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Email prior to Lesson

Jam session last night. Here’s what we played – most of this was new Real Book material, played cold, and it worked out pretty well. Except for Giant Steps…someone joked about it and our bari player knew the head but it was a total mess.
- Lady Bird
- Giant Steps
- Bewitched
- Don’t Get Around Much Anymore
- Dream A Little Dream Of Me
- Take Five
- How High The Moon
- Here’s That Rainy Day
- My Funny Valentine
- Sidewinder
The live version of Lady Bird (
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r0vhqDCy9eQ&pp=ygUObGFkeSBiaXJkIGpheno%3D) is fantastic and the changes are fun to play over…but I don’t understand them. I think there are some chord substitutions going on. Something to talk about.

Lesson

Types of Dominant resolution

- V7 -> I (5 to 1): this is the normal form. In C that's G7 (G B D F) to C (C E G B).
- bII7 -> I (flat 2 to 1): tritone sub. In C that's Db7 (Db F A Cb[B]) to C (C E G B)
- IV7 -> I (4 to 1): blues. In C that's F7 (F A C Eb) to C (C E G B). Ex: "Willow Weep for Me"
- bVII7 -> I (flat 7 to 1): "backdoor cadence". In C that's Bb7 (Bb D F Ab) to C (C E G B). Example: Misty

Bebop turnaround

Takes a regular turnaround (1 6 2 5) and does tritone subs.

In C, regular 1/6/2/5 is Cmaj7/Am7/Dm7/G7.
tritone sub for 6(Am7) is Ebmaj7 (=b3), spelled Eb G Ab D)
tritone sub for 2(Dm7) is Abmaj7 (=b6), spelled Ab C Eb G
tritone sub for 5(G7) is Dbmaj7 (=b2), spelled Db F Ab C
Result is
Cmaj7/Ebmaj7/Abmaj7/Dbmaj7
In the tritone sub process, the resulting maj7 is pulled away from the C scale, leading to a lot of accidentals, esp. Ab, which is a b6 for C, and Eb, which is b3.

Lady Bird

(after discussion - here's what seems to be going on)
tune is in Cmaj
bars 1-2: root chord
bar 3-6: backdoor cadence to Cmaj7
bar 4: Bb7 is a flat 7 dom for Cmaj.
bar 3: Fm7 is the 2 of bar 4 (as a 5). It is not from the C scale; bar 3 and 4 are a little island of Ab key, based on the use of Bb7 for bar 4, which is itself an alternate for the 5 dom of C, which would be G.
Spelling the two chords: G7 is "G B D F", Bb7 is "Bb D F Ab". So two shared notes, two altered (relative to C). The two altered notes suggest C7b6, i guess?
bar 5-6: root chord
bar 7-10: 2/5/1 to Abmaj7, which is b6 of Cb.
bar 11-14, landing on Cmaj in 15
bar 12 is "5 of 5" of Cmaj. So, reg 5 is G7; if we take that as the key, the 7 of that would be D7.
bar 11 is the 2 of bar 12 (as a 5).
bar 13-15: 2/5/1 for Cmaj7. Preceded by D7, so that's a major-minor transition in place.
bar 15-16: Cmaj bebop turnaround (see above)

But what about diatonic notes?

The whole tune is in C, but then there are pockets which shift to different implied keys.
bar 3-4: Ab
bar 7-11: Ab 
bar 13-14: G (where the 11 in C shifts to an #11, becoming the 7 of G)


2/5/1 soloing

Focus on the V7 (per Joe Pass) - the IIm7 is there to add flavor but can be ignored

Pentatonic trick - over a 2/5/1 in C, can play Dmaj pentatonic aka Bm pentatonic
Notes of pentatonic would be B D E F# A
over the 2 (Dm7 = D F A C): B is 6, D is the 1, E is 2, F# is maj3, A is 5
over the 5 (G7 = G B D F): B is 3, D is 5, E is 6, F# is maj7, A is 9
over the 1 (C E G B): B is 7, D is 9, E is 3, F# is #11, A is 6

Tips/Next Time

Memorize chords of Lady Bird
Try transposing to different key

Giant Steps can be slowed down and played as a bossa nova

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