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All Volumes (2001-2008) The Osprey Journal of Ideas and Inquiry

2004

Artist Study: The Compositional Style of JazzGuitarist Nathen PageStephen LescheUniversity of North Florida

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Suggested CitationLesche, Stephen, "Artist Study: The Compositional Style of Jazz Guitarist Nathen Page" (2004). All Volumes (2001-2008). 89.http://digitalcommons.unf.edu/ojii_volumes/89

Artist Study: The CompositionalStyle of Jazz Guitarist Nathen

Page

Stephen Lesche

Faculty Sponsor: Kevin Bales,Assistant Professor of Music

Nathen Page is one of themasters of modern jazz guitar.Unfortunately, he is also one of the leastknown and recognized of the masters.While reflecting on this seeminglyparadoxical situation, I have been onlyable to surmise two explanations for it.The first is fairly obvious. It is simply afact that he has always been a selfpromoted artist; he has never been ableto gain the national audience andpromotion that a big record label canafford. This can be attributed to manydifferent reasons, but none of those canreally address the question of why he is amaster.

The second explanation canprovide a closer look into why he is amaster. When people who may notreally understand jazz improvisation firstsee him perform live, they may be putoff by his unorthodox tone andtechnique. I know that this was certainlythe case for me the first time I saw himplay when I was sixteen. At the time Iwas very young, uninformed, andthought that he must sound and play acertain way in order to be good. Iexpected him to have a rich, dark toneand virtuoso technical abilities.According to my standards at that time,he failed. He had what I thought was avery bright and harsh tone and notanywhere near as much technique assome of the other musicians I waslistening to had. I believe that there aresome people who might not recognize

his mastery because he does not compareto other guitarists that they have listenedto. In spite of this, this is exactly why heis so great: he plays like himself. Histone is all his own and I have grown toenjoy it. His approach to technique isalso very personalized. While he maynot be able to produce rapid flurries ofsixteenth notes like some of hiscontemporaries can, this has neverhindered him in expressing himself andproducing music of the highest caliber.

In developing as an artist, thereare three main steps that one must gothrough. The first step is to learn thebasics. Musicians must learn how toproperly hold their instrument, produce atone, must know all of the scales, chords,theory, etc. This provides a solidgroundwork that everything else can bebuilt on. The second step is to study thework of other people. This processinvolves immerse yourself in their musicand learning the how and why of it. Itincludes learning how their songs are puttogether, examining different devices ormotives that they use, and discerningexactly what makes their performancesgood music. In an undevelopedmusician, one who has not yet reachedthe third step (these are not necessarilydiscrete steps, but more of a pattern ofdevelopment), it can sound as if they aresimply copying the other person’s style.This is where the third step comes intoplay.

This project deals primarily inmy own development in the third step.This third step involves taking thoseworks that had been studied in step two,extracting ideas from them, turning andtwisting them around, and then creatingsomething new from them. The purposeof this step is to develop one’s own styleas an artist. From studying what makessomeone else’s music unique, it helps to

develop that same uniqueness in one’sown playing.

For this project, I have composedthree and arranged two compositions forjazz quartet in the style of Page. Thefeatured instrumentation will be guitar,piano, drums, and bass, which is thesame instrumentation that Page had usedalmost exclusively since he first formedhis own group. In preparation for writingmy compositions and arrangements, Ifirst had to learn Page’s compositionsand arrangements by transcribing themfrom his recordings. In presenting mycompositions/arrangements, I will firstpresent the Page composition that mywork will be derived from, along with ashort written explanation of the song.Then I will present my own work, alongwith an explanation of how exactly Iderived it from the preceding Pagecomposition.

While there are many jazzmusicians who are considered masters,choosing Nathen Page was an easychoice. Kevin Bales, professor at theUniversity of North Florida, had beenPage’s pianist for over ten years, so thereis no one better to consult with aboutPage’s style than him. Also, since he

knows all of Page’s compositions andarrangements, I was be able to learnthem the way that Page intended.

