Published on Jul 5, 2012

By the mid-1950s, Tristano focused his energies more on music education. He can be regarded as one of the first jazz teachers to teach jazz in a structured way, beginning in the late 1940s and continuing to his death in 1978.

Tristano approached each student individually and hence lessons were structured to meet the needs of each individual; however, each student was challenged in ways that would allow the student to find and express their own musical feelings, or style.

Tristano would often have his students learn to sing and play the improvised solos by some of best-known names in jazz, including Louis Armstrong, Lester Young, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker and Bud Powell. Solos were often learned by first playing them along with the original recording, from a phonograph record or magnetic audio tape, at half the normal speed, hence the pitch would drop by one octave. Eventually the student would learn the solo at normal speed. Tristano stressed that the student was not learning to imitate the artist, but rather should use the experience to gain insight into the musical feeling conveyed by the artist.

One of the key teaching tools used by Tristano was the metronome. In practicing fundamentals such as scales, the student would set the metronome at or near to its slowest setting and play the scales and arpeggios in a legato fashion covering the full range of their instrument with very even dynamics. Developing a strong awareness of the beat was a key element of his teaching philosophy.

A book by bassist Peter Ind, Jazz Visions: Lennie Tristano and His Legacy, was released in October 2005. The book documents and discusses Tristano’s contributions to jazz music.

Origin: Jazz Harmonica

John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer, music theorist, writer, and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential American composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was also Cage’s romantic partner for most of their lives.

Cage is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition 4′33″, which is performed in the absence of deliberate sound; musicians who present the work do nothing aside from being present for the duration specified by the title. The content of the composition is not “four minutes and 33 seconds of silence,” as is sometimes assumed, but rather the sounds of the environment heard by the audience during performance.The work’s challenge to assumed definitions about musicianship and musical experience made it a popular and controversial topic both in musicology and the broader aesthetics of art and performance. Cage was also a pioneer of the prepared piano (a piano with its sound altered by objects placed between or on its strings or hammers), for which he wrote numerous dance-related works and a few concert pieces. The best known of these is Sonatas and Interludes (1946–48).

His teachers included Henry Cowell (1933) and Arnold Schoenberg (1933–35), both known for their radical innovations in music, but Cage’s major influences lay in various East and South Asian cultures. Through his studies of Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism in the late 1940s, Cage came to the idea of aleatoric or chance-controlled music, which he started composing in 1951. The I Ching, an ancient Chinese classic text on changing events, became Cage’s standard composition tool for the rest of his life. In a 1957 lecture, Experimental Music, he described music as “a purposeless play” which is “an affirmation of life – not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we’re living”.

Origin: Jazz Harmonica

In this fascinating Documentary, we follow Brad on a sojourn to Berlin where he is taking a break from the trio to work on his elegies and solo piano performance. The performance footage is spectacular!!

Brad is interviewed about his music and its many aspects. We then come back to new york and see some footage at the vanguard and more interviews with the trio. You really get to understand what Brad is all about. Very candid. Probably taken in the winter of ’99 just before elegiac cycle was recorded. Correct me if I’m wrong!

Must see footage of one of the greatest musicians on the planet. ENJOY!(Brad has played with or been influenced by many players and composers such as Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Wynton Kelly, Wes Montgomery, Chris Potter, Pat Metheny, Peter Bernstein, Joshua Redman, Mark Turner, John Patitucci, Ron Carter, Lee Konitz, Sonny Rollins, Keith Jarrett, Chopin, Brahms, Glenn Gould, Kurt Rosenwinkel, McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter etc.)

Origin: Jazz Harmonica

Two high-profile duos active in Dutch jazz: Anton Goudsmit / Oene van Geel and Mete Erker / Jeroen van Vliet.

They have combined forces and play in various combinations (duo, solo, trio, quartet): EstaFest.

Four unique improvisors, each a match for the other, getting the very best out of each other. Music at the cutting edge, taking new directions ‘à la moment’. Each contributing their own brilliant, short pieces without predetermined sequence or combination. Audience and players are swept away by the power of the moment. The musical result is highly exciting, magnificent, hilarious and breathtaking.

WOW!!!!!

