The Billy Childs Interview Part 2

 
GC: I certainly think in terms of your piano playing and your writing, to me you should be out there as much as any of these other cats. One thing I wanted to ask you...you’re from LA, and I know you were kind of going back and forth...was that a hard decision not to go back to New York?

BC: I think it really had an effect in terms of my profile in the jazz world. For two reasons - one, the connection to Europe is a lot longer. Promoters find it more difficult to fly me out from LA than New York, for obvious reasons. Number two - New York is perceived as the jazz center of the world. If you’re from anywhere else, especially LA which is perceived as an industry, a commercial town, then you’re incapable of not putting out anything of any depth. Combine that with the fact that I was on a jazz label when I was making a name for myself back in the late 80s, with a really great distribution, the problem was that it was called Windham Hill Jazz. Some genius at marketing thought that they would have a jazz label called Windham Hill Jazz, which of course Windham Hill was the poster boy for New Age music which is the antithesis of jazz. And so a lot of people would look at the label and go “Windham Hill? Nah this is bullshit, I don’t want to hear this.” Or they’d hear it, but the Windham Hill image would be so strong that they would still call it New Age.

GC: I could see that. I don’t know if you ever heard some of Dave Holland’s ECM records, there’s one I’m thinking of with Steve Coleman and Smitty Smith and it really doesn’t sound anything like what you’d typically hear from ECM. I could see people being confused, if they buy into that. That’s interesting. Did you ever want to live in New York full time?

BC: I had a place there, it wasn’t full time though. By the time I had the place I had a family and everyone was used to being here. I kind of did, but I’m in New York so much now. I’ve kind of established myself in this particular direction, like I have this jazz chamber group, and I’m kind of cool with not having been in New York, but do I wonder how shit might have turned out? Yes, I do. I think as a jazz pianist, I think I’d be way more out there and touring every summer and that thing. But being in LA has given me a minute to reflect and become more of a skilled composer. Which to me is much more rewarding and important. Because I’ve developed this thing here, LA’s kind of a studio town, so when I have some heavily orchestrated thing, or some chambers type thing, it’s not difficult to call people to rehearse it and hear what it sounds like. Everyone has a car, and you have your garage to rehearse in, it’s no think. In New York you’ve got to get everybody into a practice room in the city and people have to worry about parking - it just wouldn’t work. So I’ve learned a lot just about getting together with people about composing. And that’s contributed to who I am right now. One thing that New York critics don’t like about me is that I don’t apologize from being from LA, you know? I don’t defer to New York. They listen to my music and they have that geographical chauvinism that nothing of depth can come from anywhere other than New York. That’s a pet peeve I have with critics, and that’s why when that cat jumped on you, I was like “who the fuck are you to say that?”

GC: Well it seems like a lot of times there’s an agenda or there’s preconceived notions not based on anything that has to do with the sound of the music. Because if I was listening to your music I wouldn’t think “oh, this is an LA vibe”. I would just hear it as some killing stuff.

BC: Well, I appreciate that.

GC: Yeah. I don’t like to think of things in that way, because certainly there’s a lot of things that come out of New York that don’t have the “New York sound”, whatever that is. Your music certainly has as much intensity if not more than a lot of stuff that comes out of there.

BC: You know I have to say - a lot of times I use a New York rhythm section because it’s still hard for me to find drummers and bassists that are playing like the ones in New York. In LA you’re not going to find any Antonio Sanchez’s or Clarence Penn’s or Brian Blade’s. Actually you would, he lives there doesn’t he?

GC: You know, I keep hearing that, I saw him last year and he seemed to imply that he wasn’t really here that much. But there’s Brian Blade sightings once in a while. So I’m not really sure. He’s not on the scene at all. But you never know. Portland seems like it’s getting a good reputation as a good place to live, I’m sort of wondering if more cats are going to move out here.

BC: Hey, you ever play with Ron Steen?

GC: Yeah, he does a bunch of jam sessions.

BC: Tell him I said hello when you see him. I used to see him with Joe Henderson, Tom Grant, and Patrick O’Hare.

