When James Moody posed the question to a group of musicians at the 2007 Jamey Aebersold workshop I was sure I understood what he meant.  "Do you know the tune?" ... "Sure, I know many tunes...", I was thinking in my head.  However, as more time went on, I began to wonder if I really knew the tunes that I was playing on regular basis at jazz clubs and jam sessions.

You see, there is a lot more to "knowing a tune" than simply just being "familiar" with it.  I am familiar with many of the tunes in the standard real books and many that are not in the book.  To be familiar with a tune is to 1) Have heard it before 2) Can recognize the tune if you hear it again and 3) Can somewhat recall the tune if necessary.  Well if you can do all of that by just being familiar with a tune, what does it meant to really KNOW a tune? 

Knowing a tune means that you are intimately connected to the essence of it.  You know the melody without a doubt and can at least sing it in your head PERFECTLY with no flaws every time.  Knowing a tune means that you know the chords of the tune (at least in it's standard key) and that you can spell them out like you recite the ABC's.  Knowing a tune means that you can HEAR the niuances of every chord change and can pick out the sweet spots like the 11s or b5s and the 9s.  Knowing a tune means you know the lyrics to the song if it has some (especially with a vocal ballad).  Now granted there are different levels to really knowing a tune, but the ultimate, connection to it would include all of these...right?

After running through this analysis in my mind, I sunddenly realized that I don't know a quarter of the tunes that I thought I knew.  I am therefore on a mission to reaquaint myself with many of the tunes I thought I knew and re learn them.  I am going to take 3 tunes, a ballad, a medium swing, and a latin tune and I am going to take a month and really learn the tunes.  This is going to require study I know, but I am determined.  I'll let you know how it goes in a month.  Any suggestions or comments?

Letron "LTrain" Brantley
Sax/Flute/Piano
HotJazzChops.com
GospelSkillz.com