Teaching Music in Silicon Valley, a Saga

My music teaching business, Hope Street Music Studios, will be moving to a new location in Mountain View, in the next couple of weeks. Here’s a brief history of our studio, with some perspective on what it takes to be a self-employed music teacher in the heart of Silicon Valley.

Ten years ago, in 2005, I was teaching in the back of a music store in downtown Mountain View. The store, Mountain View Music Center, had been around for many decades. The store’s founder was an old friend; I used to buy reeds from him when I was a kid. But the store had changed hands - Tony had sold the store to his son, and a few years later, Tony’s son sold it to an ex-tech guy who had made some money on Netscape, and had always wanted to run a music store. 

Unfortunately, this was a period of shakeout in the music store business. Customers were using the store to try out instruments, but then making their purchases on the internet. It began to look as though the store might not survive this shakeout. I had been talking with one of my fellow teachers about finding a place to rent, so that we could be in control of our own venue, and in 2005, Frank Conrad and I leased a 1200-square-foot space in downtown Mountain View, about a block from the store. It had 6 small offices (it was former medical space), a luxurious teaching situation compared to the tiny, stuffy teaching rooms we had at the store. (A year and a half later, the store did in fact close.)

A couple of teachers at the store came with us, and over time we signed up other teachers, who sublease space from us on an hourly, daily, or monthly basis. We now have 17 teachers at Hope Street, covering most instruments (piano, guitar, bass, drums, voice, sax, clarinet, flute, violin, viola, cello, french horn, trombone, and trumpet). As a business, the studio partnership is break-even. Frank and I make little or no profit on the studio (we make our living on our teaching), but our business plan has worked out well - we are surrounded by fine teachers, and we have a pleasant place to work that is under our own control.

In 2005, we were still in a bit of a tech recession. Commercial vacancy rates were around 20% in Mountain View. The space we leased had been vacant for over a year, and as result we had been able to obtain a 5-year lease with a 5-year option to renew, at a very reasonable rate.

As we came to the end of our 10-year lease, we began to worry. Mountain View has changed radically. Tech businesses and their employees are putting huge pressure on the real estate market, both commercial and residential. Where commercial vacancy rates were 20% in 2005, it’s more like 2.5% now.

To say that this area is in an economic “boom” does not begin to describe it. Google is the business that dominates the city, with tens of thousands of employees and thousands more coming, but Intuit, LinkedIn, Symantec and many others are also located here. Apple is building a new HQ a few miles away, in Cupertino. New-construction 1-BR apartments are renting for up to $4,000/month; downtown office space rents for $4-$5/sf/month. It’s crazy. We were offered a new lease at our present location, but the rent would have more than doubled.

So about a year and a half ago, we started a search for a new location. We checked commercial real estate listings nearly every day. There wasn’t much available, and it seemed that every time we found a possibility, there was a problem with zoning, parking, affordability, location, or lack of a long-term lease. Then about a year ago, on a day when I was feeling too burned out to check, my wife saw a new listing. It seemed like it might work: zoning OK (but we would have to apply to the City for a Conditional Use Permit), parking OK, affordability OK, location good, and a 5-year lease with 5-year option to renew. The only drawback was that it was basically warehouse space, and would require an expensive buildout to be used as teaching studios.

We started paying rent on the space last October, while we worked on the Conditional Use Permit, then the architect’s plans for the remodel, then the building permit. There were expenses and hangups every step of the way. Only two parts of the process went smoothly: Our acoustical adviser (Malcolm Clark) has been terrific, and once we had the building permit, our contractor (Dan Riley) got the job done in record time, and kept our expenses from getting any more ridiculous than they already were.

I’m omitting a lot of details here. It’s been a long, involved process. But after all the hassle, I’m pretty sure that we didn’t have a choice, if we want to keep working as independent music teachers in Silicon Valley. The alternatives would have been: 1) start driving to students’ houses to teach, 2) teach in my living room, 3) become an employee of one of the for-profit or non-profit music teaching organizations in Mountain View, where management takes a cut of 50% or more of earnings or 4) try to find space in the back of a music store (not many stores are left, and their space is completely booked). These were not attractive options. In addition, Frank and I considered the other 15 teachers, and the fix some would be in if we closed the studio.

At the moment, we are feeling pretty good about it. If all goes well, we will be open for business at the new location in a couple of weeks. We won't be on Hope Street any more, but we're keeping the name, for the time being.

