Oh good god. Air B&B in Yeovil with mein host Alan, who (it turns out) runs a Christian ministry from his home. He rises early, reads a few verses from the Bible, then records his thoughts on video which he uploads to YouTube. So far, so you-can-put-all-the-scatter-cushions-you-like-on-the-bed-but-it-can’t-hide-the-fact-your-mattress-is-abysmal.

He had assured us he wasn’t “one of those”; he wouldn’t be “all preachy”. Alan is married to an Ethiopian woman called Taffy and there is an obese and aging labrador the colour of chocolate called Tess. There is a large rectangular pond with a fountain that slightly overplays onto the path. Broken paving slabs have been placed to resemble a rockery all around, with plastic fern fronds intermittently positioned. At night the fountain is lit from below, and in the continually changing colours of the illumination you can view the cascade slowly, inevitably emptying the water into the garden. Especially when the wind picks up.

The helpful information sheet on the bedside table invites me to treat myself to one of Taffy’s legendary facials (£18); and tells me there will be a selection of ‘serials’ available at breakfast. I wasn’t very hungry so I just had an episode of Poldark and nibbled a Grey’s Anatomy with a sneaky GoT on the terrace.

Alan joined us for breakfast. There was an enormous widescreen TV over the table showing a paused Breitbart video. As Tess leant her copious frame against my legs and fell asleep, we fell into conversation of sorts, which was mainly Alan talking. Alan apparently ran the B&B to meet people. He kept saying “to be honest with you”. He told us he had guests from all over the world. Yesterday, a lovely Australian couple; people from Russia; and last week a very nice Chinese couple who happened to be Christians. “To be honest with you”, he went on, “I always thought the Chinese gave Christians a hard time, but apparently not.”

I might just have muttered something at this point about the Chinese government handpicking priests, about continuous harassment and corruption, and the state-sponsored publication of a “corrected” version of the Bible. I don’t recall exactly, but it never takes much to coax the worm from its hole.

Alan agreed that there’s a lot of corruption in the world, but that changes are coming. Alan had been visited by God and now Alan had a prophecy that he would like to share with us. Fortunately, through my own genealogical research on the Mormon website, I had been able to establish on Heather’s mother’s tree—via the Amish connection—a direct line back to Charlemagne and from there to Jesus of Nazareth. Uncle JNaz wasn’t immediately available for comment, so I’m unable to verify Alan’s impressive claim, but I’m not the doubting sort. And anyway, as he was keen to remind us, he was being honest with us.

A new movement was afoot that would wipe away all the corruption. God had trumpeted his personal choice of ambassador, a man of strength and righteousness who would lead this change. This is what God had chosen to share with Alan, and now Alan was passing this on to us. This was indeed exciting news. I wiggled my feet, overheating under the snoring Tess. She stirred just enough to shift her weight again, securing my legs under Alan’s table while he finished outlining his vision for the New World Order.

I felt the worm needed nothing more than a little nudge of encouragement to get it over the line. I casually enquired whether he’d be prepared to let us know the name of the person now chosen to do God’s work on Earth.

To be honest with you, it’s someone whose name you know well. An American gentlemen of high office. Alan explained that the wall was necessary to keep “them” all out, of course, but he wasn’t a racist because he was married to an Ethiopian, obviously, but if we just left our borders open they would soon overrun us and take everything we have. Alan didn’t go into a lot of detail but he seemed especially triggered by Hillary Clinton: “Some of the things she’s done, I can’t bring myself to say but it makes me want to vomit”, he revealed, as I dug out the last of the raspberry jam from the individual portion with my knife. “Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and especially Obama, they’ll all be behind bars”.

It’s quite a lot to take in, and perhaps a bit harsh on Gordon Brown, but Alan was fairly confident on these main facts. Sadly, Heather was already, and increasingly, feeling the pull of the open road, and was now standing, downing the last of her tea in a single anxious gulp before pulling Tess by her collar, freeing me at last.

We shook hands and said our goodbyes.
Alan asked us to write a review.

I’l be honest with you.

Looking through some genealogy bits and pieces I had, I started to piece them together online. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints host an easy-to-use site here. You’ll need to sign up for a free account to view the links I’m including.

