The great Django's Tiger F7 conspiracy !

anthon_74

So there I was, enjoying my lunch in the Cafeteria at Django in June, chatting with a fellow camper, and the subject of our favorite songs to improvise over came up. I mentioned Django's Tiger, to which my friend replied "DJango's Tiger is great except for that F7 chord". I replied "What's wrong with the F7 chord?". to which he said, "It's not supposed to be there. Django never played an F7. He simply played "out" over the second 2 measures of E7."
In disbelief, I went straight to my dorm room, logged on to youtube with my laptop, in order to confirm his assertion...and much to my surprise, he was correct! There is NO F7 in the original recording of Django's Tiger. Yet, in every fake book and chord book, it is written with an F7.
How exactly did this happen I ask? What F7 loving individual started this sham, and what exactly was their endgame? Were they playing god? Was it simply lazy transcribing ?

Cheers,

Anthony

gatsby

Yep, there never was an F7. We should all re-listen to the first version of it, which nobody really cares about. it's called Django Rag (1942), it's great:

Jim Kaznosky

It is true.

Amir_G

That is absolutely correct.
By the way, both "Django's tiger" and "Django rag" are based on the changes of... Tiger rag.

guitarmike

I remember Denis Chang saying the same thing a very long time ago.
There is no F7.

Buco

ha that's cool.
On the other hand, on his "I'll see you in my dreams" solo during F to E7 change he seems to just stay on F.

Jim Kaznosky

Stephane Wrembel says that as well in his weekly jams. However, we play the F7 when he's away.

Bones

I'd have to sit down and try to pick out the bass and chords in the recording but as far as the melody in the 'head' in DT it, of course, definitely follows the F7 (actually Cm6/F9 arp). As I recall (but it's been a while since I worked on this one) his improv just stays pretty much on the E7 in this section.

anthon_74

Bones wrote: »

I'd have to sit down and try to pick out the bass and chords in the recording but as far as the melody in the 'head' in DT it, of course, definitely follows the F7 (actually Cm6/F9 arp). As I recall (but it's been a while since I worked on this one) his improv just stays pretty much on the E7 in this section.

Yes it's true, but when he seems to follow an F7, he's playing "out".

Anthony

dennis

that's the difference between the "folkloric" Gypsy Jazz, and Django. In my playalongs I included both versions. In fact, Django's Tiger doesn't even have a melody, it's just him jamming on the main section of Tiger Rag. Other songs like that are Mano and Django Rag for instance.

Bones

Hey Anthony, ok so if the rhythm section goes to F7 and I stay on E7 with my improv then I'm playing 'out'? :-) JK. Given my level of solo 'skills' I think I play out a lot!!!

I'm not very good at transcribing the bass lines on those old recordings and I have not had any time for music stuff lately. Can anyone take the time to figure out if the bass is going to F7 on the recording?

That said, I'm sure Dennis is correct that it just is a single recorded version of Dj's improv on Tiger rag. Of course, we know that any number of his improvised choruses of many songs stand alone as compositions unto themselves! And conversely, I'm sure he rarely ever made it completely thru the 'head' on any performance playing strictly the written melody.