Courtney Pine - Back in the Day
Harmony & Tonality
General Context
Structure & Form
Texture
Instrumentation
Melody
Rhythm & Metre
12 Bar Blues/Blues Scales
Pentatonicism
Quartal Harmony
Chord Extensions
Modes
Homophony
Antiphony
Polyphony
Acciaccatura
Blue Notes
Tritone Interval
Chromaticism
Melismas
Syncopation
Swung Rhythm
Scotch-Snap
Freely Evolving with recurring 'Inner State' motif - Inner State
Opens with section of free rhythm; also has a middle 8 section - piece is structured by the main riff in the bass (E-G#-A-B) - Love and Affection
Modified-Strophic Form - Lady Day
Courtney Pine is one of the most successful British Jazz musicians of the modern era. His music fuses Jazz with modern popular styles.
His Jazz influences include Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins - 'Lady Day and (John Coltrane)' is a tribute to 20th Century Jazz greats vocalist Billie Holiday and tenor saxophonist John Coltrane.
His parent's are from Jamaica - influenced by Reggae. More recently influenced by Hip-Hop - In Back in the Day (2000), Pine make use of conventional features of Hip-Hop such as rap and turntable performers
Pine is a virtuosic tenor & soprano saxophonist; flautist; bass clarinettist and keyboard-player - he is also a DJ, so is well-versed in turntable and other techniques.
It is common in modern Jazz to cover popular songs of the era: 'Lady Day and (John Coltrane)' is a cover of a piece by Gil Scott-Heron (1971) and 'Love and Affection' is a cover of a piece by Joan Armatrading (1976).
'Inner State (of Mind)' pays tribute to Jazz Standard - Gershwin's 'Summertime' with the main melody as well as to Miles Davis' 'So What' with the Cm7 and Dm7 chords.
Lady Day and (John Coltrane)
Love and Affection
Inner State (of Mind)
Jazz/Blues influence: Stop-time effect; Bass Clarinet; Blue Notes; Soprano Sax & Improvisation
Jazz/Blues influence: Tenor Sax; Blue Notes; Scat vocals; Glissandos/Portamentos
Jazz/Blues influence: Tenor Sax; Hammond Organ and Rhodes Piano; Stop-time effects & Portamento
Hip-Hop influence: Turntable and Rap
Hip-Hop influence: Sampling (spoken recording referencing Stephen Lawrence) & Reverse Cymbals
Extended Sax techniques: Key Clicks; Smears; Fall-offs & Multiphonic
Hip-Hop influence: Drums and Guitar - Power Chord and Low-fi Crackles
Pedals
Inner State (of Mind) - C Dorian
Love and Affection - More Diatonic Harmony - Starts C#m but modulates to E
Lady Day and (John Coltrane) - Cm with a modal feel - sort of Dorian
Inner State (of Mind) - end of 2nd rap - 2 bars of Quartal Harmony within Piano and Tenor Sax
Beginning of Lady Day - feel of 12 Bar Blues
Inner State opens with a vocal line based on a Blues Scale and a Blue Notes in the Tenor Sax
Inner State - Pentatonic Riffs towards the end of the piece
Love and Affection - Highly Pentatonic vocal line
Love and Affection - Middle 8 section - evidence of Blues Scale - Blue Notes in vocal line
Love and Affection - 62-65, Chromatically descending chord sequence over melismatic vocal line(G - F#7add4 - Fmaj7(#4) - E) gives bluesy, Mixolydian feel
Jazz influence - Frequent use of chord extensions throughout all three pieces...
added 4ths, 7ths, 9ths, 11ths and 13ths; some sharpened, flattened; some augmented and half-diminished; suspended 4ths and a power chord
Lady Day - Tonic Pedal towards the end
Love and Affection - 10 Bar Tonic Pedal
Lady Day - generally Melody-dominated Homophony with small section of Homophony at the 2nd time bar of the chorus
Inner State - Melody-dominated Homophony with a Homorhythmic instrumental link at the end of the 2nd rap
Love and Affection - begins Melody-dominated Homophony with a homophonic instrumental link to further Mel-dom Hom
Love and Affection - elements of antiphony in chorus - between main and backing vocals - imitation of 'sing it'
Love and Affection - elements of polyphony between the main and backing vocals and accompaniment
Lady Day - Saxophone has improvised music which includes a lot of syncopation
Love and Affection - Syncopated bass riff (E-G#-A-B)
Inner State - Blue note acciaccatura in the Sax bar 8
Lady Day - Opens with melisma with a blue note flattened 5th
Free-rhythm
Love and Affection - opens with a section of Free-rhythm
Love and Affection - use of the scotch-snap rhythm in the vocals on 'you took me dancing'
Inner State - swung rhythms in the pentatonic riffs in bars 104/5 - Jazz influence
Love and Affection - use of a triton between the Soprano Sax and Bass guitar - Bb and E
Inner State - opens with Blue note in Tenor Sax
Love and Affection - Middle 8 section - Blue notes in vocal line
Love and Affection - 62-65 melismatic vocal line
Lady Day - Rapid chromatic scale ad lib in Sax
Both Obie Trice's 'Oh!' and Eminem 'Lose Yourself' feature Reverse Cymbals
Obie Trice's Oh! and Eminem's Lose Yourself both feature rapped vocals
CONTRAST - Charlie Parker's 'Ko-Ko' uses a fast walking bass during the choruses - Jazz influence
Oh! - some syncopation in accomp parts & heavily syncopated rapped and sung vocals
Lose Yourself - heavily syncopated rapped and sung vocal line
Both Pine and Trice often use chromaticism as a result of their respective Jazz and Bebop style
Trice also makes use of flattened 5ths
CONTRAST - Lose Yourself - exclusively syllabic vocal line
CONTRAST - Oh! - almost completely syllabic vocal line
Lose Yourself - chorus melody based on Dorian mode
Oh! (Eb minor) and Lose Yourself (D minor) - Diatonic Harmony - but NO modulations
Ko-ko - Mainly diatonic - modulates using the circle of 5ths
Oh! - processed string riff and glockenspiel ostinato based on minor pentatonic scale
Lose Yourself - inverted tonic pedal before main rapped vocals
Bebop - chord extensions and added notes
Lose Yourself - polyphony in chorus
Oh! - polyphony in final chorus
Oh! and Lose Yourself - primarily melody-dominated homophony
CONTRAST - Oh! and Lose Yourself - song form
Oh! and Lose Yourself - based on ostinatos and riffs
Ko-Ko - based on 32-bar song form pattern of changes from Ray Noble's 'Cherokee'
Charlie Parker - Alto saxophonist
Ko-Ko - Based on pattern of changes from Ray Noble's 'Cherokee'