If you put in a few names and dates, it generally offers matches with existing records and work that others have done. Heather’s family tree has some interesting areas: lots of German and Swiss migrants including, famously, Hans Herr, founder of the Amish community in USA.

Take a look by starting with Mary Reese and going back from there. You’ll see I haven’t put much info in myself, mainly I’ve linked to existing records. I’d be grateful for whatever Fisher and Martin names and dates people have.

I think there was a glitch in our understanding the relationship to Hans Herr. Heather’s mother was Nancy; her mother was Molly; and her mother was Mary Catherine Reese. In our version of the tree, Mary’s father was Martin K Reese, whose own mother was the joyously named Fanny Herr. In fact the records seem to suggest that Mary’s father was a different Martin K Reese, Martin Kuhn Reese, (1845-1926). No matter. Not only does Fanny Herr still appear—albeit more tangentially—in the tree, there is still a direct line back to Hans Herr through a slightly different route. Martin married Catherine Elizabeth Winters (1850-1922) in Pennsylvania in 1865. Catherine’s father Silas Winters (1821-1900) had a mother named Esther Gochenour (1792-1839), whose father Joseph Gochenour (1756-1816) married Esther Kreider Herr (1763-1839) in Lancaster, PA on 1 August 1780. Esther is the daughter of Henry Herr (1713-1777) and Anna Kreider (1714-1744). Henry’s father is Isaac Herr (1691-1747) and Isaac’s father is the Reverend Hans Herr (1639-1725). The website displays the Herr Line back to Switzerland in 1400.

Martin K Reese’s parents were Benjamin Reese (1798-1856) and Sarah Kuhn (1809-1894). Benjamin’s parents were Andrew Reese (1777-1856) and Fannie Eshleman (1776-1847). The Eshleman line is especially entertaining: Fannie’s father was Martin Eshelman (note the slightly different spelling). Follow the paternal line back a couple of generations to Switzerland and Peter Aeschlimann (1644-1741). Keep going, always down the paternal line, and you’ll reach Heinrich Von Esch (1330-1392), somewhere in Medieval Northern Europe, a time when very nearly everyone was illiterate and unrecorded. Nobles, of course, with heredity and pedigree and destiny in mind, often had fairly comprehensive family records. Find a member of the aristocracy in your family and chances are you’ll get an impressively long way back.

That direct paternal Eshleman/Eshelman/Aeschlimann/Esch line reaches back to Robrechet van Nanur (932-980), Count of Lommegau; but the tree of his wife, Ermengard of Lotharingia (970-1012) reaches much further back: her parents were Charles I, Duke of Brabant of Lower Lorraine (953-992) and Bonne Adelaide, Duchess of Lorraine (974?-1063). Bonne Adelaide was the daughter of Hugh Capet, King of the Franks (939-996), and Adélaïde, Queen of France (952-1004).

So… how far back? Well here’s the route back from Esch to Charlemagne, King of the Franks and Emperor of the Romans, and son of Pepin III the Short and Bertrada II de Laon. Click on the images to open them in a separate window, and you might have to click through a few times to view them at full size…

Once you hit royalty, you’ll be amazed where it’ll take you. Since both of Bonne Adelaide’s parents were children of monarchs, any line you take will lead you to spectacular ancestry. Saxon kings, the first kings of England—before England was a country—and off to ancient and far-off realms.

Pursue Bonne Adelaide’s father’s line (Hugh Capet, King of the Franks), and you’ll reach ancient Rome. Here’s my son Dexter’s line all the way back to Emperor Marcus Aurelius (121-180).

By the way, in the above graphic, you’ll see Charlemagne’s parents—Pepin III the Short and Bertrada II de Laon—in a couple of different places that are quite hard to reconcile. That must be what it takes to keep a royal line going. Since monarchs and emperors have always found it easiest if they can claim a divine right to rule, it might suit them best to show proof. Going back from Charlemagne, for instance (not sure where the pinch-of-salt emoji is):

Menton House Info 2018

Barber shop – Voice mixing by Nicolas

Intro

In a simple chord sequence, in which all the chords come from the same key, it’s easy to select the scale to improvise over the sequence. The standard choice is to use the scale of the key.

