As of January 1, 2021, U.S. copyright will expire for works published in 1925, including the following songs:
Always (Irving Berlin)
Remember (Irving Berlin)
Dinah (Harry Akst)
Sometimes I'm Happy (Vincent Youmans)
Squeeze Me (Fats Waller) (not to be confused with "Just Squeeze Me" by Duke Ellington)
Sweet Georgia Brown (Ben Bernie, Maceo Pinkard)
Manhattan (Rodgers and Hart - aka "I'll Take Manhattan")
Yes Sir, That's My Baby (Walter Donaldson)
Don't Bring Lulu (Billy Rose, Lew Brown, Ray Henderson)
If You Knew Susie (Buddy DeSylva)
Davenport Blues (Bix Beiderbecke)
Sweet and Lowdown (George and Ira Gershwin)
That Certain Feeling (George and Ira Gershwin)
Bye Bye Blues (Fred Hamm)
Paddlin' Madelin' Home (Harry M. Woods)
This year, the big ones would seem to be Sweet Georgia Brown, Bye Bye Blues, Manhattan, the two Berlin tunes, and the two Gershwin tunes.
In the realm of classical music, Gershwin's "Piano Concerto in F" is losing copyright protection. Other modern classical works entering the public domain are listed on the Wikipedia page 1925 in Music, including pieces by Copland, Elgar, Prokofiev, Respighi, Shostakovitch, Sibelius, Stravinsky, Villa-Lobos, and others.
United States copyright law is quite restrictive as compared to many other countries. According to the provisions of the Copyright Act of 1976 and the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 (aka "Mickey Mouse Protection Act"), works published or registered before 1978 remain under copyright for 95 years.
With the passage of the 1998 law, the cutoff date for works entering the public domain became 1922, with any works published in 1923 or later remaining under copyright. Beginning in 2019, however, the clock began running again, with each new year bringing one more year of songs and other works into the public domain. Over the next 20 years or so, most "Golden Age" jazz standards will lose copyright protection.
Many other countries have shorter terms of copyright; one common formula is the life of the author plus fifty years (see this table). For example, in Canada you can record songs written by Wes Montgomery (d. 1968) or John Coltrane (d. 1967), without paying royalties.
Last December I posted an article similar to this one, listing tunes that became public domain in 2020. I'll probably do a yearly update - unless Congress messes with copyright law again, to rescue Mickey Mouse from becoming fair game in 2024.
Notes:
Some internet sources show the copyright date for "Bye Bye Blues" as 1930. Although this is the copyright date shown on the original sheet music, the first recording (by composer Fred Hamm) was released in 1925. According to U.S. copyright law, recordings publicly released can establish the effective copyright date, the same as printed material.
Wikipedia cites 1924 as the year that Harry M. Woods wrote "Paddlin' Madelin' Home." However, this appears to be incorrect. Secondhandsongs.com shows specific dates in 1925 for both publication and for first live performance; the original sheet music also shows 1925.
Cliff Edwards, aka "Ukelele Ike," a popular entertainer in the 1920s, was the one who made "Paddlin' Madelin' Home" into a hit. Edwards had an interesting life in show biz; his Wikipedia bio is worth checking out. Among many other accomplishments, he was the voice of Jiminy Cricket in Disney's "Pinocchio," singing When You Wish Upon a Star.
Here are a few more observations about one of my favorite Tom Jobim compositions (discussed in a previous post).
"Children's Games," "Chovendo na Roseira," and "Double Rainbow" are alternate titles for the same Jobim song. The chronology seems to go like this:
March, 1970 - The song, titled "Children's Games," was first introduced as a part of the soundtrack for the 1970 film The Adventurers. At that point it was an instrumental piece. In composing it, Jobim adapted musical material from two Debussy pieces: "Reverie," and "Le plus que lente, valse." "Children’s Games," along with other melodies by Jobim, was arranged by Eumir Deodato for the soundtrack (apparently this is the reason that some internet sources credit the song’s first recording to Deodato). The song is played with a swing feel in Jobim's versions, but with a straight beat in some later recordings by others.
July, 1970 - Jobim included it in his album "Stone Flower," again with the title "Children’s Games," and again as an instrumental.
1971 - Osmir Milito recorded the same song as "Chovendo na Roseira." It now had lyrics in Portuguese, by Jobim. The new title (in English, "Raining on the Rosebush") reflected the theme of the lyrics. Also in 1971, Luis Carlos Vinhas recorded it with the same title, with the same lyrics. I don't know which of these recordings came first.
1974 - Sergio Mendes and Brasil ‘77 recorded the song with English lyrics by Gene Lees, a fairly close translation of the Portuguese lyrics. The song was re-titled "Double Rainbow." This new English title referenced the English lyrics.
Also in 1974, the song was recorded by Jobim and Elis Regina as part of the "Elis and Tom" album, under the name "Chovendo na Roseira." Elis sings the lyrics in Portuguese.
1980 - Jobim’s album "Terra Brasilis" included the song as an instrumental, arranged byClaus Ogerman, under the title "Chovendo na Roseira."
For sound clips of various early versions of "Chovendo," see this nice writeup on the "Brazilliance" website.
For my previous post on "Chovendo," with some Youtube clips including the Debussy pieces, click here.
Over the years, the song has been recorded by many other artists, under one or another of the three titles. Joe Henderson’s album "Double Rainbow," a tribute to Jobim, oddly enough did not include this song. I wonder if Joe recorded it, but ultimately decided not to include it in the album?