Finally, the choice to study Pagewas solidified in the fact that I have seenhim play more than I have any othermusician. I did not enjoy that first time Isaw him play as much as I hoped Iwould because of the expectations Ibrought with me. Still, there wassomething that intrigued me and over theyears I would take every chance I couldget to see him perform. Probably to hisannoyance, I used to ask Professor Balesalmost every other day when the nexttime he would be playing with Pagewould be. Once I got over my initialdispleasure about his playing, I started toembrace all of the things that I hadrejected in the beginning. I hope thatthrough this project I can help to spreadhis name and show others how toembrace these things in Page’s music sothen they will be more able to embracetheir own uniqueness in themselves. Iwill also strive to show other people whyhe should be considered as one of themasters not just of jazz guitar, but ofjazz music.

Love for Sale

“Love for Sale” was one ofPage’s favorite standards to play. It wasincluded in the set list almost every timeI saw him play live. There is not much tohis arrangement of it, but there is enoughto give this well-played (and sometimesover-played) standard a breath of freshair.

Page enjoyed starting out thissong by himself, with a funky guitar

vamp. The vamp that he used wasactually one that he took from a CedarWalton composition entitled “Bolivia”(Fig 1). After repeating this vamp a fewtimes with a crescendo after eachrepetition, the rest of the band wouldeventually come in playing the vampwith him. By putting a different bass lineunder the existing melody, he gives thecomposition a certain energy that it didnot have before.

Figure 1. Bass line from Cedar Walton composition “Bolivia” which is used as basis for “Love for

Sale”.

After enough energy had beenbuilt, the vamp would give way to thestart of the melody and the first Asection, which would be in 4/4 swing.At the end of the A section, the vampwould again be played. However,instead of playing it for just the requiredtwo bars to complete the 16-bar Asection, he extends for vamp for an extrasix bars. Sometimes, the vamp would beextended even longer, with the nextsection coming in on cue.

By simply putting playing adifferent bass line under a melody, Pageproves that it is not necessary tocompletely rewrite a song in order tohave your own arrangement of it. Infact, except for the vamp, the only otherchange he made to the song was to put afew punctuations in it to lead into thebridge. By simply taking view ofsomething in a different light, it ispossible to leave your own mark on it.

West End Blues

“West End Blues” is a LouisArmstrong composition that wasoriginally recorded with his Hot Fivesand Sevens (from The Complete HotFives and Sevens, Columbia Records,original recording 1928). While theoriginal starts with a trumpet cadenza, Iopted to start by having the guitar play avamp by itself, ala Page. Then, also inthe spirit of Page, the rest of the bandcomes in with the vamp.

In picking out a vamp to playunder the melody, I was originallyconcerned about the tempo of the piece.A Page-ish vamp would probably not fitwith the original tempo, so I decided togive it a more upbeat feeling by raisingthe tempo. The vamp that I chose to usewas taken from trumpeter Lee Morgan’ssong “The Sidewinder” (Fig 2).

Figure 2. Vamp from Lee Morgan’s composition “The Sidewinder”.

To change the song to make itthe way that I liked it, I changed theform from that of a 12-bar blues to a 25-bar double blues, where each chord lasts

twice as long and there is an extra bar atthe end. Also included in thisarrangement is a break (bar 19), andvarious alterations of the originalmelody (bars 19-24).

Short Story

To keep with the idea of using abass line or a vamp from one song andputting it underneath the melody ofanother song, I decided to use this ideawith two more recent songs. I meldedtenor saxophonist Joe Henderson’scomposition “Short Story” with the bassline from OutKast’s “The Way YouMove” (Fig 3). The reasoning behindchoosing these songs is that they areboth songs that I enjoy listening to, and,since the OutKast song was released andwas very popular during the course of

this project, the bass line would be easilyidentifiable. It would also give me achance to experiment and try a differentangle to the concept of melding twosongs together. The vamp from LeeMorgan’s “The Sidewinder” was an easychoice for “West End Blues” since thatvamp is very characteristic of Page’splaying. It is also a busier vamp withmore notes happening in a certainamount of time than “The Way YouMove”, so it wouldn’t require therhythm section to fill in the spaces asmuch as “The Way You Move” would.

Figure 3. Bass line from OutKast song “The Way You Move”.

This arrangement begins muchthe same way that the OutKast songdoes. The drums come in with the timefor eight bars, bass joins in for eight, andthen the melody comes in. Just as in“West End Blues”, I doubled the lengthof the A section so the bass line wouldplay out long enough to have its full

effect. Finally, in keeping with Page’sversion of “Love for Sale”, the firstending (B section) is extended bystarting the vamp on the last two bars ofthe phrase and adding six extra bars.This was used to create a seamless flowin the transition from the B section backto the A section.

