From: ujwb@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (Jeff Beer)
Subject: Re: The best rhythm changes improvisations?
Keywords: Birth Control
Organization: Educational Computing Network
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 04:54:47 GMT



Here are some of my thoughts and suggestions on how some artists approached 
Rhythm tunes, or some of my favorites.  It is necessarily incomplete in both
respects.

Bird:  Bird played Rhythm tunes so much, and there is not enough
diskquota in the universe to list them all.  Some the most interesting
Bird playing for me is on the Prestige/Fantasy 24009  double-LP from
the 70s.  Originally it was called Bird On 52 Street and Bird At St
Nicks.  For Rhythm tunes, there is the 52 Street Theme, Shaw Nuff, 
Chasin' The Bird, Dizzy Atmosphere.  Also are some mind-blowing versions
of Out Of Nowhere and My Old Flame.  There are some saxophone
multiphonics.  I don't know if the 52 Street set is on CD, but I have
seen St Nicks.  I always liked A NIGHT A BIRDLAND with Fats Navaro and Bud
Powell, Columbia put it out.  I have seen only fragments of it on
CD.  But they do MOVE, which has a Rythm A section, but the bridge is in F
minor.  Fats is ever so fluent and BURNS.

Sonny Rollins:  Oleo with Don Cherry from the CD: ON THE OUTSIDE.
Very loose and spontaneous playing, with Sonny at his most fluent.
Sonny always felt he was as out as Ornette on these sets.
That's not the only thing that Sonny did on Rhythm, but this is the one
that stands out in my mind.

John Coltrane:  Good Bait is nice.  For the Bridge, instead of playing
the usual string of dominant chords, they play the A section up a fourth.
Of course, that's the way T. Dameron wrote it.
He did Oleo with Miles, of course, but after his quartet, he was into
modal stuff, so didn't play Rhythm tunes.

Monk:  he wrote Rhythm-A-Ning and performed it fairly regularly.
There is a nice version with Johnny Griffin and Roy Haynes from
THELONIOUS IN ACTION, they take it medium up.  On Criss-Cross, with Rouse 
and Dunlop, they take it slower, and bring out the more disjounted 
rhythmic qualities.  (Frank Dunlop seemed to know what to do with Monk's
left hand better than Roy)  On both these versions, Monk plays these
curiously baroquish licks (in a Monkish way) during his solo.  
The 52 St Theme is also a Rhythm tune, but Monk didn't record it much.  
You mostly hear it on live recordings, just as the break tune, 
so they don't get into blowing on it.

Miles: he normally played Oleo as his rhythm tune. He didn't seem to
do it much with his 60s Quintet, but with Trane, he played it a fair
amount.  

Ornette:  don't count out the tunes on Tommorrow is the Question.
The title track, Rejoicing, and Endless are all based on the Rhythm
Changes.  There is major reworking of some of the changes, but they
generally keep the form when they blow.   There is an intersting story
in the magazine Coda from an interview with Red Mitchell.  Ornette was
trying to get them to not worry about having the same number of bars in
the form, but Red said he couldn't do that.   They went on and on for
about 45 minutes.  Then Red told Percy Heath, who also played with
Ornette, and Percy said he had the same conversation with Ornette.
Ornette kept recording occasional Rhythm tunes, such as Bird Food and RPDD,
but the blowing was free on these preformances.  Bird Fird is on Change
of the Century , RPDD is on Ornette!

On Sun Ra's SUN SONG (Delmark), Future is a Rhythm tune with some John
Gilmore playing the solo.  The head is very angular, like you'd expect
from Dolphy or Braxton.  Except this was 1957.

Paul Motian's band does I Got Rhythm on On Broadway Volume 2, with
Charlie Haden, Joe Lovano, Bill Frisell.  Fairly straight ahead
compared to what they do to other tunes in this series.  BTW,
I hear from a reliable sources that On Broadway Volume 3 will be made with 
the Motian trio, plus Charlie Haden and Lee Konitz.  You heard it hear first.

Jeff