Varied Soloing Approaches on “Brown Gatton” with Josh Smith
LIVE FROM FLAT V by Josh Smith
SWITCHING GEARS
Josh Smith presented the meat and potatoes of the tune “Brown Gatton,” a song from his 2017 album, Still, that is a musical tribute to two of his heroes — the somewhat unlikely duo of the Godfather of Soul, James Brown, and jazz/rock/country guitar wizard Danny Gatton. This month, Josh shares some of the approaches he uses for soloing on the tune.
SWITCHING GEARS
Josh Smith presented the meat and potatoes of the tune “Brown Gatton,” a song from his 2017 album, Still, that is a musical tribute to two of his heroes — the somewhat unlikely duo of the Godfather of Soul, James Brown, and jazz/rock/country guitar wizard Danny Gatton. This month, Josh shares some of the approaches he uses for soloing on the tune.
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MusicTranscript
00:00 All right, Josh Smith here. We were talking about my tune "Brown Gatton" last month,
00:08 and we worked through the meat and potatoes of the tune, the changes, the feel. Now let's talk
00:14 about how I solo over this tune. So like I mentioned, there's a weird turn of time in this
00:19 tune where after every three bars of 4/4 time, there's a bar of 2/4 time. And that enables you
00:25 to have some really cool phrasing in your solo, especially when you're moving between the two
00:30 changes in the tune, which are from E7 to C7. It's kind of cool modulation sound. So basically,
00:37 when I start soloing, we come out of that bridge and we hit those. So right there was the turnaround.
00:55 You kind of heard me start a phrase in a weird spot that would normally be in the middle of
01:00 another bar of 4/4, but it's the new bar, and the guys hit it with me. So I'm going...
01:05 Basically starting a phrase in a weird spot, and when you carry things through the bar line like
01:19 that, it's a great sound. So especially when I move up to the C. So let's say I'm on the
01:25 second half of the phrasing. It's like a weird spot to resolve and modulate to C, so the ear
01:42 just... It's jarring to the ear, especially, you know, but with the band, we're all doing it together,
01:46 so it sounds right. And it ends up... I get to play a lot of phrases like this. Let's say going from...
01:52 So there's a cool way of going back from C. And I modulate back to C before... I mean,
02:17 back to E before the change happens to kind of, you know, foreshadow it, I guess. And
02:23 these are 100% Danny Gatlin licks that I'm playing.
02:26 (music)