K.D.'s Blues – Kenny Dorham

This medium-tempo blues riff has that classic hard-bop “cool” sound. The melody really outlines the dominant quality of the B♭ chord rather than using the blues scale, with a hip 4-3 suspension at the beginning. There’s an additional riff chorus used as a background for the bass solo on the recording.

There are two takes on the CD issue of “‘Round About Midnight At The Cafe Bohemia,” and our lead sheet shows the slight differences between them. On the master take bassist Sam Jones begins with 2-feel but goes to walking by the third measure; the head in the alternate take is 2-feel throughout. Our lead sheets indicate “2-feel (or 4-feel).” For the bass solo background, we show both a single-note hit at the beginning and a two-note phrase with smaller notes; the second note is not always clear in the master take though it is in the alternate. Finally, the codas from both takes are included; Kenny Dorham plays a slightly different line in each take.