The Creator Has A Master Plan

"There was a time...when peace was on the Earth...and joy...and happiness did reign...and each man knew his worth..."

If Leon Thomas were alive today I'd like to ask him which time in history he was referring to when he wrote this lyric, 'cuz it ain't in my history books.

To be fair, this sort of fantasy-based romanticism, particularly relating to pre-colonial Africa, was common among the dashiki-wearing set in the '60's and '70's and I can live with the historical delusions as long as the music they inspired is good.

In a perfect world, we shouldn't need sheet music for a two-chord, modal jam like this, but in the admittedly provincial, B-market musical circles in which I travel, no one has ever heard of this song.

Here is a nice version from India Arie

Chunga's Revenge

"A Gypsy mutant industrial vacuum cleaner dances about a mysterious night time camp fire.
Festoons. Dozens of imported castanets, clutched by the horrible suction of its heavy duty hose, waving with marginal erotic abandon in the midnight autumn air".


The title track from Frank Zappa's 1970 album, it's a nice litlle modal riff to jam on.
I don't like any of the versions on Youtube, the album version is my favorite.

King Kong

" The name of this song, is King Kong.

It's a story of a very large gorilla who lived in the jungle. And he was doing OK until some Americans came by and thought they would take him home with them.

They took him to the United States, and they made some money by using the gorilla...then they killed him."

... Zappa's introduction to King Kong at a show in Sweden in 1967

(Zappa was a bit of a misanthrope).

This simple, sort-of modal jazz waltz was a regular inclusion in Zappa shows throughout his career, I have dozens of recorded versions of it and they are all different.

What was fun about this song was that once the band got through the head, they would be free to take the song in any direction and most versions are very long, with extended solos and group improv wank-outs.

I performed this in a theatrical show which was a redux of 'We're Only In It For The Money", one of Zappa's great concept albums.

We did King Kong as an encore.

I added the extra chords for variety and because our rock oriented band didn't have the finesse to do long, one-chord stretches without losing the beat or sounding repetitive.

I really like these chords but if you want to do it Zappa's way than only play the bracketed ones.

Here is a video of the original Mothers doing King Kong for the BBC in 1968, enjoy.

Frank Zappa and the Real Book

When I purchased my first Real Book in the late 80's I was a dumb high school kid who cared about two things, sex and Frank Zappa.

My obsession with him and his work was all-encompassing, I had accumulated almost all of his major releases and a few obscure bootlegs and unauthorized biographies. His autobiography, The Real Frank Zappa Book, was my bible.

It seemed like destiny that my shiny new copy of the Real Book contained three Zappa charts.

These songs provide another example of how weird the Real Book was, not because Zappa doesn't have jazz cred, (he does), and not because he hasn't written jazzy material, (he has), but of the three Zappa-penned songs included in the book, only one has any business being included in a jazz fake book.

That song was 'Blessed Relief', from the Grand Wazoo album, and it is a very nice jazz waltz, I play it often.

Next came 'Peaches en Regalia' from Hot Rats, an instrumental tour de force which few musicians have the chops to sight read ,(I doubt I would ever be able to play it) , it's my belief that the person who transcribed this was merely showing off.

Thirdly came 'Son of Mr. Green Genes' from Hot Rats, a simple rock song which is easy to play, but it's about as jazzy as 'Louie Louie', why they wasted space adding these songs at the expense of other, better ones by Zappa or anyone else is yet another mystery that may never be solved.

The newer versions of the Real Book, which are published by Hal Leonard and therefore legal, don't have these songs in them.

Maybe they decided that Zappa tunes didn't belong in a jazz book and took them out, but it's far more likely that they couldn't get permission to publish the charts from the Zappa Family Trust, which has a bit of a reputation for being over-vigilant in their defence of Zappa's huge body of work.

It's unclear to me whether or not Zappa would've approved of the constant crackdowns on blogs and Youtube and such.

He did despise bootlegging, he was rightfully resentful of people who made money on shoddy reproductions of his work.

But that's a far cry from coming down on fans posting video montages on Youtube for free, or musicians doing covers.

These sorts of actions are futile in the long run and alienate those who are eager to celebrate his work.

Interestingly, in a prophetic moment near the end of his autobiography,(which was written over 20 years ago), Zappa predicts the first great musical innovation of the 21st century: music downloading.

He wonders why we spend so much time and energy manufacturing and shipping records when we could just offer a service where subscribers hook up a cassette recorder to a specialty cable TV channel, which would broadcast new releases while displaying the cover art and liner notes on the screen. Sounds like a primitive itunes to me.

