The Theme from Mo Better Blues was written by Bill Lee, Spike Lee’s father and features on the ABRSM Grade 1 Jazz syllabus.
We are going to transcribe Branford Marsalis’ sax part from this recording and I have, as usual placed the transcription project into six, easy to digest ‘Clips’
What you should do today is watch this video, download the track and check the Dropbox folder for the Mo Better Blues ‘Clips’. You can then get started and in the next lesson I will guide you through Clips 1&2.
There is a lot of repetition here – a great musical skill that we all should take more notice of. Developing ideas is a craft that all great composers and improvisors have, and here, with Branford, we have one of the great improvisors on the saxophone!
Not only does Branford deploy ‘The Lick’, he keeps well within the Gb Pentatonic Scale, (concert key) – showing you just what you can do with five notes!
I stumbled across this album of Mark’s on Apple Music when driving back from my parents after a family visit. I’ve been a fan of Mark’s playing for years and this rendition of ‘Skylark’ just blew me away.
In this course, we are going to transcribe Blues Walk by the legendary saxophonist, Lou Donaldson. It’s a real ‘Tour de Force’ of Blues playing that will really enhance not only your blues vocabulary but your phrasing, time feel, and much more!
The Jazz Standard ‘Autumn Leaves’ was composed by Hungarian composer Joseph Kosma in 1946. Kosma was a native of Hungary who was introduced to Prévert in Paris. They collaborated on the song Les Feuilles mortes (“The Dead Leaves”) for the 1946 film Les Portes de la nuit (Gates of the Night) where it was sung […]