December 2017 - Oh, Lady Be Good!

**M-ster** · 11-29-2017, 06:20 PM

I usually try to start the new posts around noon-ish (my time) on the last day of the month. But, I'm in a class tomorrow, so I'm posting a bit earlier.

Our standard for Dec 2017 will be Oh, Lady Be Good! - by George & Ira Gershwin (1924).

Background:
Jazz Standards Songs and Instrumentals (Oh, Lady Be Good!)

Contrafacts:
Dewey Square - Charlie Parker
Fats Blows - Fats Navarro
Hackensack - Thelonius Monk
Rifftide - Coleman Hawkins

I'm even providing you a little holiday present. The zipped file contains some rough leadsheets of the various contrafacts:
http://www.noiseinthebasement.com/pdf/contrafacts.zip

See if that helps or provides motivation.

**kris** · 11-30-2017, 03:38 AM

Great standard.
Thanks
Kris
Thanks for Holiday present...

**kris** · 11-30-2017, 03:40 AM

There is short take made about 20 years ago...sorry my solo was cut...

**destinytot** · 12-06-2017, 07:14 PM

Warts and all (unprepared - worked out in real time):

**bluegreenguitar** · 12-07-2017, 01:49 PM

Lady Be Good is one of my favorite old-school standards - great lyrics, too! You can really swing on this song. I didn't realize that Dewey Square is a contrafact either.

**christianm77** · 12-08-2017, 09:58 AM

Arguably the most studied solo in jazz?

**christianm77** · 12-08-2017, 09:59 AM

'Sup Jordan?

**Gramps** · 12-08-2017, 08:26 PM

Originally Posted by christianm77

'Sup Jordan?

Damn! That Lester Young solo is humbling.

Thanks for posting it.

**jordanklemons** · 12-10-2017, 09:34 PM

Originally Posted by christianm77

'Sup Jordan?

This was a homework assignment from Scofield. One of the coolest things I ever saw was Sco blowing over a blues but intentionally bringing up ideas from this solo at every turn... just morphing them to fit the 12 bar form. But quoting so many different parts of it... fluidly... like they were just part of his own lines. So sick.

**pushkar000** · 12-11-2017, 04:23 AM

Originally Posted by jordanklemons

This was a homework assignment from Scofield. One of the coolest things I ever saw was Sco blowing over a blues but intentionally bringing up ideas from this solo at every turn... just morphing them to fit the 12 bar form. But quoting so many different parts of it... fluidly... like they were just part of his own lines. So sick.

Sco spoke about this in his NYU Steinhardt interview - when teaching, he once made an entire class(himself too) learn this solo. Were you in that class?

**jordanklemons** · 12-11-2017, 01:12 PM

Originally Posted by pushkar000

Sco spoke about this in his NYU Steinhardt interview - when teaching, he once made an entire class(himself too) learn this solo. Were you in that class?

Yep. I was in that class. In fact I was in the inaugural semester of that class. It was pretty wild. It was labelled as an "improv" class, so not all guitar players. There was I think like 6 or 8 of us, and only a couple guitar players in there.

I got to spend a year with him. Took that class, played with him in his ensemble, and got a small amount of one-on-one time with him. The guy interviewing him, Dr. Schroeder, is the head of the program. Amazing cat. Doing amazing thing for the NYC scene, its players, and the students here. He's really turned NYU into (I think) one of the heaviest guitar schools in the world. John Scofield, Peter Bernstein, Adam Rogers, Brad Shepik, Wayne Krantz, Randy Johnston, Bruce Arnold... not to mention all the insane non-guitar players teaching there that we could study privately and play with... plus all the other guys they brought in for masterclasses.

**christianm77** · 12-11-2017, 05:58 PM

Originally Posted by jordanklemons

This was a homework assignment from Scofield. One of the coolest things I ever saw was Sco blowing over a blues but intentionally bringing up ideas from this solo at every turn... just morphing them to fit the 12 bar form. But quoting so many different parts of it... fluidly... like they were just part of his own lines. So sick.

I know Sco chose this solo for a class, so is familiar with it.

In London live many who think that checking out old jazz like this is irrelevant to becoming 'hip contemporary jazz guitarist.' It is likely I will encounter many in my teaching post next year :-)

I will use this as an example of why they are stupid.

It won't make any difference lol.

**christianm77** · 12-11-2017, 06:01 PM

Warne Marsh's warm up was to play one selected Lester Young solo in a random key.

**grahambop** · 12-11-2017, 06:16 PM

Originally Posted by christianm77

I know Sco chose this solo for a class, so is familiar with it.

In London live many who think that checking out old jazz like this is irrelevant to becoming 'hip contemporary jazz guitarist.' It is likely I will encounter many in my teaching post next year :-)

I will use this as an example of why they are stupid.

It won't make any difference lol.

I dig very much your teaching style. ‘You are all stupid and I’m going to prove it to you’.

**christianm77** · 12-11-2017, 06:19 PM

Originally Posted by grahambop

I dig very much your teaching style. ‘You are all stupid and I’m going to prove it to you’.

I'm thinking by starting out jaded and grumpy I will save myself the inevitable slide.

**christianm77** · 12-11-2017, 06:26 PM

Unless they are really good, in which case I shall use this as a trivial way of taking them down a peg to assuage my jealousy :-)

**christianm77** · 12-12-2017, 10:22 AM

Hey Jordan it’s interesting that Sco has only recently learned the solo himself and yet was able to quote freely from it in his lines making it sound totally natural.

**Vladan** · 12-12-2017, 10:36 AM

Originally Posted by christianm77

Hey Jordan it’s interesting that Sco has only recently learned the solo himself and yet was able to quote freely from it in his lines making it sound totally natural.

How can you possibly know at what time Sco learned that solo?

**christianm77** · 12-12-2017, 10:41 AM

Cos he said so

**Vladan** · 12-12-2017, 10:47 AM

When did he say so? It was not mentioned in this thread.

you probably mean this, at 15 45:

where you went from here:

Originally Posted by pushkar000

Sco spoke about this in his NYU Steinhardt interview - when teaching, he once made an entire class(himself too) learn this solo. Were you in that class?

?

**christianm77** · 12-12-2017, 12:36 PM

Yeah in the interview, but didn’t someone mention it above? Maybe I’m finally losing it.

**jordanklemons** · 12-12-2017, 04:13 PM

Originally Posted by christianm77

Yeah in the interview, but didn’t someone mention it above? Maybe I’m finally losing it.

I was in the inaugural class. I do remember seeing John reading off the page a couple of times early in the class... so I don't know if he had it entirely internalized yet or not. Maybe he did and just hadn't played it in a while and needed to remind himself of some fingering or something. Who knows?

But I gotta say... hope he won't mind me talking about him or for him... but if there was only one thing I took away from spending time hanging and playing with him... that dude practices like A BEAST! And he's a big advocate of encouraging other musicians to really hit the shed hard too. I know he seems like one of those guys that just has a super-unique voice and flows and must have just been a complete natural his entire life. But he hits the shed HARD.