Multiphonic Sounds

Happy Birthday Michael Brecker (March 29, 1949 – January 13, 2007) 

When I was in university I had the privilege of meeting and learning from the great tenor saxophonist Michael Brecker. Growing up I was never particularly drawn to his sound, I thought it was ‘cheesy’ and tinged with ’80s cliche production and I often chose to listen to Coltrane or Chris Potter instead. Often I encounter people who tell me, ‘I love the saxophone!’ and usually the sound that they’re talking about is Brecker - he was an original. His discography is daunting, he was THE session guy of the ’80s and he played on countless jingles, pop recordings, jazz, pioneered the electronic wind instrument, and he even established the classic Saturday Night Live tenor sound. He recorded with Paul Simon, Herbie Hancock, Bruce Springsteen, Pat Metheny, and so many more. 

Brecker was an outstanding technical genius who had full mastery over his instrument. I have never heard anyone execute the most technically challenging patterns in all keys and the full range of the horn, as easily as he could. One lesson I remember in particular that he said really helped him advance was to take a four note pattern (sometimes a grouping of four unrelated notes) and move it around the full range of the horn though different root relationships. 

For example take the “Giant Steps” pattern of 1,2,3,5 (in “C” it’s C, D, E, G) and practice it this way.

1. Ascending chromatically (Bb, B, C, C#, etc…)
2. Desending chromatically  (Bb, A, Ab, G, etc…)
2. Ascending whole steps (Bb, C, D, E, etc…)
3. Desending whole Steps (Bb, Ab, Gb, E, etc…)
4. Ascending minor 3rds (C, Eb, Gb, A, etc….)
5. Descending minor 3rds (Bb, G, E, C#, etc…)
6. Ascending Major 3rds (Bb, D, F# / B, D#, G, etc….)
7. Desceneding Major 3rds (A, F, C# / C, Ab, E, etc…)
8. Circle of 4ths (Bb, Eb, Ab, Db…etc)
9. Circle of 5ths (Bb, F, C, G, etc…) 

Lessons with Aaron Leaney

Suggested Brecker recordings:

Time Is Of The Essence

Infinity (McCoy Tyner) 

Still Crazy After All These Years

The improvisational flights of jazz greats like Louis Armstrong and John Coltrane are so transporting that they can seem almost otherworldly — especially when the listener is aware that these musicians weren’t following any score, but were making up their riffs in the moment. New research on what happens in the brain when we improvise, however, is showing that it is very much an earthbound activity, grounded in the same neural processes at play in every one of us when we engage in spontaneous self-expression, like a conversation with a friend.

“Creativity is far from a magical event of unexpected random inspiration,” wrote researchers Charles Limb and Mónica López-González in an article published in the journal Cerebrum last month. “Instead, it is a mental occurrence that results from the application of ordinary cognitive processes.” Many students and employees are discovering this for themselves as the techniques of musical and dramatic improvisation move into educational and workplace settings, where they’re used to boost the creativity of people who’ve never picked up a saxophone in their lives.

Limb, an associate professor otolaryngology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine who is also on the faculty of the university’s Peabody Conservatory of Music, conducted one of the earliest brain-scan studies of musical improvisation in 2008. In that study, published in the journal PLoS ONE, Limb and his co-author Allen Braun persuaded six professional jazz pianists to play on a specially designed keyboard while lying inside a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine. The musicians played a tune they had memorized and then a tune they invented on the spot.

With the shift to improvisation, the researchers noted the appearance of a distinctive pattern of brain activity. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a region associated with careful planning and self-censorship, became dormant, while parts of the brain connected to the senses — hearing, seeing, feeling — became especially lively. Most interesting, a brain area called the medial prefrontal cortex, linked to autobiographical storytelling, also showed increased activity. Inhibitions released and senses primed, these musicians were engaged in an act of self-expression, using the music to communicate something deep about themselves.

 We don’t have to be professional pianists to reap the benefits of improvisation, as a study published in the journal Psychology of Music in 2008 shows. In this experiment, 6-year-olds were divided into two groups: one group received music lessons enriched with improvisatory activities involving their voices, their bodies and musical instruments, while the other attended classes that were “didactic and teacher-centered.” A measure of creative thinking in music was administered to both groups before and after the six-month series of lessons. The results: children who’d engaged in improvisation showed significant increases in the creativity of their thinking and the originality of their music, while pupils who attended the conventional classes did not.

Improvisation can also bring fresh thinking into the workplace. The Second City, the famous improv-comedy troupe in Chicago, now has a corporate arm devoted to improving business communication skills through the same techniques its actors use to make people laugh. “Business isn’t neatly scripted,” notes Tom Yorton, chief executive officer of the Second City Communications. “It’s an unpredictable and unwieldy act of improvisation.” The organization’s trainers lead groups of coworkers, or “ensembles,” through exercises designed to break down inhibitions, heighten attention and ease self-expression — valuable aims, research suggests, for anyone who wants to come up with a riff the world hasn’t heard before.

-Anne Murphy Paul

http://ideas.time.com/2012/03/21/learning-creativity-from-the-jazz-greats/?xid=gonewsedit

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ORNETTE COLEMAN!

Ornette Coleman (alto saxophone), David Izenzon (bass), Charles Moffatt (drums)

Complete freedom. Ornette’s music is full of diverse colours and tones with a sustained intensity. There’s aways swing and blues in ever piece even though it has a uniquely free and open approach. The musicians use a melodic statement as the initial inspiration of each piece and create within that moment.  The jazz musician can immediately respond and incorporate other ideas from the musicians he/she performs with sometimes you hear players who are so rigid and slave to the form that they don’t get past it. “I won’t be able to tell you what it is until it happens” Stefon Harris said in a TedTalk describing the collective approach to spontaneous jazz composition.

