instrumental – Page 7

Steps Ahead | Self Portrait

“Steps Ahead is an American jazz fusion group (which) arose out of spontaneous sessions at Seventh Avenue South, a jazz club in New York City owned by saxophonist Michael Brecker and trumpeter brother Randy Brecker,” (AllAboutJazz). Fully deserving of the term “supergroup,” the band’s “shifting roster has included vibraphonist Mike Mainieri, saxophonists Michael Brecker, Bob Berg, Bendik Hofseth, Bill Evans, Ernie Watts, and Donny McCaslin; pianists Don Grolnick, Eliane Elias, Warren Bernhardt and Rachel Z; guitarists Mike Stern, Chuck Loeb, and Steve Khan; bassists Eddie Gomez, Darryl Jones, Tony Levin, Victor Bailey, Richard Bona, and Marc Johnson; and drummers Steve Gadd, Peter Erskine, Steve Smith, and Dennis Chambers. Steps Ahead was active during the 1970s and 1980s, intermittently during the 1990s, and reunited for concerts in the mid-2000s.”

“Released in 1984, Modern Times … was a radical departure from their self-titled debut,” (JazzMusicArchives). “Unlike the first album’s mostly acoustic textures, Modern Times is a high-tech, futuristic, jazz-of-tomorrow fusion masterpiece … Strong compositions, impassioned performances, and early DDD production are married to otherworldly yet urban atmospheres to create one of the best albums any of these distinguished players has ever appeared on. “Self Portrait” (is a) classic Mainieri composition: long-lined unforgettable melodies, loud/soft contrasts, quirky bridges, outstanding solos over synth splashes, and sudden endings.”

Starting in D major, this 1986 live version of “Self Portrait” shifts into D minor between 1:14 – 1:39 before returning to the original key; the two keys continue to alternate throughout the tune. This particular gathering of the band, perhaps its quintessential lineup, featured Michael Brecker on tenor sax; Mike Mainieri, vibes; Darryl Jones, bass; Mike Stern, guitar; and Steve Smith, drums.

for Mark

Bill Chase | Bochawa (feat. United States Marine Band)

“The U.S. Marine Band’s mission is to perform for the President of the United States and the Commandant of the Marine Corps,” (Marine Band website). “Founded in 1798 by an Act of Congress, the Marine Band is America’s oldest continuously active professional musical organization. President John Adams invited the Marine Band to make its White House debut on New Year’s Day, 1801, in the then-unfinished Executive Mansion. In March of that year, the band performed for Thomas Jefferson’s inauguration and it is believed that it has performed for every presidential inaugural since. In Jefferson, the band found its most visionary advocate. An accomplished musician himself, Jefferson recognized the unique relationship between the band and the Chief Executive and he is credited with giving the Marine Band its title, ‘The President’s Own.’”

“‘Bochawa’ was written by Bill Chase (1935–74); this version was arranged by Jackie Coleman,” (from the video description). “Chase was a trumpet player who graduated from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he studied with Herb Pomeroy and Armando Ghitalla. After graduation, Chase soon found himself working with Maynard Ferguson, where he remained for about a year before moving on to the Stan Kenton Orchestra. Chase finally settled into the lead trumpet chair in Woody Herman’s Thundering Herd. After leaving Herman’s band in August 1967, he moved to Las Vegas where he worked as a freelance musician and arranger. Around this time, The Beatles burst onto the scene, and his interest turned towards rock. As the 1970s began, Chase wanted to create his dream band comprised of four trumpets, four rhythm instruments, and one vocalist. Chase gained national attention after his group earned a Grammy nomination in 1971 for Best New Artist. ‘Bochawa’ comes from Chase’s third and final album, Pure Music.“

Splitting up into various smaller ensembles to perform for various events is a constant process for the Marine Band, including the jazz quintet heard here. Featuring the trumpet in the original spirit of Chase’s composition, the funk/rock track modulates up a whole step at 4:47.

Art Tatum | Have You Met Miss Jones? (Rogers + Hart)

“From the first moment, there was no doubt that (Dick Rogers and Lorenz Hart) would work together: it was love at first sight,” (The Atlantic). “Larry was twenty-three, Dick not yet seventeen. ‘I left Hart’s house,’ wrote Rodgers a lifetime later, ‘having acquired in one afternoon a career, a partner, a best friend, and a source of permanent irritation.'” The duo wrote over 500 songs together, many from the 28 musicals they on which they collaborated, including “My Funny Valentine,” “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered,” “My Romance,” and “Have You Met Miss Jones?”

