Comp: Erroll Garner, Lyric: Johnny Burke.
This video which I would like to share with you is a clip taken during a rehearsal session of a jazz piece call "Misty" by a Brass Quintet which consist of Solo Flugal Horn played by Ze Yu, Trumpet played by Mervin, French Horn played by Jeremy, Trombone played by Guo Sheng and Tuba played by me (JinXing). There are some mistakes and mispitching, however, this is the best sample for me to show you how the piece sound like.
A brief Background of Misty
Erroll Garner (1921 - 1977)
Sarah Vaughan (1940 - 1990)
A Jazz Piece composed by Self Taught Jazz Pianist Erroll Garner in the mid 1950s. It was originally composed as a instrumental piece, later Johnny Burke wrote the lyrics turning this piece in to a vocal piece which was made famous by Jazz Singer Sarah Vaughan who can sing a range from Soprano to Baritone.
Analysis
The form of the whole pieces is in Tenary form which is II: A :II II: B A :II
This piece has a good mixture of accompaniment style, the composer used Arppegio (1, 5, 3), octave displacement and triples. Blue chords and blue notes were used.
The composer of this piece used mainly the circle of fifths progression decorated with blues notes and chords.
Reflection of Analysis
I feel that in jazz music, the overall chords and structure are similar to the classical music, it just that in jazz music, the simple chords are decorated with blues notes like for example, a Bb major chord can be decorated with a flat 9 (b9) to make it have the jazz effect. It also seems to me that Jazz composers like to use chords with leading notes quite often in the progression for their music. As jazz music are meant to be improvised, this score which I analyze is not necessary be the only way to perform this music. The phrasing of verses and chord progression will vary from different performers based on their creativity.
5 comments:
Jinxing, thanks for taking the trouble to play and record the song for us; thanks to your friends too!
I've been waiting for someone to respond but I guess I know why so far no-one has commented: your comments on the score are too small to be read. Can you try and make it readable?
Another thing which will help facilitate discussion is to number the bars first. Thereafter, please re-examine the phrase structure, paying attention to the cadences which help determine phrasal relationships.
Your harmonic analysis also needs to be reconsidered. Your are right about the neighbouring function of the E major chord in b. 2. To better understand the voice-leading logic of bs. 3-4, you may do a harmonic reduction to see how the chords are connected.
You may also use harmonic reduction to help work out the harmonic logic for the rest of p. 1of the score. Here, the clue lies in the root movement besides voice-leading connections.
See if you can deal with the above for now.
(This is a beautiful piece to analyze.)
ya, heh.. can u magnify ur score.. haha.. its so tiny and there's captions everywhere.. and I can't see how u got the basic structure of the chords is I-V-I-V etc.. cos u've got chords vi and iii as well..
Oh dear, Jinxing, you've replaced your earlier post with this latest one rather than post a new one, so the first two comments here will appear curious...
Anyway, I should commend you on your efforts offering us the newly-posted and beautifully annotated reduction graphs. Yes, the circle of fifths play a big part here. It would be helpful if you can mark out the various circle-of-fifths segment in your reduction and add the Eb chord that completes the last segment. Against your reduction for verse 1, can you see a principal top voice moving Bb-C-Bb-Ab-G? Note the local dissonances resulting from this underlying voice sounding against the harmonic progression.
The voice leading for the middle section (why do you call it a bridge?) is also expressively controlled: starting with Bb-C-Db(-Eb-Fb-Eb-Db)-C counterpointed by Eb-F-G-Ab below. Based on this cue, can you work out how the music voice lead to the Bb chord at the end, just before the reprise?
Can you also comment on the progression for the first- and second-time endings?
Finally, plse reconsider your structural readings. For example, do you hear a cadence at b. 8 (which presumably prompted you to hear a 4+3 phrase structure)? Additionally, examine the repeat structure again.
errr... jin xing, hmm how is Bb7 E dim Fm7 Bb7b9 a double neighbour chord? heh..
Jinxing, we have of course passed the completion deadline for the blog assignments, so my comments below is merely for you to note.
Your 2nd and 3rd harmonic reductions are not always accurate in identifying the 7th and 9th chords; watch out for tonicizations too.
Having notes the extensive use of circle-of-fifths progressions, it will be pertinent to examine more closely how they are deployed. For example, the G-C-F-Bb one at bs. 11-12 sounds like a detour, inserted between the two Bb chords at bs. 10 and 12.
For your melodic analysis, I hear a top-voice Bb-C-Bb-Ab in counterpoint with a D-Db-C alto line.
Finally, note the spelling for "triplet"
Post a Comment