Visions of Improvisation
An interview with Jamey Aebersold by Doug Beach
At jazz camps, kids beg Jamey Aebersold to count off tunes so they can hear the voice that kicks off each track of the 49 Play-A-Long recordings. For the past 24 years, young and old have learned jazz standards with the right changes and have had the kick of playing them with dynamite rhythm sections, because a music teacher and saxophonist from southern Indiana had the notion that jazz improvisation could be enjoyed by all.
You have a knack for teaching improvisation to people of all ages. Have you learned this over time, or does teaching come to you naturally?
Last week I judged a contest with a drummer who confessed he had never judged before. “Look, here is my advice,” I said. “Just listen, and anything you hear that isn’t up to Miles Davis’s standards, write it on your comment sheet.” The next thing I knew, he was writing like a son of a gun. That’s how I learned to teach, by doing it.
The first time I tried to critique a friend who played in the Indiana University Jazz Band, I couldn’t think of one thing to say; I didn’t know what made up a good jazz solo. After graduating from college, I gave lessons in improvisation. I listened to students solo and could hear what they were not doing right, so I asked them to change it. I wanted to know if they were playing the ideas they heard in their heads; if not, I helped them to do this. I learned to instruct students by watching others teach, reading, and thinking about how I could improve teaching methods.
What gave you the idea of matching a scale with each chord symbol?
Many people who have purchased my books and records think I was the first to use this system, but I wasn’t. George Russell thought of it and passed it on to David Baker, who taught it to Jerry Coker and me. I remember the private lesson I took from Baker in 1961; we were playing “I Remember April” and he showed me that for each chord symbol there was a corresponding scale. This was the most logical system I had ever heard about. I took every tune I thought I knew and learned it all over again with this system.
If a young player who knows his instrument but has never improvised comes to you for his first lesson, what would you teach him in 30 minutes?
First, I would play the Bb major track from Volume 24 of the Play-A-Longs, which have rhythm accompaniment for all the major and minor scales and ask him to try improvising. By listening to his phrasing and articulation, I can tell whether or not he is playing what he hears in his head. Most people sing logical two- and four-bar phrases, starting and stopping on roots, thirds, and fifths; but when they pick up an instrument they often stop playing naturally and instead play unusual notes in unlikely places within the measure. I listen for that natural feeling in a student’s playing, then encourage him to move to a more difficult scale or a blues progression. I want to know if a student listens to jazz, if family members play an instrument, if he knows what the root, third and fifth are, and if he thinks in scale degrees; if not, I encourage him to start. An alto saxophonist would not leave my studio without a Cannonball Adderly record, and a trumpet player would have a Clifford Brown recording. Those sounds might influence him for the rest of his life.
You mentioned the importance of students listening to established jazz players, but many times these solos are beyond a student’s capability. Are there players students can listen to who are easier to understand and imitate?
For tenor saxophonists I recommend Gene Ammons or Stanley Turrentine, players who have a huge sound and a lyrical, happy style. I recommend Chet Baker for trumpet players because he outlines the chords. I suggest beginning jazz pianists do not listen to Oscar Peterson, but to a Red Garland trio recording on which he plays the blues with a lot of space between changes. Students can emulate Garland’s music in a reasonable time, but with Peterson, young students get lost in the first few bars. Until I was 22, it didn’t dawn on me that Oscar Peterson was playing scales, chords, and patterns, but so fast I couldn’t recognize them. I put him on a pedestal thinking he had a special gift. One day I heard him play a phrase and inside that phrase I heard a scale pattern. He was playing the same thing I was, only he perfected it at a fast tempo. I didn’t lose respect for him, but I realized he was human, too.
An alto saxophonist would not leave my studio without a Cannonball Adderly record, and a trumpet player would have a Clifford Brown recording. Those sounds might influence him for the rest of his life.
When did you devise the Play-A-Long concept?
