Why Ladybird is a better jazz song than you think
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ธ.ค. 2020
- Ladybird might be my all-time favourite jazz standard - though that changes every few months. Regardless, Ladybird is an absolute bop, and has some extraordinarily hip changes that you deserve to know more about.
#Ladybird #jazzstandard #musictheory
I'm Tim Beau Bennett, and I'm making videos about jazz history. Sometimes I talk about jazz musicians, sometimes the songs, and sometimes about genres. I play jazz guitar, though I would call myself a keen amateur, rather than a professional. These videos are a work in progress, but there are many more to come - so please subscribe and let me know what you'd like to see in the comments!
⦿ HIT ME UP ⦿
TimBeauBennett
timbeaubennett
⦿ SELECTED RESOURCES ⦿
Ted Gioia, The Jazz Standards: www.amazon.ca/Jazz-Standards-...
"Tadd Dameron's music, with love" (New York Times): www.nytimes.com/1982/04/09/ar...
⦿ MUSIC LINKS ⦿
Tad Dameron and Fats Navarro: • Lady Bird by Tadd Dame...
Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers: • The Jazz Messengers - ...
Chet Baker in Milan: • Chet Baker - Lady Bird
![The Wall Song ร้องข้ามกำแพง | EP.202 | ตั้ม วราวุธ / เบสท์ คำสิงห์ | 18 ก.ค. 67 [1/5]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cwIoA7XHqnE/mqdefault.jpg)
One of the first jazz songs I learned to play. I guess I never realized it was written by Tadd Dameron, I only know him through his awesome album with Coltrane.
Dameron also wrote the tune Hot House, which I didn't know until I was researching this video!
I absolutely love the jazz messengers recording of this. Tadds is great as well but the blakeys version just has this bite to it
My trumpet player brought this to our jam last winter. It's such a happy song! I call it every week!
Lady Bird has been a favorite of mine for years! Really appreciate you sharing.
Love your explorations. Thank YOU very much!
This channel is gonna hit 100k some day. Content and production quality are just top notch.
The turnaround baby-that is one of a kind and makes the song very special!
Check out Dexter Gordon’s version of Ladybird (a video here on TH-cam). I have watched that video more than any other by far. A truly amazing quartet and performance.
If it's the one where Dexter starts his solo with a vague Turkey in the Straw quote, then I know it well! I transcribed a chorus of two of it a while back - should revisit it though
I suspect that you're referring to this clip. th-cam.com/video/r0vhqDCy9eQ/w-d-xo.html
Dude your video are great! You're so knowledgeable and down to earth, I like that approach so much. And don't be afraid to talk more about the harmony , that's the interesting part! (At least for me lol) .
Keep doing you!
Haha cheers, much appreciated! I've been trying not to get into the weeds too much, but I'll probably go deeper on some tunes in the future for sure.
Great video, mate! I also like Dexter Gordon version a lot. Which I actually used to transcribe the melody. And it is also an amazing practicing tune to work out different concepts.
Played this tune for my college auditions! Love to see this. Thank you. :)
Thanks! Also, great song for a college audition, got a little bit of everything. It's one of my go-to's to try out new new ideas for the same reason
Yes! I love this tune and especially the contra-fact Half Nelson! It’s definitely one I latched onto early on and kept in my rotation.
I am honestly ashamed that I only got into it fairly recently! It's been on the list of tunes to learn forever, but it somehow always get pushed down :/
Tim Beau Bennett unfortunately that’s just the way things go in this music. You think you’ve got a solid list of tunes you know and you really don’t need another one then someone comes along and is like “so do you know ceora?” Then you spend the next month twisting your fingers over those awkward turns because ceora is the best melody you’ve never played.
Very interesting. Played this just last night at a rehearsal. Thanks for sharing.
You're allowed to have rehearsals!? I'm very jealous 😭
(Glad you enjoyed the video tho)
Love your videos! Have no clue what that nursery rhyme you’re referring to is though hahaha
So what is a shout chorus? Well, a shout chorus comes from the world of big band arranging and was extremely common in the swing era.
A shout chorus is where, typically after a few solos, maybe halfway through a song, the whole will interject with a melodic phrase, generally played in rhythmic unison, really loudly - hence the term 'shout'. Shout chorus' will often trade back and forth with a soloist or drum break, and are break up the pacing of the solos.
They're indicative of a more structured approach to composition, and so aren't all that common with smaller jazz ensembles, which generally simplify tunes so that they can easily be played at a moment's notice with a group of unknown musicians.
