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Guitar transcriptions of some classic golden-age loops: via samples from jazz, funk, soul, & beyond (listed in rough order of technical difficulty)

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• Runnin’ (Pharcyde/Dilla): Getz & Bonfa’s languid latin jazz loops •
• Rebirth of Slick (Digable Planets): Art Blakey’s chromatic basslines •
• 93 ’til Infinity (Souls of Mischief): Billy Cobham’s swirling synths •
• T.R.O.Y. (Pete Rock/CL Smooth): Tom Scott’s iconic sax melodies •
• Big Poppa (Biggie Smalls): The Isley Brothers’ soul sequences •
• Catch a Bad One (Del the Funky H.): Ron Carter’s bowed bass •
• I Used to Love H.E.R. (Common): George Benson’s melancholia •
• Electric Relaxation (ATCQ): Ronnie Foster’s half-resolving harmonies •

Like most of the jazz guitarists I know, I also love 90s hip-hop, with its incredible variety of jazz/funk/soul samples – so I tabbed out a few of my favourites! Most of them aren’t too hard to play if you already have a decent grasp of common jazz chords – but the way that classic progressions can get ‘recut’ by the sampling process is fascinating: such as how chords can take on different functions when separated from their original cadences. Also see my rundown of Short Jazzy Chord Loops – and don’t hesitate to suggest more tunes!

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• Runnin’ (The Pharcyde) •

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• SAMPLES: Guitar chords are taken directly from Saudade Vem Correndo (1963) by Stan Getz & Luis Bonfa [see more on WhoSampled]

• PLAYING: Pluck the top-line chords with ‘middle, index/thumb’ (& try arpeggiating the implied shapes in free-time too)

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—Runnin’ (1995)—

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“When I do my shit now, I don’t have no Quantizer, I just do it free-feeling. That’s why it feels like that – but the labels don’t like that shit!…I had a problem with that when I did Runnin’ for The Pharcyde. The drum pattern was too much for them. So they actually went in the studio and looped up like one bar of my drum pattern. And then played it for me and said ‘Here you go, this is the new Runnin’…I’m like, ‘What the fuck happened to the kick and shit?’ He was like, ‘The kick was just too much, it was too busy.’ I’m like, ‘That’s the whole point of the damn…’. I think Pharcyde actually got in a fight with that shit….over what filter sounds the best, a 950 or an ASR-10 or something. It was wild, man!” (J Dilla: 2003 interview)

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• Rebirth of Slick (Digable Planets) •

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• SAMPLES: Bassline is from Stretchin’ (1978) by Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers, with Dennis Irwin on double bass – transposed 4 semitones lower and much slower [see more on WhoSampled]

• PLAYING: On acoustic, try plucking in ‘walking bass style‘ – strike hard over the end of the fretboard with the index+middle fingers locked together

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—Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat) (1992)—

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“One of [Ishmael ‘Butterfly’ Butler]’s friends had used that Art Blakey sample on another song, so out of respect he asked that friend if he could use it – and then he flipped it in a completely different way. It was super tight. Working together was always smooth and easy. We just had this special connection; we liked the same kind of sounds, vibes, and energy. That was my first experience with that kind of magic. We didn’t have a lot of money, so sometimes we split a pizza three ways just to eat – but those guys were my family…” (Mary Ann ‘Ladybug Mecca’ Vieira: 2016 interview)

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• 93 ’til Infinity (Souls of Mischief) •

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• SAMPLES: Main chords are from Heather (1974) by jazz fusion drummer Billy Cobham – transposed upwards 3 semitones [see more on WhoSampled]

• PLAYING: The chords are easier if you initially focus on whichever finger frets the bass note in each shape (I use ‘index, middle, index, thumb’)

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—93 ’til Infinity (1993)—

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“The key samples used in 93 ‘til Infinity are from two sections in the middle of a lengthy, slow, curious piece of instrumental music by Billy Cobham. After a brief stint as a member of Miles Davis’s never-ending mission to locate new music in the middle of jazz, funk, and cut-up sound collages, Cobham formed the Mahavishnu Orchestra with John McLaughlin…‘Heather’ [is from] Cobham’s strange, beguiling, vividly exciting Crosswinds, and anyone who picked it up post-Souls expecting to hear more of where the Oakland rappers were coming from would have had a surprise…” (Angus Batey/The Quietus)

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• T.R.O.Y. (Pete Rock & CL Smooth) •

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• SAMPLES: Main melodies are from Today (1967) by Tom Scott & The California Dreamers – transposed most of a semitone lower [see more on WhoSampled]

