You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Which version of a tune do you use? - #132

Episode Date: June 10, 2018

Today, Peter and Adam discuss how to choose a particular version of a tune. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Peter Martin. And I'm Adam Manus. And this is the You'll Hear at podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. And today we are going to answer user question, user. Why am I always calling them user? I don't know, man. They're not using anything.

They're just listening to us. I feel like I'm being used a lot lately. That's what it is. A listener question. That's right. This is Zoom from Vancouver. And we've actually had other voice questions from Vancouver, which is interesting. We have a bit of a Western Canada following.

This is like a voice pipeline between Vancouver to St. Louis. That's very exciting. So let's listen to Zoom. Hi, this is Zoom from Vancouver, Canada. My question is about how to handle a situation when you have different versions of the same tune, like if someone calls a standard at a jam session or on a gig, and maybe different musicians learn different versions of it. Maybe they learned it from different recordings,

or they're using different chord charts. How do you reconcile or how do you figure out which version of the chord changes to use? do you talk about it in advance? Do you just listen to each other? I know you guys always preach about listening, which I'm sure is going to be part of the answer, but I'm just wondering if there's any other specifics that would be helpful for us in those situations. Thanks a lot. All right. Thank you, Zoom. That's a great question. And you know, this happens frequently. It happens on jam sessions. It happens on gigs. It happens in rehearsals. And I think it's one that can be addressed of how to handle, I think, especially if people have different changes or different forms for the same tune.

Yeah. Some tactics to maybe try to fix it in real time, and then maybe some tactics to even make sure that it doesn't happen if you can just get a little bit of preparation, a little bit of talk before the gig. Right. You can avoid it. So in real time, though, you see this all the time. There's usually a negotiation, some kind of compromise between usually the bass player and the piano player about what changes are we using. Once you have more experience, you understand the different kinds of changes. People use on the same tunes, you know what I mean?

Right. You know, like in Green Dolphin Street, some people always, you know, in that first ending, the 25 to E flat, some people always do that little A flat minor D flat 7 into the E flat. Some people never do that. Right. You know what I mean? It works with the melody. I think those kind of things that are sometimes used like core changes and sometimes not, and that sort of delineating what? the different version is, I think if somebody does it, and for the pianists or guitarist

is probably easiest, but certainly the bassist could play it. I think if it's played the first time and it works, I mean, not that it's the first time it's ever been done, but I'm just saying for that particular time, and then it should sort of be done. That's the way I usually do it. I never am like, no, we're not doing this version and give them an ugly look. See, I agree with you on this. It's kind of like the first chorus through, we're all making a pact about what the changes are going to be, no matter what they are. Exactly. And I mean, I think that you have to know that that's the first thing is you have to know the different possible version so you really have to familiarize yourself and Zoom you kind of mention about

different versions of the tune and stuff that's sort of the key is familiarizing yourself like we could talk about the standard reference version and I do believe in that on a lot of tunes but you still have to know the other versions even the wrong versions right yeah because if you're going to be the one and I love doing that and being very self-righteous about you know certain changes like you know Ray Brown personally oops did I drop that name? Mr. Ray Brown? The Great Ray Brown. You might have. That is definitely the great. The great. He personally taught me the correct

changes. Shame on me for not knowing them. To Stella by Starlight, as opposed to the fake book, real book changes. There's just one sort of difference. Oh yeah, I know those. Refresh by memory. You'll hear it. You'll hear it. Yeah, yeah. So I love like kind of pounding that down

anyone's throat as we're going through for my own self-righteous reasons. No, but you have to know the correct versions. And there's usually multiple ones. There's sort of variations. I've never been one to be like it has to be just luck like in the original songbook version

of a standard or anything or even like you know in Thelonius Monks music which I've studied a lot and I kind of know the original versions. There's several different variations that he played. Right. And that he even wrote out at different times. So there's definitely room for negotiating

the different versions but I think this idea that you mentioned of the first chorus really listening and being a sort of negotiation period as far as which version and which elements you're going to put in. That actually can be a really fun thing to do when you're not playing with people regularly to see and be refreshed yourself about, oh, yeah, there's that other kind of change. I want to try to hear that.

