You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How To Play the Bridge of Rhythm Changes

Episode Date: June 24, 2021

It's a must-know for any jazz musician - hear how to play the bridge of this common form as Peter and Adam walk you through it.Get the free PDF for this episode right hereHave a question? Leave us a SpeakPipeWatch Live: YHI LIVE Mondays at 4pm ET on YouTubeWant more of Adam and Peter? Check out Open Studio Pro hereWoosh or No Woosh? Hit us up on Twitter and let us know which team you are onSupport the pod by spreading the word with the link youllhearit.com Interested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase. And be sure to check out our All Access Pass - every course from Open Studio on every instrument.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Hey, Peter. Hey, Adam, give me a B. B. Give me an R. Give me an I. Oh, boy. Give me a D. Give me a G. G.

Give me an E. A flat. Oh, no, give me an E. B. What's that spell? Brige. I'm Adam M. And I'm Peter Martin.

And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Music advice coming at you. Coming at you today. Peter, was that intro up to your high standard? Which one? We've done three so far today. I know, man. You've been very picky. I felt like the audience isn't going to get to hear the first two amazing intros that we just poop.

Well, you know what? They weren't amazing enough. Our audience is so awesome they deserve the best. And since that's not available, we have to give them take number three. I was going to say, man, that's never, ever been true. Well, we finally started the show. Jeez, man. This one took forever to get going.

Yeah, but now that we're going, let's do this. All right, well, so what are we talking about today? Today we're talking about, well, bridges, but we're really talking about dominant chords, right? I mean, this is, that's kind of the, uh, the bridge into the discussion as well. We are talking about dominant chords. This is a topic that we get asked a lot about here on the podcast in an open studio is, how do I treat a series of dominant chords, like when they move in force? Yeah.

Yeah. Allah, the bridge to rhythm changes. So, yeah. You kind of had a little smooth jazz vibe coming out and going in that last A there, buddy. I literally just played a major seven chord. Yeah, but you gave it a little smooth flavor. Okay, I did give it a little watercolors.

I did. For those who, here's a serious watercolors for when you want to go to the dentist's office. Here's a little offshoot mini episode. Apparently for Peter, just flicking the top note of this voicing. Well, yeah. Well, because it insinuates. Oh, well, yeah. I mean, if that's in your head, everything could.

Well, I wasn't in my head, so you put it in my head. I could be like, hey, check it out. And you'd be like, ah, smooth jazz. And I'm like, what? And you're like, yeah, because you could go like, yeah, exactly. Turn everything into it. Yeah.

Stop turning everything into smooth jazz, man. Smooth jazz. Yeah. I love smooth jazz, actually. You should start your own smooth jazz band. Like a smooth jazz stage band. Oh, my God. So this is the, this is the kind of quality you want?

Yes, exactly. Now, now we've hit the. the level. Okay. So today we are talking about how to deal with these a series of dominant chords, right? Yes. So four dominant chords in a row. So I was gonna like put together a few different changes on on how to do this. I was thinking stuff like Bright Mississippi, you know the Monk tune. Yes. Oh, sweet George Brown. G. Baby, I good to you. Hallucinations from Bud

Powell. And of course- Alucinations are funny. That's imagination. Oh, I'm sorry. But also the bridge to rhythm changes. But then you, I chimed in. I've, made the huge error of asking Peter what he thought. And he was like, check out train solo on OLEO. And then I started listening to that recording of OLEO from Miles Davis for Miles Davis relaxing. Yeah, slippery slope.

Slippery slope. And I was like, we should just cover what everybody's playing on this recording because it's so good. And everybody's playing different things. So resident open studio transcriber max, Gameas hooked us up here with a couple different versions of each one. And so I thought we could just listen to this today, Peter, and sort of just see what Miles does, see what Train does and see what Red Garland does.

All right, spoiler alert. It's going to be a lot of good stuff that we're seeing. You think so? Yeah, no, I mean, instead of like us telling you, here's what you should play over the bridge to rhythm changes, let's see what happened in this one session. But we might do a little bit of thoughtful analysis as it were. Yeah, we'll add our own terrible ideas to the mix too.

