I'll be transcribing this solo by Davis on Red Garland's piece, Blues by Five, heard here.
The first bar of his solo is simple; Bb, the root note of the chord and the piece repeated twice. The next bar sees Davis alternate from the C# to the D, moving from the minor seventh to the major seventh. He resolves back on the Bb in the next bar before leaving a bar space. Bar 4 of his solo sees him play a G, Bb, C over the Eb7 chord. Two of those notes are of the chord, the C serves as the sixth. He repeats the melody in the next bar again, going from the G to the Bb to the C back to the Bb.
Most of what he’s played so far have been chord tones. In the next bar where the chord is a Bb7, he plays two crotchet Fs on beats 1 and 2, the fifth of the chord, again leaving space; his solo starts out fairly simple. Playing an embellishment on the 3rd of the chord, he moves up to the Eb in preparation for the next chord, which is a Cm, of which Eb is the third. He resolves the Cmin 7 bar on an F, the 4th; again, this prepares us for the next bar, which is an F7. He leaves plenty of space in this part of his solo, with crotchet and quaver rests dotted around everywhere. Davis seems to be anticipating the next chord, moving from a C to a D in preparation for the Bb7 chord, using the C# as a passing note. This is fairly simple compared to the beginnings of the Evans solo that I analyzed earlier, but it makes it no less effective.
Davis repeats what he did with the Cmin7 bar, playing the root of the chord down to the F before leaving it hanging - he is making use of the chord tones, but is leaving space for his solo to breathe to start with.
The next two bars are dotted with three notes only, one note of interest being the crotchet Db on beat 1 of the Bb7 bar. The chord is major, but Davis plays a single minor third, surrounded by no other notes, meaning he wanted to emphasize this altered note.
The next bar sees him simply play over the Eb7, missing out the third. He drops onto the 9th of the Bb in the next bar before leaving the following bar after that free.
The solo largely remains the same as this, full of space with mostly chord tones being played, until bar 25, on another Bb7 chord. Here we see the solo at it’s busiest yet, with two whole bars filled with quaver notes. The first bar, a Bb7, sees his run played purely with chord tones with an added ninth. For Bb here he is simply using a Bb scale. When he moves onto the Eb7 he alternates between the 9th and the b11th, before moving up to the Bb at the end of the bar in preparation for the next chord which is a Bb7. He ascends to the root before ending on the 9th, again leaving a bar of space.
The two bars after that see him play exactly the same thing even though the chords are different. At the end of the second bar this time, he stays on the 11th, rather than climbing up to the Bb. He drops down to F, then goes from the Ab to the Bb to the F.
This first page has seen Davis play simple chord tones with simple rhythms - almost everything is either a quaver note, a crotchet, or a dotted minim. Apart from spacing and off beat runs, we haven’t seen anything very complex in terms of timing, but if you listen to the track, you couldn’t tell it was this simple. His solo is so well played and thought out.
At bar 38 we start to see some accidentals. F, E natural up to Eb again is played over an Eb 7. While simply passing notes, this is an indication of harmonic color being added to the solo. Fast forward to bar 41, and we see a large grouping of accidentals. Eb, C, B, Ab, G, Gb, F, E natural, Eb, Db - our first chromatic run! I knew I wasn’t just making it up when I said they were used...
Over to bar 44 and we see a D# or Eb being played over Bb7 chord, as he runs up onto E natural, to F, G, A, B and C - almost a C melodic minor scale, starting on the D#. This proves interesting, as the chord in the following bar is in fact a Cmin7. For the rest of the solo, we see that Davis continues to bass his notes on the chord tones on the beats, though as it progresses, he leaves less space outwith his solo and puts more rests inside runs, stopping briefly before running back in with a chromatic lick into the chord tones. Crotchets turn to quavers and quavers turn to semi-quavers as the solo intensifies. This is a fine example of development in a solo, and Davis’ sparse use of well selected notes shows his craftsmanship and knowledge of his art.
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