video: Night In Tunisia
This tune is strongly identified with Diz, who wrote it, and with Bird, who recorded the “famous alto break” on it. This is my solo version, and since I don’t have the benefit of a rhythm section behind me to accomplish the feel changes (latin on the A, swing on the B and interlude) this winds up pretty much swinging all the way through, which isn’t a bad thing.
My notes:
I get a lot of “what scale do you use” type questions, and I’ll tell you that I look at the A section as V-i in D minor, and I play licks using the Eb7 diminished scale resolving to D dorian (special emphasis given to the 6th degree, based on listing to Bird and Diz play this). The melody outlines Eb7#11, which I play as an F triad over Eb7. Left hand is playing (G Db) and the right hand (F A C), so I can arpeggiate up this with both hands to get the melody line, but both hands are playing comfortable structures. The final chord is Fmaj, voiced as a stack of fourths up from the third (A D G C F).
