A transcription of Max Roach’s trades and drum solo on Jordu from the 1954 record Clifford Brown & Max Roach:
Category: Transcriptions
Breath of the Wild – Rito Village (Day)
A transcription of the Rito Village day theme from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild soundtrack. The arrangement of this is beautiful and displays an absolute mastery of timbre and feel. Each instrument is distinctly evocative; post-jazz Bill Evans sounding piano, steel string folk guitar, Studio Ghibli-esque strings, wistful clarinet. and hammered dulcimer. But they all fit together and compliment each other perfectly.
The Singers Unlimited – Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair
A transcription of Gene Puerling’s arrangement of “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair”, as performed by The Singers Unlimited on their 1980 record A Capella III. One of my favorite parts of this arrangement is the use of the bIII6/9sus chord as a sub for minor iv in measures 11 and 23. It has the striking feel of the bIII chromatic mediant, the big open sound of a sus chord, and the functional pull of the minor iv because they share most of the same notes.
Some of the harmony is a bit easier to hear using the Sibelius playback:
Wayne Shorter – This is for Albert Horns Voicing Transcription
A transcription of the head and shout chorus of Wayne Shorter’s tune “This is for Albert” from the record Caravan by Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers:
The horn voicing on this tune is great. Really good examples of triadic and spread voicings for jazz sextet. For more information, check out my post Five Ways to Voice Horns For Small Group Jazz.
Steve Gadd Drum Solo on “Samba Song”
A transcription of Steve Gadd’s drum solo on Samba Song from the 1978 Chick Corea record Friends:
This is a prime example of how note density and orchestration can be used to provide shape in a drum solo. It can be roughly divided into four- and eight-bar sections, the first of which contains very sparse rhythms orchestrated between the snare and cowbell. New pieces of the kit are introduced and explored one by one, starting with the hi-hat, followed by the bass drum, toms, and eventually cymbals.
Each section layers on more rhythmic density and complexity. Mm. 1-17 move from separated notes and figures to long streams on 16th note paradiddle patterns. Mm. 20-24 features a highly syncopated pattern of off-beat 16th note accents. 32nd notes are introduced at m.29 in the form of a hemiola pattern of alternating 16ths and 32nds. This is followed by an unrelenting stream of sextuplets at m.33 (mathematically slower than the 32nd notes, but they are played continuously rather than broken up). Finally, at m.37, there is a rhythmic simplification back to 16th notes to close out the solo.
Note: I notated mm.29-32 with flams instead of 32nd notes to emphasize the swiss army triplet nature of the figure. It sounds like straight 32nd notes when played by Gadd.
Milt Jackson Vibe Solo on “Blues in C Minor”
Partial transcription of Milt Jackson’s vibe solo on the Modern Jazz Quartet tune “Blues in C Minor”.
Really great minor blues vocabulary here. He had some incredibly hip ways of bending the time within phrases that made it difficult to notate the exact rhythms. Definitely check out the recording to catch the laid-back rubato-esque feel.