Tchaikovsky, Bing, and the Checkers

I guess inspiration can strike in unlikely ways. Here's Odette's Solo from "Swan Lake"(1876)...

And here's Bing (1943)...

As a side note, the composer of "I'll Be Home For Christmas," Walter Kent, is also remembered for "There'll Be Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover" (1941), another wartime song of hope and home. Here's a cool version by The Checkers (1953). Stick around for the sax solo by Red Prysock...

Early Blues, Blue Notes, and Blues Scales

Here are a few thoughts regarding blues history and blues usage, that came up in the course of reading several interesting books on early published blues (see this review and this review). I don't claim to be an authority on the subject, beyond the fact that I'm a sax player who has played and listened to a lot of blues over the years.

Blue notes and Blues Changes

Composers of early published blues drew inspiration from folk musicians. In the absence of better documentation, examining these compositions can be one way of trying to understand what early (pre-1910) folk blues and pre-blues might have sounded like.

Early published blues, in turn, influenced the development of popular music in the years that followed, especially jazz and jazz-oriented blues, but published blues influenced subsequent folk blues as well.

In his autobiography Father of the Blues (1941), W. C. Handy describes his creative process in writing "St. Louis Blues" (1914):

[Black Southern folk musicians were] sure to bear down on the third and seventh tones of the scale, slurring between major and minor. Whether in the cotton fields of the Delta or on the levee up St. Louis way, it was always the same. Till then, however, I had never heard this slur used by a more sophisticated Negro, or by any white man. I had tried to convey this effect in Memphis Blues by introducing flat thirds and sevenths (now called "blue notes") into my song, although its prevailing key was the major; and I carried this device into my new melody as well. I also struck upon the idea of using the dominant seventh as the opening chord of the verse. This was a distinct departure, but as it turned out, it touched the spot.

It appears that Handy may have gotten inspiration not just from folk blues, but in part from Anthony Maggio's earlier published tune, I Got the Blues (1908). Maggio's melody consisted of a repeated riff, clearly meant to mimic the bent third that Maggio had heard from a folk musician. Maggio's b3-3-1 phrase was used by Handy in his "Memphis Blues" (1912), "Jogo Blues" (1913), and "St. Louis Blues" (1914).

Maggio's riff as it was used in "St. Louis Blues" (click to enlarge):

Handy's prior awareness of Maggio's tune is pretty clearly demonstrated in Peter Muir's book, Long Lost Blues. But be that as it may, there are two other noteworthy points in Handy's statement:

1) He describes b3 and b7 as blue notes, but not b5.

2) Handy describes the seventh as being bent, like the third, in folk usage. I don't doubt that, but in early published blues by Handy and others, when the b7 of the key is used in the melody or harmony, it is almost always in the context of setting up a I dominant (V of IV) sound, preparing a IV chord. That goes for the first bar of St. Louis Blues as well - perhaps a "departure," as Handy stated, but still acting as a V of IV, preparing the IV in bar 2.

Use of b7 notes in the context of a V of IV can be found in Sousa marches, arrangements of church hymns, and in popular classical themes - musical settings that were commonly heard in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Musicians like Handy, Maggio, and Artie Matthews (arranger of "Baby Seals Blues," pub. 1912) were relatively well-educated, and probably would have known quite well how a secondary dominant works. Usage of the b7 in that context is not at all unique to blues.

Vic Hobson, in his book Creating Jazz Counterpoint, has pointed out that adding a b7 to a triad was a common practice in barbershop singing - a popular pastime in the African American community in those years.  That may well have been another factor in b7 blues usage. But as far as a unique barbershop influence goes, I’d look more to the b7 that is added to the IV chord in blues, resulting in a b3 of the key (a non-classical usage), or to the use of a #IVdim7 in bar 6 of the progression, a feature that goes back to some of the earliest published blues.

In the first published blues tunes, and in late 1910s/early 1920s recordings, most “blue note” usage seems to occur on the third of the key. In sheet music intended for piano, a bent-note effect could be expressed by a b3 to 3 grace note, or by putting a b3 on the beat, resolving then to the 3 (as in the example above), or by simply sounding a b3 note over a major or dominant chord. Melodic b3 notes can also appear in measures harmonized with a IVdom chord (where the b7 in the chord is the b3 of the key), or in measures harmonized with a V7 (the b3 of the key is a #5 relative to the chord).