Recently I noticed in Howard Hanson’s Symphony #1 (1922) an appropriation of the same Debussy phrase from "Le plus que lente, valse" (1910) that Jobim used in “Chovendo.” The theme occurs at 2:00 in the clip below:
Interestingly, Howard Hanson gives this phrase to the flute, while the original Debussy piece was for solo piano (Debussy also arranged the piece for strings). In the original 1970 arrangement of "Children’s Games," arranger Eumir Deodato also gives Jobim’s extremely similar phrase to the flute (on the repeat), as does Claus Ogerman in his 1980 arrangement. It’s a perfect orchestration choice for this phrase.
A few questions are left unanswered: Was the flute orchestration for the phrase Deodato's idea, or Jobim's? Did Deodato or Jobim know the Hanson piece as well as the Debussy? Or was the flute orchestration in Jobim’s piece just a coincidence? And did Hanson realize he was quoting Debussy?
Andrew White passed away on Nov. 11, at the age of 78. The obit in the New York Times described him as "a profusely talented and proudly eccentric musician and scholar...saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, author, business owner, teacher." Andrew had some humorous but accurate self-descriptions as well. In his unique way, he was a towering figure in the jazz world.
Here's a video of Andrew visiting St. John's Catholic Prep School in Maryland:
And of course, Giant Steps:
According to the Washington Post obit, Andrew had no immediate survivors; his wife Jocelyne passed away in 2011. I hope whoever inherits his business will continue to make Andrew's massive catalog of John Coltrane transcriptions available, as well as Andrew's recordings and writings, including his amusingly readable autobiography, "Everybody Loves the Sugar."
I've been teaching individual saxophone and clarinet lessons since the 1970s. Before the pandemic, I was not particularly interested in teaching online. Seeing students in person is better in so many ways: a more real personal rapport, real-world acoustics, the ability to watch embouchure and fingers more closely. Online lessons can't address those things as well, and online playing does not allow for playing duets, or accompanying in real time. And who wants to stare at a screen for an entire teaching day?
The only actual advantage I could see was that with online lessons, both teacher and student could work together from just about any two locations in the world that have internet access - and I didn't need that; I've almost always had a full schedule with local students (I still do - I'm not currently taking new students).
The pandemic changed my views. Like many music teachers, I've switched to Zoom lessons, and I'm thankful that in spite of its imperfections, we have a way to continue to teach. I'd much rather be teaching in person, but realistically, I know that it will be many more months before it's safe to do so.
I've been teaching online for about six months now. Following are a few thoughts about what works and what doesn't in Zoom lessons.
First, a few technical items. This is all pretty much common knowledge among teachers these days:
• Duets and live accompaniment won't work, due to lag time (latency). As a substitute, students can use recorded accompaniments, played on their side of the meeting. For working on jazz improv, there are plenty of "backing tracks" on Youtube.
• Zoom sound quality is often very poor. Sometimes this is due to inadequate internet speed. Home "high speed" internet service usually has good download speed and poorer upload speed. This works if you are streaming movies, but internet meetings require good upload speed as well. Sometimes a neighborhood has spotty quality. I've found this often to be true even for students living in upscale neighborhoods.
• Zoom sound is optimized for speech. Music quality suffers because the software senses music as background noise, and suppresses it, causing the music to cut out. This problem can be alleviated by changing some Zoom settings. The important ones seem to be these: Turn on "Enable original sound," disable "Suppress persistent background noise" and disable "Suppress intermittent background noise." These settings adjustments will eliminate much of the troublesome Zoom sound processing. You should be able to Google for instructions on how to do these things. Not all of these adjustments are available on mobile devices. Note: I am no technical expert.
• Wi-fi works better if you are close to the modem. A wired connection to the modem is even better.
• For bad connections, sometimes logging out and then rejoining the meeting can help.
• It doesn't matter if you have a good camera. Crisp video doesn't really matter for music lessons. A good mic is nice, but the built-in mics in iPads and computers are usually adequate. I just use an iPad Pro with the built-in camera and mic, with some external (wired) speakers, and it's fine for me. Bluetooth speakers are no good; they just add to the lag.
• Personally, I don't like using headphones or earbuds. When I'm playing, I'd rather hear myself acoustically. Headphones are just too physically restrictive over a 6- or 7-hour teaching day. And it puts me just a little further into a virtual world, not a good thing IMO.
Again, I'm no technical expert. But as a constant user, I can attest that Zoom still has some work to do to make their platform music-friendly. In addition, Zoom's instructional videos and website explanations need some simplification and editing for clarity, to be useful to everyday users like me. Zoom, if you're listening...
Technical and equipment issues aside, here are some things I've learned about online teaching:
• One teaching technique that works quite well is demonstration and imitation. It develops the student's musical hearing and memory, and requires extra listening focus.
• Sometimes I give students an assignment to record themselves playing one of their pieces as well as they can, and send it to me. This encourages the student to be self-critical and to set their standard of perfection a little higher.
• If it seems helpful, sometimes I'll record a demo and email it to them, so that they can refer to it during the week before the next lesson.
• With in-person lessons, I was able to teach timing by playing along with the student. Since this is not possible with online lessons, I often demonstrate the passage on my side with a metronome while they read the music and follow along, then have them copy me, playing with a metronome. A longer piece can be broken into 2-bar or 4-bar segments, and each segment worked on separately. There are plenty of free iPhone metronome apps available.
• If we are working on improv using a "backing track," I'll typically take one to three choruses on my side of the meeting, demonstrating some point (e.g., leave space, or rework the melody, or use certain chord tones), then the student will take a turn, playing to an accompaniment track on their side of the meeting. Trading fours is not possible in an online format.
• After each lesson I send a follow-up email with any points to remember from the day's lesson, and next week's assignment. I find I need 15 minutes between each lesson to send the email, do a little stretching, and to get ready for the next lesson. No more back-to-back students, like I often had with in-person lessons. This means a loss of income, of course, but it's necessary for me.
• Before my teaching day starts, I make a list of the day's students, then look at their follow-up emails from last week, note what their assignments were, and consider what we should focus on in each student's upcoming lesson.
• At lessons, I have always mixed playing with theory and ear training. With online lessons, if the connection is just too awful for playing (as sometimes happens), we'll concentrate on theory or ear training.
With school back in session, most of my students are already spending half the day in front of a computer screen. It's unfortunate that their sax or clarinet lesson adds another 30-60 minutes to that, but I think they all welcome it. At least they are engaged in the real-world physical activity of playing an instrument, and the creative activity of making music. With virtual lessons, I make an extra effort to keep the lessons fun and low-pressure.
I am looking forward to the day that we can return to in-person lessons. I think just about everyone agrees that real-world human contact provides a superior educational experience. There seem to be some studies underway into whether or not instrumental music is risky in terms of spreading the virus, but no conclusive results so far. From what I can see on the internet, clarinet and sax may not involve much risk of aerosol dispersal. But I'm in a higher-risk age group, and I won't be going back to in-person instruction until it's safe.
School music programs are making the best of a difficult situation. School band, orchestra, and choir are just not possible at this point. If the risk with wind instruments turns out to be low, outdoor marching band will be the first to return. Assignments in school right now often seem to be for students to learn their individual parts and send in a recording. Recordings can be mixed to produce an ensemble performance. Theory and music history can still be taught effectively. I'm sure it will take a while for school music to return to normal, not least because of the potential risk to teachers.
The positive side of all this is that virtual lessons are available as a way to keep music education going, and I'm thankful for that. One other bright spot: Before the pandemic, I would typically catch a cold about every 6-8 weeks. With social isolation and no physical lessons, I haven't had a cold since March. But I'd happily trade that for a return to normal.
According to stats that Blogger provides, this music blog last week hit a milestone of 500,000 pageviews for its 9-year lifetime. That's not a lot by some standards, but considering the specialized content here, not too surprising. On this occasion, I took the time to check this number against the more reliable stats from Google Analytics, and learned some interesting things:
• Analytics says this site has had 156K pageviews, lifetime, not 500K. Since Blogger is owned by Google, I wonder why Blogger does not use a more realistic metric. Blogger stats include visits by bots, and are therefore inflated by a percentage that is difficult to determine. In August 2020, Blogger stats for this site averaged around 150 pageviews per day. Google Analytics for August averaged 47 pageviews per day. That's quite a difference.
• The audience, lifetime, has been 46% female, 54% male. Age groups are 28% 18-24, 34% 25-34, 16% 35-44, 13% 45-54, 6% 55-64, 6% 65+. This skews a lot younger than I would have expected! (Total is more than 100% due to rounding.)
• Geographical stats: USA 43%, UK 7%, France 4%, Canada 4%, Germany 4%, Australia 3%, Spain 2%, Brazil 2%, Japan 2%.
• The most-visited pages are pretty much in agreement with the "Popular Posts" that are listed in the sidebar.
The metrics supplied by Google Analytics are largely intended to be helpful to people trying to monetize their site through Google advertising. I'm not interested in cluttering this blog with advertising - although I did sign up for the "Amazon Associates" program that gives me a small return for products purchased via links on these pages.
Thanks to my readers - I hope you have found some of the posts here interesting, useful, and/or educational!
There's been some buzz lately around a video from YouTuber Adam Neely in which Adam discusses Jobim's "Girl From Ipanema" ("Garota de Ipanema"), including his explanation of Jobim's harmony on the bridge. Several musician friends have sent me the link, and there have been two threads on saxontheweb.com discussing the video (here and here). Last time I looked, this video had 1,226,782 views.
I've enjoyed other YouTube videos from Neely, but this one has some questionable information, IMHO. I'm going to take the bait and write up my comments. Here's his "Ipanema" video, if you haven't seen it yet:
What is the proper key for this song?
The first issue that jumps out at me is the question of the proper key for "Ipanema." All of the published sheet music versions, and all of the fakebooks that I have seen, show the song in F. Adam tells us that this key is a "relic of American cultural hegemony, codified by decisions made at the Berklee College of Music in the 1970s." Strong words! He is referring to the Real Book (1974), which shows the tune in F.
Neely states that in Brazil, F is not regarded as the hip key for this song, and that for a Brazilian audience, you had better play it in Db, because "Db is thought of as the more authentic, Brazilian key." Why, you might ask? Because Db was the key used on the "Getz/Gilberto" album, the recording that made the song a worldwide hit in 1964.
I’m certain that Jobim always intended for this tune to be in F. There are several original Jobim manuscripts that you can view at jobim.org, all of them in F. Whenever Jobim performed it, it was in F, as nearly as I can tell from his live videos, except when he played it with Joao Gilberto. I played with Brazilian bands in the SF Bay Area for years, and the key for "Ipanema" was always F; no one ever suggested otherwise. My musician friends tell me the same thing. I have never heard that any other key is regarded as more authentic. But perhaps Neely has experience I don't have, or different sources of information.
The simple explanation for recordings in other keys is that those keys were chosen to accommodate the singer's best range. That's done all the time. I think it was in Db on the album because Joao Gilberto preferred that key. On some later recordings, Joao plays it in D.
Here is a 1962 live version with Jobim, Gilberto, and Vinicius de Moraes. They play it in F:
This reminds me of a story. Years ago, I was on a big-band gig for a corporate event. Eddy Arnold, the country singer, was at the event for some reason, and was scheduled to sing "September Song," accompanied by our pianist, Reed Struppa. Before the gig, when we were setting up, Eddy asked Reed to find the key where he would be most comfortable. They rehearsed a little, and came up with some little-used, awkward key. After the gig, Reed told me, "When they do that, I tell them OK, then when the time comes I just play it in the nearest easy key, C or F or whatever. They never notice the difference."
