Review: Charlie Parker Omnibook, Volume 2

Jazz education has come a long way in the last 50 years. With so many theory methods, patterns books, playalongs, fakebooks, and solo transcriptions now available, it may be hard to imagine that there was a time when we had very few of these. The recently-published Charlie Parker Omnibook Volume 2, with 60 solo transcriptions, is a valuable addition to our educational resources. Big thanks are due to the transcriber, Chris Stewart.

Some personal history: When I was in 7th grade in the 1960s, playing tenor in the school jazz band and just beginning to listen to recordings by the great players, I discovered that my local public library had a record listening station, and a number of Charlie Parker's Savoy and Verve recordings. I used to do my homework with the headphones on, and have been a fan ever since.

In college in Portland, Oregon, when I was finally getting serious about music, one of the few sources for transcriptions was old Downbeat magazines. There was an archive of back issues at the public library. I was thrilled to find transcriptions of Parker's "Now's the Time" solo and Coleman Hawkins' "Body and Soul." I learned a lot from those two solos alone.

A digression: When I was in the library digging through old issues of Downbeat, I got into a conversation with another student who I met there. He told me a story about his dad, who had been a trombone player in New York in the 1940s. One day his dad decided to go sit in at an open jam session. When he got there, Charlie Parker was on stage, with some other heavy players. Dad was understandably intimidated. He took his trombone out into the hallway, and started playing along softly, facing the wall. As he was playing, someone grabbed him by the collar and marched him onstage. The guy who grabbed him was Parker.

Anyway, when the first ("Volume 1") Charlie Parker Omnibook came out in 1978, it was a great gift to jazz education. I used the transcriptions for sightreading and for analysis, and have used the book in teaching ever since, with any jazz-oriented student who is ready for it.

With most students whose reading and theory skills are sufficient, the first solos we study are 5 blues tunes, all in concert F - Now's the Time (two takes), Au Privave (two takes), and Billie's Bounce. First we play the transcription together, and practice the rough spots (listening to the original recording helps a lot). Then I go through the solo measure by measure, noting the devices that Parker uses in playing a blues. As we go through these 5 solos, many of the same devices occur repeatedly. As I see it, here are some of the benefits of this approach:

1) Blues is at the heart of jazz. Students need to understand blues instinctively, intellectually, and emotionally. Parker was a brilliant blues player. Just being exposed to his music is important.
2) The student will hopefully pick up something of his thought process, consciously or unconsciously (that's a good reason to study Bach and Mozart, too).
3) The solos are pretty technical in spots, and are great reading practice.
4) Analysis will help students' understanding of music theory in general.
5) They will hopefully pick up on some of the devices that make a blues solo work.

(This post has an analysis of Billie's Bounce, as I might approach it at a lesson.)

As fond as I am of the old Volume 1 Omnibook, it has some imperfections. The notation is sometimes not exactly "proper" (e.g., use of accidentals). The chord symbols sometimes seem to be intended to reflect Parker's apparent thought process (e.g., chord substitutions), but at other times seem to be intended to reflect either what the band is playing, or what the changes are "supposed" to be. In other words, the reasoning for the chord symbols seems to be inconsistent. The transcriptions, by Ken Slone and Jamey Aebersold, are very good, but there are a few wrong notes and rhythms here and there, if you are picky.

Bb, C, and bass clef versions of the original Omnibook are available, but the fingerings and pitches of Parker's solo lines are native to the alto sax. When transposed for Bb instruments, the licks do not sit as well on the horn. Also, range can be a problem; some notes or phrases need to be moved up or down by an octave in order to fit in the normal range of the sax. This can interfere with the original flow of the phrases. The Bb book works better for clarinet than for tenor, as the clarinet has a wider range. Sometimes I think tenor players would be better off using the Eb book, though of course that puts the songs in a different key than the one in the original recording. This issue applies to volume 2 as well.

As Chris Stewart notes in his preface to Volume 2, the original Omnibook does not show articulations; also, the choices of tunes are heavy on blues and "rhythm changes" tunes. The lack of articulations doesn't really bother me, and the tune choice is not really a flaw; it's just the nature of the book.

When the publication of Volume 2 was announced a few months ago, I ordered a copy right away. I've played through all the tunes in the book (but of course not at the original tempos).

Here are some features that I noted in the Volume 2 Omnibook:

1) As mentioned, the song choices are not so heavy on blues and rhythm changes, but include more standards. That's a welcome addition.
2) Volume 2 includes articulations (Volume 1 does not) - in fact, Stewart has included pretty much every articulation that he could. I've only "proofed" a couple of the volume 2 tunes for articulations. As nearly as I can tell, Stewart is mostly right, though in a few places the indicated articulations may be arguable. In fairness, he probably has better sound equipment than I do, and obviously has a great ear. I do find that the articulations tend to clutter the visual aspect of the transcription. The inclusion of articulations is OK with me; it's just a choice he made in an effort to be more accurate. As the saying goes, it's a feature, not a bug.
3) Rules of "proper" notation are followed more consistently than was the case in Volume 1.
4) Growls are shown!
5) Stewart has indicated wherever he thinks Parker is using a side D fingering for 4th line D. If he's right, Parker uses it quite a bit. I think some of these indications may be arguable. Also, unless I overlooked it, I don't see any indications that he used side C for 3rd space C or for C above the staff (I know Volume 1 pretty well, and have noticed some spots where Parker probably used side C, though it's not indicated in that book).
6) Chord changes seem to be chosen much as they were in Volume 1. That is, it is not always clear whether they are intended to reflect what Parker was playing, or what the pianist is playing.
7) One factual goof: The tune listed as "They Didn't Believe Me" (Jerome Kern) is not that song, but rather "Irresistible You" (Gene DePaul), as per Lawrence Koch's Parker biography, Yardbird Suite (pp. 262-3).

Steve Neff has posted an excellent review of Volume 2, worth checking out. He also has posted youtube links to all the songs in the new Omnibook.

I'm truly grateful to Chris Stewart for putting together this great product! If you enjoyed the old Omnibook as I have, you'll find many more years of enjoyment in the new Omnibook Volume 2.

If you would like to order either the original Omnibook or the new Volume 2, links are below for the Eb editions. If you order through these links, this website will receive a small cut (thanks!).