GC: That’s amazing! Tom Grant’s still around too. Hey Billy, I should wrap it up, but I really appreciate this. Good to talk to you always.

BC: I appreciate you interviewing me for your blog! Your blog is much better than most blogs concerning jazz. You know, I’ve always thought that musicians should critique the critics! There should be some sort of thing, 4 stars, on what we feel the guy knows. How sound he is on history, his grammar, his fucking punctuation...

GC: I hear you. It’s a touchy subject, I certainly wouldn’t want to alienate all critics, but we should hold them to as high of a standard as they seem to like to hold us to.

BC: There should be more rebuttals. A lot of musicians, including myself, tend to think “well I’ll just let the music speak for itself, I’m above that, I’m not going to lower myself to get into a battle of words over music.” The time for that is getting old. They’re just fucking writing what they want, and giving that impression to thousands of people.

GC: I think creative music is not in a great position now and these critics are people that claim to love this music, yet nitpick something. I’ve paid out of my pocket to do some of these records, and then to be crushed by some dude who didn’t even listen to it, is an insult. They don’t realize what we’re up against.

BC: Yeah! Or maybe he listened to it but didn’t like it for some reason. Instead of saying “this guy is obviously great, I just didn’t get it” they’ll say “this sucks” in a very declarative, definitive way, like it’s an empirical truth that you suck.

GC: But then you have a bunch of reviews like that, and you wonder why nobody likes jazz. The stuff that’s really good will fall by the wayside, the people who are already doing well in the industry - they’re always going to get a good review. So the people one or two tiers below have to really struggle just to be mentioned. And then when it’s a bad or unclear mention...it just feels unfair to me.

BC: I’m with you. I don’t think I’ve ever - and I’ve been doing this for 35 years - I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a good review from a New York critic about anything that I’ve ever done. Which to me is upsetting.

GC: I would think they would dig your stuff the most. I don’t get that.

BC: I think I got one good review from the Wall Street Journal on my last record. Chick Corea tells me I’m good, Herbie...I think I must be good.

GC: Yeah, they should know!

BC: I’m glad that you called me. Hope we can hang soon. 

http://www.billychilds.com/

The Billy Childs Interview Part 1

Billy Childs is simply one of the baddest musicians on the planet. He's a brilliant jazz pianist, having received much acclaim as a sideman with legends as well as from being a bandleader. His Windham Hill recordings-"Take For Example, This.....", "His April Touch", and "Portrait Of A Player"- were a big influence on my musical tendencies. Childs has been busy for the past two decades as a composer, having been commissioned by major symphony orchestras as well as jazz stars. He has received three Grammy awards and was also awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. Still, I think Childs is somewhat underrated in the jazz world, partially due to the fact that he has lived in Los Angeles (as opposed to New York, arguably the jazz capital of the world....at least for the time being) and also been touring with Chris Botti for the past few years. Hopefully, Childs will have much more visibility as a bandleader in the near future.

Childs is a very no nonsense type of person; in our interview, he spoke frankly about his musical opinions and his view of the music scene. This kind of conversation is exactly why I started this blog; jazz musicians should be able to tell people their side of the story. I'm breaking it up into two parts; it's rather lengthy, and we could have gone on longer.
 
GC: I believe it relates to the state of creative music and the fact that there are all these opinions out there and now with the web, at least we can hear from musicians, but it’s hard to have a clear idea of what the state of music is. I feel like if you’re doing creative music in a sense you should probably get a pass because there’s some really extremely commercial music that seems to get fawned over by writers, and then somebody who’s trying to do something to be expressive will get ripped apart by a critic like that. What’s your feeling about that?

