Standard Practices: Intertextuality, Agency, and

Improvisation in Jazz Performances

of Modern Popular Music

by

Ben Baker

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Supervised by Professor John Covach

Department of Music Theory Eastman School of Music

University of Rochester Rochester, New York

2021

ii

—Dedication—

To P: For always believing I already am the person I strive to be.

iii

—Table of Contents—

Biographical Sketch iv

Acknowledgements v

Abstract vi

Contributors and Funding Sources vii

List of Examples viii

Chapter 1 Introduction: Modern Jazz’s Standard Practice 1

Chapter 2 Intertextuality, Agency, Ontology, and Transformation in Modern Jazz Palimpsests

25

Part 1 Intertextuality in Popular Music and Jazz Scholarship 33

Part 2 An Intertextual Model for Modern Jazz’s Standard Practice 62

Chapter 3 Formal Repetition and Improvisation in Palimpsests by the Brad Mehldau Trio

81

Part 1 Formal Repetition Schemes in Jazz Palimpsests 85

Part 2 Repetition Schemes and Harmonic Transformations in Four Mehldau Trio Arrangements

113

Chapter 4 Carefully Calibrated Complexity: Metric Transformations in Palimpsests by Vijay Iyer

139

Part 1 Asymmetric Metric Transformations 148

Part 2 Three Metric Transformations by Vijay Iyer 165

Part 3 A Special Case: Iyer’s Fibonacci Transformations 188

Chapter 5 Isn’t It Ironic?: Arranging and Improvisational Techniques in Palimpsests by The Bad Plus

205

Part 1 Side-Slipping and (Over)extension 213

Part 2 Parameter Shifts: Referent Types, Coordination, and Developmental Processes

241

Coda 275

Bibliography 279

Discography 302

iv

—Biographical Sketch—

Ben Baker is an Assistant Professor of Music Theory at the Eastman School of

Music in Rochester, NY. He received his B.A. in music and mathematics from St. Olaf

College in Northfield, MN, in 2009; his M.M. in jazz piano performance from the

Steinhardt School at NYU in 2011; and his M.A. in music theory from Eastman in 2018.

Prior to enrolling for doctoral study at Eastman as a Sproull Fellow in 2015, Ben worked

as a full-time freelance pianist in New York City (2011–15), where he performed

regularly as a jazz and pop keyboardist in various professional ensembles; as a pianist in

musical theater and cabaret productions; as a collaborative pianist with choirs and vocal

soloists; and as a church musician. He also served as a staff music director, collaborative

pianist, and vocal coach in the Vocal Performance Department at NYU Steinhardt.

During his time in residence as a student at Eastman, Ben served as co-

webmaster for the journal Intégral. For his theory teaching, he received both Eastman’s

Teaching Assistant Prize (2016) and the University of Rochester’s Edward Peck Curtis

Award for Excellence in Teaching by a Graduate Student (2019). His paper on harmony

in the original music of pianist Robert Glasper received the Patricia Carpenter Emerging

Scholar Award from the Music Theory Society of New York State (2019).

Ben’s publications during his time as a student at Eastman include:

Baker, Ben. 2019. “A Cyclic Approach to Harmony in Robert Glasper’s Music.” Theory and Practice 44: 39–82.

Baker, Ben. 2020. Eastman Case Study: Jazz St. Louis. In The Eastman Case Studies, Vol. 8. Published by Eastman’s Institute for Music Leadership.

Baker, Ben. 2020. Review of Keith Waters, Postbop Jazz in the 1960s (Oxford University Press 2019). Music Theory Online 26 (3).

v

—Acknowledgements—

I’m grateful to the members of my committee for guiding and encouraging me at

every stage of this project. Professor John Covach asked me the initial questions that first

set my brain in motion, and I would never have finished this dissertation without his

patient insistence that I “just add water” to my ideas and always keep the bigger picture

in mind. My thanks go to Professor Matt BaileyShea for his earnest engagement with

some of my most technical and convoluted concepts, and for helping me translate these

concepts into written and graphic forms as clearly as I could. And Professor Dariusz

Terefenko’s superhuman musicianship has consistently inspired me since I first met him

over a decade ago; if I can someday exhibit even half his brilliance in my work as an

improvising pianist and teacher, I’ll consider myself successful.

I’m grateful to my many friends and colleagues at Eastman for fostering the

rigorous and collegial community that initially drew me here, patiently taught me what

it means to be a music theorist, and has continually nourished me these past six years.

Thanks especially to Sam Reenan, Dave Keep, David Hier, Dan Ketter, and Ethan Lustig

for your friendship, for your incisive wit and consummate musicianship, and for

keeping me on my intellectual toes.

Most of all, I’m grateful to my loving family for their unwavering faith and

support. In particular, to my parents: thank you for making it possible for me to pursue

my crazy passion for music all these years. And to my wife Siri: thank you for taking the

ups and downs of this writing process in level stride—for building me up, for cheering

me on, for being patient when I refused to keep things in perspective, and (perhaps most

heroically) for listening to me talk endlessly about music theory. I love you all.

vi

—Abstract—

This dissertation examines acoustic jazz performances of recorded, post-1960

popular music, focusing on the compositional and improvisational transformations

involved in these performances and how they configure the intertextual relationship

between a jazz palimpsest and its source recording. After situating this modern

performance practice between existing recreative traditions in popular music and jazz,

the study proposes a flexible model for this intertextual relationship that plots

interdependencies between musical transformations, perceptions of creative agency, and

a listener’s assumptions about ontology and expressive intent. Using a limited corpus of

jazz recordings as a representative sample of the broader performance practice, three

case studies then couple targeted examinations of particular musical transformations

with analyses of performances by three jazz piano trios. The first study examines formal

repetition schemes and reharmonizations in arrangements by Brad Mehldau; the second

theorizes the complication of duple metric hierarchies in asymmetric grooves by Vijay

Iyer; and the third examines the function of irony, coordinating parameters, and referent

types in the arranging and improvisational practices of The Bad Plus.

vii

—Contributors and Funding Sources—

This work was supported by a dissertation committee consisting of Professor

John Covach of the College Department of Music at the University of Rochester and the

Department of Music Theory at the Eastman School of Music; Professor Matthew

BaileyShea of the College Department of Music at the University of Rochester and the

Department of Music Theory at the Eastman School of Music; and Professor Dariusz

Terefenko of the Jazz Studies and Contemporary Media Department at the Eastman

School of Music. All research, transcription, and writing conducted for the dissertation

were completed independently by the student. Graduate study was supported by a

University of Rochester Sproull Fellowship (2015–20); no additional sources of funding

were used.

viii

—List of Examples—

Example Title Page

Example 2.1 Comparative form charts for “Exit Music (For a Film)” (Mehldau 1998a; Radiohead 1997a)

28

Example 2.2 Ontological primacy, magnitude of change, and agential attribution in jazz palimpsest performance

68

Example 2.3 Ontological primacy, magnitude of change, agential attribution, and expressive intent in MJSP

77

Example 3.1 Two basic HSH approaches to a GAS standard 88

Example 3.2 Three possible repetition schemes for a contrasting verse-chorus form

94

Example 3.3 Formal repetition in “Paranoid Android” (Mehldau [1999] 2000; Radiohead 1997c), modeled on Rusch (2013)

97

Example 3.4 Sentential structure and descending-fifth root motion in the simple verse of “Isn’t She Lovely” (Wonder 1976)

104

Example 3.5 Formal repetition in “Isn’t She Lovely” (Goldberg 2010b; Wonder 1976)

104

Example 3.6 Dorian shuttle and pentatonic ostinati in recurring vamp of “Isn’t She Lovely” (Goldberg 2010b; Wonder 1976)

105

Example 3.7 Formal repetition in “Stella by Starlight” (Glasper 2015b; Young 1944)

108

Example 3.8 Reharmonizations of the C and A’ subsections in “Stella by Starlight” (Glasper 2015b; Young 1944)

109

Example 3.9 Harmonic and metric idiosyncrasies in the VCU of “Knives Out” (Radiohead 2001)

117

Example 3.10 Formal repetition in “Knives Out” (Mehldau 2005d; Radiohead 2001)

118

Example 3.11 Formal repetition in“Wonderwall” (Mehldau 2008; Oasis 1995)

121

Example 3.12 Connections between verse melody, vamp bass ostinato, and verse reharmonization in “Wonderwall” (Mehldau 2008; Oasis 1995)

122

Example 3.13 Formal repetition in “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” (Mehldau 2005c; Simon 1975a)

125

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Example Title Page

Example 3.14 Forestalled tonic returns in verse reharmonization of “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” (Mehldau 2005c; Simon 1975a)

127

Example 3.15 Nested anticipatory processes in “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” (2005c; Simon 1975a)

129

Example 3.16 Varied cadential patterns in simple verse of “Day is Done” (Drake 1969)

131

Example 3.17 Formal repetition in “Day is Done” (Mehldau 2005b; Drake 1969)

132

Example 3.18 Initial unified loop (2–4; in D) in “Day is Done” (Mehldau 2005b; Drake 1969)

133

Example 3.19 Melody-harmony decoupling in unified loop 5 of “Day is Done” (Mehldau 2005b; Drake 1969)

134

Example 3.20 Thematic transformation and metric flexibility in unified loop 6 of “Day is Done” (Mehldau 2005b; Drake 1969)

135

Example 4.1 Potential metric properties of grouping structure equivalence classes

152

Example 4.2 Quadruple counting patterns in “I Remember You” (Warfield 2013; Schertzinger and Mercer 1941) and “Beatrice” (Glasper 2007a; Rivers 1964)

158

Example 4.3 Members and metric properties of Euclidean distribution classes E(4,10) and E(4,14)

161

Example 4.4 Platonic-trochaic 4-cycle projections in quintuple and septuple meters

162

Example 4.5 Simple verse form and grouping dissonances in “Big Brother” (Wonder 1972)

168

Example 4.6 Simple verse form and rhythmic/metric grouping structures in “Big Brother” (Iyer 2009a; Wonder 1972)

169

Example 4.7 Derivation of Iyer’s metric grouping structure from Wonder’s clarinet pattern in “Big Brother” (Iyer 2009a; Wonder 1972)

171

Example 4.8 Comparative form charts for “Imagine” (Iyer 2005a; Lennon 1971)

175

Example 4.9 Stages of ostinato assembly in “Imagine” (Iyer 2005a; Lennon 1971)

177

Example 4.10 First- and second-order maximal evenness in the metric hierarchy of “Imagine” (Iyer 2005a; Lennon 1971)

178

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Example Title Page

Example 4.11 Durationally simplified reharmonization in “Imagine” (Iyer 2005a; Lennon 1971)

180

Example 4.12 Duple metric hierarchy and septuple prime cycle in “The Star of a Story” (Iyer 2012c; Heatwave 1978)

183

Example 4.13 Grouping structures in opening vamp of “The Star of a Story” (Heatwave 1978)

184

Example 4.14 Transformed grouping structures in opening vamp of “The Star of a Story” (Iyer 2012c; Heatwave 1978)

184

Example 4.15 4- and 7-cycle projections in the vamp/breakdown following the second chorus in “The Star of a Story” (Iyer 2012c; Heatwave 1978)

186

Example 4.16 The Fibonacci series 189

Example 4.17 Template for recursive Fibonacci grouping structures 190

Example 4.18 Recursive Fibonacci grouping structures in numeric notation 192

Example 4.19 Recursive Fibonacci grouping structures in musical notation 192

Example 4.20 Fibonacci transformations of largely non-Fibonacci rhythms in “Human Nature (Trio Extension)” (Iyer 2012b; Jackson 1982)

194

Example 4.21 Initial 4/4 vamp in “Mystic Brew (Trixation Version)” (Iyer 2009d; Foster 1972)

198

Example 4.22 Form chart for “Mystic Brew (Trixation Version)” (Iyer 2009d; Foster 1972)

