petros Posted October 16, 2003 Share Posted October 16, 2003 Thelonious Monk's blues "Misterioso" is unusual since Monk substitutes Major seventh chords at places in the blues sequence (like the beginning) where the sound of a dominant seventh chord is nearly universally expected. Despite delaying the introduction of the dominant sound for as long as possible, Misterioso still sounds like a well-formed blues. I know several other jazz pianist that sometimes play major seventh chords in their blues, but it is unusual. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Superbobus Posted October 16, 2003 Share Posted October 16, 2003 Major seventh blues is sometimes called Charlie Parker blues. Must be because of Blues for Alice Perhaps Au Privave Cool Blues http://www.bobwijnen.nl Hipness is not a state of mind, it's a fact of life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Horne Posted October 16, 2003 Share Posted October 16, 2003 What's a half step between friends ... No guitarists were harmed during the making of this message. In general, harmonic complexity is inversely proportional to the ratio between chording and non-chording instruments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
george costanza Posted October 16, 2003 Share Posted October 16, 2003 Originally posted by Dave Horne: What's a half step between friends ...Here in the US, "half-stepping" is not so good! I'm all for surprising variations myself rather than "the to be expected" (cross reference to "cliche" thread...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marino Posted October 17, 2003 Share Posted October 17, 2003 Well, "Misterioso" is one of my all-time favorite themes. Just wonderful! But it's *not* a Parker blues. While the theme does contain the major seventh of the I chord, Monk plays his solo as a very regular blues tune, with little or no substitutions: Bb7 / Eb7 / Bb7 / Bb7 / Eb7 / Eb7 (F7) / Bb7 / Bb7 / Cm7 / F7 / Bb7 / F7 / Almost archaic! The improvised solo states the dominant seventh quality very clearly on the Bb, Eb and F chords. So it's one of those cases where the written theme has a few quirks, but the solos follow a very classic structure. Plus, Monks employs a lot of his trademark whole-tone runs on most of the those chords, giving his solo a very angular approach. He also hints at the theme a few times. I love Monk's tunes to death, but playing them it's a challenge. I mean, even if you've mastered the chords, what the hell do you play after themes like those..? They are complete statements - perfectly balanced 'narrations'. It's very easy to spoil them with a less than excellent solo! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
schmoron13 Posted October 18, 2003 Share Posted October 18, 2003 in the west coast, it's referred to as New York blues... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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