BC: Well actually it’s not just pop music. You’re contending with other creative artists, you’re contending with everybody and their mother who wants to put out a CD. I mean, there’s a fucking glut of music out there right now that you have to wade through, that people have to wade through in order to get to music that’s been really carefully thought out and put together and all of this shit. So my feeling is that I just continue to do what I do and the internet, while it’s made everybody’s music available to everybody, it also makes it possible to find your audience. Starting mailing lists, having Artistshare or Kickstarter campaigns, Facebook is really important in that, I think. We all know that America takes for granted the very music that is the crowned jewel of its musical contributions to the world. It takes it for granted because it requires an attention span. But you just keep going on, you know. Just keep doing it. I wanted to ask you, as an educator, don’t you think it’s kind of a problem when there’s so many students and the demand for jazz is way low and there’s all these students coming out of school who can play the shit out of jazz?
 
GC: To me it’s actually an ethical dilemma. The fact that all these students are paying - I recently noticed in the grocery store, I think Time Magazine or Newsweek said something like “is a college degree a good investment?”. I didn’t read the article, I just noticed the headline. I should read the article to find out what the statistics are, but I think some people, when you look at the number of people in any field who graduate from college or have multiple degrees, even doctorates, aren’t finding jobs in their field, and then when you consider the astronomical cost of education in this country, you’ve got to wonder. And it’s not everybody, but it’s enough people that will be crushed by debt and will maybe never be able to get a job. In terms of musicians, people who either don’t play so well or do play really well are not having opportunities to become a musician or play, who will be frustrated for the rest of their lives. My first feeling is that, if you are going to make the decision to major in music or jazz, you’re going to need to be serious about it.

BC: You have to make hard decisions about whether or not you are actually necessary to the world as a musician. Is the calling in you so strong that you just have to get this message out to everybody? If so, then yes, pursue it. But if not, if you’re not that passionate about it, then get out, because there’s enough.

GC: I say that to people - you kind of do this because you have to because you think it’s kind of a cool idea to be a musician. For me I really had no other choice. I had good grades in school, but at a certain point everything that I was doing was about music. I think we all have those times where we think “well what if I did something else, then I guess I could be driving a Lamborghini or something”. I don’t know, to me this is what I love to do and this is where my skills seem to lie. I’ve actually thought about the idea that anybody who majors in music should automatically be a double major.

BC: Yeah, maybe. Like in business or some other practical thing.

GC: Yeah. I mean some people say music education, which is what I did, but it’s definitely a problem and it’s only getting worse. You’ve got to be honest with people and not make it seem like there’s going to be tons of opportunities, try to make sure that people know that it’s competitive.

 

BC: Yeah, it’s way more competitive than when I was coming up. I’m 55, so when I was 20 and making my mark, like 1977 or shit, there’s a handful of piano players on the level. Now everybody is on that level, but back then it was the guys I knew like Kenny Kirkland, Mulgrew Miller, James Williams, Donald Brown, and a few others. But now it’s fucking every kid! And there’s the internet and Youtube and all these videos you can see of actually how the masters played that we didn’t have. So they learn it really quickly. A lot of times they play like they learned it.

GC: Well let’s bring that to you, because to me you’ve kind of always had your own style. You were telling me about some of the first things that you listened to that inspire you. You said you’re a real Return to Forever fan...

BC: Oh yeah. When I was 14, which is about when I started getting serious about music, that was about 1971. What was happening that was this incredible confluence of styles coming together. I think I was really incredibly lucky to be at that impressionable age during that time because what was going on was that jazz was interested in trying to connect with rock, rock musicians were coming out of conservatories and trying to work classical music into it, like Keith Emerson. Then you had Miles with Bitches Brew and all of the shit that that spawned, Chick Corea, John McLaughlin, Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul. Herbie and the Headhunters. All of this shit was happening, all these various styles. Not just styles like genres of music but cultures of music. Like the Mahavishnu Orchestra incorporated East Indian Music and those rhythms, and Herbie had this African influence in his music, so all these shit’s going on. Leonard Bernstein wrote that Mass.... It had lyrics by Paul Simon, drum sets, etc. All this informed my music and I guess the thing that I took from it was to try to incorporate all things that were influencing me and try to sift all of those genres into one form of music. And that’s what those guys did and that’s what I try to do. Emerson was hugely influential, besides the obvious ones - Herbie, McCoy, Chick, Keith Jarrett.
GC: What about 20th century classical music, or anything that falls under the category of European classical music, because I know you have a relationship with that. Can you talk about that a little bit?