In early published songs and early recordings, the third seems to be scooped or bent far more than the seventh, which is relatively stable (still true now, IMO).

The b5 rarely occurs in these early blues. 

The M6 note is also an important part of blues vocabulary, then and now. It wasn’t flagged as a “blue note,” though, because it is a part of our familiar major scale. 

Gunther Schuller, in his book Early Jazz, traces b3 and b7 blue note usage to the b7 note that he states was common to the music of Central/West African societies, with the b3 resulting from singing parallel lines. I don't doubt that African music often used b7 notes, but the prevalence of the b3 and bent third in early blues, and the relatively “classical” usage of the b7 (V of IV context) when it does occur, do not seem to support this explanation.

The nature and degree of African influence on the development of blues styles is an open question. Some blues scholars see extensive African influence, others see relatively little.

Willie Ruff has suggested the possible influence of “lining out” worship singing, introduced in America by English and Scottish settlers perhaps hundreds of years ago, on popular music practices in the South. "Lining out" singing still exists in a few congregations in Scotland (Presbyterian) and in the South (Baptist) - see this very interesting video. Check out the similarities and differences in the melodic embellishments and bent notes used by congregations from Scotland, Kentucky, and Alabama. There's room for some speculation on the influence of this type of singing in the origins of blues and gospel style.

In my non-expert opinion, recordings by male "down home" blues artists in the late 1920s seem to show more use of the b7 as a melodic blue note than we see in early published blues, or in recordings of female blues singers in the early 1920s. This may reflect the rural folk style of earlier, undocumented times (pre-1910). On the other hand, styles can change over time. Jazz recordings of blues tunes seem to show freer use of the b7 as a "blue note" (not just a secondary dominant note) as time goes on, from the 1920s through the 1940s. 

The b5 seems to have been used increasingly beginning around perhaps the early 1930s, and became an integral part of blues/jazz/pop melodic vocabulary (e.g., Ellington's 1931 tune "It Don't Mean a Thing," or Matt Dennis' 1941 "Angel Eyes"). By the 1940s, blue-note b5 licks were a part of the bebop language.

Of course, since musicians have been taught that there is a "blues scale" for perhaps 70 or so years, it is now universally accepted that blues-scale-derived licks are basic blues melodic vocabulary.

Blues scales

As I see it, it's a bit misleading to teach students that playing a “blues scale” is the way to create a good blues solo. Historically, and to this day, much of the blues musical vocabulary does not conform to any sort of “blues scale.” In the early days of jazz and blues, the concept of "blues scales" did not exist. The idea of a “blues scale” seems to have come about in the late 1930s, when academically-inclined musicians looked for some sort of underlying principle that would explain the use of “blue notes” in a major-key musical context.

A number of different “blues scales” have been proposed over the years. The one that most of us have settled on (1 b3 4 b5 5 b7 1) has some utility: We can give it to beginning improvisers, and they will usually sound good immediately, which inspires self-confidence. I do teach this way, but I always follow up by saying that lots of great blues licks don’t use the scale, and that any note could sound good, depending on how it is used.

Review: "Long Lost Blues: Popular Blues in America, 1850-1920," by Peter C. Muir

Long Lost Blues is a state-of-the-art history and analysis of early published and recorded blues, with an emphasis on blues published in sheet music form between 1912 and 1920. Muir presents a detailed, well-researched historical account and, for musicians, some perceptive musical analysis.

The book includes 98 musical examples; sound files for all of them can be listened to on the author's website.

For those who feel that “folk blues" is somehow more “authentic” than the published blues influenced by Tin Pan Alley, Muir makes the point that composers of early published blues often drew heavily from folk sources. In the absence of any sort of recorded documentation of early folk blues, and very little early field research, sheet music compositions can provide useful information on the early development of the “blues” genre. And in any case, published blues is an interesting genre in its own right, that strongly influenced the subsequent development of American music.

Here is a chapter-by-chapter synopsis of Long Lost Blues:

Chapter 1: The Popular Blues Industry - Details the early development of the popular blues industry (“popular blues” is here defined as music that was titled and commercially presented as “blues”), beginning seriously around 1912, and gathering momentum in subsequent years. By the end of 1920, 456 “blues” compositions had been published. Presentation to the public took the form of sheet music and recordings, as well as performances in musicals, minstrel shows, and vaudeville.

