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Erik Satie – Gnossienne 1 – Otto Tolonen, guitar (with sheet music)

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Erik Satie

Éric Alfred Leslie Satie was a French pianist and avant-garde composer. He was also famous for being an author, some of his most famous works were published in “Vanity Fair” and “Dadaist 391″.

Erik Satie was born on May 17, 1866 in Honfleur, Normandy. At the age of six, the young Satie was forced to move to his paternal grandparent’s house upon the news of his mother’s death. There, his grandparents arranged for his first lessons in music. These lessons continued until age twelve, after which the young Satie reunited with his father, who had now married a piano teacher. Satie then continued his music education with his stepmother and at the age of thirteen, he joined the famous Paris Conservatoire.

However, his time at the Conservatoire was not be easy, as his teachers severely disliked his playing style. His teachers often remarked that he was “the laziest student in the Conservatoire”. Satie, dissatisfied with his time at the Conservatoire left it to serve for a year in the army. However,  his teachers at the Conservatoire who suggested to him to take up composition.

Satie’s father published three of Satie’s works in 1886. They were titled “Elegie”, “Trois Melodies” and “Chanson”. Satie soon followed up his initial compositions with more eccentric works such as “Gymnopedies”, ”Ogives”, and “Gnossiennes”. In 1887 Satie befriended the famous French Impressionist Composer Claude Debussy, and the two often discussed the latest trends in music.

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Satie also found inspiration from the artistic gatherings at the famous “Le Chat Noir Café-Cabaret”. However, this was a difficult time for Satie financially. He survived as a cabaret pianist, adapting popular music for the piano. During this period, Satie wrote the music for a pantomime by Jules Depaquit titled “Jack in the Box”.

In 1905, Satie decided to try his luck at counterpoint. He enrolled in the Schola Cantorum de Paris under Vincent d’Indy. His newfound efforts to better himself served as a precursor to his celebrity status. By 1912, Satie partnered with the Spanish Pianist Robert Vines to release a serious of humorous piano shorts.

These piano shorts showered Satie with praise and attention, and it led people to investigate and rediscover many of Satie’s lost works. This era saw one of his earliest works, Gymnopedies, earn plenty of praise and acclaim. Satie also had the French Composer Maurice Ravel to thank for much of his fame, as he pointed out Satie’s genius to France’s elite.

Post 1912 Satie wrote a number of orchestral and instrumental works. In 1918 he wrote the “Musique d’ameublement”, and in 1914 he wrote the “Autre Choral”. He also wrote ten dramatic pieces after 1912. In 1917, he wrote one of his largest vocal works, the “Socrate: Drame Symphonique”.

Erik Satie died on July 1, 1925 in Paris, France. He developed the cirrhosis of the liver, together with pleurisy, which claimed his life. Satie received the last rites of the Catholic Church in his death bed. In his honor, a tiny stone monument has been erected. Satie received plenty of posthumous attention, his friends and colleagues discovered many of his works that remained unpublished. This included the orchestral score to “Parade”, “Vexations”, and many additions to “The Dreamy Fish” and the Schola Cantorum Exercises.

The Gnossiennes

The Gnossiennes are several piano compositions written by the French composer Erik Satie in the late 19th century. The works are for the most part in free time (lacking time signatures or bar divisions) and highly experimental with form, rhythm and chordal structure. The form as well as the term was invented by Satie.

Etymology

Satie’s coining of the word gnossienne was one of the rare occasions when a composer used a new term to indicate a new “type” of composition. Satie used many novel names for his compositions (vexations, croquis et agaceries and so on). Ogive, for example, is the name of an architectural element which was used by Satie as the name for a composition, the Ogives. Gnossienne, however, was a word that did not exist before Satie used it as a title for a composition.

The word appears to derive from gnosis. Satie was involved in gnostic sects and movements at the time that he began to compose the Gnossiennes. However, some published versions claim that the word derives from Cretan “knossos” or “gnossus”; this interpretation supports the theory linking the Gnossiennes to the myth of Theseus, Ariadne and the Minotaur. Several archeological sites relating to that theme were famously excavated around the time that Satie composed the Gnossiennes.

It is possible that Satie may have drawn inspiration for the title of these compositions from a passage in John Dryden‘s 1697 translation of the Aeneid, in which it is thought the word first appeared:

Let us the land which Heav’n appoints, explore;
Appease the winds, and seek the Gnossian shore.

Characteristics

The Gnossiennes were composed by Satie in the decade following the composition of the Sarabandes (1887) and the Trois Gymnopédies (1888). Like these Sarabandes and Gymnopédies, the Gnossiennes are often considered dances. It is not certain that this qualification comes from Satie himself – the sarabande and the gymnopaedia were at least historically known as dances.

The musical vocabulary of the Gnossiennes is a continuation of that of the Gymnopédies (a development that had started with the 1886 Ogives and the Sarabandes) later leading to more harmonic experimentation in compositions like the Danses gothiques (1893). These series of compositions are all at the core of Satie’s characteristic late 19th century style, and in this sense differ from his early salon compositions (like the 1885 “Waltz” compositions published in 1887), his turn-of-the-century cabaret songs (Je te veux), and his post-Schola Cantorum piano solo compositions, starting with the Préludes flasques in 1912.

Trois Gnossiennes

These Three Gnossiennes were composed around 1890 and first published in 1893. A revision prior to publication in 1893 is not unlikely; the 2nd Gnossienne may even have been composed in that year (it has “April 1893” as date on the manuscript). The piano solo versions of the first three Gnossiennes are without time signatures or bar lines, which is known as free time.

These Gnossiennes were first published in Le Figaro musical No. 24 of September 1893 (Gnossiennes Nos. 1 and 3, the last one of these then still “No. 2”) and in Le Cœur No. 6–7 of September–October 1893 (Gnossienne No. 2 printed as facsimile, then numbered “No. 6”).

The first grouped publication, numbered as known henceforth, followed in 1913. By this time Satie had indicated 1890 as composition date for all three. The first Gnossienne was dedicated to Alexis Roland-Manuel in the 1913 reprint. The 1893 facsimile print of the 2nd Gnossienne contained a dedication to Antoine de La Rochefoucauld, not repeated in the 1913 print. This de La Rochefoucauld had been a co-founder of Joséphin Péladan‘s Ordre de la Rose-Croix Catholique et Esthetique du Temple et du Graal in 1891. By the second publication of the first set of three Gnossiennes, Satie had broken already for a long time with all Rosicrucian type of endeavours.

Also with respect to the tempo these Gnossiennes follow the Gymnopédies line: slow tempos, respectively Lent (French for Lento/slow), avec étonnement (“with astonishment”), and again Lent.

A sketch containing only two incomplete bars, dated around 1890, shows Satie beginning to orchestrate the 3rd Gnossienne.

The first and third Gnossiennes share a similar chordal structure, rhythm and share reference to each other’s thematic material.

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Did you know? Best Classical Music J.S. Bach Musical Analysis

Encountering BACH: ein Dokumentarfilm (2020)

Encountering BACH: ein Dokumentarfilm (2020)

In dieser Dokumentation können Sie Bach-Sehenswürdigkeiten besuchen, seine Geschichten und seine Musik entdecken

Eine Online-Dokumentation über den deutschen Komponisten Johann Sebastian Bach, die auf dem Youtube-Kanal Bachfest Malaysia verfügbar ist, macht unter Klassikfans, die in diesen Pandemiezeiten keine Live-Konzerte mehr haben, ihre Runde.

Encountering Bach, Begegnung mit Bach, die eine Laufzeit von 130 Minuten hat, nimmt die Zuschauer mit auf eine Reise zu wichtigen Bach-Wahrzeichen in Deutschland, während sie seine Lebensgeschichten und seine Musik entdecken.

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Der Dokumentarfilm ist sowohl auf Englisch als auch auf Mandarin verfügbar und wird von David Chin, dem Gründer des Bachfest Malaysia, moderiert und vom Künstlerischen Leiter des Bachfest Leipzig und Musikwissenschaftler des Bach-Archiv Leipzig, Michael Maul, und dem Musikwissenschaftler und Forscher des Bach-Archiv Leipzig, Manuel Baerwald, gemeinsam moderiert.

