Jazz Score Analysis

Arranging Music

Score Analysis

In this assignment, I will be comparing a jazz arrangement of Sammy Nestico’s work with one of Thad Jones.

The score of “Hay Burner” by Sammy Nestico, starts off in contrary motion while in the arrangement of “US”, Thad Jones uses parallel motion. Nestico’s use of contrary motion keeps the listener engaged by keeping it interesting through the movement of contrast and tension, helping to keep the music flowing and to give a strong sense of direction where Jones’ integration of parallel motion is more rigid and blocky resulting in a predictability that which can lead to monotony making listeners lose focus easily.

The rhythm used in Thad Jones arrangement involves a great difference of sound within bars 2 to 5 where there are quavers and semiquavers that are include auxiliary and passing notes and the decorative use of gliss on the trumpets in bar 3. By using a variety of dynamics such as the accented notes marked with a marcato along with the F (forte/loudness) at the beginning, makes the music relatively more prominent in this given context.

Sammy Nestico uses many of the (VI), II, V, I progressions’ and simple Chords such as C⁷, C^b9 and C^o7 but less frequently the chord extensions of C^{7(b9 b5)} and C^#11 whereas Thad Jones does; this can be seen in bars 57: the use of C^6/9/G; bar 68: Bb(sus4) and Emaj9 #11; Jones’ uses the extensions of ^b9, ^{b9 #5}, ^#11 and maj^13(#11) more often than what Nestico does along with some contrary motion; this maintains the interest of the listener by implementing a diverse range of colours and texture in the music while Nestico’s sppears to lack this feature quite often; this may explain why we may become less focused quicker than Jones’ arrangements do, though this is not completely a bad thing as Jones’ compensates this with other musical ideas.

Jones’ arrangement, for the most part, is in the use of solo instruments and instrumental groupings that Nestico does not use as often except for the occasion of bars 55 to 58 and bars 95 to 99, otherwise, it is mostly all instrument or with just a few omitted from the music.

At the beginning of Thad Jones arrangement, he includes an improvisation for the sax (even despite the fact that this is not written on the score, obviously not an improvisation would be). Thad Jones also includes a piano solo at the end of bar 28 through bars 29 to 34 which leads into the trombone section playing for bars 35 to 42 to give some opulence, Jones adds trumpets to the following 8 bars of bars 43 to 50 by adding together unison trumpets; this gives more texture and colour within the brass part of the music.

“Scalar Plaining” is commonly used in jazz that allows one to keep a note that is not within the chord because this note (even though it could be a passing note) is treated as the closest note below it that is in the chord or if there’s a tie then it is the chord the note ends on: the next chord that will be used instead of the one in the current position; Sammy Nestico uses this a lot, for example, the last quaver of bar 43 would be Am⁷ but the next chord B^b6 is used instead and bar 53, the off beat of beat 1 (A^b) would use the chord of F/C but instead the chord used is G^7(b9) in which also can be used in the previous chord of D^{7(b9 b5)} as well.

When observing bar 53 in the Jones’ arrangement, parallelism is being used; parallelism here involves the use of all the instruments playing in the same direction rather than a little mixture of contrary and/or parallel motion but this is just pure parallel (parallelism).

Further on in bar 55, Jones also uses a chromatic movement that helps to build tension for what is to come in the next section of the music.

Sammy Nestico uses close part harmony to build up tension (usually keeping the note order top to bottom not crossing the voices and rarely using the techniques of drop 4 and to relief that tension he uses open part harmony with the use of drop 2 (dropping the 2nd note from the top of the trumpets or sax’s to the bottom, an octave lower allowing to prevent voices from crossing).

Jones use some of the drop 4 technique (which is the same as the drop 2 but instead dropping the 4th from the top of the trumpets or sax’s as well and drop the 4th to the bottom below the dropped 2 and placed that an octave lower to avoid the voices from crossing); This technique is very useful because when harmonising, we are most likely to start harmonise in parallel motion and with the advantages of the drop 2 and drop 4 we (or the arranger) has more control in the flow of the music, to avoid parallel motion and use as much as contrary motion as possible.

Jones uses drop 2 in bar 51 where contrary motion is created once between parallel and in the sax soli of Nestico’s arrangement at bar 58 where he also uses drop 2 but does not really enter contrary motion but stays in parallel for a while.

Finally, using all instruments at once, the two arrangers achieve great effects, such as Jones’ ending of a section at bar 57 with a marcato and a small pause, releasing some of the tension that has built up, ready for the next section to come in.

However, Nestico makes better use by ending the music with all the instruments playing with the chord spread out (open harmony) and a little rhythm on the drums which make it sound more or less flashy but most importantly the pause showing the end.