#88 How To Play The Sax Riff From Moanin' By Charles Mingus (ala Leo P)

Never let it be said that I'm "saxist" on this channel - this week it's your time to shine if you're a bari player! Moanin' by Charles Mingus (not to be confused with Bobby Timmons' Moanin') has one of the most iconic sax riffs of all time, belted out by the irrepressible Pepper Adams on his Selmer Balanced Action baritone. Of course, you don't have to play bari to enjoy this one - it's just as great on alto or tenor. Well...maybe not quite as great ;-)

Be sure to pick up your free PDF sheet music for Moanin', which has got the full theme written out for bari (or alto) AND tenor. Here are the Q&A topics covered in this lesson, with video time stamps (min:sec). Clicking on the time stamp will take you straight to that portion of the video on YouTube (in a separate tab). Full Time stamps for the video and a complete transcript are at the bottom of the blog.

Who is Moanin' by? (2:12)

• Moanin' was recorded by Charles Mingus in 1959 on the album Blues And Roots, although there's also an identically named song by Bobby Timmons
• Charles Mingus was a charismatic bassist, band leader and composer, predominantly active in the fifties and sixties. He was a proponent of semi-composed, semi-improvised pieces. Mingus died in 1979.

Who plays the sax solo on Moanin' by Charles Mingus? (2:12)

• the famous baritone solo on Moanin' is played by Pepper Adams
• Pepper Adams was a prolific session baritone saxophonist and band leader. He died in 1986

Where do I know Moanin' from?? (2:12)

• apart from the legendary Charles Mingus album Blues And Roots, and numerous other tracks that have sampled it, Moanin' was made famous by Leo P at The Proms, where he beasts out with an all singing, all dancing drums and baritone feature before the main riff comes in.

What are the notes for the Moanin' sax riff? (4:08)

For full fingerings, get your free PDF for Moanin' here. These are the notes for the melody line of each phrase.

* = second octave, __ = a longer note

• phrase 1 - bari/alto (4:08): D__A  Bb(low)  E  G  D*  Bb[or a B!]  G  Bb(low) [x2]
• phrase 2 - bari/alto (5:51): D__D  C  D  D  F  G  D__D  F  D  D  F  G
• phrase 3 - bari/alto (6:32): Ab  F  Eb  D  G   F  Eb  D [x2]
• phrase 4 - bari/alto (6:45): Ab  F  Eb  D  G  F  D  C  D_____
  
  

• phrase 1 - tenor (4:08): G__D* Eb  A  C  G*  Eb*[or an E*!]  C  Eb [x2]
• phrase 2 - tenor (5:51): G__G  F  G  G  Bb  C  G__G  Bb  G  G  Bb  C
• phrase 3 - tenor (6:32): Db  Bb  Ab  G  C    Bb  Ab  G [x2]
• phrase 4 - tenor (6:45): Db  Bb  Ab  G  C  Bb  G  F  G_____
  
  

How do the phrases fit together? (6:57)

• play phrases 1 twice, then phrase 2, then phrase 3 twice, then phrase 4
• the whole thing is performed five times

Is there a backing track for Moanin'? (9:21)

• there is a backing track for Moanin' here. Enjoy!

So that's it for this week. I hope you enjoyed learning this iconic sax tune. Don't forget to get your free PDF sheet music for Moanin', which has all the phrases marked in for bari, alto AND tenor sax. Next week, you'll be learning Tivon Pennicott's fantastic tenor solo on Hey Laura by Gregory Porter. Until then, keep practicing smart and I'll see you later! 

Jamie :-)

Video Timestamps

0:00 - INTRO PERFORMANCE

0:17 - intro and titles

0:58 - one one for the baritone players!

1:35 - how to get your backing track for Moanin’

1:41 - how to get your free PDF sheet music for Moanin’

1:56 - how to get your free one hour masterclass

2:12 - about Moanin’ by Charles Mingus

4:08 - PHRASE 1 BREAKDOWN

4:22 - should we play Moanin’ “wrong” or “right”?

5:51 - PHRASE 2 BREAKDOWN

6:32 - PHRASE 3 BREAKDOWN

6:45 - PHRASE 4 BREAKDOWN

6:57 - how to put the phrases together

7:45 - ***FULL PERFORMANCE***

9:21 - MOANIN’ BACKING TRACK

10:57 - outro

11:59 - outro music and bloopers

Video Transcript

Hi, I’m pro saxophonist Jamie Anderson and you’re watching Get Your Sax Together. Every week at seven am I sax up YOUR Sunday, with free online saxophone lessons teaching you great technique tips, player profiles and breakdowns of your favourite sax solos, all brought to you in the clearest format on YouTube. Today you’re gonna learn the legendary opening riff from Moanin’ by Charles Mingus, more recently immortalised in colourful style by Leo P at The Proms. It’s a baritone feature on the record, but, of course, you can also enjoy playing this on alto or tenor as well!

[TITLE MUSIC]

Whether or not you’re a beginner on sax, I know this channel is very alto and tenor heavy, but, if you play soprano you can check out my breakdown of Kenny G’s solo on Kanye West’s “Use This Gospel”, which is linked on the card above now, and today’s lesson favours the baritone players. Shout out to the bari players, say hi down in the comments if this is you, and apologies that the channel is a never ending flurry of alto and tenor songs. It’s so “saxist” isn’t it? Anyway, although you can rip this one up on alto and tenor as well, this week is your time to shine if YOU play bari! Make sure you watch right to the end today, cos I let the backing track run for YOU to play along with, and use the link in the description below to download your free PDF sheet music for Moanin’, which is written out for baritone and tenor. If you play alto, just play the baritone part. Simples. Before we learn the riff, be sure to go and check out my one hour Saxophone Success Masterclass, which is an awesome FREE lesson with me covering a whole load of stuff that will get you sounding instantly better on sax. Just use the URL below, or click the link in the description.

