Donna Lee fingerings (video)

[Alvaro Martín Gómez A.]

Hi everybody.

My good friend Joe "Bassist4Life" asked me for a video playing this tune in this thread about Donna Lee fingerings, so here it is as promised:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-3IpGPFV60

I decided to play it on my fretless Bongo just because I prefer that tone for this piece. Here are the video notes I sent to YouTube:

The idea is to show my suggested fingerings in my version of the tune (maybe some of you will disagree with my note choices at certain points). No frets in this video, but positions can be found in the transcription. I also omitted legato phrasings since I think that although less musical, picking every note is a better exercise for speed. You'll see it played at "Jaco" speed (If I only were that clean and my intonation were that perfect...), half speed and 1/4 speed. Far from perfect, of course, but anyway I hope it will be useful.

As you'll notice, my vibrato is very nervous. That's one of my biggest frustrations. I feel very comfortable playing bending-style vibrato and I think I can play it very well, but classical vibrato has been a nightmare for me. Years of practicing it with my double bass haven't worked for me. Anyway, and regardless of the mistakes (the quick correction at 1:38 looks funny to me), I hope this material will be useful to all fellow TalkBassers interested on learning this tune.

P.S.: In case you missed it, I also recorded another video playing "Portrait Of Tracy", but this time on my fretted Bongo, just for tone comparison purposes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGpefHm5sdM

[Spencer!]

Very cool. I'm sure a lot of TB'ers will appreciate this!

[Yvon]

Very cool
I learned it about a year ago.
I have different fingering in some places.

Why when you play donna lee slower you don't make it swing?

I find it funny that when people play donna lee they don't make it swing.

I know it's a bebop and bebop is played so fast that it doesn't swing. But when you play a bebop tune sower it should swing, no?

[Alvaro Martín Gómez A.]

Originally Posted by Yvon

Why when you play donna lee slower you don't make it swing?

I find it funny that when people play donna lee they don't make it swing.

I know it's a bebop and bebop is played so fast that it doesn't swing. But when you play a bebop tune sower it should swing, no?

It's good to hear that, Yvon. Years ago, I was playing it with a drummer at the university and at one moment we played it slower and with a swing, just for fun. Another teacher (which is supposedly a very educated jazz guy) heard us and he entered the room just to say "hey, you don't swing that, OK? Donna Lee is one of the few jazz tunes that doesn't have a swing feel. It may sound cool, but you're changing it into a totally different thing" and left. I think that gave me a trauma.

This also reminded me of another old Donna Lee episode at the university: We were rehearsing with a big band, and during a break I started playing the tune. As you know, Jaco replaced the 8ths triplet from measure 14 for a slide. I played it that way and a saxophone player that was also there immediately asked: "...And what happened with the triplet??" I only replied "Jaco Pastorius played it that way". Of course I know I'm not Jaco, but I couldn't avoid to think "Such is life. Jaco plays a slide and everybody worship him for that, but a poor m****rf***er like me does it and the only thing I get is "What happened with the triplet? A****le!"

[Groovy Bastard]

Originally Posted by Alvaro Martín Gómez A.

It's good to hear that, Yvon. Years ago, I was playing it with a drummer at the university and at one moment we played it slower and with a swing, just for fun. Another teacher (which is supposedly a very educated jazz guy) heard us and he entered the room just to say "hey, you don't swing that, OK? Donna Lee is one of the few jazz tunes that doesn't have a swing feel. It may sound cool, but you're changing it into a totally different thing" and left. I think that gave me a trauma.

With all respect, but Donna Lee is a swing tune. Even if you play to play it less 'swing-ish', the swing phrasing has to be there, in other words legato playing and style typical accents (mostly on the upbeat), to be honest I missed this in your example.

It very nice of you to put the effort into showing people a nice fingering though, it looks good.

[Groovy Bastard]

BTW, with swing I meant bebop swing in the above post, not the big-band idiom, just to be clear.

[Elemetal]

Great so watch I watched portrait of tracy and donna lee and I enjoyed both videos. Thanks for sharing!

[WillBuckingham]

Originally Posted by Groovy Bastard

With all respect, but Donna Lee is a swing tune. Even if you play to play it less 'swing-ish', the swing phrasing has to be there, in other words legato playing and style typical accents (mostly on the upbeat).

+1. Just cuz the eighth-notes aren't swingin' hard, or even at all, doesn't mean it's not swingin'.

As for the example, I think it's just an excercise in fingering, not necessarily a performance in which Alvaro's putting his all into the feel and such, thanks for the video!

[Eric Perry]

Hey Alvaro. great job. I do agree it should have a bit for of a swing feel, though...

With that being said, I absolutely LOVED both of your versions of Portrait of Tracy. Fantastic, man. I need to go practice!!

[Alvaro Martín Gómez A.]

Hey guys, thank you for your comments so far! I'd really like that guy (the non-swing teacher) to see this thread. It's being a great education for me.

[Vandelay]

Oh, it's about how to play the Jaco song.

From the thread title, I thought it might be...uh...something else.

(Sorry, couldn't resist the semi-obvious joke. Now back to the thread topic....)

[Eric Perry]

Originally Posted by Vandelay

Oh, it's about how to play the Jaco song.

From the thread title, I thought it might be...uh...something else.

(Sorry, couldn't resist the semi-obvious joke. Now back to the thread topic....)

ZING!