In this example (a I-VI-II-V7 in G), in which all the chords are in the key of G major, the simplest choice is to use the scale of G major to improvise over the entire sequence.

The chords are said to be diatonic to G major, because every note in each chord is in the G major scale.

Extensions

You can easily extend the chords by adding more diatonic notes such as 9ths, 11ths and 13ths:

Adding these extensions to the chords creates a richer texture with more colour but it doesn’t affect the scale choice, since we’re still only using notes of the G major scale to create chords with.

In jazz, adding altered extensions is a skilled operation: altered extensions can fundamentally change the sound of the chord; they can change the role of the chord (known as the function); and, of course, altered extensions can change the choice of scale to play over the affected chord.

However, there’s one chord type where altered extensions can actually emphasise the function of the chord and create a more interesting sound: chord V7. Looking at D7, you can strip it back to its bare essentials by having a D (the root of the chord) and also F♯ and C (the 3^rd and the 7^th, which together create a tritone, which is the source of the tension in D7). No other note is necessary. The 5^th of the chord (A) doesn’t add any function or colour to the chord, so it really only needs three notes: the root, and the tritone pair above the root: D, F♯ and C.

V7(♭5)

One very common alteration is to flatten the 5^th. Here’s the same sequence again. D7 is now played as D7(♭5). The chord contains D, F♯, A♭ and C.

This 7(♭5) chord is pretty interesting. The notes it contains are also found in A♭7(♭5), an identical chord that is half an octave away.

Tritone Substitution

Try playing the sequence again, but this time substituting D7(♭5) for A♭7(♭5). You have the same notes, but you’ll notice that the root—A♭—descends chromatically from chord II and eventually on to chord I, creating a smooth, elegant sound. Since it is half an octave away, using this chord is known as a tritone substitution. Remember, D7(♭5) and A♭7(♭5) are essentially the same chord, since they contain the same notes. Which one you play will depend on the bass line you want to create.

Try these shapes—all of which can be played six frets higher or lower to ‘flip’ them from D to A♭ and vice versa.

As a guitarist or pianist, providing chords for an accompaniment, feel free to use the tritone substitution for V7 chords. Whether it sounds any good will be a question of taste and experience. You obviously need to let the bassist know, and any other musicians who might be playing chord notes. You’ll find tritone substitutions in bossa nova, swing, ballads, bebop… and it’s an essential part of a jazz musician’s repertoire.

Now try playing the D7(♭5) & A♭7(♭5) chords over this backing track. Each chord lasts for two bars, so the whole sequence is 8 bars long. In bars 7 & 8, try playing D7(♭5) or A♭7(♭5). They’ll both work fine. The backing track is 64 bars long, meaning the 8-bar sequence is played a total of 8 times through. I’ve created the backing track with the bass playing roots of D7(♭5) and A♭7(♭5) in bars 7 & 8. It’s ambiguous, to allow you to hear how interchangeable the two chords are.

Scale Choice for the Tritone Substitution

So… what scale do you use to play over it? Well, the ‘rule’ is this: any scale that contains the notes of the chord you want to play over is a candidate. It might not be obvious which scale contains the notes D, F♯, A♭ and C, but if you call the A♭ a G♯ instead, then there’s common scale that is an obvious choice:

A melodic minor contains all the notes in D7(♭5)—or A♭7(♭5), of course, since it’s really the same thing.

Playing it over D7(♭5) means we’re using the fourth mode of A melodic minor. You can see that the G♯ is a sharpened fourth, and that the original fifth of D7 (A) is actually still in the scale. Theorists will refer to this sharpened fourth as a ♯11.

[D7(♭5) could be called  D7(♯11) instead. In fact, since we’re talking about G♯ now instead of A♭, maybe #11 is a better description than ♭5…]

Anyway, the scale has a ♯11 (G#), and a flattened seventh (C), so the common name for this scale is lydian dominant.

The lydian dominant is very popular, especially over this kind of chord, but you could also play it over an unaltered V7 (because really we haven’t changed the fifth at all—we’ve actually just added a ♯11 so the scale doesn’t conflict with a standard V7).

