Transcription Page:     On the Alamo

C&A:

On the Alamo doesn’t receive nearly as much attention as it should.  Possibly because it was one of the slowest tunes played by the sextet, recorded only once on one take, and almost half of it is fairly straight melody.  It was also recorded during the same studio session as the multiple takes of up-tempo tunes Breakfast Feud, I Found a New Baby, and Gone with What Draft (Alamo’s 78-rpm flipside companion).  On the Alamo is beautifully played by all.

Charlie Christian’s eight-bar solo is a gem.  Everything fits together perfectly.  The four notes he plays on the pickup bar and on the second measure are identical and go with both the E♭ and F7 harmony, and are used for like purposes but with dissimilar emphasis.  Then there are two phrases that ascend in triplets and descend with quarter notes;  two cascading triplets and a leap up to a single note before the phrase is resolved with a couple of notes in the next beat.  The solo itself is then resolved with two similar, and unexpected, two-note phrases that also relate to the first measure.

So leisurely simple and sensible and sublime.