Jazz Program Resources
AUDITION INFORMATION
Jazz audition materials for the upcoming school year are now available at the links below. Please download the materials for the instrument you wish to audition on and carefully read through the Jazz Program Course Description (also found within each pdf file), audition materials, procedure, and scoring. Auditions will be held before and after school during the first week and a half of classes. Students will need to sign up for an audition time via a link (coming in August) posted below.
Important Jazz Audition Resources
2019-2020 ILMEA Audition Tune - Out the Window
2019-2020 ILMEA Audition Etude - Lunar (Solar)
Vocal Audition Tune - Choose from Quiet Nights, Means You're Grand, or Chega de Saudade
Jazz Audition Signup 2019-2020
Jazz Program Student Information Form
Exercise 1 - Maj/Min Key Bossa
MajMinAllKeysBossa.MP3 is the backing track for students to practice their major and minor scales along with. It is designed to making playing scales more enjoyable and productive since the accompaniment will help develop good tone, intonation, and phrasing.
Exercise 2 - Maj/Min Key Bossa Sax
MajMinAllKeysBossaSax.MP3 is the same backing track with the addition of Mr. Roothaan playing the major and minor scales in the form of "jazz thirds" on tenor sax. Students should copy the simple melodic pattern that is played by the saxophone, which is just playing thirds over the major scale, then the minor scale, repeating, and then modulating up a half step through the 12 keys. The pattern played by the saxophone utilizes essential jazz vocabulary employed by many great jazz artists in their solos.
Exercise 3 - Jazz Vocab (Blues Play Along)
Please play the chart Jazz Vocab along with the piano play along supplied. After you have played the chart for a few days, try playing it from memory, without looking at the chart. By memorizing the chart, you will be learning the scales and arpeggios that fit with the chords in a standard 12 bar Bb blues song. These scales and chords are performed in a way that provides ready to use jazz vocabulary, and will give you "jazz language" that can be used over many chords and parts of many songs that are played in the repertoire of jazz. Take your time and enjoy the feeling of jazz!
Jazz Lab Band
Jazz Band (II)
Jazz Ensemble
PerdidoSolo_A_Section.mp3
This play along track is slightly slower than the tempo of the Lopez chart of Perdido so that you have a chance to explore improvisational material at a more manageable pace.
The four measure chord progression on the play along correlates with the solo section in measures 40-56 of the Perdido chart. I have slightly simplified the chord progression to make it more easy to play over.
These are the notes you can use over each chord:
Chord measure 1 - Cmin7 -- Associated scale: C,D,Eb,F,G,A,Bb (C Dorian) - all notes of the Bb Major scale
Chord measure 2 - F7 -- Associated scale: F,G,A,Bb,C,D,Eb (F Mixolidian) - all notes of the Bb Major scale
Chord measure 3 - Bbmaj7 -- Associated scale: Bb,C,D,Eb,F,G,A (Bb Major) - all notes of the Bb Major scale
Chord measure 4 - G7#5 -- Associated scale: G,Ab,Bb,Cb,Db,Eb,F (this scale is called the diminished whole tone scale, and is a mode of the melodic minor scale)
This four measure progression repeats for the whole of the mp3 song.
Remember, one chord per measure, one scale per measure.
Notice that the first three chords all use the Bb major scale. This means that the first three measures of the four measure cycle all use the same Bb major scale. On the fourth measure of the cycle you use the scale that goes with the G7#5, the diminished whole tone scale. At first it will seem strange to some of you , however as you get comfortable with the sound of this scale, you will be able to improvise melodies using the scale.