Don Felder and Joe Walsh – Hotel California

And now for something totally different! By request, here is the guitar duel from the Eagle’s Hotel California. This is probably their biggest hit, if not one of the biggest hits of all time from any band!

This is the first time I’ve attempted a guitar transcription here. It’s super-tough to match the phrasing and technique. Saxophone and guitar are both very expressive instruments, but in very different ways, which makes for a challenge.

The range also makes it tough. The Joe Walsh solo spans almost three octaves. I’d like another shot at that high Ab that I missed 🙂

I did my best to notate the articulation. I’m not a guitar player, but it sounds to me like not every note is picked, some are played by sliding the left hand from one fret to another. The more I could match the articulation, the closer I got to the feel of the guitar part.

In this song, Don Felder plays first. He takes an eight-bar solo and then Joe Walsh takes eight bars. Then they trade two bars each, and then they duet the rest of the way out.

I understand that Don Felder recorded an instrumental demo to pitch to the band, which included both solos and the duet. Don Henley made them stick to those solos for the final recording, although the key changed.

I spent so much time shedding the solo parts that I totally neglected the arpeggios at the end. I figured I’d just read them, but the key threw me in a few spots – oops!

Hotel California

 

  • Artists: Don Felder and Joe Walsh
  • Album: The Eagles: Hotel California (1976)
  • Track: Hotel California
  • Instruments: Guitar duet (originally), transcribed for Alto Sax duet

Enjoy!

@SDartSax

P. S. First post with my Conn 6M post-overhaul!

Clarence Clemons – Dancing in the Dark

Continuing on the Clarence Clemons kick…This is a short solo from the end of “Dancing in the Dark”. It’s very laid back and mellow, pretty easy to play. As usual, beautiful tone and delivery by Clarence.

The whole solo is in the key of Db, and happens over the fade at the end of the track. Clarence sticks to a major pentatonic throughout, so everything fits beautifully as you’d expect.

Clarence Clemons - Dancing in the Dark

 

  • Artist: Clarence Clemons
  • Album:  Bruce Springsteen – Born in the USA
  • Track: Dancing in the Dark
  • Instrument: Tenor Sax

Enjoy!

@SDartSax

Clarence Clemons – Jungleland

More Clarence Clemons from Born to Run, this time – Jungleland. One of his most famous solos.

For me, the biggest challenge with this one is AIR and PITCH. These are long phrases, so being able to consistently support with an even tone and solid pitch requires lots of air. I clearly don’t do enough long tones at this end of the horn!

I like how restrained this solo is – it’s so melodic and simple. A lot of players would be tempted to fill the space with a ton of notes. The big man keeps it right down the middle. He soars on the high notes and doesn’t stray too far harmonically. It’s a bit repetitious, but it builds nicely.

Clarence Clemons - Jungleland

 

  • Artist: Clarence Clemons
  • Album:  Bruce Springsteen – Born to Run
  • Track: Jungleland
  • Instrument: Tenor Sax

Enjoy!

@SDartSax

Clarence Clemons – Born to Run

I realize that I haven’t posted any solos from the Big Man, Clarence Clemons, yet. Sadly, he passed away in 2011. I never saw him perform live (or Bruce Springsteen for that matter), although I grew up on their music. This track was released when I was four!

I admit that I took Clarence for granted, and under-valued his contribution to the instrument. This was years ago when I was a big jazz snob. I was aware of him, but since he was playing pop/rock, I wrote him off as insignificant. Big mistake on my part!

Of course one of the great things about Bruce Springsteen’s music is that he played with a real band, one that stayed together for a long time. Although he was the front man and singer/songwriter, he wrote and arranged for the unique voices in his group – including Clarence.

Clarence Clemons has such a huge sound and presence – no one else could have contributed such iconic solos. And this is the type of solo that I can only reproduce to a point. Clarence had a special power to his sound, a growl that was always there, even when it wasn’t fully unleashed. I can’t duplicate that, and if I tried, it just wouldn’t be authentic. So I do my best and hope only to get close.

The solo on Born to Run is pretty challenging in the first few bars. The articulation is fast and clean – hard to keep up with at times. The expression that he adds with the subtle falls and bends are hard to reproduce without going overboard. It’s a master class in striking the balance between restraint and reckless abandon.

Clarence Clemons - Born to Run

 

  • Artist: Clarence Clemons
  • Album:  Bruce Springsteen – Born to Run
  • Track: Born to Run
  • Instrument: Tenor Sax

Enjoy!

@SDartSax

Alto Reed – Turn the Page

Continuing on the Bob Seger theme…this is one of his most famous songs, with an iconic Alto sax intro.

