Clifford Brown and Harold Land, The Blues Walk

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This album is pretty special to me because it was one of the first jazz albums I ever really got into.  Harold Land and Clifford Brown are probably the first two jazz musicians that I really studied and tried to emulate and have had quite an influence on me.  This selection in particular has stuck with me a) because it’s just really fun to listen to Clifford and Harold trading all the way down to 1/2 measures and b) it demonstrates a high level of communication between these musicians.

While there is a fair amount of language that can be learned from this transcription, I think the big lesson here is the importance of communication.  For those of you that have your own combos or small groups I think you can make a fun exercise out of trading down to 1/2 measures.

Just for fun here is an alternate take of the same trading section (though I think this take was a little less successful):

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Analysis

Key

  • UAT, LAT, AT = Upper/Lower Approach Tone
  • CPT, PT = Chromatic Passing Tone
  • NT, NG = Neighbor Tone, Neighbor Group
  • Arp = Arpeggio
  • CT = Chord Tone

 

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