The Blues In my last column, I looked at rhythm changes and this week I’d like to look at the blues, possibly the most important element of jazz music. Jazz music is made up of many types of music fused together in the United States of America. Jazz is American music. This is not […]
Pianist Terry Seabrook’s Jazz Tip of the Month No. 10 Swinging the quavers It’s well known that quavers (or eighth notes as their known in American terminology) should usually be played with a “triplet” rhythm in jazz. This applies when the underlying feel or groove is swing (as opposed to a “straight” feel such […]
Pianist Wayne McConnell looks at rhythm changes. Rhythm Changes Basics Rhythm changes represents a set of chord changes over an AABA form that resemble the chord changes to Gershwin’s ‘I Got Rhythm’. Many people find it difficult to improvise over these chords. There are many ways of playing through a Rhythm Changes with […]
Pianist Terry Seabrook’s Jazz Tip of the Month No. 9 So What Is A Tritone? In my previous jazz tip (No. 8) I mentioned the tritone as an interesting idea in jazz harmony. Tritone is the jazz term for the interval (musical pitch distance) of three whole tones (or whole steps). This is also […]
Saxshop is a community saxophone ensemble based in the Brighton & Hove area formed by Simon D’Souza in 2003. Now led by saxophonist Beccy Perez Rork and trombonist Mark Bassey, the ensemble features players of all levels and backgrounds (including a retired bank manager, a welder, teachers, a contract negotiator and a vet) performing […]
Brighton Jazz Education Conference The Verdict, Brighton Saturday 12th April 2014 Brighton Jazz School’s Wayne McConnell began the inaugural Brighton Jazz Education Conference with a talk on the subject of ‘Jazz and Community’ and the idea of ‘communities of practice’. You can read more about this in Wayne’s monthly column, below. […]
Pianist Wayne McConnell looks at Jazz and Community, a talk presented at the inaugural Brighton Jazz Education Conference. Jazz and Etienne Wenger’s Community of Practice "The term ‘community of practice’ is of relatively recent coinage, even though the phenomenon it refers to is age-old. The concept has turned out to provide a useful perspective […]
Pianist Terry Seabrook’s Jazz Tip of the Month No. 8 Expanding the II – V – I progression A nice idea for adding more chords is to move up in minor thirds on the minor seventh chord. For example: | Fm7 | Bb7 | Ebmaj7 | can become |Fm7 Abm7 […]
Phineas Newborn Jr. is not a household name like, say, Oscar Peterson or Art Tatum. The simple fact is that he an under-represented genius who was a member of one of the most talented musical families to come out of Memphis. Origins of the Newborn Style Realistically, to shed light on Phineas’s […]
Pianist Terry Seabrook’s Jazz Tip of the Month No. 7 A Beginner’s Guide to Bass Lines It is often required that players of instruments such as keyboards and guitar be able to play a suitable bass line if for example there isn’t a bass player present. And in my foray into the Hammond organ […]