199

Example 4.23 Metric circuit with characteristic pitch patterns and metric modulations in “Mystic Brew (Trixation Version)” (Iyer 2009d; Foster 1972)

200

Example 5.1 The four Gricean maxims (Grice 1975) and generalized musical phenomena that violate them (Bourne 2016)

210

Example 5.2 Three TBP arranging techniques and the Gricean maxims they violate

212

Example 5.3 Paired side-slips in “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (TBP 2003b; Nirvana 1991)

216

Example 5.4 Origins of concluding harmonic side-slip in “Velouria” (TBP 2004b; Pixies 1990)

218

Example 5.5 Side-slipped bass root in the postchorus of “Knowing Me, Knowing You” (TBP 2001a; ABBA 1976)

219

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Example Title Page

Example 5.6 Harmonic origins of side-slipped bass roots in the chorus of “How Deep Is Your Love” (TBP and Lewis 2009b; Bee Gees 1977)

221

Example 5.7 Melodic side-slip origin of recurring harmonic interpolation in “Don’t Dream It’s Over” (TBP 2016a; Crowded House 1986)

222

Example 5.8 Melody-bass counterpoint in Verse 1 of “Comfortably Numb” (TBP and Lewis 2009a; Pink Floyd 1979)

223

Example 5.9 Iverson’s melodic side-slips in Verse 2 (Interlude) of “Comfortably Numb” (TBP and Lewis 2009a; Pink Floyd 1979)

224

Example 5.10 Iverson's melodic side-slips as whole-tone overextension in Verse 2 (Interlude) of “Comfortably Numb” (TBP and Lewis 2009a; Pink Floyd 1979)

225

Example 5.11 Extended modulatory scheme in the coda of “Mandy” (TBP 2016d; Manilow 1974)

227

Example 5.12 Melodic (over)extension in “Everybody Wants to Rule the World (TBP 2007; Tears for Fears 1985)

229

Example 5.13 Comparative form chart, lyric themes, and TBP rhythmic/metric patterns in “Time After Time” (TBP 2016e; Lauper 1983)

231

Example 5.14 Competing pulse streams in verse modules of “Time After Time” (TBP 2016e; Lauper 1983)

232

Example 5.15 Melody-bass (re)alignment in prechorus modules of “Time After Time” (TBP 2016e; Lauper 1983)

234

Example 5.16 Alignment and stratification in chorus modules of “Time After Time” (TBP 2016e; Lauper 1983)

235

Example 5.17 Diatonic extension and triple hypermeter in Interlude 1 of “Time After Time” (TBP 2016e; Lauper 1983)

237

Example 5.18 Encroachment of triple hypermeter in “Time After Time” (TBP 2016e; Lauper 1983)

238

Example 5.19 Motivic processes of pitch (over)extension in “Time After Time” (TBP 2016e; Lauper 1983)

239

Example 5.20 Generic coordinating parameters and referent types 252

Example 5.21 Parameter shifts in “Don’t Dream It’s Over” (TBP 2016a; Crowded House 1986)

257

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Example Title Page

Example 5.22 Parameter shifts and rhetorical features in “Heart of Glass” (TBP 2003a; Blondie 1978)

260

Example 5.23 Rhythmic freedom in Anderson’s bass line in Verse 1 of “Heart of Glass” (TBP 2003a; Blondie 1978)

262

Example 5.24 Iverson’s overextension and fragmentation of melody and harmony in Verse 3 of “Heart of Glass” (TBP 2003a; Blondie 1978)

263

Example 5.25 Full coordination in Bridge 3 of “Heart of Glass” (TBP 2003a; Blondie 1978)

263

Example 5.26 Parameter shifts and rhetorical features in “Karma Police” (TBP 2006; Radiohead 1997b)

265

Example 5.27 Sentential form in the verse and chorus modules of “Karma Police” (Radiohead 1997b)

266

Example 5.28 Parameter shifts and rhetorical features in “Velouria” (TBP 2004b; Pixies 1990)

269

Example 5.29 Grouping conflict in the verse modules of “Velouria” (Pixies 1990)

270

Example 5.30 King’s initial drum groove in “Velouria” (TBP 2004b; Pixies 1990)

271

Example 5.31 Anderson mediates Iverson’s and King’s metric stratification in Chorus 3b of “Velouria” (TBP 2004b; Pixies 1990)

273

1

—Chapter 1—

Introduction: Modern Jazz’s Standard Practice

1.1. Modern Jazz’s Standard Practice (MJSP)

This dissertation examines how contemporary jazz musicians approach the

acoustic performance of recorded, post-1960 popular music. While earnest acoustic jazz

renderings of this modern repertoire have become notably more prevalent since the

mid-1990s, they extend a larger lineage of popular music performance that traces to the

very origins of the jazz tradition. Such performances are musical palimpsests—they 1

forge a new work out of existing material. As such, the performances are inherently 2

intertextual, inviting a listener to hear the jazz rendering against, or in the context of, its

popular music source material. Acting variously as composers, arrangers, and 3

improvisers, jazz musicians both preserve and transform elements of their source

material to varying degrees. The particular balance they forge between these creative

poles—between preservation and transformation, and between creative agency and

source material influence—constitutes the creative crux of the palimpsest performance.

Save for the emphasis on improvisation that characterizes most jazz performances, this

much could be said about virtually any palimpsest, musical or otherwise. But in the case

of jazz, any truism about the historical continuity of a signature performance practice

obscures a conspicuous yet complex reality: while popular music has changed a lot since

On the history of jazz, see especially DeVeaux (1991), Giddins (2004), Giddins and DeVeaux (2009), Gioia 1

(1997), and Martin and Waters (2016). In its original form, the term palimpsest describes a written phenomenon: the superimposition of new 2

writing on an existing text. But the term is also used more generally by music scholars to describe various recreative practices in both popular music (e.g., Burns and Lacasse 2018) and jazz (e.g., Smither 2020a). For a thorough examination of the meaning of the term intertextuality, see Chapter 2.3

2

the early days of the jazz tradition, jazz’s acoustic palimpsest practice has only recently

begun to keep pace. These changes significantly reconfigure both the content of these

jazz performances and the broader relational hearing they entail.

The most familiar examples of jazz palimpsests are performances of standards.

This term typically refers to songs, originally written for the theater and popular

consumption during the so-called Golden Age of American popular song (roughly the

1920s through the mid-1950s), that have been extensively performed, arranged, and

recorded, both by jazz musicians and in various other genres. This decades-long lineage

of reproduction and mediation has cohered these songs into a loose but widely known

canon, often colloquially referred to as the Great American Songbook (GAS). Although

many decades have passed since GAS standards could reasonably pass for modern

popular music, they still comprise a core of the jazz repertoire, especially in the context

of acoustic small-group performance. Many jazz musicians continue to record and

perform these songs, and fluency with them remains an important signifier of jazz

authenticity—a marker of a musician who has studied a tradition and internalized (i.e.,

learn to improvise within) a musical language that for many remains jazz’s lingua

franca. 4

This constrained canon has retained its primacy despite a broader flowering of

stylistic cross-pollination and aesthetic openness in notable quarters of both the popular

music and jazz scenes, both of which have evolved, diversified, fragmented, and mixed

See Kernfeld (2006) for a historical overview of how the GAS coalesced into a standard musical canon for 4

jazz musicians, and the role that fake books have played in this coalescence, including both the illegal, underground fifth edition of The Real Book and its legal, authorized sixth edition, published by Hal Leonard. Wilf (2014) provides a thoughtful examination of the role that standards—both GAS tunes and original jazz compositions that have earned this moniker in jazz circles, which are collected together in The Real Book—play in American institutional jazz education.

3

tremendously since the 1950s. Some creative musicians have retained an adamantly 5

ecumenical posture toward commingling jazz and other musical traditions, including

klezmer, folk, classical, and various world musics. Within popular music, numerous 6

recreative practices, including covers, sampling, mashups, and remixes, have also

become increasingly frequent and wide-ranging in scope, such that even the most

improbable cross-genre borrowings no longer come as any big surprise. But the 7

widespread emergence of a similarly voracious postmodern repertoire appetite in jazz’s

acoustic palimpsest practice has lagged somewhat behind these other developments,

with the practice’s tight orbit around the GAS loosening only in the last 25 years or so.

A primary reason for this tenacious resistance to repertoire expansion is simply

that, in some influential corners of the jazz scene, most post-1950 popular music is

To cite a few of the countless examples of stylistic cross-pollinations between jazz and popular music in the 5

1960s and ‘70s alone, witness the emergence of both jazz-rock and jazz-funk fusions—unions whose progeny wind extensively through subsequent decades. For examinations of these and other streams of stylistic fragmentation, see especially Covach (1999), Nicholson (2002), and Shoemaker (2018). On a repertoire front, the 1960s also saw at least three jazz records comprised entirely of Beatles songs, including Ramsey Lewis’s hugely successful crossover record Mother Nature’s Son (1968)—a jazz- and soul-fueled take on the White Album (1968)—as well as two big-band swing albums by pianist and bandleader Count Basie: Basie’s Beatle Bag (1966) and Basie on the Beatles (1970). Monson (2007) recounts jazz musicians’ widespread embrace of a universalist aesthetic freedom in the 6

1950s and ‘60s—an imperative to use jazz as a vehicle for exploration of other ideas and influences. Both Clements (2008) and Farrell (1988) examine jazz musicians’ specific importation of elements from Indian music. Schenker (2015) argues that some jazz artists’ incorporation of Balkan rhythms in the late 1980s and early ‘90s also grew out of this earlier imperative for aesthetic freedom and stylistic integration, albeit against the distinct backdrop of Cold War-era political discourse in America. On Third Stream music—the blending of jazz and classical “streams”—see Schuller (1986) and Joyner (2000). Other studies examine specific (post)modern crossovers between jazz and Western art music: Heile (2007) and Wriggle (2012) both consider jazz approaches to nineteenth-century compositions, while O’Gallagher (2013) and Terefenko (2018a) each present strategies for incorporating pitch constructs from the Second Viennese School into improvised jazz performance. On the general topic of hybridity and the flattening of genre distinctions in contemporary musical culture, 7

see Alcalde (2017) and Covach (2016); for specific discussions of the prominence and variety of poplar music covers, see especially the edited volumes by Burns and Lacasse (2018) and Plasketes (2010). (I discuss covers extensively in Chapter 2.) Williams (2013) examines the intertextuality of sampling in hip-hop. For discussions of mashups and remixes, see Adams (2015), Boone (2013), and Gunkel (2008). Reynolds (2011) provides helpful broader context for all of the above, surveying popular culture’s increasing propensity to appropriate its own collective past.

4

understood as banal, corny, vapid, or some combination thereof. Any earnest influence 8

of this music on jazz performance—whether from 1960s rock or 1980s hip-hop—is thus

redolent of commercial rather than artistic aims, rendering it aesthetically pejorative. 9

This view, fueled in part by aesthetic regret over fusion’s evolution into smooth jazz, was

bolstered in the 1980s by the emergence of an influential neoclassical jazz movement.

