Wynton Kelly
Piano Solo on
Freddie Freeloader

About

Opening the solo section, this piano improvisation spans four choruses of the 12-bar blues at a medium swing tempo of 129 BPM. Kelly's four-chorus solo opens the improvisational sequence with a joyful, swinging energy that contrasts with the more impressionistic atmosphere of the rest of the album, his block chords and bluesy inflections connecting the music to the hard bop tradition. The 12-bar blues form provides a familiar harmonic framework that invites inventive melodic and rhythmic exploration. Following this solo, Miles Davis takes over on trumpet.

Wynton Kelly was 27 to 28 years old at the time.