Blues and The Abstract Tru

OLIVER NELSON SEXTET

Classical music of the 19th Century, and contemporary music of our own 20th Century brought about the need for adopting a different perspective in order to create music that was meaningful and vital. This was done in many ways too numerous and complicated to mention here, but one device which has always been successful in both classical music and in present-day jazz is to let the musical ideas determine the form and shape of a musical composition. In effect that is what I have tried to do here. The blues, which is a twelve-bar form and the form and chord structure I've Got Rhythm, being 32 measures in length, was my material for all of the compositions on this album. The augmentation of the forms themselves comes from thematic motifs and melodic ideas.

STOLEN MOMENTS, written in 1960, is a 16-bar composition derived from blues in C minor. The tune consists of three melodic ideas which extend the basic blues form. The divisions within the piece would then be 8 bars, 6 bars and 2 bars. In order to add contrast, the harmonic progressions for the solos are minor blues 12 measures in length. Freddie Hubbard begins with a very sensitive and soulful trumpet solo, followed by Eric Dolphy on flute and a tenor solo by myself. Bill Evans completes the series with a beautiful piano solo. After the final statement of melody, the piece ends quietly.

HOE-DOWN lengthens the form of rhythm from 32 to 44 bars. The two notes at the very beginning of the tune are responsible for the melody itself, and it turns into a statement and response kind of thing which lasts for 44 mea-sures. For the solos, I chose to use the 32-bar mold for the sake of variety, and, needless to say, Freddie Hubbard makes the most of it with a rousing but serious-minded trumpet solo. Eric Dolphy follows with a beautifully projected and controlled interesting alto saxophone solo. I play next and Roy Haynes follows with an 8-bar drum solo which leads back to the written part of the composition. This time we begin on the melody proper, and put the first 4 measures of the tune at the end. This serves as a kind of arc to unify and tie the whole piece together.

CASCADES started out as a saxophone exercise I composed while in school. As it turned out, 32 bars were molded into 56 bars to accommodate all the things that seemed to lend themselves naturally for further musical expansion.

After the complete statement of melody, Cascades becomes a vehicle for Freddie Hubbard and pianist Bill Evans. Freddie begins his solo with long melodic lines that weave in and out of the harmonic progressions. He sounds to me like John Coltrane playing a trumpet. Bill begins his piano solo quietly and gradually builds his lines in intensity and structure. At the conclusion of his last chorus, Bill leads the four horns into the ensemble out-chorus. The out-chorus is different from the melodic line present in the beginning of the piece.

It is twelve bars in length and is borrowed harmonically from Stolen Moments. Again the melodic ideas have determined the size and shape of this composition.

YEARNIN' opens the B side of this LP and is a blues in C major with only superficial modifications. Pianist Bill Evans begins with two choruses of blues which set the mood of the piece. The first ensemble is 16 measures long. The second ensemble, 12 measures in length, employs a kind of "amen" cadence that is different from the liturgical one in that it is stationary and does not move when the harmonic progression is resolved. The second ensemble leads directly into Eric Dolphy's alto solo, a trumpet solo by Freddie Hubbard, and some sensitive playing by Bill Evans.

BUTCH and BUTCH is dedicated to my oldest sister and her husband. It remains a blues throughout with no structural changes. I decided to couple the ideas used in this tune and orchestrate them first as statement of melody, then as statement of melody plus background. After a brief introduction by the wonderful Roy Haynes, Eric and Freddie play the bop-like line and are joined by George Barrow on baritone saxophone and myself on tenor for the second statement of melody. This leads to the blowing choruses by myself, followed by Freddie, Eric and pianist Bill Evans.

TEENIE'S BLUES is dedicated to my baby sister, who is a fine singer and pianist now living in St. Louis, Missouri. The purpose of this tune was to write a blues using traditional harmony employing no more than 3 harmonic progressions.

Since the dominant 7th is considered by theorists to be one of the so-called "blue" notes, I limited the underlying harmony to consist of these 3 tonal centers: F7, B flat 7 and C7. The melodic line Eric Dolphy and I play on alto saxophones is made up of displaced intervals which have points of tension and rest. They are transposed up a half step for the sake of tension and down a half step for resolution of this tension.

Eric has the first solo and gives me the motif that enables me to begin my solo. Bill Evans takes the motif that I conclude with to begin his solo which leads into a pizzicato bass solo by Paul Chambers. After the bass solo, the melody is restated on the forte dynamic level for twelve bars and at mezzo forte the second time until the 11th and 12th measures. 

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