Days Like This -- Mose Allison

[JPMcD]

Are you hip to the tune? It's a very sophisticated blues that goes
like this . . .
--
"I can't get with it,
Just can't get right,
All of my enemies,
Must be out tonight,
I must be on somebody's
list,
They always told me
There'd be Days Like This.

Went to make a phone call,
Didn't have a dime,
I'm always in the right place,
At the wrong time,
There goes a bus I missed,
They always told be there'd be
Days Like This.

There's something bad happenin'
in the Zodiac,
I gave money to a wino,
and he gave it back.
Sireeen screamin',
Panic and disorder,
I went to order whiskey,
Got salt-water.
I'm just a calculated risk,
They always told me there'd be
Days Like this."
--Mose Allison

For years I've been noodling around with this piece but I Can't Get
With It. Just can't get it right. Can't find the find the way to
transcribe those keyboard harmonies to guitar. Must be a bunch of
flatted fifths in there jamming my brain circuits. Surely somebody
here has a more highly trained ear than mine, or the software to
analyse it. If you want to hear the song, I got it right here . . .

http://doo-dads.blogspot.com/

Scroll down to the player under head of "Mose Music", click and catch
the groove, cats and dudes.
--
JPMcD

[Keith Freeman]

> Can't find the find the way to
> transcribe those keyboard harmonies to guitar. Must be a bunch of
> flatted fifths in there jamming my brain circuits.

I know what you mean, though I think it's rather a case of an unusual root
progression within a blues framework. Have you tried transcribing the roots
played by the bass starting just after 00:50? Once you have those I reckon
it shouldn't be too difficult.

-Keith

Clips, Portable Changes, tips etc.: www.keithfreemantrio.nl
e-mail: info AT keithfreemantrio DOT nl

[JPMcD]

On Nov 18, 1:24 pm, Keith Freeman <x...@x.net> wrote:
> > Can't find the find the way to
> > transcribe those keyboard harmonies to guitar. Must be a bunch of
> > flatted fifths in there jamming my brain circuits.
>
> I know what you mean, though I think it's rather a case of an unusual root
> progression within a blues framework. Have you tried transcribing the roots
> played by the bass starting just after 00:50? Once you have those I reckon
> it shouldn't be too difficult.

Why didn't I think of that? Standard procedure I suppose for those in
the know--which I clearly am not. Makes me think of another Mose
song . . .

'One of these days I'm goin' to get things right,
Do all my business out in the broad daylight,
One of these days, I'm goin' to get things straight,
Stop all this foolin', hangin' out with jail-bait."
--Mose

In my case that would mean getting into the company of some grown up,
experienced jazz-men, instead of just never getting out period. ;-)

Some of what I'm hearing in there strikes me as being pretty much the
standard blues technique where on a change, for example to the sub-
dominant, (say "Dm7") at first, you go a half step higher to some
altered form of E flat, then come down to the IV chord. Seems that's
part of what I'm hearing anyway, along with some perhaps standard II
chord substitutions for the V7 change.

Thanks!
--
JPDMc