Anchored at New York City’s Jazz at Lincoln Center and spearheaded by its artistic

director, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, as well as jazz critic Stanley Crouch, this

movement promoted jazz as “America’s classical music.” The movement sought to 10

elevate the aesthetic and cultural cache of acoustic jazz with roots in swing and the

blues, (crucially) the primarily black musicians who first created this music, and its

embodiment of ideals of democracy, liberation, and American exceptionalism. This 11

elevation spawned a public and commercial renaissance of acoustic jazz, as well as a

critical reckoning about race in both jazz music and scholarship—a reckoning that is still

in progress over three decades later. But it also rejected any approaches to jazz 12

performance that did not prioritize these foundational elements, tacitly excluding any

To be sure, GAS tunes are often understood as inherently corny source materials too, as summarized by 8

Monson (1996): “Jazz listeners generally view the transformations of Broadway tunes by jazz musicians as considerably ‘superior’ to the original materials” (115). But such GAS materials at least present usefully rich and varied harmonic frameworks for melodic improvisation; by comparison, the harmonic language of much modern popular music is, from a certain perspective, regrettably static and stale. For discussions of this historical perspective in jazz, see Chinen (2018) and Washburne (2004).9

This famous turn-of-phrase comes from the title of a 1986 article by Billy Taylor. 10

Ken Burns’s (2001) television documentary miniseries Jazz is a well-known and much-discussed cultural 11

product of this neoclassical perspective. For critical examinations of this series and its underlying assumptions, see especially DeVeaux (2005) and two scholarly symposia—one a roundtable moderated by Jacques (2001), the other with contributions by Brown (2001), Gracyk (2001), and Hagberg (2001).

This racial reckoning in jazz scholarship is exemplified by what I describe in Chapter 2 as a new-12

musicological turn in ethnographic jazz scholarship, epitomized by seminal studies by Berliner (1994), Lewis (1996), and Monson (1996). A similar reckoning in the public square was sparked by a 2003 JazzTimes column by Crouch, in which he lambasted the critical acclaim trumpeter Dave Douglas received for his experimentation with Balkan rhythms as evidence of jazz’s persistent white supremacy (Crouch [2003] 2006).

5

repertoire or influences from rock, hip-hop, R&B, or the like. A jazz musician might

responsibly reel off a burning rendition of a Cole Porter tune, sure. But a rock-inflected

take on the Beatles or Michael Jackson? It might be (bad) music, but it surely wasn’t jazz

—or at least, not good jazz.

Although this territorial approach to jazz’s stylistic purity still retains significant

influence, its omnipotence began to wane in the mid-1990s, as established jazz musicians

with considerable coattails in the tradition—including pianist Herbie Hancock and

singer Cassandra Wilson—began to publicly and self-consciously embrace previously

excluded reaches of the capacious popular music canon as repertoire for acoustic jazz

performance. Hancock pointedly titled his 1996 album of acoustic jazz palimpsests The

New Standard, filling the record with postbop-inspired arrangements of songs by Prince,

Peter Gabriel, and Kurt Cobain. Younger musicians, including pianist Brad Mehldau and

saxophonist Joshua Redman, displayed a similar openness, recording acoustic trio or

quartet records with similarly loaded titles—Songs: The Art of the Trio, Vol. 3 (Mehldau

1998b) and Timeless Tales (For Changing Times) (Redman 1998b)—that placed songs by

Radiohead and the Beatles alongside warhorses by Richard Rodgers and Jerome Kern. 13

“Purists Beware,” declared a headline in the New York Times, “Jazz is Making Peace

with Rock” (Shatz 1998). And by the middle of the next decade, a new, more inclusive

kind of approach to recorded popular music was, if not uniformly embraced or

As representative examples, Mehldau’s Songs (1998b) contains renditions of both Rodgers and Hart’s 13

“Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered” (1940) and Radiohead’s “Exit Music (For a Film)” (1997a), while Redman’s Timeless Tales (1998b) features both Kern and Harbach’s “Yesterdays” (1933) and the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” (1966). Detailed information about the individual recorded tracks and entire albums referenced in this dissertation are collected in an extensive concluding discography. In subsequent chapters, I frequently use a semicolon citation style to refer cleanly to jazz palimpsests that should be heard against particular original tracks: for example, I cite Mehldau’s recording of “Exit Music” as “‘Exit Music’ (Mehldau 1998a; Radiohead 1997a).” Referential original recordings of GAS tunes are not included in my discographies, because in most cases my discussions do not reference such recordings—for more on this issue, see Chapter 2.

6

widespread, at least discernible among devoted jazz musicians. This approach hardly

effected a total rapprochement between jazz and modern popular music writ large. But

in a stark contrast from earlier attitudes, it did earnestly posit that repertoire—and in

some cases, stylistic influences—from some modern popular genres could transform

from regrettable interlopers into sources of influence and inspiration in an acoustic jazz

context.

This perspective has only grown more prevalent in the subsequent decades, and

it remains so as of this writing. In addition to Hancock, Wilson, Mehldau, and Redman,

artists like Fred Hersch, Vijay Iyer, The Bad Plus, Robert Glasper, and Jason Moran are

widely understood as working, at least to some degree, within the jazz tradition, even if

their music and rhetoric alike sometimes explicitly challenge that categorization. These

musicians still perform in acoustic small-group configurations reminiscent of earlier

decades of jazz performance, and they demonstrate a characteristic depth of engagement

with the music’s rich heritage.

But their taste and stylistic acumen are decidedly omnivorous. Steeped in

influences from recorded popular genres from the 1960s onward, including pop,

(progressive) rock, folk, R&B, and hip-hop, these musicians have publicly and self-

consciously allowed these diverse musical affinities to shape their repertoire choices, as

well as their approaches to composition and improvisation. As a result, the music they

produce suggests an understanding of jazz as evolving practice that can approach the

music of Irving Berlin and Bon Iver alike with the same spirit of improvisational

recreativity—even if the results may be markedly different. Listen to an album from the

past two decades, and it should be no surprise to hear both “Body and Soul” and Afrika

Bambaataa (Moran 2002b), “My Funny Valentine” together with Queen (The Bad Plus

7

2005), Thelonious Monk alongside Stevie Wonder (Goldberg 2010a), Ellington coexisting

with Michael Jackson (Iyer 2012a), or even Herbie Hancock and Radiohead woven

together into a single arrangement (Glasper 2007b). 14

In contrast to Marsalis’s circumscribed neoclassical aesthetic, this openness

evinces a distinctly postmodern turn—a putatively even-handed embrace of a much

larger body of repertoire as potential fodder for an acoustic jazz palimpsest. But the

contrast between the heterogeneity of this repertoire and the consistency of its GAS

standard forebears spotlights several issues of analytical and conceptual interest. First

and most obviously, modern popular music is often quite different than the GAS. If a

palimpsest is animated by a balance of preservation and transformation across musical

domains—melody, harmony, rhythm and groove, form, rhetorical shape, and so on—

contrasts in the content and primacy of these domains in a source song offer jazz

musicians palpably different opportunities for compositional transformation and

improvisational interplay. The tonally directed harmony of an Irving Berlin song wields

a different kind of influence, and affords different kinds of transformations, than the

syncopated clavinet groove of a Stevie Wonder tune, for example. Fresh repertoire both

shapes jazz performances, and can be reshaped by jazz musicians, in new ways.

Second and more broadly, GAS standards and modern popular songs are marked

by stark differences in ontology. Standards are characterized by a lineage of

reproduction that over time has dissipated the authority of these songs as originally

composed, loosening them from fixed, specific utterances into more generalized

Recalling the discussion of jazz-classical crossovers above, some of these jazz artists also skillfully perform 14

and rearrange Western art music. See, for example, Moran’s improvisational rendering of Robert Schumann’s “Auf einer Burg” (Moran 2002a) or Mehldau’s (2018) After Bach, which pairs works from J.S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier with Mehldau originals inspired by these works.

8

frameworks—usually a loose set of melodic and harmonic schemata, represented by the

sparse lead-sheet notation that appears in a fake book. While any listener or performer 15

is doubtless more familiar with some recordings of a particular standard than others, no

one version is usually understood as singularly authoritative. Instead, the very notion of

a standard suggests that an extensive process of mediation has transmuted the original

song into a bricolage of all its versions—a kind of composite that is both more and less

than the sum of its parts. This multiplicity renders the standard an inherently diffuse 16

intertext. While the flexibility inherent to this diffusion is ideal for allowing jazz

musicians to shape a palimpsest performance, it can also attenuate a listener’s ability to

hear how the standard shapes that performance in anything more than a general way. In

other words, it can be difficult to plot precisely where the standard’s influence ends and

the jazz musician’s creativity begins. 17

By contrast, nearly every modern popular song performed by jazz musicians

exists as a singular, referential recording. Because such recordings are readily available

and often familiar to modern listeners, a jazz palimpsest demands to be heard in relation

to its source recording, in all its fixed specificity. This recorded intertext provides a

listener an exceptionally vivid foil against which to hear the jazz performance. It

empowers the source’s structural elements to shape that performance in exceedingly

Kernfeld (2006) surveys the role that lead-sheet notation has played in this lineage of loosening, stretching 15

from the early Tune-Dex subscription service—which notated the melodies and chord changes of popular songs on notecards for easy reading and transport by popular musicians—to The Real Book.

I survey several conceptual approaches to the inherent multiplicity of a standard in Chapter 2.16

In my own experience as an improvising pianist, I often find this boundary slippery in performance too. 17

My knowledge of most standard chord progressions, for example, conceives of them not as fixed utterances, but as collections of harmonic pathways, united by varying degrees of functional resemblance. In a recent pedagogical text, Berkman (2013) echoes this view, suggesting that reharmonization—the forging of one’s own unique pathways through a standard’s chord progression—is the nub of jazz practice. Stover (2014–15) critiques this view, noting that it downplays the imperative to honor composers’ specific harmonic choices when they are readily available to performers.

9

specific ways, while more clearly illuminating both small- and large-scale deviations

from these elements. It allows the analyst to more precisely track how jazz musicians,

acting as both arrangers and improvisers, calibrate this balance between consistency and

change across musical domains, as they preserve some features of their source material,

imaginatively transform some others, and treat others flexibly enough to allow an

improvisatory impulse to blossom in performance. And because these performances

both extend jazz’s palimpsest practice and embed in a broader contemporary music

culture rife with cross-genre covers and other approaches to musical recreation, their

multifaceted identity offers listeners notable flexibility in how, precisely, they choose to

apprehend the nature of this palimpsest-source relationship.

These issues frame my examination of modern jazz performances of post-1960

recorded popular music. I refer to this heterogeneous body of source material as

“modern recorded popular music,” or MRPM. While I conceive of this broad corpus in

ontological contrast to the GAS, I otherwise intend the corpus to be understood as

broadly as possible, encompassing all popular genres in which singular recordings

associated with specific artists are readily available and widely understood as the

primary text for a given song. With tongue firmly in cheek, I refer to this vast corpus of 18

repertoire, the jazz musicians who perform it, and the compositional and

improvisational transformations to which they subject it, as “modern jazz’s standard

practice,” or MJSP. 19

A useful genre heuristic for this expansive view of modern popular music is to consider all the genres that 18

fall under the purview of SMT’s Popular Music Interest Group. Here and throughout the dissertation, I use shorthands for recurring ideas like the GAS, MRPM, and 19

MJSP, in order to declutter and improve the flow of the prose. This technique is inspired by recent scholarship by Murphy (2016), who refers to “recent popular English language multimedia” with the shorthand RPELM, and Guerra (2019), who refers to “Afro-diasporic popular music” with ADPM. I use these shorthands flexibly, as both nouns (e.g., “the GAS”) and adjectives (e.g., “a GAS tune”).

10

Because both MRPM and MJSP are far too broad and boundless to be responsibly

examined in a single dissertation, I offer as a more limited object of study the collections

of MRPM acoustic palimpsest performances by three modern jazz artists, each of whose

output in acoustic piano trio or quartet formats includes a sizable number of MRPM

arrangements: Brad Mehldau, Vijay Iyer, and The Bad Plus. I examine notable aspects 20

of each of these artists’ approaches to MRPM in the individual case studies of Chapters

3–5, which constitute the analytical core of the dissertation. While I do not explicitly

highlight every MRPM performance in each musician’s oeuvre, I use their collective

body of work, supplemented with select additional examples, as the primary corpus to

which my models and analytical tools most readily apply, and from which I draw

broader conclusions. But I also intend this corpus as a reasonably representative

synecdoche for the broader MJSP, as it extends beyond the artists I examine to

encompass other pianists, singers, instrumentalists, and performing forces. And my

hope is that some of my ideas and spheres of analytical focus will also resonate with

other kinds of musical palimpsest practices beyond modern jazz—particularly those in

which improvisation plays a central role. 21

My study of MJSP has both specific analytical and broad conceptual goals, which

are interrelated. Specifically, I examine how the recorded fixity and stylistic

heterogeneity of MRPM combine to afford innovative kinds of compositional and

improvisational transformations in jazz performance. My focus in these examinations is

The content of even this circumscribed canon is growing as I write this, with all three artists continuing to 20

arrange and record; for practical purposes, the canon of MRPM palimpsests I consider in this dissertation stretches from 1995 to 2020.

As I survey in Chapter 2, the literature on popular music palimpsest alone is immense, to say nothing of 21

musical recreation writ large—a practice that Burkholder (2018) notes dates to the origins of music making: “As long as people have been making music, people have been remaking music: taking a musical idea someone already made and reworking it in some way to make something new” (v).

11

not primarily on the content of jazz musicians’ improvisations per se, but on how

specific musical transformations create space for improvisation in these MRPM source

materials, the kinds of improvisation that transpire in these spaces, and how these

improvisations interact with important features of an original song.

Broadly, I seek to probe the implications of MJSP’s liminal position at the

intersection between historical jazz palimpsest practices and a polyglot contemporary

musical culture in which cross-genre covers and musical hybridity are increasingly

commonplace. I hope to suggest how the existence of precise, identifiable intertexts

configures our hearing of this music, how this relational listening posture might differ

from that suggested by a GAS standard, and how both processes are contingent on the

ontological, agential, and expressive assumptions a listener brings to bear. As such, even

as my analyses draw heavily (and, I hope, creatively) on technical tools from jazz and

popular music scholarship, my use of these tools occurs under the aegis of broader

interpretive questions—about the nature of the intertextual relationship between jazz

palimpsests and their source materials, about the circulation of creative agency that

these performances enact, and about the ways these elements configure how we

conceptualize, listen to, and analyze this music.

1.2. Form and Analytical Ethos of the Dissertation

The form and analytical ethos of this dissertation mirror the repertoire it studies.

Broadly, a jazz palimpsest performance often takes the form of a theme and variations:

after an initial presentation of a theme, one or more solos follow that explore, elaborate

12

on, or recontextualize that theme. The dissertation adopts a similar approach. After this 22

brief chapter, which serves as an introduction, Chapter 2 establishes a broad theme for

the study by examining how intertextuality and agency operate in MJSP. Chapters 3–5

then present variations on this theme in the form of focused case studies, each of which

pairs an examination of a specific domain of musical transformation with an analytical

focus on one of the three artists from my limited MJSP corpus. Like the relationship in

jazz performance between solos and the musical context in which they transpire, each of

these case studies exists in dialogic relationship with the concerns of Chapter 2. The

common assumptions that undergird each study are that MRPM songs can highlight

different structural domains for musical preservation and transformation than do GAS

tunes; and that the fixity of a MRPM intertext both allows and suggests a more fine-

grained hearing of the resulting balance. While each study highlights a particular

domain and artist, the broader ontological, agential, and intertextual issues of Chapter 2

also lurk beneath these studies, which contextualize and complicate these larger

concerns by approaching them through the lens of specific repertoire, compositional

techniques, and analytical ideas.

The primary goal of Chapter 2 is to triangulate the intertextuality of MJSP within

recreative traditions in jazz and modern popular music, and to explore how the practice

interacts with foundational assumptions about ontology and agency associated with

each. While MJSP continues the longstanding jazz tradition of using popular music 23

frameworks as vehicles for improvisation, these performances also unfold within a

I mildly problematize this conventional understanding of a jazz palimpsest in Chapter 3.22

Chapter 2 serves as the dissertation’s primary literature review for issues of intertextuality in popular 23

music and jazz. Other chapters fold in shorter, topical literature reviews as necessary—Chapter 4, in particular, surveys recent rhythm and meter literature to organize and summarize a set of metric properties displayed by non-isochronous pulse streams.

13

heterogeneous popular music cover landscape. These recreative practices are colored by

distinct assumptions about the ontology, authority, and specificity of musical source

materials, and variations in these assumptions can shape the expressive goal(s) a listener

hears being pursued in a performance, as well as the circulation of creative agency they

perceive in specific musical domains. I offer a model of the inherent contingency of this

agential circulation, enumerate three broad expressive goals for MJSP performances

(sublimation, veneration, and integration), and examine how combinations of

preservation and transformation across various musical domains both shape and are

shaped by these varying agential and expressive ascriptions.

With this theme established, Chapter 3—the first of three case studies—examines

how MJSP uses formal repetition to create spaces for improvisation in palimpsest

arrangements, and how different repetition schemes are suggested or shaped by features

of MRPM source songs. Owing to the formal, harmonic, and hypermetric homogeneity

of the GAS, most jazz performances of this repertoire use a standard repetition model in

which theme and variations—or head and solo statements—unfold in the same musical

environment, often producing the rhetorical shape of a theme-and-variations

performance. While this basic repetition model is easily applied to many MRPM songs,

the multi-modular and idiosyncratic forms of some MRPM also afford other repetition

schemes. These schemes can produce different juxtapositions between head and solo

materials and yield different rhetorical contours in jazz performance.

In Part 1 of this chapter, I survey and problematize the so-called head-solos-head

moniker often used to characterize GAS jazz palimpsests. I then outline three broad

types of formal repetition, focusing on how these schemes are afforded by harmonic and

formal-rhetorical features of source songs, how compositional changes in these domains

14

can enhance or alter these affordances, and how each scheme forges a different formal

and rhetorical relationship between a solo section, surrounding head statements, and a

broader formal design. After briefly exploring these themes in two short analyses of

arrangements by the pianists Aaron Goldberg and Robert Glasper, in Part 2 I examine

four trio arrangements of MRPM songs by Brad Mehldau. These arrangements couple

progressively more elaborate harmonic and thematic transformations with increasingly

expansive formal designs. I illustrate how these designs both disrupt and enhance

repetition patterns and other signal features of their MRPM source materials,

significantly enlarging and/or altering the formal shape and rhetorical scope of these

original songs.

Focusing on the prevalence of asymmetric meters in modern jazz performance

writ large, Chapter 4 examines how and why a listener might hear an asymmetric

transformation of an MRPM duple groove as preserving one or more layers of an

original song’s duple metric hierarchy. Put simply, how and why might one wish to

count a measure of five or seven, in a non-isochronous two or four? While any number

of asymmetric grooves might be reasonably subjected to such a duple hearing, I argue

that the ontological primacy of rhythm and groove in many MRPM tracks foregrounds

this dimension of specifically intertextual listening, allowing a listener to hear and (N.B.)

feel asymmetric jazz grooves not as new creations, but as targeted complications of an

original song’s rhythm and meter.

Part 1 of this chapter surveys a swath of recent rhythm and meter literature,

organizing a nesting set of properties that might cause a listener to attribute metric

valence to a non-isochronous pulse stream. In Parts 2 and 3, I then examine

manifestations of these properties in metric transformations by the pianist and scholar

15

Vijay Iyer. Drawing on the theme of preservation and transformation, I argue that the

crux of Iyer’s transformations is their complication of an original duple metric hierarchy,

vestiges of which linger in Iyer’s grooves, cloaked in jagged non-isochrony. I organize

these transformations according to the metric scale at which they inject asymmetry into

this original duple hierarchy, and I suggest how the resulting asymmetry and non-

isochrony might be heard to blur the distinction between rhythm and meter, especially

in transformations of MRPM grooves that are heavily animated by syncopation. My

examination concludes with a study of Iyer’s use of the Fibonacci series to effect metric

transformations that import a quadruple tactus into asymmetric meters in a remarkably

systematic way by capitalizing on an inherent property of the (332) tresillo rhythm.

In Chapter 5, I turn to the issue of irony—why, how, and whether it can be heard

to manifest in both specific musical domains and entire performances by the

postmodern jazz piano trio The Bad Plus (TBP). Although the scope of TBP’s MRPM

output parallels that of other prominent in artists in MJSP, their renderings are more

consistently interpreted as parodic or ironic by both critics and fans. Noting that the trio

forcefully rejects this characterization, I examine how musical features of TBP

palimpsests both court ironic interpretation and combine to create compelling

developmental processes and unique improvisational spaces. I begin with a framework

developed by Janet Bourne (2016), which identifies musical sources of irony in violations

of the so-called Gricean maxims (Grice 1975), developed to describe the conventions that

govern “cooperative” verbal conversation. Characterizing a palimpsest as a dialogue

between a source song, recreative musicians, and listeners, I define three arranging

techniques that recur across TBP’s output and violate various combinations of these

maxims.

16

In Part 1, I examine how the first two of these techniques—side-slipping and

(over)extension—act and interact in targeted ways to blatantly subvert and subtly

reconfigure particular elements of MRPM source songs. While such transformations

filter these elements through a potentially ironic lens, I illustrate how they also give rise

to striking musical relationships and developmental processes. In Part 2, I zoom out to

examine entire TBP performances, focusing on the trio’s famously vertiginous shifts

between performative approaches at formal boundaries. Although these drastic shifts

enhance formal discontinuity and subvert key source song elements, I suggest that they

also reflect a third arranging technique that I call parameter shift: decisions by the trio

members to yoke their individual and collective coordination to changing—and often

deliberately limited—sets of coordinating musical parameters. This approach allows the

band to create contrasting kinds of solo spaces within and between modules, for

improvisational utterances that range from short fills to collective free jazz-inspired

jams. These contrasts can variously exaggerate, countermand, or reshape the formal-

rhetorical contours of the trio’s MRPM source materials. And they also enact formal and

developmental processes—some subtle, some overt—that imbue the trio’s performances

with distinct, large-scale through-lines.

Just as the dissertation’s structure reflects the layout and relationships of a

theme-and-variations jazz performance, the analytical posture that I adopt in each of the

three case studies also seeks to mirror the creative ethos of the jazz musicians I study,

and of MJSP as a whole. While some performances in MJSP subtly reshape their source

materials, others profoundly reconfigure them, leveraging reinterpretations of fine-

grained details as launching points for wildly new approaches. In a similar fashion,

some of my analyses simply advocate subtle ways of hearing. But other analyses are

17

boldly inventive, proposing large-scale frameworks or elaborate transformational

process that require radical listening strategies. I stress that my analytical goal in each

case is more prescriptive than it is descriptive. That is, I certainly do not intend to

suggest how one does—or even how one should—hear MJSP performances, but rather to

propose how one might hear them. I emphasize how these hearings are made possible 24

by a coupling of the targeted, recording-based intertextuality of Chapter 2 with creative

uses of music-theoretic tools. Some of the analyses I offer might strike some readers as

overreaches. But I contend that my analytical approach to MJSP is a fitting mirror of how

modern jazz musicians approach and reconfigure MRPM source materials—seeking to

produce something new and compelling by balancing keen attention to detail with

searching, unfettered creativity. If, as you read my analyses, you find yourself

occasionally wondering whether my reading makes more of a performance than was

perhaps originally intended, then I contend that I’ve done my job. Creative music

demands creative analysis.

1.3. Five Important Caveats

Several features inherent to this project—its predication on the inherent

porousness of genre divisions between jazz and other genres, the heterogeneity of both

the repertoire and performance practices it encompasses, and the lack of written scores

for virtually all the music it analyses—either suggest or require limitations on the scope

of the project itself. To close this introductory chapter, I highlight five important caveats

for the study: my circumscribed approach to repertoire and artists; my focus on

My distinction between these purposes for music-theoretic analysis parallels the categories outlined in 24

Temperley (2001).

18

compositional transformations, rather than improvisational techniques; the profusion of

relevant scholarship but relative dearth of dedicated work on modern jazz; my

avoidance of dedicated attention to harmony; and the challenges of musical

transcription. Some of these caveats involve productive constraints on the ambit of the

project, others involve unavoidable methodological issues—but all are worth

emphasizing at the outset.

First, while I argue that the limited corpus of music and musicians I study here is

reasonably emblematic of a larger and more varied MJSP, I emphasize that even this

broader conception of MJSP is limited by two factors: it extends only to acoustic, small-

ensemble performances by musicians who can be readily, if not exclusively, understood

as jazz musicians; and it only includes artists whose output comprises both a significant

number of acoustic MRPM performances and numerous other kinds of works—GAS

standards, original compositions, and so on. These restrictions exclude several types of

artists and musical output that might be productively considered adjacent to MJSP as

I’ve construed it here. The limitations exclude groups like Postmodern Jukebox, whose

jazz renditions of MRPM usually function unambiguously as covers that leverage a

particular jazz style as a primary animating topic. They bracket off jazz-influenced

recordings of MRPM that use electronic instruments, which often suggest stronger links

with the lineage of R&B, neo-soul, and jazz-funk and jazz-rock fusions than with the

tradition of acoustic jazz standard performance. This limitation excludes, for example,

Robert Glasper’s MRPM recordings with his band the Robert Glasper Experiment,

which straddle the boundaries between jazz, R&B, hip-hop, and neo-soul. In a similar

spirit, I also do not address creative musicians whose output draws heavily on jazz

influences but situates them primarily within another genre orientation. This category

19

includes singer-pianists like Jamie Cullum and Jacob Collier, both of whom have

released virtuosic but pop-oriented renditions of MRPM materials.

Second, my primary analytical focus in each case study is on how modern jazz

musicians subject MRPM source materials to compositional transformations.

Improvisation factors significantly into this analytical focus. But I am primarily

concerned with how palimpsest arrangements create spaces for improvisation, the kinds

of improvisation they suggest or allow, and how these spaces interact with other aspects

of an arrangement and provide jazz musicians with the opportunity to amplify or

reconfigure the rhetorical shape of the MRPM source song. These concerns often prohibit

extensive focus on the content of musicians’ improvisations in palimpsest performances.

While it would be intriguing to investigate (for example) how different kinds of

harmonic and rhythmic language in MRPM shape improvisational techniques by

various jazz artists, such considerations fall outside the scope of this study. 25

Third, owing to the broad genre and conceptual scope of this project, the

academic music literature is replete with relevant tools and ideas. My study of

intertextuality, agency, and ontology in Chapter 2 marshals a range of perspectives on

these topics from art music, popular music, and jazz contexts. I ground the topics of the

subsequent case studies in appropriate literature, including artist-specific analytical

work about MRPM artists where relevant and available. And my overall approaches to

I hope to pursue these kinds of questions in future work, as an inevitable offshoot from this project.25

20

MRPM and jazz analysis are anchored in foundational work in each subdiscipline. But 26

this overabundance of relevant scholarship reciprocally highlights a conspicuous lacuna

in music-theoretic work, and thus a pragmatic limitation of this study: the lack of

analytical work about modern jazz. To my knowledge, there is only one academic study

(Rusch 2013) that explicitly examines a jazz performance of an MRPM track. (I reference

this study in multiple chapters.) And save for a handful of other studies of Mehldau’s

original music (e.g., Arthurs 2011; Baynes 2015), to my knowledge there are no music-

theoretic studies of the other artists that I consider here. Instead, most critical writing 27

about MJSP exists in the form of think pieces, journalistic articles, performance reviews,

and blog posts, some of which are written by the artists themselves; I readily cite these

sources when they prove insightful and appropriate.

Fourth, the case studies of Chapters 3–5 each involve some examinations of

harmonic transformations. This topic is most prevalent in Chapter 3, which examines

relationships between tonally-directed chord progressions and formal repetition

schemes. But harmony itself does not take center stage as the primary focus of a

dedicated case study. This is perhaps surprising: chord substitution and

reharmonization are typically central to both jazz arranging and improvisation, and the

study of these elements has been a central focus of pedagogical texts and analytical

Because some work on popular music and jazz in particular is fairly well-known in music-theoretic circles, 26

I treat some of it as shared disciplinary knowledge, using targeted citations and explanations where appropriate, but avoiding full-fledged and unnecessarily cumbersome literature reviews of analytical scholarship on popular music and jazz analysis writ large. In MRPM, I contend that this well-known work includes studies of harmony and melody by Biamonte (2010), Doll (2017), Everett (2004), Nobile (2015), Tagg (2014), and Temperley (2007, 2018); as well as perspectives on form, formal function, and rhetorical shape developed by Biamonte (2014, 2018), Covach (2005), de Clercq (2017), Osborn (2013), and Peres (2016). My analysis of jazz is rooted in a thorough understanding of traditional tonal jazz harmony, rhythm, and form, as articulated in textbooks by Berkman (2013), Levine (1995), Mulholland and Hojnacki (2013), and Terefenko (2018a); as well as in specific analytical work on harmony by Martin (1988), Strunk (1979, 2016), and Waters (2010, 2016, 2019).

A recent exception is my work on harmony in the original music of pianist Robert Glasper (Baker 2019).27

21

studies, both of which are replete with approaches for relating harmonies and

progressions to one another. Pedagogical texts, for example, often seek to sensitize

student musicians to the kinds of chord successions and melodic shapes that afford

decoration with particular combinations of upper extensions, or by replacement or

extension via other syntactically normative progressions. Analytical studies often take 28

a reciprocal angle, seeking to highlight the origins of seemingly idiosyncratic composed

or improvised progressions in more conventional functional or voice-leading

prototypes. These twin pedagogical and analytical approaches have been applied 29

extensively to the functional tonal harmony of the GAS, bebop, and hard bop; and recent

analytical scholarship (e.g., Martin 2018; Waters 2019) has also made significant

headway in plotting the evolution of this functional syntax into the harmonic language

of postbop and modal jazz, which often attenuates or suppresses these tonal functions.

But in comparison to this relatively conventional body of jazz repertoire,

harmonic transformations do not play a significant role in most palimpsest arrangements

of MRPM. To be sure, some jazz musicians draw on recognizable reharmonization

strategies to transform select progressions in their arrangements, and the significant

scholarship on these practices provides helpful starting points for analysis. But I would 30

not suggest that these arranging strategies cohere (yet) into some new, consistent, and

Terefenko (2018a), for example, details eleven reharmonization strategies that range from adding upper 28

extensions to enlivening otherwise static harmonies via the interpolation of auxiliary progressions that are animated by both functional and linear logics. Stover (2014–15) provides a helpful comparative summary of the first edition of Terefenko’s text (2014) and two other influential texts: Berkman (2013) and Mulholland and Hojnacki (2013). For other pedagogically oriented treatments of harmonic substitution, see Michaelsen (2016) and Stover (2016a, 2016b).

Strategies for illuminating these origins include chord substitution grammars (e.g., Strunk 1979; Waters 29

2016), chord-scale isographies (e.g., McClimon 2016; Michaelsen 2018; Waters 2005; Waters and Williams 2010), and prolongational models that mediate between the musical surface and more normative background models (e.g., Larson 1998, 2005, 2009; Martin 1996, 2011).

And of course, jazz musicians’ improvisations over MRPM—which are not the core focus of this study—30

regularly make heavy use of substitution, reharmonization, superimposition, and so on.

22

codifiable practice that is meaningfully different from its stylistic predecessors. Instead,

the harmonic through-line running through MJSP is that, perhaps to a surprising degree,

many jazz musicians leave the basic harmonies of their MRPM source materials

relatively unaltered, preserving them both as melodic harmonizations and as

frameworks for improvisation. This may be simply because the harmonic language of

some MRPM contrasts markedly with the functional, monotonal progressions of the

GAS. MRPM thus provides an appealing array of new harmonic environments in which

to improvise; from this perspective, significant alteration of such fresh environments

would undercut one of the primary reasons for playing MRPM songs in the first place.

Fifth and finally, virtually all the music I study in this dissertation lacks an

authoritative score for both the MRPM source song and the jazz arrangement. As such,

my analyses are based on my own detailed transcriptions of recordings. These

transcriptions constitute an unavoidable, first-stage analytic gloss on the original

material, representing the aggregate of my conscious and unconscious decision-making

in various musical domains. Moreover, virtually all of the musical examples in this

dissertation do not present these transcriptions themselves, but further simplifications of

them, streamlined variously for ease of reading, to save space, or to facilitate focus on a

particular aspect of the music. These examples thus subject the recorded source

materials they represent to multiple stages of mediation. These mediating decisions are 31

particularly pertinent when aspects of the music in question are resistant to easy capture

in conventional musical notation—when, for example, a dense harmonic surface resists

Winkler (1997) thoughtfully discusses this mediating process and the decisions it involves; Smither (2020a) 31

characterizes transcription as a process of entextualization, the rough dual of the de-entextual process involved in abstracting a fixed composition into a flexible vehicle for improvisation.

23

compression into a single chord symbol (as it often does in Brad Mehldau’s playing), or

in the metric stratification that marks some of TBP’s most raucous free improvisations. 32

At each stage of this mediation process—in both my initial transcriptions and my

preparation of targeted musical examples—I have attempted to render the specifics of

the music in question as faithfully and transparently as possible. All musical examples

are annotated with timestamps that reference specific popular music or jazz recordings; I

include “e.g.” in a timestamp when the notated passage in question is intended to be

representative of other similar passages in the recording (an example might represent a

reharmonization of a repeating verse module, for instance). To determine the metric

scale of my musical notation, I have consistently relied on Trevor de Clercq’s (2016)

concept of an “idealized measure.” Out of all possible, metrically isomorphic measure 33

lengths, I choose the notation that yields measures whose duration in the MRPM source

recording is closest to two seconds; I then preserve this metric scale in my notation of the

jazz palimpsest. 34

I have occasionally used software called Transcribe to slow down original

recordings, with the goal of capturing important harmonic, rhythmic, and textural

nuances; this software has been particularly useful in my analyses of Iyer’s complex

21/16 grooves I study in Chapter 4, and of the points of coordination between trio

members of TBP that I examine in Chapter 5. To further ensure accuracy, I have

My chord symbols in both the text and musical examples largely follow the Jazz Chord Style Guide 32

developed by the SMT Jazz Interest Group, with the exception that I use superscripts for (half-)diminished symbols and for chordal sevenths, ninths, elevenths, and thirteenths.

de Clercq yokes his conception of an idealized measure to notions of absolute time, as well as the average 33

tempo and pervasive quadruple meter of much MRPM. Any exceptions to this rule are noted in the prose. The second part of this interpretive choice—the 34

preservation of the same metric scale between MRPM source recording and jazz palimpsest—is particularly important in Chapter 4, in which I examine the levels of an original metric hierarchy at which Iyer’s grooves inject asymmetry.

24

compared my own transcriptions with both published sheet music and (where available)

amateur transcriptions created by jazz enthusiasts and posted on the internet. To help

distinguish between composed (i.e., pre-planned) and improvised (i.e., spontaneous)

musical transformations, I have also compared the studio recordings I analyze with

other performances (either live or studio recorded) of the same arrangement when

available.

Coupled with a careful approach to initial transcriptions, my hope is that this

approach has minimized any errors that would significantly undermine my analyses.

But I emphasize that both my musical examples and the underlying transcriptions on

which they are based, are—like virtually all notated musical examples—primarily aids

to listening. I encourage you (the reader) to reckon my examples against the source

recordings they seek to represent, and to use my representations as starting points for

revisions or alternate hearings. Just as modern jazz palimpsests seek to reconfigure our

hearings of MRPM songs, so too do my analyses seek to reconfigure our hearings of

these palimpsests. But as I explore in the next chapter, it is the listener that ultimately

determines the character of these reconfigurations. The fruits of my own listening are

recorded in this dissertation. I hope they will be of interest to your listening too.

