Welcome to New Version Music the official website and estate of Bill Lee, musician, bassist, composer, librettist, actor, author.

Known worldwide as one of earth's greatest musicians, bassists and composers, Bill Lee was born William James Edwards Lee in Snow Hill, Alabama, U.S.A. on July 23, 1928. Bill would later add III to his name to make it William James Edwards Lee III.

Bill's father Arnold Wadsworth Lee and mother Alberta G. Lee named Bill after his grandfather on his mother's side William James Edwards, Mr. Edwards to most and Papa Edwards to his family. Mr. Edwards was a graduate of Tuskegee University who founded Snow Hill Institute, a post reconstruction school in 1893 with three teachers and fifty cents. He worked at the saw mill to get wood instead of pay in order to build the school, Mr. Edwards is the author of the book 25 Years In The Black Belt.

Bill was born is his grandparent's, Williams James Edwards and his wife Susie Edwards, house. The middle of seven children Arnold, Clarence, Consuela, William, Grace, Lenard and Clifton, Bill played snare drum in the family band and performed at the 1939 Worlds Fair in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens, New York at the age of 11.

After playing basketball in high school Bill decided to pursue a physical education major at Morehouse College but after a schoolmate played a recording of Charlie Parker Bill switched to a music major and minored in physical education, and started playing the double bass at age 19. Bill also sang in The Morehouse College Glee Club and The Morehouse College Quartet.

While at Morehouse College Bill met his wife Jacqueline Shelton who was attending Spelman College. Bill and Jacqueline have five children together Shelton Jackson Lee aka Spike Lee, Christopher Lee aka Shadow, aka Coach, David Lee, Joy Lee aka Joie Lee and Cinque Lee.

After graduating from Morehouse College Bill moved to Chicago. In the 1950's Bill would meet Billy Wallace and Frank Strozier. According to the liner notes on the 1961 Chris Anderson album Inverted Image Bill met Chris Anderson in 1948; it also states that, Charlie Parker would seek out Anderson to collaborate with him whenever he would go to Chicago. Anderson (who was a mentor and influence to Herbie Hancock in the 1960's) together with Bill would start to innovate on harmony, voicings, voice leading and more.

One of Bill's innovations is the use of non-diatonic predominant to dominant to major chord resolutions, also known as The Twelve Resolutions, which is a dominant seven chord built on each degree of a four note full diminish chord and there are three sets of four note full diminish chords relative to each note/key. The first resolution would be diatonic to the key you're in and starting on the V. It's important to remember root is relative to what key you're in, if you're thinking in key signatures.

We can use C as our root note if you build a four note full diminish scale starting on the V of C (fifth scale degree C), the notes are G, Bb, Db, E. The next set would be starting on the IV of C (fourth scale degree of C) the notes are F, Ab, B, D. And the third set would be starting on the b5 (flat five scale degree of C) the notes are Gb, A, C Eb. You can make any one of these notes the root of a dominant seventh chord and then put a pre-dominant chord before relative to the dominant seventh chord you just made. For example if we take the 8th resolution (relative to C) which is D and make it a D7 chord then a pre-dominant relative to the D7 chord for this example we can use a ii (minor two) chord, so the ii relative to the D7 (If D7 is your V relative to the ii) is A-, both being diatonically relative to G^ (G major), so relative to C the 8th resolution is A-, D7, C^ (A minor, D dominant seven, C major).

The 9th resolution (relative to C) would be Db-, Gb7, C^ (D flat minor, G flat dominant seven, C major).

An example can be heard in "Straight And Nappy", track 4 on the album School Daze (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack). The last three chords of the track where the trumpets in the orchestra have a descending voice leading/melody line (frequency red-shifting), and the vocals are holding common tones, the last three chords of the track are Gb-9, B7b5^13, Ab^9^13 (G flat minor nine, B dominant seven flat five major thirteen, A flat major nine major thirteen). The common tone note that the vocals are holding through the chord progression is Ab so for the Gb-9 chord the Ab in the vocals is the major 9, For the B7b5^13 chord the Ab in the vocals is the major 13, and for the Ab^9^13 chord the Ab in the vocals is the 1. This would be the 12th resolution (relative to Ab) since the root (different from bass note) of the B7b5^13 chord is B, B being the fourth note in a four note full diminish chord starting on D, and D is the b5/#11 (flat five/sharp eleven) scale degree of Ab.

Here's all twelve resolutions relative to F (using a ii chord that's functioning as your pre-dominant that's relative to your dominant chord if your dominant chord is the V).

1.  G-, C7, F^ (G minor, C dominant seven, F major)

2. Bb-, Eb7, F^ (B flat minor, E flat dominant seven, F major)

3. Db-, Gb7, F^ (D flat minor, G flat dominant seven, F major)

4. E-, A7, F^ (E minor, A dominant seven, F major)

5. F-, Bb7, F^ (F minor, B flat dominant seven, F major)

6. Ab-, Db7, F^ (A flat minor, D flat dominant seven, F major)

7. B-, E7, F^ (B minor, E dominant seven, F major)

8. D-, G7, F^ (D minor, G dominant seven, F major)

9. Gb-, B7, F^ (G flat minor, B dominant seven, F major)

10. A-, D7, F^ (A minor, D dominant seven, F major)

11. C-, F7, F^ (C minor, F dominant seven, F major)

12. Eb-, Ab7, F^ (E flat minor, A flat dominant seven, F major)

You can transpose/apply this to any note/key and get one diatonic pre-dominant to dominant to major chord resolutions and eleven different non-diatonic pre-dominant to dominant to major chord resolutions for each note/key.

