Looking at Michael Gibbs, part 1

Although they may not realize it, many people, especially fans of Jazz, are familiar with the music of Michael Gibbs; most obviously from the title track of Stan Getz’s Sweet Rain, which is one of Gibbs's distinctive compositions. This tune, along with two more of his, was also used by Gary Burton on the album Duster, with the vibraphonist recording another of Gibbs’s tunes, “Feelings and Things,” with Chick Corea on their celebrated album Crystal Silence.  In fact, Burton has recorded over twenty-five of Gibbs’s compositions over the years and the two have collaborated on several albums.  But this is only scratching the surface, because in addition to those tunes Gibbs is also a talented trombonist, a heralded band-leader, a fusion pioneer, a film composer, and one of the most incredible arrangers I’ve ever heard!   

            Much like Gil Evans, about whom I posted about before, one of the things that sets Gibbs apart is his masterful use of dissonance and his harmonic sense is often unorthodox and highly imaginative.  He readily admits an affinity for Evans’s music in the liner notes for Big Music. But I think that it would be unfair to generalize him as just an Evans acolyte; Gibbs has been active for over forty years, and he has his own voice as an arranger.  He doesn't appear to be losing any steam either and he's released several great albums over the past few years. Just check out his discography, and this helpful index of his compositions and the albums that they’ve appeared on. 
            The opening measures* of Gibbs's arrangements of the old chestnuts "Moonlight Serenade" and "You Go to My Head" hold a wealth of interesting arranging techniques and reveal several of his idiosycratic devices. Take a look at the trombone section of Moonlight Serenade (a recording of this arrangement can be heard on his recent collaboration with the Upper Austrian Jazz Orchestra as well as his own album entitled Nonsequence). Normally we're charged to put a wide spacing between the lowest voices in an ensemble in order to ensure clarity and the lower the range the greater the interval between adjacent voices should be. But Gibbs seems to have a penchant for placing grinds between lower voices, and, much like Gil Evans, Gibbs approaches and resolves these dissonances “incorrectly,” or chooses to continue using them in parallel motion. 
            This can be seen clearly in mss. two through four, where he places a series of prominent half-step and whole-step rubs between the third and bass trombones. He continues this into the sixth measure, with the second trombone quickly joining the mix in order to create a clustered harmonization underneath the melody. The effect is a thickened, (intentionally) hazy background, while the melody itself is played in unison by the french horns; the reinforcement helps it to remain afloat above the dense, soupy trombone voicings.  And the rhythmic offset that he sets up between the flutes in the opening measures imparts something of a glimmering, somnolent quality to the music, the texture itself enhanced by his discerning use of instruments (or lack thereof;). It all seems to harken back to the title, painting a breathtaking picture of the moonlight piercing through a hole in the otherwise opaque cloud banks.
            Gibbs also uses rhythmic techniques to great effect elsewhere in this excerpt. Look again at mss. two and three and how he sparks interest by scrunching-up and stretching-out the rhythm of the simple four-note phrase. He also extends the melody with an extra, syncopated repeat of this same motive before allowing it to release into the sixth measure. 

            Also note how in ms. 4 he uses back-to-back voice crossings between trombone three and the bass trombone! This may seem extraneous or even sloppy at first, but the scoring actually allows Gibbs to achieve his desired vertical harmonies while avoiding the awkward phrases he would have created for the players had he not divvied up the notes this way; trombone three is relieved of a knotty chromatic phrase (see also that on the third beat there's a crossing with the second trombone for the same reasons) while the bass trombone's line is given shape and character beyond simply repeating the same 'd' several times.

            In the next post we'll take a look at Gibbs's arrangement of "You Go to My Head." I know that I've put a lot of space in-between these posts, however I intend to step it up this year, so please stay tuned.

*These excerpts come from the website of Gibbs's publisher, where they are provided as free samples.

Secondhand Wisdom

I recently came across a page of notes that I took from a Master Class with jazz bassist John Patitucci that I attended a few years ago and I thought that they might be of some interest to the general public. I’m hoping to jump start myself back into blogging after far too long of an absence, so hopefully this will be a good way to re-launch myself into it. The notes are mostly bullet points with the occasional quote interspersed throughout. I’ve tried to elaborate in the places where I remember more.


March 29, 2008, at Rowan University:


-    Shumsky (Vionlinist) - Bach’s violin pieces 

     I believe that Patitucci had just listened to a student’s performance of a selection from J.S. Bach’s famous cello suites. He shared that lately he had been listening a lot to violinist Oscar Shumsky’s recordings of Bach’s compositions for the violin.

• [Patitucci] used to be really attached to Pablo Casals’s recordings [of the aforementioned cello suites], but not so much now.

• Listening to fiddle players let him realize that you can play these works in time and still give weight to certain moments.

