Amazing Grace Reharmonisation - Cory Henry

While not particularly smooth jazz based, this version of amazing grace by Grammy award winning keyboard player Cory Henry features several interesting reharmonised lines from the original chord sequence.  Some listeners have likened some of the voicing and chord-changes to those used by David Benoit, a prominent smooth-jazz pianist.

Many of these chord changes can be seen featured on the Amazing Grace reharmonisation I posted elsewhere in this blog.

What is smooth jazz? George Duke - Because You Loved Me

Okay, so some may say this isn't strictly smooth jazz, and some other may lynch me for even relating it to smooth jazz, but here George Duke (one of my favourite keyboard players of all time, may he rest in peace...) can be see playing a reharmonised version of Celine Dion's "because you loved me", featuring legendary smooth jazz saxophonist Kirk Whallum.  I tried transcribing some of the chords.  The original track had a large plethora of extended and non-diatonic chords in it, so it was harder to tell which chords were reharmonised and which were just different versions of the chords already in the track.

I found that Mr. Duke uses a lot of major sixths throughout the song.  I've noticed that elsewhere too. Maybe a rule of some sort could be "If you have a major triad, add in a major sixth for colour".  Something along those lines.  Simple rules like that will likely make up most of the ruleset.  The rules don't have to be complicated - they simply have to work.

Anyways, here's the recording.  I recommend listening to it all the way through.  I'm not a Celine Dion fan (who am I kidding...) but I'm a big George Duke fan, and this is phenomenal.

Note the spine-tingling use of tension and release starting at 5:05.  When I talk about tension and release and it's effectiveness in my dissertation, this is what I mean.  Unbelievable.

There is so much that can be done with reharmonisation...

...It's slightly intimidating.  BY looking at pages like THIS on the Berklee website (a place I've found myself visiting frequently since beginning my project) with it's detailed analysis of why certain chords were reharmonised has me scratching my head.

This page talks of "constant structure", specifically, reharmonising in such a way that a steady stream of minor chords replace the existing chord sequence.  It's an interesting topic, and one that I'd recommend having a read of.  

While this isn't strictly related to smooth jazz, it's a part of my ongoing study into reharmonisation techniques as a whole - as I've put in my dissertation, I'm studying general reharmonisation techniques and am simply applying the harmony lessons I'm gaining from studying smooth jazz tunes and artist to what I learn.  It seems to be working.  One thing on this page that sticks out is this:

"Sometimes the chords that you choose to reharmonize will not work with the melody. In such situations, you can either adjust the melody slightly to fit the new chord or use the new progression for the solo sections only."

When I'm creating reharmonisations just now I'm simply singing the melody as I create the chords.  It's leading me to believe that I'm subconsciously changing the melody as I sing it to fit my new chords, as when it comes to placing the bare melody down on the piano over my new chord sequence, I'm finding a lot of dissonance.  Do I change the melody then?  Or do I find another chord?

It's also made me think: Am I taking into account the fact that the new chord changes may be used to solo over? If so, it certainly gives me more freedom, but will be more difficult to show.  The purpose I have for this project just now is to create a ruleset that works with the melody.  Not because I want it to work with the melody, but because the project will be easier to showcase if I reharmonize chords over melodies that people know.  If I showcase the reharmonised chords over a solo, the song could be anything.  It won't show the effectiveness of my ruleset.

I've a lot to think about, and a lot to do.  I'm enjoying it though, and am certainly learning more than I thought I would.  At least I've stopped listening to jingle bells...

What is smooth jazz? Example: George Benson - The Ghetto

The Ghetto is a piece of music written and performed by George Benson.  The song one of the most popular from Benson's album "Absolute Benson", featuring keyboard player Joe Sample, who is also well associated with the Smooth Jazz style.

The song is around 115 bpm, featuring a steady latin based groove.  The song is in 4/4 and is based on two chords - Abm7 and Dbmaj9.  There are no stand out sections of the song where the harmony goes incredibly dissonant, and the piece remains in 4/4 throughout the whole piece.