„Die Idee, einen Film über das Leben und die Musik Bachs in meiner Muttersprache Mandarin zu machen, hatte ich schon eine Weile im Kopf, da nur sehr wenige Bücher auf Chinesisch über den Komponisten geschrieben wurden, geschweige denn ein Film. Wir haben uns entschieden, diesen Film in zwei Sprachen zu veröffentlichen, in der Hoffnung, so viele Menschen wie möglich zu erreichen“, sagt Chin, 35.

„Als Dirigent und Musikwissenschaftler habe ich immer Wege gefunden, meinen malaysischen Landsleuten und der globalen Gemeinschaft einen Beitrag zu leisten, was ich kann“, fügt er hinzu.

Er erinnert sich, wie ein zufälliges Treffen mit Maul beim Bachfest Leipzig im Sommer 2018 den Samen für dieses Projekt gelegt hat.

Als Chin im folgenden Jahr die Gelegenheit erhielt, mehrere von Bachs Originalmanuskripten, darunter die Kantate Nr. 62 und den berühmten „Entwurff“-Brief, in der Bibliothek des Bach-Archivs in Leipzig, Deutschland, einzusehen, ging ihm die Glühbirne durch den Kopf.

Dies war eine Geschichte, die darauf wartete, erzählt zu werden.

Nach einer Flut von E-Mails und Telefonaten nach seiner Rückkehr nach Hause saß er wieder in einem Flugzeug nach Deutschland, um mit der Arbeit an dem Dokumentarfilm zu beginnen.

„Von der Entscheidung für dieses Projekt (Mitte August 2019) bis zum Beginn der Dreharbeiten in Deutschland (Anfang September 2019) verging nicht viel Zeit. Ich habe die Gliederung innerhalb weniger Tage erstellt und viele, viele Bücher in sehr kurzer Zeit gelesen.

„Natürlich habe ich viel über Bach recherchiert und in den vergangenen Jahren viele seiner Werke aufgeführt, aber dennoch gibt es so viel über ihn zu lernen“, sagt er.

Chin lebte 15 Jahre lang in den USA, bevor er nach Malaysia zurückkehrte. Heute lebt er in Kuala Lumpur.

Als er diesen Dokumentarfilm während der Lockdown-Monate zusammenstellte, sinniert er darüber, dass er so viel mehr über Bach gelernt hat.

„Natürlich habe ich viel über Bach recherchiert und in den vergangenen Jahren viele seiner Werke aufgeführt, aber dennoch gibt es so viel über ihn zu lernen“, sagt er.

Chin lebte 15 Jahre lang in den USA, bevor er nach Malaysia zurückkehrte. Heute lebt er in Kuala Lumpur.

Als er diesen Dokumentarfilm während der Lockdown-Monate zusammenstellte, sinniert er darüber, dass er so viel mehr über Bach gelernt hat.

„Ich habe wirklich jeden Aspekt beim Drehen dieses Films genossen. Eines der Dinge, für die ich am meisten dankbar bin, sind die Menschen, die ich bei der Entstehung dieses Projekts getroffen habe. Ich habe den „Platz in der ersten Reihe“ erhalten, indem mir die Direktoren der Museen eine exklusive VIP-Führung gegeben haben, während wir gefilmt haben, und das ist kein Privileg, das jeder haben kann. Ich habe viel von den besten Leuten auf ihrem Gebiet gelernt“, sagt er.

Encountering Bach enthält Interviews mit 15 prominenten Gelehrten und Musikern sowie Aufnahmen musikalischer Darbietungen von Musikern aus Malaysia, Singapur, Hongkong, Deutschland, der Schweiz und den Vereinigten Staaten.

Dieses Projekt, sagt Chin, wäre ohne den Videografen und Geiger Moses Lim nicht möglich gewesen, der seine Ausrüstung nach Deutschland schleppte, zwölf Tage lang von morgens bis abends filmte und dann am Schnitt arbeitete.

Insgesamt dauerte die Fertigstellung 15 Monate, wobei neun kurze Episoden zu verschiedenen Themen im Jahr vor der Premiere des Dokumentarfilms in voller Länge im letzten Monat verfügbar gemacht wurden.

„Ich habe versucht, im Film eine gemeinsame Sprache zu verwenden, damit Menschen, die keine Musiker sind, eine Vorstellung davon bekommen, wovon ich spreche. Gleichzeitig habe ich auch Themen behandelt, denen viele Musiker normalerweise nicht ausgesetzt sind, sodass sie die Möglichkeit haben, sich durch das unterhaltsame Format eines Films besser zu informieren“, schließt er.

Später im Jahr wird Chin Beethovens „Missa Solemnis“-Konzerttournee in Sabah und Sarawak dirigieren. Auf dem diesjährigen Programm stehen ein Kantatenkonzert von Bach für die Malaysia Bach Festival Singers and Orchestra, ein Eröffnungskonzert für den neuen Mendelssohnchor Malaysia und Bachs „Weihnachtsoratorium“.

Chin wurde eingeladen, 2022 in der Carnegie Hall in New York und der St. Thomas Church in Leipzig zu dirigieren.

In diesem 130-minütigen Dokumentarfilm besucht Dr. David Chin zusammen mit 15 prominenten deutschen Bach-Forschern und Musikern die wichtigen Bach-Sehenswürdigkeiten in ganz Mitteldeutschland und entdeckt die interessanten Geschichten und die wunderbare Musik von Johann Sebastian Bach, mit musikalischen Ausschnitten von renommierten Musikern aus Malaysia, Singapur, Hongkong, den Vereinigten Staaten, Deutschland, der Schweiz, den Niederlanden und anderen.

陳子虔博士將與十五位德國當代著名的巴赫（巴哈）學家與音樂家在這兩小時的影片，帶大家去到德國與巴赫有關的地點，為大家介紹約翰·瑟巴斯蒂安·巴赫生平有趣的故事，並與大家分享他的音樂，同時由來自馬來西亞、新加坡、香港、美國、德國、荷蘭以及瑞典等著名的音樂家與樂團作音樂示範，其中包括著名的萊比錫聖多馬男聲合唱團。

Lesen Sie mehr über Bach:

The Creative Development of Johann Sebastian Bach (1695-1717) Vol. I and II

bach sheet music

Bach, J. S. – Air on the G String Piano solo arr. from Suite No. 3 BWV 1068 (sheet music)

Bach: Mass in B Minor/B小調彌撒曲/h-Moll-Messe, BWV 232

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Wave – Vou Te Contar Jobim (guitar) sheet music

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Wave – Vou Te Contar Jobim (guitar) with sheet music

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TOM JOBIM

Brazilian songwriter and vocalist Antonio Carlos Jobim (1927–1994) was one of the creators of the subtle, whispery, jazz-influenced popular song style known as bossa nova. He has been widely acclaimed as one of Brazil’s greatest and most innovative musicians of the twentieth century.

Jobim’s place in the annals of popular music was secured by a single hit song, “The Girl from Ipanema” (1964), which he co-wrote with lyricist Vinícius de Moraes. His creative contributions to jazz, however, went much deeper; many of his songs became jazz standards, and, in the words of Richard S. Ginell of the All Music Guide , “Every other set” performed in jazz clubs “seems to contain at least one bossa nova.”

Jobim was sometimes called the George Gershwin of Brazil, not so much because of any musical or lyric similarity—Jobim’s songs tended to have oblique, often poetic lyrics quite unlike the clever romantic rhymes of George Gershwin’s brother Ira—but because his music became the bedrock for the work of jazz musicians for decades after its creation.

Studied with German Music Teacher

Antonio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim, often known by the nickname Tom, was born in Rio de Janeiro on January 25, 1927. He grew up in the seaside southern Rio suburb of Ipanema, later the setting for his most famous song, and many of his compositions reflected Brazil’s lush natural world in one way or another. Both of Jobim’s parents were educators, and his father, Jorge Jobim, was also active as a diplomat.

