Friday, June 14, 2024

Solo Transcription - Philly Joe Jones, "Two Bass Hit"

I realize there's already quite a few of transcriptions of this one floating around the internet, but for one, I just wanted to do it myself, and two, I think some of them have mistakes or are missing details.  I'm not claiming to be the world's leading expert on Philly Joe, but I've probably listened to his playing more than any other drummer of that era, and I like to think I have a pretty good idea of what's going on in this solo.

The six-stroke rolls at the beginning are a common Philly Joe sound, but we can't really attribute a rudiment like that to one drummer alone.  The most notable and recognizable phrase that is uniquely Philly Joe is the three beat, RLL RLR RLL triplet phrase, as well as the single stroke R LRL that often precedes it.  It appears in measures 3, 11, and the entire last line.  I did a whole post on this with some exercises for developing it a few years ago.
 
I'm not entirely sure about the stickings in measures 7-10, but that's my best guess based on other things I've heard and videos I've seen.