BC: Sure. After high school I took a theory class and I took jazz piano, classical piano. Because I kind of excelled at theory in high school I was encouraged to go to try out for USC as a composition major. There were three places I applied - USC, Berklee, New England Conservatory. And Berklee and NEC accepted me as a jazz major or something, but USC accepted me as a composition major. And I wanted to explore European composition. I had heard Mathis der Maler by Hindemith and I fell in love with that piece. I wanted to know more about how shit like that was working. And so I chose to go to USC to study composition. So my four years there were really...I just got indoctrinated with European thought in terms of music. Structure, orchestration, counterpoint, theory - that kind of thing. And really it was invaluable to shaping my concept now. One thing I dug about classical music is that because it had such command of a technical aspect of orchestration and all of these musical devices, it really lent itself to drama. You can really paint tonal pictures with it, with that command of orchestration and structure. You can create these cinemascapes, these tonal soundscapes, just by understanding how the masters did it. So that was really invaluable to 

 me.

GC: When you’re composing, do you think “I’m going to write a jazz thing”, or a classical thing, or do you even think in those terms? Or does it just come out and you don’t worry about the labels?

BC: Well when I write my music, for me, I don’t think in those terms at all. Not at all. I feel, I won’t say offended, but I feel like people are putting an unfair limitation on my music when they say “it’s a classical piece” or “it’s a jazz piece”. Because it’s everything that I’ve been influenced by. But that doesn’t mean that if some singer wants me to do jazz arrangements, and she specifies some idiomatic preference, a stylistic preference, that should we like me to do, then I’ll do that. Or if some orchestra or chamber group wants a straight-up classical piece, like a string quartet, then I’ll do that. But when it’s my music, then it’s kind of like whatever I’m hearing. I’m more concerned with the story, the drama, the effect that I want to achieve. If jazz or classical isn’t the quickest way to get to that, then I’ll do that.

GC: What is your feeling about American jazz in Europe? Do you have any awareness of the European scene? Because I personally feel like it seems like there’s more going on in Europe in terms of gigs, and I feel like there’s sort of this idea that Europe wants to take ownership of jazz. I don’t know if you have any thoughts about that.

BC: Well I mean, no one takes ownership of any form of music, in my opinion. We have to recognize the roots of the music, where it came from, who invented it, why. But once it’s out there, it’s out there. Just like democracy, you know. It started a certain way but now it’s a living, breathing entity that has to reflect the times. Slavery was legal when the Constitution was written. That’s kind of how jazz is. I call jazz a classical music. My definition of classical music is one that’s so profoundly deep that it would last generations but each generation will put it’s own mark on it. The music will be strong enough to endure and change with each generations interpretation. Now in terms of Europe owning jazz? That’s....
GC: Well, to play Devil’s Advocate, I read this book called “Is Jazz Dead, or Has it Moved to a New Address?” by Stuart Nicholson. He talks about how the perception is that the jazz that comes out of America is very traditional, historic, and very repertoire based, whereas the Europeans don’t feel tied to those traditions in the same way, so they’re moving the music forward.

BC: I don’t know about that. I wouldn’t read that quote to someone like Jason Moran or Dave Douglas. People who are at the forefront of their shit. Even Robert Glasper, you’ve got to mention him. He’s combining jazz with hip hop in an interesting way. It’s significant, what he’s doing. There is innovative stuff. I think, being from America and us being co-opted and run amok by labels and critics and divided and conquered and all of this bullshit, I think that they don’t even know what the fuck American jazz is now. Back when bebop was coming out, everyone knew what that was. It was one form of music and it kind of evolved naturally into hard bop and modern jazz and so forth and so on, but it’s kind of branched out into all these different things and put into all these different categories and shit. And then you have shit like smooth jazz and commercial whatever. Maybe in Europe it’s a little more, maybe they’re like “you know what? We got this shit now.” I don’t know, I haven’t been to Europe enough. One thing I do know - and I’ll say this, I haven’t been to Europe enough with my own group - but one thing I do know is that, from the audience perspective, there’s a much more acute awareness of what jazz is and much more ability to actually 

 appreciate it. Do you feel that?

