Trumpet Scales

Jazz Essentials

 

I used to tell people I met on airplanes or at parties that I wrote about jazz for a living. Once they got past wondering just what type of "living" that amounted to, they'd smile and say, "I love jazz," then pause, adding, "But I don't know that much about it."

They were leery, thrown off by chart-and-graph references to jazz's development — stuff like how '40s swing begat '50s bebop, which gave rise to '60s free-jazz and all that. As if there was a textbook (well, actually some critic friends of mine are writing one, but that's another story) and there might be a test, you know. Not to mention the political squabbles: why swing was king or bop the thing or how '70s fusion killed it all.

Or maybe they'd been put off by all that technical talk: flatted fifths and extended chords and the numbers behind swing's rhythmic propulsion — like it was rocket science or something.

Then there's the cult aspect: those older guys bending and swaying at the back of the club, making like Jewish elders swaying to an fro at temple, or the generalized bowing down before deities such as Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker and John Coltrane (not to mention the infighting about just who deserves saintly status).

Thing is, jazz isn't any of that — and is all that. Appreciation requires no previous knowledge, yet continued listening offers all constant enrichment. The technical aspects of jazz's musical achievements have both the beauty and complexity of higher math: And the music has genuine religious heft, owing to both time-honored spiritual traditions and in-the-moment meditative thought.

I can't give you a 12-best list, or tell you that what follows tells the story in full. But the following list expresses lineages of thought, instrumental technique, rhythmic ideas and group conception. The dots are easy to connect, the names clearly indicated and the sounds unforgettable.

And this list is like those sponge toys that, placed in water, magically grow overnight. Listen, and you'll find expansive knowledge easily absorbed, not to mention natural links to many more artists and recordings.

Listen Hot Fives And Sevens

Artist: Louis Armstrong

Release Date: 1925

To tell the story of jazz without Louis Armstrong up top is to cut off the head of the living organism that is jazz. Armstrong was a giant of a trumpeter, he was an influential singer and perhaps most important, he transformed jazz from a strictly instrumental music into a complicated blend of solo and ensemble sound. In that sense, nearly all the 20th century jazz that followed flowed from the innovation of these recordings. Over the course of these sessions, you can hear the transformation in process, from traditional New Orleans collective style to a different blend, with the clarion call of Armstrong's horn pointing the way.

Listen The Art Tatum Solo Masterpieces Volume 1

Artist: Art Tatum

Release Date: 2001

Any one edition drawn from this eight-CD set will do. And any one is enough to give a sense of the enormity of Tatum's genius and its far-reaching effects on all the music that followed. Tatum simply played more piano — got more out the instrument — than any other musician. He was a direct link from the whorehouse piano men to the classical soloist. Here, late in life, he plays song after song and, beginning with "Too Marvelous for Words," he builds each one into a concerto of melody, harmonics, and improvisation that set the bar high and establish the logic for much of modern jazz.

Listen The Carnegie Hall Concerts: January 1943

Artist: Duke Ellington

Release Date: 1943

Little in jazz compares with the majesty, finesse, integrity and spark of Duke Ellington's bands during the '40s. It was a moment when jazz straddled two functions as it never will again: it was popular music, reflective of the nation's heart and mind, and artistic revolution, charting new waters. In Ellington, as perhaps in no musician other than Louis Armstrong, jazz had a leader who understood both drives. It was a dream of Ellington's to play Carnegie Hall, and it anticipated the Lincoln Center achievements of Wynton Marsalis today. This recording contains both shorter tunes (marvelous miniatures of great scope) and Ellington's more ambitious, longer-form work "Black, Brown, and Beige." There are stellar solo statements by players including saxophonists Ben Webster and Johnny Hodges, but really, it's the brilliant cohesion of the full band and Ellington's overall vision that makes this music timeless.

Listen Tomorrow Is The Question

Artist: Ornette Coleman

Release Date: 1959

Ornette Coleman's music has always leaned on tradition — listen to some Charlie Parker and you'll hear echoes of it here — distilled into something new and pointed straight toward the future, or curled up like a quizzical phrase. Here, Coleman's title begs both ideas. And the music announced his pianoless quartet setup: the harmonics of chord changes alone would no longer confine Coleman's music, replaced by his own personal science bent on liberation. The way Coleman and trumpeter Don Cherry shadow each other's lines and exchange ideas, the process sounds closer to pure joy than hard science. Nearly a half-century later, it still sounds fresh.

