Red Garland was the pianist for Miles Davis’ group that became known as the First Great Quintet. Stylistically, he is known for his block chord style, but for this week’s transcription we will look at an example of his virtuosic 8th-note lines.
The album Relaxin’ With the Miles Davis Quintet was one of several albums the group recorded for Prestige between 1956 and 1961. This excerpt is taken from the beginning of Garland’s solo on the tune Oleo (a popular “Rhythm Changes” tune by Sonny Rollins).
Things to note:
most of the solo takes place below middle C on the piano
frequent use of enclosing chromatic notes. Chord tones are often approached from above and below by chromatic neighbors.
I have placed brackets around a few notes where the connecting notes are not heard clearly and probably not played at the recorded tempo. My instinct is that these are the “intended” notes but the tempo does not allow for them to come out cleanly.
Garland often plays four or more measures of solid eighth-notes without rests, but when he does rest, it feels just right.
The bridge section of the musical form known as “rhythm changes” is a perennial improvisatory playground. The harmony commonly follows a cycle of dominant chords, each resolving down a fifth (or up a fourth), and the tension created by this progression provides fertile ground for melodic inventions.
This week we will look at the the way Bill Evans uses harmony and rhythm to create a unique statement on the bridge of Sonny Rollins’ tune “Oleo.” (This recording is on the album Everybody Dig’s Bill Evans (1958) featuring Sam Jones on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums).
Harmony
In a typical Bb rhythm changes tune, the bridge begins on D7 and continues to G7, C7, and F7 before resolving back to Bb. Evans takes advantage of the nature of the whole-tone scale and tritone substitution to complete this cycle using a descending half-step motion.
I’ve chosen to analyze the first chord as Ab9(#5) to highlight the descending nature of this pattern. You could also think of this as D9 with a raised fourth and fifth. I tend to think of the entire whole-tone scale that fits both interpretations.
Once you are comfortable with the sound and feel of the harmony, it’s time to move on to the…
Rhythm
The hallmark of developed rhythmic improvisors is the ability to freely cross the estabilished bar lines and still create a musically complete phrase. Bill Evans uses a common technique here that can be understood as a repeated three-beat phrase over several bars of 4/4 time.
Tap this pattern with the left and right hands. Use a metronome or count to keep your place in the 4/4 measure. The first eighth note in parentheses is not actually played by Evans, but is useful here to see the pattern.
The brackets identify the three-beat riff and you can see that it takes three full measures of 4/4 before the pattern begins again on beat one. Evans adds additional rhythmic material for variety, but begins another three-beat phrase in bar 5.
Make sure you can feel these rhythms between the hands before you continue.
Putting It All Together
Here is the complete pattern that Bill Evans plays on the bridge to Oleo. Note that if you learned the rhythm above, the right hand is now split between the higher cluster of two notes and the lower single note.
After listening again, there are several places where the left hand lays out in the recording. I’m leaving them notated here for the ease of practicing the rhythmic pattern.
The moral of this story: never underestimate the power of rhythm in creating unique and exciting musical statements.
