Woody Shaw
Jim Marquess
question to the group since there are a lot of very knowledgable people
out there. I was/am a big Woody Shaw fan. I had heard somewhere that
while he often was pictured with a trumpet on album covers, he often
played a kind of cornet that actually sounded similar to a flugel. Has
anyone heard about this and knows if it was true and what kind of horn
it was? I guess I also have a question for the experienced jazz players
out there: Has anyone been able to emulate Woody's quick intervalistic
style--it blows me away and I cannot, for the life of me, even come
close, and that is true even when I have transposed solos in front of
me. They don't even sound right, but I'm sure that's simply because I
just can't fly around those intervals like he could. Thanks in advance
for any info. Jim
BlastMaster
Jim Marquess <j...@marqstaff.com> wrote:
> Hi to the group; I posted this in a reply, but I thought I'd present a
> question to the group since there are a lot of very knowledgable
people
> out there. I was/am a big Woody Shaw fan. I had heard somewhere that
> while he often was pictured with a trumpet on album covers, he often
> played a kind of cornet that actually sounded similar to a flugel.
Has
> anyone heard about this and knows if it was true and what kind of horn
> it was?
Woody endorsed Bach equipment, at least up through the end of his
tenure with Columbia. I've seen some of the photos you describe,
though I don't recall any credits listing him on cornet. I'm sure
someone else could identify these by sight...I also recall that Woody
played a 5C mouthpiece for his trumpet work...
> I guess I also have a question for the experienced jazz players
> out there: Has anyone been able to emulate Woody's quick intervalistic
> style--it blows me away and I cannot, for the life of me, even come
> close, and that is true even when I have transposed solos in front of
> me. They don't even sound right, but I'm sure that's simply because I
> just can't fly around those intervals like he could. Thanks in
advance
> for any info. Jim
Yikes, good luck. IMHO the published transcriptions (esp. the one with
all the columbia stuff) aren't much help.
I was lucky enough to get a cassette of Woody doing a workshop (very
poor quality recording) a few years ago. While he doesn't get into the
really wild stuff, it's interesting to hear him play some fourths
exercises real slow so get a sense of the basis for how he thinks.
It'd be difficult to describe these in detail here, but most of them
are very modular -- fourth patterns ascending and descending by whole
tones, intervals of thirds likewise ascending and descending, chromatic
exercises, etc. My impression is that alot of his trademark rapid-
fire "explosions" were many of these small modules pieced together at
an incredible rate of speed...
(For what it's worth, I've watched him on video, and his technique in
putting this stuff together is still opaque to me.)
If anyone else has insight on this topic, I'd love to hear it -- Woody
consistently impresses me with his personal approach to improvising.
[Incidentally, if you're a collector of Woody's stuff, you may be
interested to know that Joe Henderson's "In Pursuit of Blackness",
which features Woody on two cuts from the same session that yielded "If
You're Not Part of the Solution" (Milestone), has just been rereleased
on CD as part of a 2-fer. Not Woody's best, IMHO, but worth a listen.]
-- jeff
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Howard Peirce
> Has anyone been able to emulate Woody's quick intervalistic
> style--it blows me away and I cannot, for the life of me, even come
> close, and that is true even when I have transposed solos in front of
> me. They don't even sound right, but I'm sure that's simply because I
> just can't fly around those intervals like he could. Thanks in advance
> for any info.
I gave the Woody Shaw approach a serious shot for several years while in
college. It's doubly hard because it has a technical component (getting
around those intervals) and an intellectual component (understanding the
theory of pentatonic substitutions on chord changes). Most of what I know I
learned from Pat Harbison, who in turned had studied these techniques from
Mr. Shaw himself (who in his turn learned from Eric Dolphy).
