“Fly with Me” is featured on the Jonas Brothers‘ 2009 album Lines, Vines, and Trying Times, their last record before a three-year hiatus. The track served as the closing credits music for 2009 film Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, and appeared briefly on the Billboard Hot 100 chart upon its release.
The song begins in C and modulates to D major at 2:51, where it remains until the end.
“Back at One,” featured on Brian McKnight‘s eponymously named 1999 studio album, is one of the 16-time Grammy-nominated singer’s most successful singles. A Top 10 hit in New Zealand and Canada, the track reached the #2 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US, and also placed on the Adult Contemporary and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop charts. Key change at 3:00.
Longtime collaborators Chick Corea and Gary Burton, pianist and vibraphonist respectively, released their jazz duo album Crystal Silence in 1972. (A follow-up album, New Crystal Silence, was released in 2008.) Allmusic called the record “a sublime indication of what two master improvisers can do given quality raw material… Improvised music is rarely this coherent and melodic.”
Corea, a titanic pianist in the history of jazz music, is known for helping introduce the jazz fusion genre as a member of Miles Davis’s band in the 1960s. A 60-time Grammy nominated performer and 23-time winner, the 79 year old Corea passed away on February 11, 2021 from a rare form of cancer.
While this performance by Corea and Burton doesn’t directly modulate, the interplay and improvisation between the two push at the boundaries of the A minor tonality throughout, reflecting the innovative spirit Corea championed throughout his career.
“Lonely Call” is featured on WildHorse, the 2017 debut album of American country singer/songwriter RaeLynn. The song depicts RaeLynn’s breakup with boyfriend Josh when she was 18 (they would subsequently get back together and eventually get married.) “‘Lonely Call’ is a confessional,” RaeLynn said in an interview with Rolling Stone. “My WildHorse record is like my diary. It’s so funny to listen back because I was so sad when we broke up, when I hear those lyrics I’m like, ‘That’s exactly how it felt, that’s exactly how it was.’”
Writing for the radio network Taste of Country, critic Sterling Whitaker described the track as “an amalgam of sweet pop-country melodicism and some surprisingly traditional instruments, with a reverb-drenched banjo and simple acoustic guitars framing the gentle, moody verse before stacked guitars lift the song up into a sweeping chorus. RaeLynn’s uniquely smoky vocal tone is perfectly suited to the aching, regretful subject matter that she’s delivering, and the result is a track that is so universally identifiable that it could very well carry her career to new heights at country radio.”
Key change at 2:54.
Chopin’s “Prelude in F# Minor” is the 8th in his Op. 28, a collection of 24 preludes for piano — one set in each major and minor key. More virtuosic and demanding of the pianist than the others, the piece features a continuous string of rapid thirty-second-note figurations in the right hand set against a sixteenth-note triplet polyrhythm in the left hand.
Chopin pushes the boundaries of the home key throughout the brief work, but clearly emerges into F# major towards the end before ultimately resolving to the original minor on the final chord. Performed here by acclaimed Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov.
“Baroque and Blue” is the first movement of composer Claude Bolling‘s Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano Trio, written in 1973. A piano prodigy, Bolling began playing jazz professionally at age 14 and scored over 100 films. The piece was also a breakthrough for the legendary classical flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal. This suite was the first of a series of “crossover” compositions that synthesize Baroque and swing era jazz elements, and spent well over a year on the Billboard Top 40 chart. Bolling passed away at age 90 last December.
The movement follows a large scale ABA form — beginning in G major, modulating to the parallel minor at 1:54, and returning to G at 4:36.
“It’s Love” is from the 1953 Broadway musical Wonderful Town, featuring a score by Leonard Bernstein and lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green. The tune, a popular call for jazz combos, is included on jazz pianist Bill Charlap‘s 2003 album Somewhere: The Music of Leonard Bernstein. Charlap is joined on the record by bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny Washington. The track starts in D, and following a drum solo, modulates to Gb at 4:46.
“Make Our Garden Grow” is the final number in Leonard Bernstein’s 1956 operetta Candide, based on Voltaire’s 1759 novella. This virtual performance was coordinated and produced by Jeremy Robin Lyons. “During this time of global trauma, it is increasingly clear that we are all in this together,” he said. “In the sense of our collective responsibilities for taking care of each other through public health as well as economically, for taking care of the planet we share (which happens to be the only one we have!), and for pulling together with a spirit of hope, motivation, and cooperation while working towards a brighter future. I think we are also experiencing the need for art in the face of the most difficult times, and the importance of community in the face of isolation. So I felt an impetus to reach out to friends and strangers alike through the internet, bringing people together through music and producing a mass collaboration with as much heart as possible.”
Key changes at 0:22, 1:35, and 2:42
“I Was Young” is the opening track on composer/pianist Bob Kelly‘s debut EP Open Road, released earlier this month. Kelly’s website notes that he is ” … a NYC-based pianist, composer, and music director. His work as a music director, pianist, and orchestrator/arranger for musical theatre includes productions and educational programs throughout NYC and across the country.”
Featuring vocalists Andrew Way and Daniel Youngelman, the song modulates at 2:23.
“Let It Sing” is featured in composer Jeanine Tesori’s 1997 Off-Broadway musical Violet. Based on the short story “The Ugliest Pilgrim” by Doris Betts, Violet won the Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical the year of its premiere, and was revived on Broadway in 2014 starring Sutton Foster and Joshua Henry, who performs here. Key changes at 0:57, 1:05, 1:18, 1:39, 1:48, 2:00, 2:32, and 2:57.
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