I think what you are really after is LH comping techniques for jazz.

That starts with being able to grab the simple Tritone with the LH wherever there is a dom7 chord or any chord "after" the dom7 which includes the dom7, such as the 9th.

Ex: When the fake chord is a C7, just play the tritone of C, which is the E and the Bb. Two notes.

Also notice that those same two notes can be inverted and that there are really only 6 tritones that cover all 12 possible 7th chords, therefore that C7 tritone is also the Gb7 tritone. Learning all 6 possible tritones and their "subs" like that is essential. It also can lead to invoking the tritone sub when playing, in this example substituting the Gb chord notes for the C7 and leave the bass player to play the C, or maybe your bass player will also play the Gb. Doesn't matter. Because this tritone sub is not really a Gb at this point, it is expanding on the C7 chord by adding the Gb(b5), Bb(7th stays put), Db(b9) and the E. See the Bb and E tritone hiding in there anyway?

Always try to avoid playing the 5th like the plague, for it will generate the Resultant when the Bass plays the root. The Resultant is what makes the "Power Chord" for rock all that it is, Root played with 5th generates another root note one octave lower and half the amplitude. In jazz we call that "mud" though. *grin*

Okay, so if you were to get these patterns for all twelve keys down to something you can quickly grab, comping in this fashion for the 7th chordings will sound a lot like the late great Erroll Garner's left hand. Matter of fact it should sound exactly like it.

For chords other than the dom7th, we depend upon "shells" -- instead of playing all the notes as a chord is spelled, we pick the two most important notes out of the chord. For example, if a minor chord, the b3 is very important so I generally always pick that one, if a 7th I add the 7th to it. Or if a 6th. etc.

It starts with this rather sparse two note LH comping but once you have that going on you can and should try adding one more note to the grabs. EX: When playing a notated G7 and grabbing the F and B as the tritone, try adding the E on top of those two notes, yielding a sparse G13.

Most of this is done in the area around Middle C, one octave below to about a half octave above.

When the RH is not soloing, go ahead and expand the above to include the RH by playing either the same notes in an open position or the two "added" notes with the RH in closed or open position. Spreading the two hands farther apart such that there is an "empty" octave in between them yields another typical sound as well.

Practice your LH comping to the met, slow enough that you can make rhythmic decisions about where to place the comps, such as the old common "four to the floor" where there is one comp on each quarter note, then the "8 to the bar" comp which is a hit on every 8th, both of which will sound quite dated today but are quite necessary in moving towards the goal, which is to be able to hit on the 'and' of any of the beats as well as the beats themselves, finally being able to intersperse and change that around at will to fit both the way you are playing the tune and the tune itself. At this point the Piano is acting much like a Rhythm Instrument, which is okay, because the Piano is actually a member of the Melodic Percussion Section anyway.


Tritones and Shells, man.

Work with it a few minutes and you'll hear "that" sound, which is what I think you are looking for.


--Mac

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