I’m pleased to announce that “The Giant Steps Scratch Pad, C Edition” is now published and available for purchase on Lulu.com. If you play the flute, piano, guitar, or any other concert pitch instrument and want a practice companion to help you master Coltrane changes, then this collection of 155 licks and patterns is for you!

Besides the new C edition, “The Giant Steps Scratch Pad” is also available in Bb and Eb editions. A bass clef edition is next in line. I’m not sure what kind of editing it will require, since the shift is to a different clef rather than a different key. I’m hoping that the process will be a simple one and I’ll be able to release the bass clef edition soon.

If you want to learn more details on what the book has to offer, read the initial release notice for the Eb edition. The description applies to all the editions, which are identical except for the keys in which the musical material is written.

At the risk of sounding immodest, I’m not aware of any other resource, either in print or online, that offers such extensive practice material for the Giant Steps cycle. You can find plenty of information on the theory of Coltrane changes, but it has been a different story when it comes to a hands-on, made-to-be-played book that jazz musicians can take with them to the woodshed. “The Giant Steps Scratch Pad” fills that gap. If you want to solo confidently and creatively over the challenging, lopsided changes of “Giant Steps,” then pick the edition that’s right for you and order your copy today!

It has been a long time since I went to a lounge where a group of topnotch musicians was playing and sat in with them on my sax. Tonight I took the plunge and headed over to Noto’s in Cascade, where keyboardist Bob VanStee, vocalist Kathy Lamar, and drummer Bobby Thompson were performing. I’m glad I went! I had an absolute blast.

I’ve known Bobby for a couple years now and enjoy him both as a player and as a person. I’m just getting to know Bob VanStee, but I’ve known OF him since my college days, when he was well-known about town prior to his taking a 15-year hiatus from music from which he has only recently reemerged. As for Kathy, I’d heard her name but never met her until this evening. Holy cow! What a fantastic vocalist and charismatic entertainer! I love playing side man to a good vocalist, and Kathy is an absolute joy to play alongside of.

It really did me good to jump in with this trio and provide some horn work. While I brought my fake books, I wound up not having any use for them. Vocalists frequently sing tunes in keys different from the standard instrumental keys–a good reason for jazz musicians to become as fluent as possible in all twelve tone centers. I like that kind of challenge; it forces me out of my comfort zone. For instance, I’ve woodshedded “How High the Moon” in its contrafact incarnation, “Ornithology,” to the point where I can pretty well shred it in its normal key, concert G. I’ve also been working on it in concert A and F#, and bit in C. But playing it in Eb tonight took me places I wasn’t used to! Sure, Eb puts me in the nice, easy alto sax key of C, but the tune quickly modulates from C to Bb, then down another whole step to Ab. Navigating the key of Ab makes life nothing if not interesting.

Aebersold CDs and Band-in-a-Box are great assets for getting one’s chops together. But the real joy is in playing live with real-life musicians in a spontaneous framework. That’s the essence of jazz–musicians listening and responding to each other in a way that brings coherence and beauty to collective improvisation. It was wonderful to spend some time this evening with three superb talents who know what that’s about.

Tenor sax, soprano sax, trumpet, and clarinet players, I’ve kept my promise and haven’t forgotten you! I’m pleased to announce that The Giant Steps Scratch Pad, Bb Edition is now published and available for purchase on Lulu.com.

In case you haven’t followed any of my related posts, “The Giant Steps Scratch Pad” is a book of licks and patterns on the Giant Steps cycle. Made for the woodshed, it had its inception over ten years ago during a period in my life when I was immersing myself in Coltrane changes. Finding nothing in the way of practice material, I bought a spiral-bound book of staff paper and began writing down my own ideas, which multiplied over time into more material than I could wrap my arms around.

