“EFFENDI” is a nice McCoy tune that was recorded on an Impulse date called INCEPTION during his tenure with Coltrane, this date features Tyner in a trio setting with Elvin Jones and Art Davis on drums and bass. “EFFENDI” features a simple harmonized melody line in the piano’s right hand which is answered by the left hand and the bass. the form is ABA and the same form is used for soloing…
MCCOY TYNER- EFFENDI (mp3)
Here’s a great blues head from the classic date, BEN AND SWEETS featuring saxophonist Ben Webster and Harry “Sweets” Edison on trumpet. “Better Go”, written by Webster is a simple but extremely cool line that he plays in unison with Edison. the melody is primarily constructed using an Eb major 6 chord. there is plenty of space between each melodic phrase that allows pianist Hank Jones to sprinkle his fills throughout. drummer Clarence Johnston and bassist George Duvivier create a hard 4 beat feel for the head and the following solos. my favorite part of the song is the shout chorus. the horns really lay back on the syncopated quarter notes, kind of stretching the beat out, blurring it. they play that funky phrase on the fourth and sixth measures where they move from the major third to the minor third, which gives the feeling that they are smearing the harmony, blending colors together. a great song from a great record…
BEN WEBSTER- BETTER GO (mp3)
“Theme For Malcolm”, written by Donald Brown, is another song featured on the Donald Byrd record GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS. it has a catchy rhythm section vamp with the piano and bass playing what sounds like a flattened out reggae pattern. after the eight bar intro, the horns play Brown’s choppy melody in unison over a static harmony. the initial melody is sixteen bars long. the twelve bar bridge is a variation on the original melody and vamp. the last section has an interesting chord progression. the piano plays it alone the first time and the horns join the second time through the form (ABC). the transcription that Yuko, a pianist here in Tokyo, sent me was written out in 4/4 but listening to the recording, it seems that the drummer is playing the first half of “C” in 3/4, so i wrote it out that way. there’s a lot of underlying activity happening, especially in the piano part. it’s hard to say what’s written and what’s composed on the spot so keep in mind that this is a rough sketch. thanks again to Yuko who brought this lead sheet to a gig that we did together…
“Fly, Little Byrd” is a tune by Donald Byrd, from his 1987 Landmark CD, HARLEM BLUES. along with Byrd are featured Kenny Garrett on alto sax, Mulgrew Miller on piano, Rufus Reid on bass, Marvin “Smitty” Smith on drums and Mike Daugherty playing synth on a couple of tracks. it’s my favorite tune from the record. the first half of the 16 bar melody is diminished cycle, made up of a two bar motif that descends by minor thirds. trumpet and alto are harmonized in thirds. the progression is cyclic as well. it begins in F Major and descends by alternating whole and half steps. every odd chord is Major and every even one is Dominant (except for the 8th bar which is a ii- V back to F Major). the progression on the second half of the song is also a cycle, this time alternating between ascending fourths and descending minor seconds (the final bar, like the 8th bar, is a ii- V back to F Major). it makes for a really challenging framework for improvisation…
DONALD BYRD- FLY, LITTLE BYRD (mp3)
Two years after HARLEM BLUES, Byrd released another disc on Landmark entitled GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS. Garrett is the only player that he kept for this session. he also added a third horn, Joe Henderson on tenor sax. the rhythm section is Donald Brown on piano, bassist Peter Washington and Al Foster playing drums. there a number of great compositions here, the standouts being Donald Brown’s “Theme For Malcolm”, “Pomponio” by Bobby Hutcherson and “A Certain Attitude” by James Williams. in addition to those, there is Byrd’s tune, “The Onliest”, an almost Monkish melody followed by open blowing, and Henderson’s “Around The Corner”, a blues that was called “Teeter Totter” on his Blue Note record, OUR THING…
DONALD BYRD- THE ONLIEST (mp3)
Here’s another song from MIRROR MIRROR, a date led by Joe Henderson and features Chick Corea, Billy Higgins and Ron Carter. i featured other music from this CD in an earlier post. when i listen to “Blues For Liebestraum” blues is not the first word that flashes through my mind. nonetheless it is a pretty cool, modernish melody with a challenging progression…
Here’s a catchy blues head by saxophonist Charles Lloyd which is featured on the record ACOUSTIC MASTERS I with Cedar Walton, Buster Williams on bass and the inimitable Billy Higgins playing drums. perhaps the song is named after Higgins but i have no idea. there’s some other nice music on this CD including “Hommage” which i transcribed for an earlier post… below is a video of Lloyd and Higgins making some nice music together…
I recently heard Ornette Coleman’s “Giggin’” while listening to FOOTSTEPS OF OUR FATHERS, a record by the Branford Marsalis Quartet that features Marsalis on soprano sax, longtime associate Jeff Watts on drums, Joey Calderazzo on piano and Eric Revis on bass. the song is originally from TOMORROW IS THE QUESTION by Ornette Coleman… another great Coleman line, that sounds sort of like a blues but has some surprising twists and turns and is thirteen bars long. i lifted it from their CD rather than Ornette’s, which i didn’t have at the time. they put down the melody with a really aggressive stance, the soprano sax and piano stating the melody in unison for the most part; they split up into harmonizing at times. i love the way Marsalis moves into the blowing in such a way that the listener has a hard time knowing where the melody ends. Marsalis has one of the best soprano sax sounds that i’ve come across. honestly, i’m not a huge fan of the soprano in general. i mostly hear it played with a shrill, thin tone, often out of tune. Marsalis’ tone is dark, round and controlled in every register. he goes on to play a really nice solo. cop the CD and check it out. i also included an mp3 of the original recording by OC which is a bit different…
BRANFORD MARSALIS- GIGGIN’ (mp3)
ORNETTE COLEMAN- GIGGIN’ (mp3)
“Blue Silver” is from the Horace Silver record JODY GRIND which features Silver on piano along with Woody Shaw on trumpet, tenor saxophonist Tyrone Washington, James Spaulding on alto sax and flute, Larry Ridley playing bass and drummer Roger Humphries. “Blue Silver” opens up with a four measure introductory passage. the three horns, voiced in fourths, are answered by the rhythm section’s unison line. the horns then play pentatonic figures over a moving harmony, following with a bluesy shout answered by rhythm section hits. the mood and feel changes in the next section as the horns play a pretty, very Silverish melodic line that starts in the key of Ab minor then moves on to Eb minor. the horns play another line, shaped similarly, but in the key of G major, which is followed by another line, also shaped like the others, that leads back to the opening passage. Silver plays the song’s only solo, blowing over the whole form of the song in his one- of- a- kind, spare, bluesy style. “Blue Silver” is a great song from a really good record that i wasn’t familiar with until recently. i decided upon hearing it to sketch it out. some of the horn lines are difficult to pick out but i think it’s pretty close. below is a lead sheet and a transcription of the top line of his two chorus solo…
HORACE SILVER- BLUE SILVER (mp3)
OPEN TRANSCRIPTION WINDOW (LEAD SHEET)
OPEN TRANSCRIPTION WINDOW (SOLO)
Mark Turner recorded this piece some twelve years ago on his self titled record. it was composed by Mercedes Rossy, a pianist and composer who passed away at only thirty four years old from illness. her brother is Jorge Rossy, a frequent Turner collaborator. it’s a gentle waltz, played with an almost classical mood by Turner, Edward Simon on piano, Chris Thomas on bass and Brian Blade on drums. the melody built from a four note motif, D-F-Eb-Db. the motif moves down chromatically a minor third to start on B. it then move up a minor sixth to F# and finally down to Eb, where it’s altered slightly. the harmony that accompanies runs through two thirds of a cycle:
instead, the harmony moves back to the beginning of the cycle, but this time under a different melody in measures 9 through 11, then to the variation of the original motif in the next four bars. i really like the way this set of chords fit together color-wise… the previous twelve bar section is repeated with the addition of a nice counter-melody before moving in to an eight bar vamp over an ostinato figure (which also serves as the intro) and then onto the solos which are over the same form… an album of Rossy’s music was released around the same time as Turner’s record. i plan to find it.
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