It’s been too long since I’ve posted any Maceo, so let’s get back to it! This is a great track – the thing that I like about it is how much of a ‘latin’ feel the melody would have if you just changed up the rhythm section a bit.
The solo is not very technical, but it is trickier to play than it sounds. There are a lot of really intricate rhythms, so I recommend listening to it a lot before playing it and maybe even learning to sing it first.
The PDF has the roadmap for the whole track, including the solo trading at the end. The video fades out the long vocal stretches so you don’t have to watch me dance :p
We lost another great recently. This time Glenn Frey. He is most famous for his work with the Eagles, but he also had a successful solo career in the 80’s while the Eagles were broken up. If you haven’t watched the Eagles documentary, stop what you’re doing and watch it. It’s three hours long, but the opening scene where the band warms up their vocals on “Seven Bridges Road” is amazing. I’ll always remember Glenn Frey talking about how he learned the craft of songwriting. He lived above Jackson Browne, and heard him get up every morning and work through every detail of “Doctor My Eyes” on the piano until it was perfect. Over and over. Glenn Frey summed up “the secret” as elbow grease, and it’s the truth.
I grew up listening mainly to jazz music, so I wasn’t a big Eagles fan until much later in life. But you couldn’t escape the sound of Miami Vice in the 1980’s, and this song featured prominently on it’s soundtrack. So this is a song that I heard a great many times on television and radio growing up. It’s a classic pop sax anthem, and another guilty pleasure to transcribe and play!
The sax player is Bill Bergman, one of those killer players who you’ve heard everywhere, but you may not know their name or work. I didn’t realize that he’s a fellow Strokeland recording artist, both as a member of Jack Mack and the Heart Attacks, but also as a solo artist. I found a great video of Bill telling the story behind this recording.
There’s not a lot of soloing in this track. The signature lick is the three-note opening line: a half-step down followed by a major third. The melody is built around that motif. But there are some nice pop licks thrown in for good measure. There are simple chord changes throughout, but I lazily just called it all C#-7 in the PDF. This one is all about the sound – sing it out!
There are a bunch of sax solos in the genre that I’ll continue to work up over the coming months.
More Don Myrick! Why not? This track is perhaps his most well known work among the general populace. After all, this reached #1 on the pop charts, and had a music video that Don appeared in.
There was a lot of saxophone in pop music in the 80s, which made it a great time to be a player. Even though I was heads-down on jazz 95% of the time, it was a nice feeling seeing your instrument enjoy a prominent place in pop culture and the music industry in general.
So I have a soft spot for these sorts of solos, even though they aren’t in my wheelhouse of jazz/funk. They’re not super meaty, but they are a fun, guilty pleasure to play. Expect more to come!
This song is a ballad, which always makes the transcription tougher. I obsess over the rhythm trying to notate it as accurately as possible. The solo has a very rubato feel overall, so it’s best to listen and try to feel it as much as possible. Above all else, solos like this are a great way to work on your sound. Listen to how Don sells every note. Beautiful!
We lost another music legend this week. This time, Maurice White, the founder of the band Earth, Wind & Fire. The impact that he has had on the music industry is immeasurable. He created so many classic songs that will live forever. In over 10+ years of playing with Doctorfunk, we’ve hardly played a gig that didn’t have at least one EWF song in the set list. They are definitely in the top five all-time great horn bands.
So when I heard of Maurice’s passing, I did what I always do: I listened. Then I got out my horn to play. I’ve had Don Myrick on my to-do list for a while now, so I figured there was no better time than today to tackle his most iconic solo.
And what a solo! Although the track is considered one of the ‘smoother’ songs in the EWF catalog, the Alto solo is anything but smooth. It’s only 24 bars long, but it’s filled with meaty bebop-inspired lines that are quite challenging to play. Picking them out of the lush mix was no small feat either! But it was worth it in the end to me, I can finally cross this song off of my bucket list!
I’l have more Don Myrick in the future as well – what an inspiration!
I found out recently that Hal Leonard has published a Cannonball Adderley Omnibook. I always get excited about new transcription books, especially when they are done really well, and/or are about an artist that I’m really into. This definitely fits both of those categories.
I literally wore out my Charlie Parker omnibook in high school. Decades went by with no more saxophone ‘omnibooks’ until the excellent John Coltrane Omnibook arrived in 2013.
So I ordered my Cannonball Omnibook the minute I heard about it. While I was waiting for it to arrive, I figured I’d might as well dust off one of my old transcriptions! I went back through my college notebooks and found Del Sasser. Ironically, it’s not from the same recording that the Omnibook selected, so you know that I didn’t just plagiarize it!
I transcribed this back in college as part of a class assignment for jazz theory. We had to pick a solo, transcribe it, write it out, learn to play it, analyze it, etc. All pretty straightforward. The kicker was that we had to play the transcription with a live rhythm section. But that’s a story for another day…
Recently, I was able to participate in a group effort to transcribe another amazing solo saxophone performance by Chris Potter. This time it was Cherokee done in 10 keys over almost 13 minutes.
Steve Neff was one of the key contributors and describes how the effort came about on his blog.
