Bebop Workshop

Resources for the students of the Bebop Workshop

Rhythm-a-ning

Rhythm-a-ning – We’re playing this Monk rhythm-change-based tune in the bebop workshop (which is a little weird because Monk did not like bebop and he favored tenorists who would not place standard bebop language over his changes, as Coltrane and Rouse managed ... more

Ray’s Idea & Nefertiti

Hi! Last Tuesday we worked on a bunch of new tunes at the Bebop Workshop namely Ray’s Idea & Nefertiti. Ray’s Idea was written by the great Ray Brown. I believe it’s a great melody that really needs work in order to be played with a proper bebop ... more

Whisper Not – Benny Golson

Whisper Not – Benny Golson In addition to playing Ray’s Idea in the Bebop Workshop, we also played the Benny Golson tune Whisper Not. Instead of descending by fifths, the harmony in the A section goes up by fifths every three bars, and the harmony also ascends a ... more

Meditation

Meditation, not transcendental, but bossa nova. Taking a break from a heavy dose of classic bebop tunes, our bebop workshop started working on Jobin’s Meditation. Curious about the harmony, which begins: | C6 | C6 | B7sus4 | B7 | | C6 | C6 | A7 | A7 | | Dm7 | etc. I did ... more

Daahoud

In the Bebop Workshop, we began working on Daahoud, a Clifford Brown tune (named after a friend of his). The song substitutes Eb- maj7 for the home key of Eb maj, which gives the song an exotic flavor. Here is a transcription of a trumpet solo by Terell Stafford and you can ... more

Back to Jazz School

Back to Jazz School – Okay guys. I’m looking forward to all of us playing better—which means listening better and practicing more—and having another great “school” year. I’m excited. I took the 4-day NYJW Rhythm Workshop this summer ... more

Practicing Improvisation

Bob Anram, the tenorist, has some thought-provoking ideas about improvisation in three essays (called “Letters”) that are posted on the Sax On The Web website (here). In the second essay/letter, entitled Neutral Phrasing, he describes how he has solved the problem ... more

Playing for Real

Reading Mark’s post prompts me to write that the bebop workshop is doing something similar: Andrea has been working with us to play together—to interact musically with the other musicians, to think about what we can do to support the soloist, and to make ... more

Milestones

The title of the blog post, “John Coltrane’s improvised line in Milestones as a Model for Incorporating Sequential Patterns in Jazz Improvisation” says it all. Also, take a look at Incorporating the Sound of Nicolas Slonimsky’s Pattern no. 626 in Jazz ... more

Arranging tips.

Hi! Yesterday in class we were improvising on a couple of new tunes like Bouncing with Bud and Desafinado and we discussed about the nice it would be to write some arrangement for the band, or even just some harmonizations and backgrounds for the horns. I think that the ... more

The importance of listening… Milestones!

Hi everybody! Last night we had Amy, a great flute player sitting in our Bebop Workshop class. Everybody immediately realized the importance of listening to the other musicians while playing and adjust the dynamics to everyone else is in the room playing music with you, in ... more

Transcriptions

Whenever I’m working on a tune, I listen to how the pros handle the changes and follow along with transcriptions of the solos. Here are the solos I’m been doing that with this past week for the new songs we’re working on. Especially check out the Lover Man ... more