Nearpsited3

Hello People! I was wondering if ANY of you are familiar with or have a copy of the Jazz Method of Robert "Boysie" Lowery (Clifford Brown's first teacher) ?
I actually was able to get a couple pages copied from a friend, but the book got ruined/stolen and I only have the few pages i copied. These exercises and patterns in the book are really helpful and you could by Clifford's Improvisation that this method was his foundation. I have tried googling it, and it yielded no results. Only a description of How he taught him how to hear and maneuver through changes through those exercises. The guy who copied the book for me acted as though it was some super top secret stuff and i had to actually pay him for the few pages i had. lol. I dont know who published it, or if it was something thats just passed down, but im really trying to find it. If you got any insight please respond! Thanks!!!!!

rowuk

It sounds like a great method. None of my sources know anything about it. This post will probably get more hits in the jazz forum so I have moved it there.

http://www.trumpetguild.org/pdf/2002.../0206brown.pdf
Clifford Brown -- Trumpeter's Training
Jeff Helgesen's Home Page
Clifford Brown : The Life and Art of the Legendary Jazz Trumpeter

__________________
Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.

Chris Teixeira

I have a copy. A friend of mine passed on a photocopy to me a few years ago. Robert Lowery published it himself (my copy is copyright 1994, but perhaps there was an earlier edition), and sold it via mail order for $22.95. My copy says "Book 1" on the front. I've never heard of a book 2.

If this book were the holy grail we might hope it to be, believe me, it would be available. Sadly, this is not the case. Here's what I can tell you about the contents:

The book is about 100 pages long in total. The instructional part of the text is presented as if it were dictated from verbal explanations, and pieced together. There are exercises and etudes mixed in with the text.

The book breaks down into two concepts: "The Classes" and "Active Notes".

"The Classes", as far as I can tell (maybe someone else can enlighten us more), is a chord progression to be studied as an aid to ear training. It's a pretty unclear concept as it is presented - he doesn't show how to apply the concept to anything, just indicates that you need to be able to hear the following notes in your head: (In C major): C, A,F, D, E, G, C. These are presented as the roots of a chord progression, C maj, A min, F maj, D min, E min, G maj, C maj.

It looks to me like he is starting with a ii-V-I progression, replacing the ii chord with a IV chord, and then sandwiching the relative minors in between. He refers to the IV-ii chords as "Second Class", the iii-V chords as "First Class", and I-iv as "Tonic Class". What does this have to do with anything? No idea. This is all presented on two lines of sheet music, with no explanation other than to learn to play the notes and hear the chords in 12 keys.

He goes on later in the book to talk about "Altered Classes", which are diminished and augmented chord substitutions. Again, this is two lines of music, with a minimal explanation. I'll just copy it here so you can get a feel for it:

"A lot of people have been taught that the key of C Major has no sharps or no flats. And there are a lot of people who think that. But a key can carry _anything_ chromatically _within_ that scale. So we know by now by altering your classes, your tonic class is a sharp-1 and a sharp-6. Therefore the chords (C# dim and A# dim) become leading, diminished instead of major and minor. C# diminished, which can take you chromatically to D minor (2nd). Altering that second class (F# and D#) would be D# diminished, which would take you to your E minor (3rd). So we have two diminished. Then your first class sound becomes and augmented sound, so that E becomes an Eb+ (augmented) chord and it takes you to your second class Perfect, taking you to that F (4th). And that F, you alter that and it becomes an F# diminished which is the same as the D# diminished, and that takes you to your G (5th), which is a first class sound. And that first class becomes a G augmented chord, and that takes you to your A minor (6th). Then you raise your tonic class, bringing you back to your A# diminished, the same as that C# diminished. Then you have double diminished chords that bring you back to the tonic class Perfect(1). We know that these diminished chords are looking for somewhere to go. They're looking for resolution. You can't do them in fours because each diminished carries three different directions so it's not round the circle with them. Actually, what you want to learn to hear from these altered chords is the sound of that altered chord. Now what I'm trying to say to you is that what you hear is a C# diminished but you hear _more_ than C# diminished. You hear each one of those notes in that diminished chord leading you some place. You hear C# diminished leading to D; you hear E diminished leading to F; you hear G diminished leading to Ab; and you hear A# diminished leading to B. _All at the same time._ The same thing happens with your augmented chord. You hear that augmented chord but your knowledge is telling you that you hear _more_ than that. So that makes you ABSOLUTE."

The other concept he talks about are "Active Notes". These are notes a half-step away (above and below) chord tones (Passive Notes). In playing, you have "Single Active Notes", where you employ one chromatic leading tone to approach a chord tone, and "Double Active Notes", where you "encircle" the note using both chromatic approach notes.

There you go. That's it really. The same material is covered more clearly and in more depth in other books. On the other hand, you can definitely hear the "Altered Classes" substitutions and "Active Notes" in Clifford's playing.

Hope this helps

Nearpsited3

Thanks man, I contacted the library of congress to see if they can photocopy it for me. I'll let you know what happens

talcito

A few years ago Donald Byrd was helping the author sell some copies at the Jazzmobile Jazz program in NYC. If you contact Jazzmobile perhaps they could help you contact Dr. Byrd....I am sure he would be very happy to assist you in obtaining the book.