Virtual Jam Session - "Bemsha Swing"

Jam to Bemsha Swing

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This Monk tune is typical of his genius/insanity. The melody couldn't be more simple.  There is a 4-bar melody that is played twice in C concert.  Then it is played up a 4th in F, and back down to C.  Then the whole 16 bar pattern is repeated -- except that this time, it is truncated to 14 bars followed by a simple 2-chord vamp.
That melody can be learned in a few minutes.  The hard part is the chord changes.  The melody points to simple, predictable chord changes, but not with Monk.  He aggressively re-harmonized these chords.  That's no problem when playing the head, but it creates a real challenge for improvising because you need to solo to the changes Monk wrote, not the changes anybody else would have written for this melody.  Take the time to really absorb these changes.