Prelude To A Kiss - Duke Ellington

[jason_sioco]

[dogperson]

Hi Jason
Have you tried singing along with these as an exercise?  I think it will improve your phrasing as it is easy to lose the melody and the phrase.  Give it a try.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V34nkmFQfWM

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=87kDj8I1Cg0

[j_tour]

This may not be of use, but lately I've been listening again and again to a performance of this tune, in a trio setting, with Kenny Drew as leader.  It's on an old cassette in my car, backed with Jackie Mac's Bluesnik album, so all I remember is the album title is "Kenny Drew Trio."

He does quite a few flourishes off the octotonic W-H (aka "diminished") scale in thirds towards the end that still knock me out:  he's a much more remarkable player, and more versatile than I and perhaps most people gave him credit for.  Not just for a few technical flourishes, but throughout his work, as I know it.

About the tune itself, all I can say is that it's remarkable in that once the first bar or maybe two are finished, the possibilities are pretty much wide open.  It's not some corny tune with a "hook" or a gimmick, it's more a very open framework.

I guess everyone does it in Bb or F?  I don't have perfect pitch, but that seems about right.  I've never played the tune on a job, but I guess that'd be my first guess.  Maybe Eb, but to get the middle register of the piano I wouldn't want to drop it down to Db or any higher than Bb.  I'd do it in F, but whatever.

ETA I didn't mean to disregard the performance given above, it's just I have a slow mobile connection at home and I'll have to revisit the thread at work tomorrow or on the way home.  Just trying to keep the conversation going about the tune is all.

EETA WTH?  I just did a quick search online of Kenny Drew's performances.  I suppose I padded the cassette tape with some other performances from other albums, back thirty years ago or so when I made it, but I'll be damned.  I'll find out, because now I want to know exactly what I've been fanboying about in the car for the past month or so.

EEETA Oh, OK.  Talkin and Walkin is the album.  Once you learn to tolerate the cheese of "Paper Moon" (actually a pretty good lesson on how to turn a corny tune into something), it's a great album all the way through.  Anyway, that's the performance of "Prelude" I know best, I suppose.

EEEETA OK, I saw a few seconds of the performance above. 

The chords sound about right, but there are some things about solo piano as an idiom in jazz. 

This is just my opinion, but it's entirely based on the way people have done it in the past.  So, Bud Powell or Bill Evans, those are some strong players who created some powerful ways of playing just as a solo performer.

The way I would think about it, for starters, is instead of trying to create an entirely new arrangement for solo piano, think about the way you'd play the tune in, say, a trio context, or maybe backing a singer or a horn player. 

So, you'd get all of your fundamentals about the tune down, namely, what voicings, internal voice-leading, rhythm, where your LH covers bass.

And then you can kind of do a second pass, to add the melody for yourself, once you realize that Wes or Chet isn't going to be taking the melody.

That's not such great advice in general, but it is one way to break down or strategize how to perform a tune in solo.  Which is, IME, very difficult, especially as a pianist, and especially on such a well known tune. 

Just tricks, really, for how to prepare a tune in a fast time.

I think the longer view is, for you, "what's the concept?"  What do you want the tune to sound like?  I don't always or even ever, some would say, have a great idea ahead of time, but for every phrase there are, let's say, a dozen examples on record.  So which one? 

Pick one.

Next phrase?

Try another.

Then when you have the idioms happening, phrase-by-phrase, you might consider a global approach.