This afternoon my daughter, Elizabeth called and was having car problems. The check engine light came on, the battery was dead and the steering locked up. We decided to have the car towed back here to be looked at, at my local gas station, In doing so, she was left without a car, so tonight I drove the other car down to her. She drove me back to my son Andrew’s house, half way between here and the University of Delaware, then he drove me home! I was all set for the trip down there, I had two genres on the iPhone jazz from vibist Arthur Lipner and guitarist Garrison Fewell and progressive rock from Six Minute Century. What! I forgot was to make sure the iPhone was charged or that there was a charger in the car – not good – no charger + no charge = no music!! So I tuned into WRTI and listened to some jazz! When I came back, I started to look for some videos from Arthur Lipner, but my ADD kicked in and soon I started watching Gary Burton and Chick Correa playing “Eleanor Rigby”, Oh, wait on the sidebar, there;s Gary Buton & Makoto Ozone performing “Afro Blue” I love “Afro Blue”!! Soon I was watching and listening to that song! Then I thought let’s go to Wikipedia and read about Afro Blue……
Mongo Santamaria first recorded his composition “Afro Blue” in 1959. “Afro Blue” was the first jazz standard built upon a typical African 3:2 cross-rhythm, or hemiola.[2] The song begins with the bass repeatedly playing 6 cross-beats per each measure of 12/8, or 6 cross-beats per 4 main beats—6:4 (two cells of 3:2). The following example shows the original ostinato “Afro Blue” bass line. The slashed noteheads indicate the main beats (not bass notes), where you would normally tap your foot to “keep time.”
yeah right!! what he said!!
In 1963 John Coltrane recorded “Afro Blue” with Elvin Jones on drums.[4] Jones took the opposite approach of Santamaria, superimposing two cross-beats over every measure of a 3/4 jazz waltz (2:3). This particular swung 3/4 is perhaps the most common example of overt cross-rhythm in jazz.[5][6] Coltrane and Jones reversed the metric hierarchy of Santamaria’s composition, by performing in 3/4 swing (2:3), instead of 6/8 or 12/8 (3:2). See: Demonstration of 2:3 cross-rhythm in 3/4 jazz waltz
Uh – huh??? Maybe it would be better if we just went into the morning watching instead of reading about – the non-musician in me doesn’t understand much of the above!! Here’s first the Burton video and then Coltrane – it sounds pretty cool if you start them both at the same ! Nite All!