The Essence of the Blues

The Essence of the Blues by Jim Snidero provides beginning to moderately advanced musicians with an in-depth look into the blues. Learn about the inspiration behind the series; how it addresses improvisation, phrasing, and articulation; and ideas for applying the book in the classroom and rehearsals.

1. Why did you write The Essence of the Blues series?

The blues is arguably the most influential music form of the 20th century. From jazz, rock, pop and other genres, the sound of the blues has had an enormous impact on modern music. So there’s a real thirst for understanding the blues.

The blues is a very flexible form, but it’s actually more difficult than one might imagine. There are so many possibilities that improvisers sometimes lose focus and end up sounding academic or contrived. My hope was to bring clarity to both the language and feeling of the blues.

2. What experiences have you had as a jazz artist playing the blues?

When I first moved to New York in the 1980’s, I joined B3 organ master Brother Jack McDuff’s group. We recorded 3 albums together and toured the US, which was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had as a musician. Major jazz venues, all the urban black clubs. It was a great.

Sometimes we would work up in Harlem, and the gig would be 10pm–4am, five sets of music! It was a marathon, and there might be 10 or more blues per night. Different grooves, tempos, keys, etc… It was a real challenge, but it gave me a deep appreciation of the blues.

Since then, virtually every one of my 21 recordings as a leader include a blues. In fact, my new recording, entitled Jubilation! Celebrating Cannonball Adderley (Savant), has a lot of blues-type material. It’s just something that I love and value as an artist.

3. Are there some blues types that are more difficult than others?

Each kind of blues has its own challenge. If you’re playing in a very traditional blues band, there might be certain stylistic limits that don’t allow you to use harmony to “play the changes.” So the challenge is to stay, basically, within a blues scale sound and maintain interest.

If you’re playing a bebop style blues, then the challenge is sort of the opposite. How do you use sophisticated harmony while maintaining a certain amount of earthiness that makes the blues so compelling?

Some musicians feel more comfortable on a traditional blues, others playing changes. The ultimate is combining both, with Charlie Parker being the prime example. Without question, he was a brilliant improviser on the blues.

4. How does the book deal with different types of blues?

By focusing on historic artists that favored a certain style on the blues. I mean, great artists can play virtually any style of the blues, but they have their preferences.

For example, there’s a composition inspired by John Coltrane called “Minor Trane,” a slower modal type blues. Coltrane was especially drawn to a slow minor blues, such as his composition “Equinox”, which was the inspiration for this piece.

Duke Ellington was wonderful on a medium tempo blues like “C Jam Blues,” so there’s a piece inspired by him on C blues. As I mentioned, Charlie Parker was a genius at combining sophisticated harmony with traditional blues, so there’s a piece that is inspired by him in that style.

The best source for learning jazz and blues is always listening to great recordings. What the book does is present 10 different artist concepts as a kind of taking-off point. It’s both an introduction to the blues and the music of these historic figures.

5. How did you settle on certain styles?

I simply selected a variety of styles from some of the best ever within the classic tradition of jazz and blues. There are seven pieces with a swing feel inspired by historic figures: Duke (med swing-era style), Miles (Kind of Blue style), Coltrane (modal), Turrentine (soul jazz), Milt Jackson & Sonny Rollins (hard-bop) and Parker (bebop).

Then there are two shuffles—Lou Donaldson (soul jazz), BB King (traditional blues)—and one funk piece inspired by Blue Mitchell, an unsung hero that was one of the best jazz trumpet players on the blues.

The 10 pieces are played in a variety of tempos and keys, so combined with all the above-mentioned styles, there’s a lot to learn about the blues.

6. What about phrasing and articulation?

We’ve included all of the articulation, bends, etc… performed by the artist on the play-along, so it’s all there!

Articulation is a tricky, and sometimes overlooked, aspect of jazz style. I teach at New School Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York, and many students come in as freshman not fully grasping jazz phrasing. When playing a scale in 8th notes, for example, the default jazz articulation is tonguing up/weak beats, which gives the line a feeling of syncopation. That’s something that can easily be practiced, and should be automatic.

However, direction changes in the line (e.g. a peak or valley) can cause an experience jazz artist to tongue a downbeat, giving it more emphasis. Or they may slur a few notes to create a smoother effect. So it’s useful to have those types of articulation variations notated so that a student can understand how to create more phrasing nuance.

7. Beyond the pieces, what other content is included?

Well, there’s a section with suggestions on how to use the series for both individual and group study. There’s an analysis of each piece and how it relates to the historic artist that inspired the music. And there are insights on the play along performance.

The last section of the book focuses on various ways of using the material for improvisation. There’s a brief section on blues theory, then 37 blues ideas that have been extracted from the pieces and transposed to one key, concert Bb.

Adding ii-V-I progressions to the blues is a common way to play the changes, so we extracted 39 of those ideas and again transposed them all to concert Bb.

The final section has 2 classic album listening suggestions for each of the 10 pieces. So we have included quite a bit of information beyond the pieces themselves.

8. What was the concept behind the play-along recording?

First and foremost, it was to get some of the best jazz musicians alive. Every one of them has placed in Downbeat critics polls (#1 jazz magazine), and are seasoned jazz artists. I’ve found that most play along recordings are not very convincing, not very fun to play along with, and most importantly, not inspiring. When you have the best musicians, they inspire.

Each piece on the play along has a version with and without the soloist. The core of the play along is the rhythm section, and they are fantastic, master musicians on hundreds of recordings. Mike LeDonne is on piano and B3 organ, Peter Washington, bass and Joe Farnsworth, drums. Having Mike on organ gave me more possibilities, especially on the more traditional blues and funk.

The soloist for each version are also master musicians and incredible instrumentalists. I play the alto version, Eric Alexander on tenor, Jeremy Pelt on trumpet, Steve Davis on trombone, Jamie Baum on flute, and Ken Peplowski on clarinet.

There’s a lot to learn from these soloists regarding style. As I mentioned, we have included all of the articulation and phrasing markings, so there’s no guesswork. It’s all right there for the user to practice and refine.

We recorded the play-alongs at one of the best studios in New York, so the sound is outstanding. That’s important because it’s easier to grasp the artist’s intent. The play alongs are so convincing that, if you didn’t know it was a play along, you might think you were listening to a classic jazz recording.

9. How could you use the book to learn about improvisation?

It’s important to understand what jazz improvisation really means. For the vast majority of jazz musicians, improvisation involves a balance between pre-conceived concepts (e.g. vocabulary, balance, timing, and so on) and going with the moment. So there’s a lot of preparation involved.

There are hundreds of ideas within the 10 pieces that could be used for improvisation, lots of vocabulary. As I mentioned, we have taken a total of about 70 ideas and transposed them all to a single key, concert Bb. That makes them very easy to compare and study.

In order to use vocabulary when improvising, you obviously have to memorize ideas, but that’s no big deal. For example, in the US, millions of music students are asked to memorize maybe 8 minutes of music for a marching band show, hundreds and hundreds of measures. Memorizing 2-4 measure ideas are well within their reach.

As I mentioned, the pieces are modeled after classic jazz soloists. When you play them, you get a feeling for how jazz musicians construct individual phrases and entire solos. This gives the user a concept of how to put things together.

Combine vocabulary with solo construction concepts, and you have a basis for jazz improvisation. Every person has different musical instincts, but the preparation is straight forward.

10. Finally, how would The Essence of the Blues be used in a rehearsal or classroom?

The series is currently available for six instruments—alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, trumpet, trombone, flute, and clarinet. Pretty much any woodwind or brass instrument that would be in a student big band or classroom.

The most obvious use is to have students listen to the play-along and learn jazz style. All of the articulation and phrasing is marked, so there’s no guesswork.

A student rhythm section can also listen to the rhythm section only tracks and try to emulate the rhythm section. Most of the tempos are not fast, so it’s well within their reach.

The pieces are transposed for each instrument, so unison when played together. In the rhythm section, the bass can read the trombone book, piano and guitar the flute book.

A teacher could play the rhythm section only tracks, giving the students an authentic rhythm section to play along with. Here are some possibilities:

• All students play piece in unison
• Individual sections play piece
• Individual sections alternate choruses (saxes chorus 1, trombones chorus 2, trumpets chorus 3, etc…)
• Individual students play section (lead alto chorus 1, lead trumpet, chorus 2, etc…)
• Individual student combine choruses in different order
• Individual students use ideas from extracted vocabulary section
• Individual student put together improvised choruses, sometimes using ideas from pieces

The goal is to get students more flexible with the material. If they actually memorize pieces and/or ideas, then they have the basis for creating logical improvised solos. It’s really as simple as that!