Monday, October 24, 2022

Transcription: Max Roach solo - I'll Remember April

A Max Roach epic here, a chorus of fours and two solo choruses on I'll Remember April— not a short tune. This will probably go in an e-book sometime, so get it free while you can. Chuck a few $$$ in where it says DONATE in the sidebar if you feel like it.  

It's from Charles Mingus's live recording The Charles Mingus Quintet & Max Roach— Max is sitting in on this tune, the drummer on the rest of the record is Willie Jones. I'll Remember April is a 48 bar tune— ABA, each section is 16 bars. Often the A sections are played 8 bars Latin / 8 bars swing, swing on the bridge. The transcription ends 8 bars before the end of the second chorus— on the last 8 they play a rhythm vamp, and then vamp for 16 more bars before the horn comes in with the head out.  

The fours start at 7:24. Tempo is about 180— it picks up some during the solo, and settles back to 180 on the head out. FYI the tune starts around 180, and settles to around 175 through the horn and piano solos. 


He plays a lot of 16th note singles, so mind the abbreviation— a quarter note with two slashes on it isn't a roll, it's 16ths. Jones's drum set evidently has just one tom tom, a floor tom. There's also a cowbell. He plays a triplet figure repeatedly— you see it in bar 49— the unaccented notes are probably a double. 

There are some quintuplets in bar 69-70— I don't know if he's playing them deliberately. I would look for some kind of doubles to be involved on that whole passage, bars 65-71. And rudimental stickings generally— there are a couple of spots where he's obviously playing paradiddles. I think all of the 16th notes on one drum are singles. 

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