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Here are the two first chorusses of Dexter Gordon's solo on Blue Bossa.

Here's a great solo by miles on the original So What recording. This is a great solo for beginning students. It's fairly simple, but the melodies are great!

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to share my enthousiasm on the program Rhapsody. It's a great program by Realplayer and let's you listen to loads of music(and a lot of jazz) without having to buy cd's or tracks! They have a subscription that is about 12 dollars a month and you can listen to full length tracks unlimited. And the good thing is that you can also download the tracks so you can listen to them offline.

I'm using this now as a tool to get to know a lot of jazz standards. You can search by track name and then you can listen to versions of a tune by many different artists.

Hey Tony,

A few days ago I got a call by some 60 + jazzband and I have a gig with them on the 2nd of november. They're probably not that good, but hey this is a good way to get a tune list going. They sent me a list of tunes, and that's the tunes I'll work on now. an, I love Rhapsody! Just downloaded a lot of versions of different tunes and I can also listen to them offline... Oh yeah, I'll post about that on the site also.

The conversation that recently took place regarding improvising on the blues has given me food for thought for a blog. I think intellectualizing music through analysis is a good thing if fully understood. The process of analyzing music helps to teach and learn new things about music and often helps to find weaknesses and holes in our knowledge.

I shot some video tonight which is going to be used in future Percussion Geeks episodes. I thought I'd give some of you a sneak preview sneak on of the performers was playing a Gyil which is the ancient ancient ancestor to the vibes/marimba. Where it all started.

I took one of the pieces and edited it really quick just to give you guys a sneak preview.

Hey Tony,

Finally got the first chorus of the Dexter Solo Complete and recorded....All memorized...nothing written down. The recording quality isn't so hot...I need to figure out how to get the volume higher for the microphone, but I'll try to post a better one in a day or two. I'm pretty excited, transcribing has always been really hard for me and I feel like this is a good step in the right direction.

Phew, that's a hard tune to play solo on! I did sort of my version. I'm hoping one of you guys get the etude down and perform that. I would like that! But here's my version based on the etude!