GC: Yeah. Well for me, I actually feel like one of the big advantages that Europeans have - and I hate to just lump Europe into just one category, because it’s many different cultures within one continent - in general, it seems like people in Europe go out. They go out and they to either hang out at the pub or to listen to music, or just to be outside of their house not at home on the internet or watching TV. I mean, I’m sure there’s some of that, but just to give you an example: you go to say, Cleveland, on a Tuesday, and it seems almost like a ghost town.

BC: Los Angeles.

GC: Right! And then when you go to Europe it seems like people are just out, hanging out, going to hear music. In Japan, people like to go out.

BC: I know. And man - Prague is the shit. I was in Prague and people were out walking around, it’s a beautiful night in a beautiful city, you could just stumble into a jazz club and somebody’s really trying to deal with some stuff, you know? Yeah, I know. America is the most developed country in the world but that may be the leading us to some bullshit 

music or something. I don’t know.

GC: In terms of you bringing your band to Europe, do you have the desire to be out there more as a leader? It seems like it’s really about that time.

BC: (laughs) It’s about that time! I’m fifty-five...well I did a 
European tour about a year ago. It was one of the most rewarding tours I’ve ever done, one of the most rewarding things as a leader I’ve ever done. Mostly because of what we were just talking about. We played a gig in Austria, in Vienna. Big ass 1400 seat place - which was packed! Sold out! And I played whatever the fuck I wanted. My songs. I took a piano solo here, didn’t take one there, then a harp solo, [Brian] Blade was playing on the gig. It was like a standing ovation, encores, the promoter took us out to dinner after. When we walked into the restaurant, people got up and starting applauding. That’s what they think of what we did. And then we’d play at a club here, and have to catch a cab home, you know...we played at the Duc De Lombards in Paris and it was the same thing! Such a warm acceptance. When you’re playing, really playing, it’s like life food for them, like it’s essential to their life that they hear art on that level. And it’s really rewarding to provide that art. And I got that sense every gig that we did in Europe. I’m with Myles Weinstein and he’s working with me on a quartet thing that I’m trying to put together to do a European tour next summer. And we’ll see where it ends up.

GC: I certainly think in terms of your piano playing and your writing, to me you should be out there as much as any of these other cats. One thing I wanted to ask you...you’re from LA, and I know you were kind of going back and forth...was that a hard decision not to go back to New York?

BC: I think it really had an effect in terms of my profile in the jazz world. For two reasons - one, the connection to Europe is a lot longer. Promoters find it more difficult to fly me out from LA than New York, for obvious reasons. Number two - New York is perceived as the jazz center of the world. If you’re from anywhere else, especially LA which is perceived as an industry, a commercial town, then you’re incapable of not putting out anything of any depth. Combine that with the fact that I was on a jazz label when I was making a name for myself back in the late 80s, with a really great distribution, the problem was that it was called Windham Hill Jazz. Some genius at marketing thought that they would have a jazz label called Windham Hill Jazz, which of course Windham Hill was the poster boy for New Age music which is the antithesis of jazz. And so a lot of people would look at the label and go “Windham Hill? Nah this is bullshit, I don’t want to hear this.” Or they’d hear it, but the Windham Hill image would be so strong that they would still call it New Age.

 

GC: I could see that. I don’t know if you ever heard some of Dave Holland’s ECM records, there’s one I’m thinking of with Steve Coleman and Smitty Smith and it really doesn’t sound anything like what you’d typically hear from ECM. I could see people being confused, if they buy into that. That’s interesting.

