“Coming Back As a Man” is featured on Dutch singer Caro Emerald’s 2013 album The Shocking Miss Emerald. “Caro is certainly the sort of performer who you could imagine giving a knowing wink in between a cheeky lyric or two and the voice has a twirl that makes you smile,” said critic Stephen Unwin in his review of the album for The Daily Express.The record debuted at #1 in the Dutch and United Kingdom album charts, selling over 600,000 copies.
The track begins in G# minor and modulates up a half step to A minor at 2:43.
“By virtue of his many achievements, Dave Koz has long been considered the prime contender for the saxophone throne of contemporary jazz,” (AllMusic). “Active since 1990 when he arrived on the scene from seemingly nowhere to issue his self-titled leader debut, he climbed onto the Billboard contemporary jazz charts and stayed there for several weeks. The platinum-selling Koz was nominated for nine Grammys, hit the top spot on the contemporary jazz charts five times, placed 14 singles in the Top Ten, and earned a total of 20 cuts on the jazz songs charts. He is also a seasoned radio and television host … His sound is full of fire and intensity, often recalling that of his musical forebear David Sanborn, and which often crosses over to the adult contemporary R&B side of the genre line.”
Along the way, Koz has collaborated with guitar phenom Cory Wong, jazz fusion standard bearer Jeff Lorber, pop songwriter/performer Richard Marx, legendary bassist Marcus Miller, pop/R&B vocalist Jeffrey Osborne, vocalist/keyboardist songwriter extraordinaire Michael McDonald, and many others.
Featuring pianist Greg Phillinganes, bassist Nathan East, and percussionist Lenny Castro, 1993’s “Show Me the Way” is a slow burn of a track. Building gradually from a soft-spoken ballad to a fully-fledged gospel-centered summit, it features a shift from C major to D major at 3:51. Many thanks to Christopher Fox for submitting this tune!
” … having played many of Jaco’s compositions while the bass player was part of Weather Report, (Weather Report bandleader Joe Zawinul) held the opinion that ‘Three Views of a Secret’ was Jaco’s best composition,” (JazzInEurope). “1981 was a critical year in Jaco Pastorius’ career. Musically he was held by many as the most innovative bass player in modern jazz. Five years have passed since he joined Weather Report, replacing Alphonso Johnson while the band was recording the album Black Market. During those five years, the band released its most successful albums and became well known beyond jazz audiences, performing at major festivals and large concert halls all over the world. The band’s appeal can be attributed to Zawnul’s compositions which became more melodic and structured (‘Birdland,’ ‘A Remark You Made’), but Pastorius played a major role in driving the band towards new audiences. His live performance showmanship, the incorporation of Hendrix licks like ‘Third Stone from the Sun,’ the feet work (enhanced by talc powder spread over the floor prior to the show), the rapid signature 16th-note runs and the wild harmonics, all found the adoration of younger folks, many of them introduced to jazz because of him.
… Pastorius was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but in 1981, his behavior was simply considered eccentric and unstable. Amazingly, through that period he was able to write and produce Word of Mouth, his major achievement as a bandleader, composer, and arranger … ‘Three Views of a Secret’ is a great piece of music, moving between calm and dramatic orchestral passages and truly utilizing the full impact of a combined orchestra and jazz big band …”
The studio version is a classic, but the 1985 live version, featuring Pastorius’ obvious joy and rapt attention in his able accompaniment of Thielemans, by then a musical elder statesman, is also required listening and is our focus here; both are included below. Shifting from E major to C# major at 1:38, the bouyant jazz waltz sneaks back into E at 2:22.
Lauded as “arguably the most important and ground-breaking electric bassist in history” by New Directions in Modern Guitar, Jaco died 35 years ago this month — at the age of only 35. His influence on the contemporary jazz and electric bass worlds continues to reverberate strongly.
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.
Alto saxophonist David Sanborn’s 1992 album Upfront featured a jaw-dropping who’s-who list of some of the best players at that time: Marcus Miller (production, keyboards, lead guitar, bass guitar, bass clarinet), Steve Jordan (drums), Hiram Bullock (guitar), Naná Vasconcelos (percussion), Randy Brecker (trumpet), Ricky Peterson (organ), and many more.
Sanborn’s “R&B crossover” sound, as AllMusic calls it, is clearly in evidence here on the album’s opening track “Snakes.” After a start in G minor, a straight-ahead funk feel drives an extended section built around the tonic; from 1:10-1:27, the bass continues the a pedal point tonic while a procession of compound chords tug at our ears underneath Sanborn’s climbing sax line as it leans into every curve. The pattern continues until 3:24-3:41, where a shift to Eb minor, built around a more Latin-infused feel, makes a vivid appearance. The Eb minor section returns at 3:24-3:40 and again at 4:30, this time to stay.
In its review of Jeff Beck’s Flash, Rolling Stone ranks it as “one of Beck’s best ever, a record of awesome guitar prowess and startling commercial daring. It is also irrefutable proof that his kind of flash never goes out of fashion.”
Trading on the huge cachet he’d built up during the 1960s and 1970s with garden variety music fans and tech-obsessed guitarists alike, Beck rested on his laurels a bit in the 80s: 1985’s Flash was his first release in five years. His work with The Yardbirds in the late 60s was legendary, but “while he was as innovative as Jimmy Page, as tasteful as Eric Clapton, and nearly as visionary as Jimi Hendrix,” explains AllMusic, “Jeff Beck never achieved the same commercial success as any of those contemporaries, primarily because of the haphazard way he approached his career. After Rod Stewart left the Jeff Beck Group in 1971, Beck never worked with a charismatic lead singer who could have helped sell his music to a wide audience. Furthermore, he was simply too idiosyncratic, moving from heavy metal to jazz fusion within a blink of an eye … releasing only one album during the course of the ’90s. All the while, Beck retained the respect of fellow guitarists, who found his reclusiveness all the more alluring.”