But Jobim took after an uncle who played classical guitar, and he soon showed unusual talent of his own. Jobim’s mother, Nilza, rented a piano for the family home, and when Jobim was 14 he began piano lessons with Hans Joachim Koellrutter, a local music scholar of German background who favored the latest experimental trends in European classical music.

Jobim would later point to the influence exerted by French Impressionist composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel on his own music, but a new set of influences was on its way to Brazil in the form of American jazz. Jobim enrolled in architecture school, lasted less than a year, and worked as an assistant to a local architect in the early 1940s.

His real energies were directed toward music, as he gained experience playing piano in small nightclubs known as inferninhos , or little infernos. Visits to Rio by the Duke Ellington Orchestra and other American jazz bands shaped Jobim’s own attempts at composition (which he buried in a drawer at first) and inspired him to settle on a musical career. In 1949 he married his first wife, Thereza Hermanny; they raised a son, Paulo, and a daughter, Elisabeth.

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With his well-rounded musical education, by the early 1950s Jobim was able to graduate from Rio’s bars to staff arranging positions with the Continental and Odeon record labels. At this point Jobim was working in the genre of samba, Brazil’s national pop song style, and he sometimes performed his own samba compositions.

His real breakthrough came about in 1956, as the result of a chance meeting two years earlier with Brazilian playwright Vinícius de Moraes. Moraes was working on a play called Orfeu da Conceicção , which was later filmed as Orfeu Negro (Black Orpheus). The play and film transferred the classic Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice to modern-day Rio de Janeiro, and Moraes suggested that Jobim write the music for it.

The film Orfeu Negro became an international success, and Jobim’s score, featuring guitarist Luiz Bonfá, kicked off a new musical craze that quickly spread beyond Brazil. It was based in samba rhythms, but it featured subtle harmonic shadings drawn from jazz.

The new style was given the name bossa nova, meaning “new wave,” and the 1958 single “Chega de Saudade” (No More Blues), with music by Jobim, words by Moraes, and guitar by future Brazilian pop star João Gilberto, was the style’s first major hit. Both “Chega de Saudade” and the flip side of the original single, Jobim’s composition “Desafinado” (Out of Tune), have remained jazz standards.

Performed in New York

Jobim’s star rose quickly in Brazil after the release of “Chega de Saudade.” He continued to record with Gilberto, began hosting a weekly television show called O Bom Tom , and wrote music in which he drew on his classical background for the soundtrack to a film called Por Toda a Minha Vida and (with Moraes) Brasîlia, Sinfonia da Alvorada , a four-movement orchestral work with text.

By 1962 American jazz musicians had begun to immerse themselves in bossa nova. Jobim sang his “Samba de uma nota só” (One-Note Samba) on an album by Gilberto and jazz flutist Herbie Mann. The bossa nova phenomenon reached the United States as saxophonist Stan Getz and guitarist Charlie Byrd recorded their successful Jazz Samba album, and in November of 1962 Jobim and other Brazilian musicians performed a major bossa nova concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall. The show was the idea of a Brazilian diplomat who wanted to promote the country’s musical accomplishments abroad.

The concert initially seemed to be a flop. The Brazilian players were thrown off their stride by New York’s miserable late fall weather, and critics panned the show. Jobim and his compatriots also took criticism from Brazilian observers who felt they were diluting Brazilian music by singing songs in English—Jobim, who spoke several languages, sometimes translated his own songs from Portuguese into English, while others were translated by jazz writer Gene Lees. Nevertheless, the Carnegie Hall concert succeeded in exposing Jobim to American musicians and music industry figures.

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Jobim recognized the importance of American exposure in broadening the reach of his music, and he quipped that if he had remained in Brazil, he would still just be drinking beer in Rio’s corner bars. In 1963 he made his U.S. recording debut on the Verve label with The Composer of Desafinado Plays.

Jobim followed up that release with several more albums in a smooth jazz vein. He collaborated with one of his most influential American admirers on a successful 1966 release, Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim , which was seldom if ever out of print during the next four decades. Jobim sang, played piano, and occasionally strummed a guitar on these recordings, often backed by a small orchestra.

In 1962 Jobim composed a song that was soon to become a worldwide phenomenon, and in the process he added a phrase to the international lexicon. “The Girl from Ipanema” (in Portuguese, “Garota de Ipanema”) was written as Jobim and Moraes were sitting at a table in a bar in Jobim’s hometown of Ipanema and became infatuated with a passer-by, the “tall and tan and young and lovely” woman described in the song. With a vocal by Gilberto’s wife, Astrud, and a verse of English lyrics, the song became a number-two hit in the United States in 1964, eclipsed only by the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night.”

Jobim prospered, although he was never canny about the music publishing deals he signed, and he often failed to receive a proper share of the money his songs earned.

Jobim’s total output of albums was not large (he recorded ten solo albums, plus nine more with collaborators), but his music remained consistently successful through much of the 1960s.

Nothing else became a hit on the scale of “The Girl from Ipanema,” but such songs as “Wave,” “Insensatez” (How Insensitive), and “Meditation,” with vocals by Jobim himself, Astrud Gilberto, or other singers, became part of the record collections of many sophisticates, and were internalized by jazz musicians as quickly as they appeared. Jobim maintained a strong following in Brazil, thanks to duets recorded with female vocalist Elis Regina, and his 1968 album A Certain Mr. Jobim reached the top 15 on Billboard magazine’s jazz sales chart in the United States.

Branched Out Beyond Bossa Nova

Jobim’s popularity dipped in the 1970s as bossa nova finally ran out of steam commercially, but he never really slowed down creatively. One of his most widely covered songs of the decade was 1972’s “Aguas de Março,” which Jobim himself translated into English (with added lyrics) as “Waters of March”; the English version almost completely avoided words with roots in Romance languages (such as Portuguese) in favor of those of Germanic origin. The lyrics consisted of a seemingly disconnected series of images that suggested the impermanence of life.

The influential jazz critic Leonard Feather, according to Mark Holston of Americas , placed “Waters of March” “among the top ten songs of all time.” Jobim recorded with Brazilian-born arranger Eumir Deodato on his Stone Flower album of 1970, and he also often worked with German-born arranger Claus Ogerman. Jobim’s 1975 album Urubu (meaning “The Vulture”) reflected his personal fascination with that bird of prey.

In 1976 Jobim met 19-year-old photographer Ana Beatriz Lontra; the pair had a son, João Francisco, in 1979, married in 1986, and had a daughter, Maria Luiza Helena, in 1987. In the late 1970s Jobim was active mostly in film soundtracks, but in 1984 he assembled his Nova Banda or New Band, with his son Paulo on guitar, and began touring once again.

His concerts in the United States in the mid-1980s were in venues with the highest profiles: Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall in New York, and Constitution Hall in Washington. His 1987 release Passarim was as well received in the jazz community as any of his 1960s releases had been, and selections from it appeared on several posthumous collections of his work.

Critics by this time recognized Jobim as a living legend, and he received various awards of national and international scope in the last years of his life. These included the Diploma of Honor, the highest arts award given by the Organization of American States, which he received in 1988, and induction into the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame in 1991.

Jobim never rested on his laurels, and he entered the mid-1990s with a full plate of creative projects. He worked with classical conductor Ettore Stratta in preparing recordings of some of his more classical-oriented works, and he planned to record an album with opera star Kathleen Battle. In 1994 Jobim released a new album, Antonio Brasileiro , and rejoined Frank Sinatra for a track on Sinatra’s Duets II release.

With these career capstones in the works, it came as a shock for Jobim’s admirers in both the United States and Brazil when Jobim died suddenly of heart failure at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital on December 8, 1994, shortly after entering the facility for treatment of cardiac disease. Jobim’s body was returned to Brazil, where a funeral parade held in his honor in Rio de Janeiro lasted for four hours, and he was buried in a tomb near that of Vinícius de Moraes, who had died in 1980.

The pair had created two of the icons of twentieth-century culture, Black Orpheus and “The Girl from Ipanema,” and the music that came from Jobim’s pen lent the music of much of the century’s second half a distinct Brazilian tinge.


