Upside-Down Thinking for the Jazz Pianist

        EXPLORING AN ADVANCED HARMONIC EXERCISE IN JAZZ-PIANO HARMONY

Legendary Freddie Hubbard

 In Jazz Improvisation, the question that is always asked is " What notes should I play with this Chord?"  A whole boat-load of Jazz Theory Books and Minus-One recordings have been marketed to answer this single question, ever since the introduction of Jerry Coker's 1964 book "Improvising Jazz" where an academic framework of modes and scales for improvising was laid out on paper.  There is of course, much much more to playing Jazz than mastering scales.  Scale study may not be necessary  and certainly is not sufficient.  Some would say that it is neccesary but not sufficient, but it is definitely not necessary and sufficient.   The arguments about teaching Jazz and how to think about it go on,  and the wise student would study from a variety of teachers to get different perspectives on how to learn improvising.  The one thing I believe is absolutely necessary is being able to play melodically and harmonically by ear in all 12 keys - the study of scales may facilitate that skill, but not necessarily.  If that skill is not in play,  all the scale study and hours of practice are just rote exercises leading nowhere.  This is why I have my students play "EAR" tunes in all keys, like Happy Birthday, Dixie and Jingle Bells.  Usually they understand the reason and it is surprisingly challenging to do.  The payoff is big, though. But if you can't hear your way through those tunes, how much sense does it make to improvise on a complex tune like Joy Spring and make musical sense of it?    But enough of that -  in this post I propose an advanced Harmonic exercise that turns the conventional method on its head and goes a long way to developing abilities to hear harmonically and to hear how notes relate to their underlying chord, which I believe is the foundation of improvising lines.
  Instead of asking....
       WHAT NOTES GO WITH THAT CHORD?
ask....
      WHAT CHORD GOES WITH THOSE NOTES?

This is a great way to develop the ear, to learn to listen carefully to voicings  and chord-quality differences, and develop  useful arranging skills. 

 Let's say we are given two notes  ( Eb and Ab  in this example. ) There is at least one good jazz voicing in every key  that will incorporate those two notes.  There are several possibilities in each key on chord type and voicing configuration.  This can be reworked with ANY two notes, or even 3 notes!  Or 1 note.  Here is a sample solution for the 2 notes Eb and Ab, highlighted in blue:

 Clearly this opens up a lifetime of exploration, given the 1, 2, and 3 note possibilities in 12 keys. For someone who is focused on harmony and voicing, I think this can be extremely helpful. 
Freddie Hubbard performs Joy Spring here ---