A few days ago, writing about bank bonuses, I talked about the skills needed to get-things-done, a form of intelligence I believe is distinct (and rarer than) other, better-known forms — mathematical, lingustic, emotional, etc. There are in fact many skill sets and forms of intelligence which don’t feature prominently in our text-biased culture. One of these is musical intelligence, and I have come across a fascinating description of taking jazz improvisation and composition lessons from pianist and composer Hall Overton (1920-1972), written by Jack Reilly:
Hall Overton, composer, jazz pianist, advocate/activist for the New Music of his time and a lover of Theolonius Monk’s music, was my teacher for one year beginning in 1957. I first heard about him from a fellow classmate at the Manhattan School of Music, which at that time was located on East 103rd street, between 2nd and 3rd avenue, an area then known as Spanish Harlem. This chap was playing in one of the basement practice rooms where I heard him playing Duke Jordan’s “Jordu”. I liked what I heard so much so I asked him where he learned to play that way. Hall Overton, was his reply. I took down Hall’s number, called him and said I wanted to take jazz piano lessons. He sounded warm and gracious over the phone which made me feel relaxed because I was nervous about playing for him. I had been playing jazz gigs and casuals since my teens but still felt light years away from my vision of myself as a complete jazz pianist. Hall was going to push the envelope. We set up weekly lessons.
Hall taught in his 2nd story loft located on 6th Avenue between 26th and 27th street. The New York Times did a feature article on the building last March, 8th, 2005.
He greeted me with his warm smile and asked me to play anything I wanted for him. I chose “Tangerine”, a favorite jam session tune. He liked what I did and immediately gave me a basic approach to the 3-note voicing concept plus melody, for arranging any song so that it sounded full and sonorus. He then had me listen to a lot of Horace Silver and imitate his style. Horace had just recorded a new trio LP and Hall made me transcribe one of Horace’s songs, “Ecaroh” and arrange it using the 3-note concept. Each week I was assigned a tune to learn by ear but he would also write out a Monk tune for me. (I still have the piano chart for Monk’s “Criss Cross”). I had to memorize everything. He always demonstrated at the piano what he taught. The biggest surprise after a few weeks of lessons was graduating to playing with a bass and drums at the lessons. People like Joe Hunt, Chuck Israels, Steve Little, Chuck Andrus, Teddy Kotick and other top players on the New York jazz scene were invited by Hall to play at my lesson and accompany me on my repertoire assignments. Hall knew that learning to play jazz piano meant more than practicing alone; it meant interacting, playing/jamming with others, but above all learning to listen to what’s going on around you!
I was constantly challenged with difficult Monk tunes to learn and more advanced voicing concepts which I had to practice in all keys and from all 12 roots. One interesting exercise Hall showed me was to take only one note and think/hear it as the melody note, then harmonize it in all possible ways, using all appropriate chord qualities. That was revelatory. It taught me to hear the same melody note as different parts of the chord, for example, as the root, the flatted ninth, the ninth, the sharped ninth etc., etc., etc.
Hall also assigned the Paul Hindemith “Elementary Training for Musicians” manual. I knew the book because I was already practising it. In 1956 I toured the country with the then popular Art Mooney big band. We played the Aragon ballroom in Chicago for 4 weeks, 3 hours a night, 6 nights a week, $140 per week. So in the morning I studied/practiced the Hindemith book and then jammed with the bass player the rest of the day. The Hindimith book is a complete course in ear training that leaves no stone unturned. Each chapter includes sight-singing plus rhythmic studies that trains you to read two different rhythmic lines at once dividing them between the hands. Other exercises combined melodic and rhythmic figures. Here you had to sing the melody while at the same time tapping the rhythm; first with the right hand then with the left. By the end of the book one was fluent with all the 5 clefs needed for orchestral and string quartet score reading; Soprano, Alto Tenor, Treble and Bass clefs. This book trains the student/musician to read, hear and imagine anything on manuscript and in your mind’s ear.
I got to know the composing side of Hall and after 3 months of jazz piano I asked him if I could take composition lessons. I showed him my piano sonata. He liked it and said, ” let’s begin”. The first thing he had me do was buy the Bartok String Quartet scores and recordings. He taught me to follow the scores, one instrument at a time, as I listened to the recording. We continued to thoroughly analyse all six quartets.
Concurrent with the Bartok quartet assignments, Hall started me on counterpoint studies. He explained all the contrapuntal devices; augmentation, diminution, retrograde, imitation, canons at the unison, second, third, fifth, etc. He always composed all examples on the spot. I was assigned first to compose in 2-parts, progessing to 3 then to 4-part counterpoint. I must have written a total of 1000 exercises for him. He would sight read them all, comment, flick the ashes and light up another Camel and make the next assignment!!
Then we started the study of polytonalty. This led to an analysis of the piano music of Darius Milhaud. Hall studied with Milhaud. All my composition and jazz assignments were presented in an orderly fashion. Nothing was haphazard with Hall. He methodically covered every possible theoretical point when presenting a new concept, always composing examples on the spot and then assigning the homework! His teachings led from the simple to the complex and sometimes, the reverse. After 3 months of Bartok, counterpoint, and polytonal exercises, Hall said why don’t you compose your first piece with me, and let’s start with applying and using the polytonal concepts. The work turned out to be a 3-movement piano suite that included improvisational segments as part the structure. He was pleased. I titled it “La-No-Tib Suite”. Ten years later I composed a bass and drum part to expand the score into a trio piece. I included this new version on my debut recording, “Blue Sean Green”. Ten years after that my wife, Carol Lian, recorded the original 1957 piano score on her debut LP, “Carol Lian Plays”. She learned to improvise by studying this piece. We might say that Hall’s teaching had left its mark on Carol, indirectly influencing her career, pushing her creative instincts in a certain unexpected direction. Because later on she recorded two cds, in duo, with the percussionist Ronnie Bedford, all totally improvised, free-form music!!! Great teaching continues its spell.
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Throughout the year with Hall, he never once admitted to or voiced a negative thought about the scarcity of venues for new music and the difficulty of getting one’s music heard. He encouraged me to follow through on all assighnments; he introduced me to players, conductors; he invited me to join him at new music concerts, especially when he had his own works played. For an “emerging composer like my self, it was a thrill-and-a-half to be sitting next to Hall, my guru of a teacher and hearing his work performed on stage, seeing him smile as he listed and then taking a bow; such inspirational jolts, wow!! However, the most generous gift he gave me was his time, eight months of free lessons. I hit a dry period during 1957, from April to December. I called and told Hall I had to stop studying because of financial pressures. He wouldn’t hear of it!! He said, “Don’t you worry about paying me, just keep coming. Just keep writing and work hard”. I’ll never ever forget that kindness. It indirectly natured my ego, made me more dedicated and gave me reserve confidence in my musical talents.”
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