Talk:Jazz harmony

Jazz vs traditional

This page is a little naive in it's elevation of jazz harmony over "traditional" harmony. As can be seen in other Wikipedia pages, mainstream European composers had incorporated many of the harmonic innovations a century before Coltrane, and the principles of even harmolodics is firmly rooted in Asian and middle-eastern music -- the jazz composers did bring some innovation, I don't discount that completely, but they were primarily synthesists. Among that first generation of World-Aware post-WWII composers, they were people who now knew first hand of the musics of Europe, Asia and (later) Africa, and thanks to field recordings (eg Lomax) and radio/records distribution, they were also keenly aware of the music that had preceded them. Coltrane was a big fan of Slonimsky and many jazz composers cite Bartok and Scriabin and others as sources for the 'innovations' they adapted to the jazz idiom. Indeed, Wagner's "Tristan chord" is still bleeding edge.

I agree for the most part in your statement in that this page seems to take a naive stance on placing Jazz harmony above traditional harmony. Classical composers, for the most part, worked with complex and sophisticated harmonic concepts 50-60 years before the jazz cats caught on, and Coltrane and all of them took the extended harmony of the early 20th century composers and figured out how to improvise around it. What I don't agree with you is that jazz harmony is just a synthesis of classical concepts for a improvisers art form (what I'm taking your comment to mean). Jazz has approached extended tertian harmony with a rigor and vocabulary that simply doesn't exist in traditional analysis, mainly because it hasn't needed to. Jazz composers, especially starting in the 60's and 70's with cats like Wayne Shorter and Chick Corea, have extrapolated upon these concepts of extended tertian harmony in ways that no classical composer ever did. Speaking of extended harmony, though, where is that in this article? 06:00, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

This page is attempting to concisely describe jazz harmony by drawing comparisons to classical harmony, which serves as the foundation for its theory and symbology. You must note however, that while jazz harmony finds much of its roots in classical harmony, that it departs from standard or traditional practices in many ways. The voice leading, counterpoint, and chord construction are vastly different in many cases. It is not trying to present jazz as in any way superior to classical harmony, I think that the article is so far from completion in describing this unique departure from the traditional approach to music analysis that I think it can leave this impression. In sum, I believe this article must be expanded to include an explanation of counterpoint, voice leading, and common chord construction in jazz. I also think we must fill in the missing articles highlighted in red.

Maj7#11

I believe that not only are certain harmonic ideas and formulas commonly and primarily in jazz, they are also described symbolically, and analyzed in a different way. The Maj7#11 chord is a perfect example of a description that would never be used in traditional harmony. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.218.18.121 (talk) 06:32, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Concepts requiring further explanation or links

I have been reading the article over a few times as a complete beginner to music theory and it seems that there are a few points that need further explanation or links to the appropriate pages. Sections that would benefit from additional explanation as follows (bold indicating the term I think needs explaining):

• In a big-band context, the harmony is the basis for the writing for the horns, along with melodic counterpoint, etc.
• Open, modal harmony is characteristic of the music of McCoy Tyner, whereas rapidly shifting key centers is a hallmark of the middle period of John Coltrane's writing.
• When written in a jazz chart, these chords may have alterations specified in parentheses after the chord symbol.

I'm not sure that I'm in a good position to do either, because of my limited knowledge.Jimjamjak (talk) 14:22, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Merge?

Do this article and Jazz chords need to be separate? 1Z (talk) 14:28, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

A long time ago I started an article on jazz theory which is a bit more expansive than this one: User:Rictus/Jazz theory. Would people like to see some of that content merged here? Rictus (talk) 01:32, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Available tensions

Tensions available for each chord must be spelled out as this is a central issue in jazz harmony. Especially tensions in chords of the melodic minor scale and the harmonic minor, as they are a frequent subject of confusion. In melodic minor, could the Im maj7 use the 9th, 11th, or/and 13th? What are the "not allowed notes" for each grade, and why?

--Tommy The Wise (talk) 14:50, 17 January 2013 (UTC)