Ornette Coleman’s approach has always been to put creative people together and trust in their musicality to freely contribute to the interpretation of his compositions. His sound has changed and progressed over the past forty years; I recently saw his double bass quartet at Massey Hall and his alto sounded more like the timbre of a french horn than the brightness and playful tone from a record like, Change Of The Century. 

Coleman has dedicated his life to music. He has seen suffering and has struggled to keep his creativity funded almost his entire career but he has never submitted his talent to slaving for the corporate benefit. I highly doubt Coleman’s music ever made best seller lists or made it to the top 40s charts but his contribution to music will undoubtably continue to stimulate creativity, question passivity and heal our minds.

Coleman’s music has been an inspiration for me musically, here’s an interpretation of one of his pieces that I recorded on a two track reel to reel with a couple of mics: Friends And Neibours

Miles Davis Quintet with Wayne Shorter (tenor saxophone), Herbie Hancock (piano), Ron Carter (acoustic bass), & Tony Williams (drums) - 1964

These five are truly listening, reacting, feeding ideas to one another for a mutual goal. Wynton Marsalis often talks about ‘jazz democracy’ an explination of how jazz is made up of a rhythm section accompanying and shifting their playing in response to a soloist, Davis’s quintet play like one unit, each shifting and creating a mutual expression yet each individual is free, almost improvising in an awakened state.

I learn something everytime I watch Miles play. He was a great leader and really let everyone stretch and search musically for new ground. The interaction among this group of musicians could be the most cohesive unit in jazz from this period. 

On a side note: Check out the AKG D12s (or Echolette) dynamic microphones that they’re using. These mics are legendary for being great on recording bass drum but it’s wonderful to see them live on stage. There are some interesting mic placements, it looks as if Carter’s bass is not going through an amp; this is nearly unheard of today except by neo-traditionalist. I’ve seen a few groups play without an amp but it’s really difficult to hear any bass unless you’re right up close when playing with drums. One thing to notice is how close they’re positioned to one another on stage, I don’t think they had monitors either. Great live acoustic music with dynamics, rhythmic syncopation, and expression.

Relentless Energy. So much has been written and said about John Coltrane and his quartet; there is so much to experience and learn when one listens with an open heart. This video is really dense in many ways: harmonically, rhythmically, and dynamically.

These four musicians played “My Favorite Things” so many times but still found ways to be creative within its structure. Coltrane was often known to just start playing without counting pieces off. Here we can see him give two ‘stomps’ for the tempo count in at 16:44 . These two taps can be interpreted as a 2 bar count in 3/4 (ex.1) [three quarter notes per bar] or the “1 and 4” of 12/8 [twelve eighth notes per bar] (ex3). 

ex.1 (3/4):   1  2  3  1  2  3   1 2 3   1   2   3

ex.2 (c):       1          2           1          2   

ex.3 (12/8): 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 

There are many ways to feel and interpret music while playing and listening to fast tempos. Often feeling it as “1-2/1-2/1-2” is more natural for the musician. It also frees up the mind to be more creative and allows intuitive energy to take over.  Thinking of each beat at such a frantic pace is limiting because it restricts the music and can create stress.  Coltrane here is obviously feeling the tempo in ‘cut time’ or ‘1/2.’ This allows him to effortlessly execute fast flurries of notes and interact with the group rhythmically.

One must always internalize a tempo (especially when it’s fast) so that the music has a lighter bounce which can make dragging or dropping tempo, less common. Many students tend to tap their feet as a way of keeping time but this is a physical tenseness and when you study great musicians you can see how still and focused they are but always physically relaxed. Tensing up can make you play out of tune and can even lead you to not playing again. The way to learn how to play fast is to play fast! Practice uptempo by always using a metronome when you practice. Try setting it on two and four and just improvise freely, focusing only on eighth note lines in time. Once you get that together try playing standards that you know at faster tempos. Keep playing fast, the more often you do the easier it gets. 

This is the way music should be recorded. Daniel Lanois’ music will sound great on any stereo system even with the worst EQ settings it’s ‘distinctly lanois’.  Black Dub is his new project, heavily influenced by dub engineers Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and King Tubby but flows from one of his previous releases, Belladona.

This performance features the completely unique musicality of Brian Blade. Blade’s approach to dub drum playing in this case is really original.  Unlike the typical approach of drumming in this style, which uses a repeating rhythm usually consisting of closed hihat and cross stick snare with an emphasis on beat three.  

One drop reggae rhythm:

Blade swings his eighth notes similar to Carlton Barrett’s ‘one drop’ rhythm but he changes his patterns throughout the song and follows the shape of the vocal line. In usual dub recordings the vocal was added over the rhythm. Producers would then use the multi track recording and add sound effects or vocal parts and do remixes. In recording with a live vocalist, Blade is able to improvise and react live to the Whitley’s phrasing. His improvisational accents from his jazz background really add to the feel of this piece. There’s a moment around four and a half minutes that is really powerful, he uses his ride cymbal equally as a crash accenting vocalist Trixie Whitley’s dynamic live performance.  

Listen to more BLACK DUB: http://www.blackdub.net/music

Paul Motian (March 25, 1931 - November 22, 2011) with Bill Evans (piano) and Chuck Israels (bass). 

Go to 10:40 to hear Paul swinging with his musical brush work. This video is not the highest of sound quality so try and use headphones; learn to love the tape hiss of live TV from the past. There is an incredible level of creativity and natural spontaneous group interaction; it’s jazz at its finest.