Month: August 2013

Beatrice – Robert Glasper arrangement in 7

Hello again – back again after a bit of a hiatus.  I’m continuing to work on jazz in odd meters and have transcribed the harmony from Robert Glasper’s arrangement of the great Sam Rivers tune “Beatrice” from his album In My Element.  For my tastes, the arrangement is a little too dense.  I like Glasper’s reharmonization, and the tune sounds great in 7, but together it feels a little busy.  Plus, I feel like it’s a little too fast to really appreciate the new harmony.  But that’s just my tastes.  Still a cool arrangement.  I dig the symmetry of the first eight bars – four bars of harmony ascending by half step, then four bars of harmony ascending by whole step.  It makes the transition from Dmin to Emin in bar 6 a nice surprise to the ears.  Enjoy!

Highway 54 – Greg Skaff (Corrected)

So, something cool happened to me recently (besides meeting Jason Crane of the Jazz Session podcast, http://thejazzsession.com/ , at the Detroit Jazz Festival today.  Awesome podcast – check it out!  Tons of half hour and hour-long interviews with jazz legends).  Back in February I posted a transcription of a tune in 5/4 by the great New York-based guitarist Greg Skaff (check out his newest album, 116th & Park) As it turns out, I made a few harmonic errors in my transcription and Mr. Skaff was kind enough to provide me with a corrected leadsheet.  I’ve updated the sheet on Scribd and the corrections should be evident below.  Many thanks to Mr. Skaff for the leadsheet!