Approaching jazz composition through the music of Billy Strayhorn

Leonie Freudenberger

Name: Leonie Freudenberger Main Subject: Jazz Saxophone Research Coach: Karst de Jong Title of Research: Approaching jazz composition through the music of Billy Strayhorn Research Question: What are the most important elements of Billy Strayhorn's compositions? How can I incorporate his compositional approach in my own writing? Billy Strayhorn (1915–1976) was a jazz pianist, composer, arranger, orchestrator and lyricist whose works have influenced the genre of jazz music until today. The research contains two phases: First, the analysis of his compositions. Second, the attempt to compose originals using the detected stylistic, harmonic, melodic and conceptional tools. Considering the enormous oeuvre that Strayhorn produced, it is inevitable to make a selection of songs to analyze. My criteria for this selection are the following: Which songs have become part of the standard repertoire in jazz, performed by various artists throughout the 20th (and 21st) century? Where can I find aural trademarks, which I recognize both as a listener and as a player and which contribute to my personal perception of the “Strayhorn sound”? Can the compositions be reduced to a lead sheet and performed by a small jazz combo without losing their essence? My final intention is not only to compose using Strayhorn-typical elements and tools, but also to write music for myself as a performer and for my group to play it. On longer terms, I hope that I can abstract this method further on and profit from it beyond the results of this research. Biography: Leonie Freudenberger, born 1988 in Baden-Baden (D), has played the alto saxophone since her childhood. She started her professional jazz education at the University of Music in Mannheim in 2008 and came to Den Haag in 2011, where she finished her Bachelor's degree. Apart from her Master studies, she writes music and performs with her own group and takes part in various projects, playing alto and baritone saxophone.

UMMG (Upper Manhattan Medical Group)

In 1964, Strayhorn fell seriously ill and was in fact diagnosed with cancer. He dedicated this tune to his doctor. This composition shows a late Strayhorn with a fresh approach. He was clearly influenced by bebop and cool jazz in this last period of his work, and with UMMG, reminiscing of bebop tunes like Gillespie’s Woody’n You from 1942, Strayhorn presented a state-of-the-art interpretation to the fashionable scene.

The significance of UMMG lies in the chord movement A^7#9/Db – Db^maj, which occurs in bar 5 of “A” (repeated) and then as a four-bar tag in the end of the last “A”, often played as vamp in the very ending. A^7#9/Db is the first inversion of a tritone-related double dominant, or V⁷ of V. “It is in fact a double-diminished seventh chord in its second inversion, built on the raised fourth step G – a chord that achieves its power from its multiple chromatic leading notes” (van de Leur, p.143). It does not resolve in the dominant Ab⁷, but directly in Db. The melody goes along with this motion: it jumps down a tritone interval to Bbb on the downbeat (the first downbeat of the theme), giving a special emphasis to this chord, and then resolves to a Bb on the Db chord, synchronous to the harmonic rhythm.

Generally, the piece is constructed mostly out of minor II-V changes, i.e. half-diminished subdominants and altered dominants, which sometimes resolve in a major tonic anyway. Almost all melody notes are tensions or upper-structure material. Only in bar 6 (repeated), there is a Db arpeggio. The “A” section is an almost perfect diatonic cadence of IIIm^7b5-VI^7b9-IIm⁷-V⁷-I, except for the delay of the tonic through the upper-chromatic double dominant. The bridge sequences a four-bar phrase over IIm^7b5-V^7b9 to F^maj, and a IIm^7b5-V^7b9 to Gbm.

Upper Manhattan Medical Groupis rhythmically quite advanced, and also the melody is energetic in its constant up and down-movements and jumps. In addition to that, the harmonic agility through a multitude of chords and the melody that does not imply a clear tonality make UMMG a very complex, almost edgy composition.

Tip

Tip