Harmony of the A section
Anyway, back to Ipanema. Adam gives us some basic bossa nova history, and points out that the A section of Ipanema uses essentially the same harmony as the A section of "Take the A Train" (that is, I for 2 bars, V of V for 2, then II V I, with a bII tritone sub for the V in "Ipanema"). Here I agree with him. Incidentally, this harmony was not original with Billy Strayhorn, who wrote "A Train" in 1939. Strayhorn borrowed it from Jimmy McHugh's 1930 tune "Exactly Like You." Neely notes that this progression also appears in the A section of Jobim's "So Danco Samba." I'd add that Jobim's "Desafinado" follows this progression too, for the first 6 bars, before veering off into creative territory.
Here’s a video of Jobim playing “Ipanema” in Sao Paolo in 1994 at an “All Star Tribute.” It's a fairly good band: Jobim, Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson, Ron Carter, Shirley Horn, Gal Costa, Jon Hendricks, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Oscar Castro-Neves, Paolo Jobim, Harvey Mason, Alex Acuna. They play it in F. At 55:39 Jobim sings the "A Train" melody over the Ipanema A section, a sort of inside joke.
The bridge
Neely points out some countermelody lines in the bridge (13:27 in his video) that Jobim clearly intended to be part of the song. Adam criticizes the Real Book compilers for not including these countermelodies. I agree that it would have made for a better chart, but let’s not be too judgmental; the Real Book was a great product for 1974. By the way, the current Hal Leonard legal version of the RB doesn't include the countermelodies either.
When Adam gets into explaining the harmony of the bridge to Ipanema, he gets into questionable territory, as I see it. Here is the bridge:
At first glance the chords do not seem to follow the "rules" of standard jazz harmony. But it makes sense to me this way:
Gbmaj7: New key, up a half step from the A section (think of it as F#maj7).
B7: IVb7 in F#, a blues-type IV chord. Introduces the blue note A natural, the b3 in F#.
F#m7: It's really A6 with F# in the bass, the I of a new key.
D7: IVb7 in A, blues IV chord again. Introduces blue note C natural, b3 in A.
Gm7: It's really Bb6 with G in the bass, the I of a new key.
Eb7: Again, it's IVb7, a blues IV chord. Introduces the note Db, b3 in Bb.
The last 4 bars are a turnaround back into F, to set up the last A section.
The bass notes on the F#m7 (bridge bar 5-6) and D7 (bar 7-8) have an interesting effect and a certain logic. F# has continuity with the first tonality in the bridge. D7, besides being IVb7 in A, is V of the Gm7 that follows. These features do not interfere with the key centers Gb - A - Bb as described above.
As Neely remarks, there is a virtual "cottage industry" of YouTube videos and articles that try to explain the bridge. If you want to get into it, do a YouTube search for "Ipanema bridge analysis." Don't say I didn't warn you.
Neely's take on the bridge starts at 10:12 on his video. He hears the Gb as a IV in Db, B7 as a bVIIdom in Db, F#m7 as a II in E, D7 as a bVIIdom in E; Gm7 as a II in F, Eb7 as a bVIIdom in F.
It's an interesting take. With some effort, I can hear it as he describes. I can't say he is exactly "wrong," but his explanation doesn't really work for me.
I don't want to get too deep in the weeds here, but:
1) I don't hear the bridge as starting in the key of Db (that would make Gbmaj7 the IV, with a Lydian tonality). I hear it in Gb, starting on the I. Jobim very often used major 7th melody notes over tonic major 7 chords, as he does in the A section of this song, and that's what we have here.
2) I'm not the only one who hears it that way; some other YouTubers in this "cottage industry" agree with me, as do some of the commenters in the saxontheweb threads on this subject.
Neely goes on to say that he hears the countermelody as a blues lick. I don't. It's true that you can shoehorn the notes of the countermelody lick into a blues scale that would seem to fit Neely's conception of the key centers, but I just don't hear it.
Of course, reasonable people can disagree.
Here's yet another take on the bridge, more scales-based, from my friend Larry Lewicki:
FWIW, I don’t analyze the bridge the same way as Peter. I just see scales with shared pitches. I almost picture Jobim doing his scales F# major, F# melodic minor, F# dorian ... just changing one pitch.
F#Δ - F# major
B7#11 - F# melodic minor (an essential element of blues - the IV7) (shares 6 notes with F# major)
D7#11 - A melodic minor - shares 5 notes with F# dorian (check Tenderly bars 5-6, 21-22)—- D7 is the dominant of G minor
G-7 - G dorian
Eb7#11 - Ab melodic minor - shares 5 notes with G dorian (Tenderly cadence)—- tritone sub of Eb7 is A7 - Am7 is very close - that’s the beginning of the final 2 bars - Bebop iii VI7 ii V7 cadence in F.
I don’t see the F#-7 as a inversion for an AΔ.... because of the dorian mode D#
Any of these analyses - Neely's, mine, Larry's, and the various YouTubers' - can serve as the conceptual basis for a perfectly good solo, depending on how the player's melodic sense operates. In that respect, they are all just fine. However, if I'm trying to figure out what Jobim may have been thinking, I kind of like my approach.
Harmonic ambiguity as a defining feature of bossa nova
Adam states that the harmonic ambiguity he perceives in "Ipanema" is typical of bossa nova. I think that as a generalization, that's somewhat of an overstatement. Mostly, the classic bossas can be explained fairly neatly in standard jazz terms.