Charlie Parker Omnibook Volume 2:



Charlie Parker Omnibook Volume 1:

Hermeto Pascoal’s improv lessons

A fascinating article from the Ethnomusicology Review: Notes from the Jabour School: Multidimensional harmonic models for improvisation, composition and arrangement from Hermeto Pascoal’s Grupo in Rio de Janeiro, by Jovino Santos Neto.

You really have to read this yourself, but I'll try to summarize.

Jovino, an articulate writer, discusses his experiences as a young musician playing with Hermeto Pascoal's ensemble, particularly Hermeto's method of teaching improvisation to his musicians. An excerpt:

The first thing that Hermeto taught us when improvising over chords to ‘Campinas’ was to write above each chord symbol a number of triad options. So, if a chord was a C major 7th, we would write the symbols for G, E minor, D and B minor. These triads are components of the C Lydian mode. If a chord was a C minor 7th, we would write the triads Eb, Bb, D minor, F. These are components of the C Dorian mode. For each chord type there are between 2 and 5 triad options to be explored. However, instead of having us learn linear scales and modes, Hermeto would inspire us to create simple, intuitive melodies based on those triads.

This comes across to me as an adaptation of the "substitution by thirds" and "upper structure" approaches. But the last sentence above is essential. 

Jovino goes on to describe his own expansion of this perspective:

Even though we tend to treat chords as individual entities or motionless objects, in reality they connect to and inform all the musical material surrounding them, so it would be more appropriate to consider chords as verbs, (which denote actions), rather than nouns, which denote objects. We can then visualize any chord as a cloud of possible musical actions, with an ‘atmosphere’ of triads surrounding it. I found it convenient to use three dimensional images as a visual aid to enable the multi-sensorial perception of harmony...

...Furthermore, I find that even better than using abstract Platonic solids as sources of imagery for musical reference, we can instead focus on shapes commonly found in Nature. Trees, for instance, can very effective models for conceiving harmonic entities. As land-dwelling beings, we think of trees as stationary objects, but somewhere in the inner core of our brains, we can still visualize trees as stations along a pathway of travel like our canopy-dwelling ancestors.

As I mentioned, you really have to read this article in its entirety. In fact, I think I'll go back and read it a few more times, myself.

Note: Jovino will be presenting a lecture on "The Harmonic Forest: Musical Structures Heard as Trees" on Jan. 21, 2019, at the Seattle Art Museum. Here's a link for ticket information.

Play little songs

 "Play little songs."

- Advice to improvisers from Tadd Dameron, quoted in I Remember Tadd, an article by George Ziskind, posted on the "Jazz Profiles" blog. 

The wisest three words I've ever heard on the subject. Ziskind was a friend of Dameron's. I was referred to his article by my friend Adam, who studied jazz piano with Ziskind. Ziskind gave Adam the same three words of advice.

Ziskind explains in more detail:

This was Tadd's most basic advice to the improviser. When playing one's chorus(es) on a tune, it is not sufficient to know the harmony (backwards and forwards, so to speak!!); to be 100% comfortable with its figurations; and to have more than a passing familiarity with the composer's conception. Tadd stressed that the above were merely starting points. They were the basic building blocks necessary to construct a credible solo and only when you had those items fully covered could you be ready to deal with the heart of the matter, i.e., to make "little songs" as you played—little self-contained melodic bits—that could be two beats long, or two bars long, or nine or ten bars long.

Steve Swallow interview

A friend sent me a link to this video - Steve Swallow and John Scofield, interviewed by Dr. David Schroeder. It's over an hour, but well worth the time. Topics include "ear" playing versus reading skills; the origin of the Real Book; Steve's experiences working with Gary Burton, Stan Getz, Carla Bley and others; and Steve's transition from double bass to electric bass. Some great stories here!

I'd long wondered why the old Real Book had changes to "Here's that Rainy Day" that seemed so wrong - according to Steve, they were Jim Hall's reharmonization. Steve also mentions that the Real Book changes to "My Romance" are the "Bill Evans changes." That made me wonder what the original chords to the song actually were, since pretty much all modern fake books show something close to the changes in the old RB. The original harmonization was quite a bit different; I'll get to that in a future post. Here's the interview:

Is the major sixth a blue note?

Why don’t we call the major sixth a “blue note?” From the earliest days of jazz and blues, it’s been a basic part of the blues melodic vocabulary. Here’s a perfect example - check out Illinois Jacquet’s opening phrase. It’s an archetypal blues lick, 5-6-1-3-1-3:

I’d argue that in terms of traditional blues vocabulary, the major sixth is just as important as the the flat seven or flat five.

Here’s Bessie Smith’s 1925 rendition of “Yellow Dog Blues” (W. C. Handy, 1915). You’ll hear major sixth licks all through it:

There are countless other examples of the major sixth in blues licks, from all eras of jazz and blues.

Maybe we should try to better define our terms. What exactly is a “blue note,” anyway? Merriam-Webster cites the first use of the term “blue note” as 1919; Dictionary.com says it dates from 1925-1930.

Pretty much everyone agrees that the term “blue note” refers to a flat third or flat seventh, often in a context that is otherwise major-key. For about the last 70 years or so, one could include the flat fifth as well.

As I see it, the term was originally coined to describe the use of notes that contradicted the simple diatonic vocabulary of most early popular music. It’s an ethnocentric term, describing a Southern, mostly African American melodic usage that was at the time (c. 1919) heard by most mainstream-culture Northerners as unusual and exotic.

The terms “blue notes” and “blues scales” don’t go very far in actually defining the language of blues and jazz. They are overly-limiting concepts (though that limitation can be helpful to beginners); also, these terms say nothing about rhythm. Musicians, and especially educators, would do better to think of blues usage in terms of melodic vocabulary (licks).

True, the “blues scale” can be a useful teaching tool. When I help beginners learn to improvise, I nearly always start by having them experiment with a “minor blues scale” (1-b3-4-b5-5-b7-1), while I play a basic 12-bar progression on piano. They usually sound good right away, which gives them confidence. In addition, they usually end up finding some traditional licks in playing around with the blues scale - and that’s a good thing. Fortunately, most people today have heard plenty of blues, even if they didn’t know that’s what they were hearing, and they will intuitively draw on it.

But the next step is to tell them that actually, any note could work, depending how it is used.

The “major blues scale” (1-2-b3-3-5-6-1) is a useful concept too - again, because it draws students into traditional licks, this time including the major third and major sixth. You can’t use this scale over the entire progression like you can the minor blues scale, because the major third in this scale doesn’t work so well over the IVdom chord (e.g., playing the note E natural over the F7 in a C blues). Also, the “major blues scale” omits the flat seventh. And anyway, dwelling on a scalar approach to improvising is kind of going down the wrong road, I think - not the best way to get students to play melodically.

