Some Rainy Day

Here's Fats hamming it up with a great ballad, Some Rainy Day.

The tune starts melodramatically, almost ominously but then about-faces into an almost cheeky, taunting tone, as reflected in the lyrics, "...you'll be sorry!". Fats certainly jumps at the opportunity to reflect this in his piano playing and vocal delivery!

Make sure to listen to the recording not only for the best performance reference but for the powerful, un-notatable note clusters he ‘pounds’ near the end of his introductory piano solo! Let me know if you think you know what Fats is doing here.

There's a nice bit of tension and release happening throughout as Fats plays certain phrases straight then reverts back to swing. There's also some interesting (and uncharacteristic for Fats) more 'linear’ style improvisation happening in his playing too.

For the purposes of providing a complete musical performance, I've included the actual recording of the introduction and end chorus and merged it with my digital transcription to create a "hybrid" performance, therefore showing Fats' playing in context.

I arranged the introduction for piano solo based on what the band is playing.

Here is the original recording:

https://youtu.be/0WNj_qMkbQo

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