Transcription: Barry Altschul - Jitterbug Waltz

Here's a drum solo in 3/4 by Barry Altschul, on a modern arrangement of Fats Waller's Jitterbug Waltz, from Altschul's album Irina— a pretty obscure (to me) record you can now download off Amazon. The tune is 64 measures long and the solo is 60 measures long. The solo starts on a tempo change, and the overall vibe is loose, so I'm kind of surprised he ends up playing almost a full chorus exactly.

There's something funny happening with the time in the first measure— it works if you just put a little fermata over the first note, then continue normally in 3. The tempo of quarter note = 165 which I've given is approximate; there's a lot of forward motion here, and it probably speeds up a bit. The execution on the technical passages— anything faster than triplets— are pretty organic. It's an Elvin-like vibe. Get the broad outline in rhythm, and play the fast bits however your hands want to play them.

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