25

—Chapter 2—

Intertextuality, Agency, Ontology, and Transformation

in Modern Jazz Palimpsests

2.0.1. Introduction: Standards, Covers, and Mehldau’s “Exit Music”

Over the last two decades, modern jazz pianist Brad Mehldau has developed a

reputation for performing songs by the English rock band Radiohead. His recorded

output during this period has included at least five of their songs, most of which are also

fixtures in his live performances. The number of these songs in Mehldau’s repertoire 1

isn’t the only marker of his clear regard for the British rock band. For any devoted

Radiohead listener, the pianist’s careful study of the original tracks is obvious; they loom

as influential intertexts whose specific features shape Mehldau’s reinterpretations in

ways both large and small.

Take, for example, the pianist’s (1998b) trio album, simply titled Songs, which

features the gloomy Radiohead ballad “Exit Music (For a Film)” (1997a) alongside three

warhorses from the Great American Songbook (GAS). The album’s title suggests 2

Mehldau’s expansive view of modern jazz’s standard practice (MJSP): that songs by

Radiohead and Richard Rodgers alike, can—and perhaps should—both function as

fodder for jazz performance. After all, Mehldau is doing what jazz musicians have

In addition to “Exit Music” (which also appears on Mehldau 1999), Mehldau’s Radiohead recordings 1

include “Paranoid Android” (Mehldau [1999] 2000, 2004b; Radiohead 1997c), “Everything in Its Right Place” (Mehldau 2004a; Radiohead 2000), “Knives Out” (Mehldau 2005d, 2015; Radiohead 2001), and “Jigsaw Falling Into Place” (Mehldau 2015; Radiohead 2008). Throughout the dissertation, I consistently use a semicolon parenthetical citation style for jazz palimpsests; the first date records the jazz musician’s recording(s), while the second date indicates the referential MRPM record or GAS composition. References to a source song alone omit the semicolon (e.g., “Knives Out” (Radiohead 2001)). While this song appears on Radiohead’s 1997 album OK Computer, the band originally composed it for the 2

closing credits of Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film Romeo + Juliet.

26

always done: playing popular music. But Mehldau’s embrace of Radiohead has also

taken place against the backdrop of a broader popular music culture in which cross-

genre covers and stylistic hybridity have become exceedingly commonplace, and in

which specific recordings—rather than abstract songs—have become definitive

referential texts for musical palimpsests. So is “Exit Music” poised for admittance into

The Real Book as a so-called standard? Or is a Mehldau Radiohead performance simply

one more cross-genre cover in a world already chock full of them?

This distinction between standard and cover is perhaps obsessively semantic. But

these two terms tend to appear in certain musical contexts, and they evoke distinct

assumptions about ontology, authority, and agency. A popular music cover can take

many forms—it might seek to faithfully copy, subtly reimagine, completely transform, or

cleverly critique a specific original recording. But each of these objectives asks the

listener to hear the cover in terms of that recording, in all its fixed specificity. This

specificity confers on the recording a concrete and specific influence over the listening

process. By contrast, the concept of a standard generally refers to a kind of communal

musical property that, mediated by a complex alchemy of historical distance, changing

cultural norms, and numerous referential versions, functions more as a set of abstract

schemas than as a specific, authoritative musical utterance. This abstraction renders the

standard’s ability to shape a performance inherently more diffuse, which both

necessitates and highlights the expression of creative agency by the artist performing it.

Mehldau himself alluded to this distinction in a 2004 interview, in which he

rejected the notion that his Radiohead performances are mere covers. “You have to do

something more with the tune if you want to transcend just doing a ‘cover,’” he

declared, “and with [my trio] it’s through the interpretation of the melody and harmony,

27

our rhythmic approach, and most importantly, the collective improvisation that ensues”

(Yung 2004). Other modern jazz pianists who engage with the heterogeneous canon of

post-1960 modern recorded popular music (MRPM) deploy similar rhetoric. Notice the

clear echos in the liner notes to Vijay Iyer’s 2009 trio album Historicity, for example, in

which the pianist describes his trio’s approach to palimpsest performance: “Most of

these works have a disruptive quality that we aim to reproduce with our trio … You

could see our covers as tributes, but we’ve also tried to augment each song with a

fragment of ourselves. Each cover becomes a conversation between the original work

and something else entirely; the best word for it is versioning” (Iyer 2009a, emphasis

original).

Given these valorizations of jazz musicians’ creative agency, one might expect

Mehldau’s trio performance of “Exit Music” to significantly transform Radiohead’s

original. And indeed, the performance does effect some changes: Mehldau slightly

increases the original’s tempo, replaces its swung eighth-note feel with straight eighths,

and retains a tonic pedal through the first two measures of the A section. But these

changes are relatively subtle in the face of an otherwise fastidious adherence to the

original recording, which persists throughout the trio’s performance. Mehldau and his

bandmates largely eschew the melodic paraphrases and harmonic substitutions that are

common in jazz performance, hewing remarkably closely to the harmonic and melodic

specifics of Radiohead’s track. And as shown in Example 2.1, they notably recreate the

track’s idiosyncratic ABACA form and end-weighted dramatic trajectory, deviating only

to loop the C module for a short solo by Mehldau (indicated with cells shaded in gray). 3

Osborn (2016) characterizes this form as one of the idiosyncratic formal shapes for which the band is 3

known. (Five-part rondos are not common in post-millennial rock.)

28

Save for subtle improvisational interactions between members of the trio, this solo

marks the only part of the arrangement in which the band prominently produces music

that isn’t part of the Radiohead original. 4

This kind of repetition of a formal section to create space for an improvisation is, of

course, familiar from a typical “head-solos-head” jazz performance. In her analysis of 5

another of Mehldau’s Radiohead recordings, René Rusch (2013) pinpoints the solo

section as the primary locus of creativity in most standard jazz performances: “The

improvisatory section … forms the crux of the jazz performance: it affords musicians an

opportunity to create something new out of an existing musical work” (1.2). And just as

the accumulated energy from a final solo commonly spills over into a climactic

concluding rendition of the melody in a standard performance, Mehldau’s

Givan’s (2016) taxonomy of interaction types in jazz performance classifies such discernible musical 4

interactions as motivic interactions, as distinct from other forms of performative interaction common in jazz performance. In Chapter 3, I posit that Mehldau’s specific approach to formal repetition here constitutes a modular loop, 5

which is distinct from the unified loop often used in jazz performances of GAS tunes.

Radiohead (1997a) Brad Mehldau Trio (1998a)

Start Time Section Start Time Section Section Details

0:00 Intro 0:00 Intro

0:24 A (2x) 0:14 A (2x) Drums enter 2nd x

1:27 B 1:05 B

2:18 A 1:45 A

2:50 C 2:10 C (3x) Mehldau states melody, then plays 2-chorus solo, building momentum

to final climactic A section

3:22 A 3:24 A

3:53 A tag (2x) 3:15 A tag (2x)

Example 2.1. Comparative form charts for “Exit Music (For a Film)” (Mehldau 1998a; Radiohead 1997a).

29

improvisatory momentum propels his trio into the final A section. But in Mehldau’s

case, the momentum isn’t only a byproduct of his improvisation; it also (re)creates the

climatic rhetorical trajectory of Radiohead’s original track. Just as Mehldau’s solo

accumulates rhythmic and dynamic momentum over three choruses, Brad Osborn’s

(2016) study of Radiohead’s music describes this final C section of the original “Exit

Music” track as “building volume and texture until it presents the song’s only

cacophonous outburst” (37) in the final A section. In other words, even when Mehldau

improvises, one can hear a specific and distinct feature of Radiohead’s original recording

resonating with his performance.

This strong and identifiable influence of the particulars of a recorded track is not

always a relevant dimension of a jazz palimpsest. A jazz performance of a GAS standard

tune is often treated as a theme and variations: an initial melodic statement invokes a

listener’s knowledge of that tune, including its melody and generalized chord changes,

serving to establish the environment in which subsequent solos take place. Jazz 6

standard performances are also often richly and specifically intertextual for experienced

listeners, evoking webs of reference to other recordings and solos. But the plurality and 7

abstraction of these intertexts contrasts sharply with the singular, fixed specificity of the

Radiohead track. One can seldom designate a single recording, score, or even fixed set of

chord changes as the definitive intertext for a GAS tune. And even if an authoritative

referential recording exists—consider Coleman Hawkins’s famous recording of Green

Several of the interviewees in Berliner’s (1994) classic ethnographic study note that jazz musicians bookend 6

standard performances with statements of the head for the listener’s benefit—to explicitly suggest the musical context in which the musicians’ improvisations unfold. As discussed below, Kane (2018) posits a network ontology to relate these disparate versions, while 7

Smither (2020a) terms them avant-textes—drafts of an ever-unfinished work—continuing the tradition of drawing on French critical literary theory for discussions of intertextuality in music.

30

and Herman’s 1930 tune “Body and Soul” ([1939] 1986), for example—jazz listeners

conventionally draw a distinction between the work “Body and Soul”and a recorded

performance of “Body and Soul,” which simply encodes a memorable instancing of that

underlying work. This conception contrasts sharply with the recording-centered

ontology of MRPM. Despite the heterogeneity of this loose canon, a studio recording of a

modern popular song is generally not understood as an instance of some underlying

work, but as the work itself. As such, subsequent cover performances are heard

primarily against that specific recording, which looms especially large in the relational

listening process entailed by a palimpsest performance.

In light of the relatively modest changes that Mehldau’s trio makes to Radiohead’s

original, the fact that the pianist feels the need to explicitly highlight his trio’s creative

contributions underscores the curious liminality of his performance. Imagine that,

instead of describing their trio’s transformation of a MRPM track, Mehldau or Iyer were

describing their approach to a GAS standard. I suspect they would be less compelled to

emphasize that their performances “‘do something more” with the song, or “augment

[it] with a fragment of ourselves.” In jazz performance, this creative dialectic is integral

to the concept of standard performance, and is in fact necessitated by the

underdetermined nature of the standard itself. (Of course a jazz musician does something

with the standard; that’s the point of a standard performance!) To be sure, doing

something with a fixed MRPM track is often the crux of a popular music cover as well. 8

But when the performance traditions criss-cross—when an MRPM track becomes jazz

source material—Mehldau and Iyer explicitly highlight their creative reshaping of the

For example, Covach (2018b), drawing on work by Griffiths (2002) and Schiffer (2010), argues that 8

“according to most ideas of rock authenticity, an artist is essentially prohibited from doing a cover if no new interpretive angle is present” (279).

31

fixed material, positioning it over and against the (implicitly less imaginative) kinds of

musical recreation to which these MRPM source materials might be subjected in a pop or

rock cover context. Considered in isolation, the jazz musicians’ creative processes might

be basically the same for a GAS standard and an MRPM track, in that they treat both

kinds of source material as flexible fodder for both compositional and improvisational

transformations. But differences in the ontology of MRPM source materials, and the

palimpsest practice(s) with which they are readily associated, prompt markedly different

rhetoric from the artists—and, I will argue, offer a vivid set of ontological and agential

choices for listeners.

In this chapter, I explore these choices by examining the intertextual relationship

between modern acoustic jazz palimpsest performances and their MRPM source

materials. I suggest that when we listen to MJSP, we hear a complex interplay between

the creative agency of jazz musicians and the influence of MRPM tracks. The recorded

fixity of these tracks sets this agential interplay in especially sharp relief, vividly

highlighting both how jazz musicians reshape their source materials and (crucially) how

small- and large-scale features of these materials shape the jazz musicians’ performance.

While this basic framing of a palimpsest as an intertextual balance between preservation

and transformation parallels most scholarship on musical recreation, this balance is

rarely framed in explicitly agential terms in most popular music studies. Clearer agential

themes are more common in jazz scholarship that seeks to characterize how jazz

improvisers interact with musical environments. While these environments certainly

guide or constrain musical behaviors, capable improvisers are typically valorized for

transforming or transcending these constraints. But as a result of this focus, such

scholarship often gives short shrift to the ways in which source materials can retain

32

significant—if reimagined—influence over a jazz palimpsest performance, and how the

vividness of an MRPM track can shape a listener’s perception of this intertextual

balance.

Considering the confounding vastness of the literature on intertextuality, I begin in

Part 1 by triangulating modern jazz’s standard practice, first within broad studies of

intertextuality, then within intertextually-oriented studies in both popular music and

jazz scholarship. The goal of this survey is to contextualize the contrast I’ve sketched

above by foregrounding differences in conceptions of ontology, authorship and

authority, and expressive intent—shared between musicians, listeners, and scholars—

that undergird dominant palimpsest traditions in popular music and jazz. Mindful of

the contingency of these conceptions for a twenty-first-century music listener—and of

the inherent genre liminality of MJSP—in Part 2 I develop a framework to model the

interdependence between these dimensions of intertextual listening. The model seeks to

capture how a listener’s perceptions of ontology and musical transformation construct,

and are constructed by, the circulation of creative agency and influence in palimpsest

performance, and how this circulation can suggest certain types of expressive

orientations between modern jazz musicians and their MRPM source materials. This

framework, in turn, serves as a broad conceptual foundation for the targeted case

studies in the following three chapters.

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Part 1. Intertextuality in Popular Music and Jazz Scholarship

2.1.1. Intertextuality

Just as forms of musical recreation—borrowing, troping, variation, covering,

sampling, remixing, and the like—have been integral practices in Western music for

more than a millennium, studies of musical intertextuality—broadly, the study of

relationships between musical texts—are legion in music-theoretic literature and have

become increasingly so in the last half-century. As Stroud (2019) notes in her review of

the recent volume The Pop Palimpsest: Intertextuality in Recorded Popular Music (Burns and

Lacasse 2018), the term “intertextuality” itself has become one of the “most commonly

used and misused terms in contemporary critical vocabulary” (Allen 2000, 2; quoted in

Stroud 2019, 3). Because intertextuality concerns interconnectedness, the profusion of

scholarship on the topic in music studies alone is difficult to circumscribe—fittingly,

almost every study is connected to another in some nontrivial way. This body of

scholarship is also marked by a notable lack of terminological consensus: different

authors frequently use different terms to refer to the same basic concept, or the same

term to refer to different concepts. Despite these challenges, Stroud optimistically

suggests that an embrace of intertextuality as a “cluster of related if occasionally

contradictory concepts … allows popular-music scholars a multifaceted way of

exploring the interconnectedness that permeates contemporary musical culture” (3).

Because I seek in this chapter to examine the nature of the relationships between modern

jazz palimpsests and their MRPM source materials, I begin by locating these

relationships within the dizzying array of potential intertextual links between musical

works, and the scholarship that seeks to characterize these relationships.

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Most basic concepts of intertextuality originate in literary theory, and the term

itself traces to a poststructuralist strain of French literary criticism. In its original

formulation, first developed by the French semiotician Julia Kristeva ([1966–67] 1980),

the study of intertextuality was concerned less with relationships between specific texts,

and more with the radical openness and interconnectedness of all texts. Building on

earlier work by Mikhail Bakhtin and Ferdinand de Saussure, Kristeva argues that we

necessarily produce and understand texts not solely on their own terms, but in dynamic

relation to other texts. This pluralist perspective both challenges the structuralist notion

that a text has a single fixed meaning and decenters the author’s role in creating that

meaning. The basic argument goes something like this: if we understand works 9

(musical or otherwise) in terms of some non-fixed number of other works, then the

structure and meaning of any given work is inescapably contingent on its relation to

these other works.

In sharp contrast to the kaleidoscopic pluralism of this poststructuralist

intertextuality is the work of Gérard Genette ([1982] 1997), who develops a five-part

taxonomy that seeks to classify all possible relationships between specific texts—links

that he calls transtextual relationships. Genette’s taxonomy uses the term intertextuality to

represent only one of these links: the actual presence of one text within another, either

via quotation (an allosonic quotation) or sampling (an autosonic quotation). His remaining

four transtextual categories stretch beyond this circumscribed definition. Paratextuality

concerns texts that mediate other texts, such as book titles or author interviews.

Metatextuality addresses texts that provide commentary on other texts. Hypertextuality

This perspective also courses through works by Barthes (e.g., [1970] 1974, [1968] 1977, 1981), Eco (e.g., 9

[1965] 1989, 1992), and Foucault (e.g., [1969] 1972, [1969] 1977), which are frequently cited in intertextually oriented music studies.

35

encompasses all possible transformations of a text that do not fall under the auspice of

commentary; transformations like parody, pastiche, or translation belong in this

category. Finally, architextuality describes the broad connections between texts that 10

constitute recognizable discourses, such as genres or styles. While the increasing

abstraction of each taxonomic stage evokes the openness of Genette’s poststructuralist

predecessors, the aim of the taxonomy itself is avowedly structuralist: to precisely

distinguish the nature of relationships between specific texts, without concern for the

broader interconnectedness these relationships suggest.

A third prominent intertextual literary theory, developed by Harold Bloom

(1973), examines the influence that texts (and their authors) exert on other texts. Bloom’s

theory can be understood to probe the intersection between Genette’s concepts of

metatextuality and architextuality. For Bloom, all poems are ultimately commentaries on

other poems. Focusing on what he calls the “anxiety of influence” in poetry, Bloom

explores how some poets manage to create original works in the ever-present shadow of

their creative forebears. While “weak” poets succumb to the influence of their

predecessors and produce poems that are derivative of earlier works, a select few

“strong” poets manage to confront this influence head-on, subjecting their predecessors’

output to deliberate misreadings in order to produce new poems. Thus artistic progress

occurs—influence is confronted and subverted, and the process repeats.

Although these basic concepts of intertextuality were originally developed with

written texts in mind, music scholars have adapted them to examine relationships

While Genette’s original ([1982] 1997) definition emphasized that a transformation of a hypotext by a 10

hypetext must not qualify as commentary to fit into this category, Lacasse (2018, 11) notes that Genette later revised his approach to eliminate the definition-by-negation: a “hypertext is a text that derives from another by a formal and/or thematic process of transformation” (Genette 2005, 10).

36

between musical texts. Among the most magisterial applications of poststructuralist

intertextuality to music is Klein (2005), whose pluralist approach to the

interconnectedness of musical works in Western art music seeks to challenge both the

circumscription of structuralist analysis and chronological constraints on intertextual

influence. In light of the clear parallels between the poetic process Bloom describes and 11

the lineage of potent artistic influence in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century

European art music (particularly the looming specter of Beethoven), some authors have

adapted Bloom’s theory to study music from this period; in addition to Klein, notable

studies in this category include Bonds (1996), Korsyn (1991), and Straus (1990). A few

popular music scholars have also applied Bloom’s theory to study artists whose

wrestling with specific stylistic influences provides critical context for their creative

output: Kawamoto (2005, 2006) studies the crossover works of keyboardist Keith

Emerson, for example, while Spicer (2018) charts intertextual connections between the

Electric Light Orchestra and the Beatles.

The most significant adaptation of Genette’s taxonomic work to music

scholarship has been undertaken by Serge Lacasse, who in two connected studies (2000,

2018) adapts and expands Genette’s five types of transtextual relationships to ultimately

define and relate eight possible kinds of transphonographic connections between popular

music recordings. In addition to replacing the “-textuality” suffix with “-phonography”

in Genette’s five extant categories—reflecting the shift from written to recorded texts—

Lacasse’s (2018) taxonomy adds polyphonography (which addresses compilations),

For example, Klein provocatively argues not just that a nineteenth-century composition might shape how 11

a listener hears an eighteenth-century work, but that the nineteenth-century work itself might exert such reverse-chronological influence on the prior piece. Drott (2013) makes a broadly similar, though less self-consciously provocative, argument about how genre frameworks shape a listener’s perception of musical works.

37

cophonography (which concerns relationships between recordings that exist within the

same “space”), and transfictionality (which describes links between recordings that share

fictional content). The results of Lacasse’s work are both exhaustive and flexible enough

to encompass virtually all conceivable relationships between recorded musical objects.

Hatten’s (1985) overview of the role of intertextuality in music studies, for example,

distinguishes stylistic and strategic forms of intertextuality: the latter occurs when one

musical work makes specific reference to another, while the former involves generalized

reference to a style, but not to a particular work. This stylistic-strategic distinction maps

readily onto Lacasse’s distinction between archiphonographic and hyperphongraphic

relationships. The widely acknowledged (if often imprecisely defined, as I discuss

below) popular music phenomenon of a musical cover also falls into this latter category,

as a transformation of a specific referential recording.

Where does MJSP fit within these overlapping approaches to intertextuality?

Certainly the practice’s postmodern ecumenism spotlights the increasing

interconnectedness of genres, styles, and repertoires: various subcurents of MRPM shape

both what some modern jazz musicians play and how they play it. But while a jazz 12

musician’s development of an authentic creative voice has always required a careful

balance between innovation and intimate knowledge of the jazz tradition, the sprawling

MRPM canon does not typically assert similarly Bloomian pressure on that

development. To be sure, MRPM presents enterprising jazz musicians with a tantalizing

array of fresh options for musical veneration, virtuosic sublimation, or stylistic

In other words, modern jazz musicians do not simply play MRPM songs—the musical language of 12

various MRPM genres also discernibly shapes both their original compositions and approach to improvisation. The study of such influences extends beyond the scope of this dissertation; in Baker (2019), I suggest the broad contours of some harmonic influences from neo-soul and R&B in the original compositions of Robert Glasper.

38

integration. But I would suggest that none of these processes result from any anxiety-

ridden grappling with popular music heritage—or at least not in the sense Bloom

intends. (In other words, an aspiring jazz pianist wrestles with the legacy of Art Tatum,

Earl Hines, Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, and the like—but not usually with Billy Joel,

Steve Winwood, or Rick Wakeman.) This is in part because, as discussed in Chapter 1,

MRPM has historically been cordoned off from the jazz canon, with most cross-genre

dalliances still viewed by some jazz musicians as being motivated by commercial, rather

than aesthetic, aims. 13

As such, neither the anxiety of Bloomian influence nor the radical openness of

Kristevan intertextuality resonate directly with the relationships that MJSP establishes

with its MRPM source materials. Rather, these focused, appropriative relationships are

best understood as Lacasse’s hyperphonographic relationships—palimpsests of existing

recordings that demand to be heard in relation to those recordings. In this respect, these

jazz performances parallel popular music covers. But as I explore in the next two

sections, this lone, overbroad classification hardly tells the whole story for either covers

or modern jazz palimpsests. The intertextual relationship that an acoustic jazz

palimpsest creates with its MRPM source material is shaped by a daisy-chained set of

processes. First, the relationship is shaped by the compositional and improvisational

transformations the palimpsest deploys. A listener’s assumptions about the ontology of

the source materials influence how they perceive these transformations (or the lack

thereof) reflecting a circulation of creative agency between musicians and their source

Despite the ever-increasing porousness of genre divides between jazz and other musics, MRPM has hardly 13

merged with the jazz oeuvre writ large. I certainly do not intend to suggest that MJSP blithely accepts all MRPM as fodder for jazz performance, but simply to underscore that playing any MRPM at all marks a significant departure from earlier acoustic palimpsest practices.

39

materials. And these listener assumptions, in turn, are influenced by the recreative

tradition(s) within which a listener chooses to situate the jazz performance—a process

which, owing to the inherent genre liminality of these performances, is hardly uniform

across listeners.

In the remaining two sections of Part 1, I explore how scholars have sought to

conceptualize and distinguish various kinds of palimpsests in twentieth-century

Western popular music and jazz, stretching from the popular songs of the first half of the

twentieth century to the rock-influenced cover aesthetics of more recent decades. I then

weave ideas from this scholarship into the flexible model I develop in Part 2.

2.1.2. Intertextuality in Popular Music Palimpsests

The history of musical recreation in twentieth-century Western popular music

and jazz is marked by shifts in assumptions about both the ontology of musical texts—

including recordings, performances, and notated scores—and the ways in which

authority and authenticity circulate among these texts. To efficiently capture these

changes, I begin by outlining two useful concepts: a continuum between ontological

thickness and thinness, and a distinction between autographic and allographic artworks.

While these terms themselves are underutilized in scholarship on musical palimpsests,

the underlying concepts they represent run throughout much of this work.

First described by philosopher Stephen Davies (2001), the concept of ontological

thickness refers to the degree of detail with which a musical text is rendered, or with

which it can be defined—the more detail, the thicker the artwork. A musical recording is

perhaps the thickest musical work imaginable, with virtually every structural,

40

performative, and sonic detail vividly fixed. A notated orchestral score, even if

exhaustively notated, is necessarily thinner than a recording by virtue of its omission of

sonic and performative details like tempo fluctuations, timbre, and so on. By contrast, a

lead sheet, such as one typically found in The Real Book, is by design ontologically thin; it

represents a song simply as a melody and chord changes while leaving almost all other

performative details unspecified. Lead sheets, in turn, are generally understood as

convenient but non-authoritative representations of underlying songs—ontologically

slippery works that are perhaps thinner still.

The distinction between autographic and allographic works, which originates

with aesthetic philosopher Nelson Goodman (1976), refers to the circulation of authority

and authenticity between an original work and any reproductions. Like the notion of

ontological thickness, the distinction applies to many types of creative work, including

various kinds of musical works. A work is autographic if only the original version is

considered authoritative and authentic; any reproductions are understood as just that—

reproductions. This singular authority contrasts with the pluralism of an allographic

work, for which no iteration is generally considered more authoritative than any other.

As a concrete example, consider the distinction between a musical score and a painting.

The score is generally understood as allographic—a photocopy or PDF of a hard-copy

score is no less an instance of that score than the original. The painting, by contrast, is 14

autographic. Photographs or prints of the painting are mere facsimiles of the

authoritative original—why else would you flock to a museum to view that original?

This general assertion (obviously) brackets off specific concerns about score study, the authority of various 14

scholarly editions, and other related issues.

41

This abstract distinction can also be captured visually by imagining all the

instances of a work represented as interconnected nodes in a network. (In the case of a

musical work, these nodes would be performances, recordings, notated scores, and so

on.) For an autographic work, these nodes form a discernible hierarchy: the authoritative

original is at the top, and all reproductions fall somewhere below it. For an allographic

work, by contrast, the nodes form a relatively flat, non-hierarchical network—even if

some nodes are more prominent than others, no single node is unambiguously primary.

In Western popular music, palimpsests of songs originally written or recorded by

other artists have long been colloquially referred to as covers. But as numerous scholars

have noted, excessive reliance on this single term glosses over the variety of creative

approaches, listener positions, intertextual relationships, and assumptions about

ontology, authenticity, and authorship that color the vast landscape of musical

recreation. While, as is the case in studies of intertextuality more broadly, there is no

consensus about how best to capture these distinctions taxonomically, there is consensus

that more terminological precision is needed.

Many scholars who seek this precision emphasize a pivotal mid-twentieth-

century shift in shared assumptions about the ontology, authenticity, and intertextual

relevance of popular music source materials. This change, highlighted in various ways

in studies by Cooper (2010), Covach (2018b), Coyle (2002), Gracyk (1996, 2001), Solis

(2010), Weinstein (1998, 2010), and Zak (2001, 2010), was the evolution from pre-1950s

American popular music—whose fundamental musical commodities were thin,

allographic songs—to a rock-influenced aesthetic of the late 1950s and beyond, which

was marked by an increasing embrace of thick, autographic records or tracks as primary

musical texts.

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In the first half of the twentieth century, the dominant types of palimpsests in

Western popular music were what Covach (2018b) calls copies and versions. A copy

sought to duplicate a preexisting song as closely as possible, often for the copying

artist’s economic gain; a version sought to put a new spin on an existing song,

highlighting the specific creative agency of the versioning artist. While it is an

oversimplification to claim that songs were not associated with specific artists during

this period, these songs were often understood—by both musicians and listeners—as

thin, allographic works. As such, the expressive crux of a copy or version generally did

not rely on a listener hearing the recreation in terms of a specific, authoritative original,

but rather as a given artist’s take on a kind of communal musical property. In other

words, specifically intertextual listening was not a primary animating force in this

period of popular music history. 15

This type of targeted intertextual listening emerged more conspicuously with the

rock tradition and the increasing prominence of what scholars more precisely call covers:

performances of preexisting songs intended to be heard, not as one more take on a

familiar (thin) song, but against an autographic, ontologically thick, and explicitly

authored recording. The birth of rock’n’roll in the 1950s, and its ultimate evolution into

the rock of the 1960s and beyond, were accompanied both by changes in recording

technology and a concomitant embrace of authorship and authenticity as signal virtues

for popular music artists. As thick records—rather than underlying thin songs those

records could be understood to instance—were increasingly associated with single

In making this broad claim, I certainly do not intend to underplay the importance of issues of musical 15

authorship and race, particularly in mid-century popular music. In the 1940s and ‘50s, for example, the commercial motivation for popular music copies was often inextricable from race, as white artists often sought to copy tracks originally recorded by black artists, usurping both the black artists’ creative authorship and economic ownership of their original songs—see Coyle (2002).

43

artists, these records quickly became the primary texts of the rock tradition, assuming

autographic status. And subsequent palimpsests of these songs demanded more and 16

more to be heard against these specific source tracks.

As Coyle (2002), Solis (2010), Weinstein (2010), and Zak (2010) have explicitly

argued, this relational listening posture that defines a cover—a listening process that

Weinstein (2010) terms stereophony—not only emerged with rock, but came to define the

genre and its pervasive aesthetic influence in subsequent decades. And indeed, most

careful scholarly definitions of the term cover, regardless of genre, emphasize the

importance of an intertextually specific listening process, the autography of the original

work that facilitates that process, and the role of musical authorship in forging that

autography. To be sure, some studies that trace the lineage of musical covering back to 17

rock risk overly aggrandizing the genre’s impact by arguing that the prominence of

stereophonic covering in other genres is singularly emblematic of rock’s influence,

downplaying the significance in more recent popular music of what Lewis (1996) and

others have termed Afrological aesthetics—instanced, for example, in hip-hop sampling.

But the fact remains that most popular music palimpsests of the last half-century—

whether descended primarily from rock or other genre traditions—suggest some form of

this specifically relational listening posture. 18

Kania (2006) argues that the ontological thickness of records is one of the most cherished aesthetic virtues 16

of the rock tradition. Consider, for example, the similarities between the definitions of cover offered by Solis (2010), who focuses 17

on rock aesthetics, and Neal (2009) in her study of Jimmie Rodgers: “A cover is a new version of a song in which the original version is a recording, and for which musicians and listeners have a particular set of ideas about authenticity, authorship, and the ontological status of both original and cover versions” (Solis 2010, 298); “[I]n popular music, cover versions occur when an artist performs a song, either live or on record, that belongs, culturally speaking, to another artist” (Neal 2009, 13).

I would argue that both stereophonic listening and Afrological aesthetics are particularly central to hip-18

hop sampling (Williams 2013), mashups (Adams 2015; Boone 2013), and remixes (Middleton 2000)—three recreative practices whose relationships with rock aesthetics are complex (to put it mildly), but which fall outside the scope of this dissertation.

44

The significance of this intertextual aesthetic is evident in the burgeoning

analytical scholarship on popular music palimpsests: despite a gratifying variety of

repertoire, analytical approach, and methodological orientation, much of this work

tacitly or explicitly embraces the ontological and relational assumptions of stereophonic

listening. Many of these studies thus deploy the same basic comparative analytical

strategy: they measure one or more recreations against an original recording, in service

of a broader argument about musical technique, authenticity, authorship, gender,

meaning, copyright, stylistic lineage, or the like. And crucially, these studies usually treat

musical transformations as the primary sites of meaning or analytical interest in the cover;

elements of an original song left unchanged by the cover are usually treated as

conceptually neutral. 19

Some of these studies adopt a purely analytical focus, while others use analysis

to explore, expand, or problematize an established methodology for assessing

intertextual relationships. But in all cases, primary components of the argument often

hinge on the covering artist’s transformation of specific details of a thick recording,

rather than generalized features of an underlying thin song. For example, Butler’s (2003)

examination of the Pet Shop Boys’ (1991) cover of U2’s “Where the Streets Have No

Name” (1987) analyzes how the carefully assembled rock texture and effortful vocal

delivery of the original rock track project a clear authenticity that is subverted by the

cover’s breezy disco feel. Malawey’s (2014) study of Aretha Franklin’s recording of

“Respect” (1967) examines how Franklin asserts—and ultimately assumes—authorship

This general approach animates the bulk of the primarily analytical studies in recent volumes edited by 19

Burns and Lacasse (2018) and Plasketes (2010), as well as a host of individual articles or book chapters by Bowman (2003), Burns and various collaborators (Burns 1997; Burns, Dubuc, and Lafrance 2010; Burns and Woods 2004), Butler (2003), Covach (e.g., 1991, 1995, 2018b), Headlam (1995, 1997), Holm-Hudson (2002), Malawey (2011, 2014), Rusch (2013), and Spicer (2009).

45

of the song in part via transformations of specific vocal riffs from Otis Redding’s original

recording (1965). And Rusch’s (2013) analysis of Mehldau’s performance of “Paranoid

Android” ([1999] 2000; Radiohead 1997c) relies (without comment) on the ontological

thickness of both recordings, examining how Mehldau’s solo piano timbre enhances the

postmodern ennui of Thom Yorke’s lyrics, which are absent from Mehldau’s

performance.

While most of the analytical studies referenced above can properly be said to

address stereophonic covers—i.e., palimpsests heard in relation to a specific source

recording—the range of repertoire and analytical approaches they encompass testifies to

the significant variation in the kinds of expressive relationships a cover can construct

with its recorded source material. Weinstein’s (1998) brief historical chronicle of covering

practices in rock sketches some of these variations, charting a progression from the

authenticity-establishing covers of the 1960s, through punk’s ironic subversions of the

1970s, to the genre’s postmodern approach to the (explicitly authored) musical past as an

“archive for appropriation” that allows for a wide range of expressive postures. This

postmodern attitude surely persists today: for many contemporary popular music

artists, I would suggest that MRPM functions as a nearly limitless trove of source

material from which to draw freely, to any number of expressive ends.

Given the breadth of this expressive freedom, however, surprisingly few scholars

have attempted to grapple systematically with how to classify the range of potential

source-cover relationships. The most frequently cited study to explicitly undertake this

task is Mosser (2008), which invokes Ludwig Wittgenstein’s flexible notion of family

resemblance to outline five fuzzy categories for covers, distinguished primarily by the

covering artist’s expressive attitude toward their original material. These categories form

46

a loose, implicit continuum. In the vein of Covach’s copies, Mosser’s reduplicative covers

seek to replicate an original recording as faithfully as possible. Minor reinterpretations,

which feature relatively slight musical changes, generally function as homages or

assertions of stylistic lineage; major reinterpretations maintain a family resemblance with

the original material while offering a drastically new reading. While these first three

categories suggest some degree of veneration of an original song, parody and send-up

covers—the final two categories—embrace irony or critique and thus fall at the other

end of the taxonomy’s continuum.