• PLAYING: The melody is easier to fret at full speed if you keep the index finger barred across 9fr on 1-2-3str throughout

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—They Reminisce Over You (1992)—

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“In a 2011 interview, Pete Rock explained how the track was made, and the role Large Professor and Q-Tip played in [it]. He says he found the sampled Tom Scott record while digging with Large Professor, and made the base of the beat at home before finishing it at Large Pro’s house. Rock insists that Q-Tip, rumoured to have been involved, had nothing to do with the production, but did make suggestions regarding the inclusion of the horns.” (Complex)

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• Big Poppa (Biggie Smalls) •

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• SAMPLES: Main loop is taken directly from Between the Sheets (1983) by The Isley Brothers [see more on WhoSampled]

• PLAYING: Sounds best fingerpicked (pluck closer to the neck for a softer sound, or closer to the bridge for a crisper attack)

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—Big Poppa (1994)—

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“[Interviewer: Tell me about a typical day in your life now] Basically, I wake up at nine o’clock in the morning, go to different record stores, go to the studio, think up different ideas for songs. Just workin’. [Interviewer: How is a typical day now different from before you were making records?] Well, before I was just on the corner selling drugs…on Fulton Street, between St. James and Washington Avenue…” (Biggie Smalls: 1994 interview)

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• Catch a Bad One (Del the Funky Homosapien) •

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• SAMPLES: Bowed bass loop is from Mrs. Parker Of K.C. (1960) by Eric Dolphy & Booker Little, with Ron Carter on double bass – transposed down 3 semitones [see more on WhoSampled]

• PLAYING: Use hammer/pulls to ease the fast pace (n.b. bracketed notes match the original track, but the unbracketed low octaves are easier)

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—Catch a Bad One (1993)—

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“It was fun making the album, but I think I was depressed most of the time…We had shit done on 4-tracks before we went to the studio. There’s a few joints where Casual came to the studio with a beat – like Catch a Bad One – and I just wrote the shit right there…I don’t think I was sober very much; mushrooms, tabs, whatever – I was on my little rock ‘n’ roll psychedelic shit. But I don’t feel like that had anything to do with my music, because my music always comes first…” (Del: 2018 interview)

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• I Used to Love H.E.R. (Common) •

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• SAMPLES: Main elements are from The Changing World (1974) by George Benson – transposed 1 semitone lower [see more on WhoSampled: and also check out Martin Connor’s rhythmic analysis]

• PLAYING: For the intro melody, use the index fingernail to fret the long slides – and for the combo loop, pluck bass notes with the thumb and other notes with index/middle/ring together

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—I Used to Love H.E.R. (1994)—

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“It’s about hip-hop music. H.E.R. stands for ‘Hip-Hop in its Essence is Real’. All I’m talking about is how I first came into contact with hip-hop music, and how it evolved into where it is now. And it’s like all these gimmicks going on, all the phoniness, ain’t nobody being real with it. Everybody’s stressing that it’s real, but ain’t nobody being true to it. I think that came about because once it started becoming a business, people started losing their soul…” (Common: 1995 interview)

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• Electric Relaxation (ATCQ) •

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• SAMPLES: Chord loop is from Mystic Brew (1972) by funk-soul organist Ronnie Foster – transposed 2 semitones lower [see more on WhoSampled]

• PLAYING: Focus on which finger to use for the bass note of each chord (I use: ‘index, index | little, thumb | little, little’)

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—Electric Relaxation (1993)—

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“I was 18 when I wrote [Mystic Brew]…I can remember walking down the street, and hearing it in my head. That’s where it started, in 1968, right after I graduated high school…I found out about A Tribe Called Quest doing this song because of a British DJ, I can’t think of his name now, but he was one of the forefathers of acid jazz in the UK. He called me and says, ‘Hey Ron, I just want to let you know we love your music here which we’re playing…We were going to do a remix of Mystic Brew, but A Tribe Called Quest did it already’. I said ‘They did?’ – I didn’t even know.” (Ronnie Foster, 2023 interview)

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NEXT: Let me know which golden-age tunes you like to play on guitar, which have your favourite jazz samples, etc – and also how else you use ideas from hip-hop on whatever instrument you play. e.g. I love trying to improvise guitar lines to the exact rhythmic phrasings of the lyrics (n.b. Rakim learnt to rhyme using the equivalent process: he played sax as a teenager and talks about writing bars to fit the phrasings of Coltrane solos – and Coltrane in turn drew from spoken word too, basing the cadences of Alabama on a famous MLK speech…). And if you want to get deeper into this music, hit me up for Zoom lessons!

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