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Nina Simone LIVE at Ronnie Scott’s (1985)

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Nina Simone LIVE at Ronnie Scott’s (1985)

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Nina Simone’s biography is also available in our Library

Download Nina Simone’s sheet music from our Library.

Personnel:

Nina Simone – vocals, piano Paul Robinson – drums

This video features Nina Simone (vocals, piano) delivering an intense emotional performance at the legendary Ronnie Scott’s in Soho, London on November 17, 1985. Simone is considered to be one of the most diverse singers of the 20th century, recording material in multiple genres including soul, jazz, pop, blues, gospel, and Broadway.

Most often labeled a “soul” singer due to her emotional performing tendencies, Simone is an eclectic musician, who adds a soulful mystique to whatever material she interprets. This brilliant performance at Ronnie Scott’s is testament to this fact.

Ronnie Scott’s opened in 1959 to provide a place where British Jazz musicians could jam. Eventually, American music musicians such as Johnny Griffin, Roland Kirk, Al Cohn, Stan Getz, Sony Stitt, Benny Golson, Donald Byrd, and Ben Webster played at the club making it the legendary Jazz club it is today. Today, the club still books the greatest Jazz acts in the world, but also plays host to such diverse musicians as the talented Nina Simone.

Track list:

1 God God God

2 Just In Time

3 Let It Be Me

4 The Other Woman

5 I Got Life

6 If You Only Knew

7 Young Gifted And Black

8 Moon Over Alabama / Mississippi Goddam

9 Because / My Father’s Dream

10 Let No One Deceive You

11 American Pie

12 Just To Know That I’m Alive

Nina Simone

Eunice Kathleen Waymon (February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003), known professionally as Nina Simone, was an American singer, songwriter, musician, arranger, and civil rights activist. Her music spanned a broad range of musical styles including classical, jazz, blues, folk, R&B, gospel, and pop.

The sixth of eight children born to a poor family in Tryon, North Carolina, Simone initially aspired to be a concert pianist. With the help of a few supporters in her hometown, she enrolled in the Juilliard School of Music in New York City. She then applied for a scholarship to study at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she was denied admission despite a well-received audition, which she attributed to racial discrimination. In 2003, just days before her death, the Institute awarded her an honorary degree.

To make a living, Simone started playing piano at a nightclub in Atlantic City. She changed her name to “Nina Simone” to disguise herself from family members, having chosen to play “the devil’s music” or so-called “cocktail piano”. She was told in the nightclub that she would have to sing to her own accompaniment, which effectively launched her career as a jazz vocalist. She went on to record more than 40 albums between 1958 and 1974, making her debut with Little Girl Blue. She had a hit single in the United States in 1958 with “I Loves You, Porgy“. Her musical style fused gospel and pop with classical music, in particular Johann Sebastian Bach, and accompanied expressive, jazz-like singing in her contralto voice.

Simone was the recipient of a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 2000 for her interpretation of “I Loves You, Porgy.” On Human Kindness Day 1974 in Washington, D.C., more than 10,000 people paid tribute to Simone. Simone received two honorary degrees in music and humanities, from Amherst College and Malcolm X College. She preferred to be called “Dr. Nina Simone” after these honors were bestowed upon her. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.

Two days before her death, Simone learned she would be awarded an honorary degree by the Curtis Institute of Music, the music school that had refused to admit her as a student at the beginning of her career.

Simone has received four career Grammy Award nominations, two during her lifetime and two posthumously. In 1968, she received her first nomination for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for the track “(You’ll) Go to Hell” from her thirteenth album Silk & Soul (1967). The award went to “Respect” by Aretha Franklin.

Simone garnered a second nomination in the category in 1971, for her Black Gold album, when she again lost to Franklin for “Don’t Play That Song (You Lied)“. Franklin would again win for her cover of Simone’s Young, Gifted and Black two years later in the same category which Simone’s Black Gold album was nominated and features Simone’s original version of “Young, Gifted and Black”. In 2016, Simone posthumously received a nomination for Best Music Film for the Netflix documentary What Happened, Miss Simone? and in 2018 she received a nomination for Best Rap Song as a songwriter for Jay Z‘s “The Story of O.J.” from his 4:44 album which contained a sample of “Four Women” by Simone.

In 2018, Simone was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by fellow R&B artist Mary J. Blige.

In 2019, “Mississippi Goddam” was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

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BILLIE HOLIDAY – Strange Fruit (her filmed performances taken from TV shows 1950-1959)

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BILLIE HOLIDAY – Strange Fruit (her filmed performances taken from TV shows 1950-1959)

billie holiday sheet music pdf
Billie Holiday’s sheet music is available from our Library

Billie Holiday Biography (1915–1959)

Billie Holiday was one of the most influential jazz singers of all time. She had a thriving career for many years before she lost her battle with addiction.

Who Was Billie Holiday?

Billie Holiday is considered one of the best jazz vocalists of all time, Holiday had a thriving career as a jazz singer for many years before she lost her battle with substance abuse. Also known as Lady Day, her autobiography was made into the 1972 film Lady Sings the Blues. In 2000, Holiday was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Early Life

Holiday was born Eleanora Fagan on April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Some sources say her birthplace was Baltimore, Maryland, and her birth certificate reportedly reads “Elinore Harris.”) 

Holiday spent much of her childhood in Baltimore, Maryland. Her mother, Sadie, was only a teenager when she had her. Her father is widely believed to be Clarence Holiday, who eventually became a successful jazz musician, playing with the likes of Fletcher Henderson. 

Unfortunately for Holiday, her father was an infrequent visitor in her life growing up. Sadie married Philip Gough in 1920 and for a few years, Holiday had a somewhat stable home life. But that marriage ended a few years later, leaving Holiday and Sadie to struggle along on their own again. Sometimes Holiday was left in the care of other people.

Holiday started skipping school, and she and her mother went to court over Holiday’s truancy. She was then sent to the House of Good Shepherd, a facility for troubled African American girls, in January 1925. 

Only 9 years old at the time, Holiday was one of the youngest girls there. She was returned to her mother’s care in August of that year. According to Donald Clarke’s biography, Billie Holiday: Wishing on the Moon, she returned there in 1926 after she had been sexually assaulted.

In her difficult early life, Holiday found solace in music, singing along to the records of Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong. She followed her mother, who had moved to New York City in the late 1920s, and worked in a house of prostitution in Harlem for a time. 

Around 1930, Holiday began singing in local clubs and renamed herself “Billie” after the film star Billie Dove.

Billie Holiday Songs

At the age of 18, Holiday was discovered by producer John Hammond while she was performing in a Harlem jazz club. Hammond was instrumental in getting Holiday recording work with an up-and-coming clarinetist and bandleader Benny Goodman. 

With Goodman, she sang vocals for several tracks, including her first commercial release “Your Mother’s Son-In-Law” and the 1934 top ten hit “Riffin’ the Scotch.”

Known for her distinctive phrasing and expressive, sometimes melancholy voice, Holiday went on to record with jazz pianist Teddy Wilson and others in 1935. 

She made several singles, including “What a Little Moonlight Can Do” and “Miss Brown to You.” That same year, Holiday appeared with Duke Ellington in the film Symphony in Black.

Lady Day

Around this time, Holiday met and befriended saxophonist Lester Young, who was part of Count Basie’s orchestra on and off for years. He even lived with Holiday and her mother Sadie for a while. 

Young gave Holiday the nickname “Lady Day” in 1937—the same year she joined Basie’s band. In return, she called him “Prez,” which was her way of saying that she thought it was the greatest.

Holiday toured with the Count Basie Orchestra in 1937. The following year, she worked with Artie Shaw and his orchestra. Holiday broke new ground with Shaw, becoming one of the first female African American vocalists to work with a white orchestra. 

Promoters, however, objected to Holiday—for her race and for her unique vocal style—and she ended up leaving the orchestra out of frustration.

“Strange Fruit”

Striking out on her own, Holiday performed at New York’s Café Society. She developed some of her trademark stage persona there—wearing gardenias in her hair and singing with her head tilted back.

During this engagement, Holiday also debuted two of her most famous songs, “God Bless the Child” and “Strange Fruit.” Columbia, her record company at the time, was not interested in “Strange Fruit,” which was a powerful story about the lynching of African Americans in the South. 

