Midnight Blue---Kenny Burrell

**Little Jay** · 06-15-2011, 02:46 PM

Hey I see now that I wrote the B-part as

|Ab9 | Gb9 | F9 |Bb9 |etc

While the All New Real Book and the other people here say:

|Gm7b5 |C7 |Fm7 |Bb9 |etc

Hmm... I'll have to listen again..... don't know what I was thinking there....

**sgcustom61** · 07-09-2011, 04:26 PM

best one I ever saw was from guitar pro5 or something like that..and I used to know/play it all the time...now I've been looking all afternoon for the file, and thanks to the posts here, I've sounded it out and musckle memoried it back into smooth - thanks again, if I can contribute I certainly will!

Jeffreo

**funnyval** · 07-10-2011, 04:05 PM

Pretty good job from The All-Jazz Real Book. But I'm still going with C F Eb instead of F Bb Eb in the last half of measure 8 in Section A.

What the bassist does over the Gm7b5 is very interesting. He often plays Eb on beat 2, and at one points plays G Eb G Eb for the measure giving a Eb9 first inversion flavor.

**lee hammon** · 07-29-2012, 02:34 AM

I'm quite a novice at jazz guitar, but I'm very grateful to Little Jay and funnyval for their transcriptions of Midnight Blue by Kenny Burrell! I intend to share them with my guitar instructor ASAP!

Thanks!
Lee Hammon

**Little Jay** · 07-29-2012, 01:14 PM

You're welcome Lee!
Have fun with it!

**Koollou** · 10-30-2012, 02:40 PM

Hi Guys, just signed up and wanted to say hello. I am from Boston, and play
in a Rockabilly Band but I want to get back into Jazz. Looking forward to
checking out your post. Working on Midnight Blue, doing ok but need some
help with the solo. Koollou

**Little Jay** · 11-01-2012, 11:03 AM

Welcom to the forum man! It's a nice solo to study, you'll learn plenty of it. Any questions can always be asked here! ;-)

**stratdenice** · 12-16-2012, 08:21 AM

Hi ! I love this tune too. Anyone knows where I could find the WHOLE solo by Burrell ? Thanks!

**Yoghurt** · 12-16-2012, 06:18 PM

found this online, didn't test is fully but most of it is right. Midnight Blue Tab by Kenny Burrell | Songsterr Tabs with Rhythm

**elderdawg** · 03-09-2013, 07:14 PM

New here, howdy. Played fingerstyle folk/blues most of my life, but when I got into my 50's started playing electric blues. And now falling in love with the warm sounds of bluesy jazz. Anyone know what amp KB was using in the recording of Midnight Blue.

thanks

**Eddie Lang** · 03-09-2013, 07:32 PM

Originally Posted by elderdawg

New here, howdy. Played fingerstyle folk/blues most of my life, but when I got into my 50's started playing electric blues. And now falling in love with the warm sounds of bluesy jazz. Anyone know what amp KB was using in the recording of Midnight Blue.

thanks

Welcome!

Rumors say that KB was playing through Tweed Deluxe that belonged to Rudy Van Gelder, Alfred Lion or to the studio where they recorded. At the time KB's guitar would have had a single coil pup. He is known to have played guitars with a P-90, a DeArmond Rhythm Chief or a CC pickup during that period.

**TSP** · 03-09-2013, 08:13 PM

Kenny was also using a Gibson 175 with P90s during this time.

**Eddie Lang** · 03-09-2013, 09:26 PM

I know he played the following at some point:

ES-175 with a P-90
L-5 with a CC
D'Angelico New Yorker with a DeArmond
Epiphone Emperor with a DeArmond
Super 400 (with humbuckers, I think)

I have this old video (Club Date). On one of the songs, All Blues, he starts the song with an acoustic flat top and finishes it on an archtop.

He has probably played a Heritage at some point. I think that he had a contract with them.

He may have played other guitars but I don't know which ones.

**elderdawg** · 03-10-2013, 04:36 PM

I guess the big question is "flats or rounds"? Or did they even have flats back when?

**setemupjoe** · 03-10-2013, 09:39 PM

Originally Posted by elderdawg

I guess the big question is "flats or rounds"? Or did they even have flats back when?

