Hi Carmine: As always, a provocative and searching question. It may be that this practice comes from Bird, who adopted this approach to playing exercises on the saxophone (out of boredom on a long sojourn at a mountain resort gig, according to legend). Noting that this story is largely unverified, I would venture to say that transposing 'chords' is a different matter entirely, the intricacies (cognitive demands) of which vary from instrument to instrument as follows: instruments with similar topographies (strings, bass, guitars, and do on) merely entail a shift in initial starting position, but keyboard instruments like piano (whose affordances are asymmetrical, and require fingering adjustments) might require more cognitive work to realise in real time. Undoubtedly it's a good survival skill to have under one's fingers, pun intended. Best regards, Marc

Dear Mark, as usual, a very interesting answer. Thank you very much!

My pleasure. You'll notice that I completely sidestepped the tricky notion of authenticity, but I've certainly heard players whose improvisations sound more or less like 'running scales,' and whose contributions seem unrelated to the tenor or flavour of a particular piece, for better or worse.

Dear Mark, this is the point! In my opinion, in fact, "the musician who is in the habit of following such a training runs the risk of becoming "simply" skillful: he/she will probably end up with playing the same "sentences", completely ignoring the genuine "spirit", as it were, of the particular composition". Once again, thank your very much for your interest and your valuable answers!

Yes, granted, that is the point ;).

Here's a slightly different tangent, as follows: Having spent most of my career playing and teaching jazz, my love for, and fascination with, the art form has never waned. My observation is that the players whom I like the most love and understand the blues, which is one of the significant historical antecedents (i.e. roots) of jazz, obviously.

Bird could play the living daylights out of the blues at any time. When some post-bop players turn their backs on the roots and emotional range of the blues and are inventive/technical to the detriment of soul, it leaves me cold.

By extension: So, for instance, playing bop lines over South African township harmonies (consonant, looping chords I- IV- V- I) in a solo needs to be handled very carefully not to sound wrong, because the chromatic lines do not jell easily with this type of continuous consonant harmony. Different 'dialects' at odds, perhaps? Or simply different patterns and inflections (turns of phrase) that sound like someone speaking a different language?

I see I've strayed quite far from the original question. Oops.

Have a good weekend. Best, Marc

Dear Marc

Firstly, thank you for your answer!

Secondly, I'd like you to explain the reason why you state that Be-Bop lines (that you consider, at least apparently, as being necessarily chromatic) cannot be easily exploited on the chord progression you wrote (nothing but a perfect cadence formula). Is your statement explicitly related to the half cadence IV - V (that, anyway, can serenely turn into an ordinary II - V cadence by resorting to a diatonic substitution)?

Yes, you're right: it's off topic...! But it's a very interesting issue!

Once again, thank you very much and have a good weekend!

OK Carmine, I hope not to come across as crassly anti-bop: heaven forbid ;)

It's not that the lines won't 'fit,' but rather that the kind of chromatic approaches generally adopted by bebop-influenced players need caution in applying to a predominantly modal or diatonic environment. Naturally also, these lines aren't independent of the types of inflection the players choose (the 'turns of phrase' and sonic signatures they adopt).

Here in SA bebop has become somewhat of a dominant ideology in jazz education and some local players take exception to this state of affairs, for better or worse. I've tried to sketch this scenario in a recent book chapter (details on request), but I think the gist of this is the feeling that indigenous or local approaches are at risk of being excluded or marginalised as a result.

The formula we are speaking of is almost like a local blues form (generally played straight and not employing substitutions) and people tend to adopt a slightly safe 'modal' approach to soloing over it, for authenticity's sake perhaps. Side-slips up or down a half-step will tend to sound 'foreign' under the circumstances. Hope this helps and doesn't Muddy the Waters any further. Best, Marc

PS: This particular comment relates to your idea of the 'spirit' of the piece, I think.

Dear Marc

Firstly..."Hope this helps and doesn't Muddy the Waters any further"...I'm still laughing! You're great!

Secondly, yes: I understand what you mean...However, I'd like to underline the following:

1) Let’s suppose, for example, that we’re dealing with a “pure” Major Turnaround (“pure” simply means that the sixth degree is not subjected to a secondary dominant substitution): obviously, the above-mentioned progression can be serenely regarded as diatonic. Well, we can sound concretely Be-Bop, without resorting to chromatisms and chord substitution, by simply resorting to the so-called Major Be-Bop Scale. We have four check points, that must be kept on-beat: tonic, modal, dominant, and superdominant. Every time we reach one of the points, we just have to choose the direction of the motion (ascending or descending). There's no need to add any chromatism. Clearly, the language will turn out to be extremely simple, but not necessarily poor or banal.

Evidently, if we don't want to run the risk of becoming repetitive, chromatisms (ascending approaches and short chromatic bridges between the cordal notes are more than enough), are de facto unavoidable: in other terms, it's advisable (although not compulsory, It's worth underlining it) not to restrict our vocabulary to simple fragments of scales and arpeggios.

2) Last but not least, we can serenely state that, maybe net of the so-called "Fifth Kind Substitution" (the usage of which may be considered as being a fundamental characteristic of the particular idiom), chord substitutions are not essential in Be-Bop (as you know, my point of view has been clearly expounded in replying to some answers to my question "To what extent do you think a jazz musician is allowed to modify a harmonic progression during his/her improvisation?").

Thank you very much Marc!

Dear Carmine: Actually, the question's great ;) You might like this quotation from Steve Lacy meanwhile:

"Life and death are, to my mind, the only criteria in music worth considering." (Lacy 1994:34), from his book Findings: my experience with the soprano saxophone, a remarkable document regardless of whether one appreciates his music or not.

Keep those challenging questions coming. Best, Marc

Dear Marc

I really appreciate your interest in my questions.

Thank you very much!