Charles McPherson live at PDX Jazz Festival

 The PDX Jazz festival is happening this month here in Portland. It seems the number of national acts was significantly scaled back this year, probably a common trend these days. Don Lucoff recently took over as the director of the festival and seems to be running things a bit differently. Don seems to think that every performance should have a theme. Maybe it's from his years of doing promo work, or maybe it's just that he wants to feel like he's actively 'artistically directing' the musicians. For example he asked George Colligan to make the theme of his performance 'the music of Andrew Hill'. This was George's first big show after moving to town and I would guess that, although George enjoys Andrew Hill's music, he wouldn't consider Hill to be an influence on his playing.

  Was Lucoff thinking that Portland listeners would be more likely to come to see George play if they thought there would be some Andrew Hill music involved? Colligan is a prolific composer in his own right and I'm sure he would have much preferred to play his own composition (which he ultimately ended up doing), rather than Hill's music. Don suggested themes to many of this year's festival performers. Some of this year's themes were: 'The Lure of the Jazz Lyric', 'Classically Carmen', 'For Portland Only', and 'PDX Afro-beat Breakdown'.  It whole idea just seemed pretty forced to me. When you let marketing considerations dictate the choice of material the musicians play on the shows that you book then you are limiting the freedom of the musicians to choose what kind of material they play, and ultimately the degrading the quality of the performances. Let the musicians dictate the material that they feel will be the strongest representation of what they do. They know what kinds of tunes they sound best playing. Let the theme of the festival and of each performance just be 'The best possible music that each performer can present'. Why try to shoehorn players into the shoes of the Jazz masters?  I do however think that bringing in a seasoned Jazz PR pro managing the PDX Jazz Festival was a smart move. Enough with the themes though.

 The performance I was looking forward to the most was Charles McPherson's 'Tribute to Prez (the show was on President's day after all) and Bird'. Isn't every one of Charles' shows a tribute to Bird really? It wasn't a stretch, but why ask Charles to limit his choice of material to tunes that Bird or Prez played? The house was packed, but they were there to hear Charles, not because they were hoping to hear Lester Leaps in or Star Eyes.

 If I had to choose one favorite living Jazz saxophonist it would be Charles McPherson, no contest. I first heard him when I was still a teen and I remember being totally floored by his playing. First of all Charles has and incredibly beautiful and huge alto sound, with the best qualities of Bird's tone. The next thing you notice is his malleable time feel. He just floats on top of the time, constantly shifting between different metric modulations and then occasionally drops into to some extremely hard swinging 8th note lines.  Actually, 'metric modulations' isn't even the best way to describe what Charles does because it sounds so much more organic than that. A more accurate way to describe what Charles does with time would simply be bad-ass. I don't know of anyone else who does what he does with time.

 Charles doesn't leave a lot of space, and I mean that in a good way. Let's just say that if he were paid by the note he'd be a very wealthy musician by now. His concept is kind of like a Bebop version of Trane's 'sheets of sound'. Charles is constantly coming at resolutions from different directions, circling around changes like a swarm of angry hornets. From what I can tell, he seems to be using some of Barry Harris' harmonic concepts, including lots of diminished substitutions (like Trane did in his Sheets of Sound period). He has a classically Bebop vocabulary, but he is definitely applying a lot post-bop harmonic innovations and chord substitutions in his approach. I even heard some lines from Slonimski's book sever times during the evening. One thing about Charles' approach is that he doesn't hold back, he goes for it all the way. I love when players are like this. I want to hear someone really go for the gusto, balls out. Forget sounding clean and controlled. I want careening and out of control. I want to hear some carnage, some cracked altissimo notes, some collateral damage! Charles is raw, but he certainly still sounds polished. The beauty of his sound seems to allow him to get away with the wildly aggressive and dense playing he puts out.

 I had a chance to talk to McPherson before his set at Jimmy Mak's. He told me that he was playing on a modern hard rubber Meyer 6. Nothing special really. I've heard that Charles is always experimenting with different pieces. Last time he was playing in Portland I think he was playing on an older Meyer, maybe a Meyer Brothers or a NY Meyer. He was still using a Vandoren Optima ligature this time. When I heard him last I was amazed at how big his sound was. I just couldn't see how he could be getting such a huge sound playing a Meyer 5 or 6, so I had to try the ligature that he was using. What else could it be? He isn't a really big guy, so how did he do it?! I ordered myself an Optima ligature as soon as I got home....and...what do you know, it sucked. Didn't make my sound any bigger, just a little brighter.

