Thanks for that, Winslow. A strikingly original and nervy way of framing that song--and a song we really need this holiday season. I'm amazed at the production, frankly. It's very postmodern in the way that it doesn't stay put in one place, harmonically and sonically speaking. Jazz knows how to deal with where we are. I will be replaying, and thinking about, this one for a good long while.
---------- https://www.amazon.com/Whose-Blues-Facing-Future-Music/dp/1469660369/
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Dec 24, 2021 6:47 AM
Favourite Xmas track: Silver Bells by Travis Tritt. Unfortunately no harmonica but great slide guitar, very little musical reference to christmas and some excellent false endings.
Wasn’t trying to be nervy, just wanted to explore different ways of treating this tune. The hardest part in framing this arrangement was setting up the metric transitions in tempo, time signature, and beat divisions. I wanted those to go smoothly, shifting gears so that the time feel didn’t suddenly jerk.
As to the postmodern thing, I’m really just following the template of head-solo-head, with the jazz idea of double timing in the solo section warped a bit. via a metric transition that involves a 3:2 ratio. And the form always follows the song form, though for the sake of blowing I did extend the A part for awhile before summing up with a final chorus before returning to the head. The cadenza idea, like so much in this treatment (and in my general approach), comes from Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s 1964 all-flute album I Talk with the Spirits, one of my favorite albums as a teenager.
Harp geekdom: The intro and outtro head sections were played in fourth position (E minor), on a Marine Band retrofitted with a Tom Halchak brass comb. The solo section was played on a Hohner 270 chromatic in B, in 12th position (E minor again) that was retuned from a Low E 12-hole chromatic so that the lowest note is F# (the fifth of the scale) instead of B, and with the blow notes tuned to a B Major6 chord by lowering the left-side double B to G# (yeah, that last bit is pretty geeky, but I think chromatic players will understand). I also sang some of the lines into the harp in a lower octave as I played them, mostly on blow notes.
"Hohner 270 chromatic in B, in 12th position (E minor again) that was retuned from a Low E 12-hole chromatic so that the lowest note is F# (the fifth of the scale) instead of B, and with the blow notes tuned to a B Major6 chord by lowering the left-side double B to G# "
So it's Orchestra tuned, with the Paddy Bebop tuning. Why didn't you just say so in the first place? Merry Xmas Professor.