Chapter 2: The Identity and Idiom of Early Popular Blues - Early blues songs were influenced to a greater or lesser degree by the “genes” of folk blues and Tin Pan Alley; instrumental compositions generally showed some ragtime influence. The author lists and explains five categories of vocal blues: Relationship Blues (the most common), Nostalgia Blues, Prohibition Blues, War Blues, and Reflexive Blues.

The relation of blues to the “fox trot” dance craze and to swing beat is explored. Five “distinctive components of the blues idiom” are listed and discussed: the 12-bar sequence, blue notes, the “barbershop ending,” the “four-note chromatic motif,” and the inclusion of the phrase “I’ve got the blues” or a variant.

Chapter 3: Curing the Blues with the Blues - This chapter is an investigation of the historical use of the word “blues,” particularly in regard to music, and the idea that blues (and other types of music) can be therapeutic. “Neurasthenia” was a fashionable disease in late 19th-century America. It was thought to be a sort of nervous exhaustion cause by the stress of modern civilized life, and was commonly called “the blues.” 19th century sheet music songs were presented as “a cure for the blues,” long before the appearance of the 12-bar blues form. The early 20th-century 12-bar blues tunes were generally thought of the same way.

The author proposes the terms “homeopathic” for slower blues with mournful themes (treating the player’s and listener’s “distressed state of mind with distressed music”), and “allopathic” for faster, more cheerful tunes (treating “a depressed mood with lively music”). By this measure, much folk blues is homeopathic, while the popular blues discussed in this book is generally more allopathic. Many specific examples are discussed. 

Chapter 4: The Blues of W. C. Handy - Muir discusses Handy’s 26 blues tunes from both a historical and an analytical perspective, focusing particularly on those written between 1909 and 1917.

Handy was probably the most prominent figure in the world of early popular blues, influential enough to deserve a chapter devoted to his compositions. His “Memphis Blues” (1912) was what we might call a “breakout hit.” In Muir’s words, “it was this work more than any other that introduced the genre of blues to mainstream popular music.” Handy’s “St. Louis Blues” (1914), though initially slower to catch on, did much to codify the elements of what we know as “blues” today.

Chapter 5: The Creativity of Early Southern Published Blues - Southern published blues were “geographically and culturally closer to the folk sources of blues.” Muir examines the melodic and harmonic makeup of several of the earliest published southern blues in some detail: “Baby Seals Blues” (1912), “Dallas Blues” (1912), and “1913 Medley Blues” (1912). A number of other southern blues up to 1920 are also discussed; sections of this chapter also cover the blues compositions of Euday L. Bowman, George W. Thomas, and Perry Bradford. 

Chapter 6: Published Proto-Blues and the Evolution of the Twelve-Bar Sequence - This chapter in particular spoke to my own personal interests, and began to answer a difficult question: How did blues evolve?

To a modern musician, “blues” is not defined as simply as “any tune that calls itself a blues.” I think of a blues as a song with a particular 12-bar chord sequence (or variation thereof), blue notes, perhaps AAB lyrics, and as being recognizably part of what has become a deep, century-long tradition. So - where did that chord sequence come from? 

This last chapter includes sections on:

 “Development of the Blues Song”  - Discusses the history of American songs dealing with the word “blues,” and how the term came to describe an African American genre.

“The Evolution of the Twelve-Bar Blues Sequence” - The 12-bar chord pattern may derive from any or all of these: “The Bully Song” (pre-1894), “The Ballad of the Boll Weevil” (c. 1892?), “Stagolee” (c. 1895?), “Frankie and Johnny” (c. 1899?) and a number of popular songs by Hughie Cannon with harmonic schemes that are “Frankie and Johnny” - related, including the very popular “Just Because She Made Them Goo-Goo Eyes” (1900). Muir offers his opinion on how these songs may have evolved into the sequence we recognize as “blues.” There may not be any final answers here, but there is a lot of great information, and some well-considered speculation.

I enjoyed this book immensely, and recommend it to anyone interested in looking into the origins of blues. You can order it from Amazon; here's the link.

After reading this book and a few others about early blues (see this review), I’ve refined my view of early blues a bit. As a musician who has played many sorts of blues over the years, I have some thoughts to share about blues changes, blue notes, and blues scales - but I’ll save that for another post.

