Re-harm on blues head

[ZackAlbettaKCDrummer]

On their new album, "For Heaven's Sake", the Kevin Hayes Trio does a version of "Sonny Moon for Two", but instead of playing the regular ol' Bb blues, they play a four bar vamp--one bar of Gb7, one of Ab7, and two of Bb7--under the melody. Don't know if this kind of thing has been done before, but it was the first time I had heard a four-bar vamp repeated under all three sections of a twelve bar blues. It has a VERY cool meditative vibe and will work under multiple blues heads. It's also an easy thing to just call on the bandstand, no charts needed. Did it on a gig today, as a matter of fact, and I had so much fun that I saw fit to post a thread about it. Cheers

Zack

[Jakeweiser]

Yeah it's a cool arrangement. Cats are doing it here as I've heard it called twice on gigs like that.

It works on Sonny Moon and any other heavy pentatonic based blues head simply because the melodic strength of that melody will work over just about any reharmonization you can think of. I found it interesting how much a stir it caused at my school when he came here. Such a simple idea that works so well.

[Guy Hatton]

Many years ago, when I was just starting to learn jazz, I did a similar thing with Alfie's Theme. IIRC, the changes were ('A' section only):

Gbmaj7 / Emaj7 / | Eb9 /Db9 / | Bmaj7 / A7 / | (first time bar) Abm7 / Db13 / || (second time bar) Abm7 Db7 Gbmaj7 / ||

We used to play this rubato as an intro, then play the rest of tune with the regular changes.

[pringe]

I really dig that album, have listened to it many times! Jake - I bet it was a great session. He does a subtle reharm on Beatrice also, aswell as playing it a tritone out in B major. Sounds beautiful there!