Following Jazz chord charts on Non-pedal steel

[Dom Franco]

Pre-pandemic I was occasionally attending a regular Jazz Jam Session... Now thankfully it has started up again.

A few years ago I developed my A6th extended tuning on 13 strings to give me some flat5, augmented, diminished minor 6th etc. chords in the pursuit of more jazzy music.

When I first started sitting in with these awesome musicians, I was horrified each time they handed me a chart to a tune I had never heard before. (I play 90%) by ear and had only occasionally followed chord sheets)

I was totally lost when their Jazz Notation called for a Bb7#5 or an A-7b5... It took me a while to figure out that A- means A minor. I was faking it trying to keep up with the changes and failing miserably on the uptempo Jazz standards, especially the ones in Keys like Eb, Ab, and Bb.

I bought "THE REAL BOOK" and struggled with it to learn a few of the songs they played the week before... and then of course they didn't play those the next time.

All the while I was doing great on the old Swing Standards Like "Blue Skies" "Bye Bye Blackbird" "Georgia on my Mind" tin pan alley stuff I'd heard a millon times. Enough so that they all were impressed with my playing, I'd humbly accept their compliments and avoid soloing on the more difficult numbers. (All the while knowing what a fraud I was)

Now it is July 2021 and the Covid restrictions that cancelled the Jazz Jam for over a year have been lifted.

I am determined to improve my chart sight reading skills, and I did a bit better this week. I am also trying to play more partial (2 note) "chords" rather than trying to read and get to the full Dbmaj7#5 for 2 beats then quickly reposition my bar to the next chord.

I am starting to now focus on getting the right harmony interval for each chord (Root & 3rd... or perhaps 3rd & 7th) thus implying the chord relying on the bass, keys and guitar to fill in all the notes. I did this with some success last night.

Then when it comes time for my turn to solo I have a few starting points at each chord change and my ear kicks in with some licks and runs that I know by heart, and I throw in a bit of the melody and I sometimes am shocked by how good it sounds... even when I am totally unfamiliar with the song.

Best of all I am having fun and making some new friends while learning some new material.

Dom

[Bill Hatcher]

Good for you!

I fought the Jazz wars for many years on electric bass using the real book. May I suggest you do this. Look in the book and pick out 5 tunes you don’t know, but everybody else does. Learn these 5 tunes like the back of your hand. Most important thing is to learn the head of each tune so that YOU can call the tune....play the head yourself....solo on a couple of courses and then hand it off to another player while YOU comp the chords for them to solo over and then you play the head out and play an ending to get the tune finished. Then learn one tune a week till you know all the tunes that regularly get called. Get a good jazz chord study book and learn some chord substitutions. Go to YouTube and listen to some great jazzers and copy some chord changes till you have a good library of chords. There are great backing tracks on YouTube using those real book tunes. Practice to them. Jazzers like to play in front of the beat.don’t play on the beat or pray tell behind it. You will have to learn so fast swing tunes so you won’t be the odd man out. You can play all the jazz you want if you know the chords that are used. Jazzers like players who know the “changes”. Also....learn the tunes in the original keys that all the players use. They will not like to play tunes in the non standard keys. Best to you.

[David Irving]

I don't know whether you've seen John Ely's chord locator: http://hawaiiansteel.com/chordlocator/generic.php

You can define your own custom tuning if you need to.

[Robert Murphy]

I have been studying music theory for the past year. Mostly part writing and aural skills. Last month we started Jazz theory which is a different language. the Jazz Theory book by Mark Levine does an excellent job of making the complex understandable. If you want to improvise to jazz chords then the scales available are clearly explained. Many hours of work will be necessary to internalize their application. Best of luck.

[Stephen Baker]

This is a page taken from a book "Swing & Big Band Guitar" by Charlton Johnson published by Hal Leonard. The book is aimed at a Freddie Green style rhythm guitarist but the principal applies to any accompanist. This one page changed my approach to jazz and made it less daunting. Basically if the score says play Bb13#11 the last thing you want to play is Bb13#11. I hope this helps.

[Bill Hatcher]

This is a page taken from a book "Swing & Big Band Guitar" by Charlton Johnson published by Hal Leonard. The book is aimed at a Freddie Green style rhythm guitarist but the principal applies to any accompanist. This one page changed my approach to jazz and made it less daunting. Basically if the score says play Bb13#11 the last thing you want to play is Bb13#11. I hope this helps.

i dont know who wrote that book, but thats a bunch of BS.

i wish that every time i read a show on underarm guitar, i could just look at a chord and just say...hey! i dont have to do that. i can just play something else and everything will be just fine.

if the chart has a 13#11 chord written....play it. somebody wrote that chord to be played to work with the rest of the musicians playing the arrangement.

i have seen freddie green play....he didnt play watered down chords.