Jobim was a particularly creative composer, a generation younger than the "Great American Songbook" composers, building on their work. And even in Jobim's songs, especially in the earlier ones that made him famous, most of the harmony is pretty straightforward.
Does "Ipanema" have an introductory verse?
Quite a few Great American Songbook standards had an introductory section called a "verse." At 30:28 in his video, Adam points out the introductory verse in the live 1962 Jobim/Gilberto/Vinicius recording. I hadn't known about that. Desafinado has a verse too, that Jobim used in performance. He even had English lyrics for it. But the "Ipanema" verse was news to me. Thanks to Adam for pointing it out!
It does seem that this verse was not exactly intended to be part of the composition, though, but rather was created for a particular occasion.
I asked my friend Guto for a translation, and here it is, with his comments:
That intro is indeed very interesting. It seems it was a one off for that album, almost like an insider joke the trio Tom, Joao, Vinicius was telling to the live audience before the song starts. They go:
João: Tom, e se você fizesse agora uma canção?
Tom, how about you now make a song?
Que possa nos dizer, contar o que é o amor
One that says, tells us what love is
Tom: Olha Joãozinho, eu nao saberia
Look dear João (or little Joao, in an affective way), I wouldn’t know how
Sem Vinícius pra fazer a poesia
Without Vinicius to make the poetry
Vinícius: Para essa canção se realizar
For this song to come together
Quem dera o João para cantar
I wish João would sing
João: A, mas quem sou eu, eu sou mais vocês
Oh, but who am I, I’m more you both (in the sense of I trust you’d do a better job)
Melhor se nós cantássemos os três
We’d better sing the three of us
Guto also noticed some musical jokes in the verse:
... the second line Tom sings, “sem Vinicius pra fazer a poesia,” sounds the same as this section from Desafinado:
and the last phrase from Joao, “melhor se nos cantassemos os tres,” sounds like the ending phrase of One Note Samba.
Besides the 1962 live recording, the only other place I've heard this verse is in this great video with Jobim and Gilberto, I think from 1992. Joao sings the verse himself, and they play the tune in D:
Pery Ribeiro’s 1962 version
Beginning at 23:12 in his video, Adam discusses a 1962 version by singer Pery Ribeiro that may predate even the 1962 Jobim/Gilberto/Vinicius recording. Because it is probably the earliest recorded version of the song that we have, Neely finds importance in 1) the key it's played in, and 2) the harmony used for the bridge.
This version is in G, leading him to say that "The original is in the key of G." But there's no evidence that Ribeiro's was the "original" version. This is an unwarranted assumption. More likely, the key was chosen to accommodate Ribeiro's voice.
About the harmony in Ribeiro's version - Neely presents this arrangement as a sort of "missing link" between a hypothetical Tin Pan Alley harmonization and the "bossa nova" final version. But it's quite likely that the harmony used in this recording was the work of Ribeiro's arranger; it was not necessarily an early Jobim version of the song.
Neely seems to be saying that the "final" version of the bridge harmony was actually the work of Joao Gilberto, editing and simplifying Jobim's "original" harmony as used in the Ribeiro recording. But there are two unwarranted assumptions here: 1) that the Ribeiro harmony was Jobim's, and 2) that it was Gilberto who created the "final" version.
I really did enjoy Neely’s video, in spite of a few disagreements. Hopefully some of those million-plus views will get some younger musicians interested in Jobim and bossa.
To close, if you'll forgive me, here is an old musician's joke, that an old musician told me during a band break:
A jazz group has a gig at a bar in Chicago. The bass player lives across the border in Indiana. He has a history of showing up late for gigs. When it's time for the downbeat at 9:00, the bass player still hasn't shown up. At the first break at 9:45, still no bass player. The band leader is getting increasingly angry. Finally, at 10:30 the bartender goes up to the band leader and says, "Your bass player is on the phone. He's stuck on the bridge to Indiana."
The bandleader says, "Man...there is no bridge to Indiana."
Here's a terrific article: A Deep Dive Into John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" by His Biographer, Lewis Porter (Pt. 1), on the WBGO website. Porter gives some historical background to the recording, describing Coltrane's desire to record a full-album work, a "spiritual manifesto, his most personal statement," and how it was initially almost rejected by his record company, Impulse!, as not commercial enough.
Using Coltrane's written notes (his score is reproduced in the article) and considering outtakes from the recording sessions, Porter describes the planned structure and development of Coltrane's four-movement suite.
Porter covers more interesting musical details than I could summarize here, but one thing I'll note is the original intended instrumentation: tenor saxophone, "one other horn," piano, drum set, 2 basses, 2 congas, and "timbali" (Coltrane may have meant "timpani" - which Elvin Jones does play at one point in the recording). For the "other horn," Coltrane brought in Archie Shepp, but the part Archie recorded was ultimately not used. Likewise, Art Davis participated as a second bassist, but according to Wikipedia, his part was also not used in the final production.
The only time I ever heard Coltrane play live was 1966, about two years after "A Love Supreme" was recorded. It was a life-changing experience; here's a post with my recollections. The instrumentation that night was expanded, in a way similar to Coltrane's original "A Love Supreme" concept: Elvin Jones and Rashied Ali, drums; Juno Lewis, percussion; Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, tenors; Alice Coltrane, piano; Jimmy Garrison, bass; and Donald Garrett, bass and bass clarinet. Here's a quote from Coltrane's score, that describes the way he intended to end the album:
"To Ending - Make ending - Attempt to reach transcendent level with orchestra - rising harmonies to a level of blissful stability at end."
I'm looking forward to Part 2 of Porter's Deep Dive.