Listen Alone In San Francisco

Artist: Thelonious Monk

Release Date: 1959

The hippest, most addictive thing I got turned onto in college was Monk's music. I'd never heard anything like it, and it opened up a whole new idea for me of how the piano could sound and of what music could do: his compositions, his every arpeggio or tone cluster, contained math, R&B, Abstract Expressionism and slapstick humor. I went on to discover a world of jazz musicians, all touched directly or indirectly by Monk, but none who sounded quite like him. And though Monk recorded quite a few notable albums leading stellar bands, though his music led others to play with a special insight and cohesion, it's Monk alone at the piano that I crave: Straight, no chaser. Here, early in his career, by himself, Monk transforms San Francisco's Fugazi Hall with the unique architecture of his piano playing. This isn't what all of jazz sounds like: It's what the world of jazz after Monk looks like.

Listen Bill Evans Trio: Sunday At The Village Vanguard

Artist: Bill Evans

Release Date: 1961

There's plenty of religious, folkloric and literary evidence to support the idea that three is a magical number: Bill Evans's trio might be jazz's mightiest argument for that case. Evans was one of jazz's most lyrical pianists, and he's at his best here. But it's the nature of this trio that elevates most of all: neither Evans nor bassist Scott LaFaro nor drummer Paul Motian stick to customary roles. And in the three-pointed cheese slice of a room that is the Village Vanguard (the closest thing to sacred space remaining in jazz today) the music takes on a prayer-like quality.

Listen Live Trane: The European Tours

Artist: John Coltrane

Release Date: 1961

By 1961, Coltrane's soloing style — the free flow through chord changes and scale-based improvisations that critic Ira Gitler dubbed "sheets of sound" — was his signature. His band concept was similarly bent on expanding boundaries and explosive energy. Coltrane may have laid down some of jazz's most memorable studio sessions, but there's really nothing like him caught live. These tracks, drawn from a three-LP set, find him in two powerful contexts over the course of four years: in a 1961 quintet including Eric Dolphy on alto sax, flute and clarinet; and fronting his classic quartet at concerts in 1963 and 1965. The fire and especially the communion between Coltrane and drummer Elvin Jones on the later material is a thing to behold.

Listen Spiritual Unity

Artist: Albert Ayler

Release Date: 1964

The first release on Bernard Stollman's ESP label, this is the session that pushed Albert Ayler to the forefront of jazz's avant garde. He remains a touchstone for any open-minded musician wishing to explore the sonic possibilities of a given instrument, to exploit the aggregate effect of any small group and to mine the spiritual heft of musical expression. To some, the arsenal of sounds Ayler coaxed from his saxophone — screams, squeals, wails, honks and a mile-wide vibrato when he felt like it — represented newfound contortions of sound; to others, they harked back to early jazz evocations, like Sidney Bechet's soprano sax. Ayler's appeal anticipates the current axis that connects punk rockers to free jazz: He took the simplest of song structures and turned them into the most complex of visceral splatters. His "Ghosts," here rendered in two versions, will truly haunt you.

Listen Afro-Cuban Jazz Moods

Artist: Dizzy Gillespie And Machito

Release Date: 1975

Back when I edited a jazz magazine, I'd find regular annoyance with writers who thought Latin jazz was a tiny sidebar to American jazz. Jazz is many stories, a central one being the African Diaspora. The music of Latin America, South America and the Caribbean are cousins to American music (and they contain some rhythmic secrets we've forgotten, I'd say). Cuba in particular has a special musical relationship with the United States, and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie was one among jazz's ranks who honored that truth with depth and style. Though Dizzy made his Big Cuban Bang decades earlier, this 1975 session finds him with the famed band of Frank "Machito" Grillo, featuring the great Cuban trumpeter Mario Bauzá. Composer/arranger Chico O'Farrill's "Oro, Incienso y Mirra" is as modern a fusion of cross-cultural ideas as you'll hear today.

Listen Raining On The Moon

Artist: William Parker

Release Date: 2002

Born in 1955 [ck], William Parker is just a bit older than the music we know as free jazz. Some say that that musical revolution is dead: They're wrong. The most vital life signs are found on Manhattan's Lower East Side, and at the center of this scene is the loud, insistent sound of Parker's bass. He is something of a father figure, dispensing life lessons as well as musical wisdom, much like legendary bandleaders Duke Ellington, Art Blakey and Charles Mingus. Among Parker's many bands is the quartet he leads here (with Leena Conquest adding soulful vocals). Among the deep connections he shares is the one you can feel powerfully throughout this music, with drummer Hamid Drake.

