My good friend and former teacher wrote the liner notes for my upcoming solo piano CD, Emanation (Solo: Volume 2). It was an honor to have him write the notes as Richie has made about a million solo piano recordings. I think he really nailed it. If you’d like to read what he has to say, the notes are online.
This audio is from a master class I did at the 2014 Jazz Educators’ Network conference in Dallas, TX. It was entitled A (Not So) Beginner’s Guide to Solo Jazz Piano. Special thanks to Brian Lawrence, music student at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, WA, for recording it.
I hope you find this master class interesting, inspiring and informative. If you have questions or comments, the comment section is open or feel free to use the Contact page.
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I released my first solo piano CD, Solo, in 2012. In 2016, I released the follow-up, Emanation (Solo: Volume 2). My former teacher, the great Richie Beirach, wrote wonderful liner notes, and my old high school friend, the brilliant artist Kyle Baker, created amazing cover art.
I wrote liner notes for saxophonist Lena Bloch’s debut CD. Check out this great album featuring tenor saxophonist Lena Bloch with guitarist Dave Miller, and long-time compadres bassist Cameron Brown and drummer Billy Mintz. (Did I really say “compadres”?)
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“In jazz”, muses Lena Bloch, “many opposites come together: mind and feeling, responsibility and abandonment, looseness and precision, improvisation and composition. I just love that.”
What a perfect way to describe Lena’s long-overdue debut CD. Lena, Dave, Cameron and Billy are masters of technique and capable of great musical intellect; but they understand that those qualities exist only to serve the greater goals of feeling and spontaneity. Through the delicate balance of opposites, they create art that is in the moment, yet timeless: a perfect tribute to Lena’s musical forebears, Lee Konitz, Warne Marsh and Lennie Tristano.
Born in Moscow, Russia, Lena immigrated to Israel in 1989, attending the Rubin Academy of Music and Dance. At the start of the Golf War she fled to Holland. “In Holland, I practiced constantly and ate up the great Utrecht Library collection of recorded jazz.”
In 1991, she moved to Germany, where she was accepted by the prestigious Cologne Conservatory. There she found two mentors: drummer Keith Copeland and trumpeter John Marshall. She began gigging with them, as well as with the drummers Alvin Queen and Steve Reid. She also toured with the German ethno-rock pioneer band “Embryo”, playing Arabic and Turkish classical music, and started her first quartet.
Around this time Lena met Lee Konitz. His impact would be deep and everlasting. “He introduced me to the music of Warne Marsh…. What Lee had, and what I heard in Warne’s playing, was this unity of profound knowledge and profound feeling. It was the ultimate sound for me.”
In 1994, Lena received a full scholarship to attend a summer jazz program in North America, where she studied with Yusef Lateef. She was offered an academic scholarship to attend full time, but for personal reasons she returned to Germany. “I had a hard time living, although I kept playing.”
Lena returned to North America in 1999 on a full scholarship to the prestigious Banff Workshop in Canada where she played sessions with Dave Douglas, Joe Lovano, Ari Hoenig, and Kenny Werner.
Back in Cologne, she graduated from the Cologne Conservatory. Over the next several years she continued to compose, as well as play and record with her quartet, winning several accolades and awards.
In 2003 Lena attended U. Mass, Amherst as a graduate student, receiving a teaching assistantship. She moved to New York in 2008 and began playing with several Tristano disciples: Ted Brown, Connie Crothers, and Joe Solomon. She now lives in Brooklyn, NY, where she has widened her circle and become an active participant in one of the most fertile and interesting jazz scenes of recent memory.
Feathery begins, appropriately, with Hi Lee, Lena’s tribute to her mentor and good friend. The huge bass sound and swinging, melodic phrases that open the program are instantly recognizable as those of Cameron Brown. Listen, next, to Lena and guitarist Dave Miller as their improvised phrases intertwine, creating a spontaneous counterpoint that sounds composed. (Just one example of those opposites Lena spoke of.) Billy Mintz’s responsive drumming rises and falls with the intensity of Lena and Dave’s interaction. It’s almost impossible to imagine any other drummer “allowing” this piece to develop so organically and completely.