Viewer Mail Part II: Context

In my last post, I answered a question regarding jazz vocabulary. I related jazz vocabulary to spoken language; we have to learn one word or phrase at a time, and there is a process between the initial learning and the fluency with each word or phrase. Eventually, put a bunch of words, or in the case of jazz, "licks" together, and you are "speaking the language." Furthermore, there is another level: "Fluency" is one thing, being really creative is an even higher level. How many of us can write compelling fiction or poetry in a second or third language? In this way, we have to not only have a worthy number of ideas, we have to be able to be creative and spontaneous and relevant while we play. But initially, we have to be patient as we develop our vocabulary.

The previous post was sparked by Nanaimo based guitarist Alexis Deighton Harrison. Her question might imply that she is a beginner, but Harrison can already play quite well; she sat in with my trio at The Cellar in Vancouver earlier this year. In regards to my analogy, Harrison wanted further clarification:

Comparing it to languages makes a lot of sense. I guess what I am still wondering is, does it ever make sense to sit down and say, "today, I will learn a " third up" pattern, followed by a "third down" pattern, in G major up to 200 beats per minute "? Or will that always be comparable to trying to memorize vast vocabulary lists without any context?

This was my response:

The problem is the context IS lost when you just take patterns out of a book. The best place to get patterns from is RECORDINGS! This is the way the masters developed vocabulary-from recordings and being around the music 24-7. Also, many of the greats-Coleman Hawkins, Bud Powell, Clifford Brown-studied either classical music or traditional "classical" method books. The point is to take ideas from everywhere. And these guys knew lots of melodies. Melodies become melodic ideas, which can be used to improvise with.

Regardless, whether you are given patterns to work on by your teacher or you take from recordings or wherever- in the initial stages it's always going to be abstract and boring. Scales and all of this stuff is not music. Music is the total package. YOU are always the one that has to add the creativity. But we need stuff WITH WHICH TO CREATE.

Have you ever tried to conjugate verbs in another language? French? Spanish? It's really hard, boring, and ultimately abstract because if you aren't a native speaker, those sounds and words don't really MEAN anything to you. However, this is why immersion programs, or actually going to France or Spain really makes a difference, because then , being thrown in the thick of it and always HEARING the context, it happens more naturally.

My son , almost 3, has learned how to speak from hearing my wife and I talk, plus Caillou, Bob The Builder, and Wibbly Pig TV shows. He really can talk and uses past tense, imperative. It's funny because he hears patterns and tries to make up different rules. He invents verbs. "Let's TRAIN" to him means, "Let's play with trains." "Let's FOOD" means let's eat. It's wrong, but he's trying to see the pattern.

Harrison responded:

Yeah, I definitely see your point. I learned Dutch as a second language on an exchange trip by simply being as conversational as possible, watching their TV shows, and reading a lot. I see now that I have probably been too abstract with the jazz vocabulary"grammar" I have been learning lately and that's why it isn't working as I would like. Hopefully those patterns that I learned but am not finding in my solos will come in helpful later down the road...thanks so much!

I am constantly question my explanations and teaching philosophy for the simple reason that I want it to be useful. If it isn't working, then students and musicians heeding my advice aren't advancing. I am always looking for constructive feedback. And I got some on my facebook page.(I had to shut off comments on this page because of a certain someone who made some nasty comments about my family. Maybe I'll be able to turn it back on soon.) A bunch of knowledgeable musicians chimed in:

Jim Butler:
 
You know, that's a lot of truth in what you say. But I think there are significant reasons, many and varied, as to why so many folks don't bridge the gap between the pattern and language...it's really a small number that go on to develop their musical language.

Mike LeDonne: 


I have never practiced patterns and tried to fit them in. And I don't really see what you posted in your examples as patterns but simply tiny parts of lines. I think of patterns as more complicated sequences of notes that follow the same routine down or up in parallel motion. Or something like arpeggiated triads that go in a specific sequence up or down but follow the same intervallic leaps exactly. I think there are musicians that are wired to practice these harmonic systems and fit them in note for note over parts of tunes on command. I've never been wired like that though. That doesn't mean I don't play patterns but with me they just happen in the spur of the moment. If I tried to practice them they would probably screw up at some point and sound too deliberate. So I think this is a different strokes for different folks kind of question. 

George - I also wanted to say that I really liked the whole analogy to language you laid out. I always new that is had these comparisons but I never thought it out to that extent. But it really works.

Larry Ham:

Gotta agree with LeDonne....Different strokes.....There are so many different learning styles. whatever works is the way to go. and somehow we all learned to speak English (or whatever our mother tongue is) by hearing it and struggling to imitate the sounds of it-in tiny bits at first, one sound at a time, with direction and encouragement. eventually, with continuous exposure (immersion) and practice, we assimilated vocabulary, syntax, timing! context, nuance of expression, non-literal expressions. by learning "in sound" we are then able to express our selves "in sound" and interact with others in that world of sound.

David Berkman:

This whole topic of licks reminds me of an experience I had teaching. I was doing a week-long residency at a school and the level was pretty mixed--some good players but a lot of beginning students (and some who weren't very serious) missing some fundamental harmonic knowledge. It seemed to me that they were being drilled pretty well on Harmony so I decided to take a different tack and we did a lot of different sessions on improvising without chord changes. It was a fun week and the students were pretty energized by it, which was my goal. On the last day, they double-booked my clinic time with Dr. Billy Taylor (another guest teacher) so we were both teaching the same class. Billy turned to me and said, 'well, you've been working with them, what can they do?' I didn't really want to start with the free stuff, so I said, I thought they could handle a blues. They played and sounded pretty terrible. Billy was unimpressed and let them have it. He was a little rough on them, but he made a great point. He said (paraphrasing) that they were playing the blues but they didn't know the melodies that had been played on the blues in the past. They had no sense that there was a history of melodies that were attached to the blues and if you didn't know these melodies, you couldn't play the blues well. The words "Jazz Vocabulary" get used so often but I like this the way Dr. Taylor put it: an amassed history of the melodies that have been played on the blues, or over chord changes. Within that definition, "licks" with the negative associations that many people have with that word, are just phrases that we've heard over these tunes. 

I've never practiced licks much either. I do encourage students to play chord changes slowly alternating between singing and playing or playing up and down half-steps or to learn solos and analyze them so they can understand in harmonic terms (scale degrees, approach note patterns etc.) what great players do over changes.

Christopher Munch:

Before asking about patterns students should ask themselves: Can I make up (on the spot or somehow composed) a MELODY? A real, beautiful, meaningful melody? - When I read about such approaches like the one discussed here I always think: How can the things people like King Oliver, Lee Konitz, Hal Galper, Keith Jarrett or many others rightfully said be so forgotten again and again? I don't learn a language by collecting words in memory and hoping to be able to connect them eventually to something halfway meaningful; I learn a language by wanting to express something specific and looking for ways to bring it out! This dreaded pattern-based approach to improvising is mostly only used as a trick to make students sound AS IF they were able to handle the material fluently. (But in reality they have underdeveloped ears and harmonic sense and play mechanically.) The musicians I really like to listen to (whether famous or not-so-famous) all didn't learn via patterns or practicing modal scales the whole day! That's no coincidence! We as teachers mustn't fall into the trap of "methods" that seemingly make our students sound more advanced than they are - we have to teach them the real thing.

 

 
 

  

Viewer Mail: Genki Desu Ka?

Here's a question that just came in through my facebook site:


Hey George, I was just wondering, do you practice patterns as abstract...well, patterns, put through various scales, for example, or do you pick licks that are made of patterns and apply them as you would any lick?

I feel like I am working on patterns a lot and never getting any of them out on the spot...
Sincerely,
Alexis Deighton Harrison

Alexis, it's interesting that you should bring this up. This is a very common issue, and I've dealt with similar questions here on jazztruth. I am constantly trying to figure out ways to help my students with this problem. I was thinking about doing a post on this; your letter is giving me the extra motivation.
(BTW, Harrison is a fine guitarist from British Columbia, Canada.)