In recent months, it occurred to me that the material could benefit other jazz musicians. So I transcribed it using MuseScore, and after more hassles and delays than I care to describe, finally published the Eb edition for alto sax and baritone sax players just two weeks ago. Read the release notice for more information on what the book has to offer jazz instrumentalists of every stripe who want a practice companion to help them develop their technique for improvising on “Giant Steps.” In a nutshell, information abounds on the theory of Coltrane changes, but this is the first book I know of that actually gets you soloing on “Giant Steps.”

Flutists and other concert pitch instrumentalists, fear not: The C edition is next in line, and I’m already underway with editing. Bass players and trombonists, a bass clef edition will follow after the C edition has been published. So, campers, be patient. Nobody’s going to be excluded from the party.

“The Giant Steps Scratch Pad” is now priced at $12.95. I had initially settled on $13.95, but when I factored in the cost of shipping from Lulu, I decided to trim down by a buck. Head to the Scratch Pad landing page to access both the Eb and Bb editions, and other editions as they become available.

I’m hoping to have the C edition published within a week, so look for another announcement soon.

Here are a couple of patterns I like to practice from time to time to limber up my ability to interpolate chromatic lines with common tones. The third exercise is one that I just thought of, and since I’ll be incorporating it into my saxophone practice sessions from now on, I thought I’d drop it into your lap as well. Click on the image to enlarge it.

The repeat signs don’t mean repeat just once; they mean repeat ad infinitum until the pattern is laying easily under your fingers. Then bump it up or down a half step and practice it in the new key. Repeat this process until you own the pattern in all twelve keys throughout the full range of your instrument.

While each pattern begins by outlining an A minor triad, it implies other harmonies as the chromatic line descends or ascends while the remaining tones remain static. I’ll leave it to you to figure out different practical applications.

You’ll find plenty more patterns, exercises, solo transcriptions, and articles of interest to jazz musicians on my jazz page.

The headline for this post is a bit deceptive. I’m really not interested in offering one more definition of jazz, or of discussing elements such as swing, syncopation, improvisation, blue notes, and so on. All of that has been abundantly covered in a bazillion books on jazz history, jazz theory, and jazz musicians.

A better title, though a more confusing one at first glance, might be, “What ISN’T Jazz?” It’s a question I’ve contemplated off and on. In that respect, I guess I’m no different from a multitude of other jazz musicians who have pondered the same issue over the years and ventured their opinions. Often you don’t hear the question expressed as a question, but as a conviction delivered with some heat: “That isn’t jazz!”

Let me say up front that I consider the topic of what is and isn’t jazz to be pretty academic. I’m more fascinated by the fact that some people get so passionate about defending a sacred ideal, some essence of jazzness, than I am by the subject itself.

Yet I have to confess that I find the same attitude rearing up in me on occasion–times when it bothers me to hear the word “jazz” used to describe something I wouldn’t consider to be even close to jazz. Improvised music, quite possibly; jazz, no.

So what am I, an elitist? If I am, I’m certainly not hardcore about it. Frankly, the intensity and hair-splitting that I’ve witnessed over the jazz/not-jazz issue has struck me as ridiculous, not to mention pointless, since it’s one of those debates that will never be settled.

That being said, I think the word “jazz” does get used too freely at times.

Case in point: I’ve played in lots of church worship teams over the years. Most of them have involved a lot of white folks playing guitars. Nothing wrong with that, but I cringe whenever I hear someone say, “Let’s jazz it up.” It’s kind of like hearing a mariachi accordionist say, “Let’s rock and roll!” What does it mean to “jazz it up”? I’m not sure, but I can testify that the results I’ve witnessed have never resembled jazz. Musicians who rarely if ever listen to jazz, let alone practice it, aren’t going to just suddenly produce it like Bullwinkle pulling a rabbit out of the hat.

So here I am, caught between two extremes. On the one hand, I can be a jazz racist, aggressively and vehemently defending the purity of the form (according to my ideal of it) and getting my undies all in a bunch over musical miscegenation. On the other hand, I can adopt so inclusive a perspective that the word “jazz” can mean just about anything under the sun, and consequently mean nothing at all.

