You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Solo Analysis: Trane on "Flamenco Sketches" - #38

Episode Date: October 17, 2018

Today, Peter and Adam break down John Coltrane's haunting solo on Miles Davis' "Flamenco Sketches." See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Peter. Donde esta la Bibliotheca. See, I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast. Very good jazz. El Camo at you. Now, why are we listening to Miles Davis?

Why are you speaking Spanish? Well, just a little Spanish, and poorly, I might add, flamenco sketches. Oh, that's where the Spanish comes in. Nice. So you know how some podcasts might celebrate, like, their 20th episode? Should we celebrate the 20th episode? that we've talked about kind of blue. Yeah, but we probably passed that 20 episodes ago.

We probably did. This might be the 40th or 50th. You know what? It's a darn good record, so I don't got a problem with that. It's a classic. Yes. And I don't think we've talked much about flamenco sketches. We usually talk about Freddie Freeload or Blue and Green or something.

Yeah. Well, this is Solo Analysis Wednesday. It is Solo Analyst Wednesday. And you were asking me what recording, or what solo we had, last week was that great Brad Meldow solo. And I don't know why that made me think of John Coltrane on Fulmeco sketches. There's nothing to do with each other. Nothing to do with another great solo.

Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, I mean, this has been kind of all my mind, this solo. I love this solo, and I don't know about analyzing it. John Coltrade does not need me to analyze it, but it would be fun if we listen to it. Yeah, let's see what Coltrane was thinking when you play this. Come on. I'll skip the head too far. That's okay.

That's okay. So, oh, there we go. So this is Miles Davis? Miles Davis, gentleman out of East St. Louis, Illinois. So while Miles is finishing his solo, the form of Flamenco Sketches is loose. It's loose. I think it's just five courts. Basically eight bars each, although some of them play 16 bars sometime. And there's no melody. That's the big thing with it.

So it's all improvisation. Okay, so that first thing, there's so much, I mean, I hate to even stop it. But, you know, talk about analysis. So for the harmony geeks out in there, stuff. You know, we're always thinking about culture and what he can do with, you know, advanced harmony, upper structure, Slimninsky, Slenimski and all this amazing stuff he does. But to me, it's just as impressive when he comes in, like, he knows how to fit the vibe of the tune. Yes. So, you know, when you listen coming up to this point and what Miles plays, like he comes

in, and he's going to go somewhere, obviously, he's going to go somewhere. But he comes in with that, that it's really a G triad kind of a thing he's playing around with over the C major. It's just a C major seven is all it is. and it's super exposed. And he just comes in with that beautiful melody, very little vibrato, you know, just a little bit at the time. It's like just intonation,

perfect, but not in a generic way at all. Yeah. But just really playing on that G, try it. And then there's some harmonic resolution at the end where he goes up to the C, which is where he's hitting the third, really. And so there's very little tension in it because he doesn't want to have tension,

but there's a little bit of that G to C kind of a thing. See that again. See that again. And he's just going up a major scale. That's the resolution of that E. And so he actually went early to the next chord. It's still amazing, though. Because apparently they have the sketches of the tune,

and it was unclear how many bars, like Miles played over twice as many bars. Train went early, they heard it. Shout out to this rhythm section. Oh, man. I mean, just like loose and steady at the same time. But the purity and depth of that sound, like, it's not a lot of vibrato, right?

No. There's a tail end of some notes, but yeah. But, I mean, it's just like the breath of the phrases. And he don't even know when they're going to the next chord. Nobody knows. It doesn't matter. I mean, the fact that they can confidently continue through that is unbelievable. And then it became this classic.

I mean, Trains phrasing is so unusual, but it's so foundational sounding. Like, when you see transcriptions and stuff, it's like, what is he doing? It seems so out there. But it feels so raw and human when it's just that one chorus. And then, you know, the bridge between what Miles plays that solo and what then train does. And then to Cannonball Aderley, it's such a, like, it really takes understanding of that toll. We always talk about the architecture of the solo, but the architecture of this whole tune that doesn't have a melody already. It finishes with Bill Evans, too, doesn't it?

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, it's just like one great thing going to the next, but without it sounded like just the hip parade or, best of kind of thing. And this is obviously one of of Coltrane's shorter solos. And, you know, he gets in some of his train stuff and kind of like sheets of sound that one of

the writers said around that time. But I mean, it's just the beauty of his sound, like you can almost feel, like if you breathe along with his phrase, it's like you can really start to get into this tune. And to me, once you know like you've heard this and you start breathing with it, it's a magical kind of thing. And I would just say

for pianist, a little pro tip for you. Big, ping, ping, maybe we have a little music for Pro tip. Pro tip time. What? And it'll be like, okay. No, but you know.

Biana, did you get that one? Can you put that on a button so that we could just have bump bump, pop, pro tip time, what? But, you know, if you breathe along with a great horn player solo and it doesn't get any better than this, you'll start to understand what it takes

to put something like that together. See, now I'm sure I've heard someone tell me to do this before. I've never done that. Really? Yeah. What am I doing with my life? That's what you're here for. Maybe we're here to teach each other.

I'll hear it, I guess. All good. It's all good. Well, I'm going to go do that tomorrow. Yeah. That's a great solo, man. And, you know, it's so weird to actually just think about his solo on this because, like you said, each one is part of this context of this tune. I've never, I would never think to listen to just that solo.

Yeah. You know what I mean? You listen to the whole thing. Well, and for some reason, like, he got the most lost on it. I don't know why. Like, I don't know if he walked in and just, like, didn't look. look at the chart. I mean, there was some other places where it was a little, but I mean, truly that I think speaks to the, you know, people have analyzed, there's been at least two books

written about this album. And it's like, it's legendary and it's mysterious and there's a lot of crazy things about it. But I would say that that uneasiness, that confidence while playing within sort of an uneasiness of new material, but an openness to kind of let it go wherever it's going to go, not only in the fact that there's no set melody to it, which is highly unusual, But you should have these chord changes, and then it's a little bit unclear how many bars you're even going to stay there. You know, gave it that sense of like restraint while at the same time just sort of from the soloist, depending on what they were doing, sort of unbridled joy that they could put in there knowing that they could just play whatever they were feeling over this like really supple form that could be stretched, you know, however they wanted it. That's great stuff.

Yeah. Great stuff. Well, yeah. That's Solo Analysis Wednesday. Yeah. Let's sell some T-shirts. Segway. Don't be too harsh, man.

No, you can ask us some questions. Go to yolhearot.com. Give us some ideas for future episodes. And, you know, if you see a t-shirt, you want to buy? They're trending. Yeah. If you want to let on our, you can leave us a voicemail question. Why don't you go ahead and leave us a tone.

You got a little birdie in your throat there? I might. I got some grits. A pro-tip tone. If anybody has an idea for some musical. A pro-tip. Pro tip. We might actually use it. Yeah.

So leave us your two to three second theme for Peter's Pro Tip. By two to three seconds, we mean two to three nanoseconds. Yeah, it could be very very short. But if you have an idea, leave it there at you'll hear it.com. And until next time, you'll hear it.