Carrie

Carrie is one of Page’s mostrecent, and deceptively simple,compositions. It was written while hewas living in Altamonte Springs, FL andis about one of the girls in theneighborhood that he and his wife Ginnywatched grow up.

The 16 bar form can be describedas ABAB’. A very popular and one ofPage’s favorite, compositional devices issimply to take a motif (Fig 4a) and thenmove it into a different key (Fig 4b).This makes the motif sound fresh andnew, as opposed to reiterating theoriginal motif verbatim, which canbecome tiresome after a while.

Figure 4a. Original motif from “Carrie”.

Figure 4b. Transposed motif from “Carrie”(Transposed up a minor third).

One idea that Page does that Ihave not quite heard anyone else use isto put a pause, or fermata, in the middleof the song. They are frequently usedduring intro or endings, but it is rare tohear one in the form of the song. Pageuses an exaggerated fermata at the endof bar 2 of the A section after he playsmotif 1 to set up the transition to motif1’ (Fig 5). The most logical source ofinspiration for this idea is probably thatit is something he picked up when he

was in tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins’band. Sonny would frequently breaktime and go into a rubato section. Agreat example of this is on his recordingof “Without a Song” (from The Bridge,Sonny Rollins, RCA Bluebird, 1962)during the final B section. At this point,the drummer and bassist both lay out andleave Rollins to play the melody and JimHall to accompany him on guitar. Thefeel is very loose and not in any stricttempo. No matter where Page got theinspiration for this idea, it is still verymuch his own thing that he uses to puthis own character on the music.

Figure 5. Using a fermata on beat 4 of the second bar to set up a transposition of the motif (from“Carrie”).

For Gin and Nate

This composition was inspired bymy visit to Page’s widow, Ginny, in thespring of 2004. I was very fortunate forher to take me in for a few days andshare with me about her and Page’s lifetogether. She told me all about their lifetogether, including how they met, abouttheir friends, even their mutual love forsailing.

After the visit with Mrs. Page, Iwent home and immediately wrote thissong. Since I wanted to write a songbased on their life together, I decided touse the number two as a unifying theme.In keeping with this theme, I based themelody on two primary notes which area whole step (which equals two half

steps) apart. When taking away theornamental notes, it can be seen that thefirst four bars really only consist of thenotes A and G (Fig 6a). At the end of bar4, there are two fermatas (Fig 6a) which,is in Page’s composition “Carrie”, giveway to a change in the motif. In thiscase, the melody is transposed down amajor 6th (Fig 6b), while the chordschange from what was an Ionian (major)mode in the first four bars, to a Dorian(minor) mode in the next six bars.Finally, in the last four bars, while themelody notes stay the same, theunderlying harmony changes from minorto a major-suspended sound. This soundwas chosen to create inherent tension inthe composition that will eventuallyresolve once the form starts back over.

Figure 6a. 1st four bars of “For Gin and Nate” with ornamental notes stripped away – Fermatas in 4th

bar.

Figure 6b. 2nd four bars of “For Gin and Nate” with ornamental notes stripped away.

Steppin’

“Steppin’” is a composition witha 38-bar, AA’ form. One of theinteresting aspects of this song is howconversational the melody is. This isparticularly noticeable in how everyphrase has another phrase that seems toanswer back to the original one. It beginsin bar 1 with a four note idea with thethree notes in the second bar serving as acontinuation of that idea. Page then has aresponse to this original idea by creatinga dialog between the melody

instrument (in this case, the guitar) andthe rhythm section. While the rhythmsection plays an upbeat eighthnote/downbeat quarter note rhythm,notated by Xs, the melody answers backwith a repeated three note motif (Fig 7a),which then resolves into bar 5. So, whileon a micro level there is all of thisconversation occurring in the first 4 bars,on a macro level, the second 4 bars isused to respond to everything thathappened in the first 4 bars.

Figure 7a. Creating a dialogue between the melody and the rhythm section (rhythm sectionrepresented by Xs).

