Transcription: Al Harewood - Lil' Darlin'

Transcription of a slow tune, Lil' Darlin', as played by Al Harewood, with George Benson. This is a really great group of Benson's, with Mickey Tucker and George Duvivier, recorded on a Jazz Hour album called Witchcraft.  

Anyway, the tune was written by Neil Hefti, in the 50s, for Count Basie's band. On this recording there's a four bar intro, and then the tune is 32 bars long— a 16 bar AABA played twice. I've written out just the intro and head. We're just looking at how Harewood plays the tune. It's not that easy to play those syncopated kicks and maintain groove at this tempo, about 65 bpm. 

The 8th notes are swung, basically in a triplet feel, which is the basic groove of the tune— that very broad Basie groove. But he plays a wider dotted 8th/16th rhythm on the bass drum at times. In fact there's much more going on with rhythm than just a stereotyped Basie groove. If you listen through the whole recording you'll hear that the players are not always playing the same feel— rhythm might be playing a triplet feel while the soloist is double timing, or there may be different feels happening within the rhythm section. It's very open.   

The tied quarter notes in the first four lines are just brush texture, maybe with a light quarter note pulse. Untied quarter notes with the brushes are articulated, maybe with the left hand playing texture. The staccato open hihat accents in the third line are fast chokes with the foot, I simplified the notation there. 

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Transcription: Al Harewood comping

What the hell, I'm on a roll, waiting for this weekend's blanket of suffocating heat to descend on the entire Pacific Northwest. Let's look at some more of Al Harewood, on yesterday's same record by George Benson. It's a live album, and the band is cooking, and this is Harewood playing during the piano solo on the title track, Witchcraft. Choruses are 40 bars long, and I've written out the first three. Tempo is quarter note = 255, and he does swing the 8th notes. The transcription begins at 0:52. 

 

The transcription is slightly simplified, for ease of practicing— I've just given the audible cymbal, snare, and bass drum parts— and toms occasionally. No hihats (he doesn't play them in a real pronounced way anyhow), no miscellaneous cymbals, minimal dynamics except where they're more pronounced. I haven't made any special effort to pick out any ghosted notes.   

I suggest practicing this in four or eight measure phrases. The individual “ideas” are not particularly difficult or varied, this is all about the larger phrase— which is a good general approach to take with comping in jazz.  

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Transcription: Al Harewood - All Blues

I've been looking into Al Harewood quite a bit lately. He's one of those drummers who's on a lot of stuff, but is still easy to overlook. He's on a lot of Blue Note records in the 60s. I wouldn't call him a modern player, exactly; more of a hard bop guy with a strong R&B edge. Here he is playing with George Benson— this is Benson's solo on All Blues, from his live album Witchcraft. The transcription begins at 1:51.   

All Blues is conventionally written in 6/8, but the drummer plays it as a jazz waltz, so that's how I've written it, in 3/4. Two bars of 3/4 here = one bar of the 6/8, to create a 24 bar blues form— if you're reconciling it with a lead sheet, for some reason. There's no reason for a drummer to ever look at a chart when playing All Blues, incidentally. 

Harewood's foundation here is very simple; there's not a lot of variety to his basic groove. What he does do is make a lot of featured, fill-like comping ideas outlining the form of the tune. He plays them loud, with a lot of variety, pretty regularly at every phrase ending. It's normally not a way we think to play— it would be easy to sound bad doing this.  

You could say his dynamics are dramatic and very local, too— he uses lots of crescendos, and a lot of subito ps. He gets louder from chorus to chorus, but within that there will be a lot of dynamic changes. He doesn't stay loud after a crescendo. I've marked his dynamic changes in moderate detail on the first page. 

In terms of the kind of physical coordination at work, there is a good amount of layering happening— harmonic coordination, if you will— multiple limbs playing at the same time, in rather complex combinations. See measures 5, 28, 32, and then in the last couple of pages especially. 

Some of the rhythms written as triplets get a little distorted— if you see a tenuto mark over one note of a triplet, that indicates that note is a little longer than its normal rhythmic value, and the note after it falls a little late. Almost a 1e-a 16th note rhythm. That happens in measure 136, for example.  

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Daily best music in the world: Al Harewood fast

Digging around for some Al Harewood— I mostly know him from the 60s Blue Note records he's on, but he was active into the 90s— I found this killing live track from George Benson, in 1973. This is one of those records you find in the $2 jazz clearance bin, that nobody thinks to buy. Everyone is great on this, Mickey Tucker, wow. 

The tempo is generally around 330— half note = 165. You can hear Harewood is mostly playing quarter notes on the cymbal. His solo is pretty raggedy, and who cares. He kills on this whole thing.