Cissy Strut harmony line.

[SocraticTele]

I've been trying to cop the harmony melody line to this version of Cissy Strut, but can't quite seem to nail it. Can anyone help? Even if you can't, you really should check out this version of the song - it's pretty cool: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x0tK2MA-_w

Thanks in advance,

-T

[stevel]

Here's what I got (doing this unplugged, so...) when this starts about a minute in:

-12-10----------------------------13(b)--
---------11----------------11-13---------
-------------12--9-----12----------------
-------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------

-12-10------------------------------------
---------11--------------------13---------
-------------12--9-----9--12------12----
-------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------

Sounds very Jeff Beck-ish - kind of cool how essentially the main line is C minor, but the harmony line is closer to C Mixolydian.

Steve

[Bobby D]

that is AWESOME.....i just sent that link to my buddy Brian Stoltz from the Funky Meters......he's gonna dig it!

[Tomo]

Originally Posted by Bobby D

that is AWESOME.....i just sent that link to my buddy Brian Stoltz from the Funky Meters......he's gonna dig it!

Katsumi Watanabe san! Ko Shimizu san on bass!

Tomo

[SocraticTele]

Thanks so much - just what I was looking for.

[frdagaa]

Killer stuff. Anyone know who the other guitarist is?

[imguitardan]

[Neer]

The key change in the bridge I think is an invention of Scofield's, which he recorded on his Flat Out record in the late 80s (at least that's the first time I heard that change). Adds a nice dimension to the tune.

The Meters' version is really the one. Everyone else plays it too fast and it loses the "strut". Nevertheless, here's a spirited version by Scofield with Lovano, Anthony Cox and John Reilly.

[57tele]

A post or two here, along with some of the comments on the video page, put me in the mind of this post by Kimock some time back:

http://www.thegearpage.net/board/sho...d.php?t=508171

As a general response to the last couple of "ass kicking" comeuppances, the flip side of that, which is more the rule than the exception ime, is seeing the music for the first time as a real living thing. You get schooled, sure, but you get your heart opened too.

Now obviously you're going to want to learn the material, so you're going to study the record, copy some solos, try to cop the feel etc, but the end result of that is a very static take on the actual music, whatever style it is.

For myself, I went through 20 years of playing New Orleans funk, Meters, Doctor John, Nevilles' type stuff.
All the guys I hung with were into that bag.
We programmed drum machines to play Cissy Strut(!) and copped the parts, tempo, groove, feel, production values, all of it.
There were parts of those tunes that we considered sacred.
Here's the record, it goes like this, don't f'k it up.

Years later I get to do a bunch of gigs with George Porter Jr.
He says "You know Cissy Strut?"
I'm all "Yeah, got it."
He says "Oh, we don't do it like that no more. We play it like a blues with just the first lick until the V chord, and then the 2nd lick for the V and the IV chord."
Ouch.
If anybody had pulled that shit on me or my crew on that tune at any point before that, we would have taken them out back and taught 'em some respect.

So, the record that I had spent the last 20 years worshiping and learning was, well it wasn't like living on an Indian reservation, it was a polaroid of some Indian on a reservation.

The reality was stuff that I thought was compositional was just one players tendencies, stuff that I thought was carved in stone only happened that one day, stuff that I thought was brilliantly original and unique was known to and required of everybody, critical arrangement points were mistakes or accidents, and basically all that I thought was "sacred" was just a bunch of guys cuttin' up.

All my uptightness about what was proper for that music was replaced in a single joyous moment with being in the music for real as a living, evolving, celebration. It was a fk'n party.
It sure wasn't about my take on the record anyway.

So that's why you play with people, to get that.
To get away from the "It goes like this" nazis.
The folks that are actually playing anything, they're not stuck in the past, and they're not stuck on pause with their trip.
They're having a ball with it every time.

There's great stuff on all those records, but those are just moments, 10, 20 seconds here and there. Frozen to death.
You don't get the real music hit from the record: the beauty, the terror, the drama, the humor, the energy, the pace, the animation, the satisfaction, the serendipity, or the boundless good will and mutual respect that comes in performance. The feeling.

That's what made those recorded performances so great, the stuff that didn't stick to tape.
At some point, you just have to go do it.
That's the gig.

peace