Cherokee

[Derek C. Maus]

On Tue, 15 Jun 1999 nconaty at juno.com wrote:

> Cherokee's melody is built on whole and half notes. So while you're
> listening to the sax player laying down this lugubrious melody, you
> might not notice the bass player and drummer playing at the feverish
> tempo this tune is usually played at (often >300 bpm). And you might be
> surprised when the solo starts and the note density increases
> eight-fold. 

To hear this compellingly demonstrated (albeit with trumpet player
substituted for sax player in sentence above), have a listen the two
versions on Wynton Marsalis's "Standard Time, vol. 1"  (an album also
notable for a bizarre and wonderful version of "Autumn Leaves" in which
the whole group speeds up and then slows down the tempo of the song from
1/4 to 8/4 time and back again, changing time by one beat each bar...).

Marsalis plays with Jeff Watts, now better known as the drummer for the
Tonight Show band, and Robert Hurst III, an unfairly overlooked bassist.
They do the tune justice and don't even think about singing those awful
lyrics. Wynton blows some pretty nice corn from his horn as well. He keeps
up with that insanely fast tempo while maintaining a pretty smooth sound.
There are two takes on the album, not all that different from each other.

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Derek C. Maus               |   "Don't go around saying the world
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                            |                  --Mark Twain
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