Analysis of the solo

The transcription of the solo looks more complicated than the solo sounds (although there are some phrases that sound as complicated as they look). Some (most?) of the rhythms are approximate. 

If you find any mistakes in the transcription, please let me know and I’ll correct it.

The best thing I like about the solo:

How it ends!  The decrescendo and the rise into the very highest range of the piano make it seem like the solo floats away, with perhaps a bittersweet quality, an emotion that the Japanese have long appreciated.  I vaguely recall (albeit after more than 20 years) that the idea to end the solo this way only came to me sometime during the end of the last long phrase (bars 21-22).

Other things I like about the solo:

Development of motifs:

1.  Two standard licks from the major pentatonic scale (F-F#-G-Bb and C-C#-D-F) are played in bar 1 and recur often.

2.  The first phrase (bar 1) ends with a 6^th interval, which is developed in bar 4 (modified to a 7^th), bar 5 (only a tritone, but a recall of the Db in bar 2 and keeping the high G of bar 4), and bars 6-7.

3.  The lick that ends 9 and continues into bar 10.

4.  The simple 3-note lick at the end of bar 10 that continues into bar 12.

5.  The ending lick, a nearly pure major pentatonic one, starting in bar 21.

Bass and piano interplay

As I repeat and develop the lick begun at the end of bar 10, the bassist (a Japanese player whose name I forget) drops down to a low F in bar 12, and I immediately respond (as a continuation of the development of the motif that I’m already deep into) by playing the next variation of the motif as low in the piano’s range as I’ve played in my right hand up to that point.

The climax (muted as it may be) at the end of bar 22 is nicely matched by the bassist playing in a high range, matching my highest notes of the solo.

I play my last phrase, which starts in bar 24, in a much lower range than the very high phrase that preceded it in order to match the bassist’s move to a low note after a very high one that occurs on beat two of bar 24.  How could I not move down much lower into my range after the bassist played that low dominant pedal?

Fourths

I snuck in some P4ths in bar 9.

Chordal idea

I like the way the chordal idea in bars 15-16 builds into the IV (Eb7) chord in bar 17, but I cringe as I detect a slight quickening of the tempo in my playing.  My only excuses is that I was carried away in the moment.  Mea culpa.  But I’m ultimately saved (not in the theological sense) by the great staccato and brief rest along with the bassist that follows on the downbeat of bar 17, which is a great resolution of the tension built up by this idea.

The staccato and brief rest are recalled at the end of the next phrase, bar 19, one of the longest and most complex in the solo, because it similarly ends in unison with the bassist, followed by a rest.

Long phrases

The solos ends with two very long phrases that build tension up to the end of the solo.

Introductory bar

The first system on page 1 shows a voicing for F7 and I don’t know where it came from. It’s a standard voicing for Eb7, not F7. I would never play the Db-G-C idea on F7 now (although maybe I should).