“Mozart’s last three symphonies come from the extraordinarily creative summer of 1788,” (RedlandsSymphony.com) “In the space of slightly over six weeks, he composed the Symphony in E-flat, K. 543; the Symphony in G minor, K. 550; and the Symphony in C major, K. 551 …
Of the three 1788 symphonies, the Symphony in G minor, K. 550 (popularly referred to as No. 40, but probably No. 53), is the most original and has had the greatest influence on future composers. Few works from the 18th century are as intense, chromatic, and unconventional … few classical works more clearly point the way toward 19th century romanticism.”
Beginning in G minor, the movement transitions to the relative major key, Bb, for the first time at 0:27. Many other shifts in tonality follow.
Brasstracks is a Grammy Award-winning hip-hop production duo based in New York City. Founded by Ivan Jackson and Conor Rayne in 2014, the group released their first album, Golden Ticket, in 2020. This cover of Mariah Carey’s “Always Be My Baby” was released in 2019, and modulates at 2:40.
“For many, (Miles Davis’) crowning achievement was the album Kind of Blue, the best selling album in jazz history,” (JazzWise). In 1999 it topped The Independent’s ’50 Best Recordings of the 20th Century’ list, in 2006 it topped the Jazzwise ‘100 Albums that Shook the World’ listing, while more recently The Guardian’s ‘1000 Albums to Hear Before You Die’ gave Kind of Blue a half-page box-out, an honour accorded to just 20 or so albums on the whole list. It even featured at No. 66 on the pop station VH1’s ‘100 Greatest Albums of Rock ’n’ Roll.’
“No other recording in jazz has come remotely near acquiring the kind of cachet Kind of Blue has accumulated over the decades. It’s an album that has probably been responsible for more Damascene conversions of non-believers into the jazz faith than any other, it has been the base-station from where countless fans have begun their journey into jazz and it’s an album that crops-up in the record collections of classical, rock, pop and country & western devotees who would not otherwise give jazz house room.”
After an intro, Kind of Blue‘s “So What” (1959) starts in earnest at 0:34. Even though the melody repeats throughout, the half-step upward modulation on the third pass (1:02 – 1:17) lends the track a classic AABA form. At 1:17, the tune reverts to its original key.
Guitarist and composer Maurice Cahen was born in Saint Germain en Laye, France. He began studying classical guitar while playing jazz in the Paris area. He traveled back and forth to Spain, where he discovered his love for traditional and contemporary Spanish music. In 1982, Maurice moved to the United States to study at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, followed by studies with Charlie Banacos and Dimitri Goryachev. Since then, he’s collaborated with various Boston and New York based musicians and has published original chamber music for flute and guitar, including the Impromptu #1.
Cahen has toured Israel with The Little Big Band and later toured Brazil with his own quartet and duo. Since then, Maurice has created numerous ensembles: Reflection, Brazilian Serenade, and various duos and trios featuring his original work, improvisation, etc. and exploring many styles, instrumentations, and genres (Classical, Latin, etc.) Maurice is currently studying North Indian Classical music and sitar technique with Jawwad Noor.
Impromptu #1 for flute and guitar, featuring Cahen on guitar and MotD co-curator Elise MacDonald on flute, begins in an overarching B minor and D major, but shifts to B major at 1:03. After touching on several other keys of the moment, we return to B minor and D major at 1:44.
Pianist Liz Story studied music at Hunter College and at Juilliard. “Although she was an accomplished pianist, (she) lost interest in a music career until she saw Bill Evans play one night at the Bottom Line in New York,” (MusicianGuide). “That concert opened up performance possibilities that she had never considered. ‘What hit me was the improvisation. I had the impression that improvising music had died in the 18th century, that it was a musical feat people knew about in some other time,’ she told DownBeat. ‘All these lights went on. I had, for the first time, a clear idea of what I would do in music.’
The timing of Story’s entrance onto the music scene was fortuitous. She arrived when a new form of music, popularly dubbed New Age, was gaining wide acceptance. William Ackerman helped pioneer New Age music through his Windham Hill label, which he formed in 1976 to release his first album of guitar music … Story recorded her first solo album, Solid Colors, for Windham Hill in 1983. High Fidelity reviewed the album: ‘ … a virtually flawless technical capacity, a fine gift for melody, a great sense of creative passion … a performer-composer with the melodic power to move an audience.’ Story claims that she desires simplicity in her compositions. ‘When I sit at the piano, complexity dissolves. I want music to somehow move me, simple and stripped down as it may be. I wonder at the possibility that a melody of three notes can turn the heart.'”
