Free Jazz Education and Music
From their name to their instrumentation to their imaginative, sonic landscapes, JoE-LeSs shOe brings the unconventional to the Los Angeles jazz scene. Formed in 2002, the trio consists of Matt Otto on sax, Jamie Rosenn on guitar and Jason Harnell
Here’s another beautiful melody from the Bach 2 part inversions that comes from the harmonic minor scale. In this lesson I sing the phrase in one key (concert Ab minor) and then play it through all 12 keys. I really
In lesson 31 we’ll take a small melodic fragment from the Bach 2 part inversions and both play it and sing it through the diatonic chords found in concert Eb major. I enjoy taking a small phrase from any number
Since I developed carpal tunnel syndrome in 1990, I began to sing as a way of practicing the saxophone without using my hands. After my operation, I could not use my hands to play the sax for 4 months so
3-ish is a trio comprised of Jason Harnell on drums, Ryan McGillicuddy on Bass and Matt Otto on tenor sax. All 3 of us write for the group and have played a lot together over the last 5 years. This
This is an instrumental recording of Tom Waits tunes with some wonderful players. Aaron Shragge on trumpet and Shakuhachi, Brandon Bernstein on guitar, Jason Harnell drums, Ryan McGillicuddy Bass and Matt Otto on tenor sax. Each of us arranged a
This is a melody taken from the harmonic major scale. The b6 mode of harmonic major outlines a major 7 chord with a #5, a #9 and a #11. The melodic line starts with a simple “shell voicing” (the root,
I finally finished my first book on jazz improvisation. After years of practice journals and outlines for the ultimate jazz tome, I finally realized that I’m not Mick Goodrick or Hal Crook (no matter how much I practice) and in
This is a short etude I wrote over the chord changes to My Shining Hour in concert C. The etude utilizes a lot of modern-ish concepts in terms of rhythmic groupings and harmonic/triadic substitutions. You’ll find several uses of #9
This is a simple introduction to using perfect fourths over a Major 7 (#11) sound. By stacking four perfect fourths off of the 7th degree, the 6th degree, the #11 degree and the 3rd degree of the Lydian scale (Maj
This is a simple dominant 13 (#11) melody played around the circle of fourths starting with concert C13(#11). This melody could also work over the related ii chord (G-7 for C13#11) in spite of the presence of the natural 7 (the
This is a very effective relative pitch ear-training exercise that I came up with several years ago and have been doing fairly regularly with fantastic results. The idea is simple and can work in a variety of ways. First
