You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The ONLY Solo You Need To Know

Episode Date: July 1, 2024

Finally! Peter divulges what solo he thinks would really make the difference in your playing if you were to only transcribe one solo. Bags GrooveUnlock your FREE Open Studio trial to become a better player today.Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open Studio🎹 Head over to our YouTube channel for a better look 👀.Follow us on Instagram

Oh, hello there. This is the Y'all here at podcast. I'm Peter Martin, and this is solo edition style. We are songs Adam today, but we're going to be talking about the only jazz solo you need to study. Now, I've got some explaining to do and some caveats. So let's roll the intro. Oh, I need to play it. All right, welcome in. We're going to have some fun today.

We're going to be looking at one of my favorite solos of all time. and Adam isn't here, so the expectations are 50% lower, so come down with me for that, and I'm going to see if I can exceed your expectations. I know that this solo is going to exceed your expectations, if you haven't heard it. This is none other than Miles Davis with an all-star cast, boom, there we go, on Bags Groove.

Milt Jackson, Philonious Monk, Percy Heath, Kenny Clark, are on this track. We've got Sonny Rollins and Horace Silver on some other ones. But this is Bags Groove. F blues, and we're going to be looking at studying Miles Davis' solo. All the solos are fantastic on here. But we're talking about the only jazz solo you need to study, right? Second chorus of the melody.

And an important thing, you know, when you're learning a solo, is to always learn the melody and really learn the melody. Learn the chord changes. Of course, this is a blues, but we want to learn what the approach is, how it fits in with the melody, before we even get into the solo. And let me give you one of my caveats.

I'll give you some of them as we go. But of course, this is the only solo you should learn. But I do believe if for some reason time was limited for you or you just had no other white space in your life in order to learn more than one solo, that you can learn all of the fundamentals of really good jazz playing from this one solo of Miles Davis. It's not the only one that you could take,

but you could do a lot worse, you know what I mean? all the essential elements in terms of groove, harmony, phrasing, you know, melodic interpretation, linking together melodies to tell a story on a multiple chorus solo. All of those elements are there and beautifully exemplified my miles and very clear and very simple. That's why I think this is such, you know, a wonderful solo to study. Let's check it out. It's the last phrase of the second chorus. So here comes the solo, four chord.

two, five, one. Here's the second chorus. All right, let's take it back and just check out that first chorus because there's so much great stuff. This could almost be the only jazz chorus that you need to learn this first chorus. But, you know, this kind of came out of me. I've been seeing a lot of these things, you know,

on YouTube and other places. And this really goes back to, like, a lot of jazz education stuff where we're being told to learn a lick, you know? And I think that that can be helpful. I mean, there's videos, you know, the 20 greatest jazz licks, 10 licks that you need to know. In terms of, like, individual phrases, that can be helpful for us to learn those to take them into different keys. But you want to be able to know and to learn these licks, these phrases.

First of all, I hate the word lick to call. I don't know why. I do it because people use it, but it's, I don't hate it, but it sounds weird, right? A lick. But anyway, these phrases, these building blocks of, a melodic story that an improviser strings together. We never want to take them too far out of context from which they originated. So that's the great thing about learning whole solos, or at least learning, say, a course.

So we're going to look at this first course of Miles and we'll look at some of these individual phrases or licks, but hopefully they'll make a little bit more sense when they come, when they're linked together with the entire story that he's telling. So that's the first phrase, right? And it happens to correspond with the first four bars over this. And it's kind of an F minor. It's an F7, but it's a little bit nebulous because it's really like a minor blues because of the melody.

