Lesson

Song for My Father is a Great tune to study mainly because it has a couple dom 9 chords. Not altered, not diminished, just a 9 chords. We can get rid of the root and the fifth and add the 9th and the 13th. I do this in this etude.

Most of this tune can and should be played with rootless voicings ESPECIALLY with a bass player. Here I add the root but it's never with the chord. This is to make sure you can hear the voicings in context.

We have to be careful with rootless voicings. They can sometimes sounds like a different chord then they are supposed to be.

This is a solo on Joe Henderson's "Recordame" that Dave recorded for me in a lesson when I was studying with him at Berklee most likely in '73. He played this in the lesson unaccompanied and I had taped the lesson and transcribed it after. It's probably on a cassette somewhere but I can't locate it. Anyways, it's a great display of Dave's playing at that time and shows a high level command of language, nice improv concepts and his strong time feel.

Fast tempos are hard, slow tempos are hard. I think tempos are hard period.

I spend so much time playing and recording and checking the feel and the tempo. Sometimes it's 3 hours later and I'm on the same tune looking for a take that I think is acceptable. Where the time seems to be ok.

I love playing by myself and trying to make a piece of music. Check out Peter Bernstein's solo guitar album. Well and check out my solo vibes album. Both are on Itunes. I think for some musicians it's really something to work towards; playing alone and playing well. And playing time.