Approaching jazz composition through the music of Billy Strayhorn

Leonie Freudenberger

Name: Leonie Freudenberger Main Subject: Jazz Saxophone Research Coach: Karst de Jong Title of Research: Approaching jazz composition through the music of Billy Strayhorn Research Question: What are the most important elements of Billy Strayhorn's compositions? How can I incorporate his compositional approach in my own writing? Billy Strayhorn (1915–1976) was a jazz pianist, composer, arranger, orchestrator and lyricist whose works have influenced the genre of jazz music until today. The research contains two phases: First, the analysis of his compositions. Second, the attempt to compose originals using the detected stylistic, harmonic, melodic and conceptional tools. Considering the enormous oeuvre that Strayhorn produced, it is inevitable to make a selection of songs to analyze. My criteria for this selection are the following: Which songs have become part of the standard repertoire in jazz, performed by various artists throughout the 20th (and 21st) century? Where can I find aural trademarks, which I recognize both as a listener and as a player and which contribute to my personal perception of the “Strayhorn sound”? Can the compositions be reduced to a lead sheet and performed by a small jazz combo without losing their essence? My final intention is not only to compose using Strayhorn-typical elements and tools, but also to write music for myself as a performer and for my group to play it. On longer terms, I hope that I can abstract this method further on and profit from it beyond the results of this research. Biography: Leonie Freudenberger, born 1988 in Baden-Baden (D), has played the alto saxophone since her childhood. She started her professional jazz education at the University of Music in Mannheim in 2008 and came to Den Haag in 2011, where she finished her Bachelor's degree. Apart from her Master studies, she writes music and performs with her own group and takes part in various projects, playing alto and baritone saxophone.

Composition B.S. II

This is a medium-up swing tune. Its character reminds me of Strayhorn’s Rain Check (on the album And His Mother Called Him Bill,1967), a light and happy sounding piece of music. It has an “A” and “B” section, the latter ending in a 4-bar vamp. A coda follows the vamp in the very ending.

The melodies are made mainly out of arpeggios and chord tones.

I have made use of the harmonic dualism based on the diminished seventh chord, as described in the chapter “Lush Life”. Here, the tonal center alternates between C^maj and Eb^maj, connected through the mutual diminished chord B-D-F-Ab. It is the minor subdominant that leads to the next key: the progression Fm⁷-Bb⁷ in bar 4 seems like a minor fourth degree of C, but also serves as a IIm⁷-V⁷ to Eb^maj. Then, before the repeat sign, Abm is the minor subdominant of Eb, but also, it works as a tritone-substitue for Dm^7b5. The following dominant G⁷ modulates back to C.

Eb^maj7 also represents the key of Cm.

The last 2 bars of “A” contain the already introduced device of melody moving synchronously with the harmonic changes: The chords Eb^maj7-Ab^maj7-Abm-G^7#9 move in half notes, and so does the melody F-G-Ab-Bb. The #9 in the melody on G^7#9 gives an interesting color and resolves unexpectedly into C^maj7, back to the head of the tune.

The same progression is used in the coda, which leads out of the vamp into an ending.

This vamp, the last 4 bars of “B” (to be repeated, possibly open), was an idea inspired by UMMG. It contains two chord pairs: Eb^maj7-G⁷ (repeated)and C^maj7-Bb^7#11 (rep.). So to speak, the dominants of the two tonics are exchanged, and the tonal material of the two keys is blending.

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