Years . . .

. . . ago . . .


. . . my friend Bob, also a musician, alerted me to the fact that some jazz players, mainly pianists such as McCoy Tyner and Chick Corea, voiced chords in unique and interesting ways, a fact with which I was quite unfamiliar.  At the time mind you, I was entering the twilight of my years of  accordion lessons and listening to art/prog-rock bands like Jethro Tull and Gentle Giant. The lessons providing invaluable theory experience and an unrivaled discipline in practice and dedication;  the art/prog providing tremendous inspiration and motivation to create;  although at the time, I was quite unable to create the kinds of things I would very much have like to created.  Nevertheless, this unique voicing of chords, one tactic of which Bob was very explicit, was the use of fourths - resulting in a slightly non-conventional, yet pleasing and ever-adaptable sound as opposed to a major triad or some inversion of same. In any case, although I didn't fully grasp the enormity of this discovery at the time, I did attempt to employ it and have incorporated it into my musical thoughts and deeds ever since. One such composition that utilizes the concept is, as of yet tentatively titled, posted here in all its undecided and raw, new-born glory . . .



Step It Up(in progress)
©2016 Raymond M. Jozwiak

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Striving . . .

. . . for something . . . but not always being able to explain exactly what . . .



(from http://www.furious.com/perfect/ericdolphy2.html)
 . . . "Eric was a very, very gifted musician and a very nice guy on top of it," McCoy Tyner told me in a recent interview. "He had a very personal approach to playing and enjoyed expanding the limits of imagination. Eric played so many instruments, his pockets were bulging with all these mouthpieces," McCoy said chuckling at the memory. "He was the first guy to come on as a guest with the band. At the time he came along he was doing his own thing and made a tremendous impression. We felt that the quartet was self-contained. Jimmy, Elvin and I felt that we had built something and were still on that journey. We didn't exactly understand where John was going in terms of adding Eric. We were like little kids in a sense like this is our band and we want to keep it that way. But then again it wasn't like we didn't want to share our experience. John was the leader and he was the one that made the final decisions. He decided that maybe if I do this, this will cause something else to happen. And it did! They played so differently. Eric added another dimension to the sound. John never rested on his laurels. He was like a scientist in the laboratory always searching for something new or different. By adding Eric he was expanding the music. John and Eric had a very different type of life experience. Eric had a very academic approach. He studied a lot. John coming from the South had that real gutsy approach. His father was a minister and his grandfather was a minister. He spent a lot of time in church and you could hear that in the music. At the same time there were points where the two met and could make something very interesting happen."

"Eric added a very interesting component to the music," McCoy continued. "John believed in what Eric was doing. He wanted to help him. At the same time he wanted to open the music up. It was a very good experience for Eric as well, being surrounded by the quartet. Ole was one of the highlights of Eric's presence. He had his own approach to the bass clarinet. He had personal things he would do on the instrument and got sounds out of it that you normally didn't hear on a bass clarinet. He was very animated and very enthusiastic.". . . (Note:  Be patient. Eric's solo starts at about 4:07)

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