A way of assisting in thinking about this is to think in multiple key signatures at once and/or no key signature at all.

In the late 1950's Bill moved to New York, also starting his collaboration with Odetta. He would also collaborate with the record labels Elektra, Vanguard, Mercury, and Columbia Records, recording and/or touring with singers, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Carolyn Hester, Judy Collins, Josh White, Theodore Bikel, Tom Rush, Leon Bibb, Joan Baez, and more.

Also in the 1960's Bill would collaborate with Stuart Scharf to play bass and co-arrange the music for the play directed by Roscoe Lee Brown titled A Hand Is On The Gate starring Leon Bibb, Roscoe Lee Brown, Gloria Foster, Moses Gunn, Ellen Holly, James Earl Jones, Josephine Premice, Cicely Tyson.

In 1967 Bill and his fellow bassists formed Professionals Unlimited, which became The New York Bass Violin Choir with Richard Davis, Ron Carter, Lisle Atkinson, Percy Heath, Milt Hinton, Michael Fleming. Along with Bill as the director and doing the compositions and arrangements for The New York Bass Violin Choir, Bill would again revolutionize composition as a whole and composition for the double bass and double bass ensemble. By activating the upper register of the bass and requiring the bassists to use more thumb position technique in arco, pizzicato and extended technique; creating new ways to use multiple basses and voice chords throughout the full range of the double bass. Similar to how Igor Stravinsky uses the upper register of the bassoon in the opening movement to The Rite Of Spring.

Along with The New York Bass Violin Choir in the 1960's/1970's Bill would form two more of his own groups in the 1970's, The Descendants Of Mike And Phoebe, together with his sisters Consuela Lee and A. Grace Lee Mims and his brother Clif Lee; and, The Brass Company with Bill Hardman and Billy Higgins. All three of Bill's groups would record albums for the label Strata-East Records, Inc. during the 1970's and 1980's.

As well as his own records being recorded Bill would collaborate on many other albums for the Strata-East label which was formed by Charles Tolliver and Stanley Cowell in 1970/1971 whose mission was to give musicians total ownership over their intellectual properties and create artist produced projects.

In 1978 Bill met his wife Susan Debra Kaplan. Bill and Susan have one son together Arnold Tone Kaplan Lee whose artist name is T@NE and is a musician, actor, director.

Bill has composed and written 10 Folk-Jazz Operas.

The Depot.

The Quarters.

One Mile East. (About any summer in Snow Hill, Alabama from May to September during the Second World War, Bill also refers to One Mile East as a Folk Festival).

Baby Sweets. Co-Written with Sunny Brown (About Jazz Musicians).

Little Johnny. (A Children's Opera).

Song For A School Day. (A Children's Opera).

29 B.

Colored College. (About Morehouse College).

The Corner: A Code Of Ethics. (About drugs in Brooklyn New York in the 1980's).

By This Time Another Year. (About a hobo).

Bill Is the author of the book Uncle's, Brothers, Fathers And Sons: A Book Of Short Stories.

In the 1980's Bill formed his large ensemble The Natural Spiritual Orchestra which has configurations from Big Band to Symphony Orchestra.

In the mid 1980's to early 1990's Bill composed the original score to five of his son Spike Lee's films, Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop, She's Gotta Have It, School Daze, Do The Right Thing, Mo' Better Blues.

In the 1990's and 2000's Bill would play concerts with his groups The Mo' Betta Quartet and The Mo' Betta Quintet. The 1990's iteration included musicians Donald Harrison, Javon Jackson, Taru Alexander, Joe Chambers, Ronnie Mathews, T@NE known then as Arnold Lee and more. And, the 2000's iteration included musicians Adam Brenner, Dave Gibson, Sayuri Goto, T@NE known then as Arnold Lee and more. Also in the 1990's Bill would play concerts with his vocal group/choir The Family Tree Singers.

In the 2000's Bill formed a new iteration of The Natural Spiritual Orchestra, with organizational collaboration by his wife Susan, and musicians Justin Wood and Andy Hunter. Along with Justin and Andy the group included musicians Danny Fischer, Jeremy Bean Clemons, Steve Wood, Lamy, Pam Flemming, Bryan Lynch, Theo Crocker, James K. Smith, Jeff Newell, Brandee Younger, Mavis Swan Poole, Marek Skwarczynski, Laura Kahle, Robert Stringer and more.

Also in the 2000's Bill formed a new iteration of The New York Bass Violin Choir along with bassists Marcos Varela, Steve Wood and Yasushi Nakamura.

Bill has given master classes and taught at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, New York University, Long Island University, Hanover Milestone School and more: A sharer of data, knowledge and wisdom, always keeping an open door for people from all over the world to come and study from him. Through his work Bill Lee continues to be one of the most influential humans of the 20th Century, 21st Century and beyond.