Love Kenny Barron – he’s the man

I thought it was about time that I posted again and I know I’ve been a bit lax of late (just REALLY busy at work). Kenny B – he’s a true dude and god of the piano. All of his playing is so swinging and I really like his phrasing. As a sideman I imagine he’s simply perfection as he is ‘straight-ahead’ and conventional yet flexible enough to really go with it.

So here’s a PDF transcriptions AND reference audio file for Kenny playing his own composition ‘Dolores Street S.F’. It’s from one of his very early albums that were often a bit variable in quality, but this track is typical of the man – great harmonies and swinging touch combined with a slight darkness too. Enjoy!

Posted on 17 July '10 by admin, under piano. No Comments.

Jazz and funk blogs

I’ve updated (and re-dated) this post with more and more blogs shutting down, or rather, getting shut down. Blogger.com are clamping down big-time and some work-of-art blogs are now no longer available.

However, all the sites not struck-through below were live at the time of writing (04/06/2010)

OK, so it’s not a transcription, but I wanted to share with you three of my favourite music blogs that offer a treasure trove of rare and top quality jazz and jazz-funk grooves for your listening pleasure.

Enjoy – lemme know of other blogs that you might know of …. And remember to buy the albums if you download anything you love that is still in print.

Posted on 4 June '10 by admin, under guitar, listening, miscellaneous, piano, sax, trumpet. 4 Comments.

Red Garland – I Could Write a Book

Sorry I havn’t posted for a bit – its been busy busy busy at work and at home. The band have been fairly busy and we’ve recorded a demo EP here of covers. I’d love to hear your views on it (you can stream the tracks on the site) : www.bluephunk.co.uk.

Anyway – on to what you’ve come here for! Credit goes to John Groves for this, check out his nice site that contains some other piano transctriptions. This one comes from Miles’s classic ‘Relaxin’ album. If you haven’t got it, go and buy it!

Posted on 28 May '10 by admin, under piano, trumpet. No Comments.

Three transcriptions donated by a fellow reader

Johannes von Ballestrem has very kindly submitted three transcriptions for me to post here on Jazztranscriptions.co.uk. Big up to Johannes!

Enjoy! It’s great to get some in by a reader of this blog – please do come forward and submit your own!

Posted on 9 April '10 by admin, under guitar, piano, video. No Comments.

A couple of Eric Alexanders

I saw Dave O’Higgins and Eric Alexander live on Friday night at Wakefield jazz, so I thought it only right to post a couple of transcriptions. Both Dave and Eric were fantastic – and major CHOPS were on show!

They had a superb rhythm section – including up-and-coming Andrew McCormack on piano – and they swung REALLY hard!

These transcriptions are courtesy of Charles McNeal.

Posted on 14 March '10 by admin, under sax. No Comments.

Trane Transcriptions

Whole ebook of John Coltrane transcription, includes versions of Naima, Blue Train, Syeeda’s Song Flute and others taken from top recordings.

Posted on 3 March '10 by admin, under sax. 1 Comment.

Oscar Peterson – It Ain’t Necessarily So

Some of OP’s solos can be insanely difficult and would require the patience of Job to learn and play. However, this version of It Ain’t Necessarily So is OP at his best – measured, swinging and incredibly cool.

I originally thought this version was from the album Porgy and Bess but I realise now that it’s not. If I find the album from whence it came, I’ll post it here. But in the meantime…

Posted on 5 February '10 by admin, under piano. No Comments.

Kind of Blue transcriptions (ebook)

Really nice little book containing the entire performances from that 1958 date, great way of studying the different styles of four (actually, five if you count Wynton Kelly on Freddie Freeloader) great soloists.

Posted on 15 January '10 by admin, under piano, sax, trumpet. No Comments.

Michael Brecker – ebook

Obviously these are for tenor sax, but all instrumentalists can learn lots from his great lines…

Posted on 14 January '10 by admin, under sax. No Comments.

Space VI – bumper book of solos (all instruments)

Happy New Year all!  Hope you have grown suitably rotund over the festive period.

The ‘Spaces’ series of books are  alternative Real books that combine a huge amount of charts in about 6 volumes.  But the last volume is probably the best – it contains over 400 pages of famous solo’s from tons of artists. So here it is for your downloading pleasure….

Posted on 6 January '10 by admin, under miscellaneous. No Comments.