A-train - Richard Tee gospel version

I would never take on a drummer without the help of a bass player. No such qualms for the late Richard Tee, whose monster left hand allowed him to perform duos with Steve Gadd where, amazingly, you can't imagine where the bass player would have fit in anyway.

So I couldn't recruit Steve Gadd or for that matter any drummer to help me out here, but the Richard Tee arrangement of Billy Strayhorn's "Take the A-train" seems to hold up as a solo piano piece as well. I have to thank/blame Mike Lombardo for inspiring me to work on this, because he is also one of those monster-left-handers, and his awesomeness has been making me hyper-aware of some of my weak spots.

Next time I'll be back with more typical repertoire...

Category:

Music

Tags:

• A-train
• gospel
• piano
• Richard
• Tee
• Borba
• Spinotti

[jf5432171]

GREAT Playing! What is the theory behind that right hand lick at 1:01? Is it a ii (or ii7) to the I chord just moving down? It is a pleasure to hear this style played.

[BorbaSpinotti]

@jf5432171: I'm not sure I can give you a good answer. Essentially a lot of that gospel harmony involves tension between minor and major thirds. In that run we have both an E-flat minor triad and a C major triad with added minor third against the G bass. You might explain them as chromatic passing tones or grace notes (the E-flat in the C major triad), but they're very "wilful" and in-your-face! You can do loads of permutations around that, but essentially it's about the major/minor third clash.

[2MuchAwesomeChannel]

Sweet! Borba, you are a sick monster! And I mean that in the most complimentary sense of the term.

I saw Richard Tee perform live. I think he was touring with Simon and Garfunkel the Summer of '83. That's how I remember it. He made an impression and he was just in the backing band.

[BorbaSpinotti]

Ah, you're lucky having good memories of mid-1983. Mine involve being in trouble at school. But I was a nasty little brat, and now I can just hope that my son doesn't turn out like me in that regard ;-)

[arkolt2000]

Really excellent enjoyed

[niceswede]

Excellent! Extremely good performance, keep it up, you make a lot of people happy with your work.

[cplkhane]

Wow. I'd like to be the first to compliment you on the amazingness of this piece. I have played A-Train for my High Schools Jazz Band (I'm a trombonist) and this stuff is HARD. Congrats on doing awesome.