September 2011

I just learned that Ry didn’t do the translation from the piano: Ted Greene did. Apparently Joseph Byrd, who was producing the Jazz album, had worked with Ted before and asked him to tab out arrangements to the Bix songs. Here’s what Ry told the LA Times when they announced Ted’s death:

Ry Cooder, the guitarist, recording artist and producer who worked with Greene briefly in the 1970s, said he was amazed by Greene's ability to transcribe music.

"I was working on a jazz album and wanted to transcribe some Bix Beiderbecke arrangements for the guitar," Cooder said, referring to the great cornet player. "I thought it was hard stuff but it wasn't to Ted. He created arrangements that sounded like eccentric Beiderbecke."

December 2008

I’ve had a good time with this tune on the guitar over a period of some 30 years. I like it even more now. Making this transcription probably wouldn’t have seemed worth the time I put into it, except that by studying and listening I think maybe I came to understand something about how Mr. Cooder’s own mind worked through the problems, and how he might have felt about the recording at the end of the day. I’ve written down some thoughts about the process, along with information on obtaining piano music and recordings and some measure-by-measure comments on the transcription.

Some back-story regarding the transcription:

When I first got Ry Cooder’s Jazz LP in 1978 I worked out an approximate arrangement of the Bix Beiderbecke tune Flashes, a solo guitar version of which was on Track 7 of that LP. I didn’t write it out, just had it in memory, and I played the tune on and off over a period of nearly 30 years. The arrangement changed over those years as I played it, left it alone, forgot details, re-learned it, and so on. By the time first I wrote it out around 2002, it wasn't an accurate transcription of Mr. Cooder’s recording. However, the tab I posted to the internet was helpful to some people and I received very kind emails from all over the world.

In spring of 2008 I decided to do a more accurate transcription. By this time I had software that would adjust the tempo and pitch of a recording independently (Amazing Slow-Downer). Plus I had Ralph Sutton's piano recording of the song, and a printed piano score, so I thought I could judge more accurately what Mr. Cooder was working toward. I transposed the sheet music from C to E, and worked from that as well as from the Jazz disc. I came to see the project as a challenge to come as close as possible to Mr. Cooder’s version, disregarding (at least for this transcription) the published notes when he obviously varied from them.

Mr. Cooder only plays parts of the tune: bars 1-24, and 53-66, with a 4-bar ending added on. I wrote out a version of those bars he recorded that was as true to the piano score as I could get with arguably reasonable fingerings. That way I could see the difficulties he faced. My transcription of the piano music bordered on unplayable, but it had nearly all the notes, and most of the chords were the proper inversion. When I was a teenager, ragtime guitar was the rage, and people were trying to make guitar versions very closely follow the piano music—this phase of the project reminded me of those finger-busting ragtime arrangements.

I started working through the tune, as recorded by Mr. Cooder, a phrase at a time, using ASD's pitch adjustment feature to play back in E (because it's in Eb on the record) and slowing the recording down to as little as 30 percent of the original tempo to try to tease out the notes. What my ear lacks, I try to make up in patience. As an aside, I think it’s likely speeded up just a tad on the record, and he’s actually tuned down a whole step, rather than a half-step.

Where I could pick out the notes on the recording, I transcribed them that way, with exceptions as noted below. Sometimes I couldn't hear the notes, so I chose notes from the sheet music. Some chords were especially difficult to de-code. I did a lot of play-along to the recording in ASD, which helped identify sections of transcription that weren’t true to the recording.

The piece is played with wide variations in tempo, so I didn't worry too much about the note values in the tab. Similarly I didn't try to notate all the arpeggios, or the syncopation of bass notes that Mr. Cooder tosses in here and there. I doubt any of that is planned—It would probably vary from take to take.

On the big arpeggios I think he often rolls the 6th and 5th strings with the thumb, and plays the other notes with the first three fingers, skipping the 4th string.

Sheet music and piano recordings:

These days, people are sensitive to legal issues surrounding music. I do not post the piano music, nor do I post the out-of-print recording by Mr. Sutton. The transcription of Mr. Cooder’s performance posted on this site is an academic exercise.

