Red Garland Style Block Chords

Pianist Red Garland developed a very distinctive approach to block chording on the piano. I learned how these voicings are constructed by reading about it on the newsgroup rec.music.makers.jazz. Red would play a four-note voicing with the left hand which would stay the same through the whole chord. In the right hand he would play a root-5th-octave that would move around underneath the melody while the left hand just stayed in the same place playing rhythmically in time with the right hand.

Hear Red Garland's famous block chord solo on Bye Bye Blackbird with Miles Davis!

On the Grand Stick in High Bass 4th tuning, this style can be approximated by hitting three-note voicings with the left hand on strings 10-12 while playing the root-5th-octave chord with the right hand in the high register on the melody side. A thorough knowledge of rootless High Bass 4th chords is necessary for fluency. They are described on this page.

Red Garland's Bye Bye Blackbird Solo on the Stick

Red Garland Block Chords on Intro of "In a Mellotone"