March Jazz tune of the month: Soft Winds

This months winner is Soft Winds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LMHL8jYTAQ

The arrangement is the same as Benny Goodman with two differences. No introduction, start right on the head (starts at :05 in the video) and we will play this in the key of G rather than the record key of Ab (I can hear the sighs of relief everywhere...). Just like Goodman's version, the head is 16 bars but the solos are 12 bar blues. Tempo is slightly slower, 165 beats per minute.

Arrangement:
HEAD twice
SOLOS 12 bar blues x 4
HEAD once with repeated ending


Music and tab:
Attachment 165513


Play along:
Attachment 165514


The site is not letting me upload the Band in a Box file. If anyone wants it, PM or email me with your email address. Have fun!!!

Thanks for that Pete and thank you to everybody for your contributions last month. There will never be another you is a great tune.

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Originally Posted by Pete Martin

This months winner is Soft Winds.

.... we will play this in the key of G rather than the record key of Ab (I can hear the sighs of relief everywhere...).

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Aw, not from me, I like all those so-called horn keys like Ab and Eb and Db.

Here’s my take on it. This is a real simple rendition, just played the melody and soloed a couple times.

I based the head and form on the Art Blakey recording of the tune, in which the head is played as a 12 bar form rather than 16, and the turnaround is slightly different in the solos as well as the head.

https://youtu.be/rY9mgoSqlBQ

Cheers!

Most of the bebop and later recordings turned Soft Winds into a 12 bar blues. Good stuff Alex!

Here is my contribution. I agree with David and Alex. I like the horn keys too. I played it in Bb since I had also been playing around with Charles Mingus's Prayer Passive Resistance lately. I added a Mingus into.



I probably threw in a few too many phrases from other Bb tunes as well. There are just too many great Bb blues tunes. Nice choice. Thanks Pete!

Larry

Quote:

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Originally Posted by alexheflin

Here’s my take on it. This is a real simple rendition, just played the melody and soloed a couple times.

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lovely playing , and gutsy to solo as in solo.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lawrence Fullenkamp

Here is my contribution.

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sweet and soulful!

cool intro too

Two wonderful interpretations, and clean playing. Way cool stuff from both of you! :cool:

Here is my effort at this stage. Kudos to those above and thanks to Pete for initiative and persistance. This is on my new (beautiful) Collings MT2-O. The action is a little lower than I am used to, and it shows in the confusion of my fingerings and slappy sounds.

My grandfather died about 87. I received his Rolex watch, which I kept in a safety deposit box. In an annual look at the box, I thought that instead of looking at my inheritance annually, I could sell it and buy something I would look at daily, remembering him, my dad, and my old friend and drinking buddy (Bushmills and beer) Bill Collings. It was an about even trade for the Rolex.



Band in a Box (Bob, Ike, Al and Brian), a Collings MT2-O, rode mic, shipped with bronze strings that feel a little light, BC60, Rode Mic, into Audacity. Audacity track -- as recorded raw -- and a copy of the track, with compressor ad reverb applied. The effect track is at about 40% volume raw track at 50%. Mixed to a single mono track and exported to MP3.

Listening to you folks do the same songs is such a treat. I learn from every post. (I just wish it would sink in.)

Great Dave. Congrats on the new mandolin. Play it in good health and in fond memory of those who've passed on. ~o)

Nice Dave, you and the Collings both sound good!

Here is my submission. :grin::cool::crying::mandosmiley:~:>

Wow, the reverb is WAY higher on the MP3 than it was in my DAW, sorry about that. And, no, I didn't just get a new reverb unit...

Nice work Pete!!! I love your use of space in the first chorus solo and the chords in the head and last chorus solo. Nice voicings and great cut.

This tune is far more challenging than it appears at first or second hearing - the way the phrase moves back and forth on and off the beat - the ambiguous feel of the form (play it as 12 bars and it wants to be 16, play it as 16 and it wants to be 12) - the unusual turnaround that seems to place the end a bar later than it ought to be - the spareness that leaves nowhere to hide .... if I could do justice to it I'd feel I was getting somewhere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKRSOk5VAU4

Couldn't get it together for longer than two heads :) ....