Stay tuned for some Zappa charts.

Note Bleu

This song, by Medeski, Martin and Wood, is from their 2000 album 'The Dropper', and is very conventional by their standards.
A simple minor blues in F, with a sexy, slow-latin groove and featuring a novel AABA solo section,.
One day, I'll offer some not-humble opinion on what I think of those in the jazz community who consider MM&W to be over-rated, but not today.
I'll save that bit of withering scorn for when I have a notion that people actually read this blog.
Youtube won't let me embed the video for Note Bleu for some reason, here is a link to the page.
In the meantime, here is some live footage from 2007.

Quiet Dawn

This is the last song on Archie Shepp's 1972 soul jazz masterpiece 'Attica Blues'.

It's difficult to think of another jazz album that ends on a stranger note,(Sorcerer by Miles Davis comes to mind).

Written by composer/trumpeter Cal Massey, it features Massey's nearly tone deaf seven year old daughter on vocals.

Whether her inclusion on the recording was an act of madness or genius is still up for debate but for me, it works.

If you don't have the whole record, Orgy In Rhythm posted it a few years ago and the link is still active.

Summer Sun

In anticipation of the coming warmer weather, here is another song that has emerged from the 'loungetronica' era still sounding good.

From Swedish duo Koop, off of their 2003 release 'Waltz For Koop", this song features a very young Yukimi Nagano on vocals.

I am evangelistic about Yukimi Nagano, she is one of my favorite vocalists in the world, and her current band Little Dragon, is one of the great pop bands working today.
Check out Yukimi's blog here

You will definately need bongos to make this song work the way it should.

And drop me a comment, let me know how these charts work out, suggest some new songs and tell your musician friends.

King Tubby Meets The Rockers Uptown

If you list off all of the conventional jazz rhythm styles,(swing, waltz, bossa, samba/fusion, funk, etc...), one genre is conspicuously absent, Reggae.
I know few jazz drummers/bassists who are comfortable playing reggae,(they can DO it, sure, but they don't really grok it).

Why do you suppose reggae was gleefully incorporated into the popular music of the 70's and 80's and yet never penetrated into jazz idiom?
Well...
By the time reggae music exploded out of Jamaica, the jazz stylistic canon was established and jazz musicians had splintered off into their own niche, free from pop/dance band obligations.
There are no reggae songs in the Real Book, as a result, while any self respecting rock or R&B player,(or even mediocre campfire guitarist), knows at least a few Bob Marley songs well enough to jam over, your typical jazzer does not.
I think this is unfortunate. Reggae is perfect for jazz re-interpretation, it's fun to play and rhythmically free,(for everyone except the poor sucker who has to go ...chank...chank... on 2 and 4 for the whole song).
Anyway, if jazzers are fairly ignorant about reggae,they are utterly
stupified at the mention of dub.
This song is to dub what 'Summertime' is to jazz.
A song that everyone 'just knows', without having to read it.

It's been covered a million different times by a million different artists a
million different ways.
It was sung as a conventional reggae track by Jacob Miller,(as 'Baby, I Love You So'), and produced by Augustus Pablo, the early dub pioneer.
The dub version is the same song with the lyrics rubbed out and a whole range of trippy studio effects added,(which is all dub is really).
Retitled as 'King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown', it is THE classic dub track.
So, you can play the Jacob Miller version by playing the provided melody, OR do the Augustus Pablo version by ignoring the melody line and playing whatever the fuck you want on top.
It's the bass line that's important for this one, melody is secondary.
And if you happen to have a melodica and/or a really good delay pedal banging around in your toy chest, bring 'em out and have fun

My Red Hot Car

It's hard to believe this song is almost 10 years old.

Unlike most techno/electronica produced since the mid 90's, this song still sounds fresh.

This is a simple song where the drummer gets a chance to let loose.

I haven't played it myself yet, but it has everything that I would want in a jazz cover song.

It's easy to sight read and is amenable to creative interpretation, it's also a little subversive,(thanks to the pseudo-pornographic lyrics), and is totally off the radar of most jazz players.

Many fans of Squarepusher,(AKA, Tom Jenkinson) may not know that he is quite an accomplished bassist and has released some interesting jazz/avant-garde solo stuff which is not too hard to find.

Here is a video featuring some vintage kung-fu.

Ass like that

I don't think anyone has done a jazz cover of an Eminem song yet, and for good reason.

