Lester Young - Boogie Woogie (1936)

A couple months back I posted about the "Do the Math" Blog run by the Bad Plus' Ethan Iverson, who transcribed 18 different pre-1941 Lester Young solos. I've been very slowly working through some of the transcriptions, and I wanted to share some of my progress.

Here is my guitar version of Ethan's "Boogie Woogie" transcription:

Lester Young - Boogie Woogie 1936 (pdf)

This version dates to the November 9, 1936 session of of "Jones-Smith, Inc." which was the same as Lester's famous "Lady Be Good" and "Shoe Shine Boy" solos. Not bad for a day's work, right?

Here is a soundclip of the solo excepted:

And here is the solo in context:

I think two hard parts about transferring Lester to guitar are the bends and the vibrato. With a little practice it sounds pretty good. Good luck and happy woodshedding.