Story’s 1983 track “Things With Wings” begins in F major; at 1:03, there’s a modulation to F# major, then a reversion to the original key at 1:46.
“Out of all the hit recordings of ‘Body and Soul,’ Coleman Hawkins’ is the best remembered,” (JazzStandards.com). Considered the first truly great jazz saxophonist, Hawkins’ October 11, 1939, version cemented his fame and must be considered the definitive recording of the song. According to Mark C. Gridley, author of Jazz Styles: History and Analysis, ‘Coleman Hawkins loved to improvise on complicated chord progressions and invent solo lines whose construction implied that chords had been added …'”
In 1973, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences inducted Hawkins’ 1939 recording into the Grammy Hall of Fame. The original recording is on Coleman Hawkins’ Body and Soul CD. An interesting reworking of the tune can be heard as the title cut on Hawkins’ 1944 Rainbow Mist recording on which he lays a new melody over the chord changes of ‘Body and Soul.'”
The 32-bar tune, composed in 1930 by Johnny Green, is built in Db major overall. After a brief intro, the first A section begins at 0:11 and the second at 0:32. The B section, which features several departures from the original key via a huge amount of harmonic sleight of hand, begins at 0:52. Finally, 1:12 brings the form’s last A section, returning to the original key.
“Gabriel Fauré is sometimes overshadowed by the generation of composers that followed the trail he had quietly illuminated. He was more than the composer of one much-loved piece, the Requiem. He was crucial to a movement that aimed to establish a characteristically French style of composition,” (DeutscheGrammophon.com). A student of Camille Saint-Saëns, Fauré later became “a founding member of the Société National de Musique, along with Saint-Saëns … The aim of the Société’s concerts of new music was to encourage an indigenously French style of musical composition and shake off German influence. It paid special attention to chamber music, (which) had until then been under-represented in 19th-century Paris, where opera was the predominant measure of a composer’s success …
Fauré’s music was characterized from the start by an innate sense of balance and beauty … Saint-Saëns was naturally a tremendous influence. So were Liszt, whom Fauré met through Saint-Saëns, and Chopin, on whose piano genres Fauré substantially built.” In terms of his lasting impact on music, “Fauré’s influence lived on not only through his works but also through his pupils. He helped them strengthen voices that were as individual as his own. This might explain the profound differences among Ravel, Enescu, Charles Koechlin, Florent Schmitt and Arthur Honegger.”
The Berceuse (lullabye), written in 1879, is performed here by Henrik Dam Thomsen on cello and Ulrich Stærk on piano. Shifts among closely related keys are a subtle but nearly constant presence in this piece. “The mixing and reuse of material is an example of familiarity … familiarity works because new ideas are only subtly different, or they are accompanied by familiar gestures, harmonic overlap, or both. The harmonic movement therefore is experienced as subtle shifts rather than exhausting journey of departure and arrival. It is like floating on a calm river instead of climbing up a mountain.” (Brandon Kinsey). According to the video’s description, “The Berceuse is charming, irresistible, and impossible to fall asleep to.”
The “Viva Italia” Fantasy for piccolo on themes by Rossini and Verdi, by Marina Manafova, is performed here by the Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra; Kuelyar Ksenia is the soloist. The Orchestra has performed for 239 years and “is one of the oldest in Russia. Its history dates back to the first orchestra of the St Petersburg Imperial Opera Orchestra. Information on Manafova, a Russian composer, is nearly impossible to find, but this 2018 performance was the world premiere of the Fantasy.
Italian composers Giuseppe Verdi and Gioachino Rossini are often linked due to their shared focus on opera. WQXR’s blog illuminates the relationship between the two colleagues: “The two men met in Bologna in June 1842, and Verdi quickly admired his older colleague. Verdi was able to discuss with Rossini his many operas and it seems that he particularly came to learn a lot about L’Italiana in Algeri, Il Barbiere di Siviglia and what was known in Italian as Guglielmo Tell. He later said that ‘I cannot believe that there is another opera that has a greater abundance of musical ideas, comic verve and truthfulness of declamation than Il Barbiere di Siviglia, which must be the greatest comic opera there is. I admire Tell, but how many other sublime things there are in his other operas.’”