Hip-hop doesn't usually lend itself well to instrumental re-interpretation, given the lack of strong melody, but I've developed a grudging respect for Eminem's cleverness with wordplay and this song in particular is built around a catchy, Eastern/Oriental riff that could be fun to jam over.

Would anyone actually recognize this in a jazz club audience? I think that would be part of the fun of doing it,(it certainly isn't a complicated song).

You might be the only one in the room who knows what this song is all about,(nice asses, lusting after Hillary Duff, Jessica Simpson and the Olsen twins, and being peed on by Gwen Stefani).

It's not often you get to solo over altered dominant chords like this for any length of time, so you can pull out all of those cliched, snake-charmer riffs without having to play Nardis or Caravan.

Claude Bolling - Picnic Suite

This might be the first jazz record that ever caught my ear, but it was not under enjoyable circumstances.
In 1986 my dad and step-mom drove my sister and I to Expo '86 in Vancouver.
They only had a few tapes. This one, Seals and Crofts greatest hits and a few others.
They also chain-smoked throughout the drive, wouldn't let us open the windows, and had the audacity to wonder why we were so crabby back there.
The trip was about 12 hours each way.
I suppose I should credit them for instilling in me a lifelong aversion to tobacco,(who says you can't acheive anything through torture?), but like Alex, the protagonist in 'A Clockwork Orange', they could have also turned me away from music at the same time.
In spite of the fact that listening to this record brings forth the image of my sister and I breathing through our shirts, trying to filter out the billowing stench issuing from the front of the car, I still really enjoy it, even if it is one of the whitest jazz records in my collection.
I still like that Seals and Crofts record too.


Claude Bolling was a prominent composer/arranger/performer from Cannes.
His biggest success in North America came from releasing 'Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano' in 1975, a chart-topper that blended jazz and classical music.
More recordings in this style followed and this one, recorded in 1980 is my favorite of them all.
Claude Bolling - piano
Alexandre Lagoya - guitar
Jean-Pierre Rampal - Flute
Guy Pedersen - bass
Daniel Humair - drums
http://rapidshare.com/files/361659373/claude_bolling_-_picnic_suite.rar

Spiderman

I grew up watching shitty cartoons like this and eating Cheerios.
At the time, the animation didn't seem so cheap and I didn't notice the various cost-cutting measures taken by the obviously under-funded studio like re-using footage from other episodes as well as re-using footage from other cartoon series'.
But fortunately, they didn't skimp on the music.
The theme song in particular has become well known even by those who are too young to remember the cartoon.

The background music for the show was a cool mix of surf-rock and bongo heavy crime jazz, and even though I haven't seen the show in years, I can still remember how some of the tunes went

Thanks to Youtube, I can fill in the gaps in my memory and scribble out this song, (title unknown).





The tune in question happens at around 1:53 in the video, it's hard to hear over the action, and I've never been able to find a recording of it but it's fun to play as a bluesy 6/8.

Also, if anyone wants the .MUS files so they can transpose the charts or do anything else with them let me know.

Ahmad Jamal - Tranquility

This record has been with me for a long time and as a result, it's a little beaten up,(well loved, you could say).
I searched for years for a cleaner copy but for awhile, it was almost non-existent.
While some used copies have shown up online recently for a reasonable sum, I've actually come to appreciate the trace of snap-crackle-pop on my copy.
the orignal tunes have always been the standouts for me,(Tranqulity and Manhattan Reflections), but the Bacharach covers are good also.
A very nice, full sound, especially for a trio.
1 - I say a little prayer
2 - The Look of Love
3 - When i look in Your Eyes
4 - Illusions Opticas
5 - Nothing Ever Changes My Love For You
6 - Emily

7 - Tranquility
8 - Free Again
9 - Manhattan Reflections

Piano - Ahmad Jamal
Bass - Jamil Sulieman
Drums - Frank Grant

http://rapidshare.com/files/358648128/ahdjam.rar

john scofield - east meets west

I had always admired John Scofield's playing, but when he teamed up with Medeski Martin & Wood in 1998 and produced 'A Go Go', I went from admirer to devotee.
I still think it might be the best jazz recording of the 1990's, and anyone who doesn't own it, should.
But while 'A Go Go' is fairly easy to find, this recording isn't.
It is Scofield's first recording as band leader,(recorded in 1977), and features some awful production(the bass in particular sounds like it was made out of cardboard), but some fine playing.
The solo guitar tracks stand out in particular for me as well as a notable cover of the Carla Bley penned 'Ida Lupino', which is one of those many songs in the Real Book which no one ever plays.
1. Public Domain
2. Amy(who else?)
3. Blues for Okinawa

