Transcriptions: Summertime | by Christiaan 'Niliov' van Hemert | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The following weeks I want to focus yet some more attention on those great Ray Brown arrangements. I encourage all visitors to go out and buy those albums; you won't be disappointed! And by the way: if you find the Ray Brown-trio transcriptions interesting you NEED those albums. Only then I consider the transcription to be complete. Well, enough rambling, let's get to the transcription. This week I've chosen the song "Summertime" from their latest album: "Summertime" featuring Ulf Wakenius. I've transcribed the chords and piano-voicings. The bass just plays the root so I didn't transcribe that; the guitar plays the melody, which is well known so I let that out too. Here we go: Yep, I like this, I like this a lot!! Very cleverly arranged, nice progression and a kind of lazy feel which really works for this song. What follows is a piano-solo. There is however a little surprise. The chord-progression differs: Ray Brown uses a kind of bluesy interlude. I'll just give you the chords:
The guitar solo is comped with the regular changes:
Again follows a piano interlude, a vamp:
Listen to the recording for the rhythmic pattern. Geoff Keezer (excellent successor to Benny Green by the way) solos on the vamp and on cue they're back to the theme (see begintheme) followed by the same vamp as above. Well, there you go: a fantastic arrangement of a very basic and (too) often played song; now indeed sounding very fresh again!
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