Josh Smith - Trio Madness, And How To Play 'Triple J Hoedown' Part 3
We’ve previously looked at Josh Smith's tune “Triple J Hoedown,” specifically the live version, from his album Live at the Spud, recorded at the Baked Potato in Los Angeles. We’ve made it all the way up to the solo section (at least his solo)! In this video, he'd like to walk you through his approach to the first part of his solo section.
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MusicTranscript
00:00 All right, Josh Smith here again. We've been talking about my tune "Triple J Hoedown,"
00:09 the live version from Live at the Spud, for the last couple months. And we've made it up
00:13 to the solo section, or at least my solo. And so this tune, the solo starts with a very open
00:19 section, almost just me and drums for a while. So in a trio format, you're already afforded so
00:27 much freedom. And by freedom, I mean freedom to rhythmically do what I want, freedom to harmonically
00:34 do what I want, because I'm not tethered down to anybody else's polyphonic chords or, you know,
00:40 harmony. Freedom to, you know, use different sounds like Leslie's and things like that, that sometimes
00:46 I would stray away from when I have other instrumentation. And this song is a great
00:51 example of that, because I can kind of go anywhere, and I do. On this recording, you know, it's different
00:56 than any other night's recording of this tune. So we start off in this big open G, and basically
01:03 the guys are following me, waiting for me to play certain cues and things, and I kind of go where I
01:10 want. So I start with a lot of open string hybrid stuff. I think my first lick actually is...
01:25 So that lick is just, you know, kind of major pentatonic with a lot of chromatic notes in between
01:30 and open strings. But what I really love is that tension at the end when I play the ringing open G
01:36 with the F and resolve it. Those kind of things, when it's just you and drums, or the bass is
01:44 pedaling a whole note or something, you know, the audience reacts to things like that, because it's
01:48 tension. So the solo kind of starts like that, and you can hear what an improv it is in the solo,
01:55 because I think at one point I actually quote a Thelonious Monk song called "Well You Need It."
02:00 And I couldn't do that if I had a keyboard player playing just the changes to the song,
02:10 you know what I mean? I couldn't just go wherever I want at any moment. So the trio format allows me
02:15 the freedom to do those kind of things, and then the guys have played with me a lot,
02:20 so they listen, and you know, that's not something I would play there every night,
02:23 but they know that song. So the second I play it, Travis plays, you know, underneath it,
02:29 and Gary reacts to it. And again, that's just the benefits and, you know, some of the great
02:34 things about playing in a trio, but also playing with the same guys a lot and starting to develop
02:40 that language together. So this solo has so many different things going on. I go from straight up
02:48 hybrid picking country, stuff like that, to really jazzy stuff,
03:12 until basically I keep raising the intensity, but I'm building towards when I will bring Travis
03:19 back in, and we're going to change it from a vamp on the one to a blues progression with a
03:23 two-five-one turnaround. So you'll hear me kind of build it, and I'll play, I'll kind of keep
03:37 building it. Basically, I just cue visually. Again, one of the perks of playing with guys often
03:55 and being able to look over and just cue, "Okay, here we go. I'm cueing to the four
04:00 chord on a blues," and from there, we're in a blues progression. So I walk.
04:10 Then we're playing a two-five-one, so I play some stuff like...
04:25 So right there, I played an A minor arpeggio, A minor seven, to D,
04:32 and then back to G in place of the normal five-four turnaround in a blues. We do two
04:43 choruses of that where I'm playing through the changes. All right, so the next month,
04:47 I'm going to come back and play through a full course and show you all the ways to get around
04:52 this groove over the changes through the two-five-one, and I throw the kitchen sink in.
04:57 So we're going to look for that next month.
05:00 [Music]