Western swing features vocal music prominently in its song bag. In Part 1 of this series, we learned a rhythm arrangement to "Red River Valley." Here is a lead solo loosely based on that melody. Notice that the phrases are generally formed to parallel the lyrics that are given in the music. Western swing soloists borrow heavily from swing music of the 1920s and 30s. Harmonically, they love the sixth, flatted-seventh and ninth tones of the scale.

Here are some of the highlights of this solo:

The melody in measure 2 is a B note which is heavily stylized by the lick. Measure 3 contains a lick that leads back to the melody in measure 4. Measure 4 is completed with a G phrase. In measure 5, we move up an octave and use a lick in measure six.

The E note in measure 9 is the sixth of the G chord. The sixth is an important tone in western swing, a point we make by playing it three times. The F-natural in measure 10 is the flat-seven tone in G and signals the G7 chord in the rhythm.

In measure twelve, we are on a C chord, the 4 chord in the key of G. A very common use of the diminished chord is in the situation where a 4 chord is moving back to a 1 as in measure 13. Example - 4/// 1//// can be played (4 /#4 dim)/ 1///

In measure fourteen, the basic chord is D (5). Using the minor substitution rule we can use Am as a sub for D7.

Next time we'll use some classic western swing licks over this same chord progression.

See you then,
Joe Carr

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