Viper's Drag

Here's my transcription of Fats playing one of his most famous display pieces, his "ode to marijuana smoking", Viper's Drag from the Associated Transcription session of 1935.

It's a tour de force of stride piano, overflowing with personality and contrasting moods and dynamics. Fats even has fun quoting Grieg's "Hall of the Mountain King" and, in this particular performance, a very fleeting reference to Rachmaninoff's C# minor Prelude, as he returns to the slow drag in the final section.

Of note is the incredibly fast, virtuosic middle section with its unique "smeared" or "crushed" blues chord motif in the first chorus (note my suggested fingering), then an intricate melodic phrase repeatedly played delicately up high in the treble, brought to a climax with off-beat octaves in both hands, returning to the initial "crushed" blues chord material, before finally returning to the "slow drag" of the opening.

As indicated, at a particular point, Fats repeatedly plays a G minor triad chord in the left hand underneath an obvious G7+ chord, which I've retained. Of course, alter as desired. I can only assume Fats' instinctive stride left-hand "engine" was going too fast to monitor the subtle adjustment which, of course, doesn't really matter in the scheme of things as the swing and momentum are far more important!

Fats recorded his more famous and expanded performance of the same piece a year earlier and this session, most probably due to time constraints, reveals a more compacted performance.

Here's the original recording for performance reference (unfortunately only a Spotify link):

https://open.spotify.com/track/7itDgUveD8ISEzy4tvRHRa?si=bb8934301cf74a79

Youtube.com noteman