It seems like there ought to be a less polarized option. Maybe there is. If so, finding it is probably best begun by defusing some of the negativity inherent to this topic. Coming from a jazz purist, the words, “That’s not jazz!” come across as an indictment. Upon hearing Weather Report in concert, Ben Webster is reported to have flown into one of his famous rages, walked onstage, and overturned Joe Zawinul’s electric piano. Such behavior is an extreme, but it captures the attitude of those who are so entrenched in an ideal that they judge and attack whatever doesn’t match up.

It doesn’t have to be that way. It shouldn’t be that way. How can any two people have a decent, productive discussion with that kind of Hatfield-McCoy mentality?

So let me be plain: When I say that something isn’t jazz, I’m not saying it’s bad music. Neither am I saying it’s good music. I’m not making value judgments at all. I’m just saying that I don’t consider the music I’m hearing to fit under the jazz umbrella. That’s all. Why try to make something be what it isn’t? Why not just let it be what it is and recognize that, if it’s done well, it has its own legitimacy?

Distinguishing between jazz and non-jazz involves at least a certain amount of subjectivity. That’s certainly true of me as I share a few of my own thoughts on the topic. With that acknowledgment, I’d like to address what I think are a few misconceptions about jazz:

* IMPROVISATION. Some people use the word “jazz” to describe extemporaneous playing. But while improvisation is a crucial hallmark of jazz, it’s not an exclusive one. Rock musicians improvise. Bluegrass musicians improvise. Classical musicians improvise. Beethoven wove melodies and harmonies out of thin air long before Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet ever played a blue note.

* THE BLUES SCALE. Playing the blues scale is not the same thing as playing jazz. Playing the blues scale is playing the blues scale. The blues scale and blue notes are components of a good jazz vocabulary, but they’re only a part of it, and, as with improvisation, they’re not exclusive to jazz. Rock guitarists use the blues scale extensively.

* HARMONY. The chords associated with jazz are usually quite colorful due to the use of upper tones and creative voicings. Ninths, elevenths, and thirteenths are normative, along with various chord alterations. In jazz, a V7 chord is rarely just a V7 chord; keyboard players and guitarists add upper extensions as a matter of course. While simple triads are used from time to time, jazz is not a triadic idiom. It is vertically complex, giving rise to sophisticated voice leadings.

That’s one big reason why non-jazz musicians who decide they’re going to “jazz up” a piece of music usually wind up sounding hokey rather than hip. Conceptually, they don’t have the harmonic (and rhythmic) know-how to pull it off. If that’s you, don’t let me discourage you from making the attempt. Rather let me encourage you, while you’re in the process, to learn a bit about jazz harmony and voice leading. There’s plenty of knowledge that’s available on the topic both in print and online. This Wikipedia article is a good place to start.

* HORNS. Adding a sax or trumpet to a tune, or even using that tune to showcase a horn player, does not automatically result in jazz.

* TUNES. Jazz is not a matter of the song that’s played but of how it’s interpreted. Playing “In the Mood” or “Take the A Train” doesn’t mean that a band is playing jazz. It means they’re playing melodies and chord changes that were written in the Big Band Era, but stylistically, the way a tune is handled might be closer to a polka than to jazz.

I could easily add to the above list, but what I’ve written is enough to get the idea across. Again, though, the topic of what is and isn’t jazz is prone to subjectivity. It’s safe to say that at some point, a piece of music–or rather, how that piece gets interpreted–crosses a jazz/non-jazz line. But different people, including and especially jazz musicians, will have different ideas about where that line lies.

That’s one reason why I don’t work myself into a lather over whether, for example, the stuff that Kenny G. puts out is jazz. Does it really matter? Kenny’s music may not be my personal cup of tea, but I have a hunch that if you hired the guy for a standards gig, he’d make it through the evening just fine. As it stands, what he does for a living beats delivering pizzas.

