A down-home slow blues from a recording with master organist Brother Jack McDuff. Our lead sheet is based on Roy's first chorus and includes a melody transcription showing Roy's phrasing and articulation.
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Down-home blues in a classic soul-jazz style. Our lead sheet is based on Roy's first solo chorus; we present it both somewhat simplified as a "head" and as a melody transcription showing his phrasing and articulation. The rhythms may look tricky at first, but the slow tempo makes them a lot less challenging. The 16th-note lines imply a double-time feel against the swing of the rhythm section.
This recording begins with a chorus of organ solo; our audio excerpt begins with Roy's pickup to his first chorus, as our lead sheets do. The rhythm section is just organ and drums for most of the track, with piano comping added on only the last three choruses: two choruses of organ solo and a final chorus with the horns improvising in a call-and-response format.
Don Sickler: This track is the only time Roy recorded with the legendary organist Brother Jack McDuff. Roy recorded with organ only a few times. In my research, I found the next time after our 1992 session here was on recordings I produced for the father figure of the great organists, Jimmy Smith. Both of these recordings were in 1995, where Roy recorded our This Here (Bobby Timmons) on Jimmy's "Damn!" album and Slow Freight (Ray Bryant) on Jimmy's album, "Angel Eyes".
Before putting this song up, I called Greg Hutchinson to see if he knew anything about Roy's title. Greg thinks it's just Roy saying "let's play a down-home greasy blues," and titled the result as such!
Roy Hargrove was a pioneer in modern hard-bop jazz and is widely regarded as one of the best trumpeters to emerge from the 1990s. As a high school student in Waco, Texas, young Roy met Wynton Marsalis in 1987. Impressed with the young man's talent, Wynton encouraged Roy. In April, 1988, while still a teenager, Roy traveled to NYC and slept on the couch in Don Sickler's rehearsal studio in preparation for his recording debut in the big leagues with Don ("Superblue"). Before leaving New York on that trip he also recorded with alto saxophonist Bobby Watson ("No Question About It"). Read more...