Getting back to the major sixth - I’d speculate that its use in traditional blues licks traces back to 19th-century hymns - consider “Amazing Grace” (the words were set to its present melody in 1835), for example - and before that, back to English/Irish folk music (e.g., “Londonderry Air,” c. 1792). I suppose you could call that usage “major pentatonic,” if you subscribe to the oversimplistic theory that pentatonic scales are somehow an Ur-form of world music.

In terms of defining the vocabulary, some notes are bluer than others. The flat third is the bluest (maybe we should call it the flat/major third, or bent third); after that the flat seventh, flat fifth, and major sixth, then maybe the second and fourth. The performance practice of bending notes (pretty much any note) is a separate, but related, element in jazz and blues vocabulary. It can turn any note “blue” - think Johnny Hodges or Jimi Hendrix. 

In a due-diligence internet search, I ran across an article by Hans Weisethaunet, Is There Such a Thing as the “Blue Note”? It’s worth reading (I agree with some, not all, of what he has to say). Weisethaunet concludes that:

…there is no such thing as the blue note, the ‘item’ of musicology. There is no such thing as the ‘blue note’ as a strange or ‘out of tune’ third or seventh (apart from in the theories and ideologies of a few musicologists). Rather than thinking of ‘blue notes’ as pitches being out of tune, ‘blue harmony’ creates a space for the play of identity in music performance...

My perspective here is not that of a musicologist, but of a player and teacher. My point in this post is simply that blues and jazz are best thought of as a matter of tradition, vocabulary, and creative evolution over time. The terms “blue note” and “blues scale” are useful and descriptive, and can be utilized as teaching tools, but the blues/jazz tradition is far more than these simplistic concepts, and students should be made aware of that early on.

If you want to teach a student what constitutes a blues vocabulary, you couldn't do much better than to have them listen to the two videos above, as a start, then check out another thousand classic blues on Youtube. Don't forget this one; the melody opens with a major sixth lick, right after the intro:

Early Blues, Blue Notes, and Blues Scales

Here are a few thoughts regarding blues history and blues usage, that came up in the course of reading several interesting books on early published blues (see this review and this review). I don't claim to be an authority on the subject, beyond the fact that I'm a sax player who has played and listened to a lot of blues over the years.

Blue notes and Blues Changes

Composers of early published blues drew inspiration from folk musicians. In the absence of better documentation, examining these compositions can be one way of trying to understand what early (pre-1910) folk blues and pre-blues might have sounded like.

Early published blues, in turn, influenced the development of popular music in the years that followed, especially jazz and jazz-oriented blues, but published blues influenced subsequent folk blues as well.

In his autobiography Father of the Blues (1941), W. C. Handy describes his creative process in writing "St. Louis Blues" (1914):

[Black Southern folk musicians were] sure to bear down on the third and seventh tones of the scale, slurring between major and minor. Whether in the cotton fields of the Delta or on the levee up St. Louis way, it was always the same. Till then, however, I had never heard this slur used by a more sophisticated Negro, or by any white man. I had tried to convey this effect in Memphis Blues by introducing flat thirds and sevenths (now called "blue notes") into my song, although its prevailing key was the major; and I carried this device into my new melody as well. I also struck upon the idea of using the dominant seventh as the opening chord of the verse. This was a distinct departure, but as it turned out, it touched the spot.

It appears that Handy may have gotten inspiration not just from folk blues, but in part from Anthony Maggio's earlier published tune, I Got the Blues (1908). Maggio's melody consisted of a repeated riff, clearly meant to mimic the bent third that Maggio had heard from a folk musician. Maggio's b3-3-1 phrase was used by Handy in his "Memphis Blues" (1912), "Jogo Blues" (1913), and "St. Louis Blues" (1914).

Maggio's riff as it was used in "St. Louis Blues" (click to enlarge):

Handy's prior awareness of Maggio's tune is pretty clearly demonstrated in Peter Muir's book, Long Lost Blues. But be that as it may, there are two other noteworthy points in Handy's statement:

1) He describes b3 and b7 as blue notes, but not b5.

2) Handy describes the seventh as being bent, like the third, in folk usage. I don't doubt that, but in early published blues by Handy and others, when the b7 of the key is used in the melody or harmony, it is almost always in the context of setting up a I dominant (V of IV) sound, preparing a IV chord. That goes for the first bar of St. Louis Blues as well - perhaps a "departure," as Handy stated, but still acting as a V of IV, preparing the IV in bar 2.

Use of b7 notes in the context of a V of IV can be found in Sousa marches, arrangements of church hymns, and in popular classical themes - musical settings that were commonly heard in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Musicians like Handy, Maggio, and Artie Matthews (arranger of "Baby Seals Blues," pub. 1912) were relatively well-educated, and probably would have known quite well how a secondary dominant works. Usage of the b7 in that context is not at all unique to blues.

Vic Hobson, in his book Creating Jazz Counterpoint, has pointed out that adding a b7 to a triad was a common practice in barbershop singing - a popular pastime in the African American community in those years.  That may well have been another factor in b7 blues usage. But as far as a unique barbershop influence goes, I’d look more to the b7 that is added to the IV chord in blues, resulting in a b3 of the key (a non-classical usage), or to the use of a #IVdim7 in bar 6 of the progression, a feature that goes back to some of the earliest published blues.

In the first published blues tunes, and in late 1910s/early 1920s recordings, most “blue note” usage seems to occur on the third of the key. In sheet music intended for piano, a bent-note effect could be expressed by a b3 to 3 grace note, or by putting a b3 on the beat, resolving then to the 3 (as in the example above), or by simply sounding a b3 note over a major or dominant chord. Melodic b3 notes can also appear in measures harmonized with a IVdom chord (where the b7 in the chord is the b3 of the key), or in measures harmonized with a V7 (the b3 of the key is a #5 relative to the chord).

In early published songs and early recordings, the third seems to be scooped or bent far more than the seventh, which is relatively stable (still true now, IMO).

The b5 rarely occurs in these early blues. 

The M6 note is also an important part of blues vocabulary, then and now. It wasn’t flagged as a “blue note,” though, because it is a part of our familiar major scale. 

