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Post by bassman on Nov 24, 2021 9:24:55 GMT
[ ... ] It's the mind set within the tonal environment that does the trick, and the fingers, and "ear" do the rest. [ ... ] Not being a horn player myself, I can only guess what goes on in a saxophonist's mind, but as you're saying, I'm sure that any decent jazz musician ought to be able to transpose in his head. Still, I do believe that certain keys must be experienced as more "difficult" by horn players, given that the vast majority of jazz performances (especially jam sessions) has been in keys like Bb, F, or Eb. Though I have no statistics to prove it, my guess would be at least two thirds. When I was playing banjo and guitar in a "traditional" jazz band ages ago, the ratio was about 95 per cent (I still have some of the set lists). |
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Post by gregorythefish on Nov 24, 2021 15:22:54 GMT
I am bassist but back in ye old times, I played trumpet all through high school as well, and different keys can be VERY foreign if they are not practiced to the point of instinct, even more so than others.
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Post by bassman on Nov 25, 2021 8:04:47 GMT
So, in all probability, "Blessing In Disguise" should be played in A (B for tenor, F# for alto - listen to example below). My bad.
Saxophone players have often told me they don't mind playing in any key, but as I said before - my own "statistics" about preferred keys seem to throw some doubt on such assertions.
Another fact that made me wonder about the correct key in this particular case may have been the remote similarity of "Blessing" with such Rollins warhorses as "Tenor Madness" and "Doxy", which are both in Bb. |
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Post by bassman on Nov 27, 2021 8:18:08 GMT
Absolutely useless in my case, believe you me! |
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Post by Doom Girl on Nov 27, 2021 23:34:34 GMT
Browsing through Leonard Feather’s OMNIBUS OF JAZZ (Hansen House/Prestige, 1974) it is clear that the vast majority of “Jazz Themes” are written in the keys with no accidentals, with1 flat or 2 flats, when notated for C-instruments. Some of the outliers: Coltrane’s “Straight Street” and “Chronic Blues” and Miles Davis’ “I Know” and “I Didn’t” are all in E-flat minor (with 6 flats) and Sonny Rollins’ “Aeregin” is in F minor (with 4 flats). If interested in how many flats or sharps Sonny, Miles and John would actually be playing keep in mind that trumpet and tenor sax are both B flat instruments.
I still tend to favor the notion that the best jazz players do not chose what keys to compose or play in because they are technically “easier” but more because these are the keys which audiences are accustomed to, without of course consciously knowing it, and because the key fits the emotional resonance of a particular tune. But, as I am certainly not one of those “best jazz players” I really don’t know.
From the Yale Library at web.archive.org:
“Emotion and musical pitch: The association of certain musical key signatures with a specific subjective quality or emotion. e.g., E major (with 4 sharps) as "bright & piercing."” “Many theoretical works of the eighteenth century explicitly assign certain affectations or emotional characteristics to different keys. Though these writings often contradict each other as to what these characteristics actually are, it is well known that many composers carefully chose keys for similar affectations throughout their lives. To Mattheson, for example, D major was "somewhat shrill and stubborn," while to Rousseau it was suited to "gaiety or brilliance."”
What key is Sonny playing in or supposed to be playing in on “Blessing in Disguise” and “We Kiss in a Shadow?” I have an original pressing of EAST BROADWAY RUN DOWN and it sounds good to me - he is clearly playing in the right key!
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Post by bassman on Nov 28, 2021 8:33:13 GMT
Thanks for your research work, Doom Girl. E flat minor is pretty common, it seems. Let us not forget about "'Round Midnight", which - to me - is "meant" to be in E flat major (at least it ends in this key, both before the bridge and when the song ends) but includes so many "composed" blue notes that E flat minor has proved a more convenient notation.
Re: "Emotion and musical pitch" ...
Considering that "until the 19th century, there was no coordinated effort to standardize musical pitch" (Wiki) I think any attempt to associate certain musical key signatures with a specific subjective quality or emotion would be fruitless unless we knew the exact pitch the composer was using/thinking. I am talking about (older) European music, of course. Concert pitch has remained fairly stable (440 Hz) throughout the 20th century and since, but it often bugs me when we are using a piano that has been tuned higher for classical music. (Violin players like to think an additional 2 or 3 Hz would "make the string section sound brighter". BS.)
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Post by Doom Girl on Nov 30, 2021 23:50:27 GMT
By the way - I finally checked - the versions of "Blessing in Disguise" and "We Kiss in a Shadow" in the YouTube videos shown above, accompanying the old black and white movies, seem to be pitched differently then the versions on my original EAST BROADWAY RUN DOWN album. I think the album versions sound "better."
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Post by bassman on Dec 1, 2021 8:31:04 GMT
By the way - I finally checked - the versions of "Blessing in Disguise" and "We Kiss in a Shadow" in the YouTube videos shown above, accompanying the old black and white movies, seem to be pitched differently than the versions on my original EAST BROADWAY RUN DOWN album. [ ... ] But that's what I said, Doom Girl. The video versions are in A flat major (B flat major for tenor), which seems a much more natural key for horns. And that's what I meant by saying that someone must have noticed the strange key in which the entire B-side of the record is set.
