D D-E-N Articulation

Today's post is about an articulation pattern I call D D-E-N.

This is one of the most common articulations used in jazz saxophone. While it has many applications, it is almost always applied to descending 7th chord arpeggios. Often, the first note (the top note) will be accented "T".

Charlie Parker applies this articulation on the second bridge of his famous 1942 solo on "Cherokee", alternating between descending min7 and min6 shapes.

You will find through practice that this is an extremely common and useful pattern to master. I've been digging on George Coleman's solo over "Autumn Leaves" off of the 2000 Ahmad Jamal record Ahmad Jamal à l'Olympia. George Coleman is using this articulation exhaustively in this solo. Despite it being recorded nearly 60 years after the famous Bird record, it still retains its hipness.

Now, I'm almost certain that Charlie Parker didn't come up with this idea, but because of how clearly he demonstrated it on "Cherokee", he basically stuck a Charlie Parker flag in the thing.

To practice this articulation, implement it over descending 7th chord arpeggios moving down by step like so:

The accent here is optional, but it's best if you practice it both with and without, so T D-E-N and D D-E-N.

This pattern can be moved around the scale based off of any degree, but the first thing to do is practice moving it around by step diatonically.

​Another very useful thing to practice this pattern over is minor 7th descending arpeggios shifting down by half-step like so:

​The above exercise is extremely useful as it can be directly applied to iii- VI7 ii- V7 progressions, creating an interesting set of extensions where the VI7 and V7 chords occur.

This happens literally at the end of "Four" by Miles Davis, but you can very easily apply it in any iii- VI7 ii- V7 situation such as the third and 4th measures of Rhythm Changes, the last four measures of a Blues, etc.

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I hope you find this helpful. I welcome any feedback you may have.

In my next post, I will be discussing ghosting pairs of notes and a shape Charlie Parker frequently applied it to in his playing.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned!
Jake Dester