When you put the major third, it still works. Even though the melody is clearly minor third. But that's a lot of that blues sound, right? That's a lot of what we can learn, especially in the jazz idiom, where the blues placement is in terms of how playing it, how the melody lies, and also how Miles the soul is over. So let's just check out that first phrase again. Okay, so he's already playing around. So that's all minor, right? Then he goes to major and then down to dominant. But check out how he's already playing around with the time. He's

leaning back. And we're going to look at the transcription of this too. But I want to start with us doing it a little bit by ear because some of the things you'll miss in the transcription, those little things that are hard to write out. Check it out. You hear that? He's already laying back. Like that's right in time That first part Bo do bo do do Do be Do be bo boo

Maybe he's not laying back as much As I just did But it's close And then he's right back in Like that's right in time So as you're learning this Whether you're going through And I have the transcription here

Or a transcribed version Which folks are very generous With putting onto you two Here let's throw this up there Boom there it is Okay You'll see that it's It's kind of hard to show

that, but this is a way that you can learn it if you're having trouble hearing it by ear. You can kind of jump in back and forth. But you see there, that's kind of like, that's a little bit maybe inaccurate the way it's written there. But again, you're going to use your ears. And that second phrase is great. But it's really more of a triplet than is notated here, right? So bar six,

it's kind of in between. But again, that's why we're listening to it. We're getting those nuances. You can get so much that you can use for your. You're phrasing, especially when you see how it fits together within the soul. Let's go back to the beginning. Get those. We're going to get those first two phrases.

Next phrase. So that phrase that starts at bar ten there is fun because it's kind of a wrapping up. That's what I'm saying. It's like each of these phrases leads to something else. Each of the choruses leads to something else. But that bo-do-bo-bo-do-bo-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-a-d-d-d-d-d-a. There's a lot happening there. and the density of the eighth notes and stuff,

there's not as many breaks as those first two phrases have. So the first one, Bo-do-bo-dee-d-do-dee. It's a lot of resting. It's just got a little bit of eighth-note movement. And then the second one, Bo-do-bo-do-bo-d-d-d-bid-bis-ki-bo. That triplet thrown in, right?

Eighth notes, but then. Stretching out. And then the last phrase. That one's a little bit more like traditional bebop sort of tying things together, right? Let's listen to that. There's so much personality in that. You hear that? Bo-do-bo-do-bo-do skid-pid-de-do-wee.

And then now we're going the other way from the minor to the major, right? And then that's a really fun thing in that bar 12. Buba da, bobaida, going from the major seven to the dominant seventh. So we're getting the ear training, we're getting the phrasing, we're getting the blue sensibility, how we playoff of that minor third to the major third, some passing tones that shouldn't work. Because normally when we think about a passing tone like that, it would be booboo, like on an upbeat or a weaker beat.

But this is boopski-da. So it's giving a little bit more emphasis, which adds personality. It adds a vibe to that line, especially coming out of all those eighth notes. And then he leans into it. Booblita, boodilina. And that's on the downbeat again. Very different than going, you know, where you're placing those on the upbeats.

Something else to think about this. Like, how do we match that phrasing? So I'm playing this on a piano. I'm not even playing it on a piano. I'm playing it on a keyboard, right? How do we match the phrasing of a trumpeter that has the ability to kind of bend the tones, to come in, you know,

to do all these little nuances that aren't available to us on the piano? Well, we break it down. Check it. So, just the way he comes in, it's not, like the way it looks like on the page. That's not the way he's playing it. Check it out. So,

do, bo do, be, you hear that C, that pickup note, it's the end of one in bar 10 is almost,

it's not a throwaway note, but it's so much less, like the way that he's phrasing at the volume level and everything, it's so much leading into it. We can think about playing it in that same way.

So you kind of feel the arc of it. I'm gonna try to visually show you the arc of this soul, of this phrase. So there's the up and down, right, boo? And then he comes back, boo. Wait out.

That's the thing that gives it that phrasing, that gives it that personality, that gives it that vibe. So when I play along with this, here, well, I just won't look at this thing. I'm going to play this first chorus. Now, I learned this solo a long time ago, and I revisit it.

But I think the goal for any of this stuff, maybe you take another solo as you're kind of one that you're going to study, at least for a certain period, you want to be able to play along with the recording with an accuracy that you can tell you're playing the phrasing. Obviously, the notes, that's just kind of the basic level and the rhythms. But the approaches, the places that it's pulled back, the nuances, all the stuff that's not

going to be on the page, you want to be able to play along with it in a way that you can hear when you're just a little bit off. I think it's impossible or very, very difficult to get 100% accurate. You can maybe for one phrase or two phrase or maybe even one course. to be able to play a whole solo where you're 100% accurate, where like everything is perfectly played exactly like their performance. It's not even that important to be able to do that. I mean, if you get in the A range, 90% and above, you're doing great.

