72 DOWNBEAT JULY 2011

GUITAR SCHOOL
Woodshed | BY JIMI DURSO
John
Abercrombies
Modal Guitar
Solo On
Timeless
R
ecorded in 1974 for the ECM la-
bel, guitarist John Abercrombies
debut album as a leader featured him
in an organ trio setting with key-
boardist Jan Hammer and drum-
mer Jack DeJohnette. The title track,
Timeless, consists of patterns of
stacked ffths within a structure that is
14 beats long, divided into two mea-
sures of four and one measure of six.
For the most part, Abercrombie
takes a modal approach to his solo,
with a minimum of chromatic notes.
Mainly centering around E aeolian
(the mode of the melody), we do fnd
a couple of instances of E dorian to-
wards the end of his solo (measures 27,
33 and 48). All of these occur on the
Gadd9 chord, where the presence of a
C# creates a bright lydian sound.
But there is also a lot of E minor pentatonic
happening, which at times gives his solo a more
rock n roll attitude, especially with the bends
in measures 4244. The frst instance of a pure-
ly pentatonic idea starts at the pickup to mea-
sure 11 and continues through the end of the
phrase at measure 15. There also occurs an idea
Abercrombie will reuse in this solo, that of note
groupings inconsistent with the underlying sub-
division, creating a polyrhythm. Starting with
the pickups to measure 11, Abercrombie plays
an ascending and descending E minor pentaton-
ic scale in 16th notes, but it takes 14 notes before
the pattern repeats. Since 16th notes are grouped
in fours, the pattern repeats every three-and-
a-half beats. Abercrombie plays this idea three
full times, and the last time, the one that actual-
ly starts on the downbeat at measure 14, he de-
cides to take it in a different direction on the de-
scent, playing 32nd-note pentatonic ideas with
more slurring.
In a simpler form, this occurs in measures 30
and 31. We have a four-note lick with the fnal
note held for three 16ths, totaling two-and-a-half
beats. Abercrombie starts this lick on the second
beat of what should have been a 6/4 measure, but
the entire trio drops an eighth note, as if they all
heard the line resolve to what has become the
frst beat of measure 31. However, Abercrombie
continues his idea with some variation three
more times before resolving to the downbeat of
measure 32.
The same type of idea happens almost half-
way through measure 21, where in beat 3
Abercrombie plays a fve-note idea in 32nds (D,
B, G, F#, G). He plays this a total of seven com-
plete times, over the barline into measure 22,
where he then drops the last G note and chang-
es the rhythm to resolve out of the polyrhythm.
Its interesting to note that in each of these cas-
es Abercrombie doesnt resolve his polyrhythmic
ideas to a strong beat, as a Hindustani tehi would,
but instead chooses to morph back into the back-
ing rhythm.
This last example also incorporates another
scalar concept we fnd throughout his improvi-
sation: minor pentatonic with the second add-
ed. Though not fully a dorian or aeolian sound,
it is still more than a pentatonic favor. In fact,
starting at measure 2, we hear only this sound
through measure 11, where the strict pentatonic
starts (with the exception of the G# that occurs
in measure 8, but this was smeared through so
as to be barely noticeable, and its not even clear
if it was intended). When Abercrombie leaves
the pentatonic sound at measure 15, it is to re-
turn to this pentatonic-plus-second texture; he
comes back to straight pentatonic at measure
18. Abercrombies entire solo consists mainly
of these two sounds, with Cs and C#s occurring
rarely (bars 23, 24, 26, 27, 33, 46 and 48). Thats
less that 15 percent of his solo where he actually
defnes the mode. DB
JIMI DURSO IS A GUITARIST AND BASSIST IN THE NEW YORK
AREA. HE CAN BE REACHED AT JIMIDURSO.COM.
John Abercrombie
J

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