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I have a vague feeling I may have asked this question many years ago somewhere (maybe on a sax forum?), but there's always been something special about this little solo, deceptively simple in one sense, and highly sophisticated in another. Not to mention how it's also just so darn drop dead cool
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But here's the thing, we all know it's just: I maj7 - IV maj7, fine. But If any of us blow over these 2 chords, I highly doubt your choice of weapons for the IVmaj7 would be from the world of iv min7 ! Yes, I know some of you are probably thinking "so what's so unusual about forcing F blues over Fmaj7", but It just isn''t that at all (please listen to the solo at the end to remind yourselves). It's almost as though Ronnie Ross was told the 2nd chord is Fm7, and the guitar was down in his headphones or something! OK I think that's highly improbable, but boy, what a great call, what a sound!
So, was this ever a "thing", or was it a one off? I can't say I've heard another solo quite like it, not even from R.R. but I'd love to know if he stole the idea from somewhere. Oh, while you're checking it out, just remember that this song is now 50 years old! And how's the sound of that bari !! I can never understand sax players falling over themselves to get to the tenors and altos, but no love for the bari ? WTF?? It's to die for... And yeah, one of the coolest songs ever, from probably the coolest songwriter that ever lived. RIP Lou.Last edited by princeplanet; 02-28-2023 at 10:06 AM.
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02-28-2023 09:16 AM
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yes it’s a totally killer solo !
Ive never sat down to transcribe it
I might do that tonight tho !
sounds like Ronni is thinking
||: C | Fm. G7alt. :||
(but maybe without much G7alt)
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Interesting theory, other other thoughts out there?
Originally Posted by pingu
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That solo knocked me out too when I first heard it. I even remember that I was in my friend's house, and we were listening to the Velvet Underground Banana album, which he inherited from his brother who OD'd in the basement.
It's a few things:
The great timbre that RR had against the bass and guitar ostinato in tenths. When have you ever heard that before?
A Bari sax against electric bass and guitar in tenths!
The great bluesy feeling RR played with that at the same time sounded playful. It was like a guy playing out on the city streets'.
The fact that he was subbing Ab against the A natural in the bass ostinato and the polyrhythms he was using gave it a hip dissonance created that hip bluesy sound that you could even say represented the Warhol scene back then.
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A long-time favourite solo and song. Great to hear it again. The only problem with the solo is its length - should have been five-minutes long. Is there a cooler song in the universe?
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It strikes me that he's hearing it as a backdoor cadence. At any rate, Ronnie's solo indicates how all the dominant-related subs (Db7, Dm7, Dm7b5, Fm7, G7, Abm7, Bb7, Bm7b5 etc.) can be mixed freely and lead back to I (C).
Here's a bit of RR in action (2'25"):
... and a snippet from David Bowie on how Ronnie came to be on the WOTWS session:
Anecdotage
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I didn't think RR was LR's choice. Even though I had no idea Bowie was LR's producer, I knew Reed wasn't hip enough to choose RR, but I knew Bowie studied sax with RR. Originally Posted by PMB
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You left out my favourite - Fm7b5 Originally Posted by PMB
, but at any rate, these are all subs for a V chord whereas we are talking about a IV chord, hence my curiosity. I suppose there isn't much discussion about subbing for a IV chord in jazz in this way because you seldom see the IV appear in most jazz tunes the way it does here, which is more from the pop/rock tradition...? Nice RR clip btw, strikes me as very much coming from the "cool" school...
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Yeah, wouldn't it be great if they found the original take, and it went for 5 minutes after the (executive?) Producer called for the fade out? I'd kill to hear that! Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
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Well, I wouldn't dare say that Lou wasn't hip enough about anything, well not to his face anyway! Originally Posted by sgcim
But I know what you mean, and come to think of it there were a lot of pretty unhip choices he made in his career (didn't he once play a headless guitar?)...
Mind you, he picked his guitar players wisely - guys like Steve Hunter, Dick Wagner, Robert Quine etc so he wasn't entirely clueless musically, but no way could he have thought to use Herbie Flowers or Ronnie Ross on that date. Kudos to Bowie though, now there was a hip dude!Last edited by princeplanet; 03-07-2023 at 12:33 AM.
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Maybe I’m too theoretically ignorant, but I was able to transcribe it in comfortably in my F blues zone.
The real question is how does the upright bass slide up and down at the same time.
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I'm just not convinced he was thinking F blues... oh, Herbie Flowers played acoustic and electric bass overdubs, and got twice the pay rate for the date, apparently. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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Pretty common to hear Fmaj7/G as a pedal intro for jazz tunes and I think of that as a subdominant/dominant mashup. Many players treat ii and V as pretty much interchangeable as they do ii and IV so the line between IV and V can be pretty thin... Originally Posted by princeplanet
You left out my favourite - Fm7b5, but at any rate, these are all subs for a V chord whereas we are talking about a IV chord, hence my curiosity. I suppose there isn't much discussion about subbing for a IV chord in jazz in this way because you seldom see the IV appear in most jazz tunes the way it does here, which is more from the pop/rock tradition...? Nice RR clip btw, strikes me as very much coming from the "cool" school...
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No, I can hear that as well. As for the slides, Herbie Flowers played both upright and electric bass on the session and from memory, got double the usual session rate. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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He's switching back and forth major and minor, but doing it deceptively with ghost/grace fades... most sound like he plays a bold major line, then "echos" it minor but the minor note(s) come faint or fast faded. He definitely gets it that music is an illusion; he's not just playing the sax, he's playing with your musical mind.
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Hmm, you make a fair point there. But still seems stretch, like a sub of a sub?... Originally Posted by PMB
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Here's a nice video where Herbie explains how he doubles his intro part on electric bass a 10th up from his upright part. Wild side indeed.
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Yeah, I gotta agree with the last sentence in this - The dual bass part is such an important part of the song's enduring success, and surely worth more than the 24 pounds he was paid for it! Originally Posted by Flat
Here's a nice video where Herbie explains how he doubles his intro part on electric bass a 10th up from his upright part. Wild side indeed.
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If you read Vic Flick's autobiography, he talks about the corruption of the British studio scene and musician's union going back to the 50s. Originally Posted by princeplanet
He goes after everyone, even sacred cows like George Martin and especially John Barry.
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