Courtney Pine Flashcards
Context of the Courtney Pine and work
- Courtney Pine was born in 1964
- Contemporary jazz musician whose style blends soul, rhythm and blues, reggae and hip hop with traditional elements
- He is a virtuoso saxophonist who also performs on flute, bass clarinet and keyboards
- Back in the Day (2000) was Pine’s eighth album one
which he produced himself - Two of the works studied are covers ‘Lady Day and (John Coltrane) by Gil Scott-Heron (1971) and ‘Love and affection’ by Joan Armatrading (1976)
What is the instrumentation for each of the works
There is a considerable contrast of instruments used in the 3 songs:
- ‘Lady Day and (John Coltrane)’ is scored for vocals, piano, guitars and saxophone
- ‘Inner State (of Mind)’ uses a ‘jazz horn’ grouping, which does not include horns but instead saxophone, trumpet and trombone. Other resources include vocals, rap and guitars
- ‘Love and affection’ includes vocal, bvocals, guitar, bass clarinet, tenor sax and strings
Describe the sonority
- Distortions and random background sounds at the start of ‘Inner State (of Mind)’
- Use of the a ‘drum programme/drum machine’ in Inner state and Lady Day John Coltrane
- Dubbed voices in Inner state of mind and Lady Day
- Extended performance techniques (multiphonics and key clicks) in Lady Day John Coltrane
- Variation of vocal timbres in Love and Affection
Describe the tempo, metre and rhythm
Inner state: a brisk quadruple metre throughout
Lady Day: moves from fast quadruple to a slower rubato section at the close
Love and Affection: opens with a rubato quadruple time passage before moving into an upbeat strict tempo
See revision guide for rhythmic features
Describe the texture
- Predominantly homophonic or mel-dom hom
See revision guide for each piece
Describe the Melody in ‘Inner state (of Mind)’
- Pentatonicism bars 1-2
- Blue notes bar 2 (Gb)
- Chromaticism bar 100 (ornamented chromatic decent)
- Borrowing of melody from Gershwin’s ‘Summertime’
- Scat singing bars 52-53
Describe the Melody in ‘Love and Affection’
- string motif uses minor pentatonic scale, bars 84-85
- Melismas bar 47
- Conjunct lines e.g bars 16-19
Describe the Melody in ‘Lady Day and (John Coltrane)’
- Blue notes bar 23 (Gb)
- Narrow-range lines bars 5-7
Frequent ornamentation:
- Acciaccaturas (bar 8)
- Controlled vibrato (bar 39)
- Bending of notes (bar 45)
- Glissandos (bar 55)
Describe the harmony in ‘Lady Day and (John Coltrane)
- 12-bar blues
- 7th chords (bar 21)
- 7ths are sometimes laced with #9ths which produce false relations (bar 1)
- 9th chords (bar 47)
- 13th chords (bar 81)
- Augmented chord (bar 119)
- parallel harmony (parallel 7th chords) bar 65
- Change of harmonic rhythm i.e. rate of chord changes per bar (final section, from bar 119)
Describe the harmony in ‘Love and affection’
- Primary chords (bar 22 onwards)
- Use of basic (non-extended) chords (opening)
- Chromatic side stepping (bar 62 onwards)
Describe the harmony in ‘Inner State (of Mind)’
- Half-diminished chords (bar 53)
- False relations (bar 18)
Describe the tonality and structure in ‘Love and affection’
- opens in C# minor but continues in E major
- Freely evolving structure starts with an introduction before moving into a riff-based song with a prominent refrain
Describe the tonality and structure in ‘Inner state (of Mind)’
- C minor with a modal (2 flat) key signature
- Freely evolving structure with the recurring ‘inner state’ motif, instrumentals and alternating verse and rap sections
Describe the tonality and structure in ‘Lady Day and (John Coltrane)
- Also in C minor like Inner state
- Modified 12 bar blues with introduction and extended coda
