To start the week, I decided to share with you a passage of Django’s solo on Lady be Good (1948 version).
This version—that I like very much—is not very well known and features a quite particular and modern arrangement with Stéphane Grappelli.
We violinists, of course, are interested in Stéphane Grappelli first…. He is simply great. But also take the time to enjoy listening to Django, whose phrase architecture is extremely learned, while he played with two fingers and had absolutely no theoretical knowledge of music!!!
I decided to transcribe these few phrases and work on them, because I find them simply beautiful!!! So I put a version of the phrases with Django, a very slow version for the left hand, and also a version of the theme for the bow.
Solo and phrase notations are of paramount importance in learning jazz. I will dedicate the next blog post to it, in order to explain how to transcribe a solo, for what purpose, and different ways you can do it…
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See you soon for new articles and videos!