Barry Stephenson
Acoustic Bass Solo on
Scrapple From The Apple

About

Closing out the solo section, this acoustic bass improvisation spans two choruses of the 32-bar AABA form at a medium-up swing tempo of 188 BPM. The underlying chord progression is drawn from "Honeysuckle Rose," 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. Coming after David Meder's piano solo, this is the final improvisation before the ensemble returns to the head.

Barry Stephenson was 29 to 30 years old at the time.