 Before the PDX show Randy sat with Charles and had a 'conversation' (thanks to Don and actually a good idea). Charles talked about the fact that he thinks of time not as something to 'play with', rather as something to 'play against'. This idea isn't as common among players and educators as you might think. Many teachers try hard to impress on students the need to always 'lock in' to the time. McPherson creates a high degree of rhythmic tension by floating out of time, but he always comes back 'inside' and swings his ass off just long enough for his listeners to catch their breaths. Then he's off like a Bebop banshee again. The late Jimmy Mosher, one of my first teachers, was one of the few saxophonists that had a time feels as elastic as McPherson. That is not surprising because McPherson was one of Mosher's biggest influences, another was Charlie Mariano, who also had a loose time feel. I posted some great bootlegs of Jimmy Mosher's live shows a while back.

 I bootlegged McPherson's set with my Zoom digital recorder. I was sitting at a table that was basically right in front of the stage, so the recording came out pretty well. Charles played six tunes, which were all crushing. I asked him for his permission to post the recording here and he suggested that I post a few tunes, rather than the entire set. I choose his renditions of I'll Remember April, Embraceable You, and Cherokee. I also recorded McPherson's conversation with Randy Porter, which is quite interesting. The local rhythm section Charles used is Randy Porter on piano, Tom Wakeling on bass and Alan Jones on drums.

Enjoy!


Charles McPherson live at Jimmy Mak's- PDX Jazz Festival 2/20/12

Charles McPherson's web site
Charles McPherson interview
YouTube interview from San Diego Jazz Profiles- part 1
YouTube interview from San Diego Jazz Profiles- part 2
YouTube interview from San Diego Jazz Profiles- part 3
YouTube interview from San Diego Jazz Profiles- part 4

David Valdez/George Colligan Latin-Jazz Quintet live

On Feb.15th George Colligan and I played a Latin-Jazz gig at Ivories. Here are a few tunes from that gig.

Lydian Domination

Miriam Edward's New York Accent

Common Man

Ghostland

(These are large files and may take a minute to load in your browser)

Personnel:
David Valdez- alto saxophone
George Colligan- piano, composer
Dave Captein- bass
Todd Strait- drums
Chaz Mortimer- percussion

Jody Espina interview- new Jazz education products

 Jody Espina is the man behind Jody Jazz saxophone mouthpieces. Recently Jody has started producing some very interesting Jazz educational multi-media products. The first was a two DVD set featuring George Garzone's Triadic Chromatic Approach, which I reviewed here. Next Jody put out two play-along CDs featuring George Garzone and Kenny Werner called Tradin' with the Greats. Each one of these volumes is a two CD set. The first CD has George or Kenny playing the melodies and then trading choruses (leaving open spots for you to play) and the second CD has no melodies or trading.

 A lot of my own practice time is spent playing Aebersolds, so I was excited to try out Jody's new play-alongs. I really enjoyed the Tradin' with the Greats CDs, they were much more interesting and inspiring than working with Aebersolds. One big difference is that the bass and drums are not hard panned right and left, which makes the recording sound much more natural to play with. The CDs come with PDFs of all of the tunes in concert, Bb, Eb and bass clef. The first thing you really notice about these play-alongs is the high quality of the recordings and the level of musicianship. You get the feeling that the band wasn't just in the studio on auto-pilot with the awareness that there would be high-school kids playing to the finished tracks. These actually sound like good albums. I let a few of my students borrow these volumes and they loved them.

  The newest product that Jody released is the second Garzone instructional DVD set called In the Funk Zone. This volume deals with pentatonic scales and the musicians on the DVD are George Garzone, Mike Stern, John Patitucci, Rollins Ross and Kenwood Dennard. Garzone's TCA DVD was aimed at the advanced player, but this new pentatonic CD is definitely appropriate for all levels. In the new DVD George demonstrates how to use different pentatonic scales over straight forward Funk grooves, always stressing good time. Then he demonstrates how to move outside by side-slipping, using altered pentatonics and other techniques. Below is one example from the ebook:

click above graphic for larger version

  There are quite a few books on using pentatonic scales for improvisation on the market. I'm kind of a theory nerd, but Bergonzi's Pentatonics book makes my eyes glaze over in about two minutes. Garzone's DVD is very accessabile and has some unique approaches to using pentatonics, plus it's a lot of fun to Funk out with such a great rhythm section.

