BOTM BOTM JAN 2019 - Goodbye Pork Pie Hat

[rhysonsax]

I just tend to use a Blues

I just use a Blues Scale, I do go off at a bit of a tangent though. Would be interesting to see a transcription of the original, John Handy I believe, who is better known for his Alto playing

Curtis Swift has done a transcription of John Handy's solo - you can get it for $1 from John Handy Goodbye Pork Pie Hat | Saxsolos

Rhys

 

[aldevis]

Sorry for being dim, but I don't understand.

I am guessing that "(written half tempo, by the way)" means that the 24 bars in this post correspond to the 12 bars in the version of the melody that I have - so in my 12-bar version there will be 4 chord changes per bar.

Not sure of which version you use, I have been confusing.
I seem to remember some versions in which the melody covers 24 bars. The RB covers 12, and this chart has the same pace

The issue is that the tune can be written in 4/4, 12/8 or 6/8
I consider it 4/4 with a 12/8 feel. Like the blues

What key is this in? Looks like F minor, but then I would expect 4 flats.

May be an old mistake.
The tune is in "F blues" (I also think it is a transposed part) It is marked as the key of F
The first chord of the melody (same as RB) is F7, then it goes Fm7 at the start of the solo.
Melody is not transcribed for copyright reasons
Nowadays I would probably write F7(b10) on both head and solos, but 15 years ago I was more pragmatic

If you listen to the 1959 version following the chords is much simpler than me trying to remember what I meant in my debatable youth

 

[aldevis]

What key is this in? Looks like F minor, but then I would expect 4 flats.

Indeed
RB is wrong about the first chord, that sounds really minor to me, rather than b10
4 flats all the way

 

[Veggie Dave]

That part isn't easy, I give you that. I guess the key is to listen carefully and try to mimic. Or get calipers!

You may find the fingers flow better when playing it in Ebm (concert).

And then again, perhaps not. 😉

 

[saxyjt]

You may find the fingers flow better when playing it in Ebm (concert).

And then again, perhaps not. 😉

You mean for alto!

 

[rhysonsax]

Anyone want to do a vocal version - @Colin the Bear perhaps ?

If you look closely you can see one version of the changes on a lead sheet.

Rhys

 

[aldevis]

You mean for alto!

Indeed

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN4o-jsPKl0

 

[Keep Blowing]

Anyone want to do a vocal version - @Colin the Bear perhaps ?

If you look closely you can see one version of the changes on a lead sheet.

Rhys

That's a great idea, and maybe @Halfers would also like to do a vocal version, I do prefer these Roland Kirk lyrics to the ones by Joni Mitchell

Anyone want to do a vocal version - @Colin the Bear perhaps ?

If you look closely you can see one version of the changes on a lead sheet.

Rhys

 

[Keep Blowing]

Indeed

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN4o-jsPKl0

As brilliant as this is and I could only dream of having a fraction of this guys mastery, it just doesn't do it for me, (in the words of well known member its a bit cut and paste) reminds of Joe Bonamassa, fortunately we are all different. Here's a bit of Alto by Marion Brown that I love and I guess not many others will.

View: https://youtu.be/k_xcLF9qx2k

 

[Rob Pealing]

I am confused regarding the down load. When I extract the zip file I get a folder labelled concert Eb , when I look at the chart for the alto sax it is has 3 flats on the staff making it concert Gb/F#. Like wise the folder labelled concert F appears to give music for a concert Ab version.
What I have I missunderstood , am I being denser than usual?

 

[Keep Blowing]

I am confused regarding the down load. When I extract the zip file I get a folder labelled concert Eb , when I look at the chart for the alto sax it is has 3 flats on the staff making it concert Gb/F#. Like wise the folder labelled concert F appears to give music for a concert Ab version.
What I have I missunderstood , am I being denser than usual?

Hopefully one of the many knowledgeable members will help you out, unfortunately I am not one of them.

 

[aldevis]

I am confused regarding the down load. When I extract the zip file I get a folder labelled concert Eb , when I look at the chart for the alto sax it is has 3 flats on the staff making it concert Gb/F#. Like wise the folder labelled concert F appears to give music for a concert Ab version.
What I have I missunderstood , am I being denser than usual?

I guess it's Ebminor (6flats) resulting C minor for alto sax (3flats)
Same as Fminor/Dminor for alto

 

[nigeld]

I am confused regarding the down load. When I extract the zip file I get a folder labelled concert Eb , when I look at the chart for the alto sax it is has 3 flats on the staff making it concert Gb/F#. Like wise the folder labelled concert F appears to give music for a concert Ab version.
What I have I missunderstood , am I being denser than usual?

I guess it's Ebminor (6flats) resulting C minor for alto sax (3flats)
Same as Fminor/Dminor for alto

Yes - the song is in a minor key, and the two versions are concert Eb-minor (6 flats) and concert F-minor (4 flats), which means C-minor (3 flats) and D-minor (1 flat) respectively for alto sax or F-minor (4flats)/ G minor (2 flats) for tenor sax.

I have renamed the folders "Concert Ebminor version" and "Concert Fminor version" to try to avoid further confusion.

 

[rhysonsax]

Interestingly (or not), the versions in the Charles Mingus "More than a Fake Book" and "More than a Play-Along", both published by Hal Leonard present it as Concert Eb Major, i.e. written with 3 flats with lots of accidental flats in the melody, even though the chords in the solo section strongly suggest Eb Minor and the song finishes on a Eb Minor chord. The chords behind the head include some Eb 7(#9), so bluesy (both minor and major thirds) rather than strongly minor or major.

Rhys

 

[nigeld]

I found the key and the chords very confusing when I was making the backing track.

The first chord in the melody part of the backing track is tonic major, but with flat 7 and #9 - so it contains both major and minor thirds, but with the minor third notated as a sharp second, and with the solo playing a written minor third. The chords in the next two bars are just plain strange, so I left them alone.

But if one looks just at the melody notes, they seem to me to be fairly clearly in the minor key - all thirds are minor, and the only accidentals are a blue note - written as a flat V, and the subtonic in the 6th and 7th bars of the melody - written, rather confusingly, as a flat tonic rather than a sharp subtonic.

 

[Colin the Bear]

Even stranger is the fact that Lester didn't even wear pork pie hat. It's a Gaucho or Bolero. The inconsistencies are growing. He wasn't from Leicester and wasn't Young. 😉

 

[nigeld]

Even stranger is the fact that Lester didn't even wear pork pie hat. It's a Gaucho or Bolero. The inconsistencies are growing. He wasn't from Leicester and wasn't Young. 😉

 

[aldevis]

Interestingly (or not), the versions in the Charles Mingus "More than a Fake Book" and "More than a Play-Along", both published by Hal Leonard present it as Concert Eb Major, i.e. written with 3 flats with lots of accidental flats in the melody,

That explains the key signature in the chart that I posted

I found the key and the chords very confusing when I was making the backing track.

That is the whole point of the tune. Being harmonically ambiguous and haunting.
The melody is basically a pentatonic, chords are all over the place.

Similar ambiguity is in Duke Ellington's Sound Of Love (and many other tunes) and it probably comes from Strayhorn

 

[Colin the Bear]

@nigeld Thanks for that. Much googling and reading on my part never turned up any thing like that. Now there's loads popping up. I just wasted an hour trying to convert a fedora. Not easy. Apparently Buster Keaton made his own too.

 

[Colin the Bear]

That is the whole point of the tune. Being harmonically ambiguous and haunting.
The melody is basically a pentatonic, chords are all over the place.

I thought it was me. I can't pick out the melody and the harmony seems to meander aimlessly to my ear. Take me an age to learn my way through it.