UPDATED 25 Jan 2022: Now Includes all major instrument transpositions

I discovered Tom Misch though pure serendipity as I was working an early morning janitorial job. Walking around vacuuming and emptying garbage cans hours before the sun even rises gave me a lot of time to listen to my own thoughts, experience podcasts for the first time, and discover a lot of new music. It was at this time that I some of my favorite records of all time (“Surf” by Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment, “Coloring Book” by Chance the Rapper, “4 Your Eyez Only” by J Cole). It was this period of time that I credit for opening my eyes to all the other ways that the trumpet could be played—it wasn’t just a dichotomy of Jazz and Classical.

Among the artists I discovered was the English multi-instrumentalist and producer Tom Misch. His jazz-inflected neo-soul music was just the right mix of downtempo groove and tasteful chord progressions to make the hours of pushing a trash bin on wheels bearable. I immediately fell in love with the album Geography (2018) and particularly loved “Lost In Paris” feat. GoldLink. The muted trumpet solo at the end of the track is the icing on the cake.

It was surprisingly difficult to track down who the actual trumpet player was, but I saw a comment on YouTube somewhere attributing it to Johnny Woodham. Considering Johnny’s work with similarly-styled artists like Rex Orange County (see this Tiny Desk Concert) it seemed plausible enough to me.

Though I had actually transcribed this by ear a couple of years ago, notating it out actually turned out to be more of a challenge than I expected as I realized I didn’t actually think of this one as bars and notes, but rather a melody built on the Concert Db minor blues. I originally thought of it more as…shapes? Good examples are the big jumps followed by a really two tied whole notes—I visualized these as a line going up and then bouncing back down to somewhere in the middle. Whatever. Not that important.

Enjoy the tune. Remember to pull out your tuning slide when you put in the Harmon mute.

P.S. If you like this kind of stuff and want to see more, you can support me by buying me a coffee:

TRANSCRIPTION: "Lost In Paris," Tom Misch (Solo by Johnny Woodham)