Music Monday In writing Knozz Moe King, I was really trying to develop the chromatic language that we were dealing with. The melody contains a device that I use frequently. It starts out with small intervals, but they get larger as it moves on. I didn’t know this at the time, but I was combining four different sounds—the diminished sound, the chromatic sound, the whole tone sound and the sound of open intervals. This gives the soloist many different palates from which they can work. The soloist not only could dictate the “sound” that they were working with, but they also got to dictate the tempo. The open solo sections could really be any chord quality, so it forces everyone to really listen. We played this song a lot and every night it could be wildly different. We called this concept “burnout”. The bass remained fairly constant, while Jeff Watts would play all kinds of wild rhythms—groups of 5s and 7s. Kenny Kirkland would then find a rhythm that fit in between everything. The rhythm would build up to a frenetic pace and, on cue from the soloist, it would be resolved. Later on, we added a second solo section.It’s built with five bar phrases, much like Ron Carter’s composition “R.J.” You can tell that I wrote that section later in my career because it has much more harmonic diversity than the music I was writing at that time. Enjoy, Wynton
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 15:31:40 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015