Midnight Blue was recorded in 1963. Flatwound strings go back to at least 1940, produced by LaBella who state they had "perfected the art of manufacturing flat wound strings." Also Gibson had catalogs dating back to 1930 that offered "hand polished strings to reduce 'swish.'" Swish referring to the string noise associated with sliding your finger over the string. The hand polishing was a way of making the round wound string more of a flat wound before the later use of ribbon wound which we use today.

**Eddie Lang** · 03-10-2013, 10:49 PM

Originally Posted by setemupjoe

Midnight Blue was recorded in 1963. Flatwound strings go back to at least 1940, produced by LaBella who state they had "perfected the art of manufacturing flat wound strings." Also Gibson had catalogs dating back to 1930 that offered "hand polished strings to reduce 'swish.'" Swish referring to the string noise associated with sliding your finger over the string. The hand polishing was a way of making the round wound string more of a flat wound before the later use of ribbon wound which we use today.

Yep! And when they weren't hand polished at the factory, some brands sold the strings with what was needed to do it yourself.

Here is a few pics of the Mapes strings that came in the case of my 1953 L-4C. (The strings are unused and still in the envelopes.)

Midnight Blue---Kenny Burrell-g6018_case08-jpg

Midnight Blue---Kenny Burrell-g6018_case08-jpg

Midnight Blue---Kenny Burrell-g6018_case09-jpg

Midnight Blue---Kenny Burrell-g6018_case10-jpg

**setemupjoe** · 03-11-2013, 01:49 AM

Wow, very cool photos. I've never seen that before. Thanks for posting that. I love the SEPAM cloth, which looks just like regular sandpaper and is the name of the company spelled backward. Hilarious.

**monkmiles** · 09-08-2013, 05:01 PM

Been working on this tune, thanks to those who shared sheets. I also found it for the iRealBook mobile app. That and the Sher All Jazz realbook versions both are good.

**AlsoRan** · 04-17-2017, 06:30 PM

If anyone still has the leadsheet for this that they can share, I am interested and could not open those that were posted. I have so many minor blues licks in my head and this song would be a great vehicle for my Minor Blues improvisation studies.

Thanks in advance.

**AlsoRan** · 04-17-2017, 07:07 PM

I found some nice resources for those of you that are interested in this song. The first is a lesson in the head, and the second has actual video transcription. So simple yet so damn effective (IMHO!).

and here is one person's interpretation:

**BFrench** · 04-17-2017, 09:58 PM

Ha crazy AlsoRan, I was just going to post the James Scott video and saw your post. James also has a really good two-part video on Autumn Leaves. I think he lives in Nashville and really into bluegrass stuff also. I've had him in my gplus musician circle for a few years.

**TSP** · 04-17-2017, 11:55 PM

**TSP** · 04-17-2017, 11:59 PM

Originally Posted by Eddie Lang

I know he played the following at some point:

ES-175 with a P-90
L-5 with a CC
D'Angelico New Yorker with a DeArmond
Epiphone Emperor with a DeArmond
Super 400 (with humbuckers, I think)

I have this old video (Club Date). On one of the songs, All Blues, he starts the song with an acoustic flat top and finishes it on an archtop.

He has probably played a Heritage at some point. I think that he had a contract with them.

He may have played other guitars but I don't know which ones.

Yes he played a custom made Heritage Super Kenny Burrell (similar to a Super 400) and others. You can still find them on the market here and there. They are fabulous. He was a Heritage endorsement artist for a period, then went back to his Gibson Super 400. Heritage also makes a Kenny Burrell Groove Master which is another sweet guitar that he helped design.

**TSP** · 04-18-2017, 12:07 AM

The Heritage Super KB:

**MarkRhodes** · 04-18-2017, 10:07 AM

Originally Posted by BFrench

Ha crazy AlsoRan, I was just going to post the James Scott video and saw your post. James also has a really good two-part video on Autumn Leaves. I think he lives in Nashville and really into bluegrass stuff also. I've had him in my gplus musician circle for a few years.

I believe James Scott also has a video lesson on "Flying Home", complete with Charlie Christian solo.