Now try improvising over the backing track. Use a G major scale for the first three chords but, when we get to bars 7 & 8, try playing D lydian dominant: that is, A melodic minor. In fact all you’re doing is replacing G with G♯ for those two bars.

You’ll hear that there’s subtle additional tension in the V7 chord and your melodic ideas will control and negotiate that tension to create structure in your improvisation.

So, we now know that we can play D lydian dominant over D7(♭5)—and of course we can play it over A♭7(♭5) too.

Altered Scale

To finish off, let’s revisit our D7 chord. So far, we’ve added one altered extension, the ♭5 (or ♯11 if you prefer). Let’s see what happens when we add every possible altered extension. Remember, we only ‘need’ D, F♯ and C to make this chord D7. The flattened ninth, Eb, can be added, along with the sharpened ninth, F. We already have a ♯11, and the only other altered extension we can add is the flattened thirteenth. Altogether, then, we’d have D7(♭9/♯9/♯11/♭13), which looks a bit ridiculous. But actually all that’s happened is that we’ve just piled up as much tension as possible on top of the bare bones of a D7 chord.

Starting on D, let’s lay all these notes out in order—three chord notes and four altered extensions.

Spelling the same notes slightly differently makes it easier to comprehend:

It creates E♭ melodic minor, starting on the seventh degree. To come at this a different way, consider that E♭ melodic minor has the same relationship to A♭7(♭5) that A melodic minor has to D7(♭5).

The seventh mode of the melodic minor is also known as the altered scale, or the superlocrian scale.

Another way to produce the same scale is to take an ordinary major scale and raise the root by a semitone. This might be a useful way of visualising the scale. In the case of the D altered scale, you could create it by starting with a D♭ major scale and raising the root to D.

Try improvising over the backing track again. This time, over bars 7 & 8, try either the D lydian dominant or the D altered scale. The lydian dominant has a bright, fresh quality that just gives the V7 chord a little lift; whereas the altered scale creates a darker sound with more tension. Listen out for the ♭9 and ♯9 notes (E♭ and F in this key) and the ♭13 (B♭) for more interesting melodic possibilities.

Here’s my demonstration, soloing over the backing track. I’ve incorporated a few ‘features’ for you to hear. For the first four play-throughs of the sequence I’m using the lydian dominant scale, and on the other four I’m using the altered scale. See below for a few ‘notes’, especially over the V7(♭5) chord.

2nd time through [0:35]
The melodic minor scale contains a long stretch of whole tones—in this key, from C to G♯, and I’m using this part of the scale to create an expansive feel.

3rd time through [0:52]
I’m playing notes of an E chord—E, G♯ and B. They’re all notes of the A melodic minor scale, so even though I’m not playing over an E chord, these notes are a legitimate choice. Try other arpeggios that are contained within the A melodic minor scale, such as Bm7 and Caug, for a more unusual angle.

5th time through [1:27]
I’m playing notes of the altered scale in an ascending phrase, and I’ve timed it so that the final two notes are F (♯9) and F♯ (major 3rd), leading up chromatically to G, the key note, for the start of the chord I that follows.

6th time through [1:40]
Over the Am7 that precedes D7(♭5) I consciously played a G pentatonic phrase. Since the D altered scale (E♭ melodic minor) contains the notes of A♭ pentatonic, I was able to repeat the G pentatonic phrase a semitone higher over D7(♭5).

Footnote:

By the way, how do you write the chord symbol that demands an altered scale be played over it? In fact, the simplest way is to write D7alt. But any dominant chord with an altered extension, such as D7♭13, D7♯9, D7♭9♯11, D7♯9♭13 etc will be an opportunity to stretch out with an altered scale. Even a plain old D7(♭9), where you might normally play G harmonic minor, or a diminished scale, can stand to have an altered scale played over it. It depends how ‘in’ or ‘out’ you want to be—and on stylistic choices too. Experiment and learn to calibrate your sensibilities.

