Fresh Solar

[Bflat233]

I always have an eye out for good covers of Miles Davis' Solar where the guitar is featured. Just watched the live performance by Pat Metheny, Herbie Hancock, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette for the ... millionth time. Then I stumbled upon this one, uploaded just yesterday - a guitar duet. It's quite good. Inspirational.

If you know of others, do let me know.

[grahambop]

There’s the Scofield-Abercrombie one:

[grahambop]

Pat also did it with Dave Holland and Roy Haynes:

[Bflat233]

The Sco and Ambercrombie cut is new to me. Thanks! The Metheny-Holland-Haynes track is on my playlist - it's great.

I think my favorite of all was recorded by MB3 (the Mel Bay Trio) with Corey Christiansen, Jimmy Bruno and Vic Juris. Corey sent me the sheet music for the head from the session, which he arranged.

[ragman1]

I put them all on together. What a racket :-)

[grahambop]

It’s a great tune for just blowing on, practising 2-5s etc, I play it a lot. Solar is of course based on How High the Moon, hence the title, but it’s a bit more complicated than that...

It was really written by a guitarist, Chuck Wayne (not Miles Davis).

Here’s a fascinating blog about the origins of the tune, originally called Sonny (see what Miles did there?) and some audio of Chuck Wayne playing it:

Chuck Wayne, Sonny & Solar | In The Muse: Performing Arts Blog

[MartinoRomano]

from Marcin Wadolowski, one of my favorite European players

Check also his Standards album. Great guitar trio.

[grahambop]

Doug Raney:

[grahambop]

Joe Pass and J.J. Johnson.

[grahambop]

Joe Diorio.

[grahambop]

Lorne Lofsky.

[ragman1]

grahambop likes this tune :-)

It's quite tricky to play, getting the bars right. But it's very interesting to see what those skilled players do with the four 2-5-1's, chorus after chorus. Perhaps it ought to be standard listening, or rather, studying,

[ragman1]

https://blogs.loc.gov/music/2012/07/...e-sonny-solar/

Fascinating, comments especially. Worth it for the original soundclip alone.

Thanks, graham.

[grahambop]

grahambop likes this tune :-)

haha, I knew one or two but I did cheat a bit, there is a very useful search option in CDUniverse.com, you can search on a song title and it lists all the artists who have recorded it.

By the way here is a version recorded some years ago by a very obscure guitarist indeed:

[ragman1]

And so youthful!

According to CD Universe '770 artists have performed this song'. Of course, some of them just have 'solar' in the title. 'Solar Plexus Chakra Sleep Meditation' isn't quite the same thing :-)

Need to check out the names I recognise but haven't heard.

PS. Well played, not that easy.

[Bflat233]

By the way here is a version recorded some years ago by a very obscure guitarist indeed:

Very nice, so many ideas flowing ... thanks for sharing. Do you still play it? And how about Four, would love to hear your approach to it, as well.

[grahambop]

Thanks, yes I do play it quite often, there’s just something about the tune that I like.

I’ve messed about with Four, but probably need to work on that one a bit, maybe I’ll have a go at it!

Here’s one of my favourite guitar versions of Four, by the great Louis Stewart:

[ragman1]

I just did a Solar. It's not slick bebop but it's nice :-)

[ragman1]

That graham guy's an unsung hero, his version's better than a lot of famous pro's. Definitely

[grahambop]

Thank you ragman, you’re making me blush!

(p.s. the cheque is in the post!)

[Squeezebox]

Just wanted to say that I really like this thread and appreciate the ideas so far. Will check them out. I recently learned Solar and would like to transcribe some ideas. I really like the tune, it feels fairly short but a lot happens in that time.

[Squeezebox]

Oh, here is a guitar duo version by two Finnish jazzers, I think I even attended this concert.

[Bflat233]

Man, I am so glad I put this question out there! So much goodness ... I appreciate the covers that everyone has shared. And a major shout out to Grahambop and Ragman1 for posting their recordings.

[ragman1]

3rdwaverider -

Thank you for that. It's quite interesting because they're very different ways of playing the same tune. In fact, all the various versions are different in their own way. Miles didn't do much with it either, it's just fairly simple lines in his solo, not much bebop going on. Contrasted with, say, Joe Diorio who was all over the place!

But I did like your original version with the two guys.

[JazzVocab]

Joe Diorio.

I transcribed the intro to this a few years ago; love the freeness!