S.S.
Why write a book like this? It’s unlikely to be to the taste of many music students, most of whom find music theory—of both the traditional and the jazz varieties—boring and irrelevant. Exceptions to this glum observation might be jazz pianists, who are typically the resident music theorists of the groups they play with, and budding composers and arrangers (who are also very likely pianists of at least modest accomplishment). Be that as it may, the goal here is to give students some insight into a great musical tradition that appears now to be passing into history. Along with “The Great American Songbook”, to which jazz has made numerous contributions, the jazz tradition has bequeathed us an enormous quantity and variety of original music. Because the development of jazz was concurrent with the development of recording technology, we are able to listen to outstanding performances of all the great jazz artists almost all the way back to the origins of jazz. Recordings have in effect kept all of jazz available, and many people—young and old—want to be able to play in various styles they have heard. Big band music, for example, has never gone out of style with amateur groups, and young musicians for decades have considered it a point of pride to be able to play lightning fast bebop tunes from the late 1940s and early 1950s.
Acknowledgments 3
Preface 5
I. The Structure of Jazz 9
Rhythmic structure 9
Jazz rhythmic interpretation 10
Form 11
AABA 11
ABAC 12
Through-composed 12
Ternary 12
The role of song forms in jazz 13
II. The Harmonic Vocabulary of Jazz 15
Notation 15
Notational conventions 15
Standard chord notation 15
Basic chord types 18
An interlude on shorthand and anomalous notations 20
Tensions 20
Suspensions 22
Implied Countermelodies 22
Roman numeral chord notation 23
III. Jazz Melody 26
IV. Developing a Bass Line 28
V. Standard Chord Progressions: Blues and “Rhythm” 30
A jazz approach to blues 30
Traditional/Rock approach to blues 31
“Rhythm” changes 33
VI. Chord Voicings 36
Solo keyboard voicing 36
Chord Voicing Styles 37
Close position 37
“Shells” 38
“Axis” 38
“Rootless” chords 39
VII. Voice Leading 42
Standard voice leading techniques 43
Circle of fifths root motion 43
Root motion by second 44
Root motion by third 44
Voice leading with rootless chords 44
Parallel voice leading styles 45
The basic close position style 46
The Widened Line: Drop 2 and Drop 3 47
Locked-hands 47
Scoring for small jazz ensembles 48
Instrument ranges 48
Instrumental combinations 50
VIII. Functional Harmony in Jazz 52
Theory of chord progressions 52
Root motion 52
The diatonic (in-key) circle of fifths 52
The chromatic circle of fifths 53
Strong/weak alternation of chords 54
Tensions and chord function 58
Non-tonic beginnings 59
Turnarounds 59
Tritone substitution: ëIIÏ substituted for VÏ 60
Voice leading chords 61
The Diminished- and Half-Diminished Seventh Chords 63
The diminished-seventh chord 63
The diminished seventh as a connecting chord 64
The diminished seventh as an “incomplete” dominant 65
The half-diminished seventh chord 65
The half-diminished seventh as a connecting chord 66
The half-diminished seventh as an incomplete dominant ninth 66
Secondary functions and tonicization 67
Borrowed chords (modal interchange) 68
Modulation 69
Pivot chord modulation 69
Common tone modulation 70
Direct modulation 70
Miscellaneous harmonic techniques 72
Tonic-by-Assertion 72
Pedal Point 73
Upper structure triads 73
Polychords and polytonality 74
IX. Chord-scale theory 76
A simplified approach to chord-scale theory 76
The “diminished” scale 78
Chords with alterations and/or tensions: 79
Interlude on the minor mode 80
“Outside” playing 81
Treatment of “non-chord” tones 82
X. Other Systems 84
Modal jazz 84
Free jazz 84
Tonal systems in rock 85
Appendix A: Jazz Chord Dictionary 86
Appendix B: Rootless Chord Dictionary 88
Appendix C: Using Sibelius® 90
Sibelius Basics 91
Using the Sibelius “Arrange” Feature 91
Procedure 91
Example 91