Takeshi Ohbayashi
Piano Solo on
Yardbird Suite

About

Taking the 2nd solo, this piano improvisation spans three choruses of the 32-bar AABA form at a medium-up swing tempo of 180 BPM. The underlying chord progression is drawn from "Rosetta," making this a contrafact—a new melody composed over borrowed changes. The 32-bar AABA form, a staple of the Great American Songbook, offers both structural clarity and ample harmonic terrain for improvisation. Situated between Chad Lefkowitz-Brown's tenor sax solo and Tamir Shmerling's turn on acoustic bass, it occupies a pivotal spot in the arrangement.

Takeshi Ohbayashi was 29 to 30 years old at the time.