In the summer of 1966, I taught at the Ken Morris National Stage Band Camps in Storrs, Connecticut. While I accompanied students at the piano, a tenor player asked if I would make a tape of some walking bass lines and blues progressions for him. That’s where the idea started. The following year I recorded accompaniments but was afraid if I released them on record, people wouldn’t know what to do with them. I finally wrote a book to accompany the record and that was Volume 1. Chuck Suber, the editor of DownBeat, told me he would buy 100 books and records for his mail order business. I knew if I paid for 500 records and books and he bought 100 immediately, I couldn’t lose much money if the whole thing flopped. Volume 1 had many revisions, and a few years later I produced a record with blues accompaniment and no melodies. I wanted kids to improvise, not play melodies. Between 1967 and 1976 I published five volumes, but at no time did I think the Play-A-Long series would grow to its present 49 volumes.
What other revisions did you make?
I changed some of the exercises and text as I learned new ways to present material. I updated the discographies and added a scale syllabus, which I have revised many times. That’s one good thing about publishing your own material; you can revise it as you see fit.
I could have produced the Play-A-Long records without publishing books, but I wanted people to learn the original tunes with the right chord changes; I like those tunes. Kids should have the opportunity to play the original melody to “Misty” in the right key, with the right chord progressions, and with a good rhythm section. After they learn “Misty,” they can write their own melody and use the recording as a background. It is important to give them space to improvise on the recording and provide them with the right melody, key, and changes. For those who cannot take melodies and changes from recordings, we’ve done all the work.
Did your summer jazz workshops evolve from teaching at the Morris camps?
In 1968 I told Ken Morris I wanted to organize a camp where everybody who attends plays in a combo and every player takes a solo at the final concert. Morris thought it over for a year, then decided to try it. We held the first combo camp at Normal, Illinois following a week of stage band camp, and 90 students attended. One of my favorite memories from the Normal camp is of a 67-year-old man on tuba playing along with a 12-year-old kid on euphonium; I like the idea of bringing the old and the young together.
What other instruments did you study that led to this strong interest in jazz?
I started playing piano when I was five and took lessons for five years until my piano teacher fired me. She gave my money back and said, “You don’t want to be a musician; you don’t enjoy practicing.” I was delighted because my mom insisted I practice an hour a day, and we fought over it. I also took lessons on tenor banjo because my dad played it. My brother was four years older and owned an alto saxophone; I took saxophone lessons during sixth grade and joined the band. A few years earlier I had asked the director if I could play in a band, but when I told him I played tenor banjo, he laughed. “We don’t have tenor banjos in this band,” he said. I thought that it wasn’t a very good band if it didn’t have tenor banjos.
I continued playing alto saxophone and before college studied clarinet and bought a flute. Roger Pemberton was my teacher, and I received a Bachelor’s degree in woodwinds and a Master’s in saxophone from Indiana University.
Were you always interested in jazz?
In junior high I listened to Dixieland jazz on a New Orleans radio station and went to the library to read books about Mezz Mezzrow and other jazz artists I had heard on the radio. In the early 1950s I read that jazz was the coming thing, and those words made me want to get into this business. I took jazz lessons in Louisville and started a little band in high school, playing Johnny Warrington stock arrangements. We had three saxes, two trumpets, one trombone, and a rhythm section. We played at the Moose, Elks, and Lions clubs, making seven dollars a night and enjoying it. One of my goals was to get through a night without making any mistakes on the written arrangements, but there was never a night like that; I always made one. After graduating, I taught woodwind students at a music store from eight until five for two dollars a lesson. I bought an old string bass there for $100; I taught myself and still enjoy playing it.
How did your seminars for teaching jazz come about?
A college professor friend asked me if I could help teachers, too. The first jazz teaching seminar was held at Bellarmine College in Louisville, Kentucky with 15 teachers attending. I told them everything I knew about teaching improvisation. It was successful, and I realized there was a need for seminars like this one. Many teachers expect me to teach them in several hours what they should have learned in several years of college. It’s sad to consider that people graduate from college and they can’t always deliver what is asked of them by their profession. The shortcoming of music education is encouraging people to play in bands and ensembles without requiring them to be creative. If they own an instrument, play with some degree of proficiency, and can read music, we assign them a chair in a musical group from junior high through high school. Sometimes we take care of them for another four years of college, and in the end we thank them for playing in our ensembles, but we haven’t given them what they wanted: to play what they hear in their heads, to play with the radio, or just to play “Misty” for enjoyment.
