In A Mellow Tone: Journey Through The Real Book

A jazz piano lesson to help you learn Duke Ellington’s jazz standard “In A Mellow Tone.”


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Learning every tune in the Real Book 0:00
Duke Ellington as encompassing the whole history of jazz 0:41
Ellington’s 5-decade-long career 1:07
The wide variety of techniques that Duke Ellington used in his piano playing 1:43
Ellington’s smooth, sophisticated stylings 1:51
The “primal” aspect of Ellington’s piano playing 2:14
Duke’s use of double-diminished 7th chords 2:28
Steam whistle imitations in Ellington music 2:48
Ellington’s love of polychords 3:00
“Broken” stride patterns in Ellington’s piano playing 3:08
Duke Ellington’s chord voicings derived from the diminished scale 2:29
Ellington’s influence on Thelonious Monk 3:50
Duke Ellington’s music ranges from the roots of jazz to the avant garde 3:58
Ellington’s “In A Mellow Tone” piano intro as an early example of rootless left hand chord voicings 4:03
The piano intro to “In A Mellow Tone 4:45
A typical Ellington piano flourish 4:55
Call-and-response, inspired by Ellington’s orchestration 4:58
2-part counterpoint in a jazz context 5:26
Beginning the improvised solo 5:58
Left hand chords on the upbeats 6:09
Ellington-like use of chromatically-descending chords 6:24
Bluesiness 6:42
Stride piano 6:58
A pointillistic piano texture 7:14
Contrary motion 7:25
Playing “outside” the changes 7:28
Big band-style block chords 7:41
Improvising with Ellington-like diminished voicings 7:53
A left hand melodic phrase 8:02
Pseudo-stride textures in the left hand 8:05
Quartal voicings 8:20
Returning to the melody 8:26
Using colorful chord voicings under the melody to “In A Mellow Tone” 8:28
Parallel major 2nds, a la Clare Fischer 8:35
Walking bass 8:42
An extended ending 8:56
A touch of boogie woogie 9:12
Bitonality 9:22
A Count Basie ending, with an Ellington-style harmonization 9:25
A recap of pianistic styles used in the performance 9:29
Duke Ellington’s resistance to being “pigeon-holed” to any single musical style or concept 10:05



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Enjoy the journey, and "let the music flow!"

Ron