As for the debate over what is and isn’t jazz, a more fruitful question to ask is, do you like what you hear? Do you like what you’re playing? Then enjoy it and don’t worry too much about defining it. It may or may not be jazz, but good music is good music no matter what you call it.

As I sat in my car by the railroad tracks last night out in the countryside, practicing my saxophone and doing my best impression of a Shady Character Waiting To Make A Drug Deal for the benefit of curious passers-by, it struck me how far I’ve come since I began woodshedding in earnest back in college. It’s a long way, but not far enough. There are high-school-age kids who can do what I do. Not many, but they’re out there, along with a host of college music majors who are blazing incendiary trails across today’s jazz firmament.

I can’t afford to think about it. Topnotch jazz programs featuring world class saxophone instructors have multiplied over the years, and out of that educational milieu are arising some brilliant young players. There are bound to be a few who at half my age possess twice my ability.

A few. But probably not all that many. Because while those music majors have been in the practice rooms busily learning their instruments, I’ve been in my car by the tracks doing the same thing. However, my practice schedule has probably been more spotty than theirs, and so have my opportunities to play jazz live with other experienced jazz musicians. Unless you’re in a position where you can immerse yourself in music without interruption, the demands of making a living have a way of imposing themselves on your practice time. They can stop you if you let them, but they probably don’t have to. You just have to accept a slower rate of growth that accommodates the rest of life.

The learning curve for mastering a musical instrument is different for everyone. We all have different circumstances, different degrees of natural ability, different competing interests that round us out as individuals, and so on.

I thought about this last night as I worked out some bop tunes in the key of F# and revisited “Giant Steps.” My storm chasing excursion out west last weekend had cost me several days of practice, and my fingers could tell the difference. But they snapped back into shape quickly.

Playing the saxophone is not like riding a bike. You don’t just hop back on and regain instant command after not having ridden in a while. You’ve got to reclaim old ground.

What does happen, though, is that when you practice diligently, you continue to raise the baseline of your abilities. Persistent, focused practice not only will put you at the top of your game, but it will also build and expand a musical foundation you can fall back on during those times when your practice routine falls by the wayside.

My book on “Giant Steps” patterns is nearing pub time, but to be honest, I haven’t spent much time actually playing “Steps” in recent history. So last night I broke out my workbook and my Aebersold CD of Coltrane tunes, and I got a pleasant surprise. It has been years since the period in my musical development when I saturated myself in “Giant Steps.” But I found myself navigating the changes, finding my way through familiar patterns, exploring ideas–not on the same level as if I’d been consistently practicing Coltrane changes, true, but well enough for me to feel pretty good about what I was doing. In fact, in some ways I played the tune better than I did in the past. Other musical material that I’ve acquired over the years provided a richer repository of ideas and technical finesse. Old and new came together, and while the result wasn’t perfect, it was at least coherent.

To sum up: Stick with your instrument. Never give up. Life has its seasons and its discouragements, but persistence really does pay off. Don’t measure your musical growth by other players, but by the satisfaction you get as you set and accomplish realistic personal goals. Be honest with yourself, be as diligent in practicing as you can be, be hard on yourself only when you have to be, listen to and study great players, and don’t get so obsessed with arriving at your destination that you forget to enjoy the journey. Do this, and over time you’ll build a solid baseline of craftsmanship and musicality that will serve you well during the off-seasons of your musical life.

Here’s an update on my book of “Giant Steps” licks and patterns.

By now I had hoped to have it available for purchase online as an e-book. However, after getting feedback from a couple friends whose wisdom and musical expertise I highly respect, I’ve decided to take a little more time to do the job right.

Initially, the idea of simply scanning my handwritten practice book appealed to me. I liked the homespun, pencil-and-staff-paper feel. Nothing fancy, just solid practice material that will help jazz musicians get a firm handle on Coltrane changes. For that reason, I had titled the book–and still plan to title it–”The Giant Steps Scratch Pad.”

