{"id":867,"date":"2013-11-04T00:50:20","date_gmt":"2013-11-04T04:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/?p=230"},"modified":"2023-02-04T14:05:35","modified_gmt":"2023-02-04T18:05:35","slug":"230-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/2013\/11\/04\/230-2\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The melody round the melody’: the art of the short solo piano rendition"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Note: While I have added YouTube links for some of the examples in this post, a number of the most crucial examples are not available there; the reader is urged to purchase the original recordings through a legal source of their choice; all the solo piano music referred to is available on iTunes.)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Louis Armstrong was once asked by one of his greatest admirers, Bix Biederbecke, how he managed to improvise long solos without repeating himself.\u00a0 His reply is quoted in Pops, <\/i>Terry Teachout\u2019s engaging biography of Armstrong: \u2018Well I tell you…the first chorus I play the melody.\u00a0 The second chorus I play the melody round the melody, and the third chorus I routines.\u2019\u00a0 The question was asked at a time when Armstrong was becoming legendary for improvising solos of great length (including a reputed 125-chorus battle with Joe \u2018King\u2019 Oliver on \u2018Tiger Rag\u2019), and clearly reflects his young admirer\u2019s amazement at these feats.\u00a0 Although Biederbecke\u2019s question is focused on long solos, Armstrong\u2019s answer changes the subject and offers some highly distilled wisdom on how to balance melody interpretation and improvising within a short solo.\u00a0 I think Armstrong\u2019s response can be read as a reminder to aspiring improvisers that learning to play well-structured short solos is a crucial step toward developing a facility with longer solos.\u00a0 (Armstrong\u2019s discussion of a three-chorus sequence is significant given that, as Teachout mentions, he can be heard as late as 1957<\/a> playing a three-chorus solo on \u2018Dippermouth Blues\u2018 [at 3:43 in the link] which is closely modeled on a solo of the same length played thirty-four years earlier by his mentor Joe \u2018King\u2019 Oliver<\/a>\u00a0[at 1:19 in the link.]\u00a0 Although this solo is the not the kind of variation-on-a-theme solo that the quote refers to, it does illustrate the basic concept of building over three choruses.) \u00a0 Armstrong\u2019s answer also has an important message for those who are fascinated and yet mystified by the art of jazz improvisation: when great improvisers might seem to be on an inscrutable flight away from their chosen melodic theme, closer analysis can often show that they are honoring that original melody by ornamenting and varying it.<\/p>\n

The first part of Armstrong\u2019s explanation – \u2018first I play the melody\u2019 – can actually be a complete strategy for an effective performance.\u00a0 This is is clearly and elegantly demonstrated by couple of piano performances which are simply short, creative presentations of the melody.\u00a0 Ellis Marsalis\u2019 version of Rodgers and Hart\u2019s \u2018My Romance\u2019 <\/a>(a piano interlude on Wynton Marsalis\u2019 \u2018Standard Time, Volume Three\u2019) and Hank Jones\u2019 rendition of Duke Ellington\u2019s \u2018Come Sunday\u2019<\/a> (on a album of piano\/bass duets with Charlie Haden which is named after the tune) are focused almost entirely the original melody of each tune.\u00a0 Marsalis plays just the thirty-two bar song, and Jones adds a repeat going back to the bridge of the tune\u2019s AABA form.\u00a0 Like most jazz standards, both these tunes were originally intended for instruments on which performers have the ability to sustain notes at a considerable length (\u2018My Romance\u2018 is originally a vocal piece, and \u2018Come Sunday\u2018 was at different times a feature in the Duke Ellington band for Ray Nance\u2019s violin, Johnny Hodges\u2019 alto saxophone, and Mahalia Jackson’s voice<\/a>.)\u00a0 A pianist approaching either of these tunes as a solo vehicle has to deal with the challenge of how these long notes decay much more quickly on the piano, even when supported with finger weight or the damper pedal.\u00a0 Marsalis\u2018 solution to this problem is to provide simple and elegant inner voice movement underneath many of the original melody\u2019s long notes, starting with those at measures 1 and 8.\u00a0 Jones maintains a sense of forward momentum by contrasting the melody\u2019s quarter-note motion with improvised double-time phrases using triplets and swinging sixteenth notes.\u00a0 His one-bar introduction foreshadows the way in which he gradually populates the long notes of the original tune with a double-time swing feel – a good example of playing \u2018the melody around the melody\u2019.<\/p>\n