[Paul Seager]

Best of all I am having fun and making some new friends while learning some new material.

Yes thats what a session should be about. Unless one intends to rub shoulders with New Yorks' wannabes, gonnabes and shouldabeens, a local session is a great place to meet people and players.

Pre COVID I helped run a jazz session and we had allcomers. Some people could barely play, others were definitely very good. I've seen a mean fast paced F blues played on a Melodica, A night in Tunisia played on an Irish whistle. Sometimes it works and often it doesn't.

My 10 cents is that there are those pushing jazz forward as an art form which is ok but it all began as dance music, then encompassed popular music of its day (most Standards) and then BeBop and all that followed. Jazz has evolved into an educational industry where talented musicians make money demystifying jazz - often by mystifying it further

Enjoy your session Dom, you are doing exactly what a knowledgeable musician does best, using your skill and tool sets and learning from new experiences!

\paul

[G Strout]

Good for you!

I fought the Jazz wars for many years on electric bass using the real book. May I suggest you do this. Look in the book and pick out 5 tunes you don’t know, but everybody else does. Learn these 5 tunes like the back of your hand. Most important thing is to learn the head of each tune so that YOU can call the tune....play the head yourself....solo on a couple of courses and then hand it off to another player while YOU comp the chords for them to solo over and then you play the head out and play an ending to get the tune finished. Then learn one tune a week till you know all the tunes that regularly get called. Get a good jazz chord study book and learn some chord substitutions. Go to YouTube and listen to some great jazzers and copy some chord changes till you have a good library of chords. There are great backing tracks on YouTube using those real book tunes. Practice to them. Jazzers like to play in front of the beat.don’t play on the beat or pray tell behind it. You will have to learn so fast swing tunes so you won’t be the odd man out. You can play all the jazz you want if you know the chords that are used. Jazzers like players who know the “changes”. Also....learn the tunes in the original keys that all the players use. They will not like to play tunes in the non standard keys. Best to you.

What Bill Hatcher says.... you won't go wrong

[David DeLoach]

I gigged on guitar for a few years in this swanky club in Nashville. Usually it was a 4 or 5 piece band backing up a singer. The first song of every set would be a jazz instrumental. They'd call the song & key about 30 seconds before we started playing it, so there was no time to ask questions.

The other cats in the band would vary on each gig, but they were always very good. They usually call out some jazz tune I didn't know - or perhaps had never even heard before.

For a long time, I just felt intimidated and inadequate when playing songs I didn't know - especially sharing the stage with such great players.

But at some point I just changed my attitude and decided to have fun vs. trying to impress the other musicians (or more realistically, trying not to embarrass myself).

It was amazing how not being self conscious, having a relaxed mind (and hands), and enjoying the moment, improved my playing. I found the groove. I'd start very simple and build from there throughout the tune. I heard lines and changes. I was confident vs. tense & struggling. It was truly a game changer. I was simply just playing what I heard in my head.

[Mike Neer]

There is no easy way to say this but just keep going and getting your butt kicked. Jazz is difficult music, that is why most of the players who are great improvisers are masters of not only their instruments but the language. There is language to learn and depending on the decade of music, it changes.

If you are looking to play music from the Real Book, you can start with familiarizing yourself with bebop, with attention to a lot of functional and extended harmony and fast moving changes. Lots of chromaticism. Also the birth of reharmonization of the blues form and rhythm changes (I Got Rhythm).

Once you get into hard bop era, 50s, early 60s, the music incorporates more blues, R&B and gospel influence.

Next is modal music and post bop which also require you to step away from a lot of functional harmony. The music of Wayne Shorter for instance is very difficult to improvise on using any type of functional harmony. Playing more linearly and melodically is your best best.

There is so much to talk about but it hastaken me decades to get to the place I am at as improviser and will take decades more to get where I want to be.

PS: When in doubt, lay out. And learn all your chords. Focus on upper extensions. Also, don’t listen to steel players to learn jazz.

I have a new CD out where I play only tunes from the Real Book. Check it out, it’s some advanced playing but made to sound easy.
https://mikeneer.bandcamp.com/album/keepin-it-real

[Peter Harris]

I spent some years playing bass at a local weekly live-to-air radio broadcast...we had an hour each Monday night from 8pm on the open front verandah of the station's old building..playing also to a live audience who would enthusiastically turn up each week to sit in the garden area out front and slowly drink themselves into the bushes.

