2. Day one of Colab
• Colab Charlie Harparker Day 1 16th Feb
• I went into G15 at around 10.00am and I met Park Stickney and shook his hand. We had a brief conversation and I told him I loved Charlie Parker. He told me because I played jazz and the alto
saxophone, I would be a valuable member of the project.
• So I waited for about quarter of an hour for everyone else in the project to be present in the room. Once this occurred Park introduced himself to everyone and people took turns introducing
themselves to the group. We had to tell the others things like what year we were in, what course were taking, why we chose this project and where we are from. Park and the rhythm section Ray
(piano) and Daniel (bass) then proceeded to play through Donna Lee. Park then dazzled us in his improvisation with be-bop lines that due to the timbre of the harp sounded as if they descended
from angels. Park then elaborated on his aims of the project- to see the extent of which the harp could play jazz. He felt that there was no limit- it could be just as proficient as playing jazz as any
other more common jazz instruments.
• He then told us how the pedals worked in changing the notes of the harp strings (see video below) and how the harp is designed to withstand the pulling forces of the strings. We then collectively
played through the melody of Donna Lee at a very slow tempo and Park asked me to advise to the classical musicians how a sax player would articulate the notes and about jazz phrasing in
general. I demonstrated this by asking them to imitate how I played the melody, slowly and one section at a time. Then the rhythm section and I played Donna Lee as quickly as we can to show the
classical musicians a different perspective of the piece. To challenge me Park wondered if I could learn it in 12 keys, in different registers and play it simultaneously with the original key! We then
discussed certain ideas for what we wanted to perform. Dan, for example, suggested a Charlie Parker with strings remake but with the strings replaced with the harps instead. Someone else
however suggested that since Donna Lee was a contrafact, the non-harpists should take a segment of a harp piece (a brief melody) and write a jazz tune (preferably) based on it.
3. • The harpists took turns to play a part of their chosen piece to us and we then recorded them (see videos below). I was personally attracted to Richard’s piece by Spohr called
Fantasy in C minor. At noon we took a break and went to get lunch with Park, Ray and Dan.
• When we returned to G15 at 1 Park told us to work on our compositions and to comeback to share our progress at 4. So I went to room 161 and initiated the compositional
process. How I did it was I tried to learn the melody from the recording and I decided to improvise with the melody until I got a nice bebop interpretation of it and I proceeded to
encapsulate the best of the ideas into an AABA 32 bar form(see video below). I then recorded he tune I thought up. It took me a couple of hours. At 4 after a brief listening to the
original recording of Donna Lee, we shared our compositions. Ray and Dan were the only people other than me to have finished their compositions. I played my composition first
and then we heard the original by Richard. Next we played through Ray’s Composition over Cherry’s chosen tune- Ray had written a new melody (be-bop influenced) and a
complete reharmonisation. We played Cherry’s melody first over the new chord sequence before playing the head. Lastly we played through Dan’s piece (based on Anna piece by
Faure) and called it a day.
4. Day two of Colab
• Day 2 17th Feb
• The day started again at 10 am and Park told us he had to leave at noon. Daniel our bassist was ill for the whole day unfortunately! We started off by playing through the head of Donna Lee at a slow
tempo and we took turns soloing over the chords. I played the original melody ‘Back Home again in Indiana’ whilst the others played Donna. The harpists found it very difficult to do so. Ray then gave
the harpists some tips on articulation, to not play quavers that were too swung but instead try to swing by accenting the off beats. After we had another go at improvising over the chord changes,
Park, for fun, asked everyone to play the tune at different tempos and keys simultaneously- it sounded terrible to be honest.
• Park departed and the rest of us had an extended lunch break and we socialised (talked about mathematics and other unusual topics) in Butler’s Bar. After our long break we decided to work
on/polish off our compositions. I thought Richard my composition, he found it difficult to remember and had to transcribe it to internalise it (see photo). He then taught me Spohr’s melody (see
video) as I couldn’t remember it from the recording I did the day before. He and I were adamant to have my piece performed on the Friday.