First, the technique: Here are the scale patterns that Pat gave me to
study. The standard scale is the major pentatonic: C D E G A. If you number
the scale degrees 1-5, the patterns (in 8th notes) are:
1. Up: 1234 2345 3451 4512 5123 etc. Down: 5432 4321 3215 2154 1543 etc.
2. Up: 1543 2154 3215 4321 5432 etc. Down 1234 5123 4512 3451 2345 etc.
3. Up: 1324 3541 5213 2435 4152 etc. Down: 1453 4231 2514 5342 3125 etc.
Start each exercise at the lowest note on the horn contained in a
particular scale, and go up the pattern to the top of your usable range,
then take the reverse down. Do this in all twelve keys. Practice these
exercises until they're fast and clean. Pay attention to trumpet
fundamentals, and this will replace a lot of other daily drills--it's a
killer workout for flexibility, range, accuracy, and fingering all at the
same time. It may take you months to get really comfortable with these (it
took me probably six months to begin to feel good about these exercises,
and I continued to practice them regularly as part of my daily routine for
years). If you get those down, there are tons of other (harder?) pentatonic
drills. Pat has a lot of them in his book, I believe. Or you can invent
your own. But just the basic patterns will kick your butt for a long time.
Now, for the intellectual part: For any given chord in a progression, there
are three pentatonic scales that fit it exactly. If you would use a
substitution for a chord (e.g. a tritone substitution) you can make 3
pentatonic substitions for every chord substitution. You can also
substitute pentatonic scales for each other (eg. tritone or minor 3rd: C
pent = Eb pent = Gb pent = A pent.). Another pentatonic scale substitution
that works very well is to play the pentatonic scale starting on 2 on a
major chord (e.g. play D major pent. over a C major chord). By the time you
map out all the possible pentatonic scales to use over a chord, you'll
probably have 7 or 8 unique scale choices for each chord. A final
substitution is a "blanket substitution": substitute a pattern of scale
choices over any chord progression: Say, C pent for 1 bar, D pent 1 bar, E
pent, F# pent, etc. until you get back to C. A blanket substitution like
that will work over *any* chord progression in the key of C.
Now, what I would do is to take a tune I was working on, and write out a
kind of matrix of allowable scale choices. Then, I would improvise through
the changes, not staying on one scale for more than a measure, often
changing scales faster than the chords would change. So, over |Dm | G7 |
C | C |, I might play F pent and Ab pent over the Dm, G pent and Db pent
over the G7, then G pent, C pent and D pent over the C major. After this
kind of systematic practice, your ear will start to hear pentatonic sub
possibilities in real time, and you'll be able to start using it on the
stand. Anyway, the key to using pentatonics without sounding like "Buddy
Guy Meets the Miraculous Mandarin" is to change scales frequently. It might
help you to think about going from low tension scales to high tension
scales and back again.
One final note: If you work your way through all this stuff, you still
won't sound like Woody Shaw; you'll sound like Jim Marquess using Woody
Shaw's harmonic techniques. Shaw's sound is a whole lot more than wide
intervals (think of his distinctive articulation and almost even-8ths
approach to swing). When Freddie started using these techniques in the 70s,
he still sounded like Freddie.
Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions.
HP
Dr. Trumpet
<jhel...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> Woody endorsed Bach equipment, at least up through the end of his
> tenure with Columbia. I've seen some of the photos you describe,
> though I don't recall any credits listing him on cornet. I'm sure
> someone else could identify these by sight...I also recall that Woody
> played a 5C mouthpiece for his trumpet work...
There was an ad from a number of years back with Woody and ? sitting in a
restaurant playing a Yamaha trumpet. Remember that one?
Michael Fitzgerald
Trumpet) wrote:
>There was an ad from a number of years back with Woody and ? sitting in a
>restaurant playing a Yamaha trumpet. Remember that one?
Marvin Stamm, right?
For the original poster, Woody did play trumpet, cornet and
flugelhorn.
You also might be interested in the WS discography by Todd Poynor on
my WWW site.