I first got the piano music through inter-library loan. The book it’s in is out of print. (Ragtime: 100 Authentic Rags, Edited by David A Jasen, Published by Big 3 Music Corp., 1979). It is easier and faster nowadays to get the piano music from freehandmusic.com. The Freehandmusic deal requires viewer software (a version exists for Mac OS) that limits how many copies you can print, and calls home every time you display your purchase, but hey, it transposes for you if you want, doesn’t waste paper, and is cheaper than most printed sheet music. I paid $3.95 for Flashes.

You can probably find Mr. Sutton’s recording online. At this writing, there are at least two very nice piano versions on YouTube.

Why can’t I find video of Mr. Cooder playing Flashes?

Consider this quote from an interview published in Guitar Player magazine (Mar. ’88):

“One album you’ve never spoken fondly of is Jazz, although it was praised by critics and other artists. Why weren’t you pleased with it?

“Well, it’s a bad record, that’s why. It’s horrible, and I shouldn’t have done it, but on the other hand, Walter Hill heard it and liked it and hired me to do movies. So you never can tell. I’m not saying it’s wrong for you to like it. But looking at the music we were attempting to do, I just don’t think I did a good job. I bit off more than I could chew, and I wasn’t going about it right, and I didn’t get the performances or the sound. See, it’s good ideas badly executed. There were some good intentions there and some pretty good concepts. But a record isn’t a bunch of concepts. A record has to be about performances that you can pull off. That Bix Beiderbecke stuff—which was very chromatic, to say the least—was the hardest thing I ever tried to do. I can’t remember a note of that music. I don’t play in standard tuning much—very rarely. Once in a while you need to get a certain sound that you get in standard tuning, but I don’t think in standard tuning.”

Now, when I first read that I thought, “He’s nuts” because I loved the record and we listened to it until the groves bled. But I have to admit that after working on this tune at least a few minutes a day for a couple months, I might have an idea what he was on about.

Basically, it’s a piano tune. The range of the piano, pedaling, fullness of the chords, clarity of the voices, lots of notes, not to mention the middle part of the tune… all that is missing from the guitar version. You need to do something different with the musical ideas, and it’s futile to stick closely to the score, not just because it’s hard to play, but because it doesn’t sound as good as something that is true to the guitar’s strengths (for example, slides and vibrato). Is the guitar version great to listen to and fun to play? Of course. But if you weren’t a guitar player, what would you think of it? Personally, when I hear the song in my head I hear Mr. Sutton’s piano rather than the guitar version.

Measure by measure comments:

Measures 2 and 4: I couldn't clearly hear that the low F# notes were recorded, but they are in the score, so I think they're optional. Sometimes I think they were fretted and just ring sympathetically. The decision to deviate so much from the piano version is interesting, and I think it works.

Measure 3: The slide up to the 3rd string B isn't notated, but you should play the slide.

Measure 5: The chord at the 10th fret is not faithful to the score, but I think it's what is on the record, and it sounds OK to me. I wonder why he didn’t just leave this chord out like the piano does? That way the bass line just moves up through the next measure (with a sweet pause in the bass for the 4 high notes in the second half of measure 5).

Measure 6: The B7 chord at beat 3 could be played at the 12th fret using strings 6,4,3, and 2. I find it easier to hit the chord at the 12th fret, but harder to keep the notes from sounding muffled and/or squeaky at the higher position with the fatter strings. That alternative fingering is shown in measure 30. By the way, I’m not positive the 7th is really there, and if I leave it out the problem with hitting the chord goes away.

Measure 14, 15, 16: The timing here is very free, so I notated it in accord with the sheet music. You could come closer to the way it's recorded, but I think the timing on the record was based on the piano music and just played with an easy-going approach to the tempo.

Measure 16: The natural harmonic can be heard on the recording.

Measure 22: I hear the 4th string E in the recording, but it seems to add an extra voice at that spot that isn't followed up on, so I think it can be left out to good effect.

Measure 24: A natural harmonic on the 5th string isn't clear to me on the recording (but that high A is certainly there). The fingering for the arpeggio is awkward for me without it, so I play that first note of the arpeggio as a harmonic.

Measure 31: Note the lower bass notes added, compared to measure 7.

The last 4 measures: These measures aren’t really found in the piano score. I like the differences in the chords here, compared to earlier in the tune, and the use of the folk-song-like harmonies to close it out. The tempo is retarded in the last measure.