But let's have a listen here. We'll start with Miles' solo. Let's check it out. Can you put it up on screen there so I can, there you go. So here's this. Oh, thanks, man. Sure. Actually, you know what? Let's just listen to it because we got about a minute up front here It's it's a glorious minute here we go

This is the one with all the takes. I love this I love Philly Joe's just like let's go come come on come on come on we got somewhere to be 2001 It seems late yeah So good to hear though is that Just know that they were talking about I can say hey. Okay, we stopped there just for a second.

Sorry. We haven't even got to it. I know. We haven't got to. We're not even at the bridge yet. I know, but what Miles just played there is such, like, think about this. There's no drums playing PC walking a beautiful killer baseline, right? Is the title of this episode, How to Play All of Rhythm Changes from the top?

We would be remiss if we didn't mention. What a brilliant, can we just listen that one more time? He totally goes out of time. Miles goes out of time, but just phrasing beautifully, you can do this on any instrument. Like, you could make this part of your practice session. Just like, I'm going to play over, you know, you could get like a backing track or you could play over this actual recording

or play over your piano as you're walking. I'll back it up a little bit. Can you put it back up there so I can see the Jones? Thank you. Man. Is that something that would interest you? It is. It is.

Frustratingly, it is. Here we go. It's just one of the most brilliant ways to start. I'm so glad we stopped. You knew right where it was, though. Hold on, but can you move the screen down a little bit? We're losing it on the top end there. We are.

Come on, Peter. Come on, man, I'm trying. This is for our podcast listeners. This is also available on YouTube. You can go check out the video of this if you want to follow on. We also, by the way, for everybody here, we have a PDF. You can check that out in the description of the podcast, the description of the video. You can download the PDF.

if that's yours to take home of all of these examples. That's not good, is it? That's awesome. You want me just to move it down is what you're seeing. You're seeing the problem. No, that's not. That's going left to right. This is great for the audio podcast.

There you go. Okay, here we go. All right, let's try it again. Miles' solo on the bridge. Uh, lyricism. Okay, so let's stop here. So both of Miles' examples here are just completely lyrical. I mean, look at this.

There's no nerdy nuts and bolts. jazz things. If you saw this, you'd be like, well, that's too easy for it to be the all-time greats. Yeah. But look, I mean, he literally starts on the root, ends on the root. Yeah. The root is everywhere. Yeah.

He's literally just going around these roots here. You know what I mean? Like working his way around. Super simple. But check it out. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah.

But look at the timing of that. And then again on the next part. Ah. Yeah. Can't get down there. Yeah. But you hear what I'm saying though that he's not... Yeah, there's no non...

It's all diatonically within those dominant... It's all diatonically. And then so here, he's... So he... In the A section, as you mentioned, he did that kind of chromatic line kind of thing. Yeah. He harkens back. He does.

All right, so let's break that one down. So he hits that major seventh and kind of resolves it down. Yeah. Both on the upbeats to the actual domes. So it's almost like a passing, but it's on the syncopated. Right? The ups. Yeah.

So it's really. So it's really. Yeah, but the actions, I think, is as the way he played it as I call it. Let's listen. Yeah. It is that same kind of. that taca, daca, right? And then that's super important right there.

Like, bidi-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-bang on the two, because that stretches that syncopation out from the eighth note to the quarter note. Well, notice what he plays on G7 on the first bridge and then on the second. It's like all Gs. Yeah. He's resolving the second chord of each phrase.

It's almost like a resolution. Same thing there. On the C-7, it's a very similar phrase going to F, and he resolves it to around. Actually, both times he resolves it to the seventh of F. right? Yeah. Which is an interesting choice

because it's going to resolve to B flat. Yeah. So he's on a leading tone. Exactly. And then that one, he's hitting on, he's resolving that line

rhythmically on the three, on a quarter note, but this time on the three is whereas before he ended up on the two, right? So it's like that becomes a little bit of like almost like structural,

elongated syncopation there. Let's hear it again. And then that boo-da-boo. Bo-da-bo-bo-ah. Where is it? That? Yeah.

Well, he goes, Blis de, B, B, B, Bib, B, B, B, B, B, B, B, B, Bip. That anticipated, the end of four on that, on that six bar of the bridge there. Can you play him doing it again? That second phrase? No, no, the next thing. Boom.

