To B natural
Some funny things start happening in these two choruses, and I don't mean funny ha-ha.For one, a suspicious number of b naturals start showing up in the bass line. I think he is in cahoots with Mr. Coltrane. Up until this chorus, he would play B flats, but what do you think, do you think he and Coltrane got together beforehand and agreed to do this? Or do you think that now that he is three choruses in, and Mr. P.C. has heard Coltrane go all honey-badger bananas and spray B naturals everywhere, so him and his radar ears just said "Oh it's like that, huh? Okay, it's on!" and started throwing natural sevenths into the bass line as well. That is a bass player that is listening, right there.
I think it is the latter, and in measures 2,3,12 in the first chorus he starts sneaking them in. He also throws in the major 7 on the F chord, and in the second chorus he just hammers it back and forth! He's not fooling around either.
Denying His Roots
Now he has dabbled in not playing the roots on the first beat already, but in the second chorus, he doesn't play the root on the downbeat for four measures in a row. He starts on the third, a bunch of times and the fifth as well. Just for good measure.
Our old friend repetition makes yet another repeat appearance in these choruses as well. If you have been following along, you may recognize some patterns in very familiar places.
Two more bass choruses to go until we catch up with the tenor solo...
Mr. P.C. Chorus 3 & 4 Bass Line at 230 bpm
bass 4/4 tempo 230 |CMin7 eb4 c d eb | f a g b | c b eb d | c d eb e | Fmin f e eb d | c ab d db | Cmin7 c g eb d | c d eb bb+ | Ab7 ab eb c eb| G7 d b c d | Cmin7 c bb a ab| g a b d |CMin7 c4 d eb e | f ab g b | c b d db | c d eb e | Fmin f g ab g | f e f e | Cmin7 eb c f e | eb d c a| Ab7 c ab c eb | G7 d d- g d | Cmin7 c bb a ab| g a b d |
Mr. P.C. Chorus 3 & 4 Bass Line at 90 bpm
bass 4/4 tempo 90 | CMin7 eb4 c d eb | f a g b | c b eb d | c d eb e | Fmin f e eb d | c ab d db | Cmin7 c g eb d | c d eb bb+ | Ab7 ab eb c eb| G7 d b c d | Cmin7 c bb a ab| g a b d |CMin7 c4 d eb e | f ab g b | c b d db | c d eb e | Fmin f g ab g | f e f e | Cmin7 eb c f e | eb d c a| Ab7 c ab c eb | G7 d d- g d | Cmin7 c bb a ab| g a b d |
3 comments:
The B natural comes from either the C minor melodic scale. The first two bars are all melodic minor scale. Also, there's quite a bit of A naturals throughout the tune. That's the raised 6th. Melodic minor has a "raised" (I mean raised from the natural minor) 6th and 7th. That would explain why the G7 (V) chord works in this piece as well. The C melodic minor scale is extremely common in minor keys. Play it over the head, and see if it works. Note: the tune is in C minor which has three flats, Bb Eb and Ab. So, the melodic minor scale raises Ab to A and Bb to B. Not to diss Chambers, who was amazing, but it wasn't his ear that picked out Trane hitting those notes. He knew what scales to play over what parts of the tune. He knew his scales, so that's why he chose those notes. It's pretty much all C melodic minor, C minor blues and C Dorian. They all work in this tune. Fyi, big thanks for taking the time to transcribe this one! - Jodi
In that last comment I meant to say either the harmonic minor or melodic minor, but then I realized in the first 2 bars of chorus 3 & 4 that it's all melodic minor. You might argue that in bar 14 there is use of the harmonic minor scale since Ab isn't raised. The harmonic minor scale only raises the 7th. Pretty fun stuff to analyze indeed!
One more thing, then I've got studying to do... You mentioned he doesn't play roots in a lot of instances. It's a very common approach to use guide tones instead of the roots. 3rds and 7ths being the guide tones. Not sure if you knew that already... Perhaps some of your readers might not already know that. But, really if you look at the bassline as more of a scale-wise (lots of chromaticism too) approach to playing the tune, it seems very simple. Scales always work over chords that are played for more than 2 measures. The broken chords work best when playing over a chord or two per bar.
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