Jordu

On the evening of November 12th 1956 Hampton Hawes went into the studios of Contemporary Records in Los Angeles along with his regular bass player Red Mitchell, guitarist Jim Hall and drummer Eldridge Freeman. For the next few hours they recorded tunes almost as if they were playing a gig, with no retakes. The session ended sometime in the early hours of November 13th and had produced enough music for three albums. They were released over subsequent years as All Night Sessions Volumes 1, 2 and 3.

The first tune they recorded that evening was Jordu and below is the track followed by a copy of my transcription of Hawes's solo after which I give a brief analysis. Solo begins around 0:37

It's notable how straight Hawe's quavers are for the first part of this solo. Jazz 'swing rhythm' is normally notated as triplet quavers with a rest for the middle quaver (in the early days of jazz education it was sometimes even written as a dotted quaver and semiquaver!) This is absolutely not what Hampton Hawes is playing for most of this solo. Hawes is playing essentially straight quavers with heavy accents on the off-beat quavers. These accents are not uniform however and are always shifting, sometimes landing on the off-beat, sometimes the on-beat. He also constantly varies the quaver feel, sometimes playing more 'triplety' quavers and often lagging slightly behind the pulse. This gives his lines a very dynamic quality and is what makes them 'swing'.

It's also interesting to look at what minor modes he's using. When improvising over a tune in a minor key the improviser has a few choices in terms of minor scales. There's the natural minor (aeolian mode), the harmonic and melodic minor scales as well as the dorian mode and the blues scale. The difference between all these scales is really to do with the 6th and 7th degree of the scale and whether they are 'natural' or 'flattened'. All the scales have a slightly different flavour and Hawes uses most of them in the course of the solo, often combining them. The phrase starting at bar 6 starts with an ascending line which uses the natural 6, but then switches to an idea which draws on the blues scale. He ends the phrase by dropping from the root to with the natural 6th which is a melodic device he uses quite frequently (eg bar 16, bar 32) Bar 14 makes obvious use of the harmonic minor with the b6th and natural 7th as does bar 30. He also uses the blues scale very effectively (eg bars 38 to 39 and bar 62)

Another interesting detail is the way he very often uses the natural 5th when improvising over a minor ii V I cadence where a b5 would be the more natural choice. A minor cadence is normally written as Dm7b5 / / /IG7b9/ / /ICmi7 / / /,

the alterations being because the extensions are drawn from the harmonic minor mode. Hawes sometimes ignores the min7b5 chord and plays a straight minor 7th chord with a natural 5th. The effect of this is that the move to the minor mode is perhaps more dramatic because unprepared for. He uses this device in bars 25,29,37 and 89 among other places.

This solo is an example of what I would call 'vertical' improvising where the improvised line rigorously outlines the underlying harmony. If everything was removed apart from Hawes's right hand you would still be able to hear the chord changes. This is opposed to 'horizontal' improvising where the logic of the melodic line takes precedence over the harmonic sequence. Both are valid approaches to improvising and most players use some combination of both of these when playing over changes.