• Lastly all of us convened in G15 to have some more work on Donna Lee. We came to the agreement that the simultaneous different keys and tempos would be a bad idea for the performance. Ray
then gave some advice to the classical musician by telling them some chord/scale relationships for improvisation and to improvise intuitively (trying to use their ears as supposed to conscious
thought) using a scale. We then practised trading fours over the form to re-inforce the form, so that there will be less likelihood in the performance for someone to get lost when improvising. We also
did an exercise of trading four and then eights but playing the tune when it was not your turn to improvise. After you finished improving your four/eight bars you had to immediately resume the head
again.
5. Day three of Colab
• Day 3 Wednesday 18th Feb
• The day started with Park resolving some difficulties of improvising on the harp over chord changes by talking about how the harpists could use the pedals to change the note configuration of the
harp- to add accidental notes on the harp to not just improvise on the tonic major scale. After this, I suggested that we could learn another be-bop tune that we could possibly play at the concert.
My reasoning was that Donna Lee was not written by Charlie Parker unlike the tune I suggested (Quasimodo) and was less chromatic hence easier on the harp then Donna Lee. Also the original
tempo was a slow medium so it obviously sounded better at that tempo than Donna Lee did. Quasimodo (see picture below) was in Eb and was a contra fact based on Embrace-able you. Park then
printed out the lead sheet from the real book and we learnt it slowly together.
6. • After yet another lunch break. I went to one of the brass rooms to learn Quasimodo by ear from the orginal recording. This took me about an hour and a half. After learning it I
went downstairs to tell Park but other events were going on. Everyone was rehearsing Zoltan’s (piano) piece based on Thomas’ chosen melody from Hindesmith (see pic below).
Zoltan wanted me to blow over the changes of his piece and obliged after transposing the chord changes to my alto key. We talked about how to perform this piece on Friday. We
agreed that Thomas should play the original melody first which is followed by a piano intro. Then the time is established as bass enters and piano plays the melody of his piece
once. This is followed 2x choruses of improvising from me and a chorus from Zoltan who then plays the melody out. This immediately leads to the harps, in unison, playing a two
chord vamp and fading out. Thomas plays the original theme once again.
• After rehearsing this we played through Dan’s piece (see pic below) and worked out an arrangement for it. Then I suggested my piece to be played in the concert but there was
not enough time left to rehearse it but I wrote out the chord progression to my contrafact and gave it to Richard.
7. Day four of Colab
• Day 4 Thursday 19th Feb
• We were told at the start of the day that if you were not a harpist we were free to
leave by noon. The harpists then worked on Quasimodo and I helped them out by
showing them how to articulate the melody on my horn. After this I rehearsed my
composition and we discussed the arrangement of it for the concert. We came to
the conclusion that Richard would play the original melody first and after that I
would play the original melody with Richard playing only the accompaniment.
Then it would be followed by my composition being played in unison with Dan
entering and playing walking bass over the changes. After the 32 bar form was
played, Richard and I will improvise together over the form for a chorus. After the
chorus we will play the melody out and end with a short cadenza by me.
8. Day five of Colab
• Day 5 Friday 20th Feb
• In the morning we planned and had a run through of the performance later that night. We agreed that we would play Donna Lee as the ‘first half’ of the concert and not Quasimodo so that the
performance would be under 20 minutes. Also we agreed to perform Zoltan, my and Dan’s compositions (in that order) as a suite for the second half. Since I would be highly involved in the second
half of the concert I would not take a solo on Donna Lee. We also worked out that my cadenza at the end of my piece would be seamlessly blended into the start of Dan’s piece. The harps and
violin would take half chorus each on Donna Lee.
• We then had a rehearsal at Blackheath Hall’s recital room at 17:00 (see pic) and went to a local pub afterwards to get some drinks and food (see pic). We chilled for an hour and returned to the
Halls to watch the other projects. At around 19:30 we had our performance and I definitely enjoyed it although my cadenza did contain an awkward note(see vid)! Thanks to Park Stickney for
creating this project! The performance can be seen with this web address https://www.dropbox.com/s/7pnti9yjcro1mf4/Colab%20'HarParker'%202015.mp4?dl=0.
