String Theory with Jimmy Brown: Some Crafty, Ambitious Improvising Over “Song for My Father”

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As a final lesson on improvising over the changes to Horace Silver’s “Song for My Father,” this month I present a chorus of original melody played over the tune’s 24-bar, AAB form that features musically crafty contours with interesting twists and turns (see FIGURE 1).

Following last month’s sparser, bluesy chorus, I now shift into higher rhythmic and harmonic gear and play double-time 16th-note bebop-style lines over the tune’s laid-back bossa-nova groove and loosely spaced chord changes, which present an opportunity and challenge to try and “get inside the changes” and say a lot over each chord, while bringing the two-chorus solo to an exciting climax.