All Blues

This afternoon, I had the first rehearsal for All Blues with Dylan, Dennis, Chih-yu, Dorian, and Paula.

We came up with the following form:
*Bass starts with the intro, then drums, and then violins and sax come in with harmony. We're playing in 12/8.
*We played the head twice, during which Chih-yu sings her lyrics.
*Right after, we begin solos. Dorian will have the last solo, and then he'll transition us into 11/8 (which is really just a bar of 6 and a bar of 5).
*We play the head again twice through again, with Chih-yu singing.
*More solos. Dennis will play the last solo.
*We play the head for the third time.
*Ending...?

We tried a couple of ending techniques. First, we tried fading out on a vamp, which was moderately successful - we just need to practice it a few more times. Dennis also had the idea of repeating the intro vamp at the end, but cutting out one beat from the bar each time, so we'd go from 11/8 to 10/8 to 9/8, etc. It was a cool concept but we thought it would be too hard to implement. Very mathematical though - what do you expect from a bunch of MIT kids?

In class we originally listened to this classic recording of All Blues by Miles Davis (1959):


And another, later recording by Miles Davis (1964):


I found another version by Buddy Rich:


I like the first and third versions the best, which are mellower and/or more melodic. I don't like the sound of the trumpet when played in spats as in the second version above. I'll be listening to these recordings for inspiration in my spare time now. Someday I may be able to play strings of running eighth notes on my violin like the Buddy Rich band pianist... I'll learn to walk before I run though.