Transcription: Joe Chambers - Granted

Here's a transcription of some jazz comping with a 3/4-within-4/4 feel, by Joe Chambers. This is from Granted, on Joe Henderson's album Mode For Joe. It's sort of a companion to the Elvin Jones Groove o' the Day for Rose Marie, where Elvin does something similar. I've just written out the first chorus of the trombone solo— because, hey, I've been slow posting stuff and I need to make it easy on myself. But this small sample is illustrative of what he plays for much of the tune.

The dominant theme with the comping is a running dotted quarter note rhythm alternating between the snare drum and bass drum; he does it from the beginning of the transcription, breaks it up a bit in measures 9-10, then picks it up again by measure 12, continuing— mostly unbroken, but with variations— until the last measure where he breaks it up for a punctuation at the end of the chorus.

The tempo is bright, but the 8th notes still swing. It's not necessary to play this up to speed to get the rhythmic thing that's happening with Chambers's comping. The notes in parentheses are played extremely softly— almost soft enough to omit altogether. Listen to the recording, and make sure the dynamics of the snare drum and bass drum parts communicate that dotted quarter note pulse.

And, just for interest, I'll note that the tune begins at 257 bpm, pushes up to about 270 by the end of the trumpet solo, and around 276 by the end of the last solo. It begins to back down on the unison horn part at 6:45, and by the head out, the tempo is about where it started. If you compare those on your metronome, they're like gradations of the same basic tempo idea— the slowest one is more deliberate, for the horns to execute the complex unison figures, and the faster tempos are more energetic, and building intensity for the solos. This is expressive use of time, and is not a fault.

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