How the rhythm section swings

[D.G.]

Tea for Two is another tune like Giant Steps that can really open up when the tempo is taken right back. The modulation from I to III and back (Eb to G in this recording) takes on a whole different hue:

Think I'm gonna fall into a coma

[D.G.]

On topic, I play for dancers quite a bit and I always figure if you have a drummer, the guitar can relax the death-grip on the 4-to-the-bar/le pompe thing. At least my drummer prefers it if I behave a bit more like a pianist. It also makes moving into solos a bit less traumatic if -- in a single guitar, no piano band -- if the guitar is not driving the beat all the time. It makes less of a hole when moving from rhythm to lead.

I've heard some bands with a single gypsy guitar playing le pompe, and when it comes time for the guitar to solo, it's like a gaping wound has opened up in the sound. I think this is one of the reasons that the gypsy standard is 2 guitars.

When I play a trio of vox/gtr/bass, I tend to "comp" more than play straight rhythm, though of course, it does depend on the needs of the tune.

[PMB]

Think I'm gonna fall into a coma

I'm not suggesting it as a dance tune at that tempo. However, the beauty of the common tone modulation really comes through in a way I'd never quite noticed before.

There's always this contrafact in 5/4 if you really want to play with dancers' heads (and feet!):

[shpalman]

On topic, I play for dancers quite a bit and I always figure if you have a drummer, the guitar can relax the death-grip on the 4-to-the-bar/le pompe thing. At least my drummer prefers it if I behave a bit more like a pianist. It also makes moving into solos a bit less traumatic if -- in a single guitar, no piano band -- if the guitar is not driving the beat all the time. It makes less of a hole when moving from rhythm to lead.

I've heard some bands with a single gypsy guitar playing le pompe, and when it comes time for the guitar to solo, it's like a gaping wound has opened up in the sound. I think this is one of the reasons that the gypsy standard is 2 guitars.

When I play a trio of vox/gtr/bass, I tend to "comp" more than play straight rhythm, though of course, it does depend on the needs of the tune.

My band is a lot more amateur and the drummer likes that I've arrived to help keep the beat together so that it doesn't all rest on him. But it's banjo, not guitar, and there's also a pianist already.

I was once dancing to a band which had two guitarists playing in the gypsy style (one of them actually built the guitars) but there was a volume imbalance between them for some reason, which was annoying when they took turns to solo.

[shpalman]

Yes I was there when Loggins said that to Coombe and the rest of us haha

I was there Gandalf, 16years ago

TBF I understood this to mean dancers are at the dance event to dance. Unless you really are screwing up, they will make the best of it, but it doesn’t mean you are playing the gig as well as you could be for them

Good bit of advice

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It may have been Artie Shaw who said it first: “If you wanna dance, a windshield wiper’ll do it-all you need is a beat.”

[garybaldy]

It may have been Artie Shaw who said it first: “If you wanna dance, a windshield wiper’ll do it-all you need is a beat.”

Reminded me of this. Including tractor breaks.

[Strat-itis]

I figured out that rhythm isn't just dividing time and beats, it's also fundamentally an oscillation. So you have to play your rhythms and phrases like that for it to swing, emphasizing up beats.

[shpalman]

I haven't played Airmail Special for a long time. Good one to revive.

Did I post this video here? Can't remember.

This video was actually really useful since I decided to transcribe the Jimmie Lunceford version of Tain't What You Do (the one which swing dancers use for the Shim Sham) for my band during the long weekend. I actually started on Thursday during my lunch break so I was doing it entirely by ear without an instrument to figure stuff out on, which is good training. Interesting though that you play it in Bb when the Jimmie Lunceford version is in three different keys, not including that one. You're right that it's a satisfying progression.

I note though that the bass player does something a bit different with the walk down the first time through (bars 9 to 12) so that you end up with something like Eb, Eb7/Db, Ab/C, Eb/C, Ab/Bb, Eb/Ab, Fm7/Bb, Bb7 instead of Eb, Eb7/Db, Ab/C, Eb/Bb, Ab, Eb/G, Fm7, Bb7. Not that I want to say he messed it up, because it works as a line, but it sometimes Ab/Bb is just an Ab chord with the wrong bass note, and not some kind of Bb13 shell voicing.

[Christian Miller]

This video was actually really useful since I decided to transcribe the Jimmie Lunceford version of Tain't What You Do (the one which swing dancers use for the Shim Sham) for my band during the long weekend. I actually started on Thursday during my lunch break so I was doing it entirely by ear without an instrument to figure stuff out on, which is good training. Interesting though that you play it in Bb when the Jimmie Lunceford version is in three different keys, not including that one. You're right that it's a satisfying progression.

I note though that the bass player does something a bit different with the walk down the first time through (bars 9 to 12) so that you end up with something like Eb, Eb7/Db, Ab/C, Eb/C, Ab/Bb, Eb/Ab, Fm7/Bb, Bb7 instead of Eb, Eb7/Db, Ab/C, Eb/Bb, Ab, Eb/G, Fm7, Bb7. Not that I want to say he messed it up, because it works as a line, but it sometimes Ab/Bb is just an Ab chord with the wrong bass note, and not some kind of Bb13 shell voicing.

Nice work. I put it in Bb for comparison with other variants

Another song that uses this idea of Straighten up and Fly Right. The blowing is on a more standard rhythm A which is why I think of it as a rhythm changes variant.


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[shpalman]

It also makes sense what you say, that with this kind of progression you can basically just play in the tonic major blues scale the whole way through, because the changes don't really ever do anything non-diatonic, for the flattened-seventh mode they're in.

[Christian Miller]

It also makes sense what you say, that with this kind of progression you can basically just play in the tonic major blues scale the whole way through, because the changes don't really ever do anything non-diatonic, for the flattened-seventh mode they're in.

Tbf that’s true of most things of that era

You don’t need to express any secondary dominants even… then lean into the changes on the bridge

And tonic major chords are major 6 or even just major. Meaning the seventh is up for grabs.

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