The analogy I always make is comparing jazz vocabulary(which is essentially what we are trying to develop) to spoken language. Let's say you want to learn a second language. You might initially start out with a Berlitz book with "common phrases". You memorize maybe a handful of those. You might not even understand the grammar in each sentence or phrase. You have short ideas that you are trying to memorize. Hopefully, you are able to associate that phrase with the corresponding translation in your principal language. If you imagine that there is a file in your brain's "computer" that holds the English phrase "I am fine", and you are trying to learn how to say the same thing in Japanese, you would learn the phrase, "Genki Desu." Then, you would "file" that phrase in the same folder that contains "I am fine." This is because when someone asks you "Genki Desu Ka?", you will need to have the same need as when someone asks you, "How are you doing?" And in order to communicate in a natural, spontaneous way, you need to "know"the phrase and exactly what context it is used in.

Let's say you are in Japan now, and you meet five different friends throughout the day. The first time someone asks you, "Genki desu ka?", the process begins slowly. You have to hear the sounds and translate them into, "How are you doing?"Then, you have to translate "I am fine" into "Genki desu". You might not remember it at all, and you will have to pull out your Berlitz book, find the page that says "Greetings and Salutations", and then find "Genki Desu." The process will happen faster each time you meet someone and have this conversation, so that hopefully, by the fifth person you meet, you will INSTINCTIVELY say the answer to the question in Japanese at the appropriate moment.
At that moment, you won't be fluent in Japanese; however, within that microcosm of "Genki desu ka?", you will be fluent enough to be understood for that moment.

You just have to repeat this process with many different phrases over the course of months or even years to be "conversationally fluent." If you are thinking about writing a novel in Japanese, this might take a good number of years before you are able to "think" in Japanese well enough to communicate on a level that is sophisticated enough for native speakers of Japanese to understand and accept as great writing.(Let's not even get to the Japanese written language! There are three writing systems: Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana. All I can say is good luck with that!)

I'm trying to make the point that learning jazz vocabulary is very similar in the following ways. One, you have to learn one phrase at a time. When you "learn" a phrase, there are these different levels of knowing it. You want to be able to play phrases and licks INSTINCTIVELY. This takes time. Just as in language, there is the learning, the analysis, the memorization, and the application. Only then will these musical ideas become part of you.

I think at the beginning stages, just like with languages, you have to force it a bit. You work with what you know, and use the known as often as possible to reinforce it. Say you have a chapter in a Japanese language book called "Getting Around Tokyo." At the end of the chapter, you might have a sample conversation where someone asks, "How do I get to the train station?" It's a sterile conversational environment. You force the words and phrases that you learned in the corresponding chapter to fit the situation. In jazz, let's say you are working with one bar ii-7 V7 patterns. Maybe at the end of that "chapter", you would work on John Coltrane's "Moment's Notice" and fit each pattern into the chord sequence. It's sterile and unmusical, but it teaches you a skill. Further down the road, when the skills are more developed, the skills become ART. This is the goal, to make all of the chord scales, licks, patterns, phrases, quotes, etc…..into a musical, artistic statement.

This takes much time and patience, and the only short cut is either to step up your practicing, or already be a genius! For example, when I used to travel to Spain, I really worked on speaking Spanish. I never took a class; I bought books, studied on my own, and then tried to speak in appropriate situations. I could have very basic conversations; I had friends with whom I only spoke Spanish. (Don't ask me to speak Spanish now; my skills have drifted away…) Now, should I have expected in one year's time to be able to write poetry in Spanish on the level of Pablo Neruda? No way! In this sense, we need to have perspective. Don't expect to be Coltrane tomorrow.
However, I hope this will give you insight into what you need to do. I'm including an extremely basic pattern exercise that I left for my Bebop ensemble at Portland State University. (Let's hope they looked at it.) I made it so each phrase should be analyzed, learned in all keys, and then be "plugged in" to random chord sequences. I "named" each phrase; hopefully the students will have a name association with each phrase so that when they see "Up 9" or "Down Scale", they will recall the pattern and be able to apply it. Again, this is FORCING the licks. But that is the first step. Eventually, these things become INSTINCT.

Below are the patterns and then a sample test. Let me know if you think I answered the question. And I'd love to get feedback or other thoughts on this issue.