T-five blues

T-Five Blues – Analysis

Intro: the piece opens with a Latin groove in 9/4, where the beat is binary rather than ternary, with a 2-3 clave; this means the drums may not mark the first beat of the measure, creating a fluctuating sensation.

Letter A: soon the 9/4 measures alternate with 3/4 measures, which I play in 6/8, with ternary thus mixing with binary. This might seem complicated in words…but if you listen to the CD, you’ll see that the music flows naturally and fluently.

Letter A: once the introductory part, where the timbales have a solo role, has finished, the drums take over with a measure of fill that leads to the exposition of the main theme. The groove moves from Latin to New Orleans, in a “second-line” drumming style. I have added lots of material to the score for this groove: buzz notes, hi-hat openings, ghost notes and shifted accents…but you don’t always have to play all of them. On the record I didn’t play everything I wrote, but instead added and removed things, depending where the music took me. Try playing the groove over two measures. People listening to you should not feel the complexity of playing a 5/4 pattern, but instead should be carried by the bright way you accompany the band. My advice is to play simply and “groovily”.

Letters B & C: the theme comprises 5/4 and 3/4 measures, where the drums support the accents in the meter without altering the rhythm.

Letters C & D: the first soloist (baritone sax) is accompanied by a New Orleans rhythm, whilst the second soloist (at letter E) is launched with a pick up measure, which turns into swing in 5/4.

The last soloist is the piano (letter E), which begins the solo in a “magical” atmosphere, where the horns play a background that to begin with does not provide the beat, whilst the rhythm section hints at a rhythmical illusion of two against five, with a binary subdivision.

In Postacchini’s exquisite arrangement this first section ends with a quotation from the coda of the theme (letter I), before restarting with an obbligato rhythm (letter J), which makes the music slide into the Cuban sounds of the guaguancó (in

5/4), with its passionate trumpet solo (letter K). In this section the role of the drums is to provide the clave and the typical guaguancó melody, usually played on the tumbas (congas). Here the tempo changes from 200 quarter beats per minute to 100 quarter beats per minute.

The above is the material used for the record; in the PDF I’ve written some variants on the rhythm that do not require specific stylistic knowledge.

The composition continues with a brief section leading into the mambo. To give this section (letter L) a different timbre

I created my own reworking in 5/4 of the usually 4/4 (or 6/8) Un-cha groove (Horacio Hernandez).

For the mambo (letter M) I chose a relatively traditional approach, where the right hand plays the bongo drum, and the left hand plays the cascara or mambo bell pattern on the bell of the cymbal, whilst the kick drum underpins a tumbao adapted to 5/4.

At letter N the trombone solo begins in a very energetic atmosphere, with the drums interpreting the rhythm of the bass line.

At the end of the trombone solo the lead is passed to the wind section, which touches on the theme as a final exposition (letter O). Here, for a few measures, the tempo returns to 200 beats per minute. After this brief flirtation with the major, it returns to the minor mode (in harmonic terms) with a soprano sax solo (letter P), which the drums accompany in even eighths on the cymbal, before moving to the snare. The rhythm played on the snare is typical of the Cuban comparsa style, which here is revisited and adapted to a 5/4 meter. During this accompaniment, the wind section creates an interesting texture of different voices in a fugue style (letter Q).

At letter R the piece ends with a drum vamp lasting ten measures, where each measure has a 3+2 rhythm. Here the metronome returns to 200 quarter beats per minute.

This composition contains a selection of different styles (Latin, New Orleans, swing, funk and Latin funk), each with its own character, and each, in its own space, offers significant musical moments… it reminds me a little of lively family life.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DkRQjZItK2EM0ujiZfa2xcqzyXVcBjFb/view?usp=sharing

T-five-blues-Baritone-SaxDownload