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The Anatomy of Improvisation |
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uses a naturally rhythmic pattern (quarter, triplet eighths and four eighths) to swoop down to the C, which also represents a phase of jazz harmonic thinking rarely encountered before the 1930s, since it is a thirteenth built on the 7th of the subdominant. Armstrong would rarely have used a thirteenth except in proceeding from the dominant (F 7) to the tonic (B Flat).
After a three-beat pause, Eldridge builds the tension again with a rising phrase, then descends with a group of syncopated notes (the C followed by two B Flats), returns to the quarter-triplet-and-eighths pattern in Measure 8, and throughout Measures 9, 10 and 11 maintains a continuous pattern of eighth notes but avoids the impression of playing a scale by hitting the E Natural instead of moving directly to the F in Measure 10, and similarly avoids the monotony of repeating the unadorned E Flat 7th sequence of notes by using the thirteenth again (C). It is interesting to observe that while Eldridge plays notes that may seem to imply an E Flat 7th pattern through bars 10 and 11, Oscar Peterson's piano accompaniment furnishes an F 7th and a B Flat At this rapid tempo any series of fast-moving eighth notes is protected from conflict with the underlying chords; the overall horizontal patterns must conform with that of the blues, but the arbitrary passing chords of the rhythm section move too quickly to call for complete conformity.
The extraordinarily fast-changing mood pattern of which John Gillespie's imagination and technique render him capable can be discerned in the sixteen measures reproduced from Jessicas Day, heard in the second chorus immediately after the theme and interlude, one minute and 35 seconds from the start.
Gillespie establishes a "funky" mood by repeating the tonic and subjecting it to tonal variations through the use of the half-depressed valve effect and grace notes. After thus establishing tension during the two measure break, he offers simplicity and relaxation in Measures 3 and 4 of the chorus (though even simplicity, for him, includes what is virtually a pair of grace notes, the C and B Flat preceding the G). Then, in effect, Gillespie says "All right, you've heard what this is—it's one of those tunes with the conventional B Flat, G, C, F base, a We Want Cantor affair—so now we'll try to make something of it." Then comes the |
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