Review: "Creating Jazz Counterpoint: New Orleans, Barbershop Harmony, and the Blues," by Vic Hobson

It must have been tough to come up with a title - in just 129 pages (with 43 musical examples), this book covers a lot of ground.

The short version of the title, Creating Jazz Counterpoint, refers to one of the central questions considered in the book: How did the polyphonic instrumental texture of early New Orleans jazz develop? The full title, Creating Jazz Counterpoint: New Orleans, Barbershop Harmony, and the Blues, provides more specific reference to the subject matter, but still does not adequately convey the wide range of historical, biographical, and musicological material that is presented.

This book is the result of Vic Hobson's extensive research into early jazz and blues, using source material that included 1930s-1940s interviews (published and unpublished) with musicians of the early 1900s, the archived music of the John Robichaux band (active in New Orleans from 1877 to the 1940s), published sheet music, and public records. While endeavoring to answer some questions about the early development of jazz and blues, Hobson provides us a fascinating view of the New Orleans music scene in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

"Creating Jazz Counterpoint" is divided into nine chapters; each chapter is a sort of separate essay. Hobson's writing is quite readable, although the information is dense. Here is my attempt at a synopsis of each chapter, necessarily missing a lot of the detail:

Chapter 1: Jazzmen - Discusses Frederick Ramsey's 1939 book Jazzmen, which presented trumpeter Bunk Johnson as a living link to the legendary jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden. Bolden had left no surviving recordings. Bunk claimed he had played in Bolden's band, and Ramsey believed that Bunk's style very likely was similar to Bolden's. Critics have long questioned Bunk's reliability. Using Ramsey's notes and other sources, Hobson concludes that Bunk's information about history and about Bolden's playing style was basically reliable. In this chapter Hobson also proposes the idea that New Orleans counterpoint derived from barbershop quartet practices, and jazz/blues harmony from the intersection of barbershop harmony with blues tonality.

Chapter 2: The Bolden Legend - Considers available information on Buddy Bolden, including interviews and period documents, to assemble a likely Bolden chronology. Examines the tune, "Buddy Bolden's Blues," recorded by Jelly Roll Morton in 1939. This tune (aka "Funky Butt") is essentially the same as "St. Louis Tickle" (1904), both apparently deriving from "Cakewalk in the Sky" (1899). Morton recalled hearing the tune in 1902. As Morton played it in 1939, this tune included the progression Idom to IV to #IVdim, which has both barbershop and blues elements. However, it is an open question whether Morton's 1939 recording accurately represents the harmony as it was played circa 1902.

Chapter 3: Just Bunk? - Further investigates whether Bunk Johnson was a reliable source of information about Bolden's style, concluding that while the dates supplied by Bunk were several years too early, his information regarding Bolden's style is probably accurate. Bunk was most likely born in 1884, and appears to have played with Bolden beginning in 1902 or later.

Chapter 4: Cracking Up a Chord - In the late 19th century, barbershop singing was a popular pastime in the African American community. Characteristic barbershop harmony included frequent use of secondary dominant chords, and diminished chords containing the tonic note. Melodically, blue notes were in use in popular music, and barbershop harmony worked well to harmonize minor-third/major-third blue notes. Hobson cites much evidence that barbershop singing was quite popular in New Orleans, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Chapter 5: Bill Russell's American Music - Russell was co-author of the "New Orleans Music" section of Ramsey's "Jazzmen." Russell believed, with good reason, Bunk's assertion that he had played with Bolden, and encouraged Bunk to record. Hobson points out Bunk's use of the tonic diminished chord, a barbershop device. Both Bunk and Louis Armstrong excelled at the "second cornet" role in a typical New Orleans ensemble (second cornet played/improvised a counterline to the melody). Examining several tunes that were said to be in Bolden's repertoire ("Careless Love," "Make Me a Pallet On Your Floor," Mamie's Blues"), as played by Bunk Johnson, Jelly Roll Morton, and other early New Orleans players, Hobson points out the use of both barbershop harmony, and blues tonality.

Chapter 6: The "Creoles of Color" - Examines the role of sheet music in spreading the popularity of blues and pre-blues tunes (Hobson's research draws on the Robichaux collection, an archive of the repertoire of one of New Orleans' leading bands, active from 1877 to the 1940s). Songs considered include "I Got the Blues" (1908), "Just Because She Made Them Goo-Goo Eyes" (1900 - uses a 12-bar blues progression), and W. C. Handy's "Memphis Blues" (1912), "Jogo Blues" (1913), and "St. Louis Blues" (1914). Handy claimed inspiration from an 1892 experience hearing folk blues; Handy also knew barbershop harmony. This chapter also includes an account of the musical life of clarinetist Alphonse Picou; regarding Picou's version of "High Society," Hobson says, "The sheet music as performed by John Robichaux shows the clear imprint of barbershop harmony."

