SOTM SOTM August 2021 - ""Rhythm Changes" (I Got Rhythm etc.)

Colin the Bear said:
Does Harold Arlen's "Lets fall in love" fall under this umberella?
The alto was trying play it when I was noodling, with out me being involved. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Could just be early onset...
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Well it looks like AABA in concert C with similar-ish changes in the A section but a different bridge to Rhythm Changes.

Rhys
 
I can sing the middle eight of either over both. Maybe too used to busking stuff and making it fit. Challenge accepted. I'll give it a go. Now then...circle of fifths...is that anything to do with 2 Pi r or PiD. (No pi on this phone. Just a bit of jam.) 😉
 
rhysonsax said:
I enjoyed both of those recordings a lot. You sound comfortable and fluent and the recording quality is pretty good.

I like that both your backing tracks have the little tag endings that the songs need - my backings didn't.

Your phrasing often appears in "two bar chunks" which I something I notice in my own improvisations and especially on Rhythm Changes, which seem to encourage it. It would be good to work in some longer lines or connect those phrases like the master improvisers do, but my brain gets lost when I attempt that !

Rhys
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Thanks very much Rhys, and yes I'm acutely aware that I far too often play chords in isolation rather than threading them together in phrases. It's something I do try to do, but too often am just hanging on trying to play the chords at all, especially when there's any kind of challenging tempo (but often on ballads too!)
 
rhysonsax said:
I enjoyed both of those recordings a lot. You sound comfortable and fluent and the recording quality is pretty good.

I like that both your backing tracks have the little tag endings that the songs need - my backings didn't.

Your phrasing often appears in "two bar chunks" which I something I notice in my own improvisations and especially on Rhythm Changes, which seem to encourage it. It would be good to work in some longer lines or connect those phrases like the master improvisers do, but my brain gets lost when I attempt that !

Rhys
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PS I just created the backings in BIAB so I was able to fashion the endings as I wanted. Other than that I tend to keep the backings pretty simple and basic, so that the resultant sound is all about the sax and people aren't listening to some wonderful sounding string section or whatever 🙂
 
Profusia said:
Thanks very much Rhys, and yes I'm acutely aware that I far too often play chords in isolation rather than threading them together in phrases. It's something I do try to do, but too often am just hanging on trying to play the chords at all, especially when there's any kind of challenging tempo (but often on ballads too!)
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It will come with practice. It all takes time but time is all it takes.
 
I recorded 'I Got Rhythm' about 10 years ago over a backing track I got from our well known Chris K. (what happened to Chris, I never see him posting anymore?). The backing was done in the style of the famous Don Byas/Slam Stewart recording shared by Rhys in the first post of this thread.

I'm by far not as skilled as @Hankenstine above, being able to learn and play Don's solo, so I did my own normal noodling over the backing. Pity was that the bass is not playing swing (walking bass) all the time in the backing (only in the bridge), which did hold me back a bit in soloing over it.

 
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Pete Thomas said:
Thanks for link, I'd forgotten that page.

At jam sessions the sequence can be a bit of a mess if people don't agree on the ascending or descending bass line at bar 5. Sometimes a nice mess though

If it's fast enough then it works well for me to play blues licks, but you do need some discretion melodically to make that work.

BTW, I wonder if anyone ever bothers to play the original sequence as wrote, ie with the extra two bar ending tag? (who could ask fior anything more?)
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The real problem isn't bar 5, it's what you alluded to - the tag. You gotta make clear at the beginning - with tag or without? Problem is, when you get a bunch of players that are kind of out of it, some don't hear well, some will be playing the tag and some won't. The standard practice in my experience is, when it's actually I Got Rhythm (not one of its multitudinous contrafacts none of which typically have the tag), you play the tag at the head and out choruses but not on the solo choruses nor on a shout chorus if you play one. But, again, you have to have someone herding the cats to make it clear what's the roadmap. This tune and Ja-Da auger in most commonly over the presence or absence of the tag.
 
Profusia said:
Thanks very much Rhys, and yes I'm acutely aware that I far too often play chords in isolation rather than threading them together in phrases. It's something I do try to do, but too often am just hanging on trying to play the chords at all, especially when there's any kind of challenging tempo (but often on ballads too!)
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I just realised that the melody of I Got Rhythm itself is very much in two bar chunks (and also a bit naff). Maybe that encourages improvisors to play in the same two bar way. A head like Monk's Rhythm-A-Ning is melodically and rhythmically much more interesting to me and I like the way that Monk and Charlie Rouse solo using lots of space and placed notes relative to beats and bars.

Here's a different Monk recording to the one in my first post.

Rhys
 
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Here is one of the best recordings of a Rhythm Scheme you will ever find!

It's "Lester Leaps In" with Arnett Cobb, Lockjaw Davis and Johnny Griffin on tenor (especially the solo's of the last two are incredible). I did put this clip on YouTube from a recording of a radio broadcast of a concert of those three tenor hero's I visited back in 1984 in Laren, NL. One of the best concerts I've ever visited (and I've seen a lot since the late 70's).

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s-vTT1yLPg
 
brianr said:
Different middle 8.
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Yeah, I went and listened to it, it sounds like a descending pattern rather than circle of fifths. I suppose it could be tritone subs on the Rhythm bridge? But, not exactly the same. (Sorry, not motivated enough at present to really figure it out...)
 
turf3 said:
Yeah, I went and listened to it, it sounds like a descending pattern rather than circle of fifths. (Sorry, not motivated enough at present to really figure it out...)
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In concert pitch it is:

Bm7/// - E7/// - Bbm7/// - Eb7/// -
Am7 D7 - Abm7 Db7 - Gm7 C7 - F#m7 B7 -

I'd still consider this tune a 'Rhythm Changes' but just with a different bridge.
 
turf3 said:
Yeah, I went and listened to it, it sounds like a descending pattern rather than circle of fifths. I suppose it could be tritone subs on the Rhythm bridge? But, not exactly the same. (Sorry, not motivated enough at present to really figure it out...)
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No need to work it out, here is Sonny Rollins' solo from the album with Dizzy Gillespie and Sonny Stitt. Their solos are amazing too.


Oh alright, here is Stitt's solo:


Rhys
 

Similar threads... or are they? Maybe not but they could be worth reading anyway 😀

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