Playing Monk: Epistrophy

[Andrew Woodyatt]

Hi,

I recently bought a CD to play along to Thelonious Monk's tune Epistrophy.

The basic chord changes are a semitone shift of a dominant 7 chord, eg.

Eb7 E7 Eb7 E7 ...

etc. (I play tenor)

My old teacher strongly advised figuring out common tones in a set of
changes and using them to construct a flowing line. I definitely find it a
challenge creating a flowing line using only the dominant 7 chords when
the chords are so different.

Hence I tend to substitute the Spanish scale

Eb E G Ab Bb B Db Eb

over this set of changes. It produces a sound that I quite like.
Does anybody else use another substitution for this type of progression that
they are happy with?

Regards,

Andrew W.

--
and...@NOSPAM.flex.com.au

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[Carlos]

The E7 is the tritone substitution of Bb7 which is the V of Ebmaj, but
instead of resolving to Ebmaj, Monk goes to another dominant chord Eb7 so
that it holds the tension. Note that in the tritone substitution the 3rd and
7th of both chords are the same, and they are exactly the two notes that
give the 'color' of the chord. That is why this substitution is so common
and works quite well.

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