In Memory of Charlie Banacos

The first time I have heard Charlie's name was from one of my guitar teachers at Berklee College (Mark White, 30+ years veteran of jazz/guitar education).
After a sending a tape with recordings of me playing a Tarrega classical piece on electric guitar and the Jeff Beck solo on "Cause We've Ended As Lovers" (I know, a rather unusual choice for an. audition tape), I have started studying guitar voicing and improvisation with Charlie over mail correspondence using cassette tapes and written materials. Charlie was offering"correspondence" classes where you'd obtain an explanation of the lesson on a cassette tape (remember those?)  Together with a sheet of paper with the written music. Subsequently, when the assignment was finished I had to record the musical examples and email it back to him for evaluation.  This procedure continued on for the next two years, during which I have traveled between Boston, Europe and then Tokyo in Japan. Charlie turned my world upside down (in a very good way).

Here is a partial list of Charlie's exercises and suggestions (all exercise always practiced with a metronome):

• The Double Chromatic Approach.
  
  Using arpeggios with chromatic approach was a major revolution in jazz improvisation. Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie are the most famous musicians of the bebop era making use of the "Double Chromatic Approach" in their solos and compositions. I remember starting by playing all major arpeggios with major 7th  with a double chromatic approach of the root in all keys. Then improvise 8 or 16 measures in each key using this technique. These exercises were one of the first studies that Charlie Banacos gave to me.
• Superimpositions.
  
  Basically, playing lines on top of the original chord changes that are based on a different set of chords. The superimposed chords contain notes from the original chords that are made from chord tones and tensions that resolve over the original chord.
  If we take a Dmin7 we can superimpose notes from G7 since the root, 3, 5 and flat 7 of G7 is the 11/13 root flat 3 over the Dmin7 chord. All the resulting notes resolve over the Dmin amazingly and you can embellish melodically whatever you want over the G7 as long as you resolve your resulting line to a chord tone. Think 1, 3, 5 and 7th of whatever chord you want to impose to the chord you currently have and apply that trough out your solos!
• Double Mambos (or hexatonics)
  
  Take two triads of notes, with no notes in common, and explore the relationships of how they sound in solos. A good example starts with a Gmaj triad and a Fmaj triad.
• "Autumn Leaves exercise"
  
  If you analyze a chord tone trough each chord in a chord progression you get melodies and you can improvise with a direction. For example, in the case of the "Autumn Leaves exercise" the 3rd of each chord trough the tune progression, and voice lead trough those 3rds, you can get a compositional sense to your lines. You can do this with the 5ths, 7ths, 9ths and so forth. For example:
  
  Cmin7 - play the 3rd (Eb)
  then the A on F7 (again the 3rd)
  then D on B flat maj7
  G on [E Flat Maj7]
  C on [A min flat 7 min 5]
  F-sharp on [D7 flat 9 flat 13]
  and Bb on [Gmaj7]
• Hemiola Rhythms
  
  Melody and Harmony are important, but Rythm is the king. Take 8 notes and make a series of diatonic triads with a common C scale. Usually, musicians practice triads in a series of triplets, but we can also play those three-note groupings as 8th notes. Play with the metronome but don't rely on it, you need to use your inner metronome (to do so coun 1-2-3-4 throughout the triads series).
  Now, subtract the root of each triad with a rest (').
  Then, take the 3rd of each triad out, same as we did for the root.
  You can do the same with 4 note chords (like 7ths chords), and group them into triplet rhythms. If you use 4 note chords, go through the same steps we used for the triads and subtract the root of each "4 note chord" with a rest ('), and so forth.
  Here is a video that shows the concept of "hemiola rhythms' or subjective rhythms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiBKh_xOYNM
• Melodies with harmonies
  
  An example I studied with Charlie was when for melody tones where the voice is moving inside the harmony. For example, in a standard II - V - I progression in the key of C, if we use a Dmin 7 chord, we can have on beat one the root, the 13th, 11th, 9th, and the 7th.
  On beat two the 9th move up to the 3rd, and the 13th will move down to the 5th while holding the 11th.
  Then on the dominant (G7), we take the sharp 11th, 9, 7 sharp, sharp 11 is going to go up to the 5th and so forth ... Bill Evans loved this approach.