Lucas Brar for the win today. I’ve long loved the Paul Desmond classic “Take Five” made internationally famous by the Dave Brubeck Quartet, and have even studied the score a bit. Today I ran across Lucas Brar’s treatment of the tune for solo acoustic guitar, and…
uh
Hard to take in all the awesome of that, in one sitting. His phrasing is glorious, and I’ve studied enough of the score to recognize that most of the sax solo part is bloody note-perfect. (For me that is one of the most perfect solo breaks I have ever heard–unbelievably lovely from Desmond’s alto sax, and I’d be hard pressed to imagine it being better translated to guitar than Brar manages here, plus a flash or two of his own devise. Wow!)
I nearly spit my coffee when I realized he was also incorporating the rather famous-unto-itself Joe Morello drum solo (in 1959, even in jazz, anything in 5/4 time was pretty unusual–going to the point of the album as a whole–and an effective drum improvisation within that framework stood out even within that context); I haven’t studied that part nearly as extensively as the sax solo, but I think Brar does brilliantly at bringing out all the identifying signatures of what made Morello’s break so distinctive. Truly, amazing.
And I’ve never really even considered trying to arrange it for solo guitar. At one point I could play almost the entire sax solo part by itself, but certainly not along with the comping chords. I might guess that it would be harder to do in my tuning (Guitar Craft standard tuning, C2-G2-D3-A3-E4-G4) than in standard–intervals are spread out further–but I haven’t tried it before.
Seeing something like this, though–something like this done this bloody well–makes me want to try it. Thank you, Lucas Brar, for the inspiration!
Craftygrass 