In a number of classic bebop melodies, and in classic recorded solos as well, you'll hear examples of what I'll call the "Groovin' High" family of II V licks. The common feature of these licks is the use of a chromatic line from the root of the II chord, descending by half steps, to the third of the V chord.
Here's an example from Dizzy Gillespie's 1945 composition "Groovin' High" (transposed here to the key of C). This II V phrase incorporates and embellishes the chromatic line D, C#, C, B, as indicated by the arrows:
Here's another example from the head to Charlie Parker's "Billie's Bounce," also from 1945 (transposed to C). Again, note the line D, C#, C, B:
Another well-known tune that uses this line is Sonny Rollins' 1956 blues "Tenor Madness" (transposed to C):
To understand where this chromatic line comes from, consider the example below. The "active ingredient" in any II V is the motion of the seventh of the II chord (C) dropping to become the third of the V chord (B). No other notes need to change when changing chords. The notes D and F are common to both Dm7 and G7, and the note A can stay, to become the ninth of the G7.
basic voice leading for II V in C
In the G7, B is the most important note, as it is the leading tone that is providing tension, trying to resolve up a half step to the root of the I chord (C, C6, Cmaj7, etc.) that normally would follow.
The example below shows an elaboration of this voice leading, adding a chromatic line starting on D. The line implies the chords shown here, though the melodic line does not really need to have the support of these exact chords.
with descending passing tones added
This voice-leading line can be further elaborated to create II V patterns like the ones below. Chords might be shown (or played) as in the example above, or as in the first example below, but more often are just squared off to one per measure, as in the other two examples:
Charlie Parker was unquestionably aware of this II V device. Below are some excerpts from melodies and solos in the Charlie Parker Omnibook, Vol. 1 (Eb edition). Coincidentally, these are all in the key of G:
from "Confirmation" head (the D7 notes use a
#9 b9 (F and Eb) rather than a normal third (F#)
from "Anthropology" head (I'd have shown the first measure as Am7)
from "Anthropology" solo (likewise)
from "Bloomdido" solo (Charlie is displacing the implied harmony a bit)
from "Blues (Fast)"
I chose to call this device the "Groovin' High" family of II V's because that tune and "Billie's Bounce" are the earliest jazz examples I could find, both from 1945. I have no doubt that jazz pianists had figured this out earlier, and I'm sure that plenty of similar melodic and harmonic examples can be found in the classical repertoire. One possible earlier jazz use could be Thelonious Monk's "Round Midnight," in the chord changes at the beginning of the A section. Monk may have written this tune in the 1930s. But there's no way of knowing if he was harmonizing it the same way then as he did in later recordings.
If any readers know of earlier examples in the jazz repertoire, or in Great American Songbook tunes of the 20s -30s, please leave a comment!
(Erratum: In the example labelled “with descending passing tones added,” the first chord symbol should of course be Dm, not D)
In case you haven't heard this legendary bit of music history yet, here's a link to a 13-minute interview of Charlie Parker by Paul Desmond, recorded in 1954, posted on saxophonist Bob Reynolds' website.
Another item from the history of music copyright violation: Was the song "Avalon" a ripoff of a Puccini aria? Here's an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry for "Vincent Rose," composer of "Whispering," "Avalon," and "Blueberry Hill":
In 1921, the estate of Giovanni Ricordi and the music publishing firm he founded, Casa Ricordi — the publisher of Puccini's operas — sued all parties associated with the song, "Avalon," claiming the melody was "lifted" from the aria "E lucevan le stelle" from Puccini's opera Tosca. The court found for Puccini and his publisher, and they were awarded $25,000 in damages, plus all future print royalties earned by "Avalon". The composer and his heirs, however, continued to receive performance royalties under an agreement reached with Ricordi for payment of only $1. Such royalties amounted to a very significant amount of money during the remainder of the 20th century, certainly far more than the $25,000 paid in damages to the publisher.
I think Puccini's heirs had a solid case, but you can decide for yourself. Puccini's theme is in minor, "Avalon" is pretty much the same theme, in major.
Benny Goodman got a major hit with "Avalon":
Here's Al Jolson's original version. Al wrote the words, and got a hit with his 1920 recording. The main theme starts at about 00:36:
Here's Puccini's "E lucevan le stelle." The clarinet introduces the theme at 1:10, the vocal at 2:34:
Listening to the Villa-Lobos guitar Preludes the other day, I noticed a familiar theme in Prelude #5: The opening melody matches the main theme in Antonio Carlos Jobim's music for the movie "Gabriela" (1983, with Sonia Braga and Marcello Mastroianni, details here). Here's the Villa-Lobos:
Here's the Jobim theme, in a short version sung by Gal Costa:
It's common knowledge that Jobim thought highly of Villa-Lobos (who doesn't?), and Jobim certainly is known to have borrowed from other musical sources, from Chopin to Gershwin to Debussy.
The movie "Gabriela" was based on the 1975 Brazilian telenovela "Gabriela." The 1975 show had a theme by Dorival Caymmi:
Researching this post led me to some very pleasant listening! The Villa-Lobos Preludes, of course. I also found the full movie soundtrack, with a lot of great Jobim music I hadn't heard:
You can hear some fragments of Caymmi's theme embedded in the Jobim soundtrack.
Another Villa-Lobos borrowing in Jobim's soundtrack is a musical sequence that evokes the pattern of the berimbau. Villa-Lobos does this in Prelude #2 (at 0:58) :
Jobim uses this device at 0:59 in the movie soundtrack, above.
The movie character Gabriela is from the Northeast of Brazil; the berimbau is associated with capoeira, a martial art/dance that is also associated with the Northeast. Here's a nice introductory explanation:
Here's a concert performance of "Gabriela" by Jobim and his "Banda Nova" (Montreal, probably1986). The theme begins at 4:06, the "Northeast" music at 6:54.
