The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Hello fellow beginners.

    If you are like me you probably find that there is not a lot of cool stuff around for beginner jazzers. Much of the stuff is cheesy then things jump really quickly in to technical.

    Attached is my transcription of a very tasty Herb Ellis head, Pickley Wickly. Let me know of any errors.

    I cannot work out the chords, lots of Bb7 and I hear a Eb9 in there.

    Is this a blues?
    Does it have 14 bars as I have counted?

    Cheers
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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    Quote Originally Posted by gggomez
    If you are like me you probably find that there is not a lot of cool stuff around for beginner jazzers. Much of the stuff is cheesy then things jump really quickly in to technical.

    Attached is my transcription of a very tasty Herb Ellis head, Pickley Wickly. Let me know of any errors.

    I cannot work out the chords, lots of Bb7 and I hear a Eb9 in there.

    Is this a blues?
    Does it have 14 bars as I have counted?

    Cheers
    I love that tune and have learned it. The A sections are 16 bars long (each), with an 8-bar bridge , so it's actually a 56-bar tune! (AABA)
    It's in Bb minor (-key signature of Db major). The chords are a vamp. Herb doesn't play rhythm on this----except at the bridge---so it's mainly a bass line that mirrors the melody and chord stabs by the piano.

    Great solo---parts of it still trip me up.
    Last edited by MarkRhodes; 09-06-2015 at 10:22 AM. Reason: clarification

  4. #3

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    For those unfamiliar with the tune, have a listen.


  5. #4

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    Thanks I may have been lazy with the count at the end. Will check again and post a video as well as keep working on trying to hear the underlying chords.

  6. #5

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    Man I keep missing the first note, any way if any one wants to try and work it out from my fumbling here is a vid of my transcription:


  7. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by gggomez
    Man I keep missing the first note, any way if any one wants to try and work it out from my fumbling here is a vid of my transcription:
    I play it a lot like that but without the shift up the neck. Also, I think you're leaving out a note. Before he slides from F to G in bar 8 (the opening three notes are pickups and measure one starts on the Bb and F at the sixth fret), Herb plays a Bb.

    My morning practice is over (-guitar before Internet!) but maybe this afternoon I'll show you what I mean in case it's not clear.

  8. #7

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    Thanks I will check that out and listen harder. If you can show me awesome.

    For the B Section, what do you play?

    I struggle working out chords, sounds like Bb7, Eb9, Ab7 to me on the d g and b strings then back to ??? is it Eb9 before going back into the head.

    Herb Ellis was the first jazz guitarist I ever heard, have always loved his bluesy feel. I saw him play with the Philip Morris Big Band in the early 80's, that was amazing. I can still remember how loud it was and walking out sweating it was so exciting.

    Thanks again.

  9. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by gggomez

    For the B Section, what do you play?

    I struggle working out chords, sounds like Bb7, Eb9, Ab7 to me on the d g and b strings then back to ??? is it Eb9 before going back into the head.

    Herb Ellis was the first jazz guitarist I ever heard, have always loved his bluesy feel. I saw him play with the Philip Morris Big Band in the early 80's, that was amazing. I can still remember how loud it was and walking out sweating it was so exciting.

    Thanks again.
    The bridge is easy: Herb uses the same two-note grip for most of it.

    The chords are Bb7 (2 bars), Eb7 (2 bars), Ab7 (2 bars), then one bar of Db7 and one bar of F7 (-to lead back to Bm as the i chord of the head). The F7 chord is played on the and of beat four of the Db7 bar---most of the the final measure of the bridge is devoted to the pick up notes for the head.)

    xx67xx (where 'x' indicates a string not played; the leftmost 'x' is for the low E and the rightmost 'x' is for high E.) Bb7
    xx56xx Eb7
    xx45xx Ab7
    xx34xx Dby7
    x3x24x (F7)

    Those chords are the thirds and sevenths only (-with a fifth added to the bottom of the F7, which is played just once, snap). That's all Herb plays on the head (-the bass is the melodic instrument on the bridge) but when you get to the solo, you will see how Herb's playing is out of the these shapes of those chords (-with other notes included). It's a great example of how Herb played out of shapes and how he connected them.

  10. #9

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    I'll post a video of how I do this. Probably not before this evening, though. (My main daily practice is in the morning and that's over with before I come online.) Lots of neat things in this tune. The trickiest parts for me are the bends and slides.

  11. #10

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    As I await the uploading of the video I just made, I wanted to find this thread and thought to search for it through your screen name, and that's when I realized I did not know how many "g"s there are in it! I tried four but that was too many. Then three, and that was just right. And the upload is still only 31% percent complete.....

  12. #11

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    The name of this tune is spelled a few different ways. On iTunes, it is "Picley Wickley" (-no "k" in the first word; I think this is just wrong). I've also seen it as "Pickley Wickley" and "Pickly Wickly".

  13. #12

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    Okay, a short vid covering the bridge of the tune.


  14. #13

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    Fantastic Mark. Sincere thanks putting the time in on this.

    I started working out the improv. Worked out the first 10 bars or so, it is pretty juicy.

  15. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by gggomez
    Fantastic Mark. Sincere thanks putting the time in on this.

    I started working out the improv. Worked out the first 10 bars or so, it is pretty juicy.
    You're welcome. I love that solo. The bends give me some trouble----before I got into jazz, I played slinky strings and could do big bends; now I use flatwound strings and can't bend more than a half-step accurately! One thing I love about this solo is that he does a bit of everything in it!

  16. #15

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    What a cool tune. Reminds me of a 'lounge' version of Swing To Bop. Thanks guys, look forward to digging into this one next study session.

  17. #16

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    It is like "Topsy". I looked for the changes and found this version from our own Campus Five (aka Jonathan Stout). He posted these hotclub.co.uk site and I hope he doesn't mind me reproducing them here.

    >>>>In Bbm

    Bbm6 Cm6 | Dbm6 Cm6 | Bbm6 Bbm7/Ab | Ebm/Gb F7 |

    Bbm6 Cm6 | Dbm6 Cm6 | Bbm6 Bbm7/Ab | Ebm/Gb F7 |

    Ebm6 Fm6 | Gbm6 Fm6 | Ebm6 Ebm7/Db | Gb7 F7 |

    Bbm6 Cm6 | Dbm6 Cm6 | Bbm6 Bbm7/Ab | Ebm/Gb F7 |

    Bb7 //// | //// | Eb //// | //// | C7 //// | //// | F7 //// | //// |

    Bbm6 Cm6 | Dbm6 Cm6 | Bbm6 Bbm7/Ab | Ebm/Gb F7 |

    Bbm6 Cm6 | Dbm6 Cm6 | Bbm6 Bbm7/Ab | Ebm/Gb F7 |

    Everything but the brindge is 2 chords per bar. The bridge is a Honeysuckle Rose bridge.<<<<<


    Note: "Pickley Wickly" has a slightly different bridge: Bb7 (two bars) Eb7 (two bars) Ab7 (two bars) Db7 (1 bar) F7 (1 bar)


    Here is Django's version of "Topsy".


  18. #17

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    While we're on the subject, Barney Kessel's "Salute to Charlie Christian" is from the same vein.




    The "minor turnaround" that this progression is built on has been used for other tunes, perhaps none more popular than "Hit the Road, Jack" as performed by Ray Charles.


  19. #18

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    There's another thread about Barney Kessel's "Salute to Charlie Christian," which includes a pdf of the lead sheet by fep.

    Good to know all three, right?

    https://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/every...ead-sheet.html

  20. #19

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    Another tune using the minor turnaround is "Stray Cat Strut", which I always liked.



  21. #20

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    Swing To Bop is Topsy.

  22. #21

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    Fantastic. Do you know what Charlie Christian recording it is based on?

  23. #22

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    Maybe the greatest guitar performance ever captured on tape.

  24. #23

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    Here's "Swing to Bop." It's from an after-hours session at Minton's. The recording captures only the solo (-which is tremendous), not the head, and it is called "Swing to Bop" but it's the changes of "Topsy."


  25. #24

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    There was a simply great Charlie Christian internet site that had mucho transcriptions including this one, but it seems to have been vaporised

  26. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by robertoart
    There was a simply great Charlie Christian internet site that had mucho transcriptions including this one, but it seems to have been vaporised
    .
    I know! I've looked for it again lately but haven't been able to find it. In anyone does, please holler! ;o)