Like, that's very different. That, but do, do la, do let, do that. But he goes, but he goes, baud, do let do let do let the, but I know. We're talking about harmony, but these things, like, you can never take the harmony and the rhythm and the melody apart. Like the rhythmic flow of the melody, which a lot of times on a tune like this, is really about where the syncopation choices are made in relation to the way he's crafting the melodies.

You can never strip those apart from each other. They're so important. I find it interesting, too, both phrases kind of hang around, like the D7 to the G7, both times, hang out between here, between these two notes, right? And the C7 to the F7 both times, both hang out between here. Yeah. And he's actually structuring the almost not exactly the same, but the shapes are very much the same. Where he goes up the first phrase to an E and then down to the G.

And then the second phrase, he finds his way up to the D and then down to that E flat. Very, very interesting and very, I mean, he was a composer. Like, yeah, that's what that is. He's taking a theme and he's running it through. So if Miles Davis were to stay within that kind of six there, is that something that would interest you? Yes. It would. It did very much interest me.

Okay, gotcha. Cool. Okay, so let's keep listening here. Okay, could you pause right there? Okay, so something, again, not on the bridge, but this is something that on this, this whole recording sessions was done a bunch. It happens on this a lot.

Notice the end of his solo overlaps into John Coltrane's area. Okay. But very nicely. So he's setting up the next solo. And like the way, the rhythm section plays on this, that's really important because Philly Joe overlaps a lot of times, too. This is a way to keep from segmenting rhythm changes and sounding square. Like even if you know the changes, sometimes it's like, but da-p-da-da-da-dib-dib-dab-da-bab. Stop.

You know, it's like the next, but he's like, but-da-da-da-da-da-da-b-da-b-b-da-b-b-da-b. Like that Latin, beautiful little-ass phrase is actually in the next course. Just a little factoid for you. A little fun fact. You're all about the details. Yeah. That's Ah

That interests me That interests me Okay, so there's Trains first bridge John Cole's first bridge Let's listen to that again now distinctly different From Miles's vibe, obviously

Let's check it out and see if we can... Better. No, absolutely. Just different. Woof. See how the rhythmic... I know we're going to talk about the harmony, but how the rhythmic architecture

of these melodic lines is so different. So different. Yeah, do, do, yeah, do. Well, look at very, like, on the beat kind of starting out. But look at even how he's phrasing, you know, Miles very much phrased the D-7 into the G7.

Look at what Colterine does. Out of the gate. He does this little phrase here that resolves the D-7 onto itself, right? Yeah. The... And Lidian-dominant style, right? Well, you know, Bob DeBoo DeBue messaged me earlier today

because he has Ron Carter's bass line for this, Ron Carter was almost always doing a bar of A minor to a bar of D7, a bar of D minor to a bar of G7, like putting a two on the five. So I think Train is reacting to that, right? Because this is a thing you would do. Like walking down that A minor or some kind of that whole vibe of like resolving that. Yeah, exactly. But then it's the same thing.

Remember we're talking about the syncopation of the melodic line. So you got boolee do you dole da da da. The actual resolution is on the upbeat of the eighth note The other ones are on the downbeat You know what I'm saying? Totally So let's do Yeah

But also he's not resolving this You know different from Miles He's not resolving this D7 to a G7 He's then starting a new phrase on the G7 That resolves to the C7 So there's Right so It gives it a little bit more of a syncope

I mean not a syncopated A segmented feel To the way he's playing but it's like there's so, so it gives it, to me it gives it a little bit more of an urgency, which is a great kind of antidote

to the way Miles was playing before. Well, as we look here at the transcription and you can download the PDF listener for yourself, you can see, I mean, just geographically, just like there's just twice as many notes

on John Cole trains. And this is some restrained train playing. It actually is. So you know, another cool thing, so he's got, I'm going to jump ahead a little bit, but.

Please do. So he's playing around the Lidian Dominant on all three until the last one. On the F, he doesn't. Right. You know, which is like kind of a way to structurally... I mean, look at this.

Miles and Train were not thinking about any of this. So I don't want to make it like I'm inside of... No, they're just playing, right? But stuff that kind of, you know, it showed... Like, there's a science behind why something sounds great. And it's just really fun to geek out over the sounds here. So, but to your point here, so if we look at the D7, right, the first phrase, again... And then check out what happens on the C-7, right?

