Coolness Counts

Published: Thu, 09/23/21

about taking charge of the label, Was recounts travelling 45 minutes by bus across Detroit just to hold a copy of Young's Blue Note LP Unity in his hands. "I didn't have the bread to buy it," he says. "But I got to hold it for a moment." It reminds me of the story about John and Paul crossing Liverpool by bus just to meet the guy who knew how to play a B7 chord. The Fab Two would seem to have gotten more for their fare than Don, but I guess that's up for grabs. Coolness counts.

Jazz is a deep, deep well, so even within a period of less than a decade, concerning just a couple of labels, choosing a somewhat limited cast of characters and focusing on the most blues-oriented of compositions, there is still so much music I have yet to even hear, much less spend any time with or actively learn the workings of. Each time I go back in to spend time with hard bop jazz musicians and how they play the blues, I find more to discover. Just this week I added a couple of new tracks to the playlist I posted earlier this month. Kenny Burrell playing the blues with Red Garland in 1957? I did not know that happened. Grant Green with a sextet from 1964 featuring Joe Henderson and McCoy Tyner, not released until 1979? Also news to me.

I can't decide if I wish I'd discovered more of this music earlier, when I had the time and obsessiveness to make the most of the situation, or if it's just as well I didn't come across most of it until more recently, when I'm possessed of more skills to actively understand and draw conclusions from what I'm hearing and learning. I'm having so much fun right now figuring out what's going on that it really doesn't matter, and while it's unlikely I'll ever use these ideas directly in a legit performing context, I imagine they'll inform other things I am doing, the same way what I learned about Charlie Christian and Freddie Green twenty years ago has found a home at this point in the way I play a steady bass blues in E.

This morning at 10:30am I'll be live on my Youtube channel, streaming a new Call And Response about playing the changes on the blues, and answering questions about my upcoming workshop on Bebop For Beginners. I'll get things rolling with some of the great questions I received via email last week, but will be taking questions via chat as well. The focus this time is on single-note soloing but I'll be happy to discuss playing the changes in a fingerstyle context as well.

You can join via the link below:

Call And Response – Playing the Changes on the Blues

More soon,

David

P.S. You can find out more about this weekend's Bebop For Beginners workshop and sign up here:

Bebop For Beginners