Gunther Schuller, in his book Early Jazz, traces b3 and b7 blue note usage to the b7 note that he states was common to the music of Central/West African societies, with the b3 resulting from singing parallel lines. I don't doubt that African music often used b7 notes, but the prevalence of the b3 and bent third in early blues, and the relatively “classical” usage of the b7 (V of IV context) when it does occur, do not seem to support this explanation.

The nature and degree of African influence on the development of blues styles is an open question. Some blues scholars see extensive African influence, others see relatively little.

Willie Ruff has suggested the possible influence of “lining out” worship singing, introduced in America by English and Scottish settlers perhaps hundreds of years ago, on popular music practices in the South. "Lining out" singing still exists in a few congregations in Scotland (Presbyterian) and in the South (Baptist) - see this very interesting video. Check out the similarities and differences in the melodic embellishments and bent notes used by congregations from Scotland, Kentucky, and Alabama. There's room for some speculation on the influence of this type of singing in the origins of blues and gospel style.

In my non-expert opinion, recordings by male "down home" blues artists in the late 1920s seem to show more use of the b7 as a melodic blue note than we see in early published blues, or in recordings of female blues singers in the early 1920s. This may reflect the rural folk style of earlier, undocumented times (pre-1910). On the other hand, styles can change over time. Jazz recordings of blues tunes seem to show freer use of the b7 as a "blue note" (not just a secondary dominant note) as time goes on, from the 1920s through the 1940s. 

The b5 seems to have been used increasingly beginning around perhaps the early 1930s, and became an integral part of blues/jazz/pop melodic vocabulary (e.g., Ellington's 1931 tune "It Don't Mean a Thing," or Matt Dennis' 1941 "Angel Eyes"). By the 1940s, blue-note b5 licks were a part of the bebop language.

Of course, since musicians have been taught that there is a "blues scale" for perhaps 70 or so years, it is now universally accepted that blues-scale-derived licks are basic blues melodic vocabulary.

Blues scales

As I see it, it's a bit misleading to teach students that playing a “blues scale” is the way to create a good blues solo. Historically, and to this day, much of the blues musical vocabulary does not conform to any sort of “blues scale.” In the early days of jazz and blues, the concept of "blues scales" did not exist. The idea of a “blues scale” seems to have come about in the late 1930s, when academically-inclined musicians looked for some sort of underlying principle that would explain the use of “blue notes” in a major-key musical context.

A number of different “blues scales” have been proposed over the years. The one that most of us have settled on (1 b3 4 b5 5 b7 1) has some utility: We can give it to beginning improvisers, and they will usually sound good immediately, which inspires self-confidence. I do teach this way, but I always follow up by saying that lots of great blues licks don’t use the scale, and that any note could sound good, depending on how it is used.

"St. Louis Blues" and Other Early Published Blues

Browsing in our local used bookstore, I came across the sheet music for W. C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues." For $1.95, I had to pick it up.

As nearly as I can tell, this arrangement is the original one from 1914, although the cover art is from 1928. Sheet music publishers often changed the cover design to feature a currently fashionable performer, or in this case a Broadway revue. (Scroll through here to see a number of other covers for this tune.)

"St. Louis Blues" was not the first published 12-bar blues; it was predated by "I Got the Blues" (1908), "Dallas Blues" (1912), "Baby Seals Blues" (1912), and "Memphis Blues" (1912). Oddly enough, "Oh, You Beautiful Doll" (1911) also has a verse that is a 12-bar blues.

First, some disclaimers:

1) The blues tradition is obviously deeper than just the printed notes in published sheet music.
2) Blues (in one form or another, depending on your definition) had existed for many years before these songs were published. All the elements of blues that I'll discuss here, including harmonic devices, 12-bar form, and blue notes, were being played long before they were put into printed form.
3) This is just a blog post with some observations about these tunes, and not an attempt to make any sort of definitive historical or musicological statement.

Anyway, since I had acquired the sheet music, I thought it would be interesting to look more closely at the original printed version of "St. Louis Blues," to see which elements of what we now call "blues" were present in this 1914 song. But one thing led to another - checking various online sources, I found references to the other early published blues tunes mentioned above; I was able to find reproductions of the original sheet-music versions and/or youtube audio clips for all of them.

One great source of information was this dissertation by Vic Hobson. If you are interested in some eye-opening scholarship concerning the early development of blues as a genre and as a form, you should download it and read it.

What makes a tune a "blues"? For present purposes, let's say it's the distinctive 12-bar chord progression and the use of blue notes. For vocal blues, we might add the three-line pattern for lyrics (first 4-bar line repeated once, with a concluding 4-bar "punch line").

Below are the tunes I checked out, in chronological order, with comments.

"I Got the Blues" (Anthony Maggio, 1908) - A youtube clip is here. This tune sounds like ragtime, has a ragtime form with several distinct sections, and was marketed on the cover of the sheet music as a rag. Instrumental, no lyrics. The "A" section was probably the first published 12-bar blues with what we now call a standard blues chord progression. The melody uses the m3/M3 "blue note" device (the m3 note on the beat, moving up to the M3). This sort of notated "blue note" use seems pretty tame by modern standards. The opening riff, b3 - 3 - 1, shows up in some of the other early blues listed here, including "St. Louis Blues." The first theme returns later in minor - a very early example of a minor-key 12-bar blues.

In bar 4 of the blues section, a b7 note is added to the tonic chord, turning it into a V of IV, setting up the IV chord that follows. This is a basic feature of blues harmony. Other than that, chords are simple: triads on I and IV, and a dominant V7.

"Oh, You Beautiful Doll" (Seymour Brown, 1911) - The sheet music is here. The "verse" section, after the intro and the vamp, is a 12-bar blues. Has lyrics; more a "song" than a rag, though the melody has some rag-like syncopation. Marketed on the cover of the sheet music as a "song" - not titled, or marketed, as a blues or a rag. The A section melody begins with the same b3 - 3 - 1 sequence that was noted in "I Got the Blues." Again, bar 4 adds a b7 to produce a V of IV. Other than that, chords are simple I, IV, and V7.