And then I'm going to add it in the next course as well. And one thing you... Without it getting bloated. I think so, too. One thing you can do, too, is if you're sort of... I mean, if you're playing the melody or even if you're the pianist, I think you can be... You want to be confident through that first chorus and through your changes. Nothing is worse than getting to...

what is it, the sixth bar of have you met Miss Jones. And some people kind of tentatively go to that A flat minor seven, D flat seven. And some people just go to the straight two five. Right. Like, if you're going to do it, do it. Right. Wrong and strong. Wrong and strong.

You know, if you're going to do the interlude on, on Ninthonesia, do it. Right. You know, go in heavy and follow through, be confident with it. Right. Don't tentatively go in thinking like, oh, is, is, are we doing this? Yeah. You're doing it. and be a leader on this kind of stuff.

And I do think it is kind of the responsibility of the pianist to, well, okay, for certain types of tunes. I'll take an example, round midnight. Now, whenever somebody calls this on a jam session, I kind of roll my eyes a little bit, like physically roll my eyes at them. No, I mean, unless I know, like this is a good one if you've got a chance to sort of talk about which version, because basically you have the Miles version and then you have the original version. Right. And I'm kind of partial to the original version. Me too.

But you know that 95% of the time, especially if it's a trumpet player, it's going to be the mild, which is fine. I mean, I used to be very mislike, you don't know it wrong, you know. But I think that if you don't get a chance to talk, then as the pianist, well, you know what? That's kind of a bad example because you cannot really, I mean, a jam session, if you force the monk version, people can be like, you're playing it wrong. That's how uneducated people are about that. You got to concede a little bit on that. Yeah. I don't know.

Okay. Yeah, maybe. But this is be, I mean, I mean, ideas. everybody knows the different versions and is well versed. And certainly if you're calling it, you should know the different version. And if the pianist goes, because you know by the third beat,

which version it is, then you should be prepared to do that. I mean, if you don't know the actual composition and you only know a later version, you shouldn't be calling the tune, right? That's true. And you know what? Can I get off off my soapbox?

No, no, no. You should stay on it. This is a very good lesson, I think, for a lot of people learn. And I'm just realizing that a lot of this comes with experience, too. You know, don't freak out if you're at a point where everybody's playing different changes to things

because, you know, what happens is you, sometimes you'll learn, oftentimes, the correct changes that you didn't know by someone calling the different version of it. And that's when you kind of know the different versions like you're saying. You know, then you can kind of pick and choose. I mean, you see

probes all the time before they play, kind of have a dialogue about, which one are we doing? Yeah. Are you doing this in the bridge? Right. And you can do that as a musical, if you don't get a chance to actually say you can do it with little musical you can hint at especially as a pianist a basis you can certainly do that but the main thing

is just for everybody to know the different possibilities and versions I think that's that's really the key you'll be able to negotiate if you all listen and communicate through yeah like everything else if you can listen if you do preparation as well yeah you know I mean you're not going to do that on every jam session obviously or whatever

but but try to try to figure out you know as close to the original composition as you can well you need and that's another one that burns me because like the miles I mean, it's great. I mean, I think it's great that Miles changed it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And whatever for his version, but like, most people chase down that version just because it's in the fake book like that. It's not even because, like, oh, I like that. They just, they don't even know. They don't even hear it. They don't even understand. But if we're playing the Monctoon, let's play the Monctoon.

Play the Monctu. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. I agree. Hey, thanks for climbing up on the soapbox with me. There's not a lot of room here. You can see for miles up here. The fun thing is, man, I climb on the soapbox and I'm like five foot eight. Now, this is awesome. So, you know, one other thing you can do that we kind of alluded to is to work it out before you play, you know, and you don't always get the chance to do this. But, you know, if you have your own charts on things, if you really, if you really want to be sure that you're playing the changes that you want to play or the version that you want to play with the form you want to play, have your chart, you know, that way no one has any excuses and you're doing it exactly the way you want to do it. And that includes, I think, you know, intros are part of this as well, intros and outros, you know. A lot of people don't take the time to learn those, and you might want to have those as part of your performance.

Good stuff, good stuff. All right. Well, thanks for the question. Please keep the questions coming in. You can go to you'll hear it.com. You can leave a voice memo. You can leave a written question. You can leave cash tip.

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