HANK GARLAND, ROCKABILLY SESSION

Here's an obscure rockabilly side, with hot solo and fills from Hank Garland. Gene Maltais's "Crazy Baby" is pretty boilerplate rockabilly, except for Garland's over-the-top playing. With players like Garland and Grady Martin, the true story of the work is not always on the hits.
(And speaking of Grady Martin-- I didn't do any web detective work to confirm the youtube claim that this track is Hank Garland. Hank could do just about anything, so it could be him, but it sure sounds a lot like Grady Martin to me. He had an idiosyncratic way of playing rockabilly that was very raunchy, but still somehow sounded country too. Martin sounded more country than most rockabilly players, but he had as much edge and rock and roll in his playing as any rockabilly specialist. If anyone cares enough to do some research, please let me know what you find about the identity of this guitarist.)
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HANK GARLAND TRANSCRIPTION BOOK, "VELVET GUITAR" ALBUM

Guitarist Mike Joiner has done guitar transcriptions from Hank Garland's "Velvet Guitar" album.

Hank was a true musician's musician-- aside from playing on countless Nashville country sessions, he made a handful of top-notch jazz recordings before a car accident in 1960 made it impossible for him to play professionally. Garland's "Jazz Winds from Another Direction" is his most celebrated jazz album, but the "Velvet Guitar" lp has some beautiful playing as well. This album, currently available as part of the "Move" two-disc collection, may have been originally promoted and packaged as a "mood music" type of record, but it's nonetheless excellent. It actually has one advantage over the more well-known "Jazz Winds;" Garland is virtually the whole show. Impeccable single-note lines alternate with hip double-stops and some of the sweetest chord melody playing I've ever heard.

I'm looking forward to spicing up my playing with as many of these Hank Garland licks as I can steal!


Mike's notation/tab book is in PDF form. Anyone interested can contact Mike Joiner at jazzguitarist27@yahoo.com.


Here's a sample from Mike's book. "Ed's Place" is a slow and swinging blues. The hammer-ons and pulloffs are a great example of how to use slurs to get a bluesy jazz flavor. Listen to the track here--

www.karlstraubmusic.com/2-03 Ed's Place.mp3

click on "MORE" to see track listing from Mike's book.

. The tracklisting is:

1. Secret Love
2. Scarlet Ribbons (For Her Hair)
3. Greensleeves
4. Tammy
5. Polka Dots And Moonbeams
6. Autumn Leaves
7. Like Someone In Love
8. Ain't Nothing Wrong With That, Baby
9. Blame It On My Youth
10. Ed's Place

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STEVE TROVATO, "TIGER RAG"

Steve Trovato is a real rarity-- a sophisticated player/educator who can play older styles with the right feel. I hear so many different influences in his playing-- Chet,
Albert Lee, Les Paul, Jimmy Bryant, Hank Garland, etc. etc. Beautiful stuff.


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HOT COUNTRY LICK IN G (D POSITION)

I got the idea for this lick while trying to steal some Nashville stuff from a Steve Trovato clip.

This lick will help you develop your ability to play out of D shapes. A lot of great country and blues licks come out of D shapes, but the D positions require a lot of stretching and shifting and they're tough to use. Inefficient though this position may be, don't neglect it! Its value lies in its special sound. The lick I have here can be played more easily in open G, or in its neighboring E position, but it sounds very different in a D position. That's because it uses a lot of the G string, giving you less of the thin B and E string sound. Of course, when you're going for that brittle twang tone, the B and high E are indispensable, but this position gives you more of a modern Nashville tone.

It's also a great pinky workout, and we all can use more of those.
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LEON RHODES GUITAR SOLO TRANSCRIPTION from "MY WINDOW FACES THE SOUTH," WILLIE WITH THE TROUBADOURS

Here's a cool artifact-- Willie Nelson sings Bob Wills's "My Window Faces the South" with the Texas Troubadours. That's about as Texas as you can get. Check out Leon Rhodes burning throughout--- lots of fast eighth-note runs and nice chord stabs behind the vocal, then a real workout of a solo. Another great opportunity to watch the technique of a master.

