Italian jazz pianist Enrico Pieranunzi, who has played with the likes of Chet Baker, Paul Motian, and Charlie Haden, released the trio album Play Morricone (2002) with bassist Marc Johnson and drummer Joey Baron. The album’s focus is the broad discography of composer Ennio Morricone, who has written over 400 scores for film and TV.
“Jona Che Visse Nella Balena” (Jonah Who Lived In The Whale), a solo track, modulates at 1:18, 2:36, and 4:10.
#3 of 5 of our Beach Boys Week posts: 1964’s “Don’t Worry Baby” was the B-side of one of The Beach Boys’ all-time biggest hits, “I Get Around.” It’s part of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll list, ranked #178 on The 500 Rolling Stone Magazine greatest songs, and #14 on Pitchfork‘s “200 Greatest Songs of the 1960s”.
Starting in E major, there’s a transition to F# major at the start of the chorus (0:41), then a return to E major at the start of the next verse (0:58); the other verses follow suit. Continued thanks to our guest contributor JB for this week’s tunes!
Happy New Year’s Eve! Thank you all for making 2019 a memorable one at MotD, introducing new music to our libraries, with key changes brightening every day. We close out the year with “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve,” performed by Barbra Streisand from her 2001 album Christmas Memories. Key change at 2:47. See you in 2020!
UK band The 1975 met while living in a council flat as teens. Lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Matthew Healy describes the group as “a post-modern pop band that references a million things. I don’t even know what my band is half the time.”
“I Couldn’t Be More In Love,” a languid ballad from the band’s 2018 album A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships, fits squarely into the breakup anthem category. Soul-infused harmonies pivot back and forth throughout, further underlined by a growing choir of backup vocals. Just as it seems that the tune is tapering to an end, a late half-step modulation hits at 3:12 as the chorus comes roaring back.
First recorded in 1956 by vocalist Johnny Mathis and bandleader Roy Conniff, “When Sunny Gets Blue” quickly became a jazz standard. This version was performed by piano legend McCoy Tyner and his trio in 1962, after his stint as sideman for John Coltrane. Tyner, a 4-time Grammy winner, was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 2002; after 80 albums, he still continues to record.
The 32-bar form modulates at the start of the middle 8 (heard for the first time at 1:04), modulates halfway through the middle 8 at 1:20, then back to the original key at 1:36. The form starts again at 2:07, as we hear a solo from Tyner.
Here’s UK artist Adele‘s MotD debut with “All I Ask,” which was released on her 2015 album “25.” Key change at 3:39.
BBC World Service says of UK band Level 42: “For one brief, shining moment…they were outsiders.” By the mid-80s, the band had seen huge success, becoming one of the best-selling UK groups of the decade, best known for their uptempo funk-driven tunes like “Something About You.” But the band also produced some gorgeous melancholy-drenched ballads, including 1985’s “Lying Still.”
Starting in G minor, the tune transitions to B minor for the chorus at 0:44. At 2:50, the bridge starts as an instrumental (roughly in B minor), then transitions back to vocals for a lushly layered, multi-key-of-the-moment, meter-shifting section at 3:11. At 3:29, an extended outro, built around G minor, rolls out and tapers to the end.
From our Twitter follower Christopher G. (@cedgray) comes Howard Jones‘ ballad “Don’t Always Look at the Rain.” Jones released 1984’s Human’s Lib, his debut album, to a wonderful reception, reaching #1 on his native UK’s Album Charts in its first week and remaining on that chart for just over a year. The album went gold across the US and much of Europe and made a big splash in Japan.
Christopher points out the “unusual minor-third modulation at 1:39 (and elsewhere),” amid plenty of hybrid harmonies.
Pretenders‘ breakthrough third album Learning to Crawl (1984) spawned six singles, but also the devastating non-single track “I Hurt You.” For the album’s re-issue in 2004, Rolling Stone‘s Kurt Loder wrote of the band’s founder and frontwoman Chrissie Hynde: “To say that Learning to Crawl reconfirms Hynde as the most forceful female presence in rock already demeans her achievement: The matter of gender aside, she is the most unaffectedly personal of contemporary singer/songwriters, and surely the most astringently intimate lyricist working within a real rock & roll context.”
Starting in D minor, a series of unconventional modulations starts at 1:53 with a switch to Bb minor. Later, the mournful tune returns to D minor at 2:28 and ends in Bb minor with a spare, jagged guitar solo outro at 3:37.
Funk/pop superstars Kool and the Gang, best known for 1980’s uptempo mega-hit “Celebrate,” took a decidedly mellower turn in the early 80s. According to AllMusic, the band “left the fast lanes of funk for the smoother ride of the adult-oriented R&B expressway.” The 1983 album In the Heart produced a lead single, “Joanna,” which hit #2 (pop) in the US, #2 (pop) in the UK, and #1 on the US R&B chart.
No stranger to a broad harmonic vocabulary, the band outdid itself on the mod scale with the ballad “September Love,” a non-single track. Modulations begin with an almost jarring early shift as the first verse starts at 0:21, followed by more key changes at 1:15, 1:49, 2:43, 3:18, and 3:59.
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