Soirée with Luce #menton

A photo posted by David Harrison (@dalstondavid) on May 21, 2016 at 11:24am PDT

12 Aug 2015
A couple of days on the road. Hoping to reach Lyon by nightfall on Saturday, we made good progress until Chalon sur Saône where, as tradition dictates, we entered the Pootle, the obligatory routine initiated by Heather on the first night of driving.

It generally begins something like this. At around 5, I’ll be googling hotels that fulfil a short list of criteria—they should be reasonably priced, they should be on the way, oh and they should preferably actually exist. At some point I’ll say something like “Right, the Ibis just north of Mâcon has a triple for 65 euros”, and Heather will stab at the map on my lap with her index finger. At no point will her eyes leave the road.

“Show me Lyon.” I point to it.

“Show me where we are.” I move my finger a few inches north and point again.

“What’s all that?” she asks, pointing at a military base, or a lake, or maybe my sudoku, close by.

And then it happens. She utters the terrible phrase that puts ice in my veins. “Is there maybe a green road…”

The general gist of a green road is that it takes us away from the motorway and is mainly characterised by a remarkable adjacency to a number of beauty spots and places of interest. A green road travels not only through the countryside but also back in time to an era resembling the 1930s but without all the fascism and genocide, in which geranium-bedecked chalets cluster the foothills, old maids sit in the square making lace and little anchovy pastries, the menfolk return from their honest toil in the field, stopping only to adjust their berets, smoke cigarettes and shrug manfully over a pop-up game of pétanque. The gable ends of houses are painted brightly with the names of dangerous alcoholic drinks spelled out in capital letters and, as you round the bend in the warm evening sun, you see a little handwritten sign hung in the window of an impossibly picturesque little cottage with a snoozing cat on the sill: Chambres d’hôtes. The rooms are at once dark & cosy and light & airy. The thick, crisp, sweet-scented cotton sheets are turned down and there’s a promising smell of a hearty cassoulet from the simple restaurant opposite. Edith Piaf walks past humming ‘La Vie en Rose’ and a pair of high, groomed carthorses saunters by. The green road is not always easy to find, but to stand the best chance of locating it, it is necessary to enter the Pootle.

We had bought a new road map of France this year, 400 pages of identical random diagrams. The most exciting thing about it is that the colours used to represent the roads are limited to red and yellow. I haven’t had the heart to tell Heather this yet. But, much like HG Wells’ Green Door, the green road will reveal itself, according to my wife, by sheer Process of Pootle.

Tonight’s Pootle began, as they do, innocently enough. We left the concrete & asphalt certainty of the A6 and soon found ourselves on a windy D road, yellow and in the high nine-hundreds. Heather had seen a sign with a picture of a bed on it. There was a chance, she reasoned, that it might lead to some sort of accommodation. I’ve long held the belief that the French enjoy putting pictures of everyday objects on pointy panels attached to posts and that one shouldn’t necessarily expect any sort of tangible outcome, but instead simply appreciate them as examples of outsider art. With dusk the Pootle entered the next inevitable phase—a weariness began to nibble at our spirits and little drops of rain gathered on the windshield. The Pootle changes nature at this point. The casual wander, the absent-minded browse, becomes the earnest search. We had careered through a couple of villages, and asked people, we had retraced our tracks… now, headlights on, chin on the steering wheel, we looked at the map again and resorted to heading for actual named places.

Top of the Rhône valley, first weekend in August, by the time we reached Tournus in the teeming rain, it was pitch black. Dex & Heather cowered in the car tucked into the station car park and I ran the length of the road, splashing from one ‘Complet’ sign to another. All pretence of the Pootle now washed from our evening, we headed deliberately, immediately, to Mâcon and its endless cheap motorway hotels. Presently we passed another picture of an everyday object on a post. Heather must have secreted a last emergency handful of Pootle in her knickers and now released it into the stormy night. As the windscreen wipers thrashed, she suddenly jerked the steering wheel to the left, across the water-spattered glare of the oncoming traffic, tearing us clear off the highway. Only then did I make the connection. That picture of an everyday object had ‘300m’ written below it. It was a picture of a tent.