The session consisted of of a few regulars and a mass of walk-ups, many of whom would just start playing a guitar (or whatever!) without much reference to those of us 'backline' musicians whose job it was to provide all the support ... relaxing into it all was ESSENTIAL....as I quickly found out !

It was all about the fun, and one (amazingly quickly) got to the stage of 'reading' the left hand of the artist, as to keys and structure, particularly of unfamiliar numbers.

I learnt SO much in those (old) days, not only about music, but also about one's attitude towards it....wouldn't have missed it for the World !!

Fun and enjoyment were the take-home factors that have remained with me decades later.

HTH

[G Strout]

PS: When in doubt, lay out. And learn all your chords. Focus on upper extensions. Also, don’t listen to steel players to learn jazz.
https://mikeneer.bandcamp.com/album/keepin-it-real

Some more excellent advice from Mike Neer.
BTW try not to listen to JUST guitar players. Horn players have the chops.... you'll find a few that you like.

[Kirk Francis]

pursuant to g stout's comment, and considering that steel is an untempered instrument, one must add singers to the list of exemplars to be studied.

[Bruce Roger]

PS: Focus on upper extensions. Also, don’t listen to steel players to learn jazz.
https://mikeneer.bandcamp.com/album/keepin-it-real

Some more excellent advice from Mike Neer.
BTW try not to listen to JUST guitar players. Horn players have the chops.... you'll find a few that you like.

I second that: It sounds like Jules Ah See listened to Louis Armstrong. I like Chet Baker's lyricism. You can't go wrong with Miles Davis....

At https://www.freddiegreen.org/transcript ... egood.html you can see single note lines that Freddie Green played in larger ensembles where he viewed himself as part of the horn section. Same steady quarter note rhythm without duplicating the piano harmonies. I think steel would be great for that.

Similarly, I seem to recall Buddy Emmons playing some of the lines from the shout choruses of Horace Silver tunes.

[Travis Brown]

I am not much of a steel player, but I fake jazz pretty well on electric.

Thoughts:

One thing to consider with the chording issue is how many other guys are playing chords. If you are playing with a piano and/or elec guitar, you might want to simplify your chords because they are already laying it down. They may also be interpreting the Bb13#11 as a Bb7 or some other simplification, so you might be adding more chaos. My father was a jazz pianist for 50 years or so, and he actively avoided playing with most guitarists (unless they were very good) because they would often play chords that were in conflict with his choices. I truly understand the desire to play full voicings on steel, but I've started to think the wisest choice on lap steel is to focus on the 3rd and 7th and let the rest of the band fill in the gaps.

With regard to jazz in general (and I suspect everyone posting in this thread knows this), it comes down to developing your ear and learning the vocabulary. For both solos and chording, the more songs you study, the better your ears will get, and the easier it is to follow a song you don't know and build a solo for it.

[Bill Hatcher]

My father was a jazz pianist for 50 years or so, and he actively avoided playing with most guitarists (unless they were very good) because they would often play chords that were in conflict with his choices.

i played a concert one night with the atlanta symphony on guitar and the featured artist was oscar peterson. i "avoided" him as much as i possibly could! lol

btw, he was the nicest guy you would ever want to meet.

[Brian Evans]

My own take on chord charts and comping is yes, the extensions are there for a reason in the harmony of the tune, but often only in the head, and if I am in a big group, I don't play them. Small group, or backing a soloist with bass and drums, sure, playing the extensions can be important to imply the harmony, but can also get in the way. Freddie Green often played the third and the seventh, the idea being the bass was going to play the root and the fifth, and third and seventh defined the chord. If you listen to Herb Ellis playing with Oscar Petersen, he plays pretty simply and lets Oscar play all the stuff. I tend to think, faced with a major b5 or #11 chord, that I'll just leave out the 5th, let some one else play that note... Just my two farthings worth...

Forgot: The other thing to do is to play like a horn player, one note at a time, and just don't play chords. Just because you can doesn't mean you have to!

[Travis Brown]

My father was a jazz pianist for 50 years or so, and he actively avoided playing with most guitarists (unless they were very good) because they would often play chords that were in conflict with his choices.

i played a concert one night with the atlanta symphony on guitar and the featured artist was oscar peterson. i "avoided" him as much as i possibly could! lol

btw, he was the nicest guy you would ever want to meet.

WOW. To me, Peterson is up there with Bill Evans - one of the greatest of all time. I would love just to have been there!