Same kind of thing. to that whole idea, right? But then on the F, there is no sharp 11, right? No, well, yeah, right here. Oh, okay, sorry. So every single one. Oh, yeah, that's right.

But even that one is, that's like a G-triot. That's a G-Triad resolving to like a C minor thing. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, it's like G7 to C minor to F. Totally right. Totally right. Yeah, all right.

All right. All right. Yeah, let's keep going. Come on. Philly Joe pushed him in. Push them in the pool. Oh, this right here. And now red garland's catching all those sharp 11.

Okay, so check that. That's the first B over F we've heard, I believe. Don't you do that? Let's hear it again? The very end of that one. Yeah. It's like a B7 sharp 11. Max got some funky inharmonics up in here.

Isn't that sounds like? Come on, Max, you had a whole hour to do this. But you know what I'm saying? That's like that B7 over aft. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely implying that. That's the first, well, yeah, that's the first like a sharp nine, flat nine situation. Yeah. We've seen the whole thing.

But check it out here. So kind of different, but the phrasing is exactly the same as the first, where he resolves his own phrase on the D7. And then that second phrase, Instead of what Miles did again, where he resolved D7 to G, Coltrane starts then on G7 resolving that to C. Right. And then F7 becomes its own thing resolving to B flat.

So it's almost like Miles is like, here's my D to G, here's my C to F, and then I'm going to do something different when the A comes back around. But Coltrane's thinking like, I'm going into that last A playing. Like we're going in resolving from the F. No, Coltrane was just like, I'm going to pipe you, Miles. No, man. Of course, like, again, to reiterate, they're not thinking about this at all. They're just playing their, you know, spirits into this.

it's the way that they phrase is not the same. And that's, it's totally cool to have like a unique perspective. Miles just thinking like exactly what he said before. He's like, yeah, watch the tempo. And then he just like, don't go to it. I love when he goes to that swing, he's just like, like, pach, dach, bang. He's just like pushing right into it.

Let's hear this one again, the second Coltrane Bridge. Woo! Let's keep going. B-Bop. Oh. Ah, you played over the bar line. Of course. Let's stop there.

So we're deep in the mud here. deep deep in the mud. Let's hear this bridge again from Red Garland. A little bebop lesson from red maybe? And this is like our first, it's almost, you know, as it were for a piano, it's almost constant eighth notes outside of those three beats in the third bar.

So a couple of, yeah, a little literally a couple of I mean, it's just all, it's just a look at that. Enclosures galore, right? And it's phrasing. Oh, if you learn this little part, play along with the recording because you can really pick up that phrasing, you know,

and that's where the magic is. It's very different than what train, how train was phrasing. But is he playing, it's D7, but is he just playing D minor here? Yeah, the first bar, I think so. Like, he's just, that's not even D7. He's just like straight up G7. Yeah.

That's really interesting. So for our listeners, so on this whole D7 section, he's really playing G7 for four straight bars, right, Peter? That's what it looks like, right? I thought you say D minor 7. I mean, A minor 7. I don't think so, but listen to this.

We'll look at where those resolve points are. And then ends like... Maybe he didn't know... He didn't know the changes? I mean, maybe he was just doing four bars of G7, like simplifying even more. I mean, it sounds killing. It sounds killing.

I'm going to back it up a little bit. Yeah, that's four bars of G7, two bars of C7, two bars. It's so much easier. And it sounds good. But you know what? This is just an example of when you're playing swinging

lines with hip melodies and syncopation. What does it matter? You can play, you can be like D7 and be like... You play four bars of... You can be like, you know, B-flap major. Yeah. Yeah. It's play...

For sure. It doesn't sound as good, but I'm trying. You know, Red Garland. It's really interesting, though, isn't it? Wow. It's almost like he's anticipating the harmony. Red Garland's phrasing really influenced trains, too. Is that something that would interest you?

He heard us. He's like, oh, I know the changes, buddy. Don't worry. There's a D7, Adamanus. Let's say that again. Here's his second bridge, Red's second bridge. He's like, don't, shut up, but um. I know it.