Abraços, Wim Dijkgraaf 

Origin: Jazz Harmonica

I met Ernst many times. We visited the same jazz pub Paradox in Tilburg. A great place where in contrast to many other jazz clubs in Holland by that time, the musicians were constantly searching for new and different ways to approach jazz.  Very much related with the tendency of the conservatory where I studied by that time. Other cities were more oriented towards craftsmanship only; music as a discipline and less as an art form.

Over time it got so clear how important that time and experience was for my development over time. And many of the great players from today were part of that scene like Jeroen van Vliet (piano), Eric Vloeimans (trumpet), Harmen Fraanje (piano), Paul van Kemenade (saxophone) and Ernst Reijseger of course.

Here a beautiful documentary full of great cello playing and with Ernst talking very honestly (as always) about his life as a top musician. Main message to us: “You are never ready.”.

Enjoy, Wim Dijkgraaf

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4

part 5

Origin: Jazz Harmonica

I haven’t been able to check out this “method” (horrible word). But great to see that the chromatic harmonica gains interest by more and more musicians and that there is enough of a market for it to publish serious material. Fantastic!

If anyone has this material, please share your experience.

http://www.shermusic.com/new/9781883217716.shtml

Abraços,

Wim Dijkgraaf

Origin: Jazz Harmonica

This is exactly why I like to call musical exercises GAMES and musical practicing GAMING. While in contrast with this playing in stage is MEDITATION.

This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.

Alan Watts

Abraços,

Wim Dijkgraaf

Origin: Jazz Harmonica

This series of videos demonstrates the sound and shape of the various chord types used in jazz (and other forms of Western music as well). They’re primarily intended for non-keyboard players. If you need some assistance visualizing and identifying chord sounds, these brief lessons are for you. (source: http://www.playjazznow.com)

TRIADS

MAJOR 7th CHORDS

MINOR 7th CHORDS

DOMINANT 7th CHORDS

ALTERED DOMINANT 7th CHORDS

DIMINISHED 7th CHORDS

Origin: Jazz Harmonica

Yamandu Costa (Passo Fundo, January 24, 1980), sometimes misspelled Yamandú, is a Brazilian guitarist and composer. His main instrument is the violão de 7 cordas, the Brazilian seven-stringed nylon guitar.

Yamandu began to study guitar at age seven with his father, Algacir Costa, leader of the group Os Fronteiriços (The Frontiersmen) and mastered the instrument after studying with Lúcio Yanel, an Argentine virtuoso who lived in Brazil. At age fifteen, Yamandu began study Brazilian Southern folk music, Argentina and Uruguay.

Influenced by the music of Radamés Gnattali, he began to study the music of other Brazilians, such as Baden Powell de Aquino, Tom Jobim and Raphael Rabello.

At age seventeen he played in São Paulo for the first time at the Cultural Circuit Bank of Brazil which was produced by the Study Tone Brazil. Yamandu came to be recognized as the musician who revived Brazilian guitar music.

Yamandu’s diverse execution styles include styles like chorinho, bossa nova, milonga, tango, samba and chamamé, making him difficult to categorize into a single genre.

Yamandu appeared in Mika Kaurismäki’s 2005 documentary film Brasileirinho.

Origin: Jazz Harmonica

Since he recorded the Köln Concert in 1975, Keith Jarrett’s solo recitals have come a long way. Back then, a single piece often lasted over 25 minutes, and the audience had to follow every twist and turn of Jarrett’s spur-of-the-moment improvising without coming up for air. Yet this long form neatly contained the full scope of Jarrett’s playing, from atonality to country-ish or gospel-tinged melodies, and from a gentle rhythmic lilt to hard-edged swing.

More recently, from the time of Radiance, recorded in Japan in 2002, Jarrett has separated the ingredients into bite-sized chunks. With an audience as ecstatic as the one at the Teatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro, where his new album was cut in April 2011, this works to the advantage of both. Jarrett builds a rapport with his public, and they can more easily adapt to the changes of mood and genre as his ideas develop.

The final three sections have the perfect balance between compositional form and spontaneity, with the penultimate bluesy movement the standout. Maybe there were his usual strictures against coughers and photographers, but if they happened, they didn’t get in the way of Jarrett’s rapport with his audience. Overlooking an above average content of the pianist’s characteristic wheezes and groans, you get the sense that — like someone in the crowd at his last London solo concert — they’re all prepared to shout, “We love you, Keith!”

Part IVPart VPart VIIPart IXPart XIPart XIIIPart XV

Origin: Jazz Harmonica