Transcription: Jon Christensen — Keep It Like That- Tight

Here's Jon Christensen doing some nice open, dynamic playing on a slow, static vamp: Keep It Like That — Tight from Terje Rypdal's self-titled album on ECM from 1971. We love Christensen because he's a very cool, musical, non-flashy player— I think of him as sort of the Billy Higgins of the fusion era. And he tends to play very linearly between all four limbs, which makes the time spent working through 4-Way Coordination more worth it. We'll see if I have the wherewithal to write up the obvious companion to this, Miles Davis's Yesternow, with Billy Cobham on drums.

The dynamic markings are extremely general— there's quite a bit of range within every level. The crescendos only refer to the dynamic shape of a lick— they don't signify a larger dynamic change. I've been a little irregular in how I label the subtler accents and ghost notes— sometimes I indicate them, sometimes I don't. I suppose if I submit this to Down Beat I'll go through it and model each measure more finely, and maybe add some pocos and piùs where necessary. You'll just have to use your ears, and be aware that Christensen plays a lot of shape.

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We'll see how long this clip lasts— a lot of ECM stuff is blocked from being shared on YouTube in the US, and Amazon doesn't sell the track by itself, so— horrors— you may need to just buy the CD. Or maybe you can get the lone mp3 on iTunes— I don't think you should buy music that way, but you can do it.