[STING: About Mingus’ Moanin’]

Moanin’, not to be confused with the other jazz song called Moanin’ by Bobby Timmons, is by larger-than-life bassist and composer Charles Mingus. It was recorded in New York in 1959 and released on the classic 1960 Atlantic album Blues And Roots. In 2017, Leo P did a version of Moanin’ at The Proms in London, featuring a show-stopping, extended sax and drums section, that went on to become a YouTube sensation. Last time I looked, one version had over eleven million views. Moanin’ was also notably re-recorded by the Mingus Big Band in 1993 featuring the baritone sax of Ronnie Cuber. Moanin’ is a semi-composed, semi-improvised piece, with a wailing, earthy, blues soaked sound. The lineup on the original is a bass, drums, piano rhythm section, with a horn section of four saxes and two trombones. The thundering baritone is handled by the prolific Pepper Adams, who roars out the blues riff on his Selmer Balanced Action while the other instruments creep in and start to build a bluesy, bubbling stew of soulful wails and punctuations. The whole bari riff section gets repeated multiple times in Moanin’, but remember, this is a loose line. The first phrase is always the same, but the second half of the theme is semi improvised and will be slightly different every time in the song. It’s up to the performer, so you’ll hear different people play different things on it. If you get your free PDF sheet music for Moanin’ from the description, I’ve written it out with an approximation of the original line, but feel free to jam your own bluesy version based on the notes that I’ve included there. That’s certainly what Leo P does. Here’s the breakdown of the first riff, played nice and slowly. Watch out for that rip up to the second note. You can go to the card linked above now to learn about rips, falls, scoops and all the rest of it. You’ll play this phrase twice in a row.

[phrase 1 slow]

Now here’s an interesting quirk about this famous line. Everybody plays the line as I’ve just taught you, except Pepper Adams himself on the original. He consistently plays a B natural on bari, not a Bb, throughout the whole song. Even when the rest of the horns play the line in unison together later in the song, Pepper still creates a semitone clash with that concert D instead of a Db. Harmonically speaking, it makes no sense what-so-ever to play the D natural, as the chord is either a Db7 or a G minor seven flat five. Neither of which have a D natural in the chord. This begs an interesting question. Did Pepper Adams just forget the Bb in the key signature on the day they recorded it, or did he deliberately play his B natural, despite everyone else playing something different? And if he DID deliberately play his B natural, are we all being terribly revisionist about it by “correcting” him, and actually, there might be some hidden magic in the clash that note creates? Let me know what YOU think in the comments - should we all be playing it like the “wrong” original, or was it just an honest mistake that made the final mix by accident, as we should all be playing it the “right” way? Anyway, the next section is semi-improvised and you can make up your own variation on the pentatonic scale like Leo P, if you wanted, although it’s important to keep a similar RHYTHM to the original for this bit. Here’s phrase 2, played slowly…

[phrase 2 slow]

The final 8 bars of the theme is a repeated phrase with rather odd harmony, but again, you can pretty much jam something on the blues scale. For my epic video on the Blues, covering all the blues scales etc, go to the card linked above now. In this case you would use a D minor blues scale for alto and bari, and a G minor blues scale for tenor. Here’s phrase three then, which happens twice in a row.

[phrase 3 slow]

Phrase 4 is just a slightly different version of phrase three to round off the whole theme…

[phrase 4 slow]

[STING: Putting It All Together]

Now we can put it ALL together. You’ll play phrase one twice, phrase two, phrase three twice, and phrase four to finish. This whole sequence is then repeated multiple times as the music builds. As usual, make sure you observe the right long notes and short notes when you play this if you wanna sound convincing, and really try and dig into the rhythm. This one should be really raw. I’ve approximated the backing track for Moanin’, and after I’ve played it a few times, the backing track will then run again for YOU to play along with. The whole theme happens five times in a row, and although the original theme is supposed to be played SOLO the first time, I’ve added a bit of drums in the backing track to give you a reference to stay in time. You’ll get a 2 bar count in. Have fun!

[PERFORMANCE]

[BACKING TRACK]

[STING: Before You Go]

So that’s it for this Sunday, I hope you enjoyed learning Moanin’ by Charles Mingus. Now you can beast out like Leo P at The Proms! Don’t forget to pick up your free PDF using the link in the description, and if you wanna learn some more in-depth sax stuff go to double-u double-u double-u dot get your sax together dot com, forward slash masterclass, to get your free one hour lesson with me. As always, thanks for watching and supporting me and if you’re loving this channel, give the video a thumbs up, leave me a comment, subscribe to the channel, click the bell icon to be notified when I upload new content and check out my Insta and Facebook pages. Next Sunday’s song choice was recommended by Get Your Sax Together fan Dr Phil Asante, and it’s Tivon Pennicott’s fantastic tenor solo on “Hey Laura” by Gregory Porter. Until then, practice hard and practice smart, but above all have plenty of fun. See Ya!

[ROLL END TITLES]