A Smooth One

[Rick]

Greetings,

My name is Rick and I live in Minnesota. I am somewhat new to the jazz scene, being recently bitten by the Django bug. I play a Gitane DG-250M (Selmer type guitar) in a group with my friend Steve and brother Craig. I also own a Martin D15 and enjoy flatpicking on it especially.

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this question, but it looks likes as good a place as any.

Does anyone know the chord progression to the Benny Goodman song "A Smooth One"?

[mahayana]

Hey, Rick.

That's one I'm not familiar with. Maybe Prof or Al (ashaffer) have the recording and have played it?

There must be a fakebook chord progression. I'll look for the sheet music, see what I can find.

Any place is a good place to ask a question, sounds like you're jumping into some great jazz.

[mahayana]

Update-

I've heard the song now. My wife found it in a Windows Media Player search, from "Benny Goodman Sextet" featuring Charlie Christian, 1941.

This recording is slightly flat of the key of E, so I tuned down a hair to play along. CC has a short solo towards the end, nice mellow moderate swing. Give me a little while to come up with a comp for it (on the record the bass carries most of it, you don't even hear the piano much).

For fun, here's a link to 224 BG albums

www.vh1.com/artists/az/goodman_benny/albums.jhtml

[Rick]

mahayana said:

Update-

I've heard the song now. My wife found it in a Windows Media Player search, from "Benny Goodman Sextet" featuring Charlie Christian, 1941.

This recording is slightly flat of the key of E, so I tuned up a hair to play along. CC has a short solo towards the end, nice mellow moderate swing. Give me a little while to come up with a comp for it (on the record the bass carries most of it, you don't even hear the piano much).

For fun, here's a link to 224 BG albums

www.vh1.com/artists/az/goodman_benny/albums.jhtml

Thanks for researching this one for me. I have a version of the song as performed by Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, but it's been a little challenging trying to pick out the bass line.

Appreciate the help,

Rick

[mahayana]

Rick, I'm still researching. Found Bob Wills version of "A Smooth One" on Tiffany Transcriptions, Vol.5, but was only able to hear 29 seconds of it via computer.

So, you'd like a Western Swing comp, to play along with a fiddle on lead?

Do you do other BW songs, Faded Love and so on?

[Rick]

mahayana said:

Rick, I'm still researching. Found Bob Wills version of "A Smooth One" on Tiffany Transcriptions, Vol.5, but was only able to hear 29 seconds of it via computer.

So, you'd like a Western Swing comp, to play along with a fiddle on lead?

Do you do other BW songs, Faded Love and so on?

That's the only Bob Wills CD I have, so I don't know much of their stuff.

I've come up with this basic chord pattern for "A Smooth One":


A section

F#7 / B7 / E7

F#7 / B7 / E7

F#7 / B7 / E7/ C#7

F#7 / B7 / E7 (2 times)



B section

A6 / Bbdim / E7

A6 / Bbdim / E7 / C#7/ F#7 / B7

I'm not sure about that last line of the B section, but that's as close as I've come so far.