Chapter 7: The Original Dixieland Jazz Band - Considers recordings by the ODJB made in 1917 (the first recording of a jazz band), pointing out barbershop harmony elements. Quotes Nick LaRocca (cornetist/leader) as saying that his use of countermelodies was inspired partly by his boyhood experience listening to counterlines in French opera, as well as his early experience with vocal harmonizing.

Chapter 8: New Orleans: Capital of Jazz - Further considers dates for Buddy Bolden, citing reminiscences of Bolden's fellow musicians. Concludes that Bolden did not lead his own band until about 1900. Describes the changing role of instruments in a typical New Orleans band in the early 20th century, with violin being replaced by cornet (sometimes clarinet) as a lead instrument. Bolden may have played a "second" part on cornet. Playing harmony using secondary dominant concepts would have introduced notes that, played separately, would have come across as blue notes. Touches on the development of the "jazz soloist," driven largely by Louis Armstrong in the 1920s (Armstrong had played second cornet with King Oliver's band).

Chapter 9: The Blues and New Orleans Jazz - This short chapter sums up "How the blues became a part of the repertoire and tonality of jazz." Quoting Hobson,

Barbershop cadences give rise to specific harmonic progressions and particular voice leadings that are associated with the blues. It was through the application of these cadences and voice leadings to their instruments that the musicians of New Orleans developed New Orleans-style jazz.

Hobson makes a convincing case. Of course, secondary dominants were present in all sorts of music available in 19th-century New Orleans - classical, Sousa marches, instructional etudes, and I'd imagine hymns also (I'm no expert) - not just barbershop. But I'm willing to believe that in the social circles where jazz and blues developed, barbershop could have been a primary influence in establishing the use of dominant I and IV chords, which accommodate blue notes in a blues progression.

If you are interested in current scholarship about early jazz, and some interesting, well-researched biographies of early jazz figures, you should check out Creating Jazz Counterpoint: New Orleans, Barbershop Harmony, and the Blues. Highly recommended!

Strictly by coincidence, today is Mardi Gras, and it only seems right that I post this while there are still a few hours left in Fat Tuesday. Here's Jelly Roll Morton to wind it up:

"Chovendo na Roseira" - Jobim and Debussy

Listening the other day to Debussy's "Reverie," I noticed a definite similarity to Jobim's "Chovendo na Roseira" ("Raining on the Rosebush").

I did a little internet searching - apparently everyone knew all about this except me. "Chovendo" gets its first theme from "Reverie," and its second theme from another Debussy composition, "Le plus que lente, valse."

These are all incredibly beautiful pieces, of course. Here's "Chovendo na Roseira" from Jobim's "Terra Brasilis" album, arranged by Claus Ogerman. On this album it is retitled "Double Rainbow."

Here is Debussy's "Reverie":

Here's Debussy's "Le plus que lente, valse." The Jobim-like theme occurs at about 2:45:

This little revelation reminds me of the time I was helping a student work on "Moonlight in Vermont." I was trying to get him to phrase the melody (on sax) as though he were singing the lyrics:

Pennies in a stream
Falling leaves, a sycamore
Moonlight in Vermont

He tried it, then stopped playing and said, "Hey - that's a haiku!"

It is, of course. It's common knowledge, and has been since the tune was written. Everybody knew it except me.

BTW, one of the sources I ran across quoted Jobim as saying that "One-note Samba" is based on Chopin's "Prelude in Db Major." The only resemblance that I can hear is the constant repeated Ab note (a dominant pedal, but in a middle register). So, maybe. But I'll also stick with my observation that the "A" section of "One-note" is, harmonically, "I Got Rhythm" with some tritone subs and the chord durations doubled. And the melody is very likely inspired by the verse (introduction) to Cole Porter's "Night and Day."

Here's the Chopin prelude:

Here's "Night and Day," with the intro/verse:

And lastly, one more great recording of "Chovendo na Roseira" by Jobim and Elis Regina, from the "Elis and Tom" album: