Archive for Jerome Kern

All The Things You Might Be

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , on April 29, 2024 by telescoper

Apparently the great American songwriter Jerome Kern didn’t like Jazz at all. It’s ironic therefore that his tune All The Things You Are is such a favourite among Jazz musicians, sometimes played as it is and sometimes forming the underlying chord progression for some other tune. Here it is, sung by the sublime Ella Fitzgerald:

The first things you learn if you try to teach yourself something about how jazz works is that there are two basic forms: the Twelve-bar Blues and the Thirty-two-bar form built from an A section and a B section (the bridge) arranged AABA. It’s true that this gets you quite a long way but it doesn’t take you long to realize that many famous Blues are not based on 8 or 16 -bar cycle and many of those that are 12-bar blues don’t have the standard progression. Then you find out that some of the most well-known Jazz standards aren’t AABA either.

All The Things You Are is an example. The chorus of this tune actually consists of 36 bars in a A1A2BA3 form with two twists on the usual 32-bar AABA song-form: A2 transposes the initial A section down a fourth, while the final A3 section adds an extra four bars. The result is much easier to lose your way when you try to improvise but, on the other hand, provides a very rich framework within which to experiment. That’s obviously why Jazz musicians like it so much.

Here is a backing track for this tune that shows you the chords without the melody. Although I’m a fairly incompetent musician I love trying to play along to this sort of thing, playing the melody for one chorus to find your feet and then just letting the chords suggest possibilities. It’s tremendous fun and very rewarding if you do manage to play something original, even if it makes Jerome Kern turn in his grave.

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R. I. P. Lee Konitz (1927-2020)

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , , on April 16, 2020 by telescoper

My word this Covid-19 pandemic is having a terrible effect on the Jazz world. I heard this evening that it has now taken from us the great alto saxophonist Lee Konitz at the age of 92 after a career lasting 75 years.

I can’t possibly do justice here to the memory of such a legend but at least I can post one of my favourite tracks of his, a live performance from the 1950s of a tune called Ablution. If Lee Konitz hadn’t announced it at the start the comping of pianist Ronnie Ball would have told you straight away that this is a contrafact built on the chords of the famous Jerome Kern tune All The Things You Are, the unusual chords of which have made it a popular vehicle for jazz musicians to improvise on ever since it was written back in 1939.

In the bebop era it was typical practice to base original compositions on top of the chord sequences of standard tunes in such a way as to hide their foundations from the casual listener. A famous example of this was the Charlie Parker – Dizzy Gillespie session in which they decided to play a variation on the standard Cherokee. It went well until they absent-mindedly played the actual theme of Cherokee at which point there was a cry of anguish from the control room from a producer who had obviously hoped that if they stayed off the original melody he wouldn’t have to pay composer’s royalties. So off they went again called the next take Ko Ko and created one of the Charlie Parker classics.

Although Lee Konitz had a tone much more reminiscent of Paul Desmond than Charlie Parker he had a wonderfully agile and inventive way of playing that had echoes of Bird at the same time as being definitely his own style, as I hope you will agree after listening to this!

Here are just two classic albums that Lee Konitz played on relatively early in his career, if you want to check them out

R.I.P. Lee Konitz (1927-2020)

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Ablution

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , , on August 26, 2012 by telescoper

I haven’t posted any jazzy bits for a while. I don’t know why. Anyway, I just found this track, called Ablution, by alto saxophonist Lee Konitz . Unless my ears deceive me the pianist on this track is Ronnie Ball (British, by the way) whose comping  makes no attempt to disguise the fact that it is a variation on the famous Jerome Kern tune All The Things You Are, the unusual chords of which have made it a popular vehicle for jazz musicians to improvise on ever since it was written back in 1939. In the bebop era it was typical practice to base original compositions on top of the chord sequences of standard tunes, and this is a prime example although I don’t know in this case whether Lee Konitz managed to get away without paying composer’s royalties!

 

 

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