"Dallas Blues" (Hart A. Wand, March 1912) - Hobson's dissertation has two versions: the 1912 version on page 81, and a later revised version on page 82. Neither version has lyrics. The earlier version is a 20-bar song: a typical 12-bar blues form with bars 5-12 repeated in bars 13-20. The 20-bar song is then repeated on the next page, with variations. This piece does not sound like a rag. The V of IV device is present in bar 4 (and bar 12), with a melody note stating the b7 (melody on the b7 here is a common feature of blues as we know it today). In addition, the melody in bar 6 (and bar 14) adds a b7 note to the IV chord (a Db note, in the key of Bb, in effect producing an Eb7 chord). This is another feature that has become an essential part of blues, melodically and chordally. The melody in bar 5 (and 13) uses the b3 - 3 "blue note" device.

The later, "revised" version changed the form to a standard 12 bars, and added a new 12-bar section preceding the original melody. The new section's melody also uses the b7 notes in bar 4 and bar 6; bars 7-12 of the new section's melody are the same as the original melody. A still later, 1918 printing of "Dallas Blues" added lyrics and a new piano arrangement.

"Baby Seals Blues" ("Baby" Seals, August 1912, arranged by Artie Mathews) - Hobson's dissertation, page 84, shows the first two pages - the "verse." As in "Dallas Blues," the verse is twenty bars, but unlike "Dallas Blues," the additional 8 bars is new material, rather than a repeat of bars 5-12. "Baby Seals Blues" also features "blue" melody notes in bars 4 and 6 (we are in the key of Bb; the notes are Ab in bar 4, and Db in bar 6). The harmony in bar 6 of the piano part is a #IVdim7 chord (Edim7) - this also has become a common feature of blues.

Citing the music itself, and Seals' career as a widely traveled entertainer, Hobson makes a case that "Baby Seals Blues" may have been composed first, perhaps as early as 1910, and Wand's "Dallas Blues" may be derivative.

The composer of "Baby Seals' Blues" is variously listed as "Baby F. Seals," "Arthur Seales," "Arthur Seals," "Franklin Seals," and "H. Franklin Seals." For more on Seals' career, see this interesting article by Erwin Bosman.

"Memphis Blues" (W. C. Handy, September 1912) - The sheet music is here (the 1912 version is found on pages 9, 10, and 11 of this archive). "Memphis Blues" is definitely a rag, in its melody and in its form. The last section modulates to the subdominant key, as in the "trio" section of many marches. In fact, the first recording of this piece was by the Victor Military Band; it strikes me as a merging of blues, ragtime, and march. It's played with a straight beat, not a swing beat. This piece was at first marketed as an instrumental; words were added by a lyricist for a 1913 edition, after Handy had sold the song to publisher Theron Bennett.

The first and third sections of this tune are 12-bar blues. The first section (in the key of F) uses an Ab note over the IV chord (adding up to a dominant-quality Bb7). The third section (in Bb) uses the b7 note in bar 4 (Ab, turning the Bb tonic chord into a V of IV). The b3 - 3 melodic shape shows up in several places.

Here's a Eubie Blake version of "Memphis Blues" from a piano roll (1921). Eubie plays it with a feel that is sometimes fairly straight, sometimes more pronounced swing. You'll hear a "third hand" part on the roll, presumably added by Eubie.

A note about swing: In college some years ago, I took a summer class in "American Music" taught by William Bolcom and Joan Morris. They had known Eubie (1887-1983). I asked Mr. Bolcom whether rags were originally played with a straight beat or a swing beat. He answered that Eubie had said that performers would go back and forth, whichever way they felt; both were correct. I took this to be as close to a definitive answer as I was ever likely to get.

"St. Louis Blues" (W. C. Handy, 1914) - The sheet music is here. This tune consists of an introduction with a bass line in habanera rhythm (a rhythm used in tango; Handy conceived of this section as a tango), a 12-bar blues "A" section, a 16-bar habanera/tango "B" section, and a 12-bar blues "C" section with a different melody.

The first recording (1916) is played with a straight beat throughout. Handy's 1923 recording (the youtube title showing 1914 is incorrect) has more of a swing beat; it also adds a minor-blues section and a non-blues closing section.

Getting back to my original question, in the 1914 version of "St. Louis Blues" we can see a number of important features that have come to define blues:

We are in the key of G. Looking at the first blues "A" section,

1) Dominant quality tonic chord in bar 1 (G7)
2) Dominant IV chord in bar 2 (C7, set up by the G7 in bar 1).
3) Melody note Bb in bar 2, coming across as a b3 of the key of G (blue note), supported by the C7.
4) Dominant quality tonic chord (G7) in bar 4.
5) Dominant IV chord in bar 6.
6) Melody note Bb in bar 10, coming across as a b3 of the key - but played against a supporting D7, producing a D7#5. Using an augmented V chord is an effective way of incorporating blue notes into the harmony.
7) 3-line lyric scheme, where the first line is repeated, with a third "punch" line, all 3 lines rhyming.
8) Both blues sections use the b3 - 3 melodic device (e.g., the first bar of each blues section). This was apparently intended to convey a bent-note effect.

"St. Louis Blues" was hugely popular in its day, and is still a jazz standard. Jazzstandards.com rates it as the 20th most recorded standard tune, and lists 16 versions that ranked anywhere from #1 to #24 on sales charts between 1916 and 1940. "St. Louis Blues" was not the first published blues, and W. C. Handy certainly didn't invent blues, but this tune apparently had a lot to do with establishing the features of the blues form as we know it today. Hobson puts it this way:

But in a different sense perhaps W. C. Handy was the father of the blues, in that it was his 1914 composition “The St. Louis Blues” that brought together all of the features that today we associate with the blues in a single composition. In “The St. Louis Blues,” W. C. Handy brought together the twelve-bar form of the blues, a blue-note melody and lyrics using the AAB stanza form. “The St. Louis Blues” was perhaps not the first composition to do this (arguably this distinction belongs to “The Negro Blues” by Lasses White) but the enormous popularity of the “St. Louis Blues” has ensured that this is the standard blues form. In this sense that W. C. Handy can rightly claim to be the father of the “formal blues.”

Thanks to Vic Hobson for permission to quote (and paraphrase) from his dissertation. Dr. Hobson also referred me to his recent book, "Creating Jazz Counterpoint: New Orleans, Barbershop Harmony, and the Blues." I'll be checking that book out next.

To close this post, here's Jelly Roll Morton in 1938, playing "Mamie's Blues" as he remembered it from his early years in New Orleans, perhaps not long after 1900:

The "I Got Rhythm" Bridge - Some Historical Notes

George Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm," published in 1930, has provided the harmonic structure for perhaps hundreds of other jazz tunes. The bridge has a kind of perfect simplicity - a chain of dominant chords that begins on the III dominant, each resolving into the next along the circle of fourths, two bars each, until we land on the V of the original key, setting up the return to the last "A" section.