Mike
Jim Marquess
(and thanks to Blastmaster too!!) I think it is pretty sensational that
a guy who doesn't know me from Adam would take the time to share this
kind of knowledge. I heard the pentatonic thing, but I just couldn't
relate it to the chords. The technical aspect is another thing, but I
has also always suspected that one day I would start using sophisticated
harmonic patterns as basic studies (or hoped I would). My problem always
has been that by the time I did my scales, intervals, embocure
stablizers, lip trills, etc, that I had nothing left for the harmonic
studies. Thanks so much
Howard. Jim
Dr. Trumpet
(Michael Fitzgerald) wrote:
> >There was an ad from a number of years back with Woody and ? sitting in a
> >restaurant playing a Yamaha trumpet. Remember that one?
>
> Marvin Stamm, right?
>
> For the original poster, Woody did play trumpet, cornet and
> flugelhorn.
That's the one. Now, Marvin is using the Bessons with great
success.....and Woody.......kinda sad now that I think about it
Howard Peirce
inspiration to me in terms of being an open, giving person with tons of
knowledge. I just try to share what little I have to honor him.
IIRC, Pat has a book of daily drills and technical studies based on jazz
harmony and scales. I can't remember the exact title and don't own it, but
it's gotten great reviews. Does anyone recall?
Another thing I do is to take the old Clarke and Schlossberg drills, and
alter them using jazz scales.
HP
Jim Marquess
you're referring to as also being excellent for the difficult lower
register fingering patterns you can encounter in
jazz. Jim
Howard Peirce wrote:
> Well, Jim, as I said, I got all this stuff from Pat Harbison, and he
> was an
> inspiration to me in terms of being an open, giving person with tons
> of
> knowledge. I just try to share what little I have to honor him.
>
> IIRC, Pat has a book of daily drills and technical studies based on
> jazz
> harmony and scales. I can't remember the exact title and don't own it,
> but
> it's gotten great reviews. Does anyone recall?
>
> Another thing I do is to take the old Clarke and Schlossberg drills,
> and
> alter them using jazz scales.
>
> HP
>
> Jim Marquess wrote:
>
EarleSlick
>all the columbia stuff) aren't much help.
>I was lucky enough to get a cassette of Woody doing a workshop (very
>poor quality recording) a few years ago. While he doesn't get into the
really wild stuff, it's interesting to hear him play some fourths
>exercises real slow so get a sense of the basis for how he thinks.
>It'd be difficult to describe these in detail here, but most of them
are very modular -- fourth patterns ascending and descending by whole
>tones, intervals of thirds likewise ascending and descending, chromatic
>exercises, etc. My impression is that alot of his trademark rapid-
fire "explosions" were many of these small modules pieced together at
>an incredible rate of speed...
>(For what it's worth, I've watched him on video, and his technique in
>putting this stuff together is still opaque to me.)
>If anyone else has insight on this topic, I'd love to hear it -- Woody
>consistently impresses me with his personal approach to improvising.
>-- jeff
I've noticed this same effect in regards to some of Lee Morgan's
transcriptions. Played slowly, they simply don't sound right, although, on
paper they're often as you describe above. (Locomotion, from Coltranes, "Blue
Trane" comes to mind) One guy who often posts here named John Worley, to my
understanding, actually studied under Woody, and hopefully, if he catches this
post, might be able to provide just the insight you're looking for. I've heard
John play, and he definately has that elusive Woody Shaw effect inherent in his
playing, and apparently a deeper understanding of Woody's approach. Any
comments, John?????///earl slick
just my opinion...I could be wrong
Bryan Fields
Harbison? It's based mainly on Clarke Studies with jazz scales. Published by
Jamey Aebersold, 1983. Great book. I sometimes substitute it for Clark
studies in my routine.
Howard Peirce wrote:
> IIRC, Pat has a book of daily drills and technical studies based on jazz
> harmony and scales. I can't remember the exact title and don't own it, but
> it's gotten great reviews. Does anyone recall?
>
>
>
--
To reply, remove "dierottenspammer" from e-mail address
DHoff56012
It made me remember a night where i was sitting in a club in Springfield, IL
with Blastmaster (hi, Jeff!) and he quickly wrote out a little study in fourths
and seconds that kind of cleared things up. It gave me a better picture of
what Woody was doing. The difference being that Woody was doing it very fast!
Hey Jeff, Ted Murdock says hi too. He's sitting in the hotel room with me
practicing the trumpet!
