Jazz Chords
The history of the musical use of upper chordal extensions (9ths, 11ths, 13ths) in the last century and a half has developed in a way that echoes the evolution of our modern society. In earlier times, supposedly life was 'simpler' and the music probably reflected that. Folk music and church music used simple triads based on one tonic note, key or 'ground bass'. We surmise that music began as simply melody, sung in unison or octaves. 'Homophonic' in its original Greek sense. If you read music history, it seems like we're expected to believe that music was 'unison' for thousands of years, I guess with the odd 5ths thrown in. Then evidently around the turn of the 13th century, at newly-built Notre Dame Cathedral in France, 'Perotin' was one of the first to use voices singing different melodies that came together to form what we would call 'chords'. Separate voices singing over this ground bass (sustained bass or tonic note) to produce chords, harmonies floating over this tonics or series of root notes, you could say modal music. So that's a few millennia of unison, then a thousand years of harmony, if you believe Wikipedia or history generally. And now look at what we've finally ended up - in our mainstream musical world.
The desire in artists to create is very similar to religious devotion, and the goal of 'religious composers' like Perotin and Hildegarde of Bingen was to reflect the wonder of the Universe and God through the magic of music. The Pythagorean divided string, with its pure mathematical ratios of the main intervals of the octave, 5th, 4th and 3rd, defined "Just Intonation". The same ratios also defined the architectural dimensions of their cathedrals. Purpose-built, you might say.
The sounds the made were pure, the major 3rds brighter - but in the Pythagorean system there could be no real modulation possible, as any chromatic notes, even the not-so-foreign ones (e.g., G# on a E7 going to Am) were horribly out of tune.
The history of piano tuning is fascinating. One is gradually made aware of how much 'aural intuition' has played a part in the process, the trained ear, as well as the introduction of technology - the tuning fork in 1711, about the time equal temperament was gaining universal favour. After many years of experimentation the system of dividing the octave into 12 equal parts gradually became accepted, creating our current system of "Equal Temperament". J. S. Bach with his Well-Tempered Keyboard", in all 24 major and minor keys, being the big one. Now modulation between any keys was possible, and it was a very exciting development.
To continue the analogy with human society: as human beings moved from a rural to an urban existence, things got complicated. Now people were living cheek-by-jowl in a new environment, learning how to get on. It's almost like the notes of the major scale are members of the same tribe, some getting on naturally, some clashing; but over time we have learned how to blend them and make their inherent dissonance more agreeable.
The history of the musical use of upper chordal extensions (9ths, 11ths, 13ths) in the last century and a half has developed in a way that echoes the evolution of our modern society. In earlier times, supposedly life was 'simpler' and the music probably reflected that. Folk music and church music used simple triads based on one tonic note, key or 'ground bass'. We surmise that music began as simply melody, sung in unison or octaves. 'Homophonic' in its original Greek sense. If you read music history, it seems like we're expected to believe that music was 'unison' for thousands of years, I guess with the odd 5ths thrown in. Then evidently around the turn of the 13th century, at newly-built Notre Dame Cathedral in France, 'Perotin' was one of the first to use voices singing different melodies that came together to form what we would call 'chords'. Separate voices singing over this ground bass (sustained bass or tonic note) to produce chords, harmonies floating over this tonics or series of root notes, you could say modal music. So that's a few millennia of unison, then a thousand years of harmony, if you believe Wikipedia or history generally. And now look at what we've finally ended up - in our mainstream musical world.
The desire in artists to create is very similar to religious devotion, and the goal of 'religious composers' like Perotin and Hildegarde of Bingen was to reflect the wonder of the Universe and God through the magic of music. The Pythagorean divided string, with its pure mathematical ratios of the main intervals of the octave, 5th, 4th and 3rd, defined "Just Intonation". The same ratios also defined the architectural dimensions of their cathedrals. Purpose-built, you might say.
The sounds the made were pure, the major 3rds brighter - but in the Pythagorean system there could be no real modulation possible, as any chromatic notes, even the not-so-foreign ones (e.g., G# on a E7 going to Am) were horribly out of tune.
The history of piano tuning is fascinating. One is gradually made aware of how much 'aural intuition' has played a part in the process, the trained ear, as well as the introduction of technology - the tuning fork in 1711, about the time equal temperament was gaining universal favour. After many years of experimentation the system of dividing the octave into 12 equal parts gradually became accepted, creating our current system of "Equal Temperament". J. S. Bach with his Well-Tempered Keyboard", in all 24 major and minor keys, being the big one. Now modulation between any keys was possible, and it was a very exciting development.
To continue the analogy with human society: as human beings moved from a rural to an urban existence, things got complicated. Now people were living cheek-by-jowl in a new environment, learning how to get on. It's almost like the notes of the major scale are members of the same tribe, some getting on naturally, some clashing; but over time we have learned how to blend them and make their inherent dissonance more agreeable.
What intervallic characteristics could we say constitute a 'jazz' chord? Simply put, it's the presence of a tritone and a major 7th (or minor second), that give the 'jazz' sound. And this is not unique to jazz, it can be found in many other musical forms, Japanese, Spanish, Brazilian.
The simplest expression of this sound concept is a 13th chord, here on C7. So it's the dominant chord in the key of F:
Note the tritone Bb-E, the Bb-A major seventh.
Really the 13th should be seen as an appoggiatura, a melodic suspension of the 5th:
These melodic suspensions, initially 'foreign' to the chord, eventually get accepted as intrinsic to the chord. But the pay-off is the note that was meant to be resolved to, in this case the 5th, is removed, out of the picture. So you still get a four-note chord, but now the 13th has replaced the 5th.
That's not to say you can't have them both, but you gotta work them differently from your textbook stacking-3rds methodology. For example here's a nice way of getting that 5th on top of the 13th:
If we might venture to say that 13ths are the characteristic sound of bebop and beyond, then dominant 9ths are the sound of the swing era. But let's not forget all these sounds were already part of classical harmony tradition, from at least Chopin in the 1830s, to Wagner, Ravel, Debussy, Satie. These musical ideas were well and truly established before Tatum came to them.
For example, here is a textbook example of this same C13th chord in Ravel's Trio fro Violin, Cello and Piano, to me one of the greatest works of all-time. In the middle of the second movement we get this:
[click to enlarge]
At the key change from A to F, (and after) the voicings couldn't get
more jazz:
Straight out of the jazz harmony books. And this is from 1914. We'll have a look at some more of this work later. Ravel's intriguing comment while working on this composition was: "I've written my trio. Now all I need are the themes." I'm still trying to decode that statement!
Dominant 9th chords
The 'forefather' of the 13th chord is the dominant 9th chord, almost like a chakra 'one level down'. And that particular combination of notes in the 9th can sound very different dependent on the bass or root note. Like the roots of a tree, that bass note lays the foundation of the sound of the chord quality. So, this C9 arpeggio is exactly the same as Gm6 and Em7b5: same note family, different bass note, different sound quality or 'mood'.
Tatum's style was often described as 'orchestral', in that he could literally sound like an orchestra. Often three distinct voices can be heard simultaneously—stride bass and chords, a sustained middle-register ('cello') guide-tone melody, and amazing upper figures. How the hell did he do it? We know he had huge hands, and he could easily span any major 10th. (That is freedom: two notes, and you have any major chord. I can get a few but to be able to nail Bb-D, Eb-G, Ab-C, Db-F would be heaven.)
But there's more to Tatum than just tricks. There's some real musical magic going on there, and as musicians we can and should investigate what he's doing. And the more you do, you begin to realize that some of this Tatum magic can be broken down and explained.
One of the most obvious examples that comes to mind is Tatum's rapid-fire ascending diminished arpeggios, which seem to run the whole length of the keyboard. But upon closer inspection what seems like a 6-octave run is more like 4, broken-up, divided between the two hands. Beginning in the left hand with a diminished scale fragment which fits easily under the fingers, which 'kicks off' a two-octave diminished arpeggio, the right hand takes over an octave above, and continues for another 2-3 octaves (top of the piano). If it was an C (or Eb, A, F#) diminished arpeggio, you know he'd be hitting that top C.
Like a great magician, he makes you hear that he's covered the whole keyboard. It sounds like he's 'unzipping' the piano. He's toying with the piano, literally 'playing' with it in the most natural sense. That reminds me of Bird's doctrine of learn everything and then forget it when you play. And isn't that after all what we are all meant to be doing? 'Playing' music, with the child-like spirit that hopefully hasn't been too crushed out of us by all the relentless bullshit.
But of course Art Tatum was only one man and like any other artist he had his high and low points artistically. He was really a solo performer; how many jazz musicians can you say that about? There are many detractors that will try to tell you he wasn't a 'real' jazz musician, probably because they hear him play the same arrangement the same way, or else the endless runs and florid technique gets in their ear and they can't get past it. But they gotta dig harder. You gotta look between the cracks, between the runs and clichés; there is much gold to be found within his recordings.
Tatum once said in a radio interview that he was far from happy with his technique, that he still had a long way to go...if you can believe that! But as great as he was, this very human sentiment may ring true for some of us out there.
Next post: Tatum dominant 9ths fingerings.