Freddie Freeloader, Modal Jazz or Not?

[josh821]

I've finally really figured out what modal jazz is supposed to be exactly but there's still one thing that confuses me. Kind of Blue is supposed to be the best example of modal jazz out there yet it has a song like Freddie Freeloader which is almost a straight 12 bar blues complete with dominant chords and that's the part that throws me off. From what I've learned in various places you're not really supposed to use dominant chords in modal jazz because it moves the tonal center of the progression to the key the mode being played in was derived from instead of being in a modal key. How exactly is this song a modal jazz song then when it's only dominant chords? Is it not a modal song at all and just thrown in there for fun or is there a situation where using dominant chords to that extent can be done in a modal song? Personally I'm thinking it must be the former or at least that's what my ears are telling me. Any insights?

 

[distressed_romeo]

From what you've described, it sounds like a jazz-blues, not a modal tune. What are the changes? I'd look myself, but my real book isn't immediately at hand.

 

[josh821]

It's 12 bar blues in Bb using all dominant 7th chords. The only thing different is the turnaround.

 

[distressed_romeo]

OK, so that's a blues, not a modal tune.

 

[josh821]

Are you familiar with Kind of Blue? It's supposed to be the quintessential modal jazz album and where that song comes from. Maybe you're right and they only had a couple modal songs on there but it just seems odd that the album that practically created modal jazz has a two straight blues songs on it.

 

[distressed_romeo]

Yeah, I know the album you mean. I think those two tunes were just exceptions, probably just to break the album up a bit.

 

[Luan]

modal jazz is like pitch axis in a way, right?

Like a tonal center and then you use chords from any scale, like modal interchange

 

[distressed_romeo]

In my understanding, it's where you improvise with scales over relatively static vamps rather than deriving solos from chord changes via arpeggios. Pitch axis could definitely play a part in it. You could use arpeggio or pentatonic subsititutions over a static chord to imply a specific mode, as you say, for instance, you could get a Dorian sound by playing a minor seven arpeggio a tone higher than the root of a minor seven chord, resolving it back to a chord tone. You can get away with this a lot more of static chords than you usually could over fairly busy changes.

 

[Luan]

Thanks a lot for the explanation.
I used to know the concept, but for some reason I got confused.
When I solo over BTs like a Dm7 I like to play G7 arpeggio, giving a sort of mixolydian sound

 

[jacksonplayer]

I thought modal jazz involves playing over a preset mode or series of modes, rather than over a specific progression. In other words, the backing musicians are also improvising along with the soloist, with the only precondition being the mode(s). The backing doesn't have to be a mere vamp, and can often be quite complex. Think of all that crazy shit McCoy Tyner was playing while backing up Coltrane. In effect, modal was the halfway point between be-bop and free jazz.

As much as I love "Kind of Blue," to hear modal jazz at its purest you're better off checking out the '60s Miles Davis Quintet on albums like "Miles Smiles" and "ESP" than the late '50s quintet that produced "Kind of Blue." The music the '60s quintet produced is a lot more abstract and difficult, precisely because the performances are more modal and less fixed. Also, you have to check out John Coltrane's albums for Impulse up through "First Meditations (for Quartet)" to hear great modal jazz. After that, basically beginning with "Ascension," Coltrane went more into pure free jazz.

Personally, I prefer soloing over modes rather than changes. It allows me to take the music where I want it, rather than following someone else's roadmap.

 

[Luan]

but it is easy to choose your own way?
What would you do? to play an scale/mode for every chord, instead of grouping the chords in a particular scale?

 

[jacksonplayer]

I think it's easier, personally, but others might not. Going modal allows me to create melodies and runs "out of thin air" without having to ponder a complicated chord sequence while I do it. Bebop is more complicated harmonically, but it is much safer in a way because you don't have the freedom or responsibility to make all of those creative choices that you do in modal jazz; the bebop chords essentially state the melody for you.

In the truest modal jazz, you can't really play to the chords while soloing, since there isn't a fixed chord progression to play over; the accompanists are changing the chords based on what you play. The only rule is that everybody plays in the same mode at the same time (mostly). At its best, modal jazz creates full two-way interaction between soloist and accompanists. At its worst, it sounds like everybody's in a different room.

Not all modal jazz is that chaotic, however. A lot of times the accompanists will base their playing around the fixed chord progression used in the head of the tune. They might retain the broad outline of that progression at the start of the improvisation and gradually modify it within the song's modal structure.

Also, you can change modes any number of times, which gives some of the feeling of having a fixed chord progression and gives a little more structure to the piece.

Any number of different ways you can do it, which is one reason that modal jazz has survived longer as a highly active form of jazz than bebop has. For the casual listener, the fixed structure of bebop might be more comfortable, even if really complicated. But once you've heard modal jazz musicians interact with each other on stage at such a high level, everything else seems overly rigid.

 

[distressed_romeo]

^^^^^^^^Good post.