The pentatonic thing helps too.
David Hoffman
BlastMaster
dhoff...@aol.com (DHoff56012) wrote:
> Lots of good information there. I've been sometimes baffled by
Woody's stuff.
> It made me remember a night where i was sitting in a club in
Springfield, IL
> with Blastmaster (hi, Jeff!) and he quickly wrote out a little study
in fourths
> and seconds that kind of cleared things up. It gave me a better
picture of
> what Woody was doing. The difference being that Woody was doing it
very fast!
(Hi Dave...!)
Since Howard spent the time posting such a detailed response, I feel
bad about not having posted more detail myself, so here's my shot at
some alternate exercises from the aforementioned tape...
Fourths ascending by whole-tones, basic pattern:
C1-F1-G1-D1
E1-A1-B1-F#1
G#1-C#2-Eb2-Bb1
You can see that this goes:
Up a fourth, up a step, down a fourth, up a step
Up a fourth, up a step, down a fourth, up a step
Up a fourth, up a step, down a fourth, up a step
And so on. The antithesis of this is
C2-F2-Eb2-Bb1
Ab1-Db2-B1-F#1
E1-A1-G1-D1
C
Which is kind of a left-handed mirror image of the preceding lick:
Up a fourth, down a step, down a fourth, down a step
Up a fourth, down a step, down a fourth, down a step
Up a fourth, down a step, down a fourth, down a step
And so on. You can put these together to form a loop to work out
articulation practice. (Obviously, you'd also want to do these up a
half step to get the balance of the intervals missing in the previous
examples.)
Most of the other exercises on the tape are variations of this type of
concept (intervals of 3rds and 4ths moving in stepwise or chromatic
fashion). These are designed to get your ear and chops accustomed to
moving around the intervalic leaps, not as extended licks to be used in
solos (I suppose you could, though it would get old in a hurry).
I'll have to go back and give the tape another listen and see if
there's anything else of interest...
Howard Peirce
> Lots of good information there. I've been sometimes baffled by Woody's stuff.
> It made me remember a night where i was sitting in a club in Springfield, IL
> with Blastmaster (hi, Jeff!) and he quickly wrote out a little study in fourths
> and seconds that kind of cleared things up. It gave me a better picture of
> what Woody was doing. The difference being that Woody was doing it very fast!
>
> The pentatonic thing helps too.
Well, the pentatonic thing and the fourths thing are basically the same thing. A
pentatonic scale is just five perfect fourths collapsed within an octave:
E A D G C = C D E G A
Every time you study pentatonics, you study fourths, and vice versa. Since trumpet
is a linear instrument (as opposed to piano), it's always felt more natural to me
think in terms of pentatonics, but to recognize that a pentatonic scale is
essentially a linear arrangement of a quartal chord. In that way, what Woody does
on trumpet is related to what McCoy Tyner e.g. does on piano.
HP
Dennis Herrick
morning. Although I 'm sure it can be (and should be) done in all different
patterns, for #2 going up, did you suggest 1 up to 5 or 1 down to 5?
> First, the technique: Here are the scale patterns that Pat gave me to
> study. The standard scale is the major pentatonic: C D E G A. If you
number
> the scale degrees 1-5, the patterns (in 8th notes) are:
>
> 1. Up: 1234 2345 3451 4512 5123 etc. Down: 5432 4321 3215 2154 1543 etc.
> 2. Up: 1543 2154 3215 4321 5432 etc. Down 1234 5123 4512 3451 2345 etc.
> 3. Up: 1324 3541 5213 2435 4152 etc. Down: 1453 4231 2514 5342 3125 etc.
and it made more sense to me when I thought of things in scale steps so that
CDEGA became scale steps 12356, so that the exercise became
1. Up: 1235 2356 3561 5612 6123 etc. Down: 6532 5321 3216 2165 1653 etc.
2. Up: 1653 2165 3216 5321 6532 etc. Down 1235 6123 5612 3561 2356 etc.
3. Up: 1325 3651 6213 2536 5162 etc. Down: 1563 5231 2615 6352 3126 etc.
BlastMaster
"Dennis Herrick" <dher...@huntingdon.edu> wrote:
> [...]
