[jazzman1945]

This is Herbie Hancock's voicing from Freedom Jazz Dance with Miles :

- 0:24

I tried to explain it through the connection with the harmonics system:

and the following came out:

Any ideas?

 

[bokagee]

What's notated in the voicing is a polychord, E dim. over Bb 9/7, which combined spell a Bb7+9b5. But then there's that pesky Eb in the top voice. So it could be Eb7b9 over Bb 9/7. I guess Herbie liked the uncertainty it adds to the sound.

I've always approached playing this song by using a lot of quartle ideas, a lot like what the head does, slipping between major and minor and moving the tonal center around in half steps and minor thirds. I think the idea is to create your own harmonic basis with what you play, build off of motifs created within several of those (or maybe only 2), and give your solo structure based on the way YOU feel the song and where the group is collectively going at any given point.

 

[Nefertiti]

I would look at it as a Bb7/C7 b9 #9 polychord. I have no idea what you are talking about with all those overtones........?

 

[jazzman1945]

I would look at it as a Bb7/C7 b9 #9 polychord. I have no idea what you are talking about with all those overtones........?

The order of pitches of H.H. corresponds to the order of the overtones indicated by me, only ninth below. This chord was built personally by H.H. by ear , hardly by symbols. The art of constructing chords, which no textbooks teach.

 

[hakukani]

The harmonic series pitches don't naturally occur on the piano, transposed or not. If you force harmonics into our equal temperament, it sounds quite dissonant.

For example, the Bb is nearly a quarter tone flat (-31 cents), the Gb is 1 cent from being a quarter tone flat (-49 cents), and the G# is nearly a quarter tone sharp (+41 cents).

 

[area51recording]

By the time I wrap my head around that ONE chord, the song is over.....

 

[rcpayne]

It would be better to show what chords came before and after your example. Chords and notes only have meaning when taken in context of what came before and after.

 

[Nefertiti]

It's really not that strange a chord when you play it on the piano until you get to that top Eb. BFAbCDEGBbDb is just a Bb7/9 #11 13 chord. The Eb kicks some major angst into the sound though..........

 

[skeller047]

Seems like a standard blues idea to me. If I played that I would think of it as a Bb altered dominant with the fourth on top to add tension. How many times in a solo have you just gone up to the 4th while the rhythm section is on the tonic chord? Me, quite a bit - just land up there and hang a bit, maybe eventually coming down to the 3rd or flat 3rd. Just for melodic and harmonic tension.

No need to get all intellectual about it...

 

[pontius]

Maybe HH just played a wrong note,

 

[Reet McVouty]

The order of pitches of H.H. corresponds to the order of the overtones indicated by me, only ninth below. This chord was built personally by H.H. by ear , hardly by symbols. The art of constructing chords, which no textbooks teach.

Or he could of been just playing some stuff without thinking about it ....

 

[jazzman1945]

Or he could of been just playing some stuff without thinking about it ....

Herbie Hancock ??? For such things, Miles closed the keyboard cover right on the pianist's hands!

Maybe HH just played a wrong note,

The highest note? There is no chance for a pianist who thinks melodically in comping.

 

[pontius]

maybe his pinky forgot what key they were in

 

[Roundmidnite]

The melody uses a lot of fourths so maybe the harmony corresponds.

 

[turf3]

I assume the voicing you're showing is that one chord HH bangs out over and over again in the first few minutes? (Although to my ears he's not always playing the exact thing, he seems to vary it a little.) Truthfully, I'd describe it as a "cluster" rather than a "chord".

This tune and the way they're playing it is not standard harmony (I'm listening to it right now) but rather a modal based scheme based on the notes of the melody. So it's probably inaccurate to describe that big cluster HH plays as any particular chord name plus extensions. The "harmony" is static so the usual aspects of functional harmony like one chord resolving to the next, or creating tension to lead into a cadence, are simply not relevant to the way they're playing.

If I had to guess, I would guess Herbie fooled around with the melody and with different ways of playing piano on this tune, and ended up deciding to use a big cluster banged repeatedly, then he built that cluster off the notes of the melody. In other words, if my hypothesis is correct, he didn't consider it a Bb7/9 #11 13 or whatever at all, he built the cluster according to how it SOUNDED.

I am willing to bet that Herbie certainly didn't look at a table of overtones when deciding what cluster to play.

 

[turf3]

Interesting to note that the bass player on both Eddie Harris' original and Miles' version was one R. Carter.

 

[turf3]

I think this shows a limitation of the "Real Book" approach to tunes. I note the original RB just puts "Bb7" over the whole thing. That's extremely reductive and while you could just sit there and whang away at a Bb7, it wouldn't sound good. Eddie Harris, Miles, and a couple other versions I've listened to, use the melody as a starting point for improvisation and the chord instruments play clusters more or less. I even saw one lead sheet version where there's a whole complicated set of "alternate chords" for one section (?).

Lead sheets with chords over, work great for standards, but they have their limitations in communicating what's intended when you get to tunes like this one.

 

[turf3]

The melody uses a lot of fourths so maybe the harmony corresponds.

there is no harmony in this performance of this tune.

 

[turf3]

It would be better to show what chords came before and after your example. Chords and notes only have meaning when taken in context of what came before and after.

There are no chords before and after. HH just bangs that cluster over and over (varying it slightly now and then but the basic sound remains constant). This is not a tune you can describe using the tools of functional harmony.

 

[Sacks Of Phones]

Want some real fun? Let's analyze Thelonius Monk...................bah ha ha ha