Jazz Professional     

TECHNICAL

Continuing with Wolf Kerschek’s brilliant score of Piece for my Latino Friends; we have arrived, after all the excitement of the opening section, at bar 57 Example 5. Now comes a simple phrase on piano and bass, used several times in the piece to lead into a half tempo Reggae, with extended trumpet solo. This harmless looking invention consists of mixed major and minor thirds. Its distinctive flavour is in the repeated upper C. One hears a delightful little tingle each time it clashes with the lower Db.

Example 6 is a reprise of the melody at bar 185 of the score, played this time by full brass and saxes, everybody double–forte. The bass instruments: bass trombone, baritone sax, piano, guitar and bass play the bass line. This bass line is identical to the one used in the introduction, which I showed you in Latino Friends 1. The chords are difficult to spell conventionally, although one might say that the first could be a Dm9 with a raised fifth filler tone. Such filler tones are often used to add stimulus to min7 chords.

A typical example would be in an Fm9; beginning at the bottom of the chord: F–Db–Ab–Db–C–G, with the filler tone Db doubled in the octave.

The third chord of the first bar of Example 6 is obviously pure Lydian, an inversion of a Cmaj9(b5) with the D in the bass, but the three chords of that bar are really parallel constructions of two triads in fourths. The upper triads qualify as fourth chords, even though the top intervals are augmented. The lower triads are inversions; the first one, for instance being the inversion of an E–A–D triad. As neither piano nor guitar is playing the chords the spelling of them would be purely academic. Should the guitar be needed he could play the upper triads only.

The composer was aiming at a massive sound here, with many dissonant intervals. There is an interesting chord in the sixth bar. The tight upper voicing of the winds suggests a Bb chord, and it certainly sounds as such, but the low Eb on the 3rd trombone, undoubled by any other instrument, almost, but not quite, turns it into an Ebmaj 9. The piano alternates between Bbmaj7 and Gm6. The errant Eb goes through a series of interesting intervals with the bass line over the succeeding measures and is probably down there partly for that reason, and also to have it clash momentarily with the E natural in the final bars.

The powerful bass tones have been constructed horizontally, using the polytonal pedal point technique discussed earlier. The composer repeats his small themes regularly throughout the score, each time harmonising them differently. The use of this bass line from the introduction is another innovation which once more underlines the sonata form of the composition.

Example 7 is an excerpt from a tutti passage earlier on. The melody will be recognised as the main theme of the introduction. Brass and saxes play a small rondo against a spirited Salsa rhythm, also taken from an earlier part of the score.