A classic example of a big band shout chorus can be found around 3 minutes into the Benny Goodman recording of 'Sing Sing Sing': th-cam.com/video/r2S1I_ien6A/w-d-xo.html
A more modern example can be heard in Don Ellis' recording of his song 'Whiplash' (the song that provided the name for the Movie) towards the end of the song: th-cam.com/video/pCykgzrwIw0/w-d-xo.html
For more on shout choruses (including tips on arranging a shout chorus for a big band) check out Evan Rogers' blog post: www.evanrogersmusic.com/blog-contents/big-band-arranging/the-shout-chorus
There is a great version of this song played by Roy Hargrove Quintet that you can find in TH-cam. One of my favorite. Somehow he managed the listener to feel all the potencial beauty of this song that is being called as a "overcalled" one when it comes to a jam sassions. So that version is definately a must-see one.
Completely agree with your opening words there - even though this piece is a slight pedalling nightmare on the Harp, it’s a pibes I adore playing ❤
This is one of the first jazz standards I learned and I wouldn't have had it any other way. Learning how to play over that turnaround felt like I had just unlocked some jazz secret.
I really like this chord progression, all those subtile changes... A nice way for training your solos. I wonder, are there other similar standards with borrowing chords // parallel key while having a nice tune ?
'Half Nelson' has the same changes in the same key
"Night And Day" by Cole Porter does something similar. I think he does it in a number of other songs but can't recall them off the top of my head.
Edit: "I Love You" is the other one I was thinking of.
Since Prez (Lester Young)called his friends Lady before their given names maybe Tadd Dameron was was referring to and dedicating the song to Charlie Parker. Just a thought that came to me as I was watching your video.
Huh, I did not think of this. I'll look into that deeper, could be a solid theory.
There's a version where Miles Davis introduces it as a Tadd Dameron composition. I think this is the definitive version.
Awesome! Will go further down the rabbit hole, in search of my vocal line (had to laugh, nobody plays the head the same). Check out John Lake's arrangement on his first album Seven Angels. Mahalo! We've been working on this tune for a couple of years.
No one plays it the same! I also find it quite annoying, there seems to be no consensus on it.
Dameron did nor write this song, but finally recorded in 1948. 251 is normally Dm G7 I, but used the substitution with Fm Bflat7. Charlie Christian used to do this 2m 57 in 1939 at the Minton Club. Then totally changed the key of C to key of Aflat with 251. then back to C with 251. When he recorded with Navarro in 1948, he did not solo with tritone sub for 7th, but the current lead sheets all have flatted 5th for 7th.
the Miles Davis "Live at Birdland 1951" is my favorite version of "LadyBird"
The Dream is You Vanessa Rubin Sings Tadd Dameron: 1st song is Lady Bird. There is a new album by Gary Smulyan w Anais Reno vocals: Tadd's All Folks.
There is a great rendition by Dexter Gordon you can find in YT
My favourite version is from Dexter Gordon’s album: More Power!
Dameron was an awesome composer.
Damn right he was!
3:23 is that a 'Four' quote? Talking about the background music
Haha yes! I pinched that from a version of ladybird on TH-cam by a band called the Miles Davis project - their version is worth a listen
Never really thought of it as borrowing from the minor key. I always just thought “a back door 251 to C”
Which is correct but that’s a great way of conceptualizing a back door 25
The definitive version is chet bakers/charlie parkers version imo love the video and song bro
Was that you playing it on guitar? sounded beautiful.
Thanks!
😊
As for the meaning of Lady Bird, I think it's combination of the British sense of a "lady" as the female version of a gentleman and the British slang "bird" or young woman. Hence a lady bird is "a young woman of high social standing or refinement, especially when viewed as dignified or well-mannered."
Fats Navarro was the king of the beboppers as far as trumpet players go.
Leonard Bernstein's brilliant dynamic reinterpretation of Harmony in the 1st lecture of the Unanswered Question posits: A) That ambiguity is deeply related to beauty and expresivity in all the Arts, and B) In harmony there are two fundamental forces present much like Tao ☯️. One (Diatoniscism) is a force for clarity and keyness if you will while the other (Chromatiscism) is a force for ambiguity expressivity and chaos. So harmony is actually the interaction of these forces. So put another way the history of (post tempered) Western Music ends up in being a composer driven high speed power dive into higher and higher levels of chromatic density or the increasing architectural inclusion of harmonic ambiguity or notes outside the key until this collective composser driven process eventually brings about What Bernstein calls the 20th Century Crisis. So from Bach who definitely let the chromatic cat outa the bag to Stravinsky & Schoenberg a historical/aesthetic spectrum of increasing harmonic ambiguity exists until this composer driven exploration of harmont brings about the 20th Century Crisis or modernism. But in jazz that 200+ year process plays out really in less than 80 yrs. So Tad's inovative turn around is a perfect example.
Opinable!..the best is EASY LIVING !
i had absolutely no clue the british and australians say "ladybird" for "ladybug"
in the USA, it's ladybug all the way
Hot House
Awful recording but yes, definitive version - "Oleg Chaly Jazz Organ Trio.Lady Bird" on TH-cam