Jamey Aebersold Jazz

The titles from the Jamey Aebersold Jazz series. 

When I first heard "So What" on the Kind of Blue record, I didn't think anything was happening because I was used to hearing changes flying by and this seemed so tame by comparison. I quickly fell in love with Kind of Blue and of course we at IU started experimenting with modal tunes and trying to keep our place in those many 8 bar phrases that seemed at times to make me feel like I was in the middle of a desert and couldn't see for the life of me the beginning of the next 8 bar phrase. When I began teaching privately for the first time in Seymour, Indiana I had a girl flute student who really had a great sound. One day I asked her to improvise on a D- Dorian scale and off she went. I could tell she was playing what she heard in her mind and I was so surprised. It really sounded natural. So, I asked other students to play on a Dorian scale and they did fine. That's how I got started teaching improv. I think others at the time were using the blues as a vehicle but the students I was working with knew nothing about the blues but they could keep their place in the 4 and 8 bar phrases so I went ahead later and used that modal approach on my Volume 1 play-along . . . and the rest is history.