> and it made more sense to me when I thought of things in scale steps
so that
> CDEGA became scale steps 12356, so that the exercise became
>
> 1. Up: 1235 2356 3561 5612 6123 etc. Down: 6532 5321 3216 2165 1653
etc.
> 2. Up: 1653 2165 3216 5321 6532 etc. Down 1235 6123 5612 3561 2356
etc.
> 3. Up: 1325 3651 6213 2536 5162 etc. Down: 1563 5231 2615 6352 3126
etc.
Yes, this is a common notation method for this type of exercise.
At the risk of beating a dead chicken, this type of exercise is also
eminently usable with other scale forms (e.g., melodic minor,
diminished, whole tone), though the harmonic theory previously stated
has to be rethought in this light...
Howard Peirce
> Howard -- thanks for your message here -- I've been playing with it this
> morning. Although I 'm sure it can be (and should be) done in all different
> patterns, for #2 going up, did you suggest 1 up to 5 or 1 down to 5?
Sorry, that wasn't clear. 1 down 5 down 4 down 3 up 2 down 1, etc.
What it is, is the same descending four note groups from the descending half of
#1, only it's a descending four-note group, then a leap up, then down four
notes, then leap, etc. Dang, I wish there was a better way to show this in
ASCII. Try this:
#2, expanded, in the key of C:
Down: C A G E, up: D, down: C A G, up E, down D C A, up G, down E D C, etc.
HP
>
>
> > First, the technique: Here are the scale patterns that Pat gave me to
> > study. The standard scale is the major pentatonic: C D E G A. If you
> number
> > the scale degrees 1-5, the patterns (in 8th notes) are:
> >
> > 1. Up: 1234 2345 3451 4512 5123 etc. Down: 5432 4321 3215 2154 1543 etc.
> > 2. Up: 1543 2154 3215 4321 5432 etc. Down 1234 5123 4512 3451 2345 etc.
> > 3. Up: 1324 3541 5213 2435 4152 etc. Down: 1453 4231 2514 5342 3125 etc.
>
Matt Stock
he used was one of the old style Bach fluglehorns. The tubing was coiled
more like a cornet, but the tapers and bell flare were more like a flugle.
Best Wishes,
Matt Stock
mcs...@gte.net
Jim Marquess wrote in message <37B82AA9...@marqstaff.com>...
>Hi to the group; I posted this in a reply, but I thought I'd present a
>question to the group since there are a lot of very knowledgable people
>out there. I was/am a big Woody Shaw fan. I had heard somewhere that
>while he often was pictured with a trumpet on album covers, he often
>played a kind of cornet that actually sounded similar to a flugel. Has
>anyone heard about this and knows if it was true and what kind of horn
>it was? I guess I also have a question for the experienced jazz players
>out there: Has anyone been able to emulate Woody's quick intervalistic
>style--it blows me away and I cannot, for the life of me, even come
>close, and that is true even when I have transposed solos in front of
>me. They don't even sound right, but I'm sure that's simply because I
>just can't fly around those intervals like he could. Thanks in advance
>for any info. Jim
>
BlastMaster
"Matt Stock" <mcs...@gte.net> wrote:
> Many years ago I saw Woody Shaw play on a PBS show. At that time the
horn
> he used was one of the old style Bach fluglehorns. The tubing was
coiled
> more like a cornet, but the tapers and bell flare were more like a
flugle.
I think you're referring to "Live at the Jazz Workshop", which appeared
to me to be recorded around the time he did "Stepping Stones" (similar
band, including Carter Jefferson and Onaje Allen-Gumbs, if memory
serves)....
If I recall correctly, the flugel had a sort of shepherd's crook on the
bell.
Man does he sound good on that video... :)
mat...@pinn.net
They appeared to be reworked cornets, IMHO. The bell/leadpipe orientation
was like a trumpet or cornet, with the leadpipe on the right, bell on the
left. The two my high school had in back in 19xx were awful. Played
totally out of tune.
