Chapin and Chapin

On March 5th, Lydian Concept performed at the Wildwood Presbyterian Church. Consisting of alumni of the Grayslake Jazz Combo Workshop, Lydian Concept shared a number of jazz tunes. 

Hear them playing St. James Infirmary and Watermelon Man on YouTube.

Congrats to these young performers. Let us know if you'd like to book them for your event.

What's the deal with the weird names of the performing groups of GJCW?

The name ii-V-I's derives from the most common progression of chords in jazz, which are indicated with Roman numerals, lower case indicating minor and upper case indicating a major or dominant chord. If we were playing in the key of C, the ii-V-I chord would be D minor, G dominant, C major. Keeping with the tradition of the rock and jazz world, which seems to love obscure group names, our beginning groups use this name which is a fundamental of jazz.

Being more advanced jazz players, our advanced group uses a name of a more advanced concept, the Lydian Concept. In a nutshell, jazz gets many of its rich tonality by substituting chords borrowed from the world of minor harmony into songs originally written with chords from major harmonies. The substituted chord also requires a that the jazzer play a new scale over the cooler chords, and these scales tend to be Lydian, which require a raised 4th. Bottom line: an edgier, but infinitely cooler sound, which makes the hepcats start poppin' their fingers.