He's like, D. D. He can hear us with the red. No, that's cool. I meant, I meant G for that first time. Okay, so obviously he's laying super thick on the D. And then going straight into here. I mean, Red Garland is so great for transcribing for this kind of language.

That's all just B-Bop enclosures, right? Yeah. Or whatever you want to call him. But this device of kind of like, so he's got... Help, I'm surrounded. He is so he's just going, he's surrounding all of those. That's amazing.

That's worth the price of admission right there. And then down... Three. Free, exactly. And then down here... So here's your second version of a flat nine, Sharp nine, Peter. Mm-hmm.

that turn there. And again, more enclosures. Ah. So on the C-7, that fourth-fourth beat. Right? Yep. Let's hear that again. I need to hear that phrase again.

I'm not quite playing it. Ah. He went over the barlands. Got to dock them. Got to dock them. So that's it. There's three masters, Miles Davis, John Coltrane,

Red Garland. and their takeover the bridge of rhythm changes. What have we learned? We've learned the people phrase, like really great players, in the same band on the same recording. Yes. Well, they each have their own distinct phrasing. Miles phrases from the D7 to the G, very simply.

All in this here. Yep. And then all in this here. John Coltrane has a totally different style of phrasing where he does something quick on the D7, then he resolved the G7 to the C7, the F7 to the B. I mean, B flat, that's actually great to know.

Red Garland is a typewriter of notes all down here. Yeah. Lots of surround. Single line. No, no comping. No comping. Single line all in the baritone section. Surrounding notes with little enclosures that one little G7 for four bars is kind of an interesting idea.

Yep. Yeah. Let me use that. Just think, why wait? Why not? Yeah, yeah. It's wasting brain power at this point. Woo.

Phrasing. Fraising. Fraising. That was fun, man. That was fun. Shout out to Max Gamee's for the transcription. Don't forget to download the PDF for yourself to take with you so you can check out what these great masters did over this. Well, wherever they want to go, man.

Like you're going to carry it around in a satchel? A satchel of PDFs? No, you could do like a thumb drive. Really? On your keychain? I don't know. What do people do with PDFs anymore? Apparently they want them.

They do like them. They do like them. Yeah, PDF. But if you like this kind of thing, why don't you leave us a rating and review? You can do that on the podcast app Why did you look confused when you said that? I was just thinking of where they could Yeah, rating review or a comment on the YouTube

Even if you aren't watching on the YouTube, go to the YouTube channel. Yeah, let us... Open Studio and check that out. Let us know other kind of core progressions You'd like to see us break down. We're happy to do that. That's right.

Good. Happy to do it. As always, we are sponsored by Open Studio. Please go to Open StudioJazz.com. Oh, another thing that you knew is check out our jam session challenge that has been flourishing over at the Open Studio Pro program. If I were to mention something called Open Studio Pro,

is that something you'd be interested in that? How many times you're going to work that into today's episode? I think that's the 10th time that you've asked me if I've been interested. Because you're an interesting guy. You like to get interested in stuff. You know what I mean? The sad part about all this is? I'm interested in all this.

Okay. I really am, man. I want it all. That sounds cool. Well, I do think that folks may be interested in the Open Studio Pro program because what's exciting over there, And you can go to open studio jazz.com slash pro and to learn about this. Just fair warning.

This is not for everybody. This is not for the lightweights. That's why we called it pro. It's not for pro level necessarily. No, it's for any level, actually. Yeah, but it's for pro like mentality. That's what it is. And I always thought about it like this.

If you, in order to play like a pro, you got to practice like a pro. It's for people that actually want to practice and get better. Yeah, exactly. And the exciting thing is we've got some wonderful folks and there's a lot of live situations to do that with the group that you have over there. We've got folks getting better. I mean, I'm talking about getting, like, when I jump in there on Wednesdays, I'm like, wow. Dude, did you hear? People are getting better by the week.

Did you hear a fire under? Ege and Elias on the master class with Christian Sands last Friday? Killing it. Yeah. Killing it. Not nervous and plain beautiful. I mean, I was proud like a Papa. I was like, I know.

I saw you tear up. You teared up a little bit. It's great, man. That's great. Cool. Well, until next week, you'll hear it.