Here John Wheatcroft looks at how the jazz virtuoso, ably assisted by Nigel Price, exploits the potential of triads, inspired by legendary pianist, Herbie Hancock.
ON VIDEO
Welcome to our second Crossroads lesson featuring Canadian jazz virtuoso Lorne Lofsky, alongside the equally talented UK-based guitarist Nigel Price. Lorne’s career highlights include working with legends such as Oscar Peterson, Chet Baker and Ray Brown and for many years he had a successful quartet with another amazing Canadian guitar virtuoso, the great Ed Bickert. Lofsky has also enjoyed an equally successful parallel career as an educator, teaching at a number of respected institutions, hosting masterclasses across the globe and in recent years moving into online teaching and mentoring. Along with an extensive resumé as a live performer, Lorne has an equally impressive portfolio of recordings, as sideman, collaborator and solo artist. Once again, it was our pleasure to feature an excerpt from this video interview, neatly coinciding with a run of live October dates in the UK with this pair of fine exponents of quality jazz guitar playing
In this second video, Lofsky discussed the influence of Herbie Hancock, specifically his use of upper extension triads, a sound essentially created by implying two or more chords at the same time, with one chord establishing the harmony while the second implies contrasting superimposed intervals. For example, if the rhythm section or accompanist is playing F (F-A-C) and the soloist implies the Major triad of G (G-B-D), the combination of these gives us the more harmonically involved F6/9#11 (R-3-5-6-9#11). Similarly, against our basic F chord (F-A-C), if the soloist were to imply a B Major triad (B-D#-F#), with a little enharmonic respelling we end up with F7b9#11 (R-3-5-b7-b9-#11).
Once again, as Lorne essentially improvises one great idea aft
