Grant Green Transcription

[jshevloff]

My jazz guitar teacher wants me to transcribe the chords/melody/solo of a Grant Green song. I'm not familiar with him so if you guys could give me some suggestions of some pretty easy ones that I won't have too much trouble with. I'm a pretty average guitarist and I'm going to be working on it over a month or two so something easy and nice sounding would be great.

Thanks a lot,

Jacob

[mr. beaumont]

your teacher must not be too familiar with him either if he wants you to transcribe grant's chords, he hardly ever played 'em! (i'm kidding partially, your teacher means the chords to the tune, not just the chords the guitarist payed, hopefully)

first off, you GOTTA get into grant. just excellent stuff, and none of it is too difficult to pick up--grant's the jazz guitarist that i first heard that made me say "hey, maybe i can do this!" the genius is not in grant's flash or technique, but in phrasing and note choice.

I'd steer you towards his earlier blue note stuff--the album green street (any track) would be a great choice, as it's a trio, and there's little to get in the way of your ear while transcribing. there's a version of 'round midnight on there that's about as good as it gets (if wes hadn't made that "dynamic new sound" record i could easily say this was the best guitar version of the tune ever)

some other choices could be found on grant's "standards" album, which blue note released after his death, but it's another trio record. If you're new to transcribing, the best thing is less harmonic convergence to deal with, and trio records are great for that.

if you need some chordal playing, grant played about as many chords as he ever did on ike quebec's "blue and sentimental" record. here again, grant is the only polyphonic instrument, and his playing top notch throughout the album. If you can handle a piano in the background, check out "matador" and the "complete quartets with sonny clark" as options as well. There literally isn't a bad tune on ANY of this stuff.

hope this helps!

[derek]

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

your teacher must not be too familiar with him either if he wants you to transcribe grant's chords, he hardly ever played 'em! (i'm kidding partially, your teacher means the chords to the tune, not just the chords the guitarist payed, hopefully)

first off, you GOTTA get into grant. just excellent stuff, and none of it is too difficult to pick up--grant's the jazz guitarist that i first heard that made me say "hey, maybe i can do this!" the genius is not in grant's flash or technique, but in phrasing and note choice.

I'd steer you towards his earlier blue note stuff--the album green street (any track) would be a great choice, as it's a trio, and there's little to get in the way of your ear while transcribing. there's a version of 'round midnight on there that's about as good as it gets (if wes hadn't made that "dynamic new sound" record i could easily say this was the best guitar version of the tune ever)

some other choices could be found on grant's "standards" album, which blue note released after his death, but it's another trio record. If you're new to transcribing, the best thing is less harmonic convergence to deal with, and trio records are great for that.

if you need some chordal playing, grant played about as many chords as he ever did on ike quebec's "blue and sentimental" record. here again, grant is the only polyphonic instrument, and his playing top notch throughout the album. If you can handle a piano in the background, check out "matador" and the "complete quartets with sonny clark" as options as well. There literally isn't a bad tune on ANY of this stuff.

hope this helps!

Man, I couldn't agree more. Green Street is a great place to start with Grant, and his version of Round Midnight is just wonderful.

[jshevloff]

Thanks Beaumont, nice advice.

[digger]

Just this evening I've been transcribing the head and first 12 bars of the solo of Goodens Corner from the Complete Quartets with Sonny Clark. It's a great solo and pretty easy to hear / transcribe / play - and if I can do all three things then anyone can!

Digger

[ScotGormley]

Grant plays a nice solo over Cool Blues, and it's very easy to transcribe and digest. Of course, the advantage of learning blues solos is that they're very useful in a variety of contexts. I can't remember the name of the recording with Cool Blues on it, though.

[randalljazz]

born to be blue