4. V.
5. Un Toco Loco-Ballet
6. Ida Lipino

John Scofield - guitar
Clint Houston - bass
Motohiko Hino - drums
Terumasa Hino - trumpet on 'public domain' and 'V'

I found some old links for this recording floating around but none of them work anymore, here is a new one, enjoy.
http://rapidshare.com/files/358626354/john_scofield_-_east_meets_west.rar

Electropic

Ok, so this is supposed to be a jazz-oriented blog, and I want to post some good vinyl, but as I am a little late to the blogging game, most of my good shit is already available courtesy of the many other fine music blogs out there.
But that doesn't mean I don't have some worthy bits of obscuria lurking on the shelves and this is one of them.
Found by my wife in a bin in a used record store in Montreal, this was worth the price based on the cheesiness of the cover alone.
It is a bizarre mix of early 80's disco, French pop and cha-cha.
The lead singer,(simply referred to as 'Lise' in the liner notes), really works the breathy, coy, french-sex-kitten angle to great effect.
More campy French music is on the way.
aimer!
http://rapidshare.com/files/358613080/electropic_-_tu_veux_ou_tu_veux_pas.rar

blame it on the bossa nova

All I used to know about Eydie Gorme was she was the punchline to a really lame joke told in the movie 'Good Morning Vietnam', until I found this record in a bin somewhere.
It is pretty cheesy but hopefully some of you might dig it.
@320
http://rapidshare.com/files/357261098/edgormboss.rar

Summertime (Coltrane changes)

Summertime from Porgy and Bess may be a classic song, but its simplicity has attracted many novices,(particularly girl singers), to it and has often resulted in some over-estimations of competence by said novices.
If it's not Summertime it's Fever.
I don't have anything against the inexperienced taking a turn at the mic,(we all start somewhere), but given the amount of song options in the Real Book which are well known and easy for beginners,(All Of Me, It Don't Mean A Thing, All Blues, God Bless The Child, Quiet Nights, etc...), calling Summertime demonstrates a severe lack of imagination.
Unless you happen to do an interesting arrangement...
By 1961,(if not sooner), musicians were already bored as shit playing this song, and John Coltrane decided to turn it on its ear, when he recorded it for his 'My Favorite Things' album.
In his version, the melody stays more or less the same but the chords underneath are changed, resulting in a darker, more dissonant song which is less intuitive to solo over.
Any jazz musician or afficionado worth his or her salt should own and be familiar with this recording.

Either way, if you ever wanted to try it out but didn't have the chords, now you do.

Interestingly, Summertime isn't in the Real Book at all, making it one of the very few jazz jam standards which are ubiquitously played by memory

Billie Jean

I wrote out Billie Jean years ago for a jazz gig where we did all Michael Jackson covers.This was was my favorite arrangement of the night. We did it as a waltz and I took some liberties with the chords. In particular, the 'James Bond' sounding Dmin to Dmin#5 to Dmin6 and back down again for the verses works quite well with the melody.It's too bad I don't have a recording of it, if I ever make one i'll post it.After Michael's untimely death, I dug this out and brought it to a jam.It went over quite well and some people knew it sounded familiar but couldn't place it.Given the historical significance of this song, it totally deserves inclusion into the jazz canon...or you could just play Billie's Bounce for the millionth effing time.

.MUS file is here for Finale users.

http://rapidshare.com/files/353904138/billie_jean.MUS

Toxic

I remember where I was when I first heard 'Toxic' by Britney Spears.
Driving a truck on an early Saturday spring morning in 2004 with the top 40 station on the radio.
The song grabbed my attention immediately.
Great production evoking classic Bollywood and spagetti western soundtracks, as well as good chords and a catchy melody, I couldn't believe it was coming from a manufactured, Disney-spawned, flaky, piece-of-ass-plastic like Britney.
And so I kept my interest in the song to myself. Then, covers started to pop up and it seemed I wasn't the only one who noticed.
She even won her,(only), Grammy for it,(her and the actual composers of the song of course).
Eventually I wrote it out and have played it a few times with mostly positive results.
I like to do it as sort of a badass tango but here is a cool version done in sort of an uptempo car-chase-music style by the Yaron Herman Trio


The MP3 for that version is included with the .MUS file here
http://rapidshare.com/files/352109137/txc.rar

Don't stop there though, cool cover versions of Toxic abound, spend some time on Youtube or wherever and check 'em out then come up with your own version.
Forget the Britney association, it's a cool tune that deserves to be played, stick it in the setlist and put Autumn Leaves in the mothballs where it belongs.

