"I Got It Bad"

[Fred_C]

I would like to tell you gents about a tune I play, because it touches on three of the threads already under discussion, notably the "Pick" thread, and the "Improvization" thread with a quick reference to the "Folk Music" thread.

 

I had mentioned that Duke Ellington always stated that he wrote "folk music" not Jazz.

 

My first Jazz teacher gave me a very nice chord melody chart of the Ellington classic, "I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good". The chart contained a million chord changes and all those changes made it an excellent candidate for extensive changes to reflect my own personal musical aesthetic. I had also mentioned that my teacher encouraged me to make changes in an effort to "make the tune my own".

 

In the process of working through the arrangement, I added a descending chromatic A Minor Pentatonic run over an A7th change that runs from A at 4(7) to A at 5(0) which leads to an Am9 chord. The run includes every passing tone contained between the two target notes (A-A). IMO, It sounds great.

 

I also included another descending minor pentatonic run in Em that runs from E at 1(12) to D at 3(7) and leads into an Em9 chord. This run contains no passing tones, just the scale tones. IMO, It also sounds great.

 

The arrangement ends with a three octave GMa7 arpeggio that leads to a GMa6 triad played as a natural harmonic at the 12th fret (G-B-E) and finally a low G pedal tone at 6(3).

 

This is the only chord melody solo I play with a flat pick. The reason is because I could not execute the minor pentatonic runs and that really cool 3 octave Ma7 arp fast enough using my fingers.

 

IMO, this is a very beautiful, sophisticated arrangement and I am very proud of it. It really does sound nice.

 

I really don't think I would have been capable of creating an arrangement at this level of beauty and complexity without education.

 

See, I told you gents that this post would touch on several other threads.

 

Regards.

 

Fred

 

 

[desertbluesman]

If you play cool, you are cool.

 

Good post above, can't say I understood it all because I never heard that particular tune, but it was an interesting read.

 

(if it sounds good it is good)

[Fred_C]

Hey DBM,

 

Thanks for the kind words.

 

Here's Duke:

 

and

 

Here's Ella:

[Warthog]

I'd like to hear it. The words can't do it justice.

 

[Fred_C]

Hey Warthog,

 

Yeah, I plan on recording a few chord melody solos and maybe a Travis style tune or two and posting them on Soundcloud someday.

 

I've owned a small Tascam DR-05 recorder for a long time. I have yet to learn how to use it. There's always more music to learn and I freely admit that I'm a musician, not a technician. But it is something that I really want to do-eventually. I've been sort of focused on learning Bossa Nova solos for a while now. I really dig that "Brazilian Sound". I can play "The Girl from Ipanema, "Watch What Happens" and I'm currently working on "Desafinado". Hopefully, when I've got that under my fingers I can refocus on recording some music.

 

 

 

BTW: Thank you for your military service. I gather that you were an A-10 pilot. Man, that is one scary machine. If I were a bad guy and saw that thing coming out of the sky at me, I'd be "shitting gold bee-bees"!!!