What was the first jazz solo you transcribed?

[Jazzpunk]

What was the first jazz solo that you transcribed? What was it that you drew you to that particular solo?

[mr. beaumont]

I worked on a few at once, actually, so I'm not sure which one I finished first.

When I first started out, I wrote more stuff down. Nowadays, I learn licks but don't write out whole solos like I did when I first started out. Laziness, I guess, or just too time consuming--not as much time to practice means I want to spend it playing!

Anyway, they were:

Miles' solo on "So What" (actually could sing it by heart)

Grant Green's melody and solo on "Selma March" from "His Majesty King Funk"

and...

Hank Mobley's head and solo on "If I should lose you" from "Soul Station"


Shortly after this, I think I tried (key word "tried") Kenny Burrell's on "Freight Trane." Epic fail.

Then there were a LOT of Paul Desmond ideas getting copped at the Mr. B shed...

[Jazzpunk]

Grant Green is a favorite of mine!

I've been procrastinating on transcribing which is why my soloing attempts sound like I'm running scales! I think the 'So What' solo might be a good place to start.

[Stian41]

I'm just starting out transcribing myself

I'm doing the guitar solo on Blues for Pat by Pat Metheny (+ Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins), I think it's a nice start. Gets difficult about the fifth round, but with a bit of effort it can work.

Also doing Miles' So What-solo, although I haven't got that far yet.

(I also learned Minor Swing by Django Reinhardt by ear recently, but don't know if that counts as I haven't written it yet)

[jayx123]

Mine was George Benson's solo on "Little Train" from his album "White Rabbit" I love that solo one of my favorits

[cosmic gumbo]

Freddie Hubbard's solo on Cantaloupe Island.

[Jazzaluk]

Ed Bickert... A Sunday Kind of Love

[M-ster]

I think George Benson's solo on Freddie Hubbard's Sky Dive was my first jazz transcription. Early to mid '70s.

[FatJeff]

Wilton Felder sax solo on the Jazz Crusaders' song "New Time Shuffle."

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B0O...thkey=CKSx9O0K

[mmmmdoss]

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

and...

Hank Mobley's head and solo on "If I should lose you" from "Soul Station"

My first full solo transcription was off of "Soul Station" too, the tune was "Dig Dis". Hank Mobley's playing lays out on the guitar better than most sax players so I definitely recommend transcribing some, Soul Stations a great record.

[FatJeff]

Originally Posted by mmmmdoss

My first full solo transcription was off of "Soul Station" too, the tune was "Dig Dis". Hank Mobley's playing lays out on the guitar better than most sax players so I definitely recommend transcribing some, Soul Stations a great record.

Totally agreed! What a great player. My 2nd transcription was Hank's solo on "I Should Care" off "Another Workout."

[Jazzpunk]

This is a fun read. Thanks for sharing!

[Marto]

I think my fist transcription was Paul Desmonds solo on Rude Old Man, a blues on the Easy Living albumn with Jim Hall. I had to wait for a while before I could transcribe Jim's solo. Then it was Grant Green playing Moon River, I think it was on a trio albumn with bass and drums. Seven years later and I can still sing Paul's solo, he was just so cunning with how he outlined the changes.

[Jazzpunk]

Ok, you guys have inspired me to stop procrastinating and commit to something. Since I'm already working on Autumn Leaves, I'm going to try tackling Louis Armstrong's solo from 'Live At The 1958 Monterey Jazz Festival'.

[FatJeff]

Originally Posted by Jazzpunk

Ok, you guys have inspired me to stop procrastinating and commit to something. Since I'm already working on Autumn Leaves, I'm going to try tackling Louis Armstrong's solo from 'Live At The 1958 Monterey Jazz Festival'.

Which song?

[Jazzpunk]

Originally Posted by FatJeff

Which song?

Autumn Leaves. The recording is in a different key than I've been playing it in so that will be good for me as well!

[FatJeff]

Originally Posted by Jazzpunk

Autumn Leaves. The recording is in a different key than I've been playing it in so that will be good for me as well!

Let us know how it goes. :-) I've transcribed a few Louis Armstrong solos myself. Quite illuminating.