But then it was the Alan Barnes video (see above) that made me suspect that this strange key of A major (B major for tenor!) may be the accepted key among those (few?) who have actually played "Blessing In Disguise".
I am still very much in doubt about it. What's more: Among the countless versions of the Richard Rodgers tune "We Kiss...", none of them seems to be in A (B) major. Would be utterly absurd anyway.
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Post by gregorythefish on Dec 1, 2021 16:52:24 GMT
Why would A major be absurd? Just 3 sharps. Not so bad.
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Post by bassman on Dec 1, 2021 17:56:06 GMT
Why would A major be absurd? Just 3 sharps. Not so bad. You're right, but as I said before, it's B major for tenor. And you agreed that "different keys can be VERY foreign if they are not practiced to the point of instinct..."
I'm sure if you try hard, you might find a version of "Shadow" that's in A major. It will not be a jazz version, I expect.
If I'm not mistaken, trumpeter Wilbur Harden played it in F (G for trumpet).
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Post by Doom Girl on Dec 1, 2021 17:57:04 GMT
5 sharps for tenor sax? Maybe a bit weird, but I think he can handle it
the original record sounds fine to me, and perhaps subsequent versions were corrupted
but I don't have perfect pitch, so defer to your judgement in matters of keys and pitch Bassman
A nice little version I happened upon:
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Post by bassman on Dec 1, 2021 18:28:27 GMT
5 sharps for tenor sax? Maybe a bit weird, but I think he can handle it the original record sounds fine to me, and perhaps subsequent versions were corrupted but I don't have perfect pitch, so defer to your judgement in matters of keys and pitch Bassman A nice little version I happened upon: [ ... ] I am not saying subsequent versions were corrupted - in fact they all seem to be in the same pitch. The single exception we know thus far has been this strange "pitch corrected" movie video. But once again: Isn't it strange that BOTH songs on Side B are in this unusual key, from a horn player's perspective? The Ahmad Jamal piece is a needle drop that's running a bit sharp (somewhere between C and C#). There are better uploads that show that the piece is clearly in C: |
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Post by gregorythefish on Dec 2, 2021 17:45:12 GMT
Ah, I forgot about the tenor transposing. Fair point.
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Post by bassman on Dec 3, 2021 17:50:32 GMT
An interesting aside: The Famous 1956 Tatum & Webster "Night And Day"What is the key in which we should play "Night And Day"? (I will be using regular notation, not for horns.)
Let us ask the masters:
Charlie Parker (1952) E flat major Coleman Hawkins (1944) E flat major Don Byas (1951) E flat major Stan Getz (1951) E flat major
Billy Mitchell (with Al Grey, 1962) E flat major Paul Desmond & Brubeck (1965) E flat major Art Tatum & Roy Eldridge (1955) E flat major
THE LIST GOES ON. So Art Tatum and Roy Eldridge played the piece in E flat major, in 1955. And then, just one year later, Art Tatum sat down with Ben Webster for that famous session - and the result was "Night And Day" - in D major! E major for tenor. Four sharps, no problem for Webster. But WHY would they do that? I am not saying it was recorded at the wrong speed. I leave it to all of you. To be fair, there are two notable exceptions I have come to know. Sonny Rollins (1964) played it in C major. The other exception is Joe Henderson (1964) - D major! Was it in reverence to that famous session?
P.S. I did not consider "horn-less" recordings, nor vocal recordings (Sinatra's is in D, Ella's in A flat ...)
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dg
Full Member
Posts: 125
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Post by dg on Dec 4, 2021 18:19:28 GMT
An interesting aside: The Famous 1956 Tatum & Webster "Night And Day"..............
This is an interesting analysis, but I'm at a loss as to what the conclusion of it all is.... If a recording we listen to seems to be in a different key than we think it might have been originally recorded in the studio, it is more likely to be simply pitched somewhat higher or lower that the musicians originally played...and not in the next key up or down. It's doubtful that recording or mastering engineers (in the period of jazz music we are discussing) would take it upon themselves to intentionally set something at a different pitch than the musicians intended. (Of course the recording on which I have played was, to my ear, off in both pitch and tempo  ) Often music that someone has uploaded to YouTube sounds flat, especially, it seems to me, tracks for solo or piano trio, and I take this to be due to a technical glitch at someplace in the process...of re-recording, digital transfer, uploading, whatever...and not someone's scheme to alter the key. But perhaps I am misunderstanding your entire thesis. And again I would suggest that there is little or no difference, at the level of technical facility, to players such as these whether they are playing in a key with one or five flats or sharps! Let's lay that misapprehension to rest. |
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) Often music that someone has uploaded to YouTube sounds flat, especially, it seems to me, tracks for solo or piano trio, and I take this to be due to a technical glitch at someplace in the process...of re-recording, digital transfer, uploading, whatever...and not someone's scheme to alter the key.