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KEYBOARD SCHOOL Woodshed | By jIMI DURSO
Joey DeFrancesco’s Groovin’ Organ
Solo On ‘Down The Hatch’
Jazz organists are amazing. Whereas most of
us are content when we play a great solo or
provide a groovin’ bass line, it’s in the organist’s
job description to do both simultaneously.
On his 2006 release Organic Vibes (Concord),
Joey DeFracesco demonstrates an abundance
of this skill. Presented here are both hands for
the first three solo choruses of DeFrancesco’s
blues “Down The Hatch.”
To start with the left hand, organists may be
amused to note that the first six measures of
each chorus are identical. Maybe these lines
were prepared so that they could be played
almost habitually, allowing DeFrancesco to
concentrate more fully on his right hand. Or
maybe he just wanted to start his solo with a
consistency in its underpinning.
Regardless, his bass support is even, steady
quarter notes. You’ll also notice that there is
somewhat of a formula to them: Each measure
starts with a chord tone, usually the root,
then with few exceptions another chord tone,
and then two notes that lead to the first note of
the next measure. In this way the lines not only
help define the chords but create an impetus
toward the next measure. In the turnarounds,
where there are two chords per measure (bars
11–12 and 35–36), DeFrancesco plays chord
tones exclusively, making the harmony abundantly
clear.
Some curious oddities in his bass line
occur at measures 7, 19 and 31, where the IV
chord resolves back to the I. In all three choruses
DeFrancesco plays the fifth on the downbeat
(the only instances where a chord change
is not initiated on the root). In measure 19, playing
the Bb on beat two makes it still sound like
an inverted I chord, but in the other measures
(7 and 31) his line appears to be more like an F
chord than a Bb . He seems to be implying a V
resolving to I in the place in a blues where we
usually have just the I. It’s especially intriguing
since in measures 9–10, 21–22 and 33–34
DeFrancesco is playing a V–IV (like an urban
blues) where normally there would be a ii–V
(in a typical jazz blues). Having the IV move
up to V and resolve to I makes the V–IV that
comes a bar later sound like we’re coming back
down the path we ascended.
As to the right hand, first notice how even
these three introductory choruses are constructed
in a way that builds: simple eighthnote
licks with lots of space in the first chorus;
less space and some trills in the second,
with the introduction of a triplet at the beginning
of the final phrase; and in the third chorus
much less space, lots of triplets (and even 16th
notes) and expanding the range upward. And
Joey DeFrancesco
DeFrancesco accomplishes this while his right
hand remains solid.
There is another curious discrepancy
between his hands. Sometimes the chords outlined
in the right hand aren’t those that are in
the left hand. The first instance occurs at the
beginning of measure 4, where he plays a G
diminished triad (which could be heard as the
top of an Eb7 chord) on top, but in the bottom
we hear F and A, implying an F chord. One
could argue that the first half of the measure
makes up an F9+, but with the intervals separated
the way they are, it sounds more like an
Eb7 lick over an F chord.
DeFrancesco uses this polychordal concept
multiple times. We next hear it at the end of
bar 9, where there is an A7 chord over an E (its
fifth), but the lower part resolves to an Eb , and
the upper part resolves to an A natural, making
the A7 sound linger over the Eb7. Again in
measure 14 there is an Eb7 chord, but it’s played
over the G# and A in the bass, which aren’t
part of the Eb7 and only serve to resolve to the
Bb7 in the next measure. It’s as if his hands are
thinking in two different ways—the bottom
moving chromatically to the next chord, but the
top harmonically resolving from IV to I—but
both converge on the Bb7.
Similarly, measure 22 ends with chromatic
motion in the bass line leading to Bb , but in the
lead there is an Am7 arpeggio resolving to the
same chord. In bars 25 and 26 he takes this idea
a little further. Though the harmony is basical-
hyou vielz
64 DOWNBEAT SEPTEMBER 2011