My last post featured some points about choro, written up by my pianist friend Larry, in an email to some local musicians who have been exploring the choro repertoire. My choro expertise is limited, but as any reader of this blog knows, I enjoy trying to dig a little deeper into arcane music topics.
I thought Larry wrote a really informative piece, but I wondered about two points:
First, he mentioned that Jovino Santos Neto (who really does qualify as an expert) had said that early choro composers modeled the structure of their compositions on 17th-century classical music. Since the early choro composers (e.g., Calado, Gonzaga, Nazareth) were writing in the mid-1800s, this didn't sound quite right to me. Surely, their models would have been music as played in their own time: European classical music of the 18th and early 19th centuries, as well as dance and salon music from the same period.
To check on this question, I emailed Jovino, who graciously sent me a reply. He said that what he had meant was that "what comes from the 17th century...is the rondo form of 3-part music...In its beginnings as the urban music of Rio in the mid-19th century, choro was basically a syncopated way to play the European music that was in vogue at the time: polkas, mazurkas, waltzes." That sounded reasonable to me. But that brings me to my second question: European rondo form (ABACA or some variant) is often cited as the origin of standard choro form (AABBACCA or variant). Again, I'm no expert, but that seemed open to question. The polkas and marches that I am familiar with have a basic form along the lines of AABBA - trio - A (or variant). The repeats are significant; polkas seem to be a more likely model than classical rondos. Searching the web, I found this paper by Marcos Mesquita (if you download it, scroll way down to where the paper begins). Mesquita argues that the AABBACCA choro form probably derives from European dance forms that had a “trio” section (that would be the “CC"), such as polkas and minuets. Polkas had repeats of AA, BB, and CC. Repeats are found in polkas and minuets, but are not part of the classical rondo form. Here's an excerpt from the paper:
We must point that: 1) Traditional choro form with its repeat signs is:||: A :||: B :|| A ||: C :|| A || – the recapitulations of A section after B and C areplayed by indicating da capo; 2) No rondo form has repeat signs in each section...
He points out that some pieces by early choro composers had a section designated as a "trio," in the CC position. Over time, the “trio” designation was dropped, but the form stayed the same. This makes sense to me! Interestingly, as Larry mentioned in his writeup, ragtime tends to have a form similar to choro. Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag, for example, is AABBAACCD. Not exactly the same as choro, but similar. Joplin's Euphonic Sounds is AABBACCA, the same as the common choro form. Here's a page from a book on Joplin that makes the same point that Mesquita does, but with regard to ragtime - that is, some music historians see rondo as an antecedent form, but it's unlikely because of the lack of transitions, and the presence of repeats. Ragtime is often mentioned as having its roots in the march; many marches begin with AABB - trio. There is no way that ragtime could have influenced early choro, as ragtime dates from later in the 19th century. It's also very unlikely that choro influenced ragtime. Yet both genres developed similar structures, derived from European forms. It's likely, though, that ragtime (and jazz) influenced later choro composers like Pixinguinha, starting in the 1910s-1920s, when ragtime achieved popularity, and was available in both sheet music and recorded form. The influence of jazz continued into the bebop years, and in fact to the present. But again, I'm no expert. Comments are welcome!
My friend Larry Lewicki, an American jazz pianist with an interest in Brazilian music, wrote up some comments for some mutual friends, musicians who have been exploring the choro repertoire. I thought some readers of this blog might find it informative. Comments are welcome!
Here's Larry:
Hi All,
I just have a couple of comments on choro for you. As a jazz pianist (with some knowledge of guitar), I was introduced to choro maybe 12 years ago when I was asked to sit in with some bluegrass playing friends - they needed a guitarist. I started on steel string acoustic and subsequently bought a nylon string guitar - got rid of the pick and taught myself some RH fingerstyle techniques. Then I went to the Centrum Choro workshop 9 years ago as a guitarist and got my butt kicked (but I learned some useful RH patterns - called levadas - that I've applied to my piano playing.) Since then I've been listening to a lot of choro - attended more workshops and read books about choro, etc. Here's my current level of thought.
1) Choro is not like jazz. People talk about improvisation in choro, but I believe that it's really a different concept than for jazz. The choro melody players "improvise" by playing off the melody and just adding embellishments. While the Brazilians I've met, like Dudu Maia, can shred bebop on bandolim (Brazilian "mandolin" but really more of a smaller version of the Portuguese guitar), they typically stay very close to the melody. So it's not typical to "blow solos over the changes" when playing choro. Very different concept than with jazz head charts.
2) Choro is not a rhythm. It's not like learning the samba tamborim patterns. Though there is a standard concept of "choro" rhythm - straight 16th notes in 2/4 - the term choro is really a concept that extends to many types of Brazilian rhythms. There are choros based on Tango Brasileiro, e.g. Brejiro (side note - the term tango originated in Brazil not Argentina - based on the habanera - like the L’amour est une oiseau rebelle from the opera Carmen, 1874) - choros based on maxixe (a derivative of the African Lundu) - choro-sambas - choro-waltz - choro-baiāo - choro-cançao (though >95% of choros are instrumentals) - even choro-fado. I would even argue that a choro like "Vê si gostas" is more like a blues-choro. I believe that choro is a concept that is based around the whole ensemble articulating or supporting the melody. Melody is key - and choro melodies are typically very "notey," with long runs of 16th notes.