My contribution was chorus 5, spanning pages 11-12 below. Big thanks to all who were involved in the effort, especially Steve. Due to a family emergency, I threw two pages of rough notes and rhythms over to him in email and he was able to proofread and combine with the rest of the choruses.
Although these solos are amazingly complicated, they aren’t as hard to transcribe as you’d think. Chris is such a clean player that the lack of rhythm section makes it easy to hear each and every pitch if you slow it down enough. The hard part is taking those pitches and making them into something readable. Since there is no frame of reference for time, you have to make a lot of subjective judgment calls.
I’m mirroring the finished work below for ease of viewing on the web. And no, I won’t be posting my own video of me playing along because this is way above my skill level at full speed!
P.S. I’ve got a few solos in the pipeline, I’ve been sidelined lately between family emergencies and illnesses all around. My goal is to post weekly so hopefully I’ll be back on the horse soon!
Well, I didn’t finish off this album in 2015 like I had hoped, but maybe with a little luck I’ll finish it in January of 2016!
Believe it or not, this is probably one of the hardest solo transcriptions I’ve ever done. Much of the track has a ‘half-time’ feel that floats. There’s nothing to grab on to, but the time is there – rock solid. It’s a brilliant arrangement!
This is one of those situations where you don’t really appreciate the track until you transcribe it and really have to dig in to what’s going on. The changes on this song are so beautiful, and the feel that is created by the rhythm section is so amazing.
I did my best to capture what I felt was going on time-wise, but I’m sure others might have a different interpretation. If so, I’d love to hear it! For a change, my performance of the solo was based more on feel than on reading the rhythms strictly (and I still didn’t get close enough for my taste).
But check this track out – Kenny’s playing is amazing, with some beautiful lines and rhythms. The PDF starts with his main solo, and continues through the end of the track. After the piano solo, he fills in around the melody as Miles plays, and then trades with Miles as the tune rides out. can you imagine trading with Miles Davis??
While reflecting on the loss of David Bowie this week, I went back and listened through some of his work. When I got to this track, I couldn’t believe that I had never worked on it before! It’s such an iconic track for both Bowie and for Sanborn’s playing throughout.
I’ve heard people complain about Sanborn’s playing on this track – not that it’s bad, but that it’s too prominent throughout. I have to disagree somewhat, but I understand where they are coming from. I can’t fault David for this though, they probably just had him play over the whole track a few times in the studio, and then it was out of his hands. I would have done the same thing, assuming that they would use only a few bits and pieces here and there.
But there’s a lot of great playing on this track, and the transcription process also gives me plenty of time to sit and listen carefully to Bowie’s performance as well, and marvel over the energy and conviction that he delivers the vocals with.
The PDF covers the entire track – to the best of my ability…the saxophone is often low in the (busy) mix, and panned far to the left. So it can be hard to decipher exactly what’s going on, and even who’s playing what at times.
For the video, I included the opening solo, the second solo at the key change, and the ride out starting where the band comes back in after the long hold (midway through page 3 of the PDF). David’s altissimo work is flawless here. I’ve got to figure out how he does the A-G#-F# transition so smoothly. I’ve also got to work to get that high F# split tone back. I used to transcribe a lot of Sanborn in my college days (I’ll post some here soon) and I haven’t been playing enough of that style to keep it up.
If you’re not hip to the Brand New Heavies, stop reading this right now and go check them out, because they are amazing. They are typically classified as ‘Acid Jazz’, which basically means that they play funk and hip-hop inspired music with some jazz influence as well. I continue to hope that this genre will go more mainstream since there is so much good music there, but it’s also accessible to a broad market.
The more recent BNH work leans more heavily into the hip-hop genre and seems to be losing it’s instrumental roots. I assume this is due to label pressure and a desire to cross over, but it’s unfortunate because some of the early albums were amazing. Brother Sister is one of the best, and this track kicks it off.
I didn’t really know Ray Gaskins outside of this performance. I’ve been checking him out on YouTube lately. He’s got his own thing going on, both vocally and playing the sax. He seems to be pursuing a smooth jazz angle, and more power to him. He’s a great player, and I love this solo!
I only recorded the solo, but the PDF includes the entire track. I totally botched the altissimo section at the end – he’s so fluid over the break, and I don’t know how he gets between the G and Bb so smoothly!
Hello 2016! For the my first post of the year, I wanted to dig down deep into my Maceo collection again. This is a track that I believe was recorded in 1974 by ‘Maceo and the Macks’, but you may find it on various compilation CDs (as I did) under the JB’s, James Brown, or Maceo himself.
The solo itself is classic Maceo in many ways, but it also has an uncommon amount of high altissimo. I’m experimenting with different fingerings for the high G to find one that works best in these situations. The ‘short’ fingerings are not very stable for me, so I end up using the ‘long’ fingerings more often than not.
I’m also experimenting with alternate Bb fingerings. Again, the ‘long’ fingering works best for me, but is harder to use in fast passages, which makes me suspect that Maceo has a ‘short’ fingering that works well for him. The alternate ‘A’ fingerings work great for me, but I haven’t found the equivalent for Bb yet. Any suggestions?
