FAO John Riley's Art of Bop Drumming users

jonescrusher

Pioneer Member
Ok, got an enquiry/ point of confusion that will only make sense to players who use the Art of Bop Drumming playalongs, specifically 'Last Week', the medium tune that employs an ABA form.
Part of the form describes 'two chorus piano solo (first chorus AAB)'

Counting through, i'm getting confused with this AAB exception. I naturally assumed this meant 'play first A with its repeat mark, then play the second A that has no repeat mark, then play B section.
However, counting as such fall 8 bars short. This suggests each 'A' in this 'AAB' counts only as one 8 bar section without repeat marking.

I'm inexperienced with interpreting jazz charts, and this variation would have killed me had i been reading it cold.

Is there a convention in understanding jazz form where an A or B section describes a section with or without regard to repeat markings?

Sorry if this is a little hard to understand, would be great to get John's thoughts, if he's on the board?
 
My CD is lost, so I can't listen to the audio, but each section is 8 bars long; so the first A section is the first 8 bars up to the repeat, the second A is that section repeated, and you can see where the B section is. The short chorus should be 24 bars long. Don't just count measures, though-- pay attention to what the bridge sounds like, and notice when it comes around. I've never heard of anyone randomly dropping a single A section on purpose, so I guess this was a mistake-- kind of a surprising one. You would think they would do another take-- must've been time constraints...
 
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Not really familiar with that part of the book, but I know when guys talk in AABA talk, it automatically takes into account the repeat signs and all other "road map modifiers". The sheet music my have a repeat sign, but the form in always written straight.
 
Here's the form:
play the first A section,
repeat the first A section,
play the B section,
play the last A section.

In this chart the A sections are identical, including the melody, harmony and ensemble figures to be played. Sometimes there are first and second endings to take in the first two A sections. The second ending usually setting up the B section harmonically and/or feel wise, like a latin B section.

I have a photocopy of that chart in front of me (the original book is at home) and I can't make out if there is a repeat sign at the end of bar 8. If there isn't there probably should be.

During the first chorus of the piano solo they play the first A twice, then the B section then they play AABA.

The harmony of the B section moves twice as fast as the A section and in a descending fashion by semitones at the start. It is quite distinctive compared to the harmony of the A section(s), and once your ear becomes accustom to hearing these things an identifying "landmark", if you will, for when you get lost reading.

Just realized this is a long winded version of Todd's much more succinct answer.

Mike


Ok, got an enquiry/ point of confusion that will only make sense to players who use the Art of Bop Drumming playalongs, specifically 'Last Week', the medium tune that employs an ABA form.
Part of the form describes 'two chorus piano solo (first chorus AAB)'

Counting through, i'm getting confused with this AAB exception. I naturally assumed this meant 'play first A with its repeat mark, then play the second A that has no repeat mark, then play B section.
However, counting as such fall 8 bars short. This suggests each 'A' in this 'AAB' counts only as one 8 bar section without repeat marking.

I'm inexperienced with interpreting jazz charts, and this variation would have killed me had i been reading it cold.

Is there a convention in understanding jazz form where an A or B section describes a section with or without regard to repeat markings?

Sorry if this is a little hard to understand, would be great to get John's thoughts, if he's on the board?
 
I've always assumed this mistake was left intentionally. This is improvised music, so mistakes occur, and I think they are part of the art form. Especially when playing an AABA form, it's easy to skip an A, and that happens to many.

I can imagine they may even have chosen to keep this take against another one that had no mistakes, but that was less interesting musically.

I would appreciate John's input on this if he's around!?

Cheers
Alain
 
My CD is lost, so I can't listen to the audio, but each section is 8 bars long; so the first A section is the first 8 bars up to the repeat, the second A is that section repeated, and you can see where the B section is.

This is what i assumed must be the case in this particular chart, is it generally safer to assume that a section, when indicated to be played multiple times, should have repeat markings observed?

I'd love to hear John Riley's thoughts on this; it would be clever of him to have left an intentional mistake / ambiguity in there so as to keep the reader on his toes.

Agree with the comment about using ears rather than eyes; of course, the harmonic changes allow the play to readily identify section changes. The Riley [playalongs are a great challenge as the soloists' phrasing don't always make bar counting an easy job.

Thanks for all the replies.
 
All I did was give him a link to thread so hopefully he will chime in.
 
Hi Guys,

Glad you are into the music and the book is helpful.

Regarding the chart and piano solo on "Last Week" - the tune is supposed to be AABA but the pianist made a mistake and forgot to play the last A section of his first chorus. As is often the case, we had limited time in the studio and otherwise the playing was fine so we didn't redo it.

Hope this clears things up.

Best,

John Riley
 
Hi Guys,

Glad you are into the music and the book is helpful.

Regarding the chart and piano solo on "Last Week" - the tune is supposed to be AABA but the pianist made a mistake and forgot to play the last A section of his first chorus. As is often the case, we had limited time in the studio and otherwise the playing was fine so we didn't redo it.

Hope this clears things up.

Best,

John Riley

^^^^ What makes this place amazing! From the master himself.
 
I love that John responded

and I love that the mistake was left ......that is the spirit of jazz boiled down to it's bare root essence

things like that happen all the time on the bandstand .....and we go with the flow
 
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