Jazz Wisdom from the Reno Jazz Festival
Maria Schneider- The Reno Jazz Festival featured Maria Schneider and her big band. Earlier in the afternoon on Friday I saw her clinic on composition. She talked about her inspirations, people she knew, and theoretical aspects.
Out of the modes (Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Locrian) she told us that Lydian is the brightest. From there in ascending fifths (ie first up to C from F) they become darker. Based off of that she made one of her songs darker through modulation.
Schneider also told a story about Gil Evans and how he had been sitting down trying to figure out a new way to figure a minor seventh chord that he had developed callouses on his ass. She said that composers have to do that sometimes- just keep writing until they get it.
Schneider also commented on the Peruvian influences in her music and went off about time signatures. She had combined being in certain odd meters, but having them being in total divisible by three. She credits this to what she has heard and internalized into her subconsciousness.
At her concert I remember specifically two songs- Pretty Road- about a road that she took with her dad and sister and another one about Hang Gliding in South America. She has some great musicians in her group and their solo work really played a big part in the music.
Dave Rickenberg played bari sax at the saxophone clinic I saw on Saturday. The night before he had been playing a bit of bass clarinet with Maria Schneider’s Big Band. He told us that he mainly plays tenor and thus his throat position, etc. has become accustomed to the tenor. However, he often must play other horns and therefore stressed versatility. In order to go between saxes he recommends long tones.
For long tones he says you should be able to play four measures at 60 beats per minute on a single note. An exercise he suggested implemented the overtone series. First play the low note, ie a B flat then play the first overtone, the 8va above, next play that same note with the normal 8va fingering, after that return to the 8va overtone, and then down to the low note for a total of five tones sounded. The overtone 8va will have a purer sound so you should try and get the non-overtone note to sound like it.
For mouthpieces he recommended Berg Larson, Meyer, Otto Link, and Watton for bari. For alto and tenor he said tip openings of 5, 6, 7, 8 are good and for bari toward the higher end of that range. He likes Selmer horns and also said good things about Keilwerth. Personally he likes using one mouthpiece for most things, but if you play classical music get a classical mouthpiece. He also encourages musicians to keep up their classical studies. My jazz ensemble was discussing how good jazz players know the classical repertoire, but classical musicians do not always know the jazz repertoire. Knowing both can only help you.
He says he practices as much as he can, which is not quite as much as he would like since he has two young children. More important than practicing a lot at once though is consistency. Practice must be combined with listening as well.
Rickenberg recommended using a tuner to understand the tendencies of your horn. The low end will tend to be flat while the high end will tend to be sharp. Consistent practice will help you improve intonation.
I asked him one final question after the clinic. I wanted to know if he had always wanted/trained to be a musician. He told me that he had actually studied engineering for about a year and a half. People had told him he would make no money as a musician. He seems to be doing well though.
Matt Harris- We first saw Matt Harris after our performance and he told us some things about how we played. He emphasized that to show dynamic contrast you need to get your dynamics really soft in order to show the difference for when you come up. My jazz ensemble director John always says how the Basie Band made a career of playing softly and when they did play loudly it stood out. He also told us stories about playing with Buddy Rich. I knew his name since so many of our charts in middle school and high school had been arranged by him.
He recently came out with his jazz piano basics book, which should be available to the public in about two weeks. Topics in it include the importance of the 3rd and 7th. The 3rd tells you the quality- major vs. minor and the 7th tells you direction- where it will resolve.
For his own rules the 3 and 7 should be above the D below middle C for chord voicings. The next note should be above the 3 and 7. The left hand ought not to bounce around too much, to be smooth instead. The root is already covered by the bass. Bill Evans used three note voicings frequently. To practice one must learn the patterns and chords, you don’t want to become too reliant on visually seeing the notes. That is something that I did earlier when I was learning music. He echoes Harris also Rickenberg in saying that you should keep up your classical studies.
Dave Eshelman Recently I went with my jazz combo to play at Cal State East Bay for their jazz competition. The judges included Dave Eshelman. For the practice room there was not any power supply, a drum set, or a piano . . . . so basically that I could rehearse my sax in there. After seeing the room it started to rain, so our outdoors set was moved inside. The new room had some funky acoustics. All these things led to us not playing our best, but regardless the judges gave us some good advice. Eshelman told us that it’s important to listen to ourselves critically and ask ourselves if what we hear is something that we would want to hear if it had come from another player. I also heard about how I should be able to play faster lines to develop energy and a few other things, but the comment from Eshelman stuck in my mind.
Dave Pietro- led the saxophone clinic. He teaches at NYU and has a site at davepietro.com. He played All the Things You Are and Joe Henderson’s Recordame. Throughout the clinic he came back to All the Things You Are, which was cool since I had been playing it with my combo.
In his classes he has his students learn their scales inside and out. Over the range of the hour, in thirds, in 7ths, and all kinds of other ways. For thirds he will play them ascending/ascending, ascending/descending, descending/ascending, descending/descending.
Pietro also mentioned the modes and how one way to practice them is to start on the same root note for all the modes, ie C ionian, then C dorian, and so on.
For practicing the changes in a song he suggested learning the modes, chords themselves, and guide tone lines.
As far as learning a song Pietro approaches from many angles. He will know the melody perfectly and in multiple time signatures. By learning the melody in 7 it will influence how he plays it in 4. By sitting at the piano you can see everything visually. He also knew the lyrics to All the Things You Are, which he sang for us. To show how well he knew the melody/changes he handed the mic to an audience member. Whenever that person said melody Dave Pietro would play the melody and when he said solo then he would break out into solo. The person did this and Pietro was able to seamlessly transition between solo and melody whenever the person said to switch. In another demonstration he would stay within the changes or leave it and come back. His example was going from NY to Philly and back to NY, going quite far from the changes, but still returning.
Pietro tells his students to first play within the rules. Once they can do that then they can break them. Sort of like with fire, you want to be extremely comfortable with it or it can be dangerous.
For diatonic tunes or parts of tunes Pietro talked about playing modally, superimposing ii-V’s over it, and playing more melodically. An example of the modal playing can be heard in the Miles Davis on So What. Cannonball Adderly often did the superimposing. Pietro says he himself likes the more melodic approach. Using wider intervals can also be good in more diatonic tunes.
In playing linearly vs. vertically Pietro told us that the linear can be stronger if you know what you’re doing. Time itself is also linear so something you play might sound a little funny against the vertical chords, but if it goes somewhere then it will work out all right.
Pietro also stressed ear training. When a sax player seems to be testing a reed on the bandstand they might actually be trying to figure out the chords. Listening to the bass can help and practicing with friends.
He said something about rhythm which I really agree with. Rhythm alone can be interesting, we enjoy drum solos by themselves. He has students transcribe just the rhythm from the Sonny Rollins solo on Tune Up. Just that has a great deal of musicality in it. Personally I think rhythm is the most important thing in someone’s playing.
Pietro studied Indian music for a bit and told us that instrumentalists study with vocalists in India. You can learn a lot from good vocalists. Music teachers that I have had said that the vocalist will always be the focus of attention over the instrumentalists.
Later in the clinic Pietro talked about tunes themselves. He likened them to friends. Some you see more often, know better, like more, etc.
He told us to find where our inability meets our inability and to live there. Thus you can always be getting better and wanting to strive towards a higher level.