The improvised solos are based on the blues scale - there are few if any diminished or altered runs in any of the solos, nothing that goes too far outside of the chords apart from the sharpened fourth (or flattened fifth...), the "blues" note that gives the solo most of its crunch.   This song is a fine example of a smooth jazz piece.

This song may not be an example of a reharmonized piece but the stylistic elements - the simple funk based harmony, straight groove and easy-to-listen-to feel encapsulates the feel I should be aiming to achieve when reharmonizing and playing the tunes I'm looking to reharmonize.

J

What is smooth jazz?

Before embarking on the adventure that is soon to be my project, I first need to examine what smooth jazz actually is.

Smooth jazz is an offset of jazz fusion.  It is a style that is influenced by jazz, r&b, funk, rock and pop musical styles.  The most often played smooth jazz pieces (most played meaning played on radio or downloaded/bought) are often slower than their similarly styled counterparts.

All music.com says of Smooth jazz:

Smooth Jazz is an outgrowth of fusion, one that emphasizes its polished side. Generally, smooth jazz relies on rhythms and grooves instead of improvisation. There are layers of synthesizers, lite-funk rhythms, lite-funk bass, elastic guitars, and either trumpets, alto, or soprano saxophones. The music isn't cerebral, like hard bop, nor is it gritty and funky like soul-jazz or groove -- it is unobtrusive, slick, and highly polished, where the overall sound matters more than the individual parts

The word "smooth" in the term smooth jazz is perhaps the best word to describe it.  In typical smooth jazz pieces of music it is unlikely that one is going to hear chords and phrases that throw a listener off and make them go "what was that?" like they may do whilst listening to another fusion based style.  It's intended to be easy, or "smooth" listening.

What about its harmony? What does this mean for my project?

Smooth jazz harmony is less obtrusive than other forms of jazz harmony.  Reharmonizing pieces into the smooth jazz style will require me to pay much closer attention to the melody of the piece being examined.
Earlier in the blog I talked about harmony that can cause a tune to be unrecognisable until a certain point.  With these new smooth jazz reharmonisations I'll focus on making the tune recognisable, keeping key melodic and harmonic elements as they are whilst spicing up the harmony around it.

Within the next few posts, I'll begin posting links to some examples of smooth jazz pieces from artists most commonly associated with the genre.  In addition to this, I'll post existing smooth jazz covers of well known tunes, analysing certain snippets of the reharmonized chord sequences, taking a close look at the theory behind each chord that has been reharmonized.

J

Reharmonising - how I do it.

Every reharmonisation I undertake begins at a piano with a piece of paper and a pen.  I write out the original sequence, play the melody along with it, then sit with my iPad (which has all of the rules on it) and work through the piece using a process of trial and error.  I try to create several versions of each verse/chorus so that 

1) The utility and diversity of the ruleset can be shown off and 

2) To make it so that each verse and chorus isn't simply the same as the previous one.  This allows more fluid movement in the piece.  

Often once I've written a handful of versions (3-4 verses, which can take any time up to four hours) I record them at home.  When recording, I usually keep the simpler, more "vanilla" reharmonisations at the start, and put the more complex and dissonant ones later on in order to build harmonic tension.  As the harmony moves, it feels like the piece is moving too.

In the coming weeks I will be posting up photos of these initial worksheets as evidence.  I'll followup by posting a brief sound recording of each one, showing how each one sounds as opposed to what it looks like.

J

Yet another smooth jazz version of jingle bells...

...I'm getting sick of listening to these.

Yet another version of jingle bells.  Comparing it to the other one I linked, this one seems simpler.  The chord stay truer to the original chord sequence.

I'm noticing this more and more though: major seventh chords starting a chorus, with the seventh at the top.  The major seventh ring out over what should be more chords.

Lots of ii-V-I sequences.  ii-Vs thrown in everywhere, in key and out of key (eg.  Bm-E7, Am-D7-G).  Tritone substitution so subtle you can hardly tell it's there.

Nothing groundbreaking here, but enough to make me realise that ii-Vs and major seventh chords are going to be pretty important in my reharmonisations.

