Doxy Transcription with Video and Chart

[Question]

Here is my transcription and video of Sonny Rollins' solo on "Doxy" from the original recording.

Sonny has such a unique way of where he places his notes in relation to the beat that I wanted to study to help break my tendency of playing too on top.

What I noticed is that he does often play a bit behind when playing slower phrases, but he seems to play much more on the beat when playing the 16th note phrases in Doxy. In any case he swings great!

I really tried to play as close as I could to his rhythmic phrasing and articulation. It was also sometimes tricky to notate the way he plays it, so I had to really get it in my ear and body as to which notes or phrases he delays or pushes.

Also, the saxophone speaks slower than a guitar with a pick, so there is always some compensation to try to match his phrasing.

I will include my transcription if anyone is interested.
There is also a video of me playing my version of Doxy in the "Songs" section of the forum.

[grahambop]

Excellent playing, sounds great. One thing I noticed is that Sonny leaves some quite big spaces between phrases, no doubt that comes more naturally on the sax because of the breathing.

I can see a good practice idea there, i.e. play a phrase and force yourself to wait a bar or two before the next one. It makes the phrases stand out and sound even better, definitely a lesson there for us guitarists!

[Question]

Hi Graham,

yes Sonny's phrasing is great and having to breathe is probably one reason for it; you need to find a resolution of a phrase before you run out of breath.

This is something that I have worked on for years; singing along with my lines.
I don't think that the amount of time between the phrases is the critical element, rather that the phrases make sense and have a clear start and end point.
You could practice as you described by leaving a bar or two between phrases, but probably just doing it intuitively would make more sense. To me your playing already has this, but we can always be better.

Also, the saxophone has a lot more tone-weight than a clean guitar so the saxophone has a clear advantage when playing simpler. This is why I like to sometimes play with distortion, to give the sound a little more meat and expressive potential.

I was most intrigued by his rhythmic ideas and where he places the beat. The straight eighth lines against the swing is really effective. (notated in my transcription)