THE CROSSROADS Jazzy chord voicings
This month at the Crossroads, John Wheatcroft finds the chordal connections from modern bluesman Kirk Fletcher, to jazz legends Joe Pass and Wes Montgomery, via the great Robben Ford.
John Wheatcroft shows how the brilliant Kirk Fletcher spices up his superb blues rhythm work with tasty jazz chord voicings.
In jazz-speak the term ‘comping’ is used an abbreviation for the all-encompassing topic of accompanying. For any aspiring blues or jazz guitarist this is a crucial and absolutely essential area of study. The ability to acccompany with intelligence and sensitivity is one of the most effective skills we can develop. Even though you might have the most incredible single-note chops, with phenomenal speed and articulation, if you can’t comp well you’ll probably never get the opportunity to showcase these assets as nobody will want to play with you!
Secondly, rhythm playing need not be the poorer relation to soloing. With intelligent consideration and skill, the rhythm part can be every bit as creative, challenging, sophisticated, hip and impressive and you’ll find your popularity among fellow musicians will rise exponentially as your comping skills develop. To be a good rhythm player, you need to be a good team player. Familiarise yourself with the roles of each respective instrument in the ‘rhythm section’, usually the drums, bass and often in classic jazz settings you’ll need to share comping duties with a piano player; while in blues styles it’s not uncommon to find yourself on stage with any combination of piano, keyboards and even another guitarist, all playing at the same time.
A critical skill to develop here is to listen carefully and then respond to your musical surroundings. What does the music need specifically from you to make things sounds better, right now, at this present moment? Sometimes the answer to this might be to play nothing at all. Assuming you’d like to participate, however, the key lies in having a range of potential options available at all points. The more ways you have to express the same harmonic framework by exploring different voicing options, along with other equally important factors such as tone, dynamic control and rhythmic awareness, the better equipped you’ll be to choose the right part, with the right sound and in the right place.
One player that has most definitely done his homework, and once again typifies perfectly the concept of a ‘crossroads-player’, is Kirk Fletcher. One time Fabulous Thunderbird, Kirk continues to establish a hugely successful career as solo artist, with an impressive and ever expanding portfolio of album releases under his own name. You might also have spotted him driving the rhythm section for Joe Bonamassa’s Three King’s tour. Fletcher’s playing is a perfect combination of blues and gospel, with a healthy measure of jazz and swing, particularly when he approaches rhythm guitar. There are clear Robben Ford influences here, although Kirk has assimilated these ideas to make them every bit his own. He simply sounds glorious and we’d urge you to check him out.
We start our study of expanded and sophisticated rhythm guitar options by looking at a selection of ideas from the sophisticated blues side of the tracks, beginning with an idea taken directly from Kirk’s own comping vocabulary. Next up, we take a short journey over to the jazz world and look at ideas ranging from T-Bone Walker, a player that could comfortably live in both blues and jazz, to Joe Pass and Bireli Lagrene. We follow this with a set of exercises designed to promote your knowledge and range of chord voicings, and then round things off with a cohesive 12-bar study that contextualises these ideas and more and will hopefully provide you with a springboard to further ideas and exploration.
“I like to have a whole big handful of ideas over the different chords” KIRK FLETCHER