I have this solo transcribed below-- click on "MORE" to get to it, and you can click on the music to enlarge.

Most of the time with Ernest Tubb you get Leon's version of the Billy Byrd style. Tubb was very generous in giving space to his sidemen to stretch out, though, and here's a fascinating example of Leon in a lickety-split western swing setting. He starts down in an open G position, with Jimmy Bryant-esque fiddle-tune runs (throwing in a cool whole-tone lick!) and works his way up three octaves. "Window" is a great tune for improvising, because you get eight bars of G before the chords start moving into "rhythm changes" territory. When this happens, the chords move mighty fast, and Leon shifts into arpeggio mode. This is a common technique in this kind of music.

Check the tablature carefully-- some of these position choices had me scratching my head at first, but I watched the video and tried to play the notes exactly where Leon did, and eventually it made sense. In fact, in several cases, Leon's choice of fingerings and positions made it easier to play these lines.

IMPORTANT TIP ABOUT PLAYING FAST! Whenever I study the work of fast players, I almost always find interesting fingerings, use of positions, shifting techniques, etc. I think most fast players have spent a lot of time finding out efficient ways to move around the fingerboard. Players trying to play faster often focus too much on the right hand, not realizing that you have to plan out your left-hand moves on the fingerboard so that you know where you can go. If you're burning down the road in your hot rod, you can't pull over to ask directions.

Check Leon's right hand picking angle too-- keeping wrist relaxed, and experimenting with the angle of pick to string is important, but it won't help you if you don't know where the notes are. Good luck!

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WESTERN SWING CHORD MELODY VOICINGS

(Note-- I'm hoping to put some examples of this either in notation or maybe on a video at some point. I'm swamped with work for a while, but if anyone out there hounds me about it, I might get to it a little quicker.)

This approach is inspired by a quote from Lenny Breau to the effect that he mostly just used thirds and sevenths (guide tones) to harmonize melody lines. You have to have some theory and fretboard knowledge to make this work, but if you've been playing jazz changes for a while this method shouldn't be too hard for you. The way I'd been harmonizing melody lines for chord melody style felt a little clunky to me, and since I've been experimenting with this Lenny Breau system, it's really freed up my playing.

I thought I'd try doing this in a western swing setting, and I figured out some interesting things in the process.

When I was playing in more of a jazz style and using this system, I ran into some trouble when the melody note was either the third or the seventh of the chord. Doubling the melody note in the guide tones usually sounds bad to my ears, so I've tried putting other chord tones in to replace the note already in the melody. This works okay, but the obvious notes left over are the root and the fifth, and using these notes defeats the purpose somewhat of the guide tone approach. The genius of harmonizing with guide tones is that they outline the harmony while still giving you an open kind of sound. When you add roots and fifths, they add weight and density to the texture-- perfect for many musical styles, but for most kinds of jazz the result is a sluggish, cluttered feeling. When you're arranging a standard in chord melody this way, it's not a serious problem because the chord tones are not going to be thirds and sevenths all the time. Still, I couldn't wondering if there were some other options I should try.

When I started thinking in western swing terms, some interesting solutions popped up. I've noticed over the years that steel players like to use voicings that include whole step dissonance on adjacent strings. A fifth can be voiced right under a sixth, and likewise a ninth under a high third. Major sixth chords are also usually used where a jazz player might go with a major seventh. These sounds are characteristic of western swing.

When I tried voicing fifth and sixth under a third in the melody, and a ninth and third under a seventh, it worked pretty well. For dominant seventh chords, I still use guide tones as the harmony. For major type chords, I'll use thirds and sixths as my guide tones. (If the third is in the melody, I like to use sixth, root, third.)

If I'm playing jazz, I'll still run into trouble, I guess; since I usually walk a fine line between jazz and western swing, though, I'll probably start throwing in these western voicings and hope for the best.

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