Holiday recorded the song with the Commodore label instead. “Strange Fruit” is considered to be one of her signature ballads, and the controversy that surrounded it—some radio stations banned the record—helped make it a hit.

Over the years, Holiday sang many songs of stormy relationships, including “T’ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do” and “My Man.” These songs reflected her personal romances, which were often destructive and abusive. 

Strange Fruit Lyrics

Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swingin’ in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hangin’ from the poplar treesPastoral scene of the gallant South
The bulgin’ eyes and the twisted mouth
Scent of magnolias sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burnin’ fleshHere is a fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather
For the wind to suck
For the sun to rot
For the tree to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop

Composer: Lewis Allan

Holiday married James Monroe in 1941. Already known to drink, Holiday picked up her new husband’s habit of smoking opium. The marriage didn’t last—they later divorced—but Holiday’s problems with substance abuse continued.

Personal Problems

That same year, Holiday had a hit with “God Bless the Child.” She later signed with Decca Records in 1944 and scored an R&B hit the next year with “Lover Man.” 

Her boyfriend at the time was trumpeter Joe Guy, and with him she started using heroin. After the death of her mother in October 1945, Holiday began drinking more heavily and escalated her drug use to ease her grief.

Despite her personal problems, Holiday remained a major star in the jazz world—and even in popular music as well. She appeared with her idol Louis Armstrong in the 1947 film New Orleans, albeit playing the role of a maid. 

Unfortunately, Holiday’s drug use caused her a great professional setback that same year. She was arrested and convicted for narcotics possession in 1947. Sentenced to one year and a day of jail time, Holiday went to a federal rehabilitation facility in Alderston, West Virginia.

Released the following year, Holiday faced new challenges. Because of her conviction, she was unable to get the necessary license to play in cabarets and clubs. Holiday, however, could still perform at concert halls and had a sold-out show at the Carnegie Hall not long after her release. 

With some help from John Levy, a New York club owner, Holiday was later to get to play in New York’s Club Ebony. Levy became her boyfriend and manager by the end of the 1940s, joining the ranks of the men who took advantage of Holiday. 

Also around this time, she was again arrested for narcotics, but she was acquitted of the charges.

Later Years

While her hard living was taking a toll on her voice, Holiday continued to tour and record in the 1950s. She began recording for Norman Granz, the owner of several small jazz labels, in 1952. Two years later, Holiday had a hugely successful tour of Europe.

Holiday also caught the public’s attention by sharing her life story with the world in 1956. Her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues (1956), was written in collaboration by William Dufty. 

Some of the material in the book, however, must be taken with a grain of salt. Holiday was in rough shape when she worked with Dufty on the project, and she claimed to have never read the book after it was finished.

Around this time, Holiday became involved with Louis McKay. The two were arrested for narcotics in 1956, and they married in Mexico the following year. Like many other men in her life, McKay used Holiday’s name and money to advance himself. 

Despite all of the trouble she had been experiencing with her voice, she managed to give an impressive performance on the television broadcast The Sound of Jazz with Ben Webster, Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins.

After years of lackluster recordings and record sales, Holiday recorded Lady in Satin (1958) with the Ray Ellis Orchestra for Columbia. The album’s songs showcased her rougher sounding voice, which still could convey great emotional intensity. 

Death and Legacy

Holiday gave her final performance in New York City on May 25, 1959. Not long after this event, Holiday was admitted to the hospital for heart and liver problems. 

She was so addicted to heroin that she was even arrested for possession while in the hospital. On July 17, 1959, Holiday died from alcohol- and drug-related complications.

More than 3,000 people turned out to say good-bye to Lady Day at her funeral held in St. Paul the Apostle Roman Catholic Church on July 21, 1959. A who’s who of the jazz world attended the solemn occasion, including Goodman, Gene Krupa, Tony Scott, Buddy Rogers and John Hammond.

Considered one of the best jazz vocalists of all time, Holiday has been an influence on many other performers who have followed in her footsteps. 

Her autobiography was made into the 1972 film Lady Sings the Blues with famed singer Diana Ross playing the part of Holiday, which helped renew interest in Holiday’s recordings. 

In 2000, Holiday was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Ross handling the honors.

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The 100 most inspiring musicians of all Time

The 100 most inspiring musicians of all Time: JOSQUIN DES PREZ

The 100 most inspiring musicians of all Time: JOSQUIN DES PREZ

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JOSQUIN DES PRES (b. c. 1450, Condé-sur-l’Escaut?, Burgundian Hainaut [France]—d. Aug. 27, 1521, Condé-sur-l’Escaut)

Josquin des Prez was one of the greatest composers of
Renaissance Europe.

Josquin’s early life has been the subject of much scholarly
debate, and the first solid evidence of his work comes from
a roll of musicians associated with the cathedral in Cambrai
in the early 1470s. During the late 1470s and early ’80s,

he sang for the courts of René I of Anjou and Duke Galeazzo
Maria Sforza of Milan, and from 1486 to about 1494 he
performed for the papal chapel. Sometime between then
and 1499, when he became choirmaster to Duke Ercole I
of Ferrara, he apparently had connections with the Chapel
Royal of Louis XII of France and with the Cathedral of
Cambrai. In Ferrara he wrote, in honour of his employer,
the mass Hercules Dux Ferrariae, and his motet Miserere was
composed at the duke’s request. He seems to have left
Ferrara on the death of the duke in 1505 and later became
provost of the collegiate church of Notre Dame in Condé.

JOSQUIN DES PREZ sheet music pdf

Josquin’s compositions fall into the three principal categories
of motets, masses, and chansons. Of the 20 masses
that survive complete, 17 were printed in his lifetime in
three sets (1502, 1505, 1514) by Ottaviano dei Petrucci.

His motets and chansons were included in other Petrucci
publications, from the Odhecaton (an anthology of popular
chansons) of 1501 onward, and in collections of other printers.
Martin Luther expressed great admiration for Josquin’s
music, calling him “master of the notes, which must do as
he wishes; other composers must do as the notes wish.”

In his musical techniques he stands at the summit of the
Renaissance, blending traditional forms with innovations
that later became standard practices. The expressiveness
of his music marks a break with the medieval tradition of
more abstract music.

Especially in his motets, Josquin gave free reign to his
talent, expressing sorrow in poignant harmonies, employing
suspension for emphasis, and taking the voices gradually
into their lowest registers when the text speaks of death.
Josquin used the old cantus firmus style, but he also developed
the motet style that characterized the 16th century
after him. His motets, as well as his masses, show an
approach to the modern sense of tonality. In his later works

Josquin gradually abandoned cantus firmus technique for
parody and paraphrase. He also frequently used the techniques
of canon and of melodic imitation.

In his chansons Josquin was the principal exponent of
a style new in the mid-15th century, in which the learned
techniques of canon and counterpoint were applied to
secular song. He abandoned the fixed forms of the rondeau
and the ballade, employing freer forms of his own device.
Though a few chansons are set homophonically—in
chords—rather than polyphonically, a number of others are
examples of counterpoint in five or six voices, maintaining
sharp rhythm and clarity of texture.

The music of JOSQUIN DES PREZ: Miserere mei Deus

The Hilliard Ensemble

He then went to France (he may also have done so while at the papal chapel) and probably served Louis XII’s court. Although he may have had connections with the Ferrara court (through the Sforzas) in the 1480s and 1490s, no formal relationship with the court is known before 1503 when, for a year, he was maestro di cappella there and the highest-paid singer in the chapel’s history.

There he probably wrote primarily masses and motets. An outbreak of plague in 1503 forced the court to leave Ferrara (Josquin’s place was taken by Obrecht, who fell victim in 1505). He was in the north again, at Notre Dame at Condé, in 1504; he may have been connected with Margaret of Austria’s court, 1508-11. He died in 1521. Several portraits survive, one attributed to Leonardo da Vinci.

Josquin’s works gradually became known throughout western Europe and were regarded as models by many composers and theorists. Petrucci’s three books of his masses (1502-14) reflect contemporary esteem, as does Attaingnant’s collection of his chansons (1550). Several laments were written on his death (including Gombert’s elegy Musae Jovis), and as late as 1554 Jacquet of Mantua paid him tribute in a motet. He was praised by 16th-century literary figures (including Castiglione and Rabelais) and was Martin Luther’s favourite composer.

Josquin was the greatest composer of the high Renaissance, the most varied in invention and the most profound in expression. Much of his music cannot be dated. Generally, however, his first period (up to circa 1485) is characterized by abstract, melismatic counterpoint in the manner of Ockeghem and by tenuous relationships between words and music.

The middle period (to circa 1505) saw the development and perfection of the technique of pervasive imitation based on word-generated motifs. This style has been seen as a synthesis of two traditions: the northem polyphony of Dufay, Busnois and Ockeghem, in which he presumably had his earliest training, and the more chordal, harmonically orientated practice of Italy. In the final period the relationship between word and note becomes even closer and there is increasing emphasis on declamation and rhetorical expression within a style of the utmost economy.

His many motets span all three periods. One of the earliest, the four-part Victimae paschali laudes (1502), exemplifies his early style, with its dense texture, lack of imitation, patches of stagnant rhythm and rudimentary treatment of dissonance. Greater maturity is shown in Planxit autem David, in which homophonic and freely imitative passages alternate, and in Absalon, fili mi, with its flexible combination of textures. His later motets, such as In principio erat verbum, combine motivic intensity and melodic succinctness with formal clarity; they are either freely composed, four-part settings of biblical texts, or large-scale cantus firmus pieces. Transparent textures and duet writing are common.

Josquin’s 18 complete masses combine elements of cantus firmus, parody and paraphrase techniques. One of the earliest, L’ami Baudichon, is a cantus firmus mass on a simple dance formula; the simplicity of melody and rhythm and the clarity of harmony and texture recall the Burgundian style of the 1450s and 1460s. Fortuna desperata, on the other hand, is an early example of parody. Canonic writing and ostinato hgures are features. His last great masses, notably the Missa de beata virgine and the Missa ‘Pange lingua’ were preceded by works in which every resource is deployed with bravura.

Josquin’s secular music comprises three settings of Italian texts and numerous chansons. One of the earliest, Cela sans plus, typifies his observance of the formes fixes and the influences of the Burgundian style of Busnois and Ockeghem. Later works, such as Mille regretz, are less canonic, the clear articulation of line and points of imitation achieved by a carefull balanced hierarchy of cadences. Some, like Si j’ay perdu mon ami, look forward to the popular ‘Parisian’ chanson of Janequin.

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Jazz & Rock Play Along Jazz Music

Herbie Hancock “Jessica” Jazz Play Along with sheet music

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Herbie Hancock “Jessica” Jazz Play Along with sheet music

Jazz play along jazz sheet music transcription

Herbie Hancock

Herbie Hancock will always be one of the most revered and controversial figures in jazz, just as his employer/mentor Miles Davis was when he was alive. Unlike Miles, who pressed ahead relentlessly and never looked back until near the very end, Hancock has cut a zigzagging forward path, shuttling between almost every development in electronic and acoustic jazz and R&B over the last third of the 20th century and into the 21st.

Though grounded in Bill Evans and able to absorb blues, funk, gospel, and even modern classical influences, Hancock‘s piano and keyboard voices are entirely his own, with their own urbane harmonic and complex, earthy rhythmic signatures — and young pianists cop his licks constantly.

Having studied engineering and professing to love gadgets and buttons, Hancock was perfectly suited for the electronic age; he was one of the earliest champions of the Rhodes electric piano and Hohner clavinet, and would field an ever-growing collection of synthesizers and computers on his electric dates.

Yet his love for the grand piano never waned, and despite his peripatetic activities all over the musical map, his piano style continued to evolve into tougher, ever more complex forms. He is as much at home trading riffs with a smoking funk band as he is communing with a world-class post-bop rhythm section — and that drives purists on both sides of the fence up the wall.

Having taken up the piano at age seven, Hancock quickly became known as a prodigy, soloing in the first movement of a Mozart piano concerto with the Chicago Symphony at the age of 11.

After studies at Grinnell College, Hancock was invited by Donald Byrd in 1961 to join his group in New York City, and before long, Blue Note offered him a solo contract. His debut album, Takin’ Off, took off after Mongo Santamaria covered one of the album’s songs, “Watermelon Man.” In May 1963, Miles Davis asked him to join his band in time for the Seven Steps to Heaven sessions, and he remained with him for five years, greatly influencing Davis‘ evolving direction, loosening up his own style, and, upon Davis‘ suggestion, converting to the Rhodes electric piano.

During that time, Hancock‘s solo career blossomed on Blue Note, as he poured forth increasingly sophisticated compositions like “Maiden Voyage,” “Cantaloupe Island,” “Goodbye to Childhood,” and the exquisite “Speak Like a Child.” He also played on many East Coast recording sessions for producer Creed Taylor and provided a groundbreaking score to Michelangelo Antonioni‘s film Blow-Up, which gradually led to further movie assignments.

Having left the Davis band in 1968, Hancock recorded an elegant funk album, Fat Albert Rotunda, and in 1969 formed a sextet that evolved into one of the most exciting, forward-looking jazz-rock groups of the era. By then deeply immersed in electronics, Hancock added Patrick Gleeson‘s synthesizer to his Echoplexed, fuzz-wah-pedaled electric piano and clavinet, and the recordings became spacier and more complex rhythmically and structurally, creating their own corner of the avant-garde. By 1970, all of the musicians used both English and African names (Herbie‘s was Mwandishi).

Alas, Hancock had to break up the band in 1973 when it ran out of money, and having studied Buddhism, he concluded that his ultimate goal should be to make his audiences happy.

The next step, then, was a terrific funk group whose first album, Head Hunters, with its Sly Stone-influenced hit single, “Chameleon,” became the biggest-selling jazz LP up to that time. Handling all of the synthesizers himself, Hancock‘s heavily rhythmic comping often became part of the rhythm section, leavened by interludes of the old urbane harmonies. Hancock recorded several electric albums of mostly superior quality in the ’70s, followed by a turn into disco around the decade’s end.

In the meantime, Hancock refused to abandon acoustic jazz. After a one-shot reunion of the 1965 Miles Davis Quintet (Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter, and Freddie Hubbard sitting in for Miles) at New York’s 1976 Newport Jazz Festival, they went on tour the following year as V.S.O.P.

The near-universal acclaim of the reunions proved that Hancock was still a whale of a pianist; that Miles‘ loose mid-’60s post-bop direction was far from spent; and that the time for a neo-traditional revival was near, finally bearing fruit in the ’80s with Wynton Marsalis and his ilk. V.S.O.P. continued to hold sporadic reunions through 1992, though the death of the indispensable Williams in 1997 cast much doubt as to whether these gatherings would continue.

Hancock continued his chameleonic ways in the ’80s: scoring an MTV hit in 1983 with the scratch-driven, electro-influenced single “Rockit” (accompanied by a striking video); launching an exciting partnership with Gambian kora virtuoso Foday Musa Suso that culminated in the swinging 1986 live album Jazz Africa; doing film scores, and playing festivals and tours with the Marsalis brothers, George Benson, Michael Brecker, and many others. After his 1988 techno-pop album, Perfect Machine, Hancock left Columbia (his label since 1973), signed a contract with Qwest that came to virtually nothing (save for A Tribute to Miles in 1992), and finally made a deal with Polygram in 1994 to record jazz for Verve and release pop albums on Mercury.

Well into a youthful middle age, Hancock‘s curiosity, versatility, and capacity for growth showed no signs of fading, and in 1998 he issued Gershwin’s World. His curiosity with the fusion of electronic music and jazz continued with 2001’s Future 2 Future, but he also continued to explore the future of straight-ahead contemporary jazz with 2005’s Possibilities. An intriguing album of jazz treatments of Joni Mitchell compositions called River: The Joni Letters was released in 2007 and won a Grammy for Album of the Year in 2008.

