Bach to Basics - Bach's Vocabulary in Jazz at California Jazz Conservatory

About

J.S. Bach, iconic composer and improviser, created a wealth of strategies for understanding harmony and rhythm in music. In this workshop, we will study several excerpts of Bach's music and apply similar concepts to familiar chord progressions in the jazz idiom, including standards and common turnarounds. The repertoire will include excerpts from the violin partitas, inventions, and the fugues from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1. The goal is to focus on techniques for hearing continuous, voice-leading lines over common chord progressions, as well as hearing polyrhythmic motifs within these lines.