  I highly recommend all of Jody's new educational materials. They are well-thought out, original, have excellent production values and are they are a blast. Jody has drastically dropped the prices of these new volumes, so they offer great value for the money as well. The In the Funk Zone double DVD set is only $34.95 and the Tradin' with the Greats double CD sets are just $19.95 each or $37.50 for both volumes.

I interviewed Jody about his new products when I was at NAMM in January. You can hear the utter bedlam of NAMM in the background.

Here is my interview with Jody Espina.

Jody Jazz website

Jazz Truth interview

If you haven't checked out pianist George Colligan's great Jazz Truth blog yet then you are missing out. This Wednesday George and I are co-leading a Latin-Jazz quartet at Ivories Jazz Lounge here in Portland, so George decided to interview me for his blog to help promote our gig. Here is the interview.

The David Valdez/George Colligan Latin-Jazz Quartet

@ Ivories Jazz Lounge

Wednesday, Feb.15th

8:30pm-midnight

Featuring:

David Valdez- saxophone

George Colligan- piano, trumpet, melodica

Dave Captein- bass

Todd Strait- drums

with special guest- Weber Iago on piano

Doug Web demonstrates the Tubax

One of the more interesting things I saw at this year's NAMM show was the Tubax, an Eb contra-bass saxophone one octave lower than the bari. Tuba+Sax+Tubax.

 The thing was abut as tall as a regular bari, except that it had more coiled tubing. The interesting thing about it was that the action on the right and left hands are almost parallel. It seems that Oleg is importing the Eppelsheim Tubax and stenciling his name on it. The retail price runs at just $30k for the big horn. Doug Webb, one of L.A.'s top saxophonists, was demonstrating the Tubax at NAMM. He told me that he had had one for several years, buying his when the price was somewhat lower. I would absolutely love to own one of these bad boys, but I'd also love to pay off my mortgage.

I recorded Doug playing the Tubax with my digital camera. Unfortunately my little camera wasn't built for the massive low frequencies that the Tubax puts out, so please forgive the peaking.

Here is another video of Doug demonstrating the Oleg tenor:

Upcoming gigs

 Here are a few of my upcoming gigs:

2/15- David Valdez/George Colligan Afro-Cuban Jazz Quartet @ Ivories, 8pm
3/11- Andrew Durkin's Proto-human ensemble @ the Blue Monk, 8pm

3/24- Nancy Curtin's Brazilian project @ Vie De Boheme, 8:30pm

Jazzenzo- Jazz scores & transcriptions

Jazzenzo Jazz magazine has a page with a ton of scores available for free. George Colligan hipped me to this site, there are over 50 of George's tunes on the site. There are also tunes composed by Nguyên Lê, Bud Powell, Chris Cheek, Sam Rivers, Seamus Blake, Mark Turner, and Kurt Rosenwinkle, as well as a lot of European composers.

Jazzenzo Free Jazz scores and transcriptions

NAMM madness

If you've ever been to NAMM you know that it is insane. It's like being in a war zone, but with thousands of freaks. Well, of course there are plenty of normal looking music store owners, instrument markets reps and a few haggard looking Jazz musicians, but it is a truly a great place for freak and hootchie mamma spotting. I saw groups of leather clad guys with matching grey reptile eye contact lenses, hordes of surgically enhanced Goth Death Metal mini-skirt/fishnet wearing spokes models, EVEN the SEXY SAXMAN was making the rounds. That guy is killing, so killing.

  Let's not even get into all the tattoos, which made the Hell's Angels at Sturgis look like librarians in comparison. It was a scene, to say the least. I ran into old friends that I hadn't seen in years and was able to meet people that I'd only know online. Schmoozefest!!

 This year I tried getting some video on my camera, which didn't turn out to work so well for loud music. Please excuse the peaking on some of these.

Here is some sort of strange percussion instrument. Remember to THINK OUTSIDE THE DRUM.


Always a good way to attract a crowd to your booth:


Who needs a drummer anyways?


Do you have an iPhone and have always wanted to play the Ukelele but were too lazy to learn?

 

Mighty Bright Orchestra Light review

One of the things I was on the lookout for at NAMM was a really good stand light. I have a small battery powered LED light and an AC powered Manhasset light, but the first isn't bright enough and the second has a cord and a breakable bulb. I went to many different booths before I found one that had everything I was looking for, this turned out to be the Mighty Bright Orchestra light.  The MB Orchestra Light is very lightweight and comes in a durable soft travel bag. The light has a bank of nine bright white energy-efficient LEDs and the bulbs are made to last over 100,000 hours.