In the third 4 bar phrase, Pagechanges the tonality from major to minor(in this case, from G major to G minor).After the tonality change, he uses aclassic Benny Golson-type progression(Fig 7b) to bring him to a key that is afifth away, which in this composition is

the key of D major. When arriving in thekey of D major in bar 13, he uses themotif of F# down to A. To keep itconsistent, he then transposes this motifdown a half step, so it becomes F downto Ab in bar 15.

Figure 7b. Harmonic progression that Benny Golson popularized to arrive at a key center a fifth

away.

What I like about this composition isthat will all of the different motivesdeveloping and responding to each other,it helps to keep the song from having a

stagnant feeling. By the end, there is afeeling that he has said a whole lot injust a short amount of time and that, withall of the “conversational” motifs

occurring back and forth, a great story has just been told.

The Next Page

“The Next Page” was the veryfirst song I composed for this project.The title is an allusion to the titles of hisrecords, which include “Page One”,“Page Two”, and “The Other Page”. Atthis point, I was not quite sure whichdirection to take my compositions andexactly how much of Page’s influence Ishould put into them. I was also stillrather new to composing (I had onlywritten a few songs before this), so Idecided to structure this song in a similarway to how Page structured one of his.The composition I modeled this afterwas “Steppin’”.

The shape of the first four bars of“The Next Page” is modeled exactlyafter the first four bars of “Steppin’”.First, there is a short motif that ends onthe “and” of four and is then continued

in the next bar. In the third and forthbars, a dialogue occurs between themelody instrument and the rhythmsection, in just the same way as it does inPage’s composition. Bars 5-8 then havethe job of answering the first four barsand relieving the tension that has beenbuilt up.

The quarter note triplet phrasethe is used in bars 9 and 10 is one that isborrowed from a Miles Davis/Gil Evanscomposition entitled “Miles Ahead”(Fig8), only it is transposed to fit the chords.The next phrase is set up by adescending minor third motif from Eb toC. It is then altered using a device thanPage employed many times; that is,simply moving the idea down in halfsteps, with the harmony matching it.Here, this device is used four times (Fig9).

Figure 8. Original motif from Miles Davis/Gil Evan composition “Miles Ahead” – Major mode.

Figure 9. Altered motif used in “The Next Page” – Transposed down a minor third and in the minormode.

In keeping with the structure ofPage’s composition, the original motif isnow repeated. When the second endingcomes around, the Miles Ahead motif is

again repeated, but is resolved in adifferent way than the first in order toend the song. The song then ends with ashort two bar phrase.

Afternoon in Africa

“Afternoon in Africa” waswritten while Page was on tour in Africawith Swiss drummer Alvin Queen,whom he had met while playing in theCharles Tolliver Quartet. Their threemonth tour took place in the spring of1988 and brought them to many placesall over the continent. This song waswritten during one afternoon in Africa(hence the title), before a show theywere going to play that night. Because ofits simple yet compelling melody, itinstantly became one of the band’sfavorite songs.

“Afternoon in Africa” was builtbased off an idea that the early bebopmusicians (including Charlie Parker,

Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, et al)propagated. They would very often takean existing song, such as “Indiana” (Fig10a), and strip away the melody so theonly thing left would be the harmonicprogression. Then, they would writetheir own melodies on top of theharmonic structure creating brand newsongs. In this example, the song isCharlie Parker’s composition “DonnaLee” (Fig 10b). Very often, these newmelodies would be more complex,faster, and harder to play than theoriginal. This whole process is verysimilar to how artists today (especially inpop music) will use samples of differentsongs in their own songs, or writeremixes of other people’s songs.

Figure 10a. First 8 bars of the jazz standard “Indiana” by Mcdonald/Haley.

Figure 10b. First 8 bars of the bebop composition “Donna Lee” by Charlie Parker.

In keeping with this tradition,Page used the harmonic structure from

the jazz standard “Afternoon in Paris” byJohn Lewis as a basis to write his

composition “Afternoon in Africa”. Theform of the song is AABA, and it is a4/4 swing. From examining the first fourbars of “…Paris” (Fig 11a) and“…Africa” (Fig 11b), it can be observedthat the same exact harmonic structure is

in use. Also, Page’s melody looselymirrors Lewis’ by having the sameduration of pickup notes (they equal aquarter note in both compositions) andby using the same idea repeatedly, onlytransposing it to fit the different chords.

