How could one harmonize 'If you never come to me' for 4 voices

Frank wrote:

In a major seventh, anything goes, just try to think about this.

How many chords would you write between a C and a B natural? These will be the colors. Furthermore, you can "bypass" the standard notes during the arrangement without forgetting that the drummer can "muddy up" the bass.

But the main question is: "why must the bass be a constraint in an arrangement?"

I only took the bass as a starting line. Clearly, with the bass, you can improvise 200 walking bass lines or patterns

Frank wrote:

I don't know if you have it, but I would suggest a quick read of

Giancarlo Gazzani

WorkBook

Composition and arrangement for JAZZ ORCHESTRA

Unfortunately, I don't own it. I am largely self-taught and some books that I have

Frank wrote:

Diminished and augmented fifths, major sevenths are insufficient to attribute a piece to the jazz genre; for example, it is enough to listen to the Ave Maria that I wrote for the choral music LAB, practically the major seventh is omnipresent but the piece is anything but jazzy

In short, a chord is never classical or jazzy, the voicing can make the difference, you need improvisational character and above all swing. If you have these 3 ingredients and use even poorer chords ...you get a "result"

Then I must re-examine my voicing carefully because I fear I don't quite know what it is

I missed some comments, but I wanted to respond to raffaeleb about one thing: it's not the number of tensions that makes a piece more or less jazzy, but many musical elements, foremost among them swing, that typical way of being on the beat. Just to be clear, Esbjörn Svensson was jazz even though he used triads, and Michael Bublé is closer to pop than to jazz, even if he wants to hint at jazz. Saying that you want to put tonic, third, and seventh in every chord is, in my opinion, limiting; one must have all possibilities at their disposal and choose those deemed best; in this case, the theme gives us very precise suggestions and "assists" that should be exploited.

Anyway, I repeat one thing: you have chosen a difficult piece, in many respects—extremely difficult, I would say, if you want to apply the principles of real 4-part harmonization with lead doubling,

raffaeleb wrote:

Then I must re-examine the voicing carefully because I fear I don't quite know what it is

Aparte from this, as I was saying, it must have Swing

Frank wrote:

I don't know if you have it, but I would suggest a quick read of

Giancarlo Gazzani

WorkBook

Composition and arrangement for JAZZ ORCHESTRA

… and here I have to give you a little gem…

geppino12575 wrote:

I missed some posts, but I wanted to respond to raffaeleb on one thing: it is not the number of tensions that makes a piece more or less jazzy, but many musical elements, foremost among them swing, that typical way of being on the beat. Just to be clear, Esbjörn Svensson was jazz even if he used triads, and Michael Bublé is closer to pop than to jazz, even though he wants to hint at jazz. Saying that you want to put tonic, third, and seventh in every chord is, in my opinion, limiting; one must have all possibilities at their disposal and choose those deemed best; in this case, the theme gives us very precise suggestions and "assists" that should be exploited.

Anyway, I repeat one thing: you have chosen a difficult piece, in many respects—extremely difficult, I would say, if you want to apply the principles of 4-part harmonization with lead doubling.

And did you think I'd stumble upon an easy piece? Anyway, I hope to succeed. I am reviewing D. Santorsola's voicings.

I have found some interesting solutions. I will post them.