 The two features that really sold me were the dimmer setting and the back fin, which directs the light away from the audience and back onto the page. On the high setting the light (lasts 14 hrs on two AAs) will light up to four pages of music and the low setting (20 hrs) is nice when you don't want to light the up entire room. The light also comes with an AC adapter with 13 feet of cord in case you run out of batteries. The grip on the base is large, sturdy and padded.

All in all, this is the best stand light I have ever seen.

Mighty Bright Orchestra Light
Retails for $74.99

NAMM 2012 and the L.A. Jazz Collective

Last weekend was the NAMM convention. It was my second time going down to SoCal for the convention and was a lot of fun seeing old friends, checking out all the new products, and witnessing all of the freaks on display. I got down to L.A. on Wednesday and played at a club in Little Tokyo called the Blue Whale that night. The gig was part of a weekly residency at the club by the L.A. Jazz Collective, which is a group of musicians who have banded together to produce regular performances of creative Jazz music. Here's what the LAJC website says about the organization:

Members of the LAJC

The Los Angeles Jazz Collective is a group of musicians working together to build a stronger jazz community within Los Angeles. Through cooperative effort and education, we seek to promote our work and generate greater public appreciation for improvised music. The LAJC's membership includes many of the area’s talented younger artists, including pianist/organist Joe Bagg; saxophonists Matt Zebley, Robby Marshall and Damon Zick; drummer Jason Harnell; bassist Ryan McGillicuddy; trumpeters Brian Swartz and Josh Welchez, and guitarists Steve Cotter, Jamie Rosenn, and Mike Scott. There are currently 13 core members and a growing number of associate members. The collective has held meetings several times each month since November of 2007 and has already established a strong sense of community within the membership. Many members are on the faculty at various colleges and schools, and the collective intends to integrate enthusiastic students into this community. The LAJC aims to be a catalyst for those who play modern, creative jazz to represent the pioneering spirit that is the essence of the jazz tradition. The collective is compelled to live out that spirit by forging ahead in it’s members’s own compositions and performances.

Matt Otto, one the the group's founding members told me that at the beginning they send out around 200 emails to local Jazz musicians to see who was interested and they got about twelve responses.  The LACC recently got their nonprofit status, the next step is applying for grants. They plan to create educational programs and more concerts with those grants.

 I played a few sets at the Blue Whale show with Matt Otto and a host of other great players, including Gary Fukushima, Tim Pleasant, Jamie Rosen, Gilad Hekselmen, Tina Raymond, and Dave Robere. Here is a link to a recording and PDFs of one of the tunes we played, a killer head that Matt Otto wrote over the changes to Alone Together called Her Legato Note.

The LAJC website
Blue Whale Jazz club
Matt Otto.org

Stay tuned for plenty of product reviews, videos and pics from my 2012 NAMM trip.

Michael Brecker Live Recordings website

Emily, Mike, Randy & Santa

Michael Brecker continues to be one the the most respected and emulated saxophonists of our time. The other while perusing Facebook I saw so many people posting Brecker YouTube videos that for a minute I though it might have been some sort of national Brecker holiday, nope, everybody just loves Brecker.

Do you need your three-tonic fix first thing in the morning?  Is your Guardala metal piece not giving you enough of that Brecker magic? Do you feel like you need to go back in the shed and practice some Brecker transcriptions for a few thousand more hours? Do you fall asleep thinking about new patches for your EWI? If so then you then you need to check out the Michael Brecker Live Recordings website. Luis Gerrits runs the site and appears to be the world's foremost authority on all things Brecker. He has the largest collection of Brecker bootleg audio and video on the planet, and he is willing to trade you if you contact him.

To me the most interesting thing about Gerrits' site is his collection of transcriptions, many of which were done by Rick Margitza. You can download all 95 of these Brecker transcriptions for free here.

Neck Strap hook analysis results

  Several weeks ago I posted here and on SOTW that my new Just Joe's neck strap (with a large brass hook) noticeably changed the timbre and volume of the sound of my saxophone. This kicked off a long debate on SOTW in which many people scoffed and said I was crazy (or that my ears were deceiving me). Most of those SOTW members who believed my claims had not even bothered to try the large brass hook test themselves. Some of these players were well respected saxophonists and authors and many of them were weekend warriors. I was totally convinced that the large brass hook on the neck strap brings out certain overtones, on some notes more than others. It was perfectly clear to my own ears, which at this point in my life I tend to believe. About 80% of the saxophonists who tried the hook comparison test also believed that it made a difference. The 20% who did not hear any difference were usually either very inexperienced players or experienced players who were totally convinced before they even tried the test that it was impossible that a brass strap hook could change the sound of the horn. There were admittedly a few serious players who didn't notice a difference and seemed to have an open mind about the idea, like Ellery Elskelin. My theory is that the different makes of saxophones have the strap hook in different places, which causes different degrees of effect because the hooks may not be sitting right at a vibrational node. This means a large brass hook may have a greater effect on a Selmer than on a Conn.

