Tag Archives: jazz

Visual Thinking

Ker­mit and Harry The Hip­ster (pre­cur­sor to Rowlf The Dog?) circa the 1950’s

Giant Steps: The Hardest Three Chord Song Ever

There is some­thing about John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” that just instills fear and respect among Jazz (and non-Jazz) musi­cians. Not only is the com­po­si­tion intim­i­dat­ing, but ‘Trane doesn’t make it easy for us when he nav­i­gates through the tune so effort­lessly and beau­ti­fully. This tune scares the bejeezus out of just about every musi­cian I

Listening

Some­times as a music teacher, one finds them­selves falling into the famil­iar pit­falls of their stu­dents. I am the worst offender of the “do as I say, not as I do” teach­ing phi­los­o­phy. I am try­ing hard to over­come my per­sonal hang-ups in order to be more of the “lead by exam­ple” type of instruc­tor,

Overview of Jazz Improv

I just found a really awe­some ‘online doc­u­ment’ by a guy named Marc Sabatella called A Jazz Impro­vi­sa­tion Primer. This is an online ver­sion to a text that he sells pri­vately, pro­vid­ing some broad insights to the ins and outs of Jazz improv with­out really zero­ing in on one of the many meth­ods on the