[digger]

Good thread. I need to commit to doing a bit of proper transcribing, too. Like Jazzpunk, my (attempts at) soloing sound poor because of a lack of transcription.

That said, to answer the original question, I think the my first attempt at transcription was Johnny Hodges's solo on Satin Doll. Like others I've also had a bash at some Grant Green and Hank Mobley, plus the ubiquitous So What. Some Django, too. But I tend to do just one chorus. I find my notation is poor and it takes me an age to get the notes (or rather the rhythms) down on paper in a way that I can come back to them and play them in future. I wish i could find a decent (i.e. simple) software package, too, but all the ones I've found take so long to figure I give up and go back to pencil and paper. Maybe I should simply memorise the transcriptions rather than trying to notate them.

English Derek

[FatJeff]

Originally Posted by digger

Good thread. I need to commit to doing a bit of proper transcribing, too. Like Jazzpunk, my (attempts at) soloing sound poor because of a lack of transcription.

That said, to answer the original question, I think the my first attempt at transcription was Johnny Hodges's solo on Satin Doll. Like others I've also had a bash at some Grant Green and Hank Mobley, plus the ubiquitous So What. Some Django, too. But I tend to do just one chorus. I find my notation is poor and it takes me an age to get the notes (or rather the rhythms) down on paper in a way that I can come back to them and play them in future. I wish i could find a decent (i.e. simple) software package, too, but all the ones I've found take so long to figure I give up and go back to pencil and paper. Maybe I should simply memorise the transcriptions rather than trying to notate them.

English Derek

You only write down the notes after you can play them back verbatim on the guitar from memory. At least, that's how I do things. As I've mentioned elsewhere on this (and other) forums, the first thing I do for a given solo is to rip just the solo, then burn it onto a CD a bunch of times in a row and listen to that on the way to and back from work in my car. I sing along with it. After I can sing the whole thing with the song playing along with me, I then try to sing it without anything other than my voice. This points out small holes in my memorization.

When I feel I've got it patched up pretty well, I then figure out how to play it on the fretboard. This is the most time-consuming part. Once I feel relatively confident that I can play the song (maybe not yet up to tempo), it is only then that I bother writing down the notes. It's a mostly mechanical exercise at that point, and it's more for hsitorical purposes, or to share with others, than it is for me to use to perform.

[RonD]

Ed Bickert's solo on Just Squeeze Me - Pure Desmond.
I agree 100% with the Mobley suggestions.

[Jazzpunk]

Originally Posted by digger

Maybe I should simply memorise the transcriptions rather than trying to notate them.

English Derek

I should have mentioned that that is exactly what I intend to do for now. I couldn't hand notate a solo if my life depended on it.

I don't want to let that stop me from learning the vocabulary though and you shouldn't either!

[Jazzpunk]

Originally Posted by FatJeff

As I've mentioned elsewhere on this (and other) forums, the first thing I do for a given solo is to rip just the solo, then burn it onto a CD a bunch of times in a row and listen to that on the way to and back from work in my car. I sing along with it. After I can sing the whole thing with the song playing along with me, I then try to sing it without anything other than my voice. This points out small holes in my memorization.

Good tips, thanks!

[digger]

I'll have a go at this methodology, too - thanks Jeff. Be interesting to see how I get on with the singing :-0

Now to find a suitable (short and easy, yet inspiring) solo.

English Derek

[digger]

So I had a quick go at this methodology on Kid Ory's 12 bars on Gut Bucket Blues. I chose this because I was listening to the Hot Fives yesterday, heard this, and figured it was simple enought that I'd be in with a shout of memorizing it, singing it, and being able to play it on the guitar. Listened to the solo and sang along scores of times (it was simple enough that it was easy to memorise) and then early this afternoon transcribed it onto the guitar.

A couple of things sprung to mind - it's all well and good memorising 12 bars in which the phrases are short, pretty memorable (i.e. familiar; most of these licks were already in my vocabulary, albeit with slghtly different timing), easy to hear, and not too fast. But I put on some Hank Mobley last night and can't really comprehend how much time and effort it would take to memorise a whole one of those solos before even starting to transcribe it. Secondly singing, again it's well and good singing along with a trombone solo - it was more or less in my range - but a sax or trumpet? How does one sing that? My singing's not very good at best, so to recreate these solos vocally feels pretty nigh on impossible. Kid Ory's solo was pretty slow and sparse, I just can't conceive of being able to sing anything high and fast with enough accuracy to then be able to transcribe it.

But great methodology - I'm going to have a bash at Armstrong's solo off the same side; it's pretty similar to Kid Ory's anyway. Then I'll maybe look at something that's not a blues. There are a ton of great solos on the Hot Fives recordings and I feel like it's a good idea to start with Armstrong.

Kind regards,
English Derek

[jbyork]

The first solo I transcribed was Kenny Burrell's from "Organ Grinder's Swing," with Jimmy Smith. I recommend KB's work for anyone wanting to get started with transcribing, because a) although he can burn, he also has recorded many solos at accessible tempos, b) they're full of great blues language, and c) it's fun to mix and match licks from different solos in your own improv.

The first non-guitar solo I worked out was Curtis Fuller's trombone on John Coltrane's "Blue Train."

Great thread -- it's giving me lots of things to add to my list!

Jeff

[FatJeff]

Originally Posted by digger

A couple of things sprung to mind - it's all well and good memorising 12 bars in which the phrases are short, pretty memorable (i.e. familiar; most of these licks were already in my vocabulary, albeit with slghtly different timing), easy to hear, and not too fast. But I put on some Hank Mobley last night and can't really comprehend how much time and effort it would take to memorise a whole one of those solos before even starting to transcribe it. Secondly singing, again it's well and good singing along with a trombone solo - it was more or less in my range - but a sax or trumpet? How does one sing that? My singing's not very good at best, so to recreate these solos vocally feels pretty nigh on impossible. Kid Ory's solo was pretty slow and sparse, I just can't conceive of being able to sing anything high and fast with enough accuracy to then be able to transcribe it.

Your singing ability has nothing to do with it all; God knows I'm a horrible singer too. The point isn't so much to able to sing the solo with all the notes perfect. I'd say 80% of it is to get the rhythm down. Then it's just a matter of "matching the right notes" to the rhythm. Jazz phrasing is all about the rhythm anyway, just ask Dizzy. :-)

And there is just something about being able to sing phrases that really really internalizes them. Once you can sing them back from memory, you will never forget them, which makes it all the more likely that they will come out spontaneously in your playing. I've been having a tough time lately getting various dominant sounds into my vocabulary, so my teacher has me singing altered, lydian dominant and diminished scales every day, away from the instrument. It's starting to work.

As for the longer solos - you are right, that's a lot of work, and the reason I've persevered through several of these is because they've been assignments for school. Right now I'm working on Miles Davis' solo on Stablemates - it's almost 2 minutes of material. In these cases, one sees me in my car every 10-15 seconds hitting the Rewind function on my CD player, just singing the same snippet over and over until it's completely memorized. Then I move onto the next snipper/phrase. But, after a while, I will have the whole thing. I estimate this song will be several more days before I have it down (and that's working on it an hour a day: 30 minutes to and 30 minutes from work in my car).

[mr. beaumont]

I don't memorize the whole thing! Yikes, y'all crazy!

The miles solo on so what I could sing from memory by the time I was done because I've listened to that song a 1,000 times, and I had to listen to it another 1,000 to get it right since it was one of my first jazz transcriptions.

The point of transcribing is not to memorize a whole solo and play it start to finish--the point is to look at it, analyze the phrasing, look at the moments that make you say "hell yeah!" and figure out why they worked.

Then, you steal as much of that stuff as you can and make it your own. A good player I knew once said "Good players borrow a few ideas from others, but great ones steal--because when you steal, you say "this shit is MINE now."

[Jake Hanlon]

Miles on Freddie the Freeloader

[cosmic gumbo]

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

A good player I knew once said "Good players borrow a few ideas from others, but great ones steal--because when you steal, you say "this shit is MINE now."

It sounds like he even stole Igor Stravinsky's quote "good composers borrow, great composers steal".

[mr. beaumont]

The man practiced what he preached.

He had some original quotes though too-- he'd always say, "learn all your theory, your scales, your chords--then when you get up on the bandstand, forget all that and play."

I mean, he said that first, right?


Right?