“Have You Met Miss Jones” was written by Rogers/Hart for the 1937 musical I’d Rather Be Right. The dizzy middle eight is completely unmoored from the overall key of F major and features the lyric:

And all at once I lost my breath,
And all at once was scared to death
And all at once I owned the earth and sky.

In the hands of legendary pianist Art Tatum, who was famous for his reharmonization and ability to play lightning-fast runs, the tune becomes even more sublimely unhinged from its written tonality as it progresses.

Ludwig van Beethoven | Piano Sonata 5, Op. 10 #1, Third Movement

“Beethoven was a classical musician. He used the same grammar rules that you can find in Haydn’s works,” (Jaime Kardontchik, “Modulation in Beethoven’s Sonatas“). “So why does his keyboard music sound so vastly different from Haydn’s or Mozart’s music? For one thing, he was a son of the French Revolution with its Republican ideas of Liberty, Fraternity and Equality. He was an eighteen year old teenager when in 1789 the French Revolution shattered the pillars of the old monarchical world and he enthusiastically embraced these new ideas.

But what made in the end his keyboard music so distinctive is that papa Haydn and the younger Mozart grew up with and perfected the technique of playing and composing for the 4.5-octave harpsichord … Mozart died prematurely in 1791. The young Beethoven grew up together with this new and different keyboard instrument, the forte-piano. He extracted from the forte-piano every new sound possible as the piano makers were improving the instrument and expanding its range up to the present 7.5-octave piano as it is known today. Beethoven loved its sound, however imperfect the instrument was in his time; he understood the almost unlimited possibilities it opened for the expression of new musical ideas, took the risk, and bet on it. And two hundred years later, we are happy he did so. But historical circumstances and technical developments are clearly not enough to explain the individual and his contribution: he was simply Beethoven.”

After a start in C minor, a modulation into the relative major key (Eb) is in effect between 0:33 – 1:11). The 1798 sonata’s sprightly prestissimo movement continues to transition between the two relative keys throughout, passing through other keys (C major included) in the process.

Frank Zappa | Night School

“Released in November 1986, the fully instrumental Jazz From Hell was technically the last studio album that Frank Zappa released in his lifetime, despite having finished two others,” (UDiscoverMusic) … “Fittingly, Jazz From Hell was every bit as uncompromising and groundbreaking as the composer’s best work, giving a tantalizing glimpse of how Zappa might’ve continued to harness cutting-edge technology were it not for his untimely death.

Zappa had been an early adopter of the Synclavier Digital Music System – one of the first digital samplers and synthesizers – using it throughout the mid-’80s” on several albums. “The equipment opened up a world of possibilities for Zappa, allowing him to push the boundaries of his music beyond the capabilities of human players, as he told Keyboardist magazine in 1987: ‘The moment you get your hands on a piece of equipment like this, where you can modify known instruments in ways that human beings just never do, such as add notes to the top and bottom of the range, or allow a piano to perform pitch-bends or vibrato, even basic things like that will cause you to rethink the existing musical universe. The other thing you get to do is invent sounds from scratch. Of course, that opens up a wide range.’

Jazz From Hell arrived at a time when Frank Zappa’s profile had rarely been higher, thanks to his ongoing battle against censorship in music and the Parents’ Music Resource Centre (PMRC) in particular. Hilariously, his efforts in advocating for free speech meant that Jazz From Hell – an instrumental album, lest we forget – was given a Parental Advisory – Explicit Content sticker on release.”

“Night School,” the album’s opening track, starts in C lydian, departing from and returning to it multiple times throughout (the first example: a shift to C# minor from 0:55 – 1:07). The multi-layered electronic groove is so dense and relentless that when it finally disappears during the outro (4:37), we’re left with a feeling of relative restfulness — even though the melody is a lone sustained siren of a #11 note, leaning hard into C lydian.

David Sanborn | A Change of Heart

“A Change of Heart” is the title track of David Sanborn’s 1987 album, which “reached #74 on the Billboard 200, #43 on Billboard’s R&B Albums chart and #3 on the Top Contemporary Jazz Albums chart.” (SessionDays).

“By the mid 1980s, saxophonist Sanborn’s sound was dominated by the synthetic tinge of keyboards and synthesizers, falling in line with the slick, crossover jazz style of the era,” (JazzAtelier). “Change of Heart is emblematic of Sanborn’s direction at the time, and its eight tracks alternate between funky, danceable numbers and smooth ballads, all with a highly polished commercial veneer.” Crossover was something of a code word for the more frequently used term smooth jazz, a genre which peaked in the 80s and could easily be found on the FM dial in most major North American cities at that time. AllMusic describes the genre as “an outgrowth of fusion, one that emphasizes its polished side.”

The track begins with a melodically acrobatic intro led by a panpipe-like patch on a wind-controlled (“EWI”) synthesizer, a new development in synthesis. The EWI player was one of the instrument’s foremost players and boosters, tenor saxophonist Michael Brecker, who also used the instrument on some of his own material. The tune begins in earnest as a slow funk groove kicks in at the 0:50 mark, alternating between A minor and its relative C major. At 1:14 – 1:38, there’s a shift into Eb lydian mode and then a return to the original A minor/C major. A quick revisit to the intro’s territory from 2:25 – 2:50 brings a dialogue between Brecker’s birdsong-like EWI lines and Sanborn’s trademark jump-to-lightspeed sonic intensity. At 4:02, a late kitchen-sink bridge kicks in, led by Marcus Miller’s driven stepwise descending bass lines and a saturation of every possible square inch with multiple synth textures and compound harmonies. But at 4:24, the groove falls away and the intensity dissipates for the outro as Brecker’s darting EWI sound is once again the focus.

Antonin Dvořák | String Quartet in F Major (Op. 96, B. 179, “American”), movement I: Allegro ma non troppo (Dover Quartet)

“In 1892, the American philanthropist Jeanette Thurber persuaded Czech composer Antonin Dvořák to head her newly formed National Conservatory of Music in New York City for three years, (MusicProgramNotes.com) … “Within a year, Dvořák had composed his Symphony in E-Minor ‘from the New World,’ … Directly after composing the ‘New World’ Symphony, Dvořák took a long summer holiday in 1893 in Spillville, Iowa … Amidst nature and his countrymen, Dvořák overflowed with musical ideas. Within three days he sketched out his entire String Quartet No. 12, later nicknamed the ‘American‘ … There is no movement without a gorgeous melody, and equally enticing are their delightful accompaniments … The American is unreservedly a masterpiece and crowd pleaser.”

The Guardian, placing Dvořák in his overall historic context: “As well as raising American consciousness of its Native American and African American traditions – a stance seen by some as vindicated by the emergence of jazz – Dvořák influenced a new generation of Czech composers, whose work was even more implicitly nationalistic. He befriended the young Janáček, who would eventually develop his music differently, but his mentor’s example was crucial. Dvořák also influenced his violinist and composer son-in-law, Josef Suk, who in turn briefly taught Bohuslav Martinů. Martinů’s assessment of Dvořák said it best: ‘If anyone expressed a healthy and happy relationship with life, it was he.’”

The quartet’s first movement begins in F major and features many side-steps into other keys, but an A major section starting at 1:38 is particularly striking.

Billy Childs (feat. WDR Big Band) | Mount Olympus

From the WDR Big Band: “The American composer and pianist Billy Childs has several Grammy awards under his belt and is one of the few people who work both in the classical field (including multiple commissions for the LA Philharmonic) as well as the jazz scene, both for smaller groups and big bands. We had the opportunity to work with him back in 2018 and here’s a clip from that project. ‘Mount Olympus’ is a composition by Billy, here in arrangement by Florian Ross. It features Paul Heller on tenor sax and Billy Childs on piano.” From a 2020 JazzTimes profile: “Los Angeles-born and bred, Billy Childs has built a remarkable career as a pianist, composer, and arranger largely away from the New York jazz scene … he was classically trained both in high school and at USC, where he studied composition. After early gigs with J.J. Johnson and Freddie Hubbard, Childs went on to lead his own groups and release a dozen albums … netting 13 Grammy nominations. Artists such as Dianne Reeves and Chris Botti have leaned on his composing and arranging chops.”

