Getting an “outsider” opinion

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I felt a lot of stress and pressure during my years in college and graduate school, about jazz and Learning Tunes. Nobody who is anybody uses a fakebook! You have to Learn the Tunes! Do you know All the Tunes? Why don’t you know More Tunes?

My teachers told me I would never make it as a jazz player unless I knew hundreds of tunes by heart. Melodies, chord progressions, and “standard” intros and outros. And since I’m a reed player, I would need to know them in at least a couple of keys. I tried, but I found it pretty daunting. My teachers seemed to think that meant I was doing it wrong, in some way they could not specify.

And besides, fakebooks are bad! They have mistakes, unlike other kinds of sheet music! Plus, the fakebook version of that tune might not be the true and authentic secret original version, but merely a common and tasteful reworking! And if you’re looking at a fakebook, you’re trapped within the confines of the printed page, literally unable to play anything creative!

My university degrees are in “classical” performance, and in multiple instruments, so jazz has never been my sole concentration. If I had done more focused and advanced study of jazz, I suppose I would have had to Learn All the Tunes, or flunk out and fail to make it in the business.

But it was never my goal to be the next big name in jazz. I love to play jazz music, but I’m quite content to do my best impressions of my favorite players, take modest solos, and yes, use a fakebook. Of the musicians in the world who play jazz at some level, very few are recording on Blue Note or headlining at the Village Vanguard.

For hobbyist or part-time jazz players, a fakebook can be very useful. Using a fakebook on a gig means I can just play the tunes the group wants to play, rather than slinking away in shame at my failure to Know them All. It means we’re all on the same page, so to speak, about keys, chord changes, forms, intros, and endings. The practicality of low stress and high versatility wins out over the ideal of never looking at a music stand. I can Learn Tunes by playing them frequently in a relaxed atmosphere. And if I forget a chord or a melody note, I can fall back on my musical skill of reading notation.

Is learning tunes by heart preferable? Probably, ideally. If you’re in a jazz studies degree program, or trying to break into the top-level jazz scene in a major market, you may indeed find it necessary to memorize a whole lot of tunes as quickly as you can. But for the rest of us, there’s no shame in using a fakebook.

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It’s an article of faith among jazz musicians and educators that listening to jazz is crucial to learning to play jazz. This seems obviously true to me about jazz and about any style of music.

(Doubtless one of the reasons the jazz-initiated like to bang this drum, so to speak, is because most of Western music education is so notation-focused. The “classical” tradition has developed hand-in-hand with a notation system that does a pretty good—not perfect—job of breaking down classical music sounds into visual symbols. That system, unsurprisingly, works less well for non-classical styles like jazz. But jazz music is still often expressed in classical-type notation, with some kind of caveat, explicit or otherwise, that the player must apply some significant additional stylistic know-how that will override the usual meanings of some of the notation.)

But one thing classical music educators have done in their few hundred extra years is codify and explain many (not all, and not all well, and not all in agreement) of their stylistic and interpretive ideas. In jazz education, too often important details get waved away with a “ya gotta listen.”

“Ya gotta listen” to classical music to play it well, too. But there’s also more clear, thoughtful pedagogy available to help you know what to listen for, and how to apply it.

If you are a jazz educator and find yourself dodging questions or glossing over concepts with a “ya gotta listen,” can you add something to the picture? Try saying instead, “Ya gotta listen to how Cannonball Adderley ‘lays back’ in this particular phrase. He plays some notes later than expected in a way that sounds good. Listen a few times to see which notes, and how late.” Or: “Ya gotta listen to how Freddie Hubbard plays ‘outside’ over this turnaround. Can you figure out which scale he is drawing from? Where exactly does he resolve back to playing ‘inside?'”

How long would it realistically take for an unguided young musician to listen to jazz until they had fully absorbed the nuances? I used to feel pretty overwhelmed and hopeless when teachers three times my age with thousands of well-worn records told me I wouldn’t sound better until I had really listened. Luckily I had others who were willing and able to accelerate and focus my learning by giving some direction and context to my listening.

If you find that you have difficulty explaining some of the things you want your students to listen for, there are resources available to help you and them boil things down to understandable concepts. For improvisational theory, you might try free YouTube videos (or additional paid content) from teacher/players like Chad Lefkowitz-Brown or Aimee Nolte. For style, consider books like those by Caleb Chapman and Jeff Coffin or Ray Smith.

And yes, ya gotta listen.