As I get more comfortable walking bass and playing latin basslines on Stick, I find myself wanting to comp chords. The combo I'm in now has no comping other than yours truly, so when I'm not comping we're basically like Sonny Rollins.

Anyways, we're working with "Birk's Works" and "Blue Bossa" right now. The arrangements are from the real book, and are meant to sound like the versions off of The Champ (only in F instead of Bb) and Page One, respectively.

On both of them, I definitely have some cool basslines going, but my comping just gets boring. I mean of course I can play the major and minor chords and even the 7's, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to mix it up. I feel like every time we go through the song (soloing over the head etc) I'm comping the same line. When I hear awesome jazz pianists, I hear them play chords that are just so funky and juicy that you just gotta go OOOOOOOOO. Basically, I want to make people go OOOOOOOOOO. Anyone have any advice?

Comping is a combination of harmonic and rhythmmic ideas.
Harmomically, try the poly chord concept. (there is a chapter in Stickology concerning this approach)
i.e.
In Birks Works, the first chord is Fm7. You can stretch this to Fm9 which is F Ab C Eb G. Well the C Eb G portion is a Cm triad. So play a Cmi chord in the right hand over your Fmi walking line and you have an Fmi9 sub for Fm7. Also try all 3 inversions of Cmi for variety.
Now play these triads off the beat for rhythmic variation. Slide into them. Play them short or hold them. Just think of different ways to present each triad.
BTW- Birks Works is just a minor 12 bar blues. I teach this tune regularly and perform it often.
Birks is Dizzy Gillespie's middle name.

Sharon I. Diaz

Thanks Sharon. I kinda have found those things out, I guess I just need to practice practice practice. You're a wealth of knowledge. Thanks for your help!

It may just be a matter of gaining new ways of utilizing what you know. Maybe making the parts more technically challenging would make them more interesting. And forming chords out of the scales by picking and choosing notes at will. Seeing the shapes and intervals in a different light and perspective might help creative endevours. Also, Japhlet is really good at jazz comping and chords on the stick so maybe he can help too.

I would also recommend the idea of chord substitution, I love it for both rhythm and lead stuff when I play guitar. I think you said you had a handle on that stuff but there's a little rundown to save you figuring them out:

A G9 chord can be implied by playing a Bm7b5 (B being the 3 of G7)

A G11 chord can be implied by playing a Dm7 (D being the 5 of G7)

A G13chord can be implied by playing a Fmaj7 (F being the b7 of G7)

Same goes for minor extensions:

An Am9 chord can be implied by playing a Cmaj7 (C being the b3 of Am7)

An Am11 chord can be implied by playing a Em7(E being the 5 of Am7)

An Am13 chord can be implied by playing a G7(G being the b7 of Am7)

These are cool ways to get rich flavours with everyday shapes, but sometime the 11ths & 13ths can sound cluttered if voiced too low of closed, try spreading them out with the extension high up usually as the melody note (top voice)

One final point, because I really shouldn't be spending time on this rather than a physics paper thats due in...

If you've got a functioning dominant7 chord with alterations (you probably know all about alterations but if not shout!) preferably a b9, but as altered chords are meant to be a bit screwed up it doesn't matter:

An G7alt (b9) can be implied by playing a Abdim7 chord (Ab being the b9 of G7alt) Note: dim7 chords are symetrical in minor thirds, so the dim chord could be played on any of its other notes which are (B - 3 of G7, D - 5 of G7 or F - the b7 of G7)

...and a dim7 chord is only one semitone away from four dom7 chords:
Edim7 > lower the 'E' by one semitone = Eb7
Edim7 > lower the 'Bb' by one semitone = A7
Edim7 > lower the 'Db' by one semitone = C7
Edim7 > lower the 'G' by one semitone = Gb7

i.e. raising the root of a dom7 chord by a semitone creates a dim7 chord.

So, moving on...after I came fairly close to looking like I know something...

How am I supposed to think about these things?

If I'm playing and I decide that I need to throw a Cmaj11, it's most unlikely that I'll think: LH plays Cmaj + RH plays Bminb5*

If I take that approach, it seems no better than memorising 10,000 chord shapes...which, to me, is NOT the way forward. I like to mess around with it on paper and generate ideas from it but most of my playing is more dynamic than that (cf. aimless noodling).

* this is triad harmonisation (or polychords) rather than substitution

I used to know all those 10,000 shapes on guitar. I was a comping specialist in big bands and combos. After a while you don't even have to think of a shape. My eyes would see a chord and my fingers would move to the closest shape that worked. However, the way I reached that point was to play in bands, a lot. Gig after gig after gig for years and years. I will never have that opportunity on Stick so I have to find another way. I'm starting with the basic major and minor triads and I'll see where I go.

So much to learn, so little time. But, the journey is so much fun!

-Eric

Welcome back Eric...wish you lived around the corner

I almost sounded like I was looking for some mythical short-cut system there. A catalog of shapes on the Stick is even more overwhelming due to the two-handedness (I wouldn't be whining like this if I had a piano background ).

Thanks, David! I wish that too. Well, actually I wish we all lived somewhere warm! I came home to winter and more snow. Why don't we pick some nice warm spot on the planet and then everyone on the forum will move there. Ah, the Friday night jams would be awesome...

-Eric