Over the next 5 kilometres or so, various other pictures of tents appeared enticingly out of the gloom. The headlights picked out rows of trees through the sheets of rain, on and on, stone walls, a gaggle of low buildings huddling in the night. Another tiny picture of a tent. Suddenly, a junction. A gate. A large hoarding with a picture of some colourful camping arrangements in the sun, complete with a pool and parasols.

There were lights coming from a building that turned out to be a bar. There was a scattering of caravans under some tall trees. The paths ran as little brooks. The courtyard in front of the bar was under water. Thunder flashed. It was six minutes to ten. There was a shack leaning against the bar with the word ‘Restaurant’ on it. It apparently closed at ten, so we bundled ourselves in and ordered three lots of ham and chips with dark beers and coke. We had no cash, and despite the clear notice on the menu that cards were not accepted we went through the pantomime of going up to the guy on the cash register and giving him a card. In the proper Pootle version this is never an issue, but then in the Pootle version I don’t then stand among a small, bedraggled group of campers drinking at the bar, my toes two inches under, shouting to hold a conversation above the clatter of the rainfall on the fibreglass roof and offer them money to put up my tent for me.

We did pretty well. We snapped into some sort of survival mode like a low-budget pilot for a doomed game show format. I love our tent, though. I love how easily the poles extend, how they slip through the sleeves, how the inner section buttons into place, how the guys tighten, the flaps zip… and I love how all three of us can get busy simultaneously in the steaming glow of Volvo headlights and have an address in under ten minutes, one that looked a lot like a picture of an everyday object.

Dusted off the Selmer last night. Was watching a terrible Clint Eastwood film mid-afternoon, eyes half closed, when facebook pinged. Did someone know a sax player in Hackney, ping. David Harrison? ping. Just around the corner, ping. And ping and ping. And here’s the set list, ping. Some funny keys, but I did a quick Health & Safety assessment, and flung open the wardrobe to see if anything said ‘Smart but Casual’. I went for Ted Baker and chunky cardy. Essex boy meets 1970s English teacher. Boom. Sir Duke was on the list. Now, I’ve *always* played this in Bflat (key of G on alto) but it turns out the original is in B. Who knew? And frankly, having learnt the big horn line as a sixteen-year-old, I always played it like a sixteen-year-old. In years of function gigs I kind of busked it, good enough, there was often a dodgy bit in the staggered pentatonic falls where I just strobed a bit with everyone else but well never mind. So I’m finding a reed and a strap and looking up the changes to Cantaloupe, and it’s nagging me. So I google ‘Sir Duke horn line image’ and up pop a gazillion different versions, some for sale, many just way more wrong than the one in my memory and I look at the clock and there’s time. I find the mp3, and I open up Sibelius, and transcribe it in G sharp. G bloody sharp. I know, but you know down a minor third and add three sharps for alto and everything and you might think A flat is easier well yes at the end, obviously, to read, but not in my head I don’t care.
And I’m done. I print it, I locate a music stand, I walk up to the gig in my S-but-C. First tune, The Chicken, obviously, it’s like some sort of jazz haka for function giggers everywhere, just lays it out there, this is what you’re going to get, are you ready for us? Next up, Sir Duke. My music’s on the stand. No other horns, and the bandleader looks anxiously over. I point to the sheet of paper on my stand and he gives me the thumbs up. Clearly no one else is joining in on the break. Not even the bass player? Okay no sweat, I have this puppy covered. If you can cover a puppy. Four-bar break. Horn stab bad-ap! and another, baap. Repeat. Two-three-four:
And at the exact moment at which the entire band stops for me to play this iconic passage of pop, a four-year-old runs past and crashes into my stand, sending my labour, my luck, my immediate future, floating off in the direction of the samosa bar.

Bap. A-floodap. A-doobie, app-boodle-doobie-do-ap, wa-da-dap. Bla, da, ba, da-be-doobie-oobie, woobly-oo-bi-do-bi-do-dap. Da, do-bi-oo-bi-do-bi boodle-doo, bu-doodle be-di-be-di-bo-di-o-do, dop. (Ah)bo-do-boo-di-do-bi-o-bappidah, bappidah, bappidah, WA-DAP!

Nailed.