By not encouraging creativity, we allow students to spend all their time and energy practicing and rehearsing, and graduate from high school or college. Two years later they often don’t know where their instruments are.
At clinics, I ask people to take the microphone and just sing; everybody has marvelous music inside. When I play sophisticated backgrounds at the piano, almost everybody can sing through the changes correctly, but when I ask musicians to play on their instruments any portion of what they just sang, most can’t do it. People think you have to be born with the ability to improvise, but that is not true; creativity is in every person.
The next time you sing along with the radio you might hear yourself singing roots, thirds, fifths, sharp and flat ninths – beautiful melodies that could take years for you to spontaneously improvise on your instrument. I ask people to sing for five or six minutes with my Volume 24 Play-A-Long, and they sound great. When playing their instrument, they make a quick transfer from singing to playing, but use only one scale. I help them through different scales and work towards a tune like “Autumn Leaves” so they keep the flow going from brain to fingers.
Jazz players have always done this: what they hear in their heads comes straight out of their horns. At a clinic a few weeks ago, I told a saxophonist to improvise with the chords I played at the piano. Half of what he performed was fine, the other half was terrible. I then told him to raise or lower any wrong notes by half a step. At first he was cautious, but gradually his improvising improved. After several minutes I had him put his sax down and just sing a solo to my changes. He sounded better, and I told the audience that the singing was what he heard in his head and what he should play on the sax. Working on ear training would help him.
Within 20 or 30 minutes, I teach grade school kids to distinguish between major, minor, diminished, and whole tone scales by relating them to Saturday morning cartoon music. “Here’s Tweety Bird just as Sylvester is about to get him.” And I play a whole tone scale. The next time they hear a whole tone scale, they see Sylvester.
What are the deficiencies of jazz education?
Three weeks ago, I heard George Bouchard’s rehearsal band, which consists of adult players and high school and college students. In their opening tune, every band member stood up and played a decent solo without any coaxing. This is the first time in my life I have ever seen that happen, but 20 or 30 years ago I thought all jazz bands would teach every member to solo. The majority of big bands still allocate solos to only a few players. People play together in ensembles, but we are not teaching them how to make music as individuals. I see progress in colleges that have combo programs, but I don’t see it in high schools; and it should begin in grade school.
As soon as a beginning clarinet student learns fingerings for the C scale, we should ask him to make up a song using any articulations or rhythms and encourage him to play what he hears in his head. If music teachers taught this way for 10 or 15 years, we would have an entirely different appreciation for music; people would be more creative with it.
Another problem is some directors let kids improvise on one chorus and then move on to the next soloist. They won’t let the student start his solo and end it when he thinks it’s time, even if it takes three or four minutes. This takes rehearsal time, but students should learn to build a solo and determine its length; every individual handles this differently. When taking your listeners on a musical journey, keep them interested the entire way. That’s where building a solo comes in.
How do you produce your Play-A-Long records?
I book a rhythm section and we set up a date to record at my house. I have a Yamaha grand piano and a four-track Ampex AG 440 tape recorder with DBX units. It is not sophisticated digital equipment; my mixing board is 20 years old. I pick tunes to fit the players, or we might tackle recording the background changes of “I’ve Got Rhythm” in all 12 keys. I obtain copyright approval and that’s it. We usually record eight or nine tunes in four hours. I talk through the chord progressions with the piano player and bassist, and all parts are written out. If some has a question about a chord, I often check the original recording. Each project takes six to nine months from the time I start writing the changes to the time the Play-A-Long volume is released.
Do you record a couple of takes for each cut?
We try for only one take, but if somebody plays a clam in the first 30 seconds, we stop. When someone hits a wrong chord near the end of a cut, we decide whether to splice the tape or record another tape. We are not sophisticated splicers; 99% of everything you hear on the Play-A-Longs is from the original take. Some people complain that the tempos are too fast, but on the last several volumes I have intentionally slowed the tempos, and I think people enjoy them more. If there is a track that speeds up, it happens naturally.
Do all your educational activities have a common goal?
The jazz camps, workshops, and Play-A-Long recordings give people the chance to perform music creatively and individually, which is the real reward of jazz education, showing others how to learn and enjoy music throughout life