Alto Reed tells the story about how that intro came about here. Here’s a written account from Wikipedia:

Tom Weschler allegedly helped inspire Reed to create the opening melody. During recording, Weschler told Reed: “Alto, think about it like this: You’re in New York City, on the Bowery. It’s 3 a.m. You’re under a streetlamp. There’s a light mist coming down. You’re all by yourself. Show me what that sounds like.” With that, Reed played the opening melody to “Turn the Page”.

There’s no real improvised solo on this song. The parts he came up with are simple and clean. They’re not busy or flashy – very musical, and in service of the melody. Too many players try to draw attention to themselves, and they end up detracting from the song. Not here!

The saxophone is pretty low in the mix in spots, making it hard to hear at times. As I usually do, I transcribed on piano and then played on saxophone. Sometimes when I do that, I’ll make adjustments based on how it sounds when I play it on sax vs. piano. In this case, the concert A at the bottom of the triplet figure sounded like a concert B to me when I was on the piano. But on sax, the A definitely felt better. So that’s what I have here.

Alto Reed - Turn the Page

 

Enjoy!

@SDartSax

Alto Reed – Old Time Rock and Roll

I’ve been listening to a lot of Bob Seger lately. Although I grew up surrounded by his music in the 70s and 80s, it was always just part of the scenery, and not a big musical influence on me. But he’s one of my wife’s favorite artists, so I got into him more deeply through osmosis later in life. I was fortunate enough to see him on tour 5-10 years ago. Alto Reed (yes, that’s his name!) was playing with him then, just as he has been for decades.

A friend of mine had the good fortune to open for some of their recent dates and was telling me a bit about the tour recently. It made me pull out some of those old records again. So much good stuff! There aren’t a ton of sax solos, but the stuff that’s there is iconic, so I’m going to try to get through some of it here.

The first track I had to tackle was “Old Time Rock and Roll”. It was made famous by the movie “Risky Business” (which I was too young to see when it first came out) – featuring a relatively unknown actor named Tom Cruise, dancing in his underwear.

It’s a hard-driving rock/blues track. The solo is only eight-bars, but it’s a perfectly-crafted rock solo. Five licks in total, with a nice use of space. He stays in the upper register, which makes sense since it cuts through the mix better. The hardest part is the high Ab, but other than that it’s relatively easy to play. You have to get past the fact that it’s in the key of Ab (concert Gb/F#). It’s one of those keys that saxophone players have nightmares about. But if you play in rock bands, it’s all too common. Alto Reed handles it deftly, as easily as if it were A!

Alto Reed - Old Time Rock and Roll

 

Enjoy!

@SDartSax

Candy Dulfer – Shine on You Crazy Diamond

By request, here is the transcription of Candy Dulfer’s Alto solo from the 1990 Knebworth concert with Pink Floyd. Requests like this are a win-win: You get the content you’re looking for, and I discover new material that I wouldn’t have otherwise run across!

I was unfamiliar with this performance until one of my readers turned me on to it. I was unaware that Candy had worked with Pink Floyd, and this has clearly been out there for a while! The only source material I could find was a YouTube link. The quality isn’t great, but it’s good enough.

This one was really tough to transcribe and play. There aren’t any particularly hard technical passages – it’s all about the rhythms. I clearly don’t work in 6/8 enough! It’s also slow, which makes everything harder because more notes are getting squeezed in to a single beat, so you have to subdivide like crazy (in 6/8)! Halfway through, the time doubles up to a 12/8 feel. You can try to feel it in 4/4, just don’t lose that triplet.

Candy has lot of cool lines as usual, and plays back and forth between the flat five (sharp eleven) and the natural five, giving it a nice bluesy feel overall.

Candy Dulfer - Shine On You Crazy Diamond

 

Enjoy!

@SDartSax

Pete Christlieb – Deacon Blues

I was saddened to hear about the loss of Walter Becker, one of the founders of Steely Dan. I’ll admit, I have more of an academic appreciation for Steely Dan than true passion. It’s not music that I sit and listen to often, but when I do, I can recognize the craft that went in to its creation. No band has bridged pop, rock, and jazz so beautifully. The horn arrangements are always great, and they have worked with some of the best sax players ever.

This is one of the classic Steely Dan sax solos – by Pete Christlieb. I met Pete when he was the guest artist at my high school’s jazz festival one year. Of course I didn’t know much about him at the time, and I certainly wasn’t hip to Steely Dan back then. But he was a hell of a tenor player and left a big impression on me.

I’ve had this transcription on the shelf for a while. I should have posted it before my surgery. I spent a few days trying to work it back up, but my high chops aren’t where they need to be to pull it off. Maybe in a few months?

Update: I finally posted the video. It’s not perfect, but then, they never are!

Like most Steely Dan songs, the changes are pretty intimidating, but Pete plays beautifully over them. Picking out chord changes by ear is my weakness, so I cross-checked a few sources until I found chords that seem to match.

Pete Christlieb - Deacon Blues

 

Enjoy!

@SdartSax