Preserving The Fire - Implementing the jazz language of Woody Shaw
(2020)
author(s): T. D. Nobel
published in: Codarts
This artistic research addresses the intellectual legacy of jazz trumpeter Woody Shaw, with the main purpose of implementing his jazz language into that of my own, without losing my musical authenticity, in order to add a more modern sound to my bebop-oriented jazz language. It demonstrates how experiments result in the creation of a new method for designing musical patterns, combining two (or more) tonal modes with symmetrical aspects of the music of classical composer Bela Bartok; a method I call Cross-Symmetric Approach (CSA).
Following this CSA-method, eight patterns were constructed in order to support taking (hence: playing) structured steps beyond the borders of functional harmony, in the spirit of Woody Shaw. Due to the extended practice of both these eight CSA-patterns as well as numerous constructed exercises involving perfect fourth intervals in order to support the open and modern sound the patterns create, it is my goal to demonstrate that I can preserve the ‘fire’ of Shaw’s legacy without literally copying his jazz language. The newly gained vocabulary widely extended my possibilities for approaching chord changes and stretched my definition of harmonic consonance
