Varied chords over solid harmonic ideas

"Impressions" is a speeded up "So What", but its theme isn't the famous "So What" melody. It uses part of "Pavanne", by Morton Gould, which Trane had heard on Ahmad Jamal's recording in the mid 50s. Trane used to refer to it as "So What".

It has a 32-measure AABA structure. The 8 measure A sections are D minor, and the B goes up a half step to Eb minor. People go on about the mode of this, but we just played it as D minor and Eb minor, and it worked fine.

I much prefer the original, slow, "So What" tempo. At the speed of Trane's famous Village Vanguard version, it becomes mainly a practise exercise, based on hours of work, that is, a display of technique. I find it rather boring. We used to pay it all the time (at the high tempo), but I never enjoyed it, because it was too fast to inject any funk or soul into it.

I remember the Coltrane tune now, its "Impressions". I'm not sure which was first off the top of my head, I'll try to get an answer on that later.

I think what you refer to is chord changes that done't introduce any new harmonic material, in other words, one scale or mode will cover all the chord changes, that is the nature of the tunes you just listed.

These kind of static chord changes are popular in modal jams in jazz or rock, such as the /Am Bm/C Bm/ type changes you hear in "jazzy" rock jams like "Moon Dance" or "Whipping Post".

Edited by js - 28 Apr 2014 at 9:40am