In each of the solos I link to below, the soloist makes a change in their improvising strategy in the second chorus in order to create a contrast with the approach in their first chorus. In the comment section, please choose one of these solos and explain how the soloist’s improvising strategy in the second chorus contrasts with their strategy in the first chorus. Here is a list of one sentence analyses that I have made of solos in this list. Please choose the analysis that matches the solo you have chosen, and briefly explain some more specifics about how and where these two approaches are heard in the solo – for example, in which measures of the second chorus does the double-timing occur? or: in which measures of the second chorus does the soloist leave space? Also, please note that while the links will take you to the time in the video when the solo occurs, it is also crucial to listen to the entire recording. For the solos that quote the melody, for instance, you need to hear the head in to know when the soloist is quoting the melody.
The soloist uses melodic material that is different from the head (melody) of the tune in the first chorus, and references the melody in the second chorus.
The soloist references the melody in the first chorus and uses melodic material that is different from the head (melody) of the tune in the second chorus.
The soloist plays more continuous phrases in the first chorus and leaves more space in the second chorus.
The soloist leaves more space in the first chorus and plays more continuous phrases in the second chorus. A reversal of the previous strategy in piano solos: the pianist takes a ‘hand to hand conversation approach’ in the first chorus, leaving space after right hand melodic ‘questions’ for left hand chord ‘answers’ (or vice versa; see my blog post Leading With The Left for three examples of this kind of solo). In the second chorus, the pianist plays longer phrases and so has less left hand punctuation between phrases, and/or has more ‘paralinear’ comping (LH chording that happens along with a right hand phrase.)
The soloist works within the primary melodic subdivisions of the tune in the first chorus (usually eighth notes and triplets) and explores ‘double-timing’ (faster note values, often sixteenth notes) in the second chorus.
The soloist focuses primarily on scalar motion in the first chorus, with some melodic thirds interspersed, and explores wider intervals in the second chorus
Bud Powell’s piano solo on ‘Buzzy’ with Charlie Parker and Miles Davis (B flat blues, 1947) – here is a link to the blog post that contains my transcription.
Al Haig’s piano solo on ‘Twisted’ with Wardell Gray (1949) (see my transcription of the Bud Powell ‘Buzzy’ solo and see if you can figure out what Haig borrows from Powell’s solo.)
Clifford Brown’s trumpet solo on ‘Sandu’ (1955)
Harold Land’s tenor saxophone solo on ‘Sandu’
Max Roach’s drum solo on ‘Sandu’
Betty Carter’s vocal solo on ‘Babe’s Blues’ (1958)
Thelonious Monk’s piano solo on ‘North Of The Sunset’ (1960)
Kavita Shah’s vocal solo on Interplay (the link is to my blog post on this solo) (2018)
Kenny Barron’s piano solo on ‘City Of Sounds’ with Joe Farnsworth (2021)
I think the description “The soloist uses melodic material that is different from the head (melody) of the tune in the first chorus, and references the melody in the second chorus.” is best used for Betty Carter’s solo in ‘Babes Blues’.
In the first chorus, Betty strays away from the majority of the melodic elements of the head but comes back to them at the end of her second chorus. She plays with the melody reflected at the end of the lyrical phrases “and as a rule they’re pretty cool” and “kids meet blues, then greet blues, and beat blues”.
I think the most accurate statement to apply to Al Haig’s solo on “Twisted” would be the following:
“The soloist leaves more space in the first chorus and plays more continuous phrases in the second chorus. A reversal of the previous strategy in piano solos: the pianist takes a ‘hand to hand conversation approach’ in the first chorus, leaving space after right hand melodic ‘questions’ for left hand chord ‘answers’ (or vice versa; see my blog post Leading With The Left for three examples of this kind of solo). In the second chorus, the pianist plays longer phrases and so has less left hand punctuation between phrases, and/or has more ‘paralinear’ comping (LH chording that happens along with a right hand phrase.)”
This sort of feel is shown in the first chorus, it starts with a two bar phrase, or “question”, with just long enough to get a response in the form of a couple quick chords from the left hand. Then the right hand starts a new phrase very similarly, but adds on a little bit more, almost like a follow-up question, to which the left hand answers in a similar fashion to the first time, and the right hand plays an even longer phrase for the rest of the first chorus, with a bar or two at the end for the last response. The second chorus, however, while it does have pauses, is much more constantly going and doesn’t get that same response when there are pauses. The contrast is especially clear over the transition between choruses when the silence in the right hand is met by a sudden rapid phrase to start off the second chorus in a more “talking to” than “talking with” feel, making a subtle but noticeable difference between the two choruses in Haig’s solo.