About the Author

Here author Larry Blumenfeld writes about jazz's development and jazz instrumental. The technical aspects of jazz's musical achievements have both the beauty and complexity of higher math. There are many people in the world who love jazz but know nothing much about it. Visit emusic.com and enjoy the real taste of jazz music and some excellent jazz music albums with mp3 downloads, music downloads, Online Music, Audio Books etc…

Know Your Scales - Trumpet, Grades 1-3 $7.8 (The essential learning method for scales and arpeggios). By Paul Harris. For Trumpet. Book; Brass - B-Flat Cornet (Trumpet) Method or Collection; Method/Instruction. Faber Edition. Published by Faber Music

Jazz Trumpet Scales $5.95 (Levels/Grades 1-5). ABRSM Jazz. 12 pages. ABRSM (Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music) #D3323. Published by ABRSM (Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music)

Pares Scales $6.5 "(Cornet, Trumpet or Baritone T.C.). By Gabriel Pares. Edited by Harvey S. Whistler. Brass Method. 48 pages. Rubank Publications #RUBL110. Published by Rubank Publications"

Unisonal Scales $14.95 "(Chords and Rhythmic Studies for Band). By William C White. Edited by William C White. For Flute, Oboe, Handbells, Alto Saxophone, Alto Clarinet, Baritone Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone, Bass Clarinet, Trumpet, Cornet, Horn, Tenor, Baritone (Bass Clef), Tuba, Bassoon, Drums. Classical. Teacher's book. Standard notation. 33 pages. Published by Carl Fischer"

Scales and Arpeggios for Trumpet and Brass Band instruments treble clef $10 For Trumpet. Studies. Grades 1-8. Collection. Published by ABRSM (Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music)

Hal Leonard Rubank Pares Scales - Coronet, Trumpet Or Baritone $5.85 The classic scale and arpeggio studies of Gabriel Parès were adapted in the 1940s for like-instrument study by Rubank's Harvey Whistler, and are now the standard for elementary scale instruction. Presenting all the major keys up to four flats/sharps (and the relative minors), each unit also includes long tone and embouchure studies. Supplemental material includes comprehensive chromatic scales, fingering and speed studies, lip slurs (brass) and exercises to strengthen the upper register (woodwinds).

Scales to Scalpels (Hardcover) $37.59 You may have read about the Longwood Symphony orchestra (LSO) in the paper or heard them on your favorite radio station. But the LSO is not just any orchestra. it began in 1982 with a group of talented Boston-area physicians, med students and health-care professionals and has since flourished under the leadership of violinist Dr. Lisa Wong, who became president of the LSO in 1991. The orchestra is now a proud, extraordinary group of musicians with fans around the globe. In Scales to Scalpels, Dr. Wong and Robert Viagas chronicle how the musical acumen of these physicians affects the way they administer healing and, in turn, how their work affects their music. What cognitive and emotional shifts occur when a surgeon transitions from the chaos of the ER to the discipline of the orchestra rehearsal studio? What`s it like to make a house call to a poor neighborhood in the morning and then play trumpet in a jazz group that night? Does music heal the doctors the way the doctors heal their patients? How does practicing the art of music transform the art of practicing medicine?

Technical Studies For The Modern Trumpet Player $9.95 "By Pat Harbison (1955-). For trumpet. The FIRST book to incorporate all modern jazz scales into practical daily studies.. Intermediate, advanced. Book. 80 pages. Published by Jamey Aebersold Jazz"

Hal Leonard Etudes for Trumpet $8.99 This collection consists of two acclaimed series of study material for trumpet: Orchestra Etudes (which takes excerpts from the trumpet parts of well-known orchestral scores and develops them into study material), and Last Etudes (which consists largely of modulating scales). Both series are for the advanced student and offer invaluable material for the study of phrasing and for warm-up drills.64 pagesSize: 12" x 9"Arranger: William VacchianoISBN: 793536189

