Blues #2 – Ray Bryant

Ray plays seven choruses of blues in his distinctive funky, refined style. His solo playing is both reminiscent of earlier swing and blues styles and influenced by bebop and hard bop. The first two choruses here are played with a "2-feel" in the left hand; the right hand theme is voiced in second-inversion triads. The second chorus is a closely related variation of the first; Bryant had a real knack for creating riff blues "heads." Over the next four choruses, he solos with mostly single-note lines in the right hand and steady quarter-notes in the left, often walking tenths.

1972 was the sixth year of the Montreux Jazz Festival. One day after Ray's performance, Rahsaan Roland Kirk played the famous concert that was recorded and released as the album "I, Eye, Aye: Live at the Montreux Jazz Festival."

Ray Bryant wrote and recorded countless "riff" blues heads. Some are only slightly different from others. So far as we know, the "head" (first two choruses) of Blues #2 is not a variation of another Bryant composition.

Ray Bryant's Solo Piano Transcription
Ray Bryant, one of the true masters of solo piano playing, takes you through nine pages of exquisite blues playing.

Characteristic of Ray's style are the use of diminished passing chords and a progression he plays on the fourth measure of each chorus: G, F, E minor and D minor triads (one per beat) leading into the C7 in measure 5. The right-hand lines freely alternate between bluesy and bebop vocabulary; some of the bluesier lines are voiced in thirds, such as in the first four measures of the third chorus.

The seventh and final chorus begins with a very funky even-8ths groove, basically a double-time feel; in the fifth measure the feel snaps back into swing. The ending winds down evenly, with the right hand lines expanding into flurries of arpeggios before finally settling on relatively simple D7 and G7 voicings.