J

Found an interesting page...

Ok, so I know it's not exactly an academic source, but I decided to google "Smooth jazz reharmonizations" to see what the depths of the Internet had to say about my chosen subject.  On a music george offshoot of website stackexchange.com, I found this wonderful reply to someone to was looking to "jazz up" a typical 1-6-4-5 pop progression.

I'm not sure who the post was made by, but judging by his very in depth reply he made, I'm going to assume that he knows what he's talking about.  I've already began reading and dissecting his post, and will continue to do so - he talks specifically about general "rules" that can be mad at one point, which is exactly what I'm after.

Here's the reply:

"Before you replace chords with 3 or 4 notes with those with 5 or 6 notes (or even more), re-harmonize a melody by applying these 2 complementary strategies recursively (i.e. each is applicable to the result of applying them, so you can do it in many passes) to chord changes:

• 1) replace one chord with two (duration of 2 chords in new version = duration of 1 original chord, OR duration of 3 chords in new version = durations of 2 chords in original)
• 2) replace two chords with one (sticking to one of them and make it last longer)

While you do so, make sure every step of the way, your chord substitution works with the melody: there is no one-size-fit-all replacement for something like 1-5-6-4 because it all depends on the melody. Why would you want to do 2) if you want your 'pop' chord changes to sound more 'jazzy'? That is because simplifying changes allows you to complexify them later IN ANOTHER WAY (e.g. add passing chords, etc.) to your taste.

Tactics for 1) are:

• 1a) Add a chord that shares 2 notes with the the current chord, somewhere in time between the current one and the next one. (where in time? you choose!) e.g. Add a minor triad with the same root if the current chord is a major triad (or add a major for a minor). e.g. Add a chord whose root is a third above or below (remembering to share 2 notes and checking if it works with the melody). For something like a G7 (in key of C), this can mean not only Bm7(b5) or Bdim7, but also BbMaj7 or Bb7 (and more... use the melody as constraint and inspiration).
• 1b) Add a chord BEFORE the current one (usually between this chord and the previos chord, but you can do this even to the first chord: it just means you need to start the song sooner) whose root is a 4th below (or 5th above) the current one. Adding a so-called dominant 7th type chord (i.e. a chord with major 3rd and minor 7th above the root) before seems to work well in most cases, but keep other choices in mind too. If the current chord is already a dominant 7th type chord, adding a minor triad (or m6, m7, etc.) before or a m7(b5) there seems to work well also (other choices are still there for you).

Directions for 2) are:

• 2a) Try to get rid of "passing chords". Passing chords in harmony are like passing notes in melody: they are usually in rhythmically weaker positions 'linking up' pitches more important structurally 'in the flow' (usually in rhythmically stronger positions), and they can be though of as 'diatonic' if they are within the scale in use now (or nearby), or as 'chromatic' if they are not; unlike classifying passing notes in melody, which is a pretty 'either-or' matter, passing chords can be thought of as having shades or degrees of chromaticism (i.e. the more notes 'outside the scale' a chord has, the more 'chromatic' it is said to be). Remember: you can get rid of not only chromatic passing chords, but also diatonic ones, and the chords will still (somewhat) work with the given melody.
• 2b) After removing 'obvious' passing chords, less 'obvious' ones will seem to surface. Now, try to figure out what tactics the original maker of the chord sequence has used to complexify it. Was it 1a) here? or 1b)? or 1a-then-1b or 1b-then-1a? Usually for pop, as you undo this level of complexity, each section (or sections or even the entire song) can be boiled down to a very simple cadential formula (e.g. called 'authentic' or 'imperfect' or 'deceptive' or 'plagal' etc. by older theorists, 'some sort of II-V-I' by jazz theorists). As you strip away more and more chords from the original, it will sound less and less like it, WHICH IS WHAT YOU WANT.

Using these strategies involves trial-and-error (so the more you do it, the more proficient you would be at getting to a solution you like), and doing it with your instrument, score AND PENCIL helps.

