I used to haunt Doug Dobell's Jazz Record Shop at 77 Charing Cross Road in London in the late '60s and early '70s. I remember buying two vinyl albums of music recorded by King Oliver and his orchestra in Chicago, and the track that has stayed with me ever since was Fred Rose's 1926 great composition "Deep Henderson". The sheet music I have for this has it as a song in F, followed by a piano solo version in G arranged by Rose himself with an extra trio section - trios were a common part of ragtime and early jazz compositions. I've transposed the main tune into C, for tenor guitar, and tacked on the trio in the same key. So there's a short intro, a once-through A part, a B part with repeat and a C part (trio) with repeat. For style, I've applied as much of the feeling of the Oliver version as I can for a solo tenor guitar - and added guitar, bass guitar and mandolin to fill it out a bit!
Yet another fine recording, Will. Your choice of instruments certainly adds to the mood and time of the tune. SO relaxed too!
Thanks, John - you're very kind.
Great job, Will! The performance is so smooth and effortless, but I suspect it was quite a challenge to record.
Wow, I do like that! No wonder that track "stayed with you"' ever since
Michael, I laid down a drum track in Garageband first of all, then added bass and rhythm guitar - then did the tenor guitar track and topped it with some mandolin. Then eliminated the drum track! I have to say that the combination of tenor fret length, lead line and tuning in 5ths really got my little finger leaping around - as usual...
Super stringband sound there, Will. I too was a patron of Dobells Record Shop, but buying blues rather than jazz.
I used to go down into the basement for blues and folk stuff...
The way you bend notes on your tenor guitar is so cool, Will.
Mandolins have tremolo - tenor guitars have vibrato! The fret length and the string tension make the tenor guitar particularly suited to vibrato and to note bending - which allows a great deal of expressive playing.
Beautiful!
Thank you, Barbara - appreciated!