But there are limitations to the approach I’ve described. For one thing, legibility is an issue in some parts of the scanned material. In the process of copying all of my handwritten material, the scanner was also picking up on smudges and erasures, and it was failing to clearly copy some of the lighter print. After taking up pencil and eraser and editing several pages for better effect, and doing a bit of clean-up work with PhotoShop as well, the result is acceptable. Frankly, I kinda like it, and part of me wants to offer it as is. But I can do better.

So I’m going to get the material properly notated using transcription software. Not only will the finished result look much more polished, but I will be able to offer it for the entire suite of C, Bb, Eb, and bass clef instruments. The scanned approach doesn’t offer that flexibility; I had written the patterns for my own instrument, the Eb alto sax, and the book was what it was.

Taking to heart the advice I’ve gotten, then, I’m taking a step back in order to take “Giant Steps” forward. Hopefully the delay won’t be a long one. I’m eager to get the book published. I just want to make sure it’s everything it can be right out of the starting gate.

So keep your eyes peeled for further developments. The hard, creative work is already done. I just need to explore my options, then take the best one and git ‘er done.

–Bob

Last week I announced the upcoming release of an e-book filled with licks and patterns designed to help jazz musicians  improvise on the famous John Coltrane tune “Giant Steps.”

As is true of just about any big endeavor that’s worth doing, though, this one is taking a little longer than I’d anticipated. Much of the reason for that is due to touch-up work I needed to do after scanning all my handwritten material. And of course I needed to design a cover. Now I’m seeking a few endorsements, and I still need to set up an online store.

So I thought I’d give you a quick update just to reassure you that this ebook is moving along. If you’re interested in getting hold of a practical, hands-on book you can take with you into the woodshed and emerge better equipped to tackle those gnarly “Giant Steps” changes, then keep watching this blog for further announcements. I won’t keep you waiting very long–promise!

Last night, after a particularly inspirational practice session, I found myself thinking about what it was I was accomplishing. Saturating myself in the rarely used key of concert A, as I’ve been doing lately, and also taking new material through all twelve keys, has not only been unlocking my saxophone technique overall, but it is also causing me to consider the result I’m after. In a nutshell, I want my fingers to hear the music.

That’s my way of saying that I want to get the muscle memory in my fingers integrally linked with my inner ear, and my inner ear to what I’m actually hearing moment by moment in a given improvisational setting, so intimately that I can conceive ideas instantly and execute them flawlessly.

Have you noticed that there are certain keys in which your fingers just naturally know where to go? Keys and tunes in which you’ve mastered your melodic materials to the point where they’re innate; where licks and patterns are just tools in your toolkit, not your life raft that keeps you afloat? Concert Bb, F, and C major are keys most jazz musicians are quite familiar with, for instance. But what about B, D, A, or F#? The American Songbook may not abound with tunes written in the “hard” keys, but lots of songs have momentary digressions to them.

“Ornithology,” for example, has a temporary excursion into the key of concert A in the form of a iii-VI7-ii-V7 progression. The bridge section to “Cherokee” includes an entire four-bar ii-V7-I cadence in that same key. Spending time trying to master those two tunes has given me incentive to hash out the key of A, to the point where my fingers are starting to “hear” in that key. They “feel” where the third and leading tone of the scale are, and how those notes fit into different harmonic contexts; they’re getting better at handling the avoid-tone of the fourth; they’re becoming friends with passing and non-harmonic tones, and growing more adept at using non-diatonic notes to realize borrowed harmonies.

It’s a process that begins with thinking things through, then working your thinking into your fingers through repetition over many practice sessions. The result, over time, is less deliberation (“If I play an E, that’ll be the #9 of the C#+7#9 chord, moving down to D, then resolving to the root”) and more instantaneous response. Once you reach that point, you no longer need to tell your fingers what to do; they feel it for themselves in their wee little finger souls. Your thinking speeds up, and your fingers are right there with you, eager to serve your ideas and fully capable of doing so.