After you have re-harmonized a 'pop' melody using the mentioned strategies, you are ready to 'jazz it up'. By having done the re-harmonization that way, you would have already noticed what scales are implied by the chord changes and the melody from moment to moment in the song. Use those scales to construct chords with more notes to replace the simpler version by starting with the given root and stacking 3rd's up. 

For example, if the scale is C minor and the current chord's root is F, the chord (spelled from bottom up) can be F A (or Ab) C Eb G B(or Bb) D. Then look up the symbol for your the chord you want (from a guitar chord chart book or software or webpage etc.) and/or start considering the voicing of the chord (esp. if you are doing it on keyboard or something like it - like xylophone).

But what if you have chosen chromatic (passing) chords in your solution? In that case, figure out what scale is implied by your current (and chromatic) chord, and use that instead to construct your 'more-jazzy' chord just for the moment.

The reason why some chord changes sound more 'jazzy' is because they manage to make the listeners think of a key (which implies a scale) in mind by structuring phrases or sections that boil down to a simple cadential formula, but 'on the surface' ('above' that 'boiled-down' level) from measure to measure (or even from beat to beat) they use as many chromatic (i.e. outside of the scale) pitches as possible. It is a tricky balancing act because if you CONSTANTLY use only pitches outside the key, eventually the listeners' mind would flip to deem those pitches as defining a new key. So, to created that jazzy impression, don't just go for those 'outside the key' pitches; instead, keep enough 'inside the key' pitches to trick the listeners into thinking of a key, while staying one step ahead by surprising them with pitches 'outside' of their expectations IN-BETWEEN.

For a 'pop' audience, some tactics to do so are:

• i) To construct your dominant chords, instead of using only major and minor scales, use diminished scale e.g. G Ab A# B C# D E F to construct G13(b5#5b9#9) for the key of C, or diminished-wholetone scale (e.g. the one starting on G has the same pitches as Ab melodic minor) to construct G13(b9#9#11) for the key of C. For chord constructions of non-dominant chords (e.g. tonic, etc.), using melodic minor or harmonic minor scales allow for more opportunities for 'more jazzy sounding' m7(b5) [i.e. an 'inversion' of 'minor triad add major 6th' chord] or mM7 [minor 3rd and major 7th above root] chords (and similar chords with more notes). 'Pop' songs seem to use quite a bit of dim7 chords (and similar chords like 7(b9)) too, so it is up to you to decide if using them makes your song more 'jazzy'.
• ii) Apply 'tritone substitution' to your dominant chords (which can be thought of a frequently-used and formulaic application of strategy 1)-then-2) or 2)-then-1) ... but that is really stretching it ... ). e.g. replace G7 in the key of C with Db7. Not enough dominant chords there to do this? Backtrack from you current attempt to 'jazz up chords by added more notes to them' and go back to applying strategies 1)&2) more in order to put more dominant chords there in the first place! (for this purpose, let's just say any chord with a major 3rd and minor 7th AND going into a next chord whose root is a 4th above or a 5th below is a dominant chord). This is quite doable for many 'pop' songs. If the melody allows it, you may even be able to simplify-then-complexify your chord changes to a point for 'Coltrane substitution' to be applicable (for 'pop' melodies, this is less often doable than 'tritone substitution', but far from impossible). Needless to say: Coltrane sounds REALLY jazzy!!!"

I found it to be very helpful, and having tried many of these techniques out, I've found that many of them work in most circumstances.  As a result, many of the early rules have stemmed from this answer.

J

"It's too simple" is no excuse.

One problem I've been facing whilst attempting my reharmonies is the fact that many songs have too little chords in them for me to easily implement a ruleset.

There are ways around this as I've already discussed, yes, but it's not easy.

I'd like to introduce the 1-6-4-5 progression.  The 1-6-4-5 progression is one of the most commonly used chord progressions in pop music.  It is everywhere.  I can't call my ruleset universal if I can't reharmonize that.

Here is a song that uses the 1-6-4-5 progression extensively.  Not one of my favourite tunes, but it's an example.

