Blue Bossa Challenge-with Video

[Question]

I wrote this transcription for myself and decided to post it here for anyone who is up for a challenge.

This is a the original version with Joe Henderson and Blue Bossa composer Kenny Dorham.

I edited together the head, then the backgrounds behind the bass solo then the head at the end. You can download my edited audio track here if you wish to give it a try: www.edwardharris.de/JGO/Bluebossa.zip
The track is panned mostly left and the guitar mostly right in case you want to hear one or the other louder.

Blue Bossa (which is not really a bossa) is one of those tunes that most everyone learned wrong from the real book, and has heard it being butchered by so many bands over the decades.

If you listen to the original, it is actually a very hip tune (like The Girl from Impanema, which has also been butchered too often).

The goal is to play it as close as possible to the original. Don't be deceived into thinking that this is easy.

This challenge is not about "making it your own" or "taking liberties"; this is a pedantic exercise to really get control of note length, time, phrasing and accuracy. Sort of "walk a mile in his mouthpiece".

I notated all of the articulations and note lengths as well as I could. If you are new to articulation notation; a dot above or below a note means short, a line above or below means hold for its full notated value; a curved line up to a note means play a grace note.

The note lengths are not arbitrary, if there is a half note tied to an eighth, play and cut off the note on the "and of three". Horn players are typically much better at this than guitarists partly due to the fact that a wind instrument can sustain a note at the same dynamic, which makes it more obvious exactly how long that note is. Also, they are often playing together in sections where this is critical to sound together.
Anyone who has been yelled at by the lead trumpet or lead alto player for not phrasing together with them knows what I am talking about!

I am playing it in the octave below Kenny Dorham; Henderson plays it in the lower octave but leaves Kenny a few times and plays a harmony.

I have found that really learning to play simpler things accurately has had more long term benefits than playing more complex things poorly. I will include my transcription.

[AllanAllen]

This is not about "making it your own" or "taking liberties"; this is a pedantic exercise to really get control of note length, time, phrasing and accuracy. Sort of "walk a mile in his mouthpiece.

I have found that really learning to play simpler things accurately has had more long term benefits than playing more complex things poorly

Say it loud for the people in the back.

[kris]

I'm sorry to post this tune here but it has a lot in common with Blue Bossa: