At last count, there were 5,276 jazz tunes based on the harmonic structure of “I Got Rhythm.” Like so many statistics, that one is invented; I have no idea how many “Rhythm” knockoffs there are. They started coming not long after George and Ira Gershwin (pictured) wrote the song for the 1930 Broadway musical Girl Crazy. Sidney Bechet’s “Shag” materialized in 1932, and earlier than that there may have been “IGR” contrafacts—as such chordal derivatives are known. Bebop thrived on them. Fats Navarro, for instance, wrote one called “Eb Pob” (spell the words backward). Charlie Parker wrote “Steeplechase,” Bud Powell “Wail,” Sonny Rollins “Oleo.” The list goes on. And on. And on. Chances are that at this very moment, somebody is writing another one.
In the improbable event that you don’t remember how the original song goes, guitarist John Pizzarelli and his bassist brother Martin performed it a few years ago on a Ramsey Lewis television show. They refresh our memories.
In the next exhibit, we present one of best-known and best-loved of all the pieces inspired by “I Got Rhythm.” It is performed by its composer, Thelonious Monk, with Charlie Rouse, tenor saxophone; Larry Gales, bass; and Ben Riley, drums. This is from a 1966 broadcast on the BBC in London.
I’m away tomorrow for a reunion with old friends, then quickly back home for a family celebration. Rifftides will return anon. In the meantime, go to Archives in the right-hand column and look around. In the more than a decade of posts, you may find something you’ll like.
Have a good weekend.
Musicians who use “Rhythm” changes to create a line/tune are not composers, they are stealing from Gershwin! Harsh words? What else did you expect from a composer in the real sense? A composer worth his salt invents the main ingredients—melody/harmony and rhythm—as one.
Melodies can be copyrighted, chord progressions can’t. (If they could, the first guy to register a 12-bar blues would be richer than Trump.) Additionally, jazz gigs usually don’t afford rehearsal time and using familiar progressions allows an ad hoc group to perform new material. Hence the rise of contrafacts. The authors are composers of original melodies based on un-original harmonies (as are the soloists). Sometimes the new melodies are superior to the originals. Anyway, nothing in music is completely original.
“Rhythm” changes were by no means original to Gershwin. The A section is simply an expanded 1-6-2-5 progression. The bridge harmonies were also used earlier (e.g., as the bridge to Fats Waller’s “Handful of Keys”).
So–to pick only a few examples–Ellington wasn’t a composer when he wrote “Cotton Tail,” and Ralph Burns “Apple Honey” and Eddie Sauter “The Loop” and Thad Jones “Little Pixie” and “Fingers”? Really, Jack? I don’t know about you, but I’d be proud to “non-compose” any of those classic pieces.
5,276? My team of experts says that 73.6 percent of statistics are made up on the spot (+/- 73.6 percent margin of error).
Seriously, though, I love the layers of meaning that a contrafact carries. It’s one tune, and yet it’s multiple tunes at once, with added reference to their respective lyrics when those exist. It’s remarkable how much information one chord progression can carry within itself.
At an Arbors Records Jazz Party, I once saw John Pizzarelli play an entire chorus using artificial harmonics. (For non-guitarists, this means plucking the string exactly 12 frets below where the left finger is placed. This produces the unusually beautiful sound.) I wasn’t aware that one could do this at a rapid rate—previously thought it impossible!) The Pizzarelli family members are all wonderfully talented and so personable!
Love your columns; both interesting and informative. Keep up the good work.
More precisely, the string is lightly touched by a right hand finger 12 frets away while simultaneously plucking the string. This causes the string to vibrate in two sections producing a bell-like tone one 8va above the note being fretted by the left hand. The harmonics can also be produced by tapping the string rather than touching and plucking.
Ellington must have sometimes used “Rhythm” changes, but it seems to me he preferred the form of “Rose of the Rio Grande.” Several of the band’s tunes were based on those changes.
Hmmm….I am among the few persons around who doesn’t mind using other folks’ changes, but doesn’t like the word “contrafact.” Another is my friend the fine bassist Steve Wallace, who addressed the topic on his blog earlier in the year.
Reminder: a phrase or word highlighted in blue, as in Mr. O’Reilly’s comment above, is a link. Click on it and you’ll be sent to the linkee. (“Linkee” is not in the dictionary, but it should be). Steve Wallace’s erudite, forthright, informative and often wry blog is among those recommended in the Blogroll near the foot of the Rifftides right-hand column. Toward the end of his essay on “contrafact” and why it should die is a recommendation for an alternate term that looks and sounds less stuffy. I won’t give it away. Go to Steve—but come back, please.
Wallace’s commentary is fantastic. Two other takeaways from it are that:
1. Appropriation happens, even in the sixteenth century and earlier, and certainly not out of laziness or creative illegitimacy as alleged above (Missa L’homme armé — in Dufay’s and other settings, there was some serious heavy lifting). Much depends on whether it’s put to some creative, transformative use. And the existing material’s meaning can be leveraged to great effect (say, like playing the Benny Hill theme over “When the Saints Go Marching In” — essentially the same progression).
2. In earlier years of jazz’s existence, there were many well intended arguments for its legitimacy which attempted to draw equivalences between aspects of jazz and “Western art music” (as if the latter were the only standard for gauging legitimacy). Again, appropriation brings context — and sometimes baggage.
Thank you, Ted, for the link to Steve Wallace’s remarkable piece on a subject in which I have been passionately interested for many years.
I remember the discussions about it that Cathy and Darius Brubeck and I had when we were all living in Durban in the 1980s…