“The soloist works within the primary melodic subdivisions of the tune in the first chorus (usually eighth notes and triplets) and explores ‘double-timing’ (faster note values, often sixteenth notes) in the second chorus” is a good description of Max Roach’s drum solo on “Sandu.” In the first 12 bars of the solo he mainly uses triplets, but sprinkles in some eighth notes as well. It is in the first six bars of the second chorus that he explores double time, then he goes back to primarily triplets.
I think the description “The soloist plays more continuous phrases in the first chorus and leaves more space in the second chorus” fits best for Max Roach’s drum solo on “Sandu”.
The structure of Mat Roach’s patterns are pretty uniform throughout the solo. He has a habit of shifting from fast, accented notes to slower, clearer notes. The “continuous” part of the first chorus is that he repeats his patterns in a semi-consistent form. In the second half of the chorus, while his solo is still very similar to the first half, there feels to be more of a free style of playing. He’s just barely staying outside of a swing. He experiments with gaps in his solo and returning to a swing at measures 21-24, and prepares to end it by slowing his patterns down and easing into a roll, when the bassist comes in.
I like the solo that Roach puts on. Obviously he is restricting himself to a standard kind of classical jazz drum solo style (he doesn’t take advantage of the kick or do any kind of chops really) but he still creates something that is interesting to listen to and demonstrates how basic rudiments, when taken full advantage of, can sound great in a solo.
One of the biggest challenges for up-and-coming improvisers, myself included, is learning how to say something with your solos. This idea is brought to the forefront during a two-chorus solo, where the best improvisers will deploy various strategies to build interest and contrast between their two choruses. For instance, Harold Land’s solo on Clifford Brown’s ‘Sandu’ is a great demonstration of rhythmic variety through a two-chorus solo.
To kick off his first chorus, Land borrows a quote from the melody in bar one (though this idea appears in bar twelve in the original melody), but switches things up a bit by ending the phrase on the root instead of climbing up to the parallel octave like the original melody does. What follows throughout the rest of the first chorus is a series of runs that rarely breaks out of a palette featuring eighth notes and triplet sixteenth notes with relatively lengthy pauses between. There are a couple brief instances of sixteenth note embellishments as seen in bars two and six, but that’s about it. Furthermore, each line Land plays is followed by a good long pause, which shows off another crucial element of improvisation; knowing when to stop for a moment. Without those pauses, his lines would sound way less melodic and more like just noodling around.
Land begins his second chorus by continuing the previous palette of notes from the last chorus in the first bar. Then, in the pickup to the second bar, he comes in with a flurry of sixteenth note runs. This indicates an exploration of faster rhythmic values. The sixteenth note was featured very sparsely throughout the first chorus, but have now become the defining feature of the second chorus. This frequent use of short note values is often referred to as double-timing, and it creates a more frantic pace (for lack of a better term) than the first chorus did. Land easily could have gone through both of his choruses playing these crazy sixteenth note lines the entire time, but by intentionally saving those ideas for his second chorus and leading in with slower, more melodic ideas in the first chorus, it creates a strong contrast between his two choruses, which in turn creates a great amount of interest for the listener.
Since we have delved into Kavita’s vocal improvisation techniques on multiple occasions in and out of combo, I would like to focus my listening analysis beyond the realms of the first two solos taken through the form.
At the start, the bass fills the space with a rumbling drone (or pedal point) to accompany the elastic vocal line. This drone begins to waver in pitch. It evokes motion moving up and down the scale, with Shah climbing and falling simultaneously. At about two minutes and forty seconds, Shah takes in the subdivisions from the bass and applies them to make her vocals more animated (‘bap bap”). She goes into the b section with obvious variation in duration. Her cutoffs become sharper, almost more purposeful to compliment the sharp sounds from the bass strings.
In order to understand Shah’s improvisation and how she transitions to the second time through the form, it is important to look to the bass. After all, the bass takes a solo…So there is a time when the bass is being plucked without Shah singing, but there is no point where she is improvising without bass in the background. When the bass swaps from half notes to a walking bass (on countless occasions), Shah juxtaposes the rhythm with syllabic lines that speed up ever so slightly and give Interplay more motion.
The head out keeps the same general idea as the very start, but with more of a melancholy feel. She back phrases a ton with lots of “ley”s that outnumber “doh”s. The timbre of these syllables give the allusion to the average listener that the duo is going back and forth between a straight eighth and swung eighth division.