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New Lesson - 44 bars of Jump Blues!


Mark Wein

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Posted

So I figured I would shoot out a sample of whats going in the "Practice Diary" today. For those of you seeing this stuff for the first time a whole explanation can be found here: http://markweinguitarlessons.com/for...draiser-thread!

This is from a rehearsal of the instrumental "Jack's Jump" from 11-27-12. I've isolated my solo, transcribed it and made mp3's at a couple of slower speeds. One thing that I've been trying to do is to record the rehearsals and if there is anything I dig transcribe it so that I remember what I like.

This song is one of two instrumentals on the album and really the only swing or shuffle-type feel on the whole thing...kind of an anomaly but I really love playing it so we're gonna record it.

The chord progression is in an AABA form - two times through the "A" section, a bridge "(the "B") and then one more time through the "A". A pretty classic format for jazz.

As far as my approach with soloing over this, I'm not really thinking scales as much as chord tones and embellishments...more of a jazz than a blues or rock aesthetic. On some of the more "blues" tunes I spend more time playing pentatonic and blues scale based ideas in my solos but that just doesn't sound as cool to me as this. Each lick has a large number of notes in the chord that I'm playing over that define the harmony as much as make a melody. I learned this when I was in college trying to play Charlie Parker Bebop tunes. One of my teachers really pushed the USC "Zone System" on me with arpeggiation, chromaticism and alterations included and it was a big eye opener.

The "A" section is a 12 bar blues but since we're playing it more in a swing style I've replaced the V and IV chords in bars 9 and 10 with a ii and V. You can see that in the chords written above the notation.

The "B" section is sort of like the kid of bridge you'd find in the "Rhythm Changes" style but I have two bars of the IV chord, two bars of the I chord, two bars of the I chord and then a bar of the II7 chord and a bar of the V chord with a little altered twist.

One note on the "altered" V chord. In the notation I wrote it as a D7#5 but I'm actually playing a D# augmented triad. over the D7 that triad gives you the #9, 6 and 4. Not sure what I was thinking when I played that but it seems to have worked, and one of the reasons why I'm documenting the whole process. Happy accidents are some of my favorite bits sometimes.

The image below is only the first of three pages. Click here for a PDF for the entire three page lesson.

jjsolo1.png


Full Speed: http://soundcloud.com/mark-wein/jack...rsal-solo-full

Three Quarter Speed: http://soundcloud.com/mark-wein/jack...rehearsal-solo

Half Speed: http://soundcloud.com/mark-wein/jack...rsal-solo-half

Posted
Quote Originally Posted by jonfinn View Post
Awesome! Great sound and feel!

Thanks Jon!

I'm kinda new to the Jump blues thing so I'm not super-authentic if you are a Hollywood Fats or Junior Watson fan but I love the swing feel and getting away from scalar blues playing...it's like I've rediscovered something I love in a new light. This is the only tune with this feel on the album though...the rest of the tunes are more latin, funk and second line-type feels....a blues album without a proper shuffle even tongue.gif

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