Geru's Blues – Gene Ammons

Geru’s Blues packs a lot of information into a swinging, funky blues head. The melody is relatively simple in the classic Gene Ammons style, but it’s complemented with a variety of rhythm section activity. The head starts with a 2-feel, but switches in the fourth measure to a series of stop-time breaks with hits set up by drum fills. In the 9th and 10th measures, the rhythm section holds out a pedal F; the last two notes of the melody in the 10th measure set up a 2-measure drum fill.

There is an eight-measure interlude played before each solo; it has an F pedal point on beats 2 and 4, and the last two measures are a break for the next soloist. The coda tags the pedal “turnaround” of the head three times followed by the last two hits.

The first four measures of the melody contain three different kinds of embellishments. In the second measure, a quarter note E [natural] on the downbeat is filled in with grace notes F and E going to E♭ in the next beat. The second beat of the next measure has a 16th note triplet followed by an eighth note (E [natural], F, E, D♭). In the fourth measure, a similar four-note pattern appears on the third beat in even 16th notes (A♭, B♭, A♭, F). These embellishments are essential elements of the bluesy bebop/post-bop style exemplified by Ammons.

In the 3-horn arrangement heard on this recording, the horns are harmonized in the last five measures of the head and in the interlude. In these places the tenor sax has the melody on the bottom; trumpet and alto sax add harmony notes above. Our audio clip starts on the repeat of the melody and includes the Interlude.