In the tune's usual key of Bb, the chords to the bridge are:

||  D7  |  D7  |  G7  |  G7  |
|   C7  |  C7  |  F7   |  F7  ||

However, these are not the chords that we see in the "original" sheet music, or in charts that are modeled on the "original" changes. Below is the bridge in what I think was its original form (I've had this sheet lying around for quite a while; I copied it from a Gershwin collection). Click to enlarge.

The chord symbols, taken by themselves, leave a false impression. As shown, they are not functional, but rather just an attempt to represent the notes in the piano arrangement. If a guitar plays the symbols while a piano plays the arrangement, it will sound OK. However, if you follow only the chord symbols, the harmony will sound fragmented and discontinuous - unless you are so extraordinarily clever that you can recreate the piano arrangement from the symbols!

The real gist of the harmony is in the left hand bass notes, which indicate:

|  D7  |  D7  |  G7  |  G7  |
|  C7  |  C7  |  Gb7 |  F7  ||

The many additional chord symbols attempt to represent the mostly-chromatic inner voices in the right hand, particularly the line that starts by ascending from F# in the first bar of the bridge, in the chart above (lyrics: "Old Man Trouble...").

Here's a priceless clip of George Gershwin playing "I Got Rhythm" in 1931. You can clearly hear the chromatic line in the bridge, although he alters it a bit in the third and fourth bars, continuing the line upwards. In this clip, he plays the tune first in Db, goes briefly to D, and finishes in Gb.

I found a few more printed "lead sheet" versions that seem to have been derived from the sheet music, showing similar chord symbols for the bridge:

Tune-Dex fakebook (c. 1949):

|  D7  C  |  Ddim  D7  |  G  D+5  |  Dm  G7  |
|  C7  Bb  |  Cdim  C9  |  Gb7  |  C7 with Gb  ||

Dick Hyman's Professional Chord Changes and Substitutions for 100 Tunes Every Musician Should Know :

|  D7  Am7/E  |  Fdim  F#m7b5   |  G   D7+5  |  Dm7/G   G7  |
|  C7  Gm7/D  |  Ebdim  Em7b5   |   Gb7b5   |    F7   ||

Just Gershwin Real Book :

|  D7  C/E  |  Fdim   D7/F#   |  G7   F/A  |  Bbdim7   G7/B   |
|  C7  Bb/D  |  Ebdim  C/E  |   F7   |    F7   ||

For comparison, here is the progression from the "original" sheet music, above:

|  D7  Am7  |  Fm6  D7  |   G   D+  |  Dm  G7  |
|  C7  Gm7  |  Ebm6   C9   |  C7b5  |   F7    C7 F7  ||

All of these seem to be trying to suggest the chromatic inner voice leading in the original piano arrangement, or some similar line.

Jazz players don't generally pay much attention to this line when playing tunes based on "Rhythm changes." Typically, they'll either just follow the basic chain of dominants, or use that as a basis for an elaborated progression (a couple of examples are shown here).

The pared-down approach seems to have started pretty early. Here's a Red Nichols version from 1930:

There's some interesting material in this Wikipedia article, including the fact that "I Got Rhythm" was actually written in 1928, as a slow song for the musical "Treasure Girl," but was re-used two years later in a faster setting, for "Girl Crazy."

The basic harmonic pattern of the "Rhythm" bridge was used by George Gershwin for the bridges in several more of his songs (I found these in the Just Gershwin Real Book); the first two definitely predate "I Got Rhythm":

Hang On to Me (1924)
Sweet and Lowdown (1925)
Feeling I'm Falling (1928)
Boy! What Love Has Done to Me (1930)

But this bridge idea wasn't necessarily original with Gershwin. The same harmony occurs in the bridge of "Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue." That song was copyrighted in 1925, but according to Wikipedia, may have been composed in 1914.

Aside from the fact that the "chain of dominants" progression is about as old as European classical harmony, I have to wonder if there isn't an even earlier example in American popular song, operetta, or ragtime. Please let me know if you run across one. To qualify, it has to be an 8-bar bridge in a 32- or 34-bar form, starting on the III dominant, then moving around the circle of fourths, 2 bars per change.

399 Scales in 12 Keys, from Saxopedia.com

If you haven't seen it yet, you should check out this resource from Saxopedia.com: The "Scale Omnibus," a compendium of 399 distinct scales from worldwide sources, each one shown in 12 keys. It's a free download in .pdf format - a real public service!

I have a backlog of practice items that will take me more than a lifetime to work through. Still, I could see the potential for some excellent obsessive practicing projects, using this book.

There's a wealth of other great stuff on Saxopedia.com, including links to over 2,000 solo transcriptions for various instruments, and much more.

"Pennies" and "How About You"

In my previous post, I noticed a harmonic similarity between bars 13-14 of "How About You," and bars 13-14 of "Tangerine," a device perhaps traceable to a couple of earlier Ray Noble tunes.

Looking at "How About You" (Burton Lane, 1941) I also noticed some interesting similarities to "Pennies From Heaven" (Arthur Johnston, 1936):

1) In bars 1-6 and 17-20 of both tunes, the opening melodies stick to the first, second, and seventh scale steps.

2) In bars 1-6 and 17-20 of both tunes, the supporting harmonies are often shown with the same changes (depending on your printed source).

3) In mm 21-24, both tunes move to the key of the IV, and the melodies have a definite resemblance.

I'd like to discuss bars 1-2 in this post (the same changes are used for mm 5-6 and mm 17-18).

Let's start with "Pennies":

Various sources show these measures differently. Takes on mm 1-2 of "Pennies" include:

|  Cmaj7  F7  |  Em7  A7  |
|  Cmaj7  F7  |  Em7  Ebdim7  |
|  Cmaj7  Dm7  |  Em7  A7  |
|  Cmaj7  Dm7  |  Em7  Ebdim7  |
|  Cmaj7            |           Ebdim7  |
|  Cmaj7            |  Em7  Ebdim7  |
|  Cmaj7  Em7  |  D7sus4  D7  |
|  Cmaj7  Em7  |  Am7  D7  |
|  F#m7b5  Fm6  |  Em7  Ebdim7  |

or even just

|  C                |                  |.

