[Harp-L] Lessons from Michael Polesky

[robert mcgraw <harpbob@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

  Several years ago David Fairweather, aka Jazzman, posted something on the list about Michael Polesky giving him advice on how to approach improvising on the Theolonis Monk tune "Round Midnight." That was a tune that I had just learned and I was struggling with improvising on it myself [several years later I still struggle to play anything worth a damn on the tune but that's another story].
   Anyway, I went on harp-l and asked for Michael to email me off-list...and he did. I then asked him for some tips on playing "Round Midnight," and he most graciously obliged...and proceded to send me a series of email tutorials on several other tunes and a wonderful email on his view of jazz harmony... these were enormously helpful to me, and also were funny and well-written and just plain wonderful.
   I saved most of these emails, and I'm going to forward them to the list...perhaps they will be of some help to somebody on the list; to his friends, you will, I think, enjoy these.  
   I never met Michael Polesky, and never talked with him...but I think I got to know him in a certain way through these emails...and some of his ideas and insights into jazz improvisation live in my playing, though I have much work to do to ever be faintly comparable to Michale as a player.
   The first email I will post will be the first lesson I got from him, the one on "Round Midnight."
WVa Bob