There’s this obscure PGMUSIC app that’s called the Modern Jazz Pianist. Installing it on Win10 gave me weird results with chords being spelled wrongly, but if you drag the midis in Biab, you see the chords

Anyway, the playing is off the charts. Miles Black is great, wonderful, but, truth be told, the real star is the amazing Renee Rosnes.

If people are intrested in discussing some of the harmony going on, I’d like that. I’ve been trying to figure some things out.

One of the most amazing things is this little blues called Lexicon, a deftly reharmonized 12 bar blues.

On bar 76 (first four bars of F7) she goes into this mind blowing arpeggio that reads F, Gb, B, D, that is 1, b9, #11, 6. I thought, that’s a nice diminished dominant, like F13b9, right?
But in the left hand she plays F quartal voicing, reading: F, Bb, Eb, that is 1, 11, b7. The combination is no longer compatible with F13b9, the diminished dominant chord, becuse there is no natural 11 there.

So I wondered, what if she spells out locrianNat6, which is the second mode of harmonic minor?
I know Renee Rosnes has played with Joe Henderson and Wayne Shorter, is influenced by Herbie Hancock and Richie Beirach. Hancock and Shorter are, to me, the Parkers and Coltranes of our generation.

I have never even considered the LocrianNat6 chord as being something other than the II-chord in a minor II-V, where, truth be told, you just play harmonic minor over the whole progression. I heard Beirach talk about the harmonic minor scale a lot. I didn’t understand, cause I always associated harmonic minor with minor blues or simplified and dull-ified arabic music. It never sounded “modern” to me. Now, all of a sudden, it does.

I dig Mark Levine’s harmony and piano books and most of what I know is derived from these books. And Mark Levine largely dismisses the harmonic minor scale. Most musicians in the intermediate amateur realm are Levinites, like me. And we never play harmonic minor, since our religion forbids the use of it on weekdays, as well as on weekends, smile

If anyone is as mind-blown as I am over this wonderful PGMusic set and especially Renee Rosnes’ playing, please, share what you learned from it.

It’s way over my head, out of my league, above my pay check, a different ballpark altogether, but intrigues me.

Biab, Kontakt, Sampletank and lots of nice libraries, from Fluffy audio to Abbey Road drums.
Check out these great contemporary Jazz Styles: www.jazzstylezz.com