The piccolo soloist, Kuelyar Ksenia, was the winner of the All-Russia competition in 2000. She “is a regular (flute and piccolo) soloist with St. Petersburg Philharmonic orchestra …. participates in projects organized by Ensemle of Modern Music under Pro Arte Foundation … (and) gives master classes in Russia, Germany and Spain … ” She has worked as a teaching assistant “at the St. Petersburg Conservatory named after Rimsky-Korsakof.”
Ksenia’s mastery of the diminutive woodwind is evident at all times, but never moreso than when the highest arpeggio notes sail gracefully out into the crowd, strongly stated but sometimes somewhat quieter than the low notes. This excellent technique is no small feat for a flutist, but a near-miracle on piccolo! After starting in D major, 2:18 brings a transition to A major, followed by several other modulations throughout (the music begins at the 0:40 mark).
Voted Jazz Guitarist of the Year in 1993 by Guitar Player and one of DownBeat Magazine’s “75 Great Guitarists,” Mike Stern has released 20+ albums of his own as well as collaborating with Miles Davis, Blood Sweat and Tears, Steps Ahead, Michael Brecker, The Brecker Brothers, Jim Hall, and many others.
A lot of work and preparation have set the stage for Stern’s versatility. “‘There are so many different things to get into and study,’ (RivetingRiffs). ‘I check out a lot of horn players, a lot of saxophone players and trumpet players, and Miles, I check his stuff out. I write it out, I transcribe stuff like that. Piano players, like McCoy Tyner and Herbie, I try to get some of those ideas on the guitar … You can arrange everything to a certain point and you can rehearse it to a certain point, but it doesn’t all have to be Pro Tooled to death and everything lined up perfectly. It’s got to have some rough edges … with Miles, there was an edge, but I’ve always liked a kind of a vocal sound, like a horn. I use a little chorus and two amps to try and make it sound a little more vocal, like Jimi Hendrix, because he sang, and the blues guys I grew up with, BB King, Albert King, they bent the strings and sounded very vocal and I’ve always been a fan of that style. I want the guitar to sound more legato and more singing like. I want air in the sound.’”
Although Stern is well known for tunes that fit into a more uptempo rock/blues/funk/fusion vein, “What I Meant to Say,” from his Grammy-nominated 1994 album Is What It Is, embodies the legato, lyrical style he detailed in the interview. Verse 1 starts in Ab major; after a surprisingly smooth side step into D major at 0:34, we return to Ab major for verse 2 (0:42). A shift to E major hits at 1:21, then C major at 1:38, and a sustained solo section in Ab at 2:12. Stern re-visits many of the sections until the verse is re-stated in the original key at 4:25.
JazzJournal.UK reviewed Reunion, led by vibraphonist Gary Burton and featuring Pat Metheny on guitar, Mitch Forman (who also wrote the title track) on keys, Will Lee on bass (yes, the guy from the Letterman show band), and Peter Erskine on drums.
“Jazzmen are so unpredictable. Writing on the sleeve of his 1988 Times Like These album, Burton said ‘I still don’t feel that I’m going to work with guitarists anytime soon.’ Yet within 12 months or so, he has taken up with his old sideman Pat Metheny after a break of 12 years. Buoyant and Latinate, this set contrasts significantly with earlier Burton/Metheny liaisons. Burton, reticent as ever about his writing abilities, has employed five composers across 11 tracks (including the excellent Vince Mendoza), but there is no lack of cohesion. Everything is beautifully executed, and Burton and Metheny take a host of solos.”
From the album’s liner notes: “(Burton and Metheny) have been called prodigies. Burton joined George Shearing’s group in 1963 at the age of 19. He met Metheny at the Wichita Jazz Festival in 1973 when Metheny was 18 years old. After welcoming him as a teaching colleague at the Berklee College of Music, he hired Metheny for the newly expanded Gary Burton Quintet in 1974. Metheny left Burton’s group in 1977 to form his own quartet with Lyle Mays.” The two artists had next to no contact for over a decade, until the 1988 Montreal Jazz Festival. “‘My apprehension was immediately erased when I saw how easy it was for us to play together, even after 12 years,’ said Burton. This led to their collaboration on Reunion (1990).”
The album’s title track starts in G minor, followed by a modulation up to Bb minor at 3:21. At 4:23, we’ve reverted to the original key for a final chorus of melody.
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