Here’s my jazz guitar version of “Donna Lee” by Charlie Parker (actually Miles Davis wrote it…)
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I learned this tune 35 years ago and still LOVE it to this day! I can remember practicing it back during my days as a college music student in 1988.
TIME STAMPS:
- 0:00 Intro Music
- 0:16 Greetings!
- 1:15 Understanding the MELODY vs the Improvised Solo
- 1:49 “Donna Lee” performance – Melody (the “Head”)
- 2:21 Improvised Solos Begins
- 4:00 Melody Recap (the “Head Out”)
I took out my old Gibson ES 135 guitar and indulged in some improvising over my favorite jazz tunes. Gotta say, I’m LOVING playing “BEBOP” all over again.
BEBOP is a special musical language of melody mixed with groove – it was invented by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. These guys changed music forever.
My beloved teacher Mike Longo was Dizzy’s pianist so I got to learn this music right from the source. What a blessing.
What is “Bebop?”
Not all jazz is Bebop. And, Bebop is not a set of “licks” – even though lots of people say it is.
Bebop is music with a specific melodic and rhythmic behavior. In fact, you could play bebop without ever playing a “bebop lick.”
Thelonious Monk, for example, was an icon of Bebop but did not play typical Charlie Parker licks. He played with the Bebop concept though!
I figured I’d finally throw my hat in the ring and do a video for this classic tune 🙂
GEAR USED
- Guitar: Gibson ES 135, built 1996
- Strings: Flatwound D’Addario 12’s strings No Amp, Just DI signal then mixed in Apple Logic
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