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'