John Wheatcroft looks at one of the most common compositional templates found in jazz, Gershwin’s now ubiquitous ‘rhythm changes’.
It’s common practice in jazz, to take an existing chord sequence and use this as a template to create a new original melody. In jazz education, these new pieces are called contrafacts. Well-known examples include Charlie Parker’s Ornithology, with the changes taken from How High The Moon; Tad Dameron’s Hot House, or Lee Konitz’ Subconscious Lee, both derived from What Is This Thing Called Love. Even Wes Montgomery’s Four On Six is based on the changes of George Gershwin’s evergreen Porgy And Bess standard, Summertime.
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