Rob D
Howard Peirce
> An old Bach Flugelhorn is possibly what you saw. Truly terrible things.
> They appeared to be reworked cornets, IMHO. The bell/leadpipe orientation
> was like a trumpet or cornet, with the leadpipe on the right, bell on the
> left. The two my high school had in back in 19xx were awful. Played
> totally out of tune.
If it's the same PBS show I saw ~20 years ago, I'm pretty sure it was a Bach
cornet, not a Bach flugel. I know what the Bach flugels looked like. Memory
plays tricks on me, to be sure, but I'd give better than even odds it was a
cornet.
HP
Bryan Fields
those old cornet-style Bach flugels and it couldn't even line up octaves
within a quarter-tone! But when I went to grad school at UNT I met Rob Smith
(ex-Woody Herman trumpeter), who also had one of those old flugels--and it
played better than any flugel I'd ever tried--no tuning bugs, no stuffiness,
great sound. Weird, huh? I Guess Woody Shaw had one of the good ones!
mat...@pinn.net wrote:
> An old Bach Flugelhorn is possibly what you saw. Truly terrible things.
> They appeared to be reworked cornets, IMHO. The bell/leadpipe orientation
> was like a trumpet or cornet, with the leadpipe on the right, bell on the
> left. The two my high school had in back in 19xx were awful. Played
> totally out of tune.
>
> Rob D
>
> BlastMaster wrote:
>
> > In article <7Dou3.1405$qs4....@dfiatx1-snr1.gtei.net>,
> > "Matt Stock" <mcs...@gte.net> wrote:
> > > Many years ago I saw Woody Shaw play on a PBS show. At that time the
> > horn
> > > he used was one of the old style Bach fluglehorns. The tubing was
> > coiled
> > > more like a cornet, but the tapers and bell flare were more like a
> > flugle.
> >
> > I think you're referring to "Live at the Jazz Workshop", which appeared
> > to me to be recorded around the time he did "Stepping Stones" (similar
> > band, including Carter Jefferson and Onaje Allen-Gumbs, if memory
> > serves)....
> >
> > If I recall correctly, the flugel had a sort of shepherd's crook on the
> > bell.
> >
> > Man does he sound good on that video... :)
> >
> > -- jeff
> >
> > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> > Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
--
DHoff56012
>> They appeared to be reworked cornets, IMHO. The bell/leadpipe orientation
>> was like a trumpet or cornet, with the leadpipe on the right, bell on the
>> left. The two my high school had in back in 19xx were awful. Played
>> totally out of tune.
>
>cornet, not a Bach flugel. I know what the Bach flugels looked like. Memory
>plays tricks on me, to be sure, but I'd give better than even odds it was a
>cornet.
>
>
On the video I saw, it was indeed an old Bach flugelhorn. I knew someone that
actually bought one of those things, and they were truly strange instruments.
Sounded more like a bugle than anything else. So how come Woody sounded SO
DAMNED GOOD on it?
Just another example of personal preference, I guess. Plus I think at that
point he would have sounded good on anything.
David
RITMOCONGA
I just pulled out my old vinyl (I have 3 Woody albums) and yes, on the album
"Woody III" on Columbia he is pictured holding a Bach cornet. Hope this helps.
Don
JWorleyjr
*Maisa(?) trumpet(Italian copy of a CONN CONNSTELLATION)
*BACH 37 STRAD. trumpet
*BACH cornet
*BACH flugel.
*YAMAHA 6335 trumpet
*YAMAHA flugel.
Woody sounded great on anything. He was one of those guys. I took a couple of
lessons from him in SF in the mid-70's and when he played my horn (Schilke M2
at the time) boy, the sound he got was beautiful. He played it from top to
bottom. (he played his exercises up to double C and to the pedal register.) I
was truly blown away. What a waste of a true innovator and human being. You
hear alot of people cop his licks and phrasing, but I think it will be many
years before there will be anyone as original and fresh to inherit his crown.
I hope he's in a better place 'cause he was the greatest.
John L. Worley Jr.