Jimmy Page’s Favorite Lick – Video and Tab

A pounding hard bop record caught my attention in a café one time. The sax player was wailing away on a repeated figure and I thought, “Ah, there’s someone playing Jimmy Page’s favorite lick again.”

 

If you listen closely to this tune, after around the three minute mark, sax player Joe Henderson will actually use the lick in question. It's dynamite, baby!

Although I had been listening to hard bop for a long time (ie Coltrane Plays the Blues), I never fully understood what the style meant. The name especially had me Confused. More recently, I’ve been digging trumpeter Lee Morgan and some helpful critics hipped me to what was going on. Essentially, hard bop is a move away from both cool jazz and bebop, with a return to the blues roots of jazz. In hard bop, there is a shift from the cerebral elements and less emotional playing of the cool style, and a lot of wailing on the horns and pounding away on the drums. This includes the repetitive statement of a single bluesy lick – aha!

My favorite rendition of this lick as played by Jimmy Page is on the song “Thank You” on the Led Zeppelin BBC Sessions double CD released in 1997. In a majestic ‘slow song’ type solo, Page repeats the lick numerous times while the chords change behind him for the last part of the solo. I always hear this solo as being quite ‘stagey’ – you can almost hear the spotlight swing over to Page just before he starts to play.

The lick itself is a quick run up from the tonic to the dominant note (omitting the second), with chromatic notes in between: A – C – C# – D – D# – E. There is one slur or bend, between the notes C and C#, which can be thought of as a ‘blue note.’ I’ve included examples in video and tab of the way Page plays it and in a jazzier style. You can use the same right hand picking on both versions.

Some Words About the Rhythm

The fact that the lick is a repeated six note figure makes for some interesting rhythmical effects. Observe how the accent shifts within the bar. The lowest note (the tonic) is a pickup note but the slurred or bent note has the most emphasis. In “Thank You,” the melodic repetition on top brings the slower harmonic rhythm out front, which is a trick that can be applied in many situations. Here the chords change once each bar:  D – C9 – G/B – D. The slur or bend allows you to use one repeated down-stroke, which keeps the accent in the right place, which is moving, man. Remember that a bent note is actually two notes – the note that you start out on and the note that you end up with.

Jimmy Page is one of my top three favorite guitar players, ever. Beyond the epic sweep of his music and his sophisticated writing and production skills, the man can really take a solo. Even his solos that don’t get as much attention are wicked and memorable – think “Black Dog.” I clearly remember one of my first guitar teachers showing me a lick and saying, “This is one of Jimmy Page’s favorite licks.” I could play it AND remember it. Maybe that’s one of the elements of his playing that Led to so much imitation. It’s easy to cop a few of his licks and off you go. But to play like Jimmy Page is another story altogether. -Christian Botta

www.chrisbottaguitar.com

 

Comments

[Jim]

Interesting connection Chris. Why do you show up/down stroke motion in the jazz tune is that important to make it sound right?

I recently learned that part of the Can't You Hear Me Knockin solo by Mich Taylor contains some Larry Coryell licks from a Chico Hamilton record. It's interesting to compare, and fascinating to hear how Mick turned it into something completely his own

[On Practicing Guitar]

Thanks for posting, Jim! I only wrote the upstroke/down-stroke pattern on the jazz lick because it's the same for both licks. There is a slur or bend in both licks after the initial upbeat so the slur/bend is stressed and then the next note is not picked. It would be awkward in my opinion to then come in an eighth or sixteenth note later with an upstroke and it would also displace the down-stroke from hitting the stressed bend/slur every other repetition. If you were picking all six notes of the figure at lightening speed like Joe Henderson, you would want to do it in strict alternate picking and the accenting would be correct. I will try to check out the Chico Hamilton record that you mentioned. As you know I'm a huge fan of Mick Taylor! -Chris