The Duke and the Count

Published: Fri, 03/29/24

I learned most of what I know about Freddie Green chord voicings from hanging out with Duke Robillard at the National Guitar Workshop a few decades back. Duke was, as you might expect, a font of excellent stories and anecdotes, and one of my favorites was about how a handful of guys from the Count Basie band – including the Count himself – materialized in the audience one night when Duke was playing with his band Roomful of Blues.

At the end of the set, when Basie came up to introduce himself, a star-struck Duke began struggling to express just how much the Count's music meant to him. "And Basie was so cool," Duke chuckled. "He just interrupted me and said, 'Duke? Play it, don't say it.'"

I've been going on about chord substitutions for the past week on the channel, but today I'm going to take Basie's advice. In today's Youtube video, I just play through the eight-bar blues "Trouble In Mind" four different ways, starting with the simplest possible I-IV-V version and finishing up with all kinds of inversions, diminished chords and more. You can find it at the link below:

Four Ways To Play An Eight Bar Blues

My Chord Substitutions workshop live streams tomorrow, Saturday March 30th, at 10:30 AM CDT. The two-hour class will include an epic, downloadable PDF with diagrams for every chord voicing, written examples for every chord move and charts for every version of four complete blues chord progressions. You'll have several chances to get your questions answered via live chat during the workshop, and everyone who signs up gets a year's worth of on-demand access to a complete video replay of the entire class.

Register now at the link below:

Chord Substitutions Workshop

More soon,

David

david@davidhamburger.com

P.O. Box 302151
Austin TX 78703
USA

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