5 - Analysis of compositions by Tom Harrell
The prolific composer and award winning trumpet player Tom Harrell has written many beautiful jazz tunes that have become widely recorded, and he is often named one of the truly melodic and lyrical jazz solists of the last half century. In fact his long time companion and band leader Phil Woods called him "the best musician he ever came across in his whole career". I first heard him live in the 80's, and used to buy any lp with his name on the cover for many years. Through transcribing and playing his compositions and solos I've come to learn quite a few of them, and I will shortly analyse some interesting ones, because they demonstrate the point I'm making. What I find appealing is that all his tunes seem to have their own distinct "face", and seem to be standing alone by themselves, with their own character and story to tell.
"Because I love You" is a quintet tune for two voices, trumpet and sax, (a format he enjoys writing for, and has done a lot. Here you see the trumpet voice. I'll zoom into the bridge, where something interesting happens. The opening phrase in bars 11 and 12, is repeated, but a half tone lower in the next two bars, and is looks like it's going to be repeated one more time two bars later, again down a half step. (but it doesn't) The long note in bar 11 is the 5th of a major chord, and then, following a chromatic sequence the long tone in bar 13 is the 9th of a mayor chord, and again in bar 15, the same shape, the same rhythm, but now it is the 11 of a minor chord. Very singable, an easy melody to relate to, but a nice shift in harmony, as these three important long notes, decending chromatically, all have a different color.
As I said in the chapter about harmonisation, the effect of going up a mayor third from F to the key of A is like a bright light shining in, a harmonic movement found in lots of standards. Then keeping the same shape of the phrase, going from F major to A major, to F minor and eventually back to the original key of Eb for the third A section, very refined indeed.
As you can hear in the sound file Tom's solo is on fire here!
The next song I will take a look at is "Before you"
An up tempo samba tune with a 34 bar form. The first 8 bar section is followed with a prolonged section using the same thematic material, but the harmonic change is surprising. In bar 7 and 8 you see a secondary II V to what you would expect to be the VI chord, B minor, but it goes to G, the IV chord in D. The movement F#7 to G major with the obvious melody note F# which would have been the 5th of B minor, and is now the 7th of G, is a trick often used in jazz songs like Jerome Kern's "The song is you" (at the end of the bridge). Harrell uses the same deceptive cadence at the end of his song to get back from Db7 to D mayor. It gives me a feeling of being lifted up.
The raised 5th in bar 6 is a beautiful inner voice movement that resolves to the seventh of the C#Ø chord in the next bar. That movement of a major 7 chord in which the 5 is raised I dicussed in the chapter on harmonisation, with the examples of "Daydream" and "It never entered my mind".
The version you hear here is from a recording by fellow trumpeter John Swana.
"From this time" has been one of my favourites for many years. He recorded this with a trio with Hein vd Geyn and Phillip Catherine, who used to play with Chet Baker together as a trio.
The simple 6 note theme of the first two bars is used over and over again, Going to several keys, but not the ones you might expect. Because the melody is such a strong and simple shape it only takes a split second to realize where he's taken you...
At first going down a whole tone, then in the 2nd a section going up a minor third. After the bridge it very surprisingly comes back in the original key, where you would never feel it coming, given the last two bars of the bridge. Then in bar 27 it jumps up a half step just like we've heard in bar 11 and 12, so it sounds familliar even though the route taken to get there is so different from the one taken in the second a section. A tune that seems so familiar, with so many subtle surprises.
Bouquet is a medium tempo swing tune with a walking bass accompaniement, with a very thematic approach, a perfect example of the point I'm making. The harmony is not at all what you would call functional all the time, and some of the chord progressions are wildly unpredictable, but because the melody is so strong and singable, he gets away with it. If you would think of the E7 in bar 14 as a tritone sub for the flat VII Bb7 (moll dur) it would have been the same harmonic movement as the Ab7 in bar 6. These changes are quite challenging to play over, as can be heard especcially in the sax solo. It takes a master like Tom Harrell to pull it off in such a melodic way, being so right all the time.
Sail Away is one of Tom Harrell's most recorded compositions, and is becoming a jazz standard. You could say it has a AA (8 bars each) A2 (up a minor third) B (16 bars) and then a prolonged A (back to starting key) form.
The subtleties like using a secodary dominant in bar 2 to go to the II chord, but a tritone II V in bar 10, or the harmonisation of the 5th bar with the very dissonant Fo/C gives it nice moments of release of tension. The 3rd A section is practically identical but in a different key, which adds to the feeling of being taken on a (sailing) journey out onto open seas. The descending major chords in wholt tone steps in the last 2 bars of the bridge mark a smooth landing, or a return back into a calm harbour so to speak. The E major augmented chord on the strong 5th bar of the bridge is a very colorfull opening up of the harmony, where one might expect a VI chord (E minor in the key of the bridge, G), we hear this very bright coror, a highpoint in my opinion.
This is an interesting latin 24 bar blues in Eb, because of it's melodic use of triads and inversions. The first phrase consists of inverted arpeggio's of Eb and Db major triads, which you find in the Eb mixolydian scale. The shape is slightly altered on the IV chord and in the end on the V chord and the bVII chord, but the rhythm of the phrases is very similar, starting on the end of the one, and often accenting the "ponche note" on the 4, so it's well written in a 2-3 son clave. The note G on the 4 of bar 12 and bar 20 are anticipating the resolution to the Eb major chord, though vertically they would seem to be wrong (a G on a Ebm7 chord)
I've transcribed over 20 of Tom Harrell's compositions over the years, and enjoy playing them, but for the sake of this research will limit myself to these examples, just to get a glimpse of the range and diversity of his writing.
Tom Harrell: " I write for each individual. I try to find things that will make them excited. What makes it worthwhile for me is when the music comes alive while we are performing. That’s one of the beautiful things about Duke Ellington was that he wrote for each individual. That’s my basic motivation is to make people happy." (the full interview can be read here.)
