A jazz piano lesson to help you learn the important jazz standard “I’ll Remember April,” which has been famously recorded by Charlie Parker, The Clifford Brown /MaxRoach Quintet, Frank Sinatra, and Keith Jarrett.
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Learning jazz standards in a “holistic” way 0:00
History of the song “I’ll Remember April” 1:57
Learning how to interpret a melody by listening to Charlie Parker’s lyrical rendition of “I’ll Remember April” 2:29
Playing “I’ll Remember April” as a ‘2-beat’ ballad 3:10
Uptempo jazz interpretations of songs that were originally ballads 3:25
Ritchie Powell’s classic piano intro to “I’ll Remember April”4:04
Our choice: to play a classic arrangement or invent our own 4:55
A great Wayne Shorter quote 5:18
How to take a classic jazz riff and make it “our own” 6:23
The importance of playing in our own style while knowing what the previous generations of jazz greats did 6:58
Harmonizing the melody with parallel modal voicings 7:38
Introducing contrary motion with the left hand 7:50
Tritone substitutions 7:59
A pianistic flourish 8:05
Substitute chords in parallel motion 8:12
Left hand melodic fills 8:18
Chromatic inner-voice movement under the melody 8:32
A rhythmic pedal tone 8:51
A rising chromatic line in the left hand 8:59
Easing into a medium swing tempo 9:07
Using a pedal tone during the turnaround 9:15
Staying on the pedal tone into the beginning of the 2nd chorus 9:18
Varying and embellishing the melody to “I’ll Remember April” 9:22
Using classic jazz rhythms in the arrangement 9:29
A walking bass line 9:40
Alternating bass notes and voicings in the left hand 9:52
Inner-voice fills, in the style of a saxophone section 9:57
Bringing back the modal voicings, in the swing rhythm 10:03
Hinting at Ritchie Powell’s bitonal piano intro 10:22
Beginning the improvised solo 10:24
Expanding a melodic fragment from the tune’s melody 10:30
Improvising longer lines during the bridge 10:47
Motivic development with rhythmic displacement 10:57
Polytonality 11:09
Improvising on the classic intro 11:32
Bebop soloing 11:43
Soloing over the walking bass line 11:55
Improvising with trills 12:16
A pianistic flourish I learned from Billy Taylor 12:29
Returning to the melody, with some variation 12:34
Using block chords during the bridge 12:58
Harmonizing the melody with the Lydian mode 13:21
Stretching out the turnaround with polytonal improvisation 13:41
A more subdued rhythmic feel to begin the last chorus 13:51
Imitating a big band sound for the bridge 14:13
Playing offbeats in the left hand 14:35
Adding a tag to extend the ending 14:55
Superimposing the keys of A and B major over the G major accompaniment 15:00
Sonny Rollins solo on “I’ll Remember April” with the Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet 16:00
Following Wayne Shorter’s advice 16:25
Here are some more Free Jazz Piano Lessons for you at the KeyboardImprov website:
https://keyboardimprov.com/free-beginning-jazz-piano-lessons/
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Enjoy the journey, and "let the music flow!"
Ron