-    Bass editions of [the cello suites] are good because they can let you play the pieces musically rather than struggling with the notes.

• “Why not have students play great music to solve technical problems?” 

     The student had performed the selection in the original key and octave it was written in. It was Patitucci’s opinion that bass players shouldn’t feel ashamed to work on the bass edition of the Suites; the music is still beautiful and still technically demanding, but less of an exercise in frustration that way.

-    Lowering the action too much to let you play really technically demanding music sacrifices the sound. It’s a bass, not a viola.

     I think that Patitucci recommended setting your action comfortably low and then gradually raising it as you become more and more comfortable with the higher string height until you reach a balance between playability and tone. I don’t remember if this was something he said at this master class, or something that he said elsewhere which someone else shared with me.

-    If you slow down for every little thing the piece loses its center after a while.

• Once you can play technically and beautifully in time, you can start to add rubato.

-    “One and three are the balance point for two and four.”

-    Practice soloing over [the metronome clicking on] two and four, challenge yourself to leave space.

-    As an exercise, play a tune (both walking and soloing) in just the lowest couple of positions on the fingerboard.

     John proceeded to demonstrate this on “Giant Steps,” if I remember correctly, and he walked a bassline for a chorus or so. He then proceeded to wow the crowd by taking a great solo in the lowest range of the upright bass. It swung hard, it was melodically inventive, and it was technically demanding in addition to the fact that it was in the most sluggish octave and a half of the instrument.

-    The rhythm is what gives people the music; otherwise it’s just a collection of notes in a row.

-    [On playing the electric bass vs. playing the upright bass] They influence each other, but they aren’t the same.

• Low action on the electric bass isn’t for Patitucci.

-    On playing with Herbie Hancock, et al.

• He had long listened to all of the recordings of Herbie with Ron Carter on bass. Ron laid the groove down and also extended the music [beyond its normal bounds].

• Also respected how Carter laid stuff down in such a way that Herbie could roam freely. However, he later realized that a lot of time, Ron was the pushing Herbie and spurring him into different directions; it was truly a dialogue.

• As he began to play with Herbie himself, he was amazed at how sensitive the pianist was to Patitucci’s prompts.

-    The Coltrane Quartet was incredible for the way that they explored 6/8 within the context of swing.

     I remember that he was discussing the fact that a lot of young players seem to be very interested in playing things in odd-meters, but that he felt that they weren’t even that fluent in more common meters like 6/8. This is not to say that he was condemnatory of odd-time explorations, just that he stressed the importance of really knowing your place in 4/4, 3/4, and 6/8 and being able to play rhythmically unfettered lines in each.

-    Some other people/things he recommended:

• Oscar Stagnaro

• Carlos Del Puerta’s The True Cuban Bass

• David Baker’s book on ear training

Calender of Sound - Hermeto Pascoal

I heard some of Hermeto Pascoal's music a few years ago on a long road trip.  Late at night or early in the morning, I can't remember which, the pianist for the band I was playing with popped in Só Não Toca Quem Não Quer.  I thought, "This is a crazy person's music, but it's awesome."

I tried to tuck his name away into the back of mind, but I forgot it and I've only recently rediscovered his body of work for myself.  So I've been listening to Só Não and looking for info on the man and his catalog.  I was astonished to learn that everyday from June 24, 1996 to June 23, 1997, Pascoal wrote a new composition, including an extra one for the leap-day.  Yes, that's 366 new works in one year! 


Let's set aside the "How did he possibly do this" part of the equation and ask "Why did he do this?"  His motive was simple, he wanted to give everyone a unique song for their birthday.  This is the crazy, relentless genius of Hermeto Pascoal!

The collection was published in 2000, but is sadly out of print.  However, and this is a big however, the entire collection is available for free on his website and the project is called Calendário do Som.  It's an incredible resource and an open look into a brilliant composer's music.

A couple of CD's have been recorded that feature selections exclusively from Calendário do Som.  One is Itiberê Orquestra Família's Calendário do Som, which is comprised of twenty-seven days from throughout the year (some of these are available via their myspace page).  The one I'm currently listening to is Fabiano Araujo's Calendário Do Som - 9 Dias.

The beauty of these compositions is stunning, and I'd highly suggest checking them out.  I hope to take apart a few of these tunes and blog about them at some point, but I still have a post on Michael Gibbs forthcoming.  In the meantime, enjoy the song of the day.

Free Scores from Darcy James Argue and Graham Collier's Book on Arranging

If you haven't checked out Darcy James Argue's Secret Society yet, go on over to his site.  He posts a lot of live recordings of his music, which is some of the most original I've heard in a while.

I just noticed tonight that he has two of his scores posted for free download: Desolation Sound and Transit.  I can't wait to dig into these...

He also seems to get get a lot of good discussions going.