Ellis Marsalis\u2019 performance of \u2018Mood Indigo\u2019<\/a> (from his solo piano album Duke In Blue <\/i>) and Hank Jones\u2019 solo performance of \u2018Oh! Look At Me Now\u2019<\/a> on Kids, <\/i>his album of duets with saxophonist Joe Lovano, both move from playing \u2018the melody around the melody\u2019 into the \u2018routines\u2019 of an improvised solo, but still stay within the context of a short performance focused on the original melody.\u00a0 Jones\u2019 rendition goes just twice through the tune\u2019s form, while Marsalis\u2019 performance goes two and a half times around.\u00a0 After playing a swinging intro followed by the thirty-two bar melody of \u2018Oh! Look At Me Now\u2019, Jones improvises through just the first two A sections of the song before returning to the melody on the bridge.\u00a0 One of the ways Jones maintains a sense of forward motion is through clever re-use of his intro figure throughout the performance (a strategy that also enlivens his arrangements of \u2018Oh What A Beautiful Morning\u2019<\/a>\u00a0– heard to great effect on the version from ‘Hanky Panky’ – and \u2018Love For Sale\u2019).\u00a0 The song\u2019s title, \u2018Oh! Look At Me Now\u2019, may have had a personal significance for Jones, who was at the time sustaining an astonishingly high level of creativity for a jazz master in his eighties. \u00a0(This seems poigniantly to be the last and most concise of a number of versions of the tune which Jones made over the course of his long recording career.) \u00a0His performance, which is one of only two solo pieces on his duo record with Lovano, is noteworthy for being energetic and inspired without excessive technical display.<\/p>\n

Marsalis develops his improvised solo on \u2018Mood Indigo\u2019 much as Jones develops his melodic interpretation of \u2018Come Sunday\u2019, by contrasting the song\u2019s rhythmic language of quarter notes and swing eighths with improvised double-time phrases using triplets and swinging sixteenth notes.\u00a0 On the second half of the solo, Marsalis plays a phrase that\u00a0 reminded me of Arlo Guthrie\u2019s \u2018Alice\u2019s Restaurant\u2019.\u00a0 Whether or not that particular tune was Marsalis\u2019 reference point, the phrase points up the relationship between \u2018Mood Indigo\u2019 and the sixteen-bar \u2018Gospel Blues\u2019 form that I discuss in my last post.\u00a0 It\u2019s also worth noting that \u2018Mood Indigo\u2019 demonstrates Ellington\u2019s gifts for musical recycling, as the basic chord progression from its first and last four-bar phrases reappears in a number of his other classics, including \u2018Solitude\u2019, \u2018I Got It Bad\u2019 and Billy Strayhorn\u2019s \u2018Take The A Train\u2019.<\/p>\n

Another great example of a two-chorus rendition is Kenny Barron\u2019s solo rendition of \u2018Blue Moon\u2019 (on the curiously-titled \u2018#11. The Third Man\u2019, a 1992 compilation of various film-related tunes).\u00a0 Barron uses a wonderful reharmonization of the tune that seems to derive partly from Wayne Shorter\u2019s arrangement for the Jazz Messengers on the album \u2018Three Blind Mice\u2019.\u00a0 Barron\u2019s head statement, done in an energetic rubato style reminiscent of Bud Powell\u2019s takes on \u2018A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square\u2018 and \u2018Over The Rainbow\u2019, is followed by a masterful solo with left hand stride over the first two A sections and the bridge. \u00a0 (Although the solo version is most highly recommended, a great duo version with bass can also be heard here.<\/a>)\u00a0 Barron’s solo on the solo piano version ‘Blue Moon’, like the one on Barron\u2019s rendition of \u2018But Beautiful\u2018 (from the Frank Morgan album You Must Believe In Spring<\/i>)<\/a>, is a model of how to combine quarter note stride in the left hand with a right hand solo based in swinging sixteenth notes.<\/p>\n

