The great Django's Tiger F7 conspiracy !

Amir_G

Bones wrote: »

Can anyone take the time to figure out if the bass is going to F7 on the recording?

It sounds like: F-E-G#-E-G#-C-E-B.
He's definitely playing "F" on the 1st beat. But you also have the E triad (E-G#-B). It's interesting, but I wouldn't pay too much attention to what he was doing. Bass playes can do all kinds of weird things . Also, I don't know who's playing the bass and how good he was. Some bass players are not so critical about the changes, especially when playing a walking bass. And maybe he's intonation was completely off?

All in all, I'm sure that Django was just improvising "outside" the changes.

adrian

To get the real answer, I think we'd need to do a bit of archaeology...Find some recordings of Django's Tiger and make note of which changes they use. Here's a start!

Classic Samois video of Stochelo (circa early 2000s?): goes up to F7


Hot Club de Norvège "Portrait of Django" album (recorded 1994): does a walkdown from Bm to E7
(09:35 in video)

Old Jimmy Rosenberg video: goes up to F7

Jazzaferri

Errr...we are talking about jazz here.....at least I think we are......not classical music.....not dots on paper to be played back exactly as written

Jazzaferri

lol...or do like Stochelo and walk the chords around

crookedpinky

Or the E7 in "I'll see you in my dreams" which apparently does not appear in Dajngos recording. However, as Jazzaferri says, it's jazz we're talking about - does it really matter ?

Boldstrummer

This recording is in Ab.
many recording are out of pitch.

Might this really be in A?

sometimes the tone of an open string will give it away.

Jazzaferri

The melody will tell all if you listen LOL

kimmo

Amir_G wrote: »

Also, I don't know who's playing the bass and how good he was. Some bass players are not so critical about the changes, especially when playing a walking bass.

Oh, he was goode - Coleridge Goode.

I remember talking with @dennis about this close to 15 years ago. He was the first to point this out, at least to me. When you know this, and you listen to the original, it's very clear. And yet, everybody after Django plays the F7, every time.

BTW, in the second chorus Django does not even imply the F7 (although there's the bebop-influenced minor-sixth half step up, which is actually just another way to interprete tritone sub).

Jon

But it's so much more fun to play the F7...or else it's just another rag ("Not another rag", shouts the annoying guy in the second row).. Nice to have a defining chord change, like in I Love You, playing the D7 to get back into the Gm chord in bar 8, and maybe the occasional VII9 instead of #IVdim - it's a small thing, but it means at least you're playing a song, especially when a lot of these things don't really have melodies to speak of...or ones that we remember at any rate. I guess in truth it was just another rag (albeit played by an exceptional human), but maybe sometimes it's the way that these things get passed down that makes them special. Then again, maybe not

Buco

I like it, gives the song a nice forward motion.