Another thing that I'm excited about is Graham Collier's book, The Jazz Composer: Moving Music Off the Paper.  I'm hoping to be able to get this soon.  It looks like a much needed text that will delve more into the Ellington/Mingus/Evans school of writing and arranging!

New Tracks Uploaded

I just uploaded a slew of new tracks onto MySpace. Check it out here. It includes a recording of "Yossarian's Crazy," the composition I included in my previous post about applying Gil Evans's approach to my own writing.

A new post on composer/arranger/trombonist Michael Gibbs is in the works and will be up soon!

To Each His Own

I was recently asked to write an aritcle about the life of bassist Jymie Merritt for the Philadelphia Jazz Heritage Project's upcoming Jazz Fair 2009. Here's a link to the article on Allaboutjazz.com.

A few links to some other folks's stuff:

Bassist Tom Gale has written about his approach for teaching beginning bassists their way around the fingerboard without making them afraid of the thumb position.

Bill Carrothers is a pianist I've been getting into of late. Drummer Jay Epstein's recent CD with Carrothers and bassist Anthony Cox contains a great rendition of "The Imperial March" from Star Wars. Carrothers's website has some goodies on it too, and a lot of humor. He's posted a free lesson here.

I can't say that I completely agree with Carrothers's stance on transcription, but I think that his point is vaild; you have to listen over and over again. "Satuartion listening" is what one of my teachers has called it.

Unconventional Voicings in Gil Evans’s Music – Applying It to My Own Work

As I mentioned in the previous post, I've spent a fair amount of time studying Evans's music. Ripping stuff apart and understanding how it works has always fascinated me. As a kid, and particularly as a teenager, I had to understand how the things I was interested in worked. I started playing the electric bass in eighth-grade, and before long I was pulling the pick guard off, looking at the pickups, and researching guitar maintenance and repair issues. I also started planning to build my own instrument. Even now, if something fascinates me enough I have to get inside of it and understand what makes it work. This is why, for example, I can tell you a lot about how an electric guitar pickup functions through the principle of transduction, but my car's engine remains a mystery to me.

Purely academic knowledge of a subject does not automatically translate to practical application of it. I never built my own electric bass, I think that the cost was too prohibitive for a lad of fifteen, and soon I became obsessed anew with the upright bass. Anyway, my point is that I think that it would be utterly pointless for me to have spent a lot of time analyzing Evan's music without being able to apply it to my own writing. Also, I think that it shows a deeper understanding of a subject when the presenter can show evidence of it affecting his work.

The above example is an original composition of mine called "Yossarian's Crazy." Evans's frequent use of seconds at the top of his voicings was particularly present in my mind as I was writing the arrangement. Consequently, the alto saxophone is commonly placed a major or a minor-second below the melody. At points, these clashes occur in preplanned voicings and were intended to add extra tension to the texture (downbeat of m.1, anticipation of m. 7, and mm. 25-26). However, in other instances they are a result of linear writing (upbeat of beat 3 in m. 1, and beat 4 of m. 6). Linear-writing is another standout trait of Evans, and it's something I'll probably post on at a later time. For now, I'll just point out Bill Dobbins's Jazz Arranging and Composing, A Linear Approach as a good place to begin exploring the linear concept.

The example included below is a little snippet of an arrangement of "The Wind Cries Mary" that I've been working on. What's at work here is something I've been realizing about Evans's writing: his use and control of dissonance was absolutely masterful. Don't take this to mean that he used as much dissonance as possible in every situation. Quite to the contrary. Evans sometimes used what our ears (by whom I mean post-Baroque listeners) don't consider dissonant at all. One of the things I do think this means is that Evans realized that dissonance can be added into a voicing through a myriad of ways. Altered chord extensions (#9, b13, etc…) are probably the most common way we approach this in jazz. Evans, however, used several methods in addition to the aforementioned extensions. These included added-tones (yet another potential post for the future), incidental dissonances (often a result of linear-writing), and chord-tone ordering (the subject at hand).

These techniques introduce dissonance in their own ways and impart their own kind of flavor to the moment. What's unique about chord-tone ordering is that it allows the composer/arranger to introduce more tension into a voicing without changing the function or the fundamental character of the voicing. A dominant seventh can be made to sound (more) dissonant just by sticking the root next to the seventh, but no new notes have to be added.

For this passage of "The Wind Cries Mary" I wanted to preserve some of the harmonic simplicity of the original version. Adding a ton of altered extensions or reharmonizing the melody right off the bat just felt I was saying, "Look at my cool jazz chords!" That's certainly not the result in every situation, but I just didn't think it would sound right in this case. So I elected to go with simpler harmony, however I still wanted the voicings to sound a little different. The dissonance of the seconds stands out because these voicings are relatively simple. Also, they're mostly found at the top of the voicings, and this draws even more attention to them, which also necessitates attention to dynamics and blending.