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!

• Kenny Barron – Dolores Street S.F (PDF and MP3 zip file, 17MB).

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.

• The CTI never sleeps contains TONS of albums produced by Creed Taylor and his CTI-related labels.
• Jazz Disposition is fantastic.  Lovely design too…
• Into the Rhythm – masses of jazz on here.
• Never enough rhodes is a site aimed at the rhodes enthusiast (hence why I love it!) but any fan of funk-groove-soul music will love this.
• FunkyFullofWatt has over 2000 funk tracks and links to some other great blogs.
• Ile Oxuare has some rare jazz cuts, god knows what the title means, but who cares – go visit!
• MyJazzWorld a great variety of stuff on here and a huge amount of content that is clearly a completely labour of love.
• Funk My Soul blog has some of the best OoP vinyl rips of funk/soul/groove
• Where did all this steam come from is another jazz related blog with a massive variety of content.
• http://jazzheads.blogspot.com/ and http://jazz-the-two-of-us.blogspot.com/
• And http://musicadesdelasantipodas.blogspot.com/
• MPS goodness here…
• Live jazz goodies here… stuff you can’t, nor will ever be able, to buy
• The incredible zona de jazz, a mammoth amount of stuff on here
• http://jazzallthat.blogspot.com
• http://musicacion.blogspot.com
• Fusion Jazz and Something Else for those that swing both ways
• And the great MyFavouriteSound
• Projeto Esporte Fino has some terrific funk/soul/fusion
• I’ve recently found Bentleyfunk, and its a corker
• So is All Soul and Funk
• etnikcafe.blogspot.com has a vast amount of all kinds of stuff, for those time when you fancy something different.
• Inconstant Sol is huge and has some great rare and live cuts available
• Anything Goes has a really eclectic selection of stuff on, but alot of jazz.
• ‘Taringa’ appears be some sort of Spanish knowledge sharing platform, but this post has incredible rapidshare links, plus links (at the bottom) to similar posts by other users.
• 7Oregons and 2Tomoatoes is another great/huge jazz blog.
• Oufar Khan’s blog has some of the grooviest cuts of funk jazz gems.
• Buns O’Plenty is top drawer too.
• The Universal Mind Of contains only Bill Evan’s material
• 17 Green Buicks, another great jazz blog
• And Culture & Pleasure has perfect stuff for those quiet nights, and freealbumsgalore has some fine ambient too.
• Chezmateo specialises in stuff that completely OoP so you needn’t feel so guilty for checking out this one
• While the QueenBee blog is absurdly huge….
• And so is Musica Y Musicos
• And so is this one
• Kelly’s Sound Lounge has a lovely choice of stuff on.
• A Lion’s Love is truly that
• And a chap called Budd had posted some top compilations of lesser well known tracks on his blog.
• Then there’s the great nodata.tv
• LongPlay has some great fusion/funk/smooth jazz on, if that’s your bag
• YorUbaJazz has amazing has a fantastic collection of albums and artists
• La Musica De Pere has a mountain of nuJazz on
• DestinationFunk3 doesn’t need any explaining
• Holyf**kingShit4000 is a huge one covering various jazzy genres.

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.

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!

• i-could-write-a-book-red-garland (PDF)

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!

• Firstly, there’s Brad Mehldau’s introduction to Round Midnight from the album ‘Alone Together‘;
• Second there’s Bill Evan’s playing Herbie’s tune Dolphin Dance from his album ‘I Will Say Goodbye’;
• And then there’s one for the guitarist’s – Mike Moreno playing Peaceful Warrior from Aaron Parks’s album ‘Invisible Camera’.

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

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…

• It Aint’ Necessarily So (PDF, 400KB, 9 pages)

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.

• Kind of Blue transcriptions ebook (PDF, 6MB)

Beautiful Love (Bill Evans)

A nice transcription of Bill’s performance of Beautiful Love (take 2) as it appears on the album Explorations. This is one of Bill’s early albums featuring the great bassist Scott LaFaro.

• Beautiful Love (take 2) (PDF document)

Marian McPartland – Easy Living

A nice transcription of one of the tunes Marian plays on the ‘Live at Maybeck Hall’ recital (Concord label, 1991). Easy Living is a sweet ballad – played here in G – and this is a good place to check out some lovely ‘conventional’ (no disrespect to Marian there) piano voicings and leading. There’s a PDF and a reference audio file so it’s in .zip format this one….

• Easy Living (PDF and MP3)

Keith Jarrett bumper book

I can’t remember where I found the original link to these, but they were originally two seperate PDF’s that I’ve stuck into one.  Like my last Wynton Kelly post, this ebook is from a rare Japanese publisher, certainly out-of-print in the West as far as I can tell.

Includes selections from Jarrett’s Trio albums Standards Vol 1, Vol 2 and ‘Standards Live’. Enjoy:

• Keith Jarrett e-book (PDF, 10MB, 225 pages)

Everybody digs Wynton Kelly

With his light touch, keen sense of swing and feel for for the blues Wynton Kelly is rightly revered. He didn’t record too much under his own name and not surprisingly some of his best playing was under Miles.  Here’s two goodies:

• Kelly’s introduction to that famous recording of Someday My Prince Will Come – note his nice use of the phrygian scale;
• A whole e-book of transcriptions, published in Japan but seemingly unavailable anywhere else. There’s effectively part one and part two available containing lots of transcriptions – absolutely top notch. Enjoy!