Barron\u2019s improvised solo on \u2018But Beautiful\u2019 extends over the course of a chorus and a half before returning to the melody.\u00a0 His strategy for maintaining a sense of forward motion here includes alternating between swinging sixteenth notes and some blazing passages in thirty-second notes (or what might be called double-double-time).\u00a0 There is an interesting contrast to this approach in Hank Jones\u2019 solo piano rendition of \u2018Ain\u2019t Misbehavin\u2019 (from the album ‘Handful Of Keys’), which is also a three-chorus performance, but with a rhythmic language limited to eighth notes and triplets (a strategy that proves effective when combined with Jones\u2019s moderately brisk choice of tempo).\u00a0 Despite having different tempos and rhythmic approaches, Jones and Barron both find their own ways to move from \u2018the melody round the melody\u2019 into \u2018routines\u2019, Barron through his use of double-doubletime and Jones through his imaginative quoting of harmonically similar tunes including Ahlert and Turk\u2019s \u2018Mean To Me\u2019 and Gerry Mulligan\u2019s \u2018Jeru\u2019. It is interesting to contrast Jones\u2019 rendition with Fats Waller\u2019s own solo performance of the tune<\/a>, which contains what one would naturally expect from a virtuoso composer displaying his own work: a exposition of the melody in two keys surrounded by bravura flourishes which frame the melody but never diverge from it.\u00a0 (Ellington and Monk\u2019s solo renditions of their compositions take a similar approach, focusing exclusively and often extensively on the melody, and leaving it to other performers to explore the tune\u2019s potential as an improvisational vehicle.)<\/p>\n

When compared to the great solo jazz pianists from earlier eras of jazz such as Teddy Wilson, these six performances by Jones, Marsalis and Barron represent a modern trend toward a simpler interpretive approach.\u00a0 Even in Wilson\u2019s simpler playing (such as \u2018Alice Blue Gown\u2019<\/a>, recorded for his \u2018School Of Stride Piano\u2019 collection), his melody statements are virtuosic renditions of the original theme, featuring brisk tempos, octaves, and displacements of the typical boom-chuck left hand stride pattern.\u00a0\u00a0 (These displacements are occasionally called ‘secondary ragtime’ rhythms, but are named in a number of other ways by stride players as discussed by David Feurzeig below.)\u00a0 All of the performances I\u2019ve discussed by Jones, Marsalis and Barron feature simpler statements of the original melody, even with tunes like \u2018Oh! Look At Me Now\u2019 that are pop song adaptations rather than jazz masterworks. Where Wilson\u2019s left hand has the relentless quarter-note energy of the stride piano tradition, Jones, Marsalis and Barron alternate between quarter note stride, half note stride and other more skeletal approaches to left hand accompanying (such as 1-7 shells and compound tenths).\u00a0 While the acrobatic brilliance of players like Wilson is exhilarating to hear, and imitating them is a worthy long-term project, it is good to be reminded by modern masters that it is possible to achieve beautiful results by taking a simpler technical approach.<\/p>\n

(I encourage readers to use the comment section to mention other great solo jazz piano performances they feel are relevant to this discussion, particularly those with simpler and\/or shorter performances of standard tunes.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Note: While I have added YouTube links for some of the examples in this post, a number of the most crucial examples are not available there; the reader is urged to purchase the original recordings through a legal source of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":865,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/865"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2075,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867\/revisions\/2075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/tgcleary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}