I think if you're serious about being a good improvisor it's important to be fluent in both modal playing, and playing over changes. Both have their own set of challenges. Bebop-style playing over chord changes provides you with an instant 'roadmap' for your solo, but requires you to always know exactly where you are in terms of the harmony (not necessarily a bad thing), which can be quite taxing on the brain if you're getting into it for the first time. In my humble opinion bebop is easily the most challenging style for an improvising musician. Modal jazz is much looser harmonically, as Jacksonplayer said, which means that the mental processes are a lot easier, but this frequently creates the problem that solos can easily become overly wanky and unstructured if you aren't careful.
You listen to good soloists, and they'll often go back and forth between the two approaches. For example, if a jazz player had a ii-V7-I progression during his solo, on the first pass he might play over it bop-style, with decorated arpeggios that really pin down the changes, but on the second pass, he might just play a Dorian lick (the mode found on the ii chord) over all three chords, or even just play a blues lick over the whole thing.
The real art is being fluent in both approaches, and being able to switch back and forth between them while still keeping your footing in terms of where you are in the harmony at any given time. This makes solos sound a lot more musical and mature, and less like academic exercises.

If you prefer one approach over the other, that's perfectly natural. Allan Holdsworth, for example, is a much more modern improvisor, and so tends to view chords as being derived from modes when he improvises, and so will look for what modes a progression implies when he's presented with a chart, whereas someone like Birelli Lagrene is much more old-school, and so will tend to base his solos on decorated arpeggios, and might not think of particular scales or modes once during a solo. Incidentally, if you want a totally new perspective on this, check out the articles on Pat Martino's website. It's a lot to wrap your head around, but seriously mind-expanding stuff.

DISCLAIMER: I don't profess to be a master at this by any means, but for me it's the most exciting aspect of musicianship, and the one I most love to study.

 

[jacksonplayer]

I think if you're serious about being a good improvisor it's important to be fluent in both modal playing, and playing over changes. Both have their own set of challenges.

You listen to good soloists, and they'll often go back and forth between the two approaches.

Good post yourself.

Yeah, I think most of the "Young Lions" crowd does both. As you say, they aren't mutually exclusive. Being more of a rock guy at heart, I learned the modal method first, since playing modes is essential if you want good solos in a more rigid rock or fusion context. Playing rock changes can lead to a lot dull solos, since all you've got to work with are three notes per chord.

I basically suck at intentionally trying to 'state the chords' in my solos, since about 95% of the time I have no idea what the chords are and am mostly concerned with what the scale/mode is. I guess I should try to get better at it, but right now I'm in kind of an "anti-structure" mode. Just ask Noodles--he got to listen to my drunken rant against structure in the back bar at the Symphony X show recently.

DISCLAIMER: I don't profess to be a master at this by any means, but for me it's the most exciting aspect of musicianship, and the one I most love to study.

You and me both, pal. Someday I will play a jazz solo entirely free of passing tones. Someday...

 

[DDDorian]

Personally, I prefer soloing over modes rather than changes. It allows me to take the music where I want it, rather than following someone else's roadmap.

I have the remastered Dualdisc version of Kind Of Blue and Miles Davis states this as the exact reasoning behind modal jazz; he was so sick of negotiating the increasingly complex changes within the bebop world that he wanted to put the focus back on melody. Songs like "Freddie Freeloader" might not be the textbook definition of modal jazz, but they fit in the context of the album in that they were recorded in the pursuit of improvised melody rather than harmony. That's probably my least favourite track on the album though, so right now I couldn't tell you if there's any actual modal playing on there ("Blues In Green" for the win ).

 

[Luan]

There are a couple of things that I didn't understood..
Suposse that you have Giant steps for example, instead of following the chords by choosing scales to play over a chord or various chords, you can turn into modal?
Or you guys are talking about modal songs vs non modal songs?

 

[jacksonplayer]

There are a couple of things that I didn't understood..
Suposse that you have Giant steps for example, instead of following the chords by choosing scales to play over a chord or various chords, you can turn into modal?

In modal jazz, everyone in the band is playing to a scale/mode or set of them, rather than a specific set of chords. What you are talking about is playing over fixed chord changes, which is what you do in bebop. In other words, in playing a "modal" Giant Steps, you'd play the head of the tune with the existing chord changes, but then in the improvisation you'd probably deviate and use the modes that fit those changes (hopefully not a separate mode for every chord--that kind of defeats the purpose), with the accompanists deviating from the chord structure during the improvisation, or at least embellishing it.

 

[distressed_romeo]

If we use 'Giant Steps' as an example, then you could play through it using modal thinking like this...

Bmaj7: B Lydian
D7-Gmaj7: D Mixolydian/G Ionian
Bb7-Ebmaj7: Bb Mixolydian/Eb Ionian
Am7-D7-Gmaj7: A Dorian/D Mixolydian/G Ionian
Bb7-Ebmaj7: Bb Mixolydian/Eb Ionian
F#7-Bmaj7: F# Mixolydian/B Ionian
Fm7-Bb7-Ebmaj7: F Dorian/Bb Mixolydian/Eb Ionian
Am7-D7-Gmaj7: A Dorian/D Mixolydian/G Ionian
C#m7-F#7-Bmaj7: C# Dorian/F# Mixolydian/B Ionian
Fm7-Bb7-Ebmaj7: F Dorian/Bb Mixolydian/Eb Ionian
C#m7-F#7: C# Dorian/F# Mixolydian

That's a pretty basic way of looking at it, and a solo would probably get kinda old if you played 16 consecutive choruses using that approach, but it demonstrates the basic idea behind modal thinking; look for common tonal centres between the chords, and use appropriate modes and the tonal centre changes.