Clutch (Cowboy Bebop)
This is one of my favorites from the entire soundtrack. It’s a throwback to the hard-bop, small-ensemble style of Horace Silver, Art Blakey, and Dexter Gordon—and Tomonao Hara really captures a lot of the magic that makes this a really thrilling solo. I had a ton of fun transcribing this one.
One thing that I love about this composition is how it riffs on Kind of Blue. The chord progression spends a long time alternating between D minor and E♭ minor—just like in Kind of Blue—but instead of a slow, laid-back swing, the tempo has been cranked up to over 300 beats per minute.
A PDF of the solo is available for download here.