I was listening to Kind of Blue which I do from time to time and it hit me how perfect Coltrane’s solo on “So What” is.
So what are some of your favorite non guitar solos?
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I’ve posted this before in a different thread, but Adam Holzman’s keyboard solo in Regret #9.
Andy Sheppard’s sax solo here, over 3 Blind Mice in 11. haha
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I can’t pick out one specific solo, but kind of blue is so good. I listen to it every so often also.
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The marimba solo on moonlight feels right.
Juan Gonsalves (tenor sax) on the famous 1956 performance of Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue from Ellington at Newport. 27 choruses. Relaunched Ellington’s career. Rifftaculous, unsubtle, and accessible. Too bad the recording doesn’t have the sax hot enough but the solo is a marvel of audience-friendly improvisation.
McCoy Tyner (piano) on Resolution from Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. The apotheosis of the harmonic and rhythmic language the 60’s Coltrane quartet were chasing. One of the reasons I’m here is because I want to get good enough to play a reduction of this solo on the guitar.
The desperate, agonized wailing of Charlie Mariano (alto sax) on Group Dancers which closes out side one of The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady by Charlie Mingus. Especially the climactic last chorus before the band cuts out.
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That jazz cat stuff gives my caveman brain a headache, let me nominate Paganini!
Haha in the “non-jazz” category the I’ll cite Bernie Worrell’s minimoog bass lines on Flashlight by Parliament. The ends of his notes are so crisp!
And if you like Paganini, maybe the Jascha Heifetz cadenza from the Munch/BSO recording of the Beethoven Violin Concerto. No one else has ever played with such precise intonation as Heifetz.
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The veritable keyboard orchestra of Steve Porcaro and David Paich in the break on Toto’s Rosanna. Might be the most expensive per second piece of music due to the plethora of top of the line classic synthesizers used.
Bruce Hornsby’s piano breaks on “The Valley Road”
Frank Bello’s bass break on Anthrax cover of Joe Jackson’s “Got the Time.”
Cliff Burton bass solo on Metallica’s “Orion”
Here’s several from my favorite non guitar instrument, pedal steel.
Tom Brumley’s pedal steel solo on Buck Owen’s “Together Again.” The gold standard by which all pedal steel solos/breaks are measured. Listen to that high lonesome sound cry!
Here’s a two for one and an odd one.
Is this the only pedal steel into flute solo ever?
Toy Caldwell on pedal steel Jerry Eubanks on flute. Marshall Tucker Band’s “Fire on the Mountain.” This song is pretty much responsible for my pedal steel fixation.
Jerry Garcia on Grateful Dead’s “Dire Wolf”
Buddy Cage pedal steel through a fuzzbox on New Riders of the Purple Sage’s “Death and Destruction.”
Paul Franklin on Dire Straits’ “Walk of Life”
Lloyd Green on The Byrds’ “One Hundred Years From Now”
Sneaky Pete Kleinow on Flying Burrito Brothers’ “Christine’s Tune (Devil in Disguise)”.
Jay Dee Maness on Desert Rose Band’s “Story of Love”
And here’s a few from my two favorite modern pedal steel players
Eric Heywood pedal steel on Son Volt’s “Creosote.”
Eric Heywood on Jeffrey Focault’s “Starlight and Static”
Greg Leisz on Daft Punk’s “Horizon”.
Greg Leisz on Whiskeytown’s “Dancing with the Women at the Bar”
Greg Leisz on Bon Iver’s “Beth/Rest”
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Oh there’s some great ones on brass for sure, but can’t remember atm, aside from that for me the keyboard solo in Highway Star is just killer
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The one in “Burn” is my favorite Jon Lord Deep Purple moment with the hammond and the minimoog. That and the noodling on “Child in Time”
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Great pick on Rosanna — that synth line has stayed with me too!
Your Hornsby pick sent me back listening to Harbor Lights for the first time in forever, which I vaguely remembered as having a great solo. And I was right, there is one — but it’s Pat Metheny guesting, so it doesn’t count for this thread!
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Mix Master Mike (turntables) on the Beastie Boys Three MCs and One DJ. The breaks are sick but the track as a whole is amazing because the whole thing is done with one record.
Stevie Wonder (chromatica, a chromatic harmonica that very few people play because it’s so difficult to master) on Isn’t She Lovely:
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Hornsby doesn’t get enough credit.
Billy Joel is no slouch either.
There’s some bizarre timeline out there where David Sancious never leaves the E Street Band and the jazzier version of Bruce Springsteen’s career circa 1973-1974 never ends and man I feel robbed we didn’t get that timeline. The version of “New York City Serenade” here, the piano intro is just fantastic.
Kitty’s Back carnivalesque organ solo never fails to make me grin. Big ELP vibes. It’s very fitting this was the tune they picked to play when the E Street Band was inducted into the R&R Hall.
Now that I think about it I think The Wild, The Innocent, & The E Street Shuffle is my favorite non prog non synth, rock keyboard album.
Some love to the late great Danny Federici as well.
The organ coda on the end of this is the audio equivalent to the end of Homeward Bound when the pets come home.
And hey it’s not guitar so The Boss’ harmonica solo on “The River” gets a shout.
He might not be John Popper but he’s no slouch at it.
I think the reason Springsteen gets shit from a lot of guitarists is that his band really isn’t a guitar band it’s a keyboard band and when you start listening to it as such you hear a lot of really interesting stuff. Roy Bittan and Danny Federici played a lot of really cool stuff over the years.
Born to Run is basically a showcase album piano playing in rock.
King of piano intros
The CS80 part isn’t a solo per se but it carries the song and it’s absolutely haunting.
Roy’s session work on this is top notch.
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Coltrane’s solo here is especially incredible, unbelievably good. His tone exudes a special radiance and his ideas are sheer ecstatic mysticism.
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The organ solo at 2:28 makes me cry.
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Sonny Rollins:
Jackie Mclean (I think)
I queued it up to the start of the solo but it’s worth going from the start to get the build up
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Still need to transcribe these!
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@Prlgmnr, Thanks for posting that great Max Roach solo (on the Sonny Rollins cut)! 
Roach is my favorite improvising drummer — his ideas are so coherent and it’s relatively easy to follow the thread because he usually keeps time while soloing. Compare with the Danny Richmond solo on that Mingus cut, which as good as it is takes more concentration to follow because you have to mentally place the beats he’s playing around.
That Mingus cut is great too, although the things I like about it most are Mingus’s walking bass groove, (including underneath the solo you picked out) and the ensemble arrangements at the beginning and end. The solos all go for a ride on top of the groove.
Bass solo starts at 1:15.