Rubato, by Dave Miller, is a vehicle for collective free improvisation of the sort Tristano pioneered. “Dave’s has extraordinary empathy and intuition,” Lena says. “He has exciting melodic ideas and can improvise harmonically, which is a rare quality.”
Cameron Brown contributes Baby Suite, in which an intriguing melodic line is interspersed with solos approached in a fascinating variety of ways: Cameron’s virtuosic solo bass improvisation; Billy’s masterful brush solo; Dave’s ideas of bell-like clarity that build with the rhythm section; and finally Lena’s thoughtful and assured linear explorations, during which the entire band modulates as one into a medium tempo groove with no set changes.
Of Cameron, Lena comments: “His sound and approach have always fascinated me. He has such translucent beauty in his tone, this lightness, precision, projection out of the deep, and – oh, how he swings!”
Lena effectively reharmonizes Gene de Paul’s Star Eyes as Starry Eyed. “I was intensely thinking of Warne Marsh when I wrote it,” she notes.
Marshmallow, a rarely played composition by Marsh himself, follows. It’s easy to hear why this great tune is underplayed, with its challenging rhythmic displacements and angular lines. Dave’s compelling solo avoids the inherent traps of a tune based on a classic standard such as Cherokee. Instead he probes for new ways through these very common harmonic changes.
Lena explains the pensive and dark Farewell to Arms: “The title relates to a certain point in life when you no longer care about protecting your own ‘self.’ You give up all your ‘arms’ and go unprotected, only giving what you have to give.”
After this lovely introspection, Ted Brown’s Featherbed is a delightful release, beginning with Billy’s melodic drum solo. Following their relaxed yet precise unison statement of the head (there are those opposites again) Lena and Dave solo in turn, supported by the telepathic team of Cameron and Billy, whose forty-year friendship is audible in every beat. Cameron’s walking solo is a lesson in how it’s done.
There are no solos on the lovely ballad, Beautiful You, composed by Billy Mintz. Instead, the melody is etched and ornamented in many different ways by one or more of the musicians.
Lena says, “Billy Mintz had done only a couple of gigs with my quartet before this date. It feels as if playing with him goes beyond conventional time and space… an incredible continuity. Billy is a spontaneous orchestrator.”
Feathery closes with a brief reprise of Hi Lee, a reminder that, while she is dedicated to musical growth and exploration, Lena’s roots in the jazz tradition are strong and deep.
“Our recording was done all in one room, no headphones, in one or two takes. There was such mutual trust, intuition, and interaction. We hope to keep this ‘organic’ quartet together.”
Indeed, we the listeners should be so fortunate. Getting to know Lena has been a pleasure and a privilege for me, as I’m sure getting to know her music will be for you. I, for one, am glad she finally made it to Brooklyn, from Russia, with love.
Young musicians are often very concerned about what scale or mode they are using. While it’s important to have a strong knowledge of theory, at some point in the maturation process one must get beyond thinking about scales to the concept of playing musical ideas.
The title of this post is admittedly a bit sensationalistic. I’m not advocating that you literally “forget” the scales and patterns that you’ve learned (Okay, maybe most of the patterns, except for the really hip ones, which are probably the ones you came up with on your own. Just lose the ones you were fed from a play-along record.)
Improvising using specific melodic material or motives, without worrying about “making the chord changes”, is a practice device for learning to think motivically and develop your ideas in a logical progressive manner, as opposed to playing a sequence of unrelated “jazz patterns”, which all too many musicians (even some professionals) lean on.
To begin practicing, pick a very short motive or phrase from the tune on which you’re working. Don’t worry about playing the changes for now; begin with a series of three-note phrases.
Here’s an example of a solo that is completely “motive-based”. What I mean by that is that I am ignoring the changes altogether. When I play this introduction to Thelonious Monk’s “Monk’s Dream”, my goal is to squeeze as much as possible from these short, simple motives.
As you progress, focus on varying the patterns through transposition, inversion, retrograde, diminution, augmentation, etc. (If you don’t know what these terms mean in a musical context then look them up.)