“You Know, We Know,” the closing track of Flash, is based on a simple hook. After an intro in C major, the hook is first stated at 0:33, along with a rasping unprepared modulation to C# minor. Another jarring key change to D minor drops at 4:35. The mid-80s production fingerprint of Chic’s Nile Rogers, catching perhaps the most synth-centric sound of the entire decade, couldn’t be clearer on this track. Robert Christgau’s snarky review gave the album a B grade, opining that Beck “turns in the best LP of his pathologically spotty career by countenancing Rodgers’ production on five tracks. So what do we have here? We have half a good Nile Rodgers album, more or less.”
According to the Youtube video posting, “‘Um Dia Mais’ is a song that combines experiential vignettes from different perspectives on the meaning of ‘a new morning.’ It is a song about hope, opportunity to start over, appreciating your surroundings, and seizing your day. The song was composed, recorded, and mixed during a three-day workshop, Summit Sessions: Ready, Set, Record!, which included a songwriting session led by Berklee faculty Viktorija Pilatovic; a production session led by artist, producer, and composer Magda Giannikou; and a recording session led by Giannikou and engineered by recording and mix engineer/audio technician Pablo Schuller.“
Featuring a 4/4 feel rooted in jazz fusion and infused with Brazilian flourishes, the tune begins in C minor but shifts to E minor for the chorus (1:00) before returning to C minor for the second verse (1:19). 1:56 brings a second chorus in E minor, continuing the pattern. An extended bridge begins at 2:34, initially in E minor but shifting to Bb minor at 2:53. At 3:11, we’ve returned to the E minor chorus, but at 3:30, we dive into an outro: a new 5/8 time signature serves as a compelling backdrop for a brief but wide-ranging keyboard solo; the vocal line, centered largely around one note, hovers and darts like a hummingbird.
For his first solo album after his groundbreaking work with the Police, TheDream of the Blue Turtles (1985), Sting formed a new band. Rolling Stone reports that the group included “young jazz hotshots from Weather Report (drummer Omar Hakim) and the Miles Davis group (bassist Darryl Jones), plus saxophonist Branford Marsalis and keyboardist Kenny Kirkland. These aren’t the usual sleepy gang of veteran sidemen; they never bothered to learn pop-jazz clichés, but they know their Jimi Hendrix, Chic, Herbie Hancock and Led Zeppelin, along with their Duke Ellington … Sting still writes short, modal melody lines … if you listen to the way verses and phrases end, there are new twists, surprising extended chords by way of Steely Dan, Weather Report and Ellington … (with) delicate-to-martial dynamics.”
In Musician magazine, Sting explained: “‘Fortress’ is about appeasement, about trying to bridge the gaps between individuals. The central image is a minefield that you’ve laid around this other person to try and protect them. Then you realize that you have to walk back through it.”
The verses leave a light footprint in terms of feel, belying difficult subject matter and complex harmonies. Three keys are touched on during the verse (0:45 – 1:22) before the tune opens up into the relatively straightforward chorus. Calling it “one of the most complex pop songs ever,” Rick Beato dissects the tune’s physiology in detail here (1:57 – 8:13).
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.
“With pianist/composer Tigran Hamasyan,” reports the artist’s own website, “potent jazz improvisation fuses with the rich folkloric music of his native Armenia … he’s one of the most remarkable and distinctive jazz-meets-rock pianists of his generation … Tigran’s career has included an impressive number of accolades, including top piano award at the 2013 Montreux Jazz Festival and the grand prize at the prestigious 2006 Thelonious Monk Jazz Piano Competition … he was applauded by NPR Music: ‘With startling combinations of jazz, minimalist, electronic, folk and songwriterly elements … Hamasyan and his collaborators travel musical expanses marked with heavy grooves, ethereal voices, pristine piano playing and ancient melodies.'”
Our regular contributor Carlo Migliaccio has submitted Tigran’s tune “Drip,” performed here in 2018 with the Berklee College of Music Middle Eastern Fusion Ensemble. The tune combines elements of Middle Eastern music with metal — just for starters. Carlo hasn’t taken on the huge task of charting the tune out, but sends his initial findings: “The tune starts in B minor. The first modulation is at 5:03, which seems to ascend up a major third to D#, but it quickly drops down a half step in a modal shift. The tonal center definitely moves to D on a G harmonic minor scale … so is that D harmonic minor mixolydian(?) The second modulation is at 7:08 and travels briefly down a major third to Bb minor, a half step below the starting key. A few bars later, the final modulation takes it down another half step for an ending in A minor, a whole step below the starting key … I think. My ears are playing tricks on me with this one, but I’m now on a Tigran Hamasyan kick as a result of this tune.”
Maxime Cholley
Maxime Cholley, a French drummer and Berklee alum now based in New York City, has long been a proponent of Tigran’s work. Maxime performed on this track and recounts the session: “Working with Tigran Hamasyan was an incredible experience. He was very humble, patient, and thrilled to play with us and try new ideas on his own songs. At the end of a rehearsal, Tigran was working on a part and I joined him while the rest of the band packed up. As we played together, I clearly felt something that could be described as his ‘musical aura.’ His playing enhanced mine and both our sounds merged in the most satisfying way — as if each of his notes had some kind of sonic glue on it. His presence was absolutely mind blowing!”
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