Frank Griffith

September 20, 2014: Frank Griffith

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Many thanks to Frank Griffith in which we covered:

“Totem Poll” by Lee Morgan
“In Passing” by Oliver Nelson

We started the session by warming up with a Frank Griffith etude involving ii-V-I’s in every key.

“Totem Poll” is a great composition found on Lee Morgan’s “Sidewinder” album which was great fun to play through.

“In Passing” is a dreadful technical exercise which even the original found on Oliver Nelson’s “Soul Brothers” is joyless. Maybe you can spot that I found this particularly tricky, not the least because it changes key every two beats.

Many thanks to Frank Griffith for a challenging session.

 

March 2, 2013: Frank Griffith

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Many thanks to Frank Griffith for a challenging session in which we covered:

“2-5-1’s in 6 (more) keys” by Frank Griffith
“Road Song” by Wes Montgomery
“Holland Park” by Frank Griffith

In a well attended session, Frank gave us a little warm up exercise consisting of a series of six ii-V-I’s descending in fifths; we all took two solo’s over the form. This was a little more tricky than perhaps it should be (for me anyway), and this has been added to my practice routine.

The excellent “Road Song” was given a run through with the A section being taken relatively straight and the bridge being taken as swing. This was more comfortable territory for most attendees.

The last tune of the session “Holland Park” was a great composition in 3/4 penned by Frank himself that consisted of a modal section followed by a trickier chordal one.

During the course of the session Frank noted that a lot of us were taking solos using as many notes as possible, whereas we might be better off taking a simple idea of say a triad and playing with that.

A first at the Cambridge Jazz Co-op was a “tap” solo from one of the attendees. Great stuff.

Thanks again to Frank for an entertaining session.
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