But if you're getting most of it, and mainly if you're able to hear when you're a little bit off, that is huge for your ear training. And not just for like ear training in terms of intervals, am I on the third, I'm on the fourth, or is this minor major, but for how you can match phrasing, how you can add the nuances from Miles's solo into your playing. So I'm going to play along with it,

and then I'll sort of tell you my grade at the end, and you can be thinking about your grade in terms of just my accuracy of playing along. This is the last phrase going in. Okay, so there I want to do it again, because now I'm remembering, and I kind of could hear the places where I was a little bit off, but that last phrase,

Bo do, bud do, beady, be do, bo do, bo do. Like, I'm starting to try to pull myself into, like, the flow that Miles is playing with, right? And he kind of goes into a bounce, like a little bit of a different kind of swing at around. What is that, bar 11? I could feel it as I'm playing along. Ah, here's bar 10. Bounce, right? Bounde, right?

All right, we're going to get into that in a second. But I want to do that first chorus again. because a lot of times we learn these things or we're playing along with the transcription and we think that that's it. You know, oh, I got that. Let's move on. But there's so much there.

These little, like, once you get the notes and you can play along with it, you've only gotten like 30% of what the solo has to offer you, okay? It won't feel like it at first, but once you really know it, it will. Now I got it. I didn't hold that long enough.

Ah, I was late. I got that part good. Let's go on. So like you hear there, it's like, the way he breaks up the phrasing, I want to make sure I get a little bit more accurate, but there's great stuff about the way he's bouncing and then kind of breaks it up in terms of phrasing. It looks like, you know, this is going into bar 22.

Bebe didi-de-bedoo-do-do-bo-do-dood-de-le-dib-dil-dib. That looks like just one lick. and this is the danger of only thinking about it as a lick or only kind of visualizing it. It looks like just a string of eighth notes, right? Be be-be-de-be-de-be-d-do-d-do. And then you can kind of fall into that like, but-de-bedoo-do-be-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-st.

But that's so different than what he's playing. I mean, even from the beginning, check it out, the first note. He's going, be. Now, again, this gets into an area of things like, that we can't quite do, but we have to figure out how we're going to simulate it at the piano.

That different, whatever it is, Ambershire, I don't know what he's doing. Steepid, but you hear it. It's just phrased differently. Right here. Squeezed. It's like a squeeze. But it was just like

that earlier phrase from the first course where that first note was kind of ghosted, right? That's the fun stuff. Like, that's the stuff that really gives it the personality. Okay, so, Bebe-de-be-be-be-bo-d-de-le-le-le-ba. Learning what notes are being accented, how much they're being accented, that's a very subtle and can seem like an imprecise art to doing that. But it is an art.

It's not necessarily just a science. I mean, there is like accent or, you know, this transcription has some short notes, some stress, some accents, or whatever. That'll help you. But you just have to listen to it and then try to match up. You can make some notes if you want for yourself. or break it down a longer phrase like this shorter, but you want to try to get that kind of as accurate as possible. Let's talk about this last phrase, just purely from kind of an analytical standpoint, like the theory behind it.

Because everything I'm been talking about is like getting the vibe, getting the notes, of course we want to get that. But this could be kind of helpful for some other things that we want to do. So again, he's playing around with, it's seemingly with the natural, e-natural, the major seventh, but this is actually a D7,

and you can hear it. Let me see Percy Heath does it on this. Like a lot of times when we're learning a solo, we think we're just listening to Miles. So Percy Heath plays like an implication, even if he doesn't actually play that six. I think he's playing the tritone, sublets listen to it again.

But it's just to say like when you're learning a solo, you're not just learning, you're not just listening to the soloist. Listen to the bass, listen to the piano. There is no piano on this solo, but listen to the drums. In this case, to really kind of understand where the harmony's at, you want to listen to the bass.