These all work OK for harmonizing the "Pennies" melody. Not all of them work as well for "How About You," if you want to avoid half-step clashes with the melody (the second progression above is perhaps the better one for "How About You"). On the other hand, once you are into comping for solos, these are all pretty much interchangeable, for both tunes.

The concept is pretty simple: How can you harmonize two bars of what basically is a tonic chord, to provide some movement, and set up the II chord in bar 3? These are all reasonable solutions.

Of course, I wondered about the original harmonizations for these songs. For a few dollars each plus postage, I obtained the original sheet music.

Notice that - as is often the case with old sheet music - the chord symbols are a poor representation of the piano arrangement. If a guitarist plays the symbols, the resulting notes won't clash with the piano, but the symbols really don't describe the functional harmony. What the piano part actually shows is one measure of C with a descending left-hand bass line, then two beats each of D9sus4 to D7. Bar 3 is really Dm7, not an F triad. So the first 4 bars are more like: 

|  C          |  D9sus4  D7  |   Dm7  |   G7   |

Most of the reharmonizations above actually sound better than the original. I recall an Alec Wilder quote to the effect that if generations of musicians work out a common-practice change to a song, it is probably an improvement.

Now, how about "How About You?"?

Here the chord symbols are closer to the arrangement. For a modern lead sheet, I'd just use Gmaj7 or G6 for the first 6 beats. 

The sheet music symbols miss the bass line in bars 2-3, but including the line in a lead sheet would be a little too fussy:

|  G6  Gmaj7  | G/B  Bbdim7  |   Am7   |   D7   |

Note that in both tunes, the the original sheet music shows the V chord in bar 4 as anticipated, starting on the last beat of measure 3. That's not unusual in tunes of this era. It's a convention that works well with a 2-beat bass pulse, a "period" sound.

The first two bars of the sheet music are basically:

|   Gmaj7   |              Bbdim7  |      (the fifth version on the "Pennies" list above, when transposed to C).

As a side note, both tunes have a "verse," or introductory section. The verse to "Pennies" is not entirely forgotten. The verse to "How About You," on the other hand, is pretty much completely forgotten, perhaps with good reason. But there's an interesting moment that uses a whole-tone scale (bar 13, below) - a clever touch in 1941.

For more on these tunes, including references to classic recorded versions, check the entries for "Pennies" and "How About You" on jazzstandards.com.

This post would not be complete without a reference to the classic parody, "Benny's From Heaven." Wikipedia says that the lyrics are "possibly" by Eddie Jefferson. Here's James Moody singing it. Terrific tenor solo, too!

Dotted-Eighth/Sixteenth Figures in Swing

Below are the opening bars to "Satin Doll," as notated in three different charts. The first is from Ellington's own lead sheet, the second from the "official" published sheet music, and the third is from the old bootleg Real Book. Would you play the rhythms in the first three beats any differently? I wouldn't.

Ellington's lead sheet:

Published sheet music:

Old Real Book:

I can recall more than one occasion, when I was playing tenor in a big band, when the lead alto chose to interpret a dotted-eight/sixteenth figure as though it meant what it said: three-fourths of a beat, one-fourth of a beat. This put the rest of the sax section in an impossible position. Should we follow him, and ruin the groove, or should we ignore him, play with a nice normal swing feel, and make the section sound out-of-synch?

The dotted figure turns up more often in older swing charts. I could guess that to musicians of those days, it just meant "long-short." One thing I've never really figured out is why some swing charts are notated mostly with normal eighths, and then, for no apparent reason, a dotted-eighth/sixteenth figure is occasionally thrown in. One time in a thousand, it might sound right to actually observe the figure, and play closer to three-fourths/one-fourth. Usually it makes no sense.

In relatively modern charts, swing beat is usually notated as normal eighth notes. Sometimes you'll see a note at the top of the chart that says "swing," sometimes not. Sometimes you'll see an indication at the upper left of the chart like this:

The "triplet" idea isn't quite right, either. It's impossible to notate swing beat in a way that is mathematically correct.

At a slow tempo, eighth notes will approach a true triplet feel (the first eighth around 67% of the beat, the second around 33%). However, notating it as triplets would be visually cumbersome. Better to just show eighth notes, with a note at the upper left that says "12/8 feel."

At a medium tempo, swing eighth notes are usually played closer to a three-fifths/two-fifths ratio. Obviously, notating it accurately would be out of the question (quintuplet sixteenths with the first three tied, and the last two tied? What a reading nightmare!)

My music notation program has an option to adjust "percentage of swing" on playback, and 60% seems about right at a moderate tempo. That's my take, and I think it's pretty mainstream.

At a very fast tempo (think "Giant Steps" or "Cherokee"), eighth notes become virtually even (50%).

Summing up, here is my advice: When you see a dotted-eight/sixteenth figure in a swing chart, ignore it, and just play the music.

"Samba de Orfeu," "Noites Cariocas," and "I Could Have Danced All Night"

If you are a fan of classic sambas and choros, here's a post for you. Check out the similarities between the  "A" sections, in both melody and harmony, of "Samba de Orfeu" (Luis Bonfa, 1959), and "Noites Cariocas" (Jacob do Bandolim, 1957). I'm not necessarily saying that Bonfa had been listening to "Noites Cariocas" when he wrote "Samba de Orfeu" for the movie "Black Orpheus," but one has to wonder.

A nice performance by Paul Desmond and Jim Hall:

Here's the original setting of "Samba de Orfeu," from the end of the movie:

Jacob do Bandolim playing "Noites Cariocas":

The melody of "I Could Have Danced All Night" (Lerner and Loewe, 1956) is kind of similar, too:

Below are charts for the first 16 bars of these three songs, all in the key of C, for easy comparison:

Besides the similar aspects of the melodies, these three tunes all share the same basic harmonic structure in their 16 bar "A" sections:

• major key
• first phrase (8 bars) I moving to II or II V in bar 7
• second phrase (8 bars) II or II V for 6 more bars, then back to the tonic chord in bar 15.

These charts are fairly "vanilla" versions, unembellished. Other charts for these tunes are often crowded up with additional harmonic details.

It's a simple harmonic template, and a common one. A few more jazz-related tunes that follow a similar harmonic pattern: "Begin the Beguine" (1935), "Ve Se Gostas" (1950), "Moon Over Naples" aka "Spanish Eyes" (1965), Bye Bye Blackbird (1926).

