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Our pick this week is courtesy of christianm77.
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03-25-2021 02:44 PM
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Never heard of it - curious!
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YES!!! I LOVE THIS TUNE!!!
Some of my fav's:
my dad is a doctor, and used to work for NYU Downstate (?)--the hospital right next to ground zero in Manhattan.
So this tune has a lot of meaning for me!
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A version I did a short while back, just a short taste.
More forthcoming.
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A guitar version by Doug Raney:
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Kenny Burrell!
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Sounds great Christian.
I wanted to take an early crack at it, as Spring "Break" starts tomorrow for me...which means a whole lot of not playing crap i gotta do.
I find this tune tricky.
Oh, for my "smartass" tune name, a shout out to my doc David Levy over at AFMG. Good guy, good doctor.
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Nice little tip for anyone struggling with that ‘Dbo7’ chord; an A triad sounds great there
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Oh, that one. Ridiculous name. Still, a tune's a tune...
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Originally Posted by ragman1
Strayhorn suffered from poor health and the tune was a tribute to his doctor (who worked for the UMMG and was introduced to him by Ellington).
It is also quite poignant given that only a few years later, Strayhorn was dying of cancer, and titled his final composition ‘Blood Count’ to reflect his circumstances.
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I felt like I needed to play some of my other guitars, so here's my Ibanez semi-hollow.
Billy Strayhorn was such a great composer and arranger!
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Originally Posted by Ronstuff
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Christian, great call and cool duo playing. Nice self-comping.
Jeff, whole lotta soul in that take! Great vibe, I guess spring break is in the air. I also teach (music elementary level), we had our march break two weeks ago already. My project that week was to record all the tunes on the "Speak no Evil"and "Juju" albums with my bass player buddy. Quite the challenge to say the least...
I love that Doug Raney version, such a great player. Sound, groove, vocabulary. He had alot going for him.
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Originally Posted by mr. beaumontOriginally Posted by Ronstuff
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It's weird. There's no way round it :-)
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Originally Posted by ragman1
As far as the tune goes, these changes don't speak to me.
I don't get the ii V in bars 7 and 8; I can't hear it as leading back to Fm7b5. Instead of sounding interesting it just sounds wrong.
And, the bridge is odd. iim7b5 V7b9 leading to Imaj is a somewhat common move, I guess, but then going up a half step, resolving to the Im followed by what I guess is a tritone of the V7 ... leading to Fm7b5. Again, I don't hear it.
Maybe a lot more repetition and I could hear it, but I probably won't do that. I got through my clip by focusing on ii Vs and playing mostly chord tones on the chords that I couldn't really comprehend. Not art, but not clam chowder either.
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Originally Posted by christianm77
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Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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I didn’t realize what this thread was exactly about from the title, I thought maybe sharing acapella clips and adding to them. I received an email today from JGO and it explained what’s going on and I thought this idea was really cool! I’m not sure if a previous email was sent but glad this one came through. I’d like to participate. I have the house mostly to myself since my wife is going to see a college with oldest daughter. I’ll give this tune a shot but would like to know. Are we able to post to the previous threads to catch up or is it dead once the week is up? I was looking to post Dolphin Dance, Nica’s Dream and Beatrice those are tunes I’m currently working on and this would be a great vehicle to get feedback.
thanks
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Yes, post on any of the previous threads as well!
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rpjazzguitar -
I don't get the ii V in bars 7 and 8; I can't hear it as leading back to Fm7b5.
Put it down half a tone, if you will, just for clarity. That's
Cm - F7 - Em7b5 - A7b9
One's a ii-V in Bb, the other's a ii-V in Dm. No connection. In fact, it's a modulation into another key.
(If you're interested, I played the Dbm as Dbm and the Gb7 as Gb7b9 which might be said to prepare the ear for the Bb7b9 later. Possibly).
iim7b5 V7b9 leading to Imaj is a somewhat common move
but then going up a half step
followed by what I guess is a tritone of the V7
Then you've got the Ab7 before the Fm7b5. There's nothing there either, it's just the way it's written.
chords that I couldn't really comprehend
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Originally Posted by ragman1
My usual approach to a tune I can't comprehend is to play the chords repeatedly while thinking about the melody. Eventually, the repetition seems to create a new template for harmony and the tune starts to sound "right". That happened really well with Dolphin Dance (and is typical with tunes by Wayne Shorter or Toninho Horta). I didn't get to that point with UMMG.
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The a section of this tune is basically a turnaround in Db with an overshoot to the IV7 (Gb7)
3-6-2-5-1-4 but with that Dbo7 adding a bit of colour
then it goes to F and Gbm in the bridge.
the Ab7 at the end of B would normally go to Db, but the 3 subs in for 1.
then it sits on that Db-Dbo7 at the end.
It’s all pretty commonplace harmony really apart from that colourful Dbo7. If you can deal with Nica’s Dream this is all fairly straightforward stuff.
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[QUOTE=chris
It’s all pretty commonplace harmony really apart from that colourful Dbo7. If you can deal with Nica’s Dream this is all fairly straightforward stuff.[/QUOTE]
Parts of it sound commonplace to me, but significant parts don't.
Dbmaj to Dbm7 is a common enough change, but the way it's used here in bar 7 sounds unusual.
Bar 8 is Gb7 and it goes to Fm7b5. Also unusual.
The second half of the bridge is Abm7b5, Db7b9, Gbm, Ab7 then to Fm7b5 for the last A section
The iiim of Db is Fm7, not Fm7b5. It looks similar in print, but sounds quite different.
So, there's an ordinary ii V i in Gbminor followed by a II7, in turn followed by a variant of 3625 (3 and 6 are m7b5 7b9, but 2 and 5 are m7 V7) in Db.
The false cadence to Dbo7 is familiar -- I can think of other tunes that do that. But, several of these transitions don't sound common to me.
The harmony feels like it's interrupted in flow with sort of jarring key changes.
My point is not to second guess Mr. Strayhorn, but, rather, to point out that this is the kind of tune that takes time to get in your ears.
I find Nica's Dream much easier to hear, flow-wise. But, then again, I've played it much more often.
An interview with Henry Robinett
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