You Don’t Know What Love Is (Live in 1966-released in 1998) Charlie Haden & Kenny Barron

From the album Night And The City (Charlie Haden & Kenny Barron)

Charlie Haden‘s Solo analysis

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This solo starts with an 11th or 4th resolving to a 5th in the first bar, a suspension at the very beginning.

In bar 2, Charlie Haden plays a little motif that keeps being revisited during the solo over different chords.

In this context, it is part of a five note phrase spelling out the scale sound of the G7B5.

The first three notes get repeated further in: Db, C and Bb.

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Here they are a flat 5th, perfect 4th (or 11th) and minor 3rd, descending and with a slide between the first two notes and a hammer-off between the second and third notes.

Also, the five note phrase seems to part of a mini sequence in this bar, spelling out the sound of the G-7b5 going to C7 with the inclusion of an E natural – an F harmonic minor rather than a G lorian.

The motif gets used again in bar 4, this time in a different key, but still the same tone relationship and also the same slide and hammer-off placement.

We see it again at bar 5, this time weighted toward the C7b9 side of the bar, but it’s the same notes and slide and hammer-off.

At bar 6, he uses the 5th of each chord to descend from F to Db, the 5th being a sound he particularly enjoys, using it in bar 1, and again at bar 9.

Diatonically, there are no big surprises in the bars that follow; the motif appears again at the end of bar 11, in slightly different guise, and again at the end of bar 13, although strictly speaking it’s only two of the three notes – one tends to hear the third note here anyway as the pattern has been well established in the listener’s consciousness! Again at bar 14, this time with the slide and hammer-off intact, and a chromatic passing tone in the form of an A natural as the last note of the bar going to an Ab, or 5th in the key of Db.

The 5lh is used again at bar 16 – a C note over the F.

The major 7th is also used at the end of this bar to resolve the phrase before going on to the bridge at bar 17.

At the bridge, Charlie Haden goes up an Eb major scale, but coming down, he puts in a color note in the form of an E natural or flat 9th as the last note before landing on Eb or the 5th of Ab.

The next note, Gb, is also a color note, implying the passing F7 has a flat 9th.

Next we see the motif again at bar 19, quickly followed by a bebop phrase, with the 5th featuring as a leading note at the beginning of beats 3 and 4 and again beats 1 and 3 in bar 20.

D lorian at bar 21, a notable trill or embellishment, and then the 5th again at bar 22.

Bar 23 sees the use of a very low G over (or under!) the Db7+11 then Ab under a C7 at bar 24.

These two bars sound very stem indeed.

The last eight bars start with Charlie Haden playing a low G or 9th turning on the low F and coming back up the F- scale to the 5th, then on the last note of the bar, a chromatic passing tone to the tonic of the next chord at bar 26, a D natural to a Db.

The same Db is used in the second ha of that bar as a B9 over (under) C7, thereby becoming a tension device that has a delayed resolution in bar 27 to the 5lh again.

Bar 28 is interesting as much as Charlie Haden continues the tonic Gb from the second ha of the previous bar into the next using it as a passing tone that resolves up to G, or the #11, instead of down to F, or the 3rd, a more normal course of events.

A brief but satisfying sequence in the second ha of bar 30, over Eb- to Ab7 takes him to the 5th at bar 31, where the same notes used in the motif are employed to end the solo, this time without and slides or hammer off.

Rhythm: It becomes very clear early on in this solo that Charlie Haden is used to subdividing the beat and then subdividing it again, and then even further.

He starts with a quarter note triplet figure with the second two notes tied, so that it sounds only as two notes, then follows it in the same bar with an eighth note triplet, then follows that with a sixteenth note triplet in the bar.

It’s not long before we make it to dotted thirty-second notes (bar 4).

He implies a double time swing feel to those 32nd notes but pulls in the reins with the last two eighth notes of that bar.

There is no ambiguity about that bar, anyway.

Charlie Haden is playful at bar 6, playing after the front note of each beat in answer to a descending chord movement played by Kenny Barron.

The solo continues gathering momentum at bar 13, going to a very complex grouping at bar 14 – a quarter note, an eighth, a 16th note triplet or part thereof, a group of straight 16ths with a dotted 32nd skip beat, then another 16th note triplet and a solitary eighth note.

There’s a displaced or delayed note right on beat 2 in bar 16 before he ends the second A section with a kind of musical punctuation mark (a full stop), a 16th note followed by a dotted 8th on the last beat.

At bar 17, we are at the bridge or B section of the tune.

Charlie Haden waits for the downbeat of the bar before playing a 16th note run.

There are no surprises here or the next bar, but at bar 19 he starts with a sliding blues motif before launching into a bebop phrase of 32nd notes that become 16th note triplets, continue across the bar line into bar 20 where he not only slows things up dramatically with the dotted 8lh, 16th and quarter note at the end of that bar but also clears up any ambiguity as to where the pulse might be after such a flurry of notes.

This is a very good example of what to the listener could sound like a freely placed ‘a tempo’ phrase, but is in actual fact an extremely subdivided, within the pulse, run of notes and therefore quite the opposite.

There’s another in ease then de ease in rhythmic phrasing in the next two bars, then two bars of 8th notes, dotted 8ths and 16ths, and 8th note triplets to end the bridge section.

Describing it thus does not do it justice, because with the register he plays these notes in, and the actual notes themselves, this is a powerful statement that sounds very much to me like the drums that accompany a man on his way to the gallows! In this case, the gallows of love.

These two bars also fall at the golden mean mark, and as such could be considered the high point or climax of the solo.

This is an antihero of a climax then, because the notes are all very low on the bass, and quite deliberate, with audible finger clicks on each one.

It seems, too, as if the major statement was there, because – rhythmically, anyway – the last eight bars pass very uneventfully.

Modes of Expression: This song has a blues influence and so on could expect some slides and other blues oriented expressions, and Charlie Haden does not disappoint.

He plays a blues-like motif that incorporates a slide and a hammer-off, at the beginning of bar 2, then again at bars 4, 5, 14, and 19.

He also plays a slide at bar 13, but this time without the hammer-off.

Furthermore, he uses emphasized notes, mostly tenuto, at bars 1, 2, 3, 5, 6,7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 26, 27, 30, 31 and 32.

At bar 21, the emphasized notes are just before a trill, a difficult maneuver on a double bass! Other points of expression of interest are found at bars 1,12, 28 and 31 in the form of vibrato.

The most interesting thing however occurs at bars 23 and 24 with every single note (and four notes in the next bar) emphasized with a finger click.

That’s 21 in a row.