Thanks so much for sharing; I really enjoyed listening to and thinking about the tune. I love the arrangement and the voicings; together with the intro and outro it seems very polished! A couple suggestions for you to consider:
Sounds like you used a Rhodes VST with a lot of tremolo. I think the EP sound is nice but the tremolo doesnāt work so well for me. I would be interested to hear what a layered (80% R275; 20% EP but no tremolo) sounds like.
Did you use the metronome while recording? I find that when I do that, I end up incorporating the metronome subconsciously as a poor manās rhythm section, and when I listen to the actual recording without the metronome thereās sometimes an absence of information about time. It would be pretty easy to use the voicings you already have to add more rhythm (bass and RH alternating in a bossa-like pattern).
Got a chance to duet with my man, when he finally got out of NOLA, ( 7 days with no electricity and couldnāt get out after the hurricane). Nice having him home for a couple weeks and we get to duet again. Here is a lovely tune called Falling Grace by Steve Swallow. I transcribed some solo material and have included that Spotify link to that pianist.
Really nice, Lori! I wasnāt familiar with the tune so it was doubly pleasurable for me!
Off topicāI have a friend in NOLA who still doesnāt have power; fortunately he has a natural gas-powered generator, but most of his neighbors do not.
I love this tune. I think I first heard it when you shared it in another form earlier. I love nearly everything that Steve Swallow has done. And youāre sounding really good! Thanks for sharing.
Iāve been listening a lot to Charlie Hadenās Nocturne (Verve 2001). In 2002, the album won Haden the Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album. Iāve been listening especially to Gonzalo Rubalcabaās piano.
Hereās a brief take of my trying to work out some voicings for Hadenās tune, āNightfall.ā Iām also sharing the lead sheet.
If you look at the lead sheet, itās only 16 bars, an AB formāand A and B are very similar, yet distinct. The Ddim/C, Abdim, and Bdim share the same notes. Theyāre also basically inversions of Fdim, if Iām approaching this correctly.
Thinking of this, I recall Jovinoās comment about how his knowledge of inversions makes for a facility in composition on the fly.
I always enjoy seeing what youāre listening to and playingāIām still a toddler when it comes to learning and listening to what the jazz world has to offer.
I listened to the version on Nocturne (Rubalcaba) and the one on Nightfall the album (John Taylor). The heads are pretty similar, although I noticed a couple of differences. Taylor plays a D natural instead of D# in bar 3 (I prefer the D natural), and uses an EbM7 aug instead of EbM7 at bar 9, which I think adds more color.
A few similarities between the two versions that you may want to consider incorporating into your arrangement (hope you donāt mind my suggestions):
Descending thirds in bars 2 and 4 for some nice inner voice movement
Emphasizing the E root at the end of bar 3
One register down. I think it works well in both registers; if it were me I would start in the lower register like the recorded versions and then play it an octave higher as a variation as you do.
Thanks for your comments and suggestions. Much appreciated. In fact, Iāve converted your email into a PDF and put it in my āNightfallā folder so I can refer to it in the future. Iām open to any and all ideas. As to your suggestion 3, yea I know. It was very late, and I wanted to get a fairly clean take before shutting down. I canāt write musical notation easily, and I had spent several hours tooling around with voicings, etc. and didnāt want to lose what I had at that moment. The MIDI version, accompanied with Logicās score editor, makes getting back up to speed pretty easy. Another plus of Logic.
Thanks, Scott! Iāve been listening to Skyline since you suggested in the other thread. That was also my introduction to Rubalcaba (Iām a listening toddler), and Iāll look forward to expanding my horizons as you suggest!
Thanks, Kirk; thatās very generous! I played a lot as a kid (classical then high school and college bands), set it aside for about 40 years (job, kids, etc), then picked things up again about 18 mo ago with pianogroove as a pandemic activity. My main goal has been to improve at improv and reharms, which is still a work in progress. I very much enjoy the community and PG resources.
my fellow grooversā¦L.