Now here's a version by one of my favourite bands (and one of the influences for this project).  It isn't exactly smooth jazz, but I'm going to be dissecting their version of it to see how they got so much COLOUR from a repetitive chord sequence.  Expect a transcription up sometime in the near future.

These guys all studied jazz/music at University and graduated years ago.  I'm not expecting my reharmonizations to be anywhere near the standard theirs are at, but I'm certainly going to take as much influence from them as I can when building my ruleset.

J

Rules so far

Here is a brief list of possible draught rules and thoughts I've come up with.  I'm adding more every day, but need to start discussing them with Kenny before being sure of them.

Major triad chord can be replaced with Maj6add9
If there exists more than one 4-5 introduce a ii-V in the key of the 5 chord every second time.
I-IV - add minor ii-v in relative minor key of IV.  Eg. F-Bb play F- Adim7 - D7b9 - Bb
If V-I add ii before V OR VII9 before V (the latter is the tritone sub of the ii)
Root chords that do not start or resolve a line can be replaced with a vi
Said vi can then include a ii-V sequence
The ii chord can be substituted for a ii#9b5 chord (if going to a ii-V especially)
If a I chord begins a chorus, add a V7 before it.
If going to a V7, on each beat of the preceding bar back cycle into it (eg. if G7 play | B7 Bb7 A7 Ab7| on the bar before it.

I'll add another post with more rules soon.  I'm going to show Kenny the rules in chunks and see what he thinks of them.  I'll edit each post with rules as time goes on with his feedback.

J

Dissecting Smooth Jazz - Jingle Bells

As stated in my project brief, a large part of my ruleset creating involves listening to existing smooth jazz reharmonizations and dissecting them in order to access the gooey harmonies within.

Below is a version of Jingle Bells by Beegie Adair.

There are many, many, many added chords in this.  I've decided to focus on a few key chord changes and substitutions that I'll be using in my rulesets.

The verse of Jingle bells contains the following chord sequence in the key of F major:

F | Bb | Gm  | C7 | F | x 2

In the above video, the following sequence is played:

F Adim7/Eb Am D7 | Gm Dm G7 | C7 | F

Instead of a Bb an Adim7 is played with an Eb base.  This isn't a substitution I'd usually think of adding in, but it works with the melody.  The Abdim 7 chord features the 9th, 11th and 13th of the Bb chord, as well as the major third.  The Eb bass note descends to E, then D, etc.  Since I'm focusing on solo piano here, I'll stick to focusing on what the piano does.

If we think of scales rather than chords, the chord technically still resides within the Bb Ionian mode (or the Bb major scale).  Any root note within that scale could have been picked and it would have worked in some way.  The Eb works well with the melody of the tune.  

This means it may be possible to substitute any 4th chord (or any major chord for that matter, but for now we'll stick to the 4th) with with the "other" notes within the scale the chord in question is derived from.  Picking a root note depends simply on what the melody is doing.  This may prove trouble some when trying to create a one-size-fits-all rule, but it is something I can look at further down the line.

The chorus chords consist of

 F | (x 4) | Bb | F | G7 | C7 | F

In the track above, we can hear:

F x 3 | Adim7 D7b9 | Bb |

This is curious. Between the 1 and the 4 the player has added a minor ii-V in the key of the relative minor to the resolving chord (Gm).  Having tested this in different keys on other songs, a rule can be made out of this when going from a I chord to a IV chord.

The G7 in the chorus has also been replaced by a Gm7#9b5.  There are passing chords between the F and the G7, but the Gm7#ªb5 sticks out the most.  There is then little movement to go to the C9 chord preceding it (replacing the C7 chord).  

This is a basic description, but I'm starting to see ii-Vs - both major and minor) used everywhere.  There is a pattern emerging, and one that I seek to use.  ii-Vs can be placed almost anywhere, and then reharmonized themselves.  They can be altered, substituted or taken even further with the use of back cycling, which I'll talk about in a later post.

There are so many options for reharmonizing pieces - the difficulty is going to be in whittling the options down into rules.  Needless to say, my head is starting to hurt.