Figure 11a. First 4 bars of John Lewis composition “Afternoon in Paris”.

Figure 11b. First 4 bars of Nathen Page composition “Afternoon in Africa”.

In an effort to put his own stampon the music, Page changed the bridge ofthe song. He abandons Lewis’ bridge(Fig 3a), which is in swing with a ii-V-I-VI7 turnaround, and creates his ownwhich has a Latin feel and only has one

chord, G augmented (Fig 12b). Thiscreates sufficient tension to push thesong into the final A section, giving thatfinal section the duty of not onlyreiterating the original theme and endingthe song, but also to release that tension

.

Figure 12a. Bridge (B Section) of “Afternoon in Paris”.

Figure 12b. Bridge (B Section) of “Afternoon in Africa”.

The Road to Les Avants

The idea for “The Road to LesAvants” came about from my tour ofEurope in the summer of 2003 with theUNF Jazz Ensemble. We played at threedifferent jazz festivals during the twoweeks that we were there, and thesecond festival we played at was theMontreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.Montreux is a very beautiful townsituated on the shore of Lac Léman(Lake Geneva) with a breathtaking viewof the French Alps and glaciers directlyacross the lake.

Since we were staying inMontreux for 4 days and only had toplay one concert, we were allowedplenty of time for sightseeing andexploration. On our third day there,some friends and I decided to take a hikeup the mountain to see where it wouldtake us. As we left Montreux and its’upscale and modern provisions(including Rolex and Gucci stores) andtraveled up the mountain, it was as if wewere being we were taken back in time.Just above the city it felt as if we were inan early 20th century village, with itscobblestone pathways and gardensoutside of all the houses. The thing Iremember most about this part of the tripwere all the steps we had to go up. Aftergoing up a few hundred vertical feet ofsteps, it felt like they would go onforever! Fortunately, once we got abovethe city and the village, we came to aroad.

After going uphill on the road fora little while, we came upon a sign thatread: “Les Avants – 5km”. One of myfriends remembered Professor BunkyGreen (director of UNF’s Jazz Program)telling him to go there. We all tried toimagine what could possibly be so greatabout this place, since Green never

actually said why we should go there.We continued to follow the road uphillon its zigzagging, seemingly never-ending trip to Les Avants. On the way,we were able to see many magnificentsights, including the French Alps, somevery old mansions on neighboringmountains, Montreux (which by thistime was well below us), and eventually,even cows grazing on the side of themountain.

After a little while longer, wefinally reached Les Avants which waslocated almost at the top and on the otherside of the mountain from Montreux.Even though it was a very nice littletown, I think we were all maybe just alittle disappointed, seeing as we stillcouldn’t figure out why Green wanted usto go there or what exactly he wanted tosee.

What I got from this experienceis that maybe in some roundabout kindof way, Green was telling us thatsometimes in life the journey is moreimportant than the destination. To put itanother way, in order to really live andlearn, you should always be searchingand exploring new things and never justfeel comfortable with your “destination”.I’d have to say that during that day inMontreux, I had more fun just on the tripto Les Avants than when we actuallyarrived.

Upon writing this composition, Iwanted some kind of unifying theme todescribe our trip. The first thing I couldremember about the trip was thosehundreds of steps. To make it evenworse, they were longer and wider (andolder) than most other steps. I decidedto represent these stairs by composingthe song primarily in half notes. Thesong consists of 2-four bar sections thatrepresent the stairs (bars 13-16; 21-24).The two sections (bars 17-20; 25-28)

that come after the “stairs” sectionsrepresent the times that we would stop torest and take pictures. When comparingthe “rest” sections to the “stairs”sections, it is clear that there is far lessmelodic and harmonic activity takingplace. The final part of the song (bars29-32), with its melody that changesdirections multiple times, represents thewalk up the zigzag road and then finallyour arrival (bars 33-39) in Les Avants.

The compositional device ofPage’s that was used for thiscomposition was taken from his song“Afternoon in Africa”. In that song, the‘A’ sections are in 4/4 swing, but the ‘B’section is a Latin groove over a Gaugmented chord (Fig 12). The sameidea is in “The Road to Les Avants” inbars 25-28. The rest of the song (withthe exception of the very last sections) isin 4/4 swing, but this part is a Latingroove over a G minor chord.