How many keys, and how many tunes, can you hear with your fingers? Pay your dues in the woodshed, transcribe and memorize jazz solos, play out whenever you get a chance, and over time, your fingers will develop big ears.

Is it safe to come out of my bunker now? Has the war between jazz and rock finally ended? I don’t hear any incoming missiles. But then, I’m kind of out of the loop these days when it comes to who is presently saying what in the various music periodicals.

It does seem to me that in this melting pot called America, music has come a long way in developing mutual respect between the different genres. The purist dividing lines have given way to healthy crossover and cooperative experimentation between music styles and artists, and the style racists who once wrung their hands and shouted, “Miscegenation!” back in the days of “Bitches Brew” have long since been thrust aside by open-minded musicians searching for fresh, creative possibilities. Yet I wonder to what extent the old biases still continue to influence us.

Back in my college days, rock music was largely scorned by jazz musicians, and the feeling was amply returned. You couldn’t pick up a “Downbeat” magazine and read an article on fusion without some reader writing in to complain, “That’s not jazz!” If it wasn’t bebop, it it involved an approach to the drum set that was other than tang-tanka-tang, then the purists were up in arms, donning their white hoods and burning their crosses in the letter section. Even back then, naive as I was, I found the topic of this is/isn’t jazz to be petty, not to mention boring, when the groups in question involved world class musicians who knew the standard jazz vocabulary inside-out.

I also found the notion that jazz was the only worthwhile music, or the idea that any one style of music was better than the rest, to be confining, narrow-minded, and pointless. I mean, I cut my teeth on classic rock music–on groups such as Jefferson Airplane, Mountain, Jimi Hendrix, Jethro Tull, King Crimson, Yes, Genesis, and Fleetwood Mac–and I didn’t stop loving rock and roll just because I was starting to become immersed in jazz.

So why was it that jazzers and rockers seemed to have so little respect for each other? For that matter, what was it about symphonic musicians that gave them such an illusion of superiority over all the rest? And why did it go without saying (by me among the rest, I hate to confess) that country/western was inferior music?

Tell me that things have changed since those days. I think they have. From what I can see, we’ve come a long way.

At bottom, all music is divisible into just two categories: good music and bad music. Beyond that, it’s a matter of personal preference. And that is fine; in fact, it’s inevitable. Each of us is drawn to certain kinds of music and not drawn to others. It’s a matter of individual taste, which fines down even beyond general categories to subcategories and artists of all kinds. It’s all good as long as it doesn’t lead to demeaning other forms of musical expression, or to closing ourselves off to their creativity and richness.

Still today, it’s unlikely that I’ll ever purchase a country music CD. However, that choice is influenced not by musical snobbery, but by the fact that I’m a jazz saxophonist with a limited music budget, and on the relatively rare occasions when I purchase a CD, I usually stick with jazz, guided by a goal of learning my craft as well as enjoying its sound. It’s a matter of focus and preference, not elitism. If I’m driving down the highway and happen upon a good country station on the radio, then I’ll listen to it and enjoy it. Over the years and the long, long highway miles, I’ve come to appreciate that country music harbors some of the finest lyricists and songwriters in the world.

My point: Why limit yourself in what you listen to. Jazz is awesome music, but it’s not all that is out there. Broaden your world. Go to YouTube and check out some of the old film clips of Janis Joplin, Hendrix, and the Beatles. Tune in to The Thistle & Shamrock on NPR and let Fiona Ritchie give you an exhilarating earful of wild, wonderful Celtic music. The world of music has wide, wide horizons; open your ears to ways of expressing musical and creative excellence other than the ones you’re used to. Allow yourself to be influenced by the amazing diversity of music in this world. Doing so will enrich your own artistry as a jazz musician.