Double Bass All Blues

[Ampig]

Sorry if this has been beaten to death. On the Kind of Blue album, what is Paul Chambers playing in bars 5 & 6? I hear him taking the pattern G-D-E-D-F-D-E-D from bars 1 - 4 and moving it to the IV chord (C7). But I find a lot of instruction saying to hold the I chord pattern over the IV chord as it is actually a Gm7 not a C7. When I try to play that with the record it doesnt sound correct. Forgive my ignorance in advance, I"m a jazz novice.

 

[lurk]

The pattern should continue unchanged in those bars. For fun I did a Spotify search, though, and found a couple of recordings by well known names where the bass line, played by an organist in one case and a pianist in the other (both are bass less recordings) goes up a fourth, so I guess it's up to what you like. To me that unchanged bass part under the IV chord is one the things that makes the tune so beautiful. As a self- described jazz novice (me too, for life!) this is the kind of thing you need to start hearing. Relying on and trusting your ear as opposed to getting stuff off lead sheets and the like will help you enormously. I bet you heard that line unchanged and didn't really trust your ear and figured it must be shifting to conform to what your preconception was. It's also an interesting example of how context and expectations can influence what you hear. For example, when I tune up I sometimes mis-hear the string I'm tuning because I hear it resonating with another string, rather than really hearing how it relates to the reference I'm trying to tune to.

 

[Ampig]

The pattern should continue unchanged in those bars. For fun I did a Spotify search, though, and found a couple of recordings by well known names where the bass line, played by an organist in one case and a pianist in the other (both are bass less recordings) goes up a fourth, so I guess it's up to what you like. To me that unchanged bass part under the IV chord is one the things that makes the tune so beautiful. As a self- described jazz novice (me too, for life!) this is the kind of thing you need to start hearing. Relying on and trusting your ear as opposed to getting stuff off lead sheets and the like will help you enormously. I bet you heard that line unchanged and didn't really trust your ear and figured it must be shifting to conform to what your preconception was. It's also an interesting example of how context and expectations can influence what you hear. For example, when I tune up I sometimes mis-hear the string I'm tuning because I hear it resonating with another string, rather than really hearing how it relates to the reference I'm trying to tune to.

Thanks for the response. I guess I was listening to much to the piano, which is working around the C.

 

[Bruce Calin]

There are several things that PC plays that are different from what people assume if you really listen for them closely. Some are as planned and some not IMO. There's a book about the making of "Kind of Blue" that describes how Miles Davis got frustrated with PC at various points in the sessions. Nobody's perfect.

 

[Major Seven]

I thought I noticed this sort of thing with other standards. As if errors from one fake book to another were transcription errors.
Maybe they're not?

 

[Don Kasper]

There are several things that PC plays that are different from what people assume if you really listen for them closely.

Hi Bruce,
Can you be a little more specific and provide an example?
(I have not read the KOB book.)
Not looking for a BassBrawl, just interested in PC and people's perception of his recorded history and legacy.
Thanks,
Don

 

[Bruce Calin]

Hi Bruce,s
Can you be a little more specific and provide an example?
(I have not read the KOB book.)
Not looking for a BassBrawl, just interested in PC and people's perception of his recorded history and legacy.
Thanks,
Don

Hi, Don,
One example I recall, although I haven't listened to it for a while, is PC playing the head on "So What". In the Ebm section, I believe he plays a D natural instead of Db as notated in every transcription I've seen. People assume the line is the same intervals as the Dm part, but it isn't exactly. Whether or not it's intentional we'll never know, but it seems IMO to be a small gaff. Others may differ, or hear it differently.I don't have access to the book, either, but I recall references to PC making various errors to the extent that Miles told him to "Wake up, Paul !" I don't believe this tarnishes his recorded legacy or changes the fact that he was one of our greatest players. I still listen to and study his work, but that doesn't mean everything was perfect, or as he would have intended. It's jazz, and one of the things that makes it interesting.

 

[Don Kasper]

PC playing the head on "So What". In the Ebm section, I believe he plays a D natural instead of Db as notated in every transcription I've seen. People assume the line is the same intervals as the Dm part, but it isn't exactly. Whether or not it's intentional we'll never know,

Yes...A TB member brought this up and confirmed it a while back, and I agree he plays a Dnatural instead of the (predicted) Db...I think it is an inadvertent "error" on PC's part...(IMFO, of course.) The piano accompaniment (in the Ebmin section, a literal 1/2 step-up transposition of the Dmin accompaniment), would suggest (HIGHLY) that the Dmin melody in the bass is to be played (transposed) up a half-step in Eb.
We'll never know, but we can speculate. (..MO...of course.)
I am always shocked to remember that Ron Carter was only 2 years younger than PC, and I "speculate" that PC's ongoing substance abuse, esp. in the last 10 years of his life, (RIP 1969), allowed Ron C to quickly ascend to the top of the new(er) scene. It is also worth noting that Ron C was maybe one of the first University/Classically trained (jazz) bassists, (B.M. Eastman & M.M. Manhattan, Schools of Music, though not in "jazz"), it exposed him to 20th century Classical Harmony/Melody, and written Forms, that allowed him to "read/hear", interpret and function in the newer and more complex "jazz" situations - (see HH's "Maiden Voyage" in 1965, for ex.)
This is pure speculation, on my part, of course.
Thanks for your reply and interest.

 

[james condino]

For a classic, simple tune, when done well there is a ton of subtlety in All Blues. Depending upon who I'm playing it with and what instrument I'm playing, it takes on a whole different vibe. On the bass it is simple and in the pocket (usually), but on a melody instrument, like when I'm playing double stops on a guitar the first hit B over D during the G chord knocks it out of the park when that half step subtle shifts to B flat over D over the C chord.

It is one of those tunes that we have been arguing on the bandstand continuously about a brief single take recording that happened for a few minutes more than a half century ago.

 

[Greg Clinkingbeard]

I think PC was correct but this is one of those instances that will benefit from discussion with other musicians playing the tune. I once had a guitar player insistently playing the C7 and telling me to switch. Not a hill to die on.

 

[Bruce Calin]

I think PC was correct but this is one of those instances that will benefit from discussion with other musicians playing the tune. I once had a guitar player insistently playing the C7 and telling me to switch. Not a hill to die on.

This is the kind of discussion that makes playing and listening to jazz music interesting. As a young player in the years after "Kind of Blue" was released or "dropped" as the kids say now, I heard players saying that modal jazz was the cool alternative to bop in its various forms. This album was described as and perceived as modal by players I knew. With this in mind, it seems to me that the original G7-Gm7 is the one intended. Going to C7 just makes it another slight variation of blues. I believe Cannonball played it as blues, which is fine, but to my ear the other players were playing more modally. Whatever the idea was, it was a vehicle for some great improvisation, which IMO is the whole point. PC may have had to play a part with no variation, but it served the music. It can take any form people want but there are a lot of blues tunes and this is something different to play off of, which I like. The modal craze also ran its course and took its place in the vocabulary, but that's jazz.