Two years later, Hancock released his The Imagine Project album, recorded in seven countries with a host of collaborators including Dave Matthews, Juanes, and Wayne Shorter. He was also named Creative Chair for the New Los Angeles Philharmonic. In 2013, he was the recipient of a Kennedy Center Honors award, acknowledged for his contribution to American performing arts. An expanded tenth anniversary edition of River: The Joni Letters was released in 2017, and he continues to perform regularly.

Herbie Hancock’s discography

Download the best scores and sheet music transcriptions from our Library.

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Beautiful Music

Toquinho e Paulinho Nogueira – Full album (1999)

Toquinho e Paulinho Nogueira – Full album (1999)

Tracklist:

01 Triste 0:00 02 Ária na 4ª corda (Air On G Sting) 2:12 03 Lamentos 5:25 04 Insensatez/Apelo 8:27 05 Choro típico 11:42 06 Gente humilde/Duas contas 16:47 07 Bachianinha n°1 19:29 08 Odeon 23:02 09 Rosa 26:33 10 Samba em prelúdio 30:20 11 Implorando 34:28 12 Manhã de Carnaval 37:22 13 Choro chorado pra Paulinho Nogueira 41:17

Composers:

#1 Tom Jobim; #2 J. S. Bach; #3 Baden Powell/Pixinguinha/Vinicius de Moraes; #4 a) Tom Jobim/Vinicius de Moraes, b) Baden Powell/Vinicius de Moraes; #5 Heitor Villa-Lobos; #6 a) Chico Buarque/Garoto/Vinicius de Moraes, b) Garoto; #7 Paulinho Nogueira; #8 Ernesto Nazareth; #9 Otavio Souza/Pixinguinha; #10 Baden Powell/Vinicius de Moraes; #11 Toquinho; #12 Antônio Maria/Luiz Bonfá; #13 Paulinho Nogueira/Toquinho/Vinicius de Moraes

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toquinho bossa nova free sheet music & scores pdf
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Jazz Music

Spain – Chick Corea (Piano solo arr.) with sheet music

Spain – Chick Corea (Piano solo arr.) with sheet music

chick corea sheet music score download partitura partition spartiti 楽譜

“Spain” is an instrumental jazz fusion composition by jazz pianist and composer Chick Corea. It is likely Corea’s most recognized piece, and is considered a jazz standard.

“Spain” was composed in 1971 and appeared in its original (and most well-known) rendition on the album Light as a Feather, with performances by Corea (Rhodes electric piano), Airto Moreira (drums), Flora Purim (vocals and percussion), Stanley Clarke (bass), and Joe Farrell (flute).

It has been recorded in several versions, by Corea himself as well as by other artists, including a flamenco version by Paco de Lucía, Al Di Meola and John McLaughlin in the 1980s, and a progressive bluegrass version by Béla Fleck in 1979. A version with lyrics by Al Jarreau, “Spain (I Can Recall)”, appeared on the 1980 album This Time. More recently, Corea has performed his composition as a duo with Japanese pianist Hiromi Uehara. A version of “Spain” was performed by Stevie Wonder at his 2008 Concert in London. The introduction used in the song is from Concierto de Aranjuez, a guitar concerto by the Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo.

The Light as a Feather version of “Spain” received two Grammy nominations, for Best Instrumental Arrangement and for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance by a Group. In 2001, Corea was awarded the Best Instrumental Arrangement Grammy for “Spain for Sextet and Orchestra”.

Composition

Corea opens the Light as a Feather version of “Spain” with the adagio from Joaquin Rodrigo‘s Concierto de Aranjuez. After the intro, the song switches to a fast, steady samba-like rhythm, in which the main theme and an improvisation part are repeated.

The chord progression used during the improvisation part is based on harmonic progressions in Rodrigo’s concerto. It runs as follows:

 | Gmaj7 | F#7 | Em7 A7 | Dmaj7 (Gmaj7) | C#7 F#7 | Bm B7 |

Armando Anthony “Chick” Corea

(June 12, 1941 – February 9, 2021) was an American jazz composer, keyboardist, bandleader, and occasional percussionist. His compositions “Spain“, “500 Miles High“, “La Fiesta”, “Armando’s Rhumba” and “Windows” are widely considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis‘s band in the late 1960s, he participated in the birth of jazz fusion. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever Along with Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Keith Jarrett and Bill Evans, he is considered one of the foremost jazz pianists of the post-John Coltrane era.

Corea continued to collaborate frequently while exploring different musical styles throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He won 23 Grammy Awards and was nominated over 60 times.

Personal Life

Corea married his second wife vocalist/pianist Gayle Moran in 1972. He had two children, Thaddeus and Liana, with his first wife; his first marriage ended in divorce.

In 1968, Corea read Dianetics, author L. Ron Hubbard‘s most well known self-help book. Further, Corea developed an interest in Hubbard’s other works in the early 1970s.

I came into contact with L. Ron Hubbard’s material in 1968 with Dianetics and it kind of opened my mind up and it got me into seeing that my potential for communication was a lot greater than I thought it was.

Corea said that Scientology became a profound influence on his musical direction in the early 1970s: “I no longer wanted to satisfy myself. I really want to connect with the world and make my music mean something to people.”

Corea was excluded from a concert during the 1993 World Championships in Athletics in Stuttgart, Germany. The concert’s organizers excluded Corea after the state government of Baden-Württemberg had announced it would review its subsidies for events featuring avowed members of Scientology. After Corea’s complaint against this policy before the administrative court was unsuccessful in 1996, members of the United States Congress, in a letter to the German government, denounced the ban as a violation of Corea’s human rights. Corea was not banned from performing in Germany, however, and had several appearances at the government-supported International Jazz Festival in Burghausen, where he was awarded a plaque in Burghausen’s “Street of Fame” in 2011.

Death

Corea died of cancer at his home in the Tampa Bay area of Florida on February 9, 2021, at age 79. He had only recently been diagnosed.

Download Chick Corea’s sheet music transcriptions from our Library.

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Did you know? Jazz Music Keith Jarrett - The Art of Improvisation

Keith Jarrett Confronts a Future Without the Piano

The pathbreaking musician reveals the health issues that make it unlikely he will ever again perform in public.

keith jarrett sheet music

The last time Keith Jarrett performed in public, his relationship with the piano was the least of his concerns. This was at Carnegie Hall in 2017, several weeks into the administration of a divisive new American president.

Mr. Jarrett — one of the most heralded pianists alive, a galvanizing jazz artist who has also recorded a wealth of classical music — opened with an indignant speech on the political situation, and unspooled a relentless commentary throughout the concert. He ended by thanking the audience for bringing him to tears.

He had been scheduled to return to Carnegie the following March for another of the solo recitals that have done the most to create his legend — like the one captured on the recording “Budapest Concert,” to be released on Oct. 30. But that Carnegie performance was abruptly canceled, along with the rest of his concert calendar. At the time, Mr. Jarrett’s longtime record label, ECM, cited unspecified health issues. There has been no official update in the two years since.

But this month Mr. Jarrett, 75, broke the silence, plainly stating what happened to him: a stroke in late February 2018, followed by another one that May. It is unlikely he will ever perform in public again.

“I was paralyzed,” he told The New York Times, speaking by phone from his home in northwest New Jersey. “My left side is still partially paralyzed. I’m able to try to walk with a cane, but it took a long time for that, took a year or more. And I’m not getting around this house at all, really.”

Mr. Jarrett didn’t initially realize how serious his first stroke had been. “It definitely snuck up on me,” he said. But after more symptoms emerged, he was taken to a hospital, where he gradually recovered enough to be discharged. His second stroke happened at home, and he was admitted to a nursing facility.

During his time there, from July 2018 until this past May, he made sporadic use of its piano room, playing some right-handed counterpoint. “I was trying to pretend that I was Bach with one hand,” he said. “But that was just toying with something.” When he tried to play some familiar bebop tunes in his home studio recently, he discovered he had forgotten them.

Mr. Jarrett’s voice is softer and thinner now. But over two roughly hourlong conversations, he was lucid and legible, aside from occasional lapses in memory. He often punctuated a heavy or awkward statement with a laugh like a faint rhythmic exhalation: Ah-ha-ha-ha.

Mr. Jarrett in 1975, when he performed what would become “The Köln Concert” — a sonorous, mesmerizing landmark that still stands as one of the best-selling solo piano albums ever made.
Mr. Jarrett in 1975, when he performed what would become “The Köln Concert” — a sonorous, mesmerizing landmark that still stands as one of the best-selling solo piano albums ever made.Credit…Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Raised in the Christian Science faith, which espouses an avoidance of medical treatment, Mr. Jarrett has returned to those spiritual moorings — up to a point. “I don’t do the ‘why me’ thing very often,” he said. “Because as a Christian Scientist, I would be expected to say, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan.’ And I was doing that somewhat when I was in the facility. I don’t know if I succeeded, though, because here I am.”

“I don’t know what my future is supposed to be,” he added. “I don’t feel right now like I’m a pianist. That’s all I can say about that.”

After a pause, he reconsidered. “But when I hear two-handed piano music, it’s very frustrating, in a physical way. If I even hear Schubert, or something played softly, that’s enough for me. Because I know that I couldn’t do that. And I’m not expected to recover that. The most I’m expected to recover in my left hand is possibly the ability to hold a cup in it. So it’s not a ‘shoot the piano player’ thing. It’s: I already got shot. Ah-ha-ha-ha.”

IF THE PROSPECT of a Keith Jarrett who no longer considers himself a pianist is dumbfounding, it might be because there has scarcely been a time he didn’t. Growing up in Allentown, Pa., he was a prodigy. According to family lore, he was 3 when an aunt indicated a nearby stream and told him to turn its burbling into music — his first piano improvisation.

Broad public awareness caught up with him in the late 1960s, when he was in a zeitgeist-capturing group led by Charles Lloyd, a saxophonist and flutist. The brilliant drummer in that quartet, Jack DeJohnette, then helped Miles Davis push into rock and funk. Mr. Jarrett followed suit, joining an incandescent edition of Davis’s band; in live recordings, his interludes on electric piano cast a spell.

keith jarrett sheet music

Mr. Jarrett soon hit on something analogous in his own concerts, allowing improvised passages to become the main event. He was a few years into this approach in 1975, when he performed what would become “The Köln Concert” — a sonorous, mesmerizing landmark that still stands as one of the best-selling solo piano albums ever made. It has also been hailed as an object lesson in triumph over adversity, including Mr. Jarrett’s physical pain and exhaustion at the time, and his frustration over an inferior piano.

That sense of overcoming intransigent obstacles is an enduring feature of Mr. Jarrett’s myth. At times over the years, it could even seem that he set up his own roadblocks: turning concerts into trials of herculean intensity, and famously interrupting them to admonish his audience for taking pictures, or for excessive coughing. ANew York Times Magazineprofile in 1997 bore a wry headline: “The Jazz Martyr.” The following year, Mr. Jarrett announced that he’d been struggling with the consuming and mysterious ailment known as chronic fatigue syndrome.

Mr. Jarrett in Berlin in 1972. His concerts became known as feats of herculean intensity, marked by his admonishments of the audience.
Mr. Jarrett in Berlin in 1972. His concerts became known as feats of herculean intensity, marked by his admonishments of the audience.Credit…Binde/Ullstein Bild, via Getty Images

While regaining strength, he recorded a series of songbook ballads in his home studio (later released as the touching, exquisite album “The Melody at Night, With You”). Then he reconvened his longtime trio, a magically cohesive unit with Mr. DeJohnette and the virtuoso bassist Gary Peacock.

Their first comeback concert, in 1998, recently surfaced on record, joining a voluminous discography. It captures a spirit of joyous reunion not only for Mr. Jarrett and his trio partners but also between a performing artist and his public. He titled that album “After the Fall”; ECM released it in March 2018, unwittingly around the time of his first stroke.

Loss has shrouded Mr. Jarrett’s musical circle of late. Mr. Peacock died last month, at 85. Jon Christensen, the drummer in Mr. Jarrett’s influential European quartet of the 1970s, died earlier this year. Mr. Jarrett also led a groundbreaking American quartet in the ’70s, and its other members — the saxophonist Dewey Redman, the bassist Charlie Haden, the drummer Paul Motian, all major figures in modern jazz — have passed on, too.

Faced with these and other difficult truths, Mr. Jarrett hasn’t exactly found solace in music, as he once would have. But he derives satisfaction from some recordings of his final European solo tour. He directed ECM to release the tour’s closing concert last year, as “Munich 2016.” He’s even more enthusiastic about the tour opener, “Budapest Concert,” which he briefly considered calling “The Gold Standard.”

AS HE BEGINS to come to terms with his body of work as a settled fact, Mr. Jarrett doesn’t hesitate to plant a flag.

“I feel like I’m the John Coltrane of piano players,” he said, citing the saxophonist who transformed the language and spirit of jazz in the 1960s. “Everybody that played the horn after he did was showing how much they owed to him. But it wasn’t their music. It was just an imitative thing.”

Of course, imitation — even of oneself — is anathema to the pure, blank-slate invention Mr. Jarrett still claims as his method. “I don’t have an idea of what I’m going to play, any time before a concert,” he said. “If I have a musical idea, I say no to it.” (Describing this process, he still favors the present tense.)

Beyond his own creative resources, the conditions of every concert are unique: the characteristics of the piano, the sound in the hall, the mood of the audience, even the feel of a city. Mr. Jarrett had performed in Budapest four times before his 2016 concert at the Bela Bartok National Concert Hall, feeling an affinity he ascribes to personal factors: His maternal grandmother was Hungarian, and he played Bartok’s music from an early age.

“I felt like I had some reason to be close to the culture,” he said.

A galvanizing jazz artist, Mr. Jarrett (shown here in 1973) has also recorded a wealth of classical music.
A galvanizing jazz artist, Mr. Jarrett (shown here in 1973) has also recorded a wealth of classical music.Credit…Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

The embrace of folkloric music by Bartok and other Hungarian composers further nudged Mr. Jarrett toward a dark quality — “a kind of existential sadness, let’s say, a deepness” — powerfully present in the concert’s first half. The second half, as admirers of “The Köln Concert” will appreciate, features a few of Mr. Jarrett’s most ravishing on-the-spot compositions. Those ballads, like “Part V” and “Part VII,” spark against briskly atonal or boppish pieces, gradually building the case for a mature expression that might not have been possible earlier in his career.

Part of that evolution has to do with the structure of Mr. Jarrett’s solo concerts, which used to unfold in long, unbroken arcs but now involve a collection of discrete pieces, with breaks for applause. Often the overarching form of these more recent concerts is only apparent after the fact. But Budapest was an exception.

“I saw this one while I was in it, which is why I chose that as the best concert on that entire tour,” Mr. Jarrett said. “I mean, I knew it. I knew something was happening.”

The crucial factor, he acknowledged, was an uncommonly receptive audience. “Some audiences seem to applaud more when there’s something crazy going on,” he said. “I don’t know why, but I wasn’t looking at that in Budapest.”

Given that Mr. Jarrett has made all but a small portion of his recorded output in front of an audience, his cantankerous reputation might best be understood as the turbulent side of a codependent relationship. He put the matter most succinctly during a Carnegie Hall solo concert in 2015, when he announced, “Here’s the big deal that nobody seems to realize: I could not do it without you.”

Mr. Jarrett in rural New Jersey, where he still lives, in 1982.
Mr. Jarrett in rural New Jersey, where he still lives, in 1982.Credit…Norman Seeff

As he renegotiates his bond with the piano, Mr. Jarrett faces the likelihood of that other relationship — the one with the public — coming to an end.

“Right now, I can’t even talk about this,” he said when the issue came up, and laughed his deflective laugh. “That’s what I feel about it.”

And while the magnificent achievement of “Budapest Concert” is a source of pride, it’s not hard to see how it could also register as a cosmic taunt.

“I can only play with my right hand, and it’s not convincing me anymore,” Mr. Jarrett said. “I even have dreams where I am as messed up as I really am — so I’ve found myself trying to play in my dreams, but it’s just like real life.”

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