Jazz theory question: does this scale have a name?

[Josh Paxton]

I've been messing around with a scale you can use over a dominant 7 chord, and since I'm sure I'm nowhere near the first person to mess around with it, I was wondering if it had an established name. It's an altered scale, but with the addition of a natural 6. So over a C7 it would be: C, C#, D#, E, F#, G#, A, Bb.

 

If you take the shape formed by starting on any note, skipping two, playing the next one, skipping two more, and playing the next one, you get the following upper structure triads:

 

 

By shifting around between those upper structures, you can get some pretty nice, juicy sounds. I actually derived the scale by deconstructing a Bill Evans lick where, over that C7 shell voicing, he played G#, A, F#, and G# triads before resolving to Fm.

 

It occurs to me that it's closely related to what's commonly called the "Barry Harris 6 diminished scale," i.e. a major scale with the addition of a flat 6. This is the same idea, applied to a melodic minor scale and moved up a half step. That is, this scale is a C# melodic minor scale, but with the addition of a flat 6 (the A natural). I'm only passingly familiar with Barry's approaches to the 6 diminished scale, so I don't know if he dealt with this idea. If anyone does know, I'd be interested to find out. Or, for that matter, if it's been talked about in other places.

[DroptopBroham]

Looks like the octatonic to me.

[CyberGene]

To me it looks like one of the three diminished scales but this one has G# instead of G. As you said, it’s also pretty close to the altered scale (C# melodic minor) but then it has an A added. So, part of it is diminished, part of it is altered. They both suit the C7 in either C7b9 or C7alt variants. I think a mixture of these both chord-scales were recently discussed in another thread.

[Josh Paxton]

2 minutes ago, CyberGene said:

To me it looks like one of the three diminished scales but this one has G# instead of G. 

 

Wow, you're right. That's a perfectly obvious feature that I managed to miss entirely. Thanks for pointing it out.

[Docbop]

Your close to Barry Harris world of  6 on the 5th of the tritone sub.    So that would be the BH Min6Dim scale from the 5th of the tritone.   So that would be C# Melodic Minor with the added b6 in non-BH terms.    The old Jazz cats I've hung with would just call what you did a Pitch Collection and not worry about a theoretical name. 

[stoken6]

39 minutes ago, DroptopBroham said:

Looks like the octatonic to me.

Except that the octotonic (half-whole diminished) scale would have a Gnat, not a G#. I relate the octotonic and the altered scale in essentially this way (octotonic has nat5 and nat6 degrees, the altered scale has a #5 taking the place of both of them)

 

EDIT: What @CyberGene said.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[Jazz+]

It's the "C# Minor 6th Diminished Scale" played over C7 (see Barry Harris and Mark Levine's chapter on Melodic Minor Harmony)

It's C7 Alt (so simply think up a half step and play the C# melodic minor scale over the C7, it's a convenience...  I see you also added the bebop passing tone of an A to balance it out into an 8 tone scale )

[Josh Paxton]

32 minutes ago, Jazz+ said:

It's the "C# Minor 6th Diminished Scale"

 

Ah, googling that phrase brings up a bunch of resources, thanks!

 

[El Lobo]

Please excuse my very limited way of thinking about it, but what I see is that, against a C7 chord, you're playing all the black keys (all the sharps or flats in the key) plus the 1 and the 3 and the 6. I have to give that a try.

[rickzjamm]

The Paxton scale.