Hal Leonard Etudes For Trumpet $8.99 This collection consists of two acclaimed series of study material for trumpet: Orchestra Etudes (which takes excerpts from the trumpet parts of well-known orchestral scores and develops them into study material), and Last Etudes (which consists largely of modulating scales). Both series are for the advanced student and offer invaluable material for the study of phrasing and for warm-up drills.64 pagesSize: 12" x 9"Arranger: William VacchianoISBN: 793536189

Hal Leonard Amazing Phrasing - Trumpet (Trumpet) $16.99 For any trumpet player interested in learning how to improvise and how to improve their creative phrasing. The 50 ideas are divided into three main sections: Harmony - explores scales, arpeggios, chord substitutions, harmonic embellishments, and other harmonic phrasing ideas; Rhythm - covers legato tonguing, swing feel, rhythmic displacement, how to manipulate time, and other aspects of rhythmic phrasing; Melody - discusses contour lines, making patterns musical, developing a motif, building a solo, and many other melodic phrasing ideas. Includes CD.

Know Your Scales! for Trumpet : Grade 1-3 / Early Intermediate - Intermediate $6.63 No Synopsis Available

The Trumpet $59.99 The Trumpet - Wall Decal

Tip The Scales $10 Tip The Scales

Tippin' The Scales $7.49 Tippin' The Scales

Trumpet $24.99 Howard Sokol Trumpet - Photographic Print

Scales $14.95 "For guitar. Guitar Reference Guide. Studies and Reference. Instructional book. Standard guitar notation, guitar chord diagrams, introductory text and instructional text. 222 pages. Published by Cherry Lane Music"

Warner Bros Ultimate Beginner Series Trumpet (DVD) $19.99 Music students use Warner Brothers' Ultimate Beginner Series Trumpet Method Book Volumes 1 and 2 to establish a solid foundation as trumpeters because it offers virtually comprehensive coverage of necessary trumpet skills.Both volumes of trumpet instruction and their DVDs are included in this exceptional package deal.The topics covered give you the basic skills you'll want to help you be a better trumpet player. You'll find instruction on proper posture and hand positions; breathing, embouchure, and producing sound; playing scales; tonguing techniques, and a whole lot more.Thousands of aspiring musicians have already used the Warner Brothers Ultimate Beginner Series Trumpet Method, and now you can get both volumes 1 and 2 with DVDs to make your progress even faster. The DVDs include special features you'll find helpful for getting to know your trumpet, beginning music theory, forming major scales. Also on the discs you'll find printable reference materials and Internet access to additional resources you can use to build your trumpet chops.Volume 1 and Volume 2 togetherGetting to know the instrumentBeginning music theoryForming major scalesPrintable reference materialsInternet connectivity

Warner Bros Ultimate Beginner Series Trumpet (Dvd) $19.99 Music students use Warner Brothers' Ultimate Beginner Series Trumpet Method Book Volumes 1 and 2 to establish a solid foundation as trumpeters because it offers virtually comprehensive coverage of necessary trumpet skills.Both volumes of trumpet instruction and their DVDs are included in this exceptional package deal.The topics covered give you the basic skills you'll want to help you be a better trumpet player. You'll find instruction on proper posture and hand positions; breathing, embouchure, and producing sound; playing scales; tonguing techniques, and a whole lot more.Thousands of aspiring musicians have already used the Warner Brothers Ultimate Beginner Series Trumpet Method, and now you can get both volumes 1 and 2 with DVDs to make your progress even faster. The DVDs include special features you'll find helpful for getting to know your trumpet, beginning music theory, forming major scales. Also on the discs you'll find printable reference materials and Internet access to additional resources you can use to build your trumpet chops.Volume 1 and Volume 2 togetherGetting to know the instrumentBeginning music theoryForming major scalesPrintable reference materialsInternet connectivity

Amazing Phrasing - Trumpet $31.46 Amazing Phrasing is for any trumpet player interested in learning how to improvise and how to improve their creative phrasing. The 50 ideas are divided into three main sections: Harmony - explores scales, arpeggios, chord substitutions, harmonic embellishments, and other harmonic phrasing ideas; Rhythm - covers legato tonguing, swing feel, rhythmic displacement, how to manipulate time, and other aspects of rhythmic phrasing; Melody - discusses contour lines, making patterns musical, developing a motif, building a solo, and many other melodic phrasing ideas. The companion CD contains 26 demo tracks for listening, as well as many play-along examples so you can practice improvising over various musical styles and progressions. Also available for guitar, keyboard, and tenor saxophone.

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