3) Even though a choro melody is key, the melodies are not absolutely codified like they are in classical music. I have 3 different lead sheets for the Joaquim Callado choro, Flor Amorosa - and each is different. Choros were taught aurally, and they mutated as the players got more virtuosic, adventurous and inspired. The "melody" is kind of an armature - different instruments have different characteristics. A bandolim line might alternate between a high and low note in a way you can't do on a flute - so the flute player changes the melody. A flute version may have ornaments that can't be done on a cavaquinho - and so on.
4) Choro improvisation largely happens in the accompaniment - and the accompaniment is largely based on improvised counterpoints, not chord changes per se. The most variable feature of choro performances seems to me to be in the accompaniment. The seven string guitar plays counterpoints (or baixarias) - and often the other melody players provide counterpoint simultaneously with the melody. Check out this version of Pixinguinha's waltz, Rosa, from Brasil Toca Choro - the melody is played relatively straight and passed around between the flute, clarinet and bandolim, but the accompanying musicians are all counterpointing - bandolim, clarinet, flute, 6-string guitar and 7-string guitar. Each chorus is different. I think of the counterpoints as being like 17th century baroque classical music figured bass - like you hear in Vivaldi or Bach's Brandenburg concertos. (Side note - I watched Dudu Maia teach guitarist Henrique Neto a choro he'd composed. Dudu never mentioned a chord - he just played the melody - and Henrique improvised the chords based on what scale or arpeggio he heard in the melody. It was amazing and humbling - no chart. After 10 minutes, the tune was learned.)
Chord inversions. Since counterpoint is so important in choro, often the bass line doesn’t end up on a root note. Guitarists/pianists really need to learn inversions. That’s why you will often see Eø7/Bb to A7 to keep the bass line happening.
In the B section of Flor Amorosa you’ll see
|A- |D- |E7 |A- E7 |
On guitar I might play
|A- A-/C |D- D-/F |E7 E7/D |A-/C E7/B | or maybe
|A- A-/G |D-/F (fill F to C) |E7/B (fill E to B) |A- (ascending E7 arpeggio) |
Dudu Maia says he only hears three kinds of chords: tonic, dominant and subdominant. The rest are all inversions or suspensions. When you think like that, the harmonic landscape simplifies.
5) Rondo form is very typical in choro. In 1808, the Portuguese court fled Napoleon and re-established their European capital in Rio de Janeiro (no longer just a colony - it was a European capital). Approximately 10,000 court members brought their orchestras, held dance parties and subsequently trained their slaves to play European music. (Rio was known as “the city of pianos” because the British Broadwood company sold so many Beethoven-era pianos there). Early choro players and composers were classically trained musicians. They modeled early choros on 17th century classical music, specifically polkas (hence the “notey-ness”) - married with African syncopations. Classical rondo form is used in many choros.
Rondo form involves a recurring A section; a basic form might be ABACA. A typical choro form is AABBACCA. Rondo form came about because audiences might only hear a song once (an observation I heard from a Robert Greenburg lecture series on Mozart string quartets). How does the performer imprint a song in the memory of the audience? Repetition... repeat the A section - then repeat the B section - then repeat the A section again - then two repetitions of the C section - and a final repeat of the A section. Rondo is a formal structure to help the audience hold the melodies in their heads.
Rondo form choros typically have a 16 bar long melody in the A section. My teachers have emphasized that those melodies are typically broken into 4 parts (P1, P2, P3 and P4) - each 4 bars long. P1 is the statement or proposition, P2 is the answer (often with a temporary modulation) - often P3 is very similar to P1 maybe with a different ending - P4 is the turnaround, with the most harmonic movement.
The A section sets the key - the B section is typically in a relative minor or major (depending on if the A section is major or minor). The C section or trio is in a nearby key. This set of harmonic relationships doesn’t always happen - but is very typical. (Coincidentally, the same AABBACCA variant of rondo form was also adopted by ragtime composers in the US a few decades after choro started in Rio de Janeiro).
Melodies in ensembles are often distributed between players. Consider this version of Flor Amorosa (considered to be the first choro - written in 1880 by Joaquim Callado), originally composed with a polka rhythm - see figure 3.41 page 102 from this PhD dissertation - but typically played in a Tango Brasileiro style.
The melody is distributed section by section roughly like this:
A - flute A - clarinet (note the bandolim counterpoints) B - flute (nice ornaments) B - clarinet A - bandolim C - flute - but she hands it off to the clarinet in the P4 bars..... C - clarinet for P1 and P2 - flute for P3 and clarinet for P4 A - flute, clarinet and mandolin unison
6) Some newer choros have a binary AABBA form (e.g., Receita de Samba). The A and B sections are typically 32 bars - and P1, P2, P3 and P4 are 8 bars apiece.
While Tico-tico No Fúba is probably the most famous choro known outside of Brazil, inside Brazil the most famous choro is Pixinguinha’s song Carinhoso (every Brazilian knows the words). Pixinguinha wouldn’t play this song in public, he left it his desk after composing it because it only had an A and B section and he felt all choros had to be in rondo form. After 18 years, he was convinced to publish and perform it. Brazilians have told me that Carinhoso is considered to be the unofficial national anthem of Brazil.
Another exception to the forms above has occurred with the Ernesto Nazareth tango, Brejeiro (1893). Originally in a binary form, AABBA with the A section in A major and the B section in E major. Jacob do Bandolim rearranged Brejeiro as a 4 part form - and its been codified that way ever since as: intro-AABB-modulation-A’A’B’B’-modulation-A-coda. Typically the A section is played in the bandolim-friendly key of G major, the B section is in D major - the A’ section is in G minor and B’ section is in Bb.
7) Choro is a very social music in Brazil - with players clustered around a table drinking and eating. A roda - or a circle party. A challenging environment for a piano player to fit into. That’s why I’m trying to learn to play melodica.
. Coincidentally, these are all in the key of G:
