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I have been going back to a few tunes we used to play in our old trio and doing some due diligence to improve. I first learned this tune from Tony Rice version and the arraignment we used was a simplified version of my memory of it. Working now to get deep into what WM did.
I want to get straight on the variances from the head pattern.
The following is what Wolf Marshall has for the chorus harmonies. I have attempted to do functional analysis.
Help?
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04-12-2026 02:11 PM
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I think the Ab in line 2 is a tritone sub for D7, and the Ebm7 is the ii chord to that.
similarly, the F in the last line is best understood as the V7 of the Bbmaj
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Tony Rice? I'm an avid fan of Tony Rice's but for jazz, forget it.
Originally Posted by Aiq
Straight from the horse's mouth:
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functional analysis should help us play better by understanding a chord progression. we need to know if a minor chord is a II or a III chord. in this specific example all minor chords are treated equally (you got more liberties with the first 8). the tune is Summertime where Cm7/Bb is replaced by Bbm7. so imo this is not a song where i'd bother with functional analysis. just pretend everything is II-V and play accordingly. imo that is the utility of 4 on 6 as a practice tune. a training ground for II-V licks. Originally Posted by Aiq
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Extension of his Grisman period, he didn’t call it jazz just ‘contemporary instrumental music”. Originally Posted by ragman1
After he lost his voice I heard the Tony Rice Unit do an instrumental set at the Birchmere. Man.
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Any thoughts on the progression vis a vis the Bb key sig?
One of my hangups is the unhappy quest for the Grand Unified Theory.
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G minor not Bb major. Well, it straddles both. Basically it's a G minor blues that's been extended. A lot.
The 1st 4 bars are the i chord (it looks like a ii-V in F, but can be seen as Gmin7 to Gmin6; you can address the C note or not in your line). The 2nd 4 bars are the iv chord, backcycling to the tonic via an interesting sub as pointed out above. The 3rd 4 bars are the i chord with a nod to the V of the relative major. Then there's a tag to turnaround to the tonic.
You will probably also note that the chords of the first and second chorus are not the same.
This is my favorite Wes composition. In most of Wes's songwriting, the underlying structure is the blues. He just takes it out for a walk to interesting places.
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I never got to see Tony in person. I had tickets to see the Tony Rice Unit with David Bromberg touring "Try Me One More Time," but Tony was ill and unable to travel so the Peter Rowan Trio deputized. Originally Posted by Aiq
Tony was an avid jazz fan, particularly small group "acoustic" jazz, and listened incessantly by all reports. When he played bluegrass, he was kind of a jazzy bluegrass player; when he played jazz, he was kind of a bluegrass-y jazz player. He had his own way of doing things; he was never going to try to sound like Kenny Burrell playing in a jazz trio, and good for him. I happen to like it and actually prefer his bluegrass-y jazz to his jazzy bluegrass.
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Four on Six is just Summertime with some passing ii-Vs inserted (as djg pointed out).
So if you can play Summertime, and you know what kind of phrases to play on a ii-V, that’s all you need.
That’s how I’ve always approached it, anyway.
Actually Wes played Summertime with these changes too, it’s on one of his early recordings (‘Far Wes’ possibly?)
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the evolution of summertime into 4 on 6. edit: graham beat me to it
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Always aggravating to look at Wes transcriptions on YouTube. The notes are usually right, but the fingerings are almost always wrong Originally Posted by ragman1
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Since I concentrate on the notation these days I never use the tab fingerings. Originally Posted by dasein
“Why would you play that there?”
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Summertime in G minor
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These are what I make for Wes's fingerings
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So he knew, then :-) Originally Posted by Aiq
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This^ Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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Like me as well, sadly. As I have shared I’m the elderly beatnik improv freak who hangs in the alley behind jazz’s house and steals from the garage when jazz is away. Originally Posted by ragman1
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I'm wondering why you used a bluegrass version to understand a Wes Montgomery jazz tune. I played Tony Rice doing it yesterday, it was hellish fast to try to get the chords off it!
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I was in a bluegrass group then and listened to Rice constantly.
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Ah! So are you actually looking to play a bluegrass version rather than a jazz one?
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Oh no, I enjoyed the time in the bluegrass group but when I left - to return to university for teaching credentials - I went back to electric guitar permanently.
I’m working with Wolf Marshall’s Half Note transcription.
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Right. I used to have a few Wolf Marshall books but not now, alas. They got squished in a garage flood some years ago. But his transcription is probably accurate so good luck with it Originally Posted by Aiq
By the way -
I'd say any GUT/ToE would be impossible because the ultimate truth of life is inexplicable. But that's just me, pay no attention :-)One of my hangups is the unhappy quest for the Grand Unified Theory.
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(As we all know, the ultimate truth of life is 42.) Originally Posted by ragman1
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Another Tony Rice fan here. Whatever you choose to call his music, I like it! Beautiful tone and floating technique that seemed effortless but was the result of hours and hours on the instrument.
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I became a minor celebrity when I pointed that out to the old RMMGJ News group, and what did I get for it? Originally Posted by grahambop
A one way ticket to Palookaville.
I coulda been somebody, I coulda been a contender!
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