| C&A:
Charlie Christian takes a very good, albeit fairly standard, solo on this master take
of The Sheik of Araby—except for the extraordinary measures
9 through13. On the two-bar Bb harmony (mm
9-10) CC follows a Bb line with a Bbdim7 leading to the F7;
in the following three measures (mm 11-13), over the F7
chord, he plays two descending and four ascending augmented figures moving at whole-tone
intervals.
The quarter-note triplets on bar 16 are also used on bar 4 of the alternate
take—it may be those triplets in the intro are still floating around in his
head. There’s a blues Bb line, b7th (Ab) & 6th (G), at mm 19-20 over the F7.
Measures 21 & 22 contain a tricky sequence where Charles first accents the down-beat
and then the up-beat over the F7 and anticipates
the D7 on the last two beats. And note the #5 in bar 30. Very good work—forget the highly
unusual flub in bar 24 where he fingers the note C
but misses it with the pick.
On the out chorus, Charles plays Bbs on
alternating strings on his first “fours” line; descending then ascending
figures on his second. |
