We’re digging into another of the countless great phrases from Joshua Redman’s “Summertime” solo. We’ll focus on his use of major and minor triads to create a strong melodic anchor, as well as looking into his bebop language and enclosures that work over both the minor ii-V and its relative major.
We’re going to do a bunch of things with “Summertime.” To begin, here is one small phrase to work on that comes from Joshua Redman’s solo on the tune.
“Summertime” is a classic “must-know” standard for any gig or jam session. We’ll be digging into lots of different recordings of the tune this month, but focusing on two in particular – Joshua Redman’s and Charlie Parker’s.
Great work by all! We get into some discussions about to write transcriptions down or not and the pros/cons, and some demonstrations about Sanborn’s sound, and extracting a practice nugget or two.
We’ll use this solo to observe solo construction and pacing over a two-chord vamp, considering harmony, voice-leading, and rhythmic density, and, most importantly, connection with the inherent pulse of the music. Practice exercises included!
In this video we’ll take a look at what “backdoor ii-Vs” are, where they come from, and a good approach for improvising over them.
