- Peter Martin is back,
and we're gonna talk a little bit about be-bop language
and some more modern-day language.
Let's make something very clear.
Be-bop language is still modern-day language.
There's been a whole school of thought that the lines
and the rhythms, and the phrases, and the patterns
that Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie,
and Thelonious Monk, and Bud Powell used,
are sort of out of date.
Uh-uhhhh.
Let me tell something, if you listen to Charlie Parker,
any solo he ever took, particularly his solos
like "Shaw 'Nuff," they're pretty otherworldly.
Now, you think of more modern language, you know,
some would say, Ornette Coleman, or,
'60s Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter,
John Coltrane, they all came from be-bop,
all they did was take the be-bop language
and kind of scramble it a little bit,
you know, just kind of scrambled the eggs a little bit,
but it's still very much rooted in the be-bop language.
So we're gonna take a song like "Cherokee,"
we're not gonna play the melody,
we're just gonna take the chord progression,
and I'll play, as best as I can,
a pretty be-bop-ish kind of solo,
you know, a be-bop rhythms,
the sort of phrasing that kind of went on with be-bop,
a lot of arpeggios, you know, a lot of jumps,
kind of outlining the chord,
and then we'll stop and we'll play it again with,
try to put a little bit of a,
more of a modern spin on it,
not too modern, not as in abstract,
but just a little, up to date.
So let's try Cherokee
with sort of a, a be-bop vibe.
One, two,
one, two, three, uh uh uh.
(playing bass, piano)
So that's my best sort of be-bop,
if you can imagine it an octave up,
it might sound a little closer to be-bop
than it did there,
but that's my best sort of be-bop textbook one on one
kind of thing.
I tried to do a lot of triplets, you know,
♫ Buh dee doo,
♫ Buh deedle deedle deh
you know, a lot of chord outlining,
especially when it got to the bridge, uh.
(plays bass)
You know, that's real be-bop there.
So now, let's play it again, and,
maybe open it up a little bit more, you know,
maybe do some more,
make the harmonies, maybe a little bit more open,
make the rhythms maybe a little bit more broken.
We'll, we'll just do our best,
it's hard to break it up too much
when you got that kind of tempo going
with those changes going by,
but we'll, we'll do our best
"Cherokee," if you will.
Same tempo.
One, two,
one, two, uh uh uh.
(plays bass and piano)
Left pedal here.
E, E flat.
E flat minor, back to the one.
(music continues)
Pedal.
Solo now, what I come up with?
(playing continues)
Trying to leave more space.
(speaks softly) Be-bops, but not really.
(playing continues)
Now, you know, that was, like I said,
just a shade,
a little step past the be-bop
sort of phrasing, you know,
a little bit of be-bop still in there,
nothing wrong with that,
but I think breaking it up a little bit,
Peter opening up the harmonies a little bit,
that kind of puts jazz where it is now.
One step in the past, one step in the middle,
and one step on what could be in the future.
We don't really know what that is,
so the way to do that, I think,
is to address just, just be in the moment,
use all the references that you know,
everything that you've learned,
everything that you've internalized,
and just let it flow, just let it flow.
Don't get too caught up in the,
in the concept of what you're playing,
but just really understand the concepts,
not to be beholden to them,
but just learn them thoroughly,
so you can create your language,
and you can converse in your own rhythm,
and just go for it, baby.