Scott Henderson Discussion

[Mojolang]

Hey Scott,

You've mentioned that you only knew a relative few changes (compared to some guys in the Village in NY). If you were to say the 10 most important fundamental "must know" standards, what would you say they are? For the purpose of harmonic density, I suppose I'm referring to non-12 bar blues standards (e.g. all blues wouldn't really be a good example)

I'd take a guess at a few?

Blues For Alice/Confirmation (bird changes)
Oleo or Anthropology (rhythm changes)
Giant Steps/Countdown (Coltrane changes)
Stella (II-Iv's)
Autumn Leaves (" ")
Blue In Green

Obviously on some level this is a stupid question as there are innumerable Wayne tunes that are unconventional, interesting, etc. but thought you might have some thoughts...

J

[Scott Henderson]

I never learned standards based on importance - I just learned the ones I like the most. As a teacher, I’d advise starting with easy tunes like Blue Bossa or Tune Up because they teach the student to play over the ii V I progression, which is found in most standards. After a good amount of vocabulary is learned over that progression, all standards are pretty much the same from a theoretical point of view - some have different forms (like AABA), but I never paid much attention to that because it’s so easy to hear. As tunes get harder, there are more ii V I’s which modulate faster, and you might see other chords like non-altered dominants, diminished, m7(b5), MA7(#5), etc. When you get into the more modern tunes, the chords move less diatonically and there aren’t as many ii V I’s (like many of Wayne’s tunes).

My personal favorites are the more modern tunes - I hardly ever use ii V I’s in my music, and though I like playing bebop, it’s never been the most important style of improvisation for me. I like playing blues just as much.