Looking for soloing suggestions on a James Taylor tune

[musicbysterling]

I'm in a James Taylor tribute band and need some suggestions on creating a solo over some changes at the end of the tune. The song is Mexico and the outro chords are Ebmin-C#-B and F#. I'm playing a B3 part with my left hand and a marimba part with my right. The drummer has suggested that I solo on this pattern, but wanted me to use another sound besides the marimba. Until now, I've been simply noodling on the black keys, but it's extremely limiting and to be honest, a bit boring. I've included the .mp3. Outro starts at 2:19. thank you for any help!

[time4jazz]

A nice step up from “noodling on the black keys” would be noodling on the pentatonics associated with each chord.

[Steve Nathan]

Sounds like the EG has it covered already.  Does your drummer want him to give it to you instead?  Good band BTW. 

[drawback]

I’d do the whole outro solo on organ. The live version rocks.

[kenheeter]

I'd like to hear the whole show - great band!!

[Kawai James]

1 hour ago, kenheeter said:

I'd like to hear the whole show - great band!!

I think this is the JT Live album the track is taken from:
https://www.amazon.com/James-Taylor-Live/dp/B0000027H5

[Docbop]

Modern times with the great Larry Goldings whose been doing the JT gig in recent years.  

 

 

[D. Gauss]

Eb minor pentatonic is your friend (or at least the friend of whoever is playing guitar on that).

[musicbysterling]

19 hours ago, D. Gauss said:

Eb minor pentatonic is your friend (or at least the friend of whoever is playing guitar on that).

I think that's what I've been doing already.All the black keys...

[jazzpiano88]

James has the capo but the piano and B3 don’t have the transpose button. 
That’s when you practice so hard it doesn’t matter they key.  

i think Bill Payne had a comment along these lines in his interview with David and Joe. 

[Docbop]

23 minutes ago, JazzPiano88 said:

James has the capo but the piano and B3 don’t have the transpose button. 
That’s when you practice so hard it doesn’t matter they key.  

i think Bill Payne had a comment along these lines in his interview with David and Joe. 

 

JT has a capo for same reason a lot of acoustic types do, they are play lots of patterns with open strings. Capo lets them change keys and still play open string patterns.    From a Jazz guitarist POV  Jim Hall liked playing in flat keys because he could use open strings and they were all altered sounds. 

[Synthaholic]

I do 'Mexico', but I don't play a solo at the end of it. But if I did, I would take inspiration from Jackson Browne's 'You Love the Thunder', which I also do. David Lindley plays a slide solo that always sounded like a synth solo to me, so that's what I play on it. I'd use a classic saw lead, or a classic Steve Winwood Prophet 5 sound. I wouldn't care that it's a beachy, marimba/organ/steel drum type of song.

[Reezekeys]

It's a stylistic thing. You're playing in a certain idiom and you want to be true to that. "Noodling on black keys" is not making it, as you've found out. BTW the Late Show version has a different chord at the end - a Bb7 instead of Gb (F#) maj. Not much differences in note choices, and to me it wouldn't make a diff which version someone preferred.

 

A blues scale should work pretty well here, so including an A natural as a passing tone in your riffing should sound OK, but again it's gonna be the melodic ideas that get you over - not simply looking to land on a black note.

 

I know I'm gonna get crap for this but if you're playing a midi controller and not the real deal, you have the tools to put this in a more comfortable key for you to play. In my opinion there is no shame in using the tools available to help make the music sound better. This doesn't mean you should stop working on playing anything in any key - it's just for the sake of a good-sounding performance in front of your bandmates and the public! There's even some precedent for this concept:

 

[allan_evett]

29 minutes ago, Reezekeys said:

 

A blues scale should work pretty well here, so including an A natural as a passing tone in your riffing should sound OK, but again it's gonna be the melodic ideas that get you over - not simply looking to land on a black note.

 

 

 

Adding that A natural will help a lot.  I think of this one as 6-5-4-1 in F#.  So using the D#m blues scales with that progression is a solid starting point (can also be thought of as  minor Pentatonic in F#: F# G# A A# C# D#.  I find thinking in Eb minor blues works best for me though; easier to visualize.

Also the varied use of melodic ideas Reezekeys mentioned will do a lot for your soloing. Switching to a B3 sound was suggested as well, which is likely how I'd play this.  Piano can work okay too.  That particular scale doesn't fall as smoothly under my hands either, but that causes me to come up with different approaches to soloing. 

[musicbysterling]

A belated thanx for all your suggestions!

[Outkaster]

Problem is with a song like this is getting comfortable with chords moving in a pattern, not necessarily notes.   You might have to be comfortable with the fact you might not ever be comfortable with it.  There isn't a lot of room to move from listening to it.  The salsa idea is cool if people understand how to play it.

[Old No7]

You're taking musical advice from a DRUMMER ? ? ?  😲

 

Sometimes "Less is more" and maybe your mix of the song doesn't need it.............

 

OR -- let the drummer go nut'zo on the bongos!

 

Old No7