J

Identifying Smooth Jazz Arists

"Jazz" is broad term.  To many, as is "smooth jazz".  Where one person classifies something as smooth jazz, another may disagree with him.

In order to come up with a system that allows me to identify key smooth jazz artists reliably, I've searched several prominent music websites and searched for artists with the genre filtered to smooth jazz.  Below are several of the websites I've looked at:

http://www.allmusic.com/subgenre/smooth-jazz-ma0000002860 - "AllMusic provides comprehensive music info including reviews and biographies. Get recommendations for new music to listen to, stream or own"

https://play.spotify.com/artist/6cDvKdeDz7LLeG2oPdUdxU?play=true&utm_source=open.spotify.com&utm_medium=open - Offers a desktop software to listen music by streaming with the possibility to create and share playlists.

http://www.last.fm/tag/smooth%20jazz - Discover more music. Last.fm is a music discovery service that gives you personalised recommendations based on the music you listen to. 

http://www.napster.co.uk/search?query=Smooth%20jazz - 

http://www.smoothjazz.com - The best 24/7, online, Smooth Jazz Internet Radio station

http://www.jazzradio.com/smoothjazz - Presenting jazz radio channels for your enjoyment. Listen for free and enjoy countless hours of the best jazz music around.

By browsing these various sites I've been able to identify several key smooth jazz artists for me to study - A handful of artists who's names have come up regularly on each site are:

George Benson

Kenny G

Joe Sample

David Benoit

Chris Botti

Fourplay

These are the artists that have come up most regularly in my search for smooth jazz artists.  I'll be looking at each of these artists and will look in depth at the key musical traits each artists share in their voicing and use of harmony.  This will enable me to get a clearer idea of how a smooth jazz reharmonisation should sound and will let me better evaluate my own work at the end of the semester.

J

Reharmonisation - A brief snippet of what I've done so far.

Below is a brief snippet of a simple reharmonized chord sequence that I recorded using Logic Pro.

The first is the final line from the hymn "Amazing Grace".

The first play through contains the chord sequence "Bm G A7 D".

The reharmonized playthrough contains the chords "Bbdim Bm7 E7 C9 D".

These chords work very well with the melody.  The melody note during the second chord is an F# - the major 7th of the G chord and the 9th of the E chord in the reharmonized sequence.  The melody note during the A7 chord is E, the fifth.  In the reharmonized sequence however, the melody note is the third of th chord (C9).  Generally speaking, the third is a stronger note than the fifth, as its one of the two guide tones (3rd and 7th) of the chord.

So how do the reharmonized chords here relate to the original chords?

The Bb diminished is added in because adding the diminished chord a semi tone below before a minor chord is a well known and often played way of spicing up a chord sequence. This could give us a rule straight away, but I'll talk about that in another post. 

G into E7 is a strange shift, though. How does that relate? Well the fifth of G is D, which is the 7th in the E chord.  The fifth of E is also the third in G, so that remains.  We have two notes that remain the same.  The biggest difference however is the G# in the E chord - this has raised the root of the G chord by a semitone, giving us our tension.  

What about the C9? Why was that put in place of the A7? Well he 5th and 7th of the C chord (G and Bb) are exactly one semi tone above the resolving notes of the following ad chord (F# and A). As they drop down to the D, the tension they create is instantly released.  Why not just make the chord C7 then? Why does the 9th work so well?  The 9th of the chord is D - the root note of the chord that follows. By adding the d, there's a melodic and harmonic constant throughout the two chords, leading to a smoother resolution. 

When I originally chose the C9, it wasn't because of anything id heard played elsewhere orhad read - I was toying around with different chords and accidentally put in a C9.  It worked, but until i analysed it, I didn't know why.

The C9 works so well because of the chord that follows it.  This has given me another option to think about when reharmonizng - we can choose a chord to reharmonize based on the chord it's substituting, the melody note, the chord before it or the chord after it. Already I'm beginning to think about new ways of selecting chords.

While this was only a brief example, it's already given me possibilities for future rules.  Very soon I'll be posting a couple of mock rules for the rule set, which will be in some way related to this.

J