Re- GRGR(5) -- on Parker an

[Rick Vosper]

You're both right. It's a floor wax AND a dessert topping! 

Caution: This may get a little arcane. But after the "minor fourths" thread
a few months back, I have confidence in The List's patience.

At 01:32 PM 11/20/96 -0800, David Casseres  wrote:
>>...  Parker took the
>>chords to Cherokee and "extended them upward from the root (the 1) past the
>>usual extend of chords (the seventh tone) to the ninth, thirteenth, etc.,
>>building these brand new chords from which new melodic choices were 
<snip>

>Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the 9th, 11th and 
>13th chords were part of the standard vocabulary of swing.  They're 
>certainly all over the place in the swing-flavored jazz guitar 
>arrangements I learned at one time.  

Um...somewhat. But also somewhat right. 6ths (= inverted 13ths) and 9ths
(sometimes called  "full dominant 9ths") were used as "color chords" in the
swing era, but not (OK, well, very little) as the basis for melodies or as
functional (in the musical sense of "functional harmony") parts of the
musical architecture.

>My impression is that the harmonic 
>innovation in bebop started with the introduction of flatted-5th chords.  
>The flatted 5th is radical because the 5th is the keystone of both 
>European and (most) African scales, so a flatted 5th sounds really alien 
>-- except that the inventors of bebop made it work.  By now Parker's 
>music doesn't sound weird at all, though it sure still sounds masterful.

Um...ditto. 

The flat fifth (aka tritone, aka *Diablus en musica*) is the basis for the
dominant seventh chord which is the underpinning of all western tonal
harmony, from JS Bach (roughly) to Debussy or maybe-- depending on how far
you want to stretch things-- Stravinski. Certainly to Bruckner and
Rachmanninov. Much before (or after) that, and the flat-fifth (aka 7th
chord) was used as a modal harmony (G Gabrielli, et al in the late 16th
century and just about anyone in the 20th)

An 11th (properly called an augmented 11th-- F# in the key of C) is a
tritone, but when used as a chord, has a subdominant function rather than
the dominant one of the TT in the dominant 7th chord. The amazing thing
about tritones/11th chords that boppers discovered (much as the Romanticists
did with the full diminished seventh) was its ability to lead more or less
anywhere, harmonically speaking.

A tritone (the one between B and F in the key of C) also occurs naturally in
all 7 western modes and is fundamental to the character of the phrygian and
what our beloved TRP refers to (late in GR) as the "forbidden" locrian mode.

The Tritone was seldom used melodically (at least not as an isolated
interval) in pre-20th Century western music but it IS 

A: a cornerstone of many African musics, as pointed out

B: an important part of what makes jazz "jazzy" (and consequently, different
than ragtime), whether you're talking Louis Armstrong or Ornette Coleman;
and (don't know if this is substantiated, but I've heard it from more than
one source) 

C: the two-and-a-half-note "klook-a-mop" motif/F#-G-C  (later named "bebop"
by the cymbal-throwing Kenny Clarke, who-- bebop afficiaonadi will note--
made such an impression on the young Charlie Parker) whistled by heroin
dealers in the NY city bars to attract customers. [it's also the same motif
Gershwin uses in the main melody of An American In Paris, which certainly
predates bop]

>Putting a brand new solo melody over the chords of a song was established 
>practice long before bebop, but those flatted-5th chords had a big 
>influence on the melodic lines played over them.  

Yup. A-and remember all the bop tunes based around the changes to "I got
Rhythm"?


>>I've always felt that Pynchon's allusions to Parker and jazz here are one 
>>way of
>>seeing some unsentimental optimism in GR.  Bird finds a way of turning white
>>exploitation of jazz on its head by expanding possibilities rather than 
>>limiting
>>them.  He "steals back" jazz by taking a dopey pop song and making it into
>>sophisticated art on his own terms.

>True in general but not so true about Cherokee, because it had already 
>come a long way from being a dopey pop song; it was a standard 
>straight-ahead swing instrumental by that time, a vehicle for all sorts 
>of improvisation.

Even so, I think the "unsentimental optimism" point is valid, especially
within the GR context of players "floundering in the channel" (or bridge).
Like so much of TRP, this tiny analogy  works on many different levels.
While the swing student may find it hard to get his fingers around the
bridge of Cherokee the pop song, imagine how the second-chair alto player in
some swing band felt on hearing Bird rip a new asshole in what he thought
was a ho-hum "standard".

And don't even get me started on the harmonic structure Coltrane's Giant Steps.


--rick