I have always liked jazz.
My father was quite a fan and had a small but select discography in which, next to Sinatra, Benny Goodman and some other swing orchestras, the original bebop, hard and pure, had a respectable place.
But my first, timid approach to “played” jazz came after being struck by Pupi Avati’s television drama “Jazz Band”, broadcast by dear old RAI 1 way back in 1978; so my immature experiments were obviously in Dixieland sauce, a somewhat cacophonous mix of Gershwin, Morton, ragtime and later Earl Hines.
But I stubbornly continued to listen to bebop: Parker, Gillespie, Monk, Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown (yes, I do like trumpet), Bud Powell… but I didn’t understand how to play it.
I bought dozens of books (the internet didn’t exist yet), and my ideas became even more confused: studying the patterns, the relationship between modes and chords, functional harmony, the lydian chromatic concept, tension and resolution of Johnny Amadie… I didn’t understand anything anymore!
A friend suggested what he thought was the most fruitful strategy: transcribing and analysing Parker’s solos, perhaps with the help of the Omnibook; which I did and which in fact was not entirely useless, I internalised some concepts, but what I couldn't do was construct a complete, perfect, melodic and flowing phrase: in a few words, my phrases were twisted contraptions of tensions and resolutions without head or tail, full of three or four Parker-esque clichés repeated endlessly... in short, boring and unmusical stuff.
Be it frustration, or youth and the desire to be "cool", I then turned to the most extreme modal (with almost free jazz peaks); even though everything was, in hindsight, rather random, heavy and pretentious, I learned some very important concepts, such as the construction of the phrase with the principle of repetition/variation, tension and resolution, the ability to manage the overall architecture of a solo, lyricism and structure... but bebop, nothing... I just couldn't do it.
Unfortunately, my successes as a “modern pianist” (invitation to Umbria Jazz, increasing requests to play in Ligurian jazz clubs and bars, shameless flattery from a couple of “modernist” music journalists) had foolishly made me feel like I had “arrived”, and I put my old love for bebop in the attic to gather dust along with other dreams that had long since been abandoned.
The first turning point came when I had the great fortune of meeting Andrea Pozza, who, with extreme generosity and kindness, made me think about the strong and weak points of my way of improvising and provided me with a couple of extremely valid strategies to improve; above all, the one that was really useful to me was the “walking man” exercise, that is, beating the quarter notes with the left hand and playing the phrases with the right with the idea of the relaxation of a man who wanders around without a care in the world.
This apparently stupid and banal exercise had two incredible effects: the swing and the sense of rhythm increased exponentially, but also the ability to construct more articulated and musically valid phrases improved, perhaps due to the sense of security and space offered by feeling perfectly "supported" on a rhythm that flows lightly and effortlessly, perhaps due to the fact that the attention was focused on the rhythmic pulsation and the phrases came out in an almost "subconscious" way.
However, even after these studies there was always something that didn't add up: the phrases didn't run, they always had something poor and limping about them.
The second Copernican revolution, I admit without false modesty, was all my own work: I was at the airport for a business trip, and I had to wait a long time before catching the connection that fromthere were no cops around otherwise who London City would take me to Charles de Gaulle in Paris. I had already drunk all the beers I could, I was not sleepy, I had stupidly forgotten to pack some science fiction books to kill the dead time, in short I didn't know what to do.
I then started to think about a couple of things that, although I had always known, I had always, so to speak, “snubbed”: the fact that sometimes the problem in making a good jazz phrase is knowing how to start it and how, and when, to finish it.
A light bulb went on in my head, and I shouted: “eureka!” (earning me dirty looks from the other passengers, and thank goodness there were no cops around or else who knows what they would have thought if they had heard a foreign word shouted...)
Having posed the problem in these terms, the solution was simple and obvious: the study of the phrase had to be divided into three moments: how to start the phrase, how to develop it and how to finish it: and this is precisely the subject of my further research.
Back home, I got to work: in a few months my ability to play varied, musical, rhythmically fluent and sensible bebop phrases improved more than in all the previous years of study (and I assure you that they were a lot).
I also realised that this type of study made it easier and more enjoyable to approach phrases in all keys, developing the ability to be a complete pianist, capable of getting by in all situations.
Suddenly something came to my mind: why has no one ever told me? Why did I have to waste twenty years and more studying useless things, groping in the dark, wasting time and energy behind incomplete and often misleading systems and concepts?
That's why I thought that sharing these ideas and this study approach could save some musician the "ordeal" that I had to go through, well aware that this is not the only system that works, but confident that it is a valid system, fast and accessible to everyone, not just the talented with perfect pitch and natural predisposition.
Someone, nevertheless, would tell me: why to learn to improvise in bebop style? What if I wanted to play modal, rock, prog, heavy metal?
The answer is simple: bebop phrasing is one of the most complete, flexible and profound improvisational systems that have ever been created, and whoever masters it will be able to develop other improvisational approaches with extreme ease, apparently miles away from bebop; and if in addition to bebop one were able to also delve into blues phrasing and modal phrasing... then there are no more limits, except the sky and the depths of one's own soul.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
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