The harmony is simple, but the Radiohead sound is distinctive - lots of ambient and textural things that are almost orchestral.John Fordham hears how it went We asked some jazz musicians to tackle Radiohead.Photograph: PA We asked some jazz musicians to tackle Radiohead.
Photograph: PA John Fordham Fri 7 Nov 2008 00.01 GMT Things, the Street, blues, the great Chicago saxophonist Johnny Griffin used to mutter to the total strangers of the new rhythm section he would encounter each night as he travelled the worlds jazz clubs with his sax. That cryptic sentence was shorthand for the three standard songs My Favourite Things, Green Dolphin Street and that eternally fruitful jazz vehicle, the 12-bar blues. Wherever he went, Griffin could trust the house bands playing with him to know those songs and many others - not just their melodies, but their underlying harmonies, too, allowing the musicians to improvise new melodies off the song, in real time, all night. Any interpretation should respect the originals essence while stamping it with the character of its performer. The difference in jazz is that the interpretation may stray so far that the original tune becomes unrecognisable. Master improviser Sonny Rollins, for instance, will unleash a torrent of variations that twist and embellish the original, segue into a random run of other famous melodies, or transform into on-the-fly miniatures that are sometimes more striking than the classic he started out with. The great 1920s and 30s songs of the Gershwins, Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen or Rodgers and Hart were the pop music of their day. Their pop currency has long since faded, but those poignant themes, seductive harmonies and audacious key-shifts continue to fascinate improvisers; music college jazz courses still teach standards as part of the survival kit. Latterly, jazz originals have become standards, too - Thelonious Monks Round Midnight, or Dizzy Gillespies A Night in Tunisia, say. Rock and pop have followed: Herbie Hancock included the Beatles Norwegian Wood on his 1995 album The New Standard; pianist Brad Mehldau has applied his mix of improv and classical recitalists skills to the music of Radiohead. Radiohead generously allowed us to use one of their numbers, and we chose the haunting and elusive Nude, from their most recent album, In Rainbows. Below, the musicians involved explain how they approached the task (click on their names to hear the music): Nathaniel Facey (Empirical) Id not heard the track until the night before the recording. Lewis Wright and I transcribed it, then we all played it in the studio as a group collaboration. Radiohead Album Torrents How To Create AndLike the old standards, good modern popular songs are great material for musicians who know how to create and play and craft. Recorded by Nathaniel Facey (alto sax), Lewis Wright (vibes), Ryan Trebilcock (bass) and Josh Morrison (drums) at the Premises, London. Jonathan Gee Nude seems at first like a standard rock harmony, but Radioheads music is multilayered and theyre great at arrangement and texture. If you had the sheet music, you could easily just strum along on a guitar and it would sound roughly like Nude. You can pick the bare bones of a Duke Ellington tune out on the piano, but then there are a million possibilities for enriching it. I tried to do this the way Ornette Coleman might have: painting the picture of the melody, and then commenting on it, concentrating on a sound, rather than trying to repeat it in a string of different ways. Jonathan Gee plays with the Monk Liberation Front at the Octave Bar, Covent Garden, on November 15. Chris Sharkey (Trio VD) We spent all day playing it until it sounded like us.
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