Nude by Radiohead

It's easy to forget that in the past, it was common practice for jazz musicians to perform and record cover versions of the popular pop songs of the day, in fact, you could argue that the jazz idiom defined itself by this practice to a certain degree.
Remember that many of the songs that we all know as jazz standards started out as Broadway show tunes.
In the era before fake books, jazz musicians who got together to jam were confined by the limitations of what repetoire they all had in common. Given that they all made their living playing popular songs for dance crowds, these songs were the ones that jammers could all be expected to know.
Freed from the confines of entertaining a room full of drunk squares at a wedding, these early pioneers could experiment with longer, more elaborate solos and faster tempos, all based on the framework of songs like 'All the Things You Are', 'I Got Rythym' or 'Cherokee'.
As a result, pop standards became jazz standards and the canonical list of jazz songs began to be established.
The emergence of the Real Book coincided with an elitist perspective among jazz musicians which held that as practicioners of a 'Serious American Artform', they should be excempt from having to debase themselves by playing the music of the common folk.
With their new guidebook in hand they didn't have to. And the working musician pool split between jazzers and players of popular music,(rock and/or R&B), the latter taking over most of the wedding/dance-club work and even to this day, learn their songs by ear,(to my knowledge, there are no universal pop/rock/R&B fake books out there).

Blah blah blah, to the point, every once in a rare while a popular band comes along that is so good that it transcends those barriers and jazz players are forced to take notice.
Radiohead is one of those bands.
Ever since Radiohead's brilliant OK Computer came out in 1997, Radiohead covers have been popping up in jazz recordings all over the place.
Brad Meldhau has covered at least four Radiohead tunes.
And Robert Glasper came up with this amazing arrangement, mashing together 'Everything in Its Right Place' with 'Maiden Voyage'.


Here is a chart for Radiohead's 'Nude' which was written in the late 90's but didn't make it onto a record until 2007's 'In Rainbows'.
Click on the picture, or download the .MUS file for the chart and a cool, spooky, dubby remix of Nude taken from a white-label vinyl of unknown origin originally posted by nodata.tv as well as the album version.
http://rapidshare.com/files/352084397/nude.rar


By the way, feel free to leave a comment, and check back later. Coming up next...a Britney Spears chart

imperial march from 'Empire Strikes Back'

OK, here is my first shot in the dark.
"The Real Book", is the de-facto Bible for working jazz musicians.
Created in the early 70's by a mysterious group of Berklee music students, it was supposed to be their answer to the problem of assorted, poor-quality 'fake books' in circulation at the time.
Fake books were alphabetized, phonebook-sized compilations of lead sheets to the popular songs of the day, simplified so that a musician could sight-read them and be able to 'fake it' when the band leader called a tune which the musician was unfamiliar with.
As the repetoire for working musicians broadened to the point that one could not be expected to know all of the possible songs which might be requested at a jazz club, cocktail party or bar-mitzvah from memory, such books became indispensable, but they all suffered from varying flaws ranging from unreadable notation to lame song choice.

In response to this, the Real Book authors compiled a book full of transcriptions which appealed to their,(frankly), jazz-snob inclinations, many of which were,(and still are), totally useless in the context for which fake books are commonly used.

Nonetheless, their book caught on.
Complicating matters was the fact that most fake books at the time did not secure copyrights to the songs they contained, and were published and distributed on a semi-underground level.
The Real Book was no exception, which is why no one has claimed responsibility for creating it.
Distribution of the book was done secretly through a network of musicians and local music store owners.
by the late 70's, it had become the universal fake book, and it remains so today.
All other attempts by newer books to knock it from its pedestal have failed.
This means that when you go to a jazz jam or wine and cheese party, the music being played is all at least 30 to 40 years old and has been utterly done to death.
In reaction to this situation, I offer my first of,(hopefully), many addendums to that infernal book's pathetically dated repetoire.
A classic melody from a classic film, inspired by my then three year old daughter's surprisingly strong interest in Darth Vader.

I've played it as a bossa and it works, although the chords are a little weird to solo over.
If you have any versions of Finale or Printmusic, download this
http://rapidshare.com/files/351694655/Copy_of_imperial_march.MUS

You will be able to transpose it or do whatever you want.
Otherwise, here is a jpeg. Print off a few and bring 'em down to the gig and have a laff. And check back here for more.