Bebop/Archive/U.S.W.

[by way of Brett g Porter <BgPorter@acm.org>]

Hi Folks:

On Bebop harmony.

The innovation of BeBop concerns the innovation not only of
the flatted fifth degree of a chord, which occurs naturally in
the major and minor scales as a vii minor 7b5 chord (B-7b5 
in the key of C), but the appearance of the V7b5 chord which occurs in 
the melodic and harmonic minor scales....

but more important, the recognition that a diminished chord C, Eb, Gb
Bbb(or A#) functions harmonically also as 
what's called a V7b9 chord, which in the key of C
would be a G7 chord (GBDF) with an added Ab.

This gives the chord not one but TWO tritones, capable of resolving not 
in two directions (to the major or relative minor C or A minor)
but FOUR directions.

This harmonic fork in the road enables  a variety of resolutions of 
ii -> V -> I progressions either written into the lead sheet of a song 
I've Got Rhythm transformed into:
Anthropology
Blue's theme
Bud's Bubble
Celerity
Celia
Chasing the Bird
Constellation
Cottontail
Crazeology
C.T.A.
Dizzy Atmosphere
The Eternal Triangle
52nd Street Theme
Fungi Mama
Good Bait
Kim
Lester Leaps In
Meet the Flinstones
Moose the Mooch
Move
New wheels
Oleo
An Oscar for Treadwell
Ow!
Passport
Redcross
Rhythm-A-Ning
Salt Peanuts
Second Balcony Jump
The Serpent's Tooth
Shaw Nuff
Steeplechase
Straight Ahead
The Theme
Thriving From A Riff
Turnpike
Wail.......you get the point.

But also allows for jazz improvisors to solo harmonically as well as 
melodically, reharmonizing the song in front of them simply by adding an 
extra tritone and moving away from the expected resolution.

And in fact, this is how songs like I've Got Rhythm and Cherokee became 
the basis for other tunes, by the systematic tape-ing and transcribing 
of solos by artists, noting the deformations of harmony, melody and 
rhythm, and then rewriting the basic standard into a new, more complex 
and sophisiticated song form.

Anyone going to mla are invited to my talk on monday morning 12/30 
entitled:

charlie parker between bergson and deleuze: the calculus of music 
notation and the contingencies of emergent form in bebop compositional 
practices.

With special attention to the evolution of How High the Moon into
Ornithology.

mer