When you feel ready, you can try this exercise over the chord changes of a tune. I suggest you start with a tune that has simple changes that are easy to navigate so you don’t have to think about too many things at once.
This is a practice exercise. At first you will sound forced, mechanical and awkward, just as you did when you first tried to play over changes. As the process of motivic development becomes more intuitive your playing will develop in maturity and coherence, and you won’t be just another purveyor of licks.
In Part 1 of this post, I talked about how to maximize the positive effects of having a visiting artist give a clinic or master class at your school. I’d like to discuss some other thoughts I’ve had on this subject over the years that I’ve been an educator and clinician.
3. Start on time. If at all possible, prepare the room where the clinic will take place ahead of time. If the artist has to stand around for 30 minutes while the previous class clears out, chairs are being moved, and amps are plugged in then you are wasting the artist’s time and your money.
In some circumstances it may not be possible to set up in advance of the class time – if, for example, there’s another class in the room immediately before. However, there’s no reason the artist should have to be around for that. This is not a matter of the clinician being a prima donna, but more of a practical matter. Usually visiting artists are on a tight and often grueling travel schedule. They may be performing in a local club until 2am, and then getting up bright and early to be at your school (hopefully) on time. Respect the artist’s scheduling and sleeping needs by being realistic about what time the clinic will really start. An artist who is well-rested and feels that her time is being respected will be a better clinician, and more willing to stick around after the “official” clinic has ended to answer questions.
4. Live music is the best teacher. My final suggestion for clinics may seem self-serving: If the artist is performing in your town, whether at a concert in your school or at a local venue such as a jazz club, encourage your students to go to the performance. There’s no substitute for hearing live jazz, and seeing the artist put his words into practice is an invaluable learning experience for your students that simply cannot be duplicated in the classroom.
As in Part 1 of this article, comments, especially from clinicians and band directors, are welcome.
Over the years I’ve done many clinics and masterclasses at the high school and college level. Sometimes the students are very advanced, sometimes they’re practically beginners. No matter what level your students are at, there are certain steps you can take ensure that they will get the most out of a clinician or guest artist. Whether you hire an artist for an hour, or for an extended residency, these tips should help your students get lasting benefits (which translates into more value for your limited clinician budget and better performances at concert time.)
1. Be there . Frankly I’m amazed I even have to point this out, but a surprising number of instructors simply treat a session with a professional artist as an opportunity to catch up on their paperwork or take a coffee break.
Your presence at the class is essential for several reasons. For one thing, it shows students that this is a worthwhile endeavor and they should pay attention.
Secondly, you may just learn something. As professionals, whether as musicians, teachers, or both, we owe it to ourselves to never stop growing and learning. I have team-taught clinics with other musicians who said things I would never have thought of. This has made me a better teacher. Even if you are unable to afford a frequent clinician visit, you can pass on that artist’s wisdom to your future students, but only if you’re there to hear what she has to say! In particular I have seen many school band situations where the band was simply not set up optimally. Maybe the bass player was on the opposite side of the room from the drummer, or the singer wasn’t properly miked. The clinician can correct these problems in his visit, but if you aren’t there to hear about it, the same errors will continue in the next rehearsal.
Here is the third and probably most important reason for you to attend the class. We all need repetition to learn anything new. Only by knowing what was said to your students can you reinforce it in the coming months and years. That talented young drummer may need to hear twenty times, not just once, that he needn’t play so loud; the sax player may need to be reminded regularly of the importance of doing long tones.
2. Plan Ahead. In advance, encourage your students to think of questions. You may ask them individually or collectively to make a list of questions or items they are struggling with such as a particular tune or an instrumental problem.
Next week I’ll post further suggestions on getting the most from a band clinician. Are you a visiting artist or a school band director? Comments welcome.
Billy Mintz and I are planning a tour for next October. In addition to some shows where we both play solo and duo, we’ll also be performing as a quartet with the wonderful West Coast mainstays Putter Smith on bass and John Gross on tenor sax. The quartet plays Billy’s always engaging original music.
We’ve already booked several dates, but still have some availability. If you or someone you know would be interested in booking a show, whether solo piano, solo drums, duo, quartet, or some combination thereof, please get in touch.