“A top European jazz group, Germany’s WDR Big Band is a sophisticated ensemble, featuring an evolving line-up of some of the country’s best musicians,” (AllMusic). “A function of the German public broadcasting institution Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln based in Cologne, the WDR Big Band are musical ambassadors charged with promoting jazz and culture at home and around the world. Over their seven-plus-decades career, the WDR have released numerous albums on their own, featuring such guest artists as Ron Carter, Paquito D’Rivera, Arturo Sandoval … and (won) a Grammy Award for their 2005 Brecker Brothers collaboration Some Skunk Funk. Although much of the WDR Big Band’s performances take place in Germany, they often tour the globe.”

Released in 1989 on Childs’ album Twilight is Upon Us, “Mount Olympus: starts in D minor but shifts to Eb minor from 0:27 – 0:35 — the first of the track’s many unfolding moments. A frenetic 7/8 starts and ends the tune, with off-beat kicks obscuring the meter. But 4/4 takes over the arrangement’s midsection, with nearly every 16th note fair game for an off-kilter kick or suspenseful chord change. The track is the first of many on the live compilation Do You Know My Name.

for Travis

Johannes Brahms | Tragic Overture, Op. 81

“In the summer of 1880, Brahms … composed two concert overtures. ‘One weeps, the other laughs,’ he commented to his biographer, Max Kalbeck,” (IndianapolisSymphony.org). “The laughing piece referred to his rollicking Academic Festival Overture, Opus 80, filled with light-hearted student songs, written to acknowledge his doctoral degree bestowed by the University of Breslau, introduced by soft trombone chords. The weeping piece was his Tragic Overture, Opus 81, and a heavy counterpoise to the first. Brahms explained his motivation saying, ‘I (simply) could not refuse my melancholy nature the satisfaction of composing an overture for tragedy.’

Though it was not written for any specific tragedy, speculation has suggested Tragic Overture was possibly written in contemplation of a commission to write incidental music for Goethe’s Faust. (This did not materialize.) Another possibility is that the composer had read Nietzsche’s work The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music, published in 1872. This Overture is dramatic commentary on the spirit of tragedy in human life.

Tragic Overture begins with two slashing chords, which preface the solemn main theme, orchestrated within low strings and low winds in D minor. Trombones and tuba build a bridge to a contrasting F major theme, but relief is short. A third main subject stemming earlier sketches is also introduced. Writing in sonata form, the composer moves directly into a convulsive development. Brahms scholar Walter Niemann wrote, ‘The fleeting touches of thrilling, individual emotion in this overture are not to be found in conflict and storm, but in the crushing loneliness of terrifying and unearthly silences in what have been called dead places.‘ Themes surge and spin in a tempest of emotion. A traditional recapitulation, introduced by two fortissimo chords, summarizes the main ideas with certain alterations. Opus 81 premiered on December 20, 1880 in Vienna …”

A half-step key change, partially camouflaged by extensive chromaticism, takes place at 8:07. At 10:59, the piece reverts to its original key of D minor.

Jay Ungar + Aly Bain | The Lovers’ Waltz

“Aly Bain was born on May 15 1946 in Lerwick, Shetland, Scotland,” (WorldMusicCentral). “Lerwick is a small, enchanting town on the Shetland Islands. Aly began learning fiddle at the age of eleven. Tom Anderson, his teacher, is acknowledged as one of the true masters of Shetland music. Aly developed a highly dramatic style of playing, matching his great tone and technical ability with genuine emotion. Alert to the musical potential of the dynamic interaction between Irish and Scottish traditions, he helped establish the Boys of the Lough. The group is now recognized as one of the best in the tradition.”

Fiddler Jay Ungar was “a Bronx kid” while pianist Molly Mason “grew up in Washington State,” (JayAndMolly.com). “He was raised on pop music of the 1940s and ’50s. She had a fondness for traditional fiddle music and ’30s and ’40s popular tunes. He hung out in Greenwich Village coffeehouses and roamed North Carolina and Tennessee in search of traditional players. She played clubs and colleges on the West Coast and took a liking to the jazzy sound of the Swing Era. Since joining forces—both artistically and romantically (the two would marry in 1991)—Jay Ungar and Molly Mason have become one of the most celebrated duos on the American acoustic music scene.” Ungar is probably best known for co-writing “Ashokan Farewell” with Mason — a tune which was featured in the Ken Burns series The Civil War and certainly feels like it was written a century or more before its 1982 debut.

Ungar, Bain, and Mason collaborate here on “The Lovers’ Waltz,” also written by Ungar and Mason. Starting in G major, the tune alternates between solo and duo fiddle lines and a solo by an uncredited guitarist as the key shifts up to D major at 1:47.