  My testing with different saxophonists wasn't very scientific, so I turned it over to some pros. I have a saxophone student named Randal LeNeve who is an engineer at Rodgers Instrument corporation (which manufactures organs and is a division of Roland) and has a Masters degree in physics. Randy noticed a significant difference in the brass strap and was just as puzzled as I was about why a hook could make a difference in the sound. One theory that Tom Garcia and Sammy Epstein (who taught acoustics at Berklee) had at first was that the difference in timbre was more noticeable to the player because of the increased vibrations traveling up the strap to the players jaw and ears. This theory was shot down by Randy because of the fact that neck strap cord is a poor acoustical conductor. One of Randy's theories was that the large brass hook acts as what he called a 'resonating antenea'. This means that the hook itself puts off extra higher frequency overtones when the horn is played. Randy also thought that the point on the horn where the strap ring sits could be right at a critical vibrational node of vibration, which could explain the greater difference of change to particular notes on the horn. One thing that Randy really stressed was just how acoustically complicated the saxophone is. Just the driver (mouthpiece & reed) alone is highly complex and unpredictable. The instrument is actually quite mysterious and even scientists are not totally clear on some of the details of its workings.

  Randy took the Just Joe's strap into the Rodgers labs, enlisted the help of his colleague John Pospisil and they did some testing. John also heard a noticeable difference between the Joe's strap and a strap with a plastic hook and, being a saxophonist himself, was intrigued enough to join the project. They tested the Just Joe's strap against a strap with a plastic hook and one with a small thin steel hook. Randy played alto and soprano and John was the recording engineer. Randy tried his best to play as close to the same volume on all of the tests and they recorded eight different notes on each horn. John used the Roland R09 recorder, sampling at 24-bit, 48kHz and analyzed the frequencies using Sony Sound Forge, using a Blackman-Harris algorithm with 65,536 sampling points.

They found that the Just Joe's strap amplified some of the higher partials. It also appeared as if the strap eliminated a small amount of the frequencies between the overtones, which might account for a 'clearer sound' (this is my theory). Their conclusion was this:

"Certain notes on the Alto showed higher peaks on frequencies above 6 kHz which implies that the harmonic ratios of sound pressure levels are being altered i.e. a change in the timber of the sound, not the frequency distribution. Also G# on the Alto showed considerable added frequency content starting at about 200 Hz. The Soprano shows considerably more frequency content above 10 kHz for some, but not all notes.  It is perceivable that the Just Joe's Saxophone Gel Strap has an impact on the frequencies at or above 10 kHz for the Soprano sax setup used in this experiment and on certain notes on the Alto sax on frequencies above 6 kHz and in one case for G# starting as low as 200 Hz."

Randy added:

 "So in the case of Joe's Neck Strap the report shows that certain harmonics of the fundamental frequency were amplified. This means that those notes are LOUDER and the TIMBRE of the note was altered. That is, the horn still sounds like a saxophone but has 'brighter' and 'louder' harmonics. The LOUDER is pretty obviously a good thing. The TIMBRE being brighter can depend on what a player wants." 

Here is one of the screenshots from the analysis. It is middle A on the alto:

click on above graphic for a larger view

 They also felt that further testing would help to make these results more concrete and that these tests might include:

1. Recording several takes of each note using each strap and averaging the frequency response of the resulting recordings.
2. Using several straps to compare the differences in frequency response between each strap.
3. Recording in a more acoustically "dead" environment.
4. Using several microphones for recording including contact microphones on the saxophone body.
5. Determination of the fundamental frequency and harmonic distribution of the metal piece(s) on the strap itself when not attached to the saxophone.

 So although this question should be investigated more thoroughly to discover exactly what is causing the difference in timbre between the Just Joe's strap and a typical strap (with a plastic or small steel) hook I feel like I have been vindicated by the testing that was done in the Rodgers labs. No amount of scientific testing be enough to convince some who are convinced that a strap hook cannot change timbre, so I fully expect that this post will set off another 20 page thread on SOTW. Fortunately I will save myself the aggravation and not be reading that thread. I had the wisdom to have my SOTW membership suspended indefinitely.

If anyone is interested in reading the full report from the Rodgers labs email me and I'll send you a copy.


I can say this will a fair amount of certainty though......

There is a difference in timbre!


Just Joe's Neckstrap

Larry McKenna's solo on My Shining Hour

Saxophonist Jeff Rzepiela is a regular contributor to Casa Valdez and has a great website of his own called Scooby-sax, which offers a ton of transcriptions for download. Jeff has transcribed and analyzed Larry McKenna's solo on My Shining Hour. This solo utilizes a lot of chromatic Bebop approaches which Jeff examines in great detail.

Larry McKenna's solo on My Shining Hour (with analysis)

Larry McKenna's website
Scooby-Sax

How To Make Your Jazz Melodies Swing More

   This post was written by guest blogger Steve Nixon, who runs the website Freejazzlessons.com                                                                                                        

Have you ever played the melody of a jazz tune from a fakebook and realized what was written there just doesn’t feel right? Something seems missing rhythmically but you’re just not sure what it is?  Well, you’re not alone.  Most of the time what our favorite and most swingin’ players play on a standard is very different than what’s written in a fakebook. 

 So, how do we get our melodies to sound more authentic and to swing more?  Let’s take a closer look…..We’ll use the famous jazz tune Autumn Leaves because almost everybody is familiar with it. First, we will look at a “normal” version of Autumn Leaves. This is an an 8 bar example of how it’s written in most fake books. There are no swing rhythms added.

Now, we’ll take a listen to a guy like Chet Baker play the tune Autumn Leaves.  You can hear how well it swings.

 So, what did Chet do to make his melodies swing so hard?  What’s the difference between the original fakebook version and Chet’s version?

If you were listening closely you heard that Chet Baker played many of the same pitches as the original melody.  What was different though, were the rhythms. That’s where the “magic” lies. Chet Baker changes the rhythms. Lets take a look now at a couple of the rhythmic devices Chet uses and see if we can incorporate them in our own playing.

Anticipation
The first device that Chet uses is something called an anticipation.  If we want to anticipate a melody note we would take a melody note that would normally start on the downbeat and pull it back one eighth note.  Instead, the melody note would be played on the & of 4  I’ve written out the first 8 bars of Autumn Leaves again but this time I’ve added anticipations in there to demonstrate this technique more effectively.  (You can compare it to the original chart above).

Example: See how the D that would normally be played on beat 1 on the Bbmaj7 chord is instead  played an eighth note early in the previous measure.  That’s an anticipation.

Delayed Attack
Another rhythmic device that Chet uses is something called a delayed attack.  A delayed attack is a simple type of syncopation in which we take a melody note that would normally start on a downbeat and push it forward one eighth note.

The first melody note G normally starts on beat 2.  By adding a delayed attack I’m now starting the melody note on the & of 2.  Chet Baker and I both use the device every 2 bars as written here.

How To Practice Anticipations and Delayed Attacks
As you can see these anticipations and delayed attacks can really make your melodies swing more.

Now that you are aware of these cool swing rhythmic devices we should talk about a good way to practice them.  I recommend taking your favorite jazz standard that features a lot of quarter notes. This could be any tune (if you need a suggestion perhaps consider Here’s That Rainy Day). Spend some time adding these rhythms in.  If you’re not sure you can execute these rhythms entirely by ear or feel yet then there is nothing wrong with rewriting out the melody with anticipations and delayed attacks added in.

 Almost all my students can eventually feels these rhythms intuitively once they’ve added them into a jazz standard or tune.

So, how about you? What are some of your favorite rhythmic devices to make your music swing harder? If you enjoyed reading this post please leave a comment below.

For more of Steve Nixon's Jazz lessons check out Freejazzlessons.com

India

I got back from my trip to India last week. I'm still kind of recovering from the jet lag, cough and intestinal shock from the trip. It was the most incredible trip I've ever taken. My wife and I saw temples, ashrams, world heritage monuments, holy cities, Sufi durgas, museums, craft markets, and so much more.

One thing that was surprising to me about Indians was their view of teachers. When I told people that I was a music teacher they all had the same reaction, great respect. They said that teachers were the closest profession to god, and deserved higher respect than doctors, lawyers or politicians. They recognize that civilization is founded on the work that teachers do and that there is no greater work that one can do. Kind of a different view than how teachers are thought of here in the States.

I posted a ton of my pictures from India on my Facebook page, so here is a link to my India trip photo album.