[Travis Brown]

My own take on chord charts and comping is yes, the extensions are there for a reason in the harmony of the tune, but often only in the head, and if I am in a big group, I don't play them. Small group, or backing a soloist with bass and drums, sure, playing the extensions can be important to imply the harmony, but can also get in the way. Freddie Green often played the third and the seventh, the idea being the bass was going to play the root and the fifth, and third and seventh defined the chord. If you listen to Herb Ellis playing with Oscar Petersen, he plays pretty simply and lets Oscar play all the stuff. I tend to think, faced with a major b5 or #11 chord, that I'll just leave out the 5th, let some one else play that note... Just my two farthings worth...

Forgot: The other thing to do is to play like a horn player, one note at a time, and just don't play chords. Just because you can doesn't mean you have to!

One of my favorite Bill Bruford quotes - "The hardest part to play is none at all."

[Dave Mudgett]

Whenever I can, I play jazz or jazzy blues on guitar, and I think the issue of voicing rhythm guitar chords heavily depends on the role being played. I've seen Freddie Green too, and there is a lot written about him - and he played a lot of 3-note or even 2-note chords on 4/8-to-the-bar rhythm guitar. This does not mean 'watered down' - the choice of notes is key. But trying to play all or even most of the voices of a complex chord on every beat of a fast-moving tune can get ridiculous. I think it's important to pick out the most critical notes and play them. Sometimes I will just focus on the basic chord notes (maj, min, dim, aug, 6th, b7, maj7) that keep the rhthymic and basic harmonic flow going. Other times a particular extension in there will help with good voice leading. I don't think there's an iron-clad rule.

And definitely - if there are a bunch of players and especially with keyboard, it's real easy to clash when trying to play all the extensions called for on a chart. On the other hand, backing a soloist/singer as the key accompanist by oneself is a different matter entirely. In that situation, the extensions, and particularly, good voice leading, may be essential.

I think it also depends on who wrote the chart and what their purpose was. A lot of arrangers are emphatically not guitar/steel players and some don't have a good understanding of what works and what doesn't on them. I played guitar in a "swing craze" band in the 90s, and I got handed dozens of very complex charts written by a guy who was used to arranging for piano and a lot of horns. Just chord names, no voicings indicated, and some of the heavy extensions were essentially unplayable on guitar. He told me to do what I described above - play the basic chord with the most critical extension as needed, which is how I hear Freddie Green. It took a while to figure out smooth, flowing rhythm guitar parts.

I think this is real challenging on steel. I'm not anywhere near there yet - I'm really just beginning my foray into jazz on steel, with and without pedals. But as Mike says, jazz is just challenging. People spend an entire lifetime playing nothing but jazz at a high level of intensity, and that's the standard yardstick by which things are measured. So do what you can, don't be afraid to simplify if necessary, when in doubt lay out, and be ready to have your head handed to you on a platter sometimes.

As far as Freddie Green goes, there's a site devoted to him. This section focuses on his technique - http://www.freddiegreen.org/technique.html. Not sure how useful this will be on steel, which is IMO tougher as a rhythm instrument. But I think it's very useful for jazz rhythm guitar and it might give some ideas on how to voice backing chords on steel. I'm certainly looking at that.

[Andrew Frost]

This is a really cool thread. Lots of great perspectives.

Playing, and understanding the language of jazz is a long road, and always a work in progress.

Regarding the chord notation discussion, one thing that irks me is seeing in some published 'songbooks' the overuse of specific voicing information. As has been said, if an extension on the chord is related directly to the melody, I can appreciate it - the #11 4-chord in Moon River for example - but I don't need to see all the extensions spelled out on an altered 5 chord. Drives me nuts. If its a small combo, I think most players prefer seeing the basic chord written, and voicing it how is appropriate in the moment.

[John Gretzinger]

I play with a small jazz ensemble at my local community college (six-string guitar, not steel (wish I was that good)). One of the harder things for me to learn to do was to let the bass have the bass. I try to choose voicings that stay out of his normal range. Same with the piano. I'll play a lot of sparse chords since the piano is usually doing full voicings.

I have learned a number of weird chords and am adding to my vocabulary on a weekly or daily basis. They are important and do add a lot to the arrangement. I'm really liking diminished and augmented chords. There is so much you can do with those.

Jamming a lot and learning to hear what the other players are doing and expect is a big part of it. Although I think having fun is almost a bigger part. Learning to play in those odd keys (Ab, Bb, Eb, F#/Gb) is definitely a growth experience. It's getting easier.

The old Buddy Emmons "Swing Shift" recordings and "Steel Guitar Jazz" are excellent listening as well as anything you can find from Al Vescovo (Al used to play with a jazz combo at a small place down the street from me every Wednesday evening. Boy was that an education - I do miss him)

jdg