it back to the other person with nothing added.  Also, check out thisRead more

The Body Conforms 

I have been thinking a lot lately about how over the years of playing a musician's body conforms to what they do. Sometimes you see this in a trumpet player's lips, sometimes they show exactly where the mouthpiece has sat those many, many hours.  Often, however, this kind of physical change is considered a sign of poor technique, or pushing your body too hard.

Recently I met some piano players who didn't have what many would necessarily consider 'good' technique, but were able to play what they needed to…Read more

Ornette Coleman "How Deep Is The Ocean" 

Ornette plays standards (and with pianists) so rarely that I want to dig into what this early example of his band sitting in with Paul Bley does.  I also have lifted a bunch of his playing on "Embraceable You" but this performance of "How Deep Is The Ocean", an Irving Berlin Standard from the '30s, is a track I haven't really listened to before, from an album (Live at the Hillcrest 1958) I've been meaning to dig into more.   The horns play a unison intro line, it sounds loosely out of time but they… Read more

Miles Davis' Sidemen Graphic 

I've often wondered what a complete family tree (or I guess intricate cloud) of people who played with Miles Davis would look like, but of course anything past one or two degrees of separation increases so exponentially that we would come across Kevin Bacon or your neighborhood jazz student within six or seven steps.   Just for fun I chose ten albums covering a large sampling of just his studio recordings (Charlie Parker's Swedish Schnapps (1953) to Tutu (1986)) and connected the sidemen from each. Any… Read more