That's what he plays in bar 20. So sometimes you have to actually transcribe the bass, too. Let's listen again. And then he goes, do, be, d'n, do. Okay, so bar 20 on the F7 is do. Oh, I forgot it already. Oh, yeah.

Boom, ding, do, ding. That's an interesting order that he, does it. So it's, so that really implies that D-7 there. That's why it makes sense to Miles. And, you know, who knows if he was, well, he definitely heard it because we just heard it. But he really leans into that,

going to the sixth chord on bar 21, probably because of what Percy Heath plays. Bar 21. So he's outlining, Boob, be, ding, boom. Percy Heath is outlining, half step above. He's surrounding going to that two chord.

Okay, so that's why that kind of works for Miles. And then that's a passing tone, that B natural going into 22. And that's a very classic kind of bebops on. This is the kind of thing that you'll see as like, this is a lick you need to learn. Except you might not hear that part. That's kind of unusual. D7.

Again, we're surrounding this time diatonically. Another surround beat. Flat 9 on the C-7. You know, the little chromaticism. But the kind of twist that Miles puts on it is that's giddly da. That's a great phrase, all right? So it's bluesy because it's starting on the flatted fifth.

This is bar 24. And he's going down chromatically with an interesting rhythm that's not exactly what it says on this page, but that's close. Going down chromatically to the minor. third from the flat at fifth and then hitting the tonic let's listen oh there's something else in there hold on oh you hear that b flat he's kind of playing like another kind of squeeze note or i don't know what you call them maybe he's just playing it out of tune but he's giving a little bit of flavor on that b flat so that's another thing for us to think about you hear that it's got a little stank on it the the last b flat in that bar

didle be do be hobe scone blon you got to do something to it didle bit bu pebble wiescalibob That's that like kind of phrasing accuracy we want to get. Let's play this whole chorus. This is fun. Let's hear exactly what he's doing. Because it's not a full chromatic glistando. Oh, do you hear the way he approaches that B to? He's not just like B.

It's like squeam. He's scooping in, right? So we might want to give that a little flavor. I think it's just doodoo deeep. That's an interesting thing to listen to though, right? I think it's just chromatic from the E flat. maybe the D or the D flat, but I think it's... So that's kind of important.

Yeah. Okay, so talking about theory and like what's going on here, the B flat 7, the four chord there at 18. This is kind of interesting. Instead of... Like, instead of him sticking just on the B flat 7, he's going... He's kind of going a little half-hole B-flat,

a little diminus sign, right? But then... Then he kind of brings it back to in an interesting way to the F7 before we even get there in bar 20. And you know, one thing about this kind of thing, that's the 5, the minor third, and the dominant 7th of where we're going.

Or you could say it's the 9th and the 7th and then the dominant 7th of where we're going F7. So like the 9th of the B flat, the 7th. Instead of... So it kind of fits nicely. Ah, did you hear the way he ended that phrase? That's interesting. It's not bitterly, Bob.

It's real bitterly. He almost like detached that last F from the A flat. You hear that? Biddle-E-hop. Like he took another breath. Interesting. Okay, he's laying back there where I was pushing the head. Okay, check out the phrasing going into that.

So those are all short. Bo-do-bo-bib-bib, instead of bo-do-bo-bib, which you would expect. So these are short. That E-flat's not there. I didn't hear it. Might have been a D. Okay, so there on that. That's all

What he hinted at in the chorus before B-flat half hole diminish, right? Miles is a cool thing And this is real simple stuff, right? Almost like sing-songy. And then he throws him some beboppy kind of chromatic Do dole-le-bed-do, skib-bedo-d-d-d-do. Like that kind of sound.

And this whole phrase, Boodoo-d-d-bo-d-d-bo-d-bo-bo-bo-bo-d-bo-d-bo-d-bo-d-bo. So it's all like major sevens, right. Bood-bo-d-d-d------------------------------. Then just chromatic passing tune. and at the very end of the phrase on that upbeat, the end of four, and the third bar of that continuous eighth note phrase,

he kind of resolves to the dominant seventh. This is similar to a phrase he did earlier. So he's playing around now with booby-dib-dib-d-d-d-d-do-so dominant seventh on the B-flat, but that's that major, third, minor, third thing. But do-bid-d-d-d-d-d-d-but-d-. But he sneaks that major third in before he actually gets to the next bar

on the end of four. That's fun. And check out the phrasing of that. Damn. Bidi be... Too short notes starting out. That's unusual. Bidoo, boom.

Yep. Booby-d-d-d-bid-bid. And you're starting to hear the accents. Booty-bidi-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-. And then I think it accents. Oh, it slurs in. Oh, yeah, that's right. This is stuff that's weird to look out on the page.

So, yeah, he's really leaning into... Bo-doo. Let's check that out again. All right, so now he's playing around with the dominant, the, the, the, flat of fifth, the tritone, bo, do, bo, bo, ba, bo, b, b. Resolving to the B flat, de, de, boo, and then still the A, the A, the A flat, the major third, and the minor third. That's fun.

I forgot this part. Okay, so there's a nice, du-d-d-b-b-b-b-b-d-bo-d-d-d-b. Kind of like a grander, a little bit more. more epic, um, stu-b-d-d-b-d-a-b-arc and distance to that phrase. Do-bid-d-b-b-b-b-b-d-b-d-d-b-d-b-d-d-b-b-b-d-b-bbbbbb. This is a great on the 13th or the 6. Ski-d-dop, very basic. But coming out of this, do-b-d-b-b-b-b-b-b-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-kk.

Man, the way he lays in the time. Oh, and see, like, this isn't on the page, but check it out. It's like, do. Like, that's its own thing. Bibibu-Bohpah, b'i-d-hop, right? I didn't get it, but let me learn that phrase. Okay, that's... That's more of like...

Bibh-lub-dib-d-bib-bib-bib-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b... It's not exactly straight 16 notes, but you'll hear the way you phrase. That's classy. That's classic. Okay, let's check that chorus out again. I must have learned the earlier chorus is better than these later ones because I don't remember them as well. All right, again, the phrasing, dae-dee-d-d-d-bo-bo-scoop, really sliding in there. Scooping up.

That's a cue. So this is really great. Bo-de-bo-bo-bo-doo-do-be. Remember that D-7? When Percy Heath on two choruses earlier played that. earlier played that, giving it that D7. Bo-D-D-B-D-B-D-B-Bu-Bu-D. So that's like F-major,

B-D-B-B-B-D-7-9-D-Bid-D-Bid-Dib-D-D-D-D-D. Still playing out with that major seven. So look at that phrase, look at the way he sets up these phrases. The beginning of this chorus, bar 74. Bipi-be-d-hoo-be-do-d-l-du-b-d-l-du-ba. That's the first two phrases, question and answer, and then, Bip-bib-b-du-da.

Same rhythm, pretty much, right? First we had, skip-dib-dibu-d-d-d-t. This time we got Pui-bib-di-d-d-d-d- But the melody's adjusted to be over that four-cord instead of the one. Dip-bib-b-bo---d-doo-du. So the exact same rhythm on that one, bar 80.

First time is different directionality within there and different resolution. The first time it resolved there, the second time, it doesn't resolve major seventh, up to the second. Is this the second one? That's written wrong. That's great. The fourth and the third.

All right, so you saw me kind of skimming off those last couple of choruses. I wasn't really even explaining things. I didn't even remember them as well. I mean, we could go through and break some of those down. But I think that what you start to see is like there's so much there, right? There's so much to this, I mean, even just the first couple of chorus, just the first chorus, just the first phrase, that if you go deep on this type of solo, it truly could be the only soul that you need to learn, at least for this month or for this year or for

this quarter. So that's fun. Anyway, let me know in the comments what you think about the solo, what you got out of it if you're learning from this kind of thing, because I'd love to do something like this again, especially if Adam isn't here

and I can take over the mic. Thank you guys for listening. Thank you for making it all the way to the end. Please like and subscribe if you enjoyed this. If you're not on YouTube, if you're on the audio pod, that's great. But if you want to leave a comment, please come over to the YouTube channel

at Open Studio and do that. You can find this and find us there. You'll hear it. Until next time, peace. Happy practicing.