For j_menz,
I'll expand on the 'approximate chords' statement.
Here's the thing: notation that uses chords instead of explicit notes can never be anymore than a sketch, an approximation, since chords are so ambiguous. As a jazz player who reads chords like you and I do we both are aware each chord notated (as in a fakebook) has three or more possible voicings in, say, just the left hand. So the notes indicated by that chord notation are approximate. Also, many chords have the same notes as other chords, as in the augmenteds and diminished. So if we are playing and reading things only of chords we have a multiple choice way of getting there, some better than others. Not so in explicitly notated music where melodies and countermelodies rule. The composer/arranger has put in more thought for us. Possibly is better (not always).
Finally, no chordal notation can surpass Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, and the other masters as a way of writing a masterpiece, imho.
That said, I do acknowledge jazz interpretive masters among us who can work from chords to produce works full of rich melodies and countermelodies. They can read and transcend chords.
Topic: How to understand the chords in George Shearing's Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Read 6728 times)