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Moonglow/Rod Stewart


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I can't believe I'm asking this, but I have to have nearly 30 songs charted by Monday morning and I'm away from my piano. Most are done already, but the artist wants to cover Rod Stewart's version of Moonglow, which has a few of what old time Country musicians would call "off chords" :laugh:

I've roughed it out by ear, but I'd like to check my work, and with no board handy and pressed for time, I thought maybe I could find sheet music to compare to.

If anyone should happen to have it, PM me please.

If not, is their a reputable site for finding these things?

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Dang it Steve, I thought this was going to be about our own Moonglow getting a gig with Rod smile

 

:laugh: Sorry 'bout that. I've also decided that I will trust my ear, so NEVERMIND :laugh:

FWIW: I looked at several sites that offered the sheet music for sale. They showed the first page, and none of them matched his record version!

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Thx guys. Yeah Dave, his is in Bb, but the basic changes are the same. I spoke to the artist and she said I should just do my own arrangement as long as it has the same lazy sway. I've got it done in a way that will suit her, and fit with some of the other things we've done on her earlier records. It can get interesting when you cut Jazz standards with a small band with prominent pedal steel and fiddle!
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Dang it Steve, I thought this was going to be about our own Moonglow getting a gig with Rod :)
LOL. Nope, no call from Rod as of the moment.

 

Here"s my favorite version of Moonglow:

 

[video:youtube]

 

 

"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."

- George Bernard Shaw

 

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I wanted so much to be helpful, but am not familiar with Rod's interpretation of the song as I didn't like how his voice works on the standards when I heard the first album in that series (I even turned down free "comp" tickets to see him, as it was a tour for the "American Songbook" vs. his own material).

 

I have so many different charts for this song, and have played it so many different ways, and my former (deceased) bandleader had some nice chord substitutions of his own, that I've seen nowhere else. But I guess it's a moot point now, and it does seem that your instructions weren't as specific as you initially thought, so hopefully your basic musicality came to the rescue.

 

If anyone does still want some alternate charts for the song though, let me know. For the special version we used to do with my old bandleader, I could just state the substitutions (and extra chords) in reference to the source chart (once I figure out which book he used as the basis; not The Real Book for sure).

 

This song is such a winner; it's been used in multiple films, so everyone knows it. I have played it at almost every gig for many years in a row now. It rarely gets dropped from the set. No one ever gets tired of it.

 

Good luck with this overall rush job of charts, and I hope the resulting gigs and/or sessions go well!

Eugenio Upright, 60th Anniversary P-Bass, USA Geddy Lee J-Bass, Yamaha BBP35, D'angelico SS Bari, EXL1,

Select Strat, 70th Anniversary Esquire, LP 57, Eastman T486, T64, Ibanez PM2, Hammond XK4, Moog Voyager

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Kind of tangential, but if you HAPPEN to need Rod Stewart's version of 'Time after Time' presumably from the same CD of standards, I wrote the whole thing out last week for a wedding and am happy to send.

Kawai C-60 Grand Piano : Hammond A-100 : Hammond SK2 : Yamaha CP4 : Yamaha Montage 7 : Moog Sub 37

 

My latest album: Funky organ, huge horn section

https://bobbycressey.bandcamp.com/album/cali-native

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If any song was made to be treated as a Western swing-esque version, it would be Moonglow. I can hear fiddle and steel all over it. Will you post a link once it"s ready, Steve? I personally don"t give a sh*t about the vocals, but it would be wonderful to hear what you folks do with the bed.

____________________________________
Rod

Here for the gear.

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If any song was made to be treated as a Western swing-esque version, it would be Moonglow. I can hear fiddle and steel all over it. Will you post a link once it"s ready, Steve? I personally don"t give a sh*t about the vocals, but it would be wonderful to hear what you folks do with the bed.

 

I won't get to hear it until it's done. You'll have to wait, just like me. :)

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Track came out pretty good.

I simplified a good bit to fit in with the rest of the project & because we had fiddle & steel to fit in,

But she was quite pleased. I"ll try to get permission to play a rough.

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It's rough, and the quick pass of strings is a bit too loud, but here it is.

 

https://soundcloud.com/steve-nathan-421163367/19-moonglow-tracking-rough03-gain-02-01

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That's lovely Steve.....great feel and choice of notes. If I were singing over that I'd be well stoked to have that accompaniment supporting me.

 

Just out of curiosity, how many takes did you and the other players run through to get this down?

 

Thanks for sharing too...:)

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Ten years ago I attended the North Carolina Jazz Festival. Lots of Trad. Everybody was hot. But to me the solos from Bucky Pizzarelli stood out because each solo was a complete musical piece, not a bunch of hot licks pieced together.

 

Steve"s piano work fits into this aesthetic. In this case it"s accompaniment, but it"s complete musical ideas made real. Thanks for sharing.

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Just out of curiosity, how many takes did you and the other players run through to get this down?

 

This is not a big budget record, it's what we would call a custom record, for a label out of Norway that is affiliated with a string of Swing Dance clubs there. We cut 12 songs each day at breakneck pace. Time is not an available luxury. Most of the material was old Rockabilly covers and some "Ray Price Shuffles". For this tune, I gathered the players in the piano booth, showed them the highlights of the arrangement, made a couple of changes on the spot (altered the 2nd bridge, for example), and off we went. Like most of the other tracks, this was a first take, after which I had the whole band punch in the end of bridge 2, and the ending, when I decided I preferred a 4 minor6 over 5 to what I had originally written.

 

The strings sound like samples of a section, plus a solo (real) violin - is that right?

 

Yes, that's also a quick, one pass head arrangement with a stock 50 piece legato style section overdubbed immediately after the track was cut. Kind of a placeholder, but sometimes they end up being used, or partially used. There is a single real violin in there, but around here we call that a fiddle :/ Tammy may object to being called a violin player! :laugh:

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Yes, that's also a quick, one pass head arrangement with a stock 50 piece legato style section overdubbed immediately after the track was cut. Kind of a placeholder, but sometimes they end up being used, or partially used. There is a single real violin in there, but around here we call that a fiddle :/ Tammy may object to being called a violin player! :laugh:
Top work Steve, and please apologise to Tammy for me.

 

Cheers, Mike.

 

 

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I assume everyone understands that when I call this an arrangement, I"m just drawing the framework for these players. There"s no staff paper involved, just a number chart & some over the phones chit chat. The players each create their own parts in real time, after just a single run through before the ' red light goes on'. I particularly enjoyed this bass player, who was a last minute sub for their usual guy. Most of the band hadn"t even met him before this. He stepped up.
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+1 on the sub bassist. A bass teacher once told me "you play the chart absolutely straight-down-the-middle, and in one place, you put your signature - something that tells everyone it's you". Your guy did that so beautifully at about 2:50-2:57.

 

I also like the iv(6) instead of a V7 as the penultimate chord. And I really like "work-in-progress" threads that show us the results, like this one. So much to learn in each bar of that recording.

 

Cheers, Mike.

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