When I mentioned to my wife that all of these "harmonic template" similarities might make a good blog post, she said, "But what is your point?"

I replied, "Well, the harmonies of these songs all share a common pattern, and that might be interesting to some musicians."

She said, "But what is your point?"

 I replied, "OK, that means that you can quote pretty much any of these songs in a solo, over any of the other tunes."

She said, "Great! I like quotes. Everybody likes quotes."

Chuck Wayne Playing "Solar" in 1946

I hadn't seen this before  - A blog post from 2012 by Larry Applebaum, on the Library of Congress website, centering on documentation regarding Chuck Wayne's authorship of "Solar." It includes a clip from a recording of Chuck playing the tune (he called it "Sonny," for trumpeter Sonny Berman) at a session in 1946, eight years before Miles recorded "Solar." Chuck uses Cmaj7 for the first 2 bars rather than Cm#7; also note the turnaround and some other melodic details.

There might be some wordplay in the title "Solar" - as the article notes, the tune is (very) loosely based on the chord changes to "How High the Moon." Moon/Sonny/Sunny/Solar.

The LOC post occasioned an article in the Atlantic, which I hadn't seen until now. Ethan Iverson also posted some interesting comments on "Do the Math."

For more on Miles' appropriation of others' work, here's a story, along with a little research I did a few years ago.

Like Someone in Love - Part 2 (The chord changes?)

Jimmy Van Heusen's "Like Someone in Love" first appeared in 1944; it is one of those tunes that has undergone some harmonic development over the years. Published sources and recordings differ with regard to the key and the chord progression. (Click here for Part 1, concerning what keys this tune is generally played in.)

I thought it would be interesting to survey the harmonic variations that one might encounter. The first reference to check was the original sheet music; I got a copy from the Kampko Vintage Sheet Music Shoppe. 

As with all vintage sheet music, this is not a lead sheet, but rather a piano arrangement. Above the measures are chord symbols, charted so that a guitarist playing from the symbols wouldn't clash with the piano arrangement. When played without the arranged piano part, the chords make for a sketchy but adequate accompaniment. Below is how the chords alone appear in this chart (you can find the melody in any fakebook). Click to enlarge.

By 1944 standards, this is not a bad chart. The most questionable part is the last 5 bars, cluttered with chords that were intended to reflect the (simpler, clearer) piano arrangement. 

To change this into a lead sheet of the sort that we prefer today, the chords need some simplification and modernization.

The original piano arrangement (not shown here in its entirety, due to copyright considerations) has some nice features that are not reflected in the chord symbols. In particular, note the descending line in the first 4 measures, shown below (top voice in the bass clef, 2 beats each, C - B - A - G - F# - F - E ). This line is used in many modern lead sheets.

Here's another nice touch in the piano part - a #9 to b9 in measure 16, where the melody hits the #5. Not bad for 1944!

Incidentally, this tune was written with an introductory "verse," shown in the sheet music, but not present in any other printed or recorded source that I could find. This tune was not written for a Broadway show, and the verse does not seem to have been used in the movie where it first appeared ("Belle of the Yukon," with Dinah Shore and Gypsy Rose Lee).

Next, below are the chords from a 1950s fakebook version (apparently a "Tune-Dex" chart). The chords are simplified, and the last 5 bars are cleaned up. The harmonic rhythm in bars 3 and 19 is off, and many chords are shown only as triads. The II V in bars 8 and 24 has been simplified to just a V. Aside from the original sheet music, this is what was available to musicians in the 1950s:

Now, let's skip ahead to some more modern versions. Below is the basic chord progression shown in "Pocket Changes," a Jamey Aebersold book from the 1980s. It's a perfect "vanilla" chart, a simple reworking of the sheet music. There are no superfluous changes; tonal center shifts are shown as the II V I's that we are all used to working with. I should note that the "minor" chords are undoubtedly intended to be played as minor sevenths, and the major chords as maj6, maj7, or maj6/9, as the player may choose. Note the addition of the A7 in mm.4 and 20, the Gm in mm.8 and 24, and the Bm in mm.10 and 26.

"Pocket Changes" shows some alternate changes too - see the chart below. Note the chromatic bass line in mm.1-4 and 17-20 (present in the original piano arrangement); the Eb7 in mm.4 and 20 (tritone sub for A7); and the II V in mm.6 and 22 (it's a II V in E minor, but resolves nicely into the tonic C chord in mm.7 and 23)

The chords in the original Real Book version (c. 1974) are shown below (the old RB has the tune in Eb; I transposed it here into C). In mm.1 and 17, E7 has been added to set up the Am7 that follows. In mm.3 and 19,  F#m7b5 is not too different from the original D7/F#. The F7#9 in mm.3 and 19 may be a typo; it sounds better as F7#11 (which is not too different from G7/F). The reharmonization in mm.1-4 and 17-20 preserves the chromatic bass line, but alters the harmonic implications. Measures 3-4 and 19-20 are somewhat like the sequence in "Night and Day" that begins with a m7b5 chord built on the b5 of the key.

In mm.6-7 and 25-26, the II V resolves into Em7 (not too different from Cmaj7). This old RB version has most of the "bells and whistles" that we see in other modern charts for "Like Someone in Love." 

Next, here are chord charts from two commonly-used fakebooks: The first is from the "New Real Book" (Sher Music), the second is from the "The Real Book: Sixth Edition " (Hal Leonard). They are not too different, and use the various "bells and whistles" that we have already noted (the Hal Leonard book shows the tune in Eb; I've transposed it to C):

I've checked out quite a few more printed versions and recordings. Virtually all of them use some combination of the harmonic devices discussed above.

Next, here are the alternate changes from the chart in "Dick Hyman's Professional Chord Changes and Substitutions for 100 Tunes Every Musician Should Know" (1986). I'm sure that they work best with Dick's voicings:

Don Haas was a legendary Bay Area jazz pianist and teacher, who passed away a few years ago. I never studied with Don - I'm not much of a pianist anyway, really - but I did get my hands on some of his teaching material, via a couple of his former students. Among other things, he wrote out a series of seven charts for "Like Someone in Love," with different harmonizations, progressing from very simple (I, IV, and V chords) to very complex (see below). 

I really hope that someday Don's family will publish his handouts. A lot of musicians would benefit!

Below is a chart taken from the last reharmonization in the "Like Someone in Love" series. Don's arrangement was complete with written-out voicings, omitted here out of respect for copyright. But you will get the idea. Give this one a try!