quick jazz chord question
 

I play in the jazz band at my school. Looking over the music for duke ellington's "In a Sentimental Mood", 2 chords are making me go wtf:

C13sus - this is all it says, is it a sus2 or sus4?

Em7b5add11 - i figured out a voicing for this but as far as i can tell it's impossible to get the root as the lowest bass note.

C13sus - C13 with a suspended fourth

You don't need the root to be the lowest note, hell, you could just drop the root note all together.

thanks, sus4 was what i was thinking but wanted to make sure.

and i know the root doesnt have to be lowest... but... i like it there :(

Use the open E string.

e.g.
0 (E)
8 (G)
7 (D)
8 (Bb)
0 (A)
0 (E)

There's some other ways to do it too but this one seemed the most "finger friendly".

K, dude, if you're in jazz band...you need to rethink how you're looking at this.
There's a bass player...which means you don't need to play roots, infact, you probably shouldn't be dropping chords on on anything lower than the D string. Think reductionist.

If there's a piano player as well..then...even less notes. In a big band I wouldn't go more than 2-3 note voicings in most cases...and I'd primarily stick to the DGB or GBE string set.

For the C13sus you could just play F A Bb
For the Em11b5 you could play E A Bb
Which would let you keep the same voicing, but just move the F down by a half step when changing chords...

What version of Sentimental Mood are you looking at?

^I don't know about that voicing...

anyway. for the C13sus:

8 x 8 x 10 10

taken from the common C13 voicing of:

8 x 8 9 10 10

you would bar the 10's with your pinky.

So all you would do is memorize the C13 and then just take off the ring finger to make the C13sus.

except...why's he going to be redundantly playing the root on the low E string and muddying shit up?

Think about the meat of the chord, and think about where you won't be in the way.

Anyway, I don't know you'd have those chords "In A Sentimental Mood" unless its a weird big-band reharmonization of it.

Well then he can take his index finger off the chord and he's gonna have a root-less version.

that works too!

There's plenty of ways to skin a cat. You can take your big, solo jazz guitar voicings and just pick and choose notes to play out of the shape while holding down the fingering...or you can go and rework a new system for a big-band scenario, wherein you come up with colorful 2-3 note voicings on the higher strings...both have their uses...but ya.

listen to chronowarp on this, TS

agreed - a jazz band is a very different animal. it's not guitar-driven music like the angsty teenagers who only listen to rock and metal thrive on. in a jazz band, you're there to support the ensemble -- even if you're given a solo. the thinking is radically different.

chronowarp's "less is more" approach is going to pay off big time for you if you follow it.

Think about chords within chords, and double stops (diads).

For the C chord you can play a bunch of Bb triads are Bbmaj7's all over the neck.

For the E, you've got Gm triads. That won't give you the 11, but in the context of the band, doubt that'll matter. It's probably captured in the melody, either way...

Heed chronowarp's advice about keeping things confined to the top 4 or 3 strings.

C13sus

It means sus4, if its sus two it will specify sus2. also you could just play a C9sus or a C7sus extensions are not essential

Em7b5ad11 - you dont need to get the root as the lowest note because it will be taken care of by the bass player. If you really want the root just use the open E string. Also that 11th isn't essential as its an extension so if need be you can just play Em7b5

If you drop the root it can be quite an easy chord to play

ex:

E 5 (1st finger)
B 8 (4th finger)
G 7 ( 2nd finger)
D 8 (3rd finger)
A
E

a bit harder voicing with the root
E 5 (4th)
B 5 (4th barre)
G 3 (1st)
D 5 (3rd)
A 5 (2nd)
E

Edit: Listen to Chronowarp

There's no information on what kind of band he's in. For all we know he could be in a simple Bass-Guitar-Drum Trio. Telling him to play reductionist-style in that situation wouldn't work.

When someone says "school jazz band" and nothing else; it's a reasonable assumption that it's a big band.