I’m playing guitar with the Blue Saracens at Swing 46 tomorrow evening, from 8:30 til midnight. if you’re in the neighborhood, come on by!

After reading Ethan Iverson’s great post on Charles McPherson, I made it a point to make it down to a set this week. The quintet featured Tom Harrell on trumpet and fluegelhorn, and it was a unique chance to hear Tom blowing in such a straight ahead setting. The rhythm section was Willie Brown III on the drums, Ray Drummond on the bass and Jeb Patton at the piano.

They kicked off the set with “Budlike”, a medium uptempo blues written by Charles. From the first notes of the melody, right away I noticed Charles’ tremendous sound, even when he was playing off mic, his authoritative sound filled the club. Tom took the first solo and played his fluegelhorn beautifully, with his distinctive muted tone and uncommonly clear ideas. I was surprised to see him switch to trumpet for the remainder of the set, as I have mostly seen him perform exclusively on fluegelhorn in recent years. Interestingly, he gets a very similar muted sound on trumpet, I was sitting directly in front of him the whole set and didn’t hear any of the bright, almost cutting sound you hear when directly in front of a trumpet. Ray and Willie traded choruses for a collective bass/drums solo, that kind of conversation is something I wish I heard more often.

The next tune was an uptempo version of “The Song Is You”, followed by a Tom Harrell feature on his tune “Suspended Motion”, a straight 8ths piece with sometimes ambiguous harmonies. I know this tune, and it was really interesting to hear a player of Charles’ generation navigate a tune like this. Of course he sounded great, and perhaps a bit more thoughtful than on the earlier tunes.

They followed up with an uptempo version of “Spring Is Here”, followed by another Harrell composition, “Blues In Six”, a loping, “not-quite a blues” blues. Jeb Patton took a great solo on this one, channeling McCoy Tyner and then getting into some stacatto chords that sounded really fresh in this context. The final tune was “Tenor Madness”, with Willie Jones, who swung his ass off and played great the whole, building into a fiery solo. Charles and Tom traded over choruses, then fours, and finally twos before taking it out.

This was some of the best straightahead jazz gigs I’ve been to in a while, and I’ll definitely make it a point to listen to more charles.

Here’s a PDF (MP3) of the first chorus of Red Garland’s solo on the gershwin tune, “A Foggy Day”. I decided to transcribe Paul Chambers’ bassline because, well, he’s Paul Chambers, and also because it’s remarkably clear on the recording, as Art Taylor uses brushes throughout.

As always, this transcription is more of a guide than an attempt to be 100% accurate. Red plays some great, long classic bebop lines on this. He likes to accent the highest note of the phrase, which he often places on a strong beat. I’ve put a marcato where he gives a pronounced accent.

Paul plays some very interesting lines in this and always picks interesting notes, check out the Eb – D – C line he plays starting in bar 11. Also, check out his super high line (which I have in treble clef) starting in bar 13! he really uses the full range of the bass, and this really adds a lot of intensity to the music. I have yet to notate red’s always great chord puncutations, which are such an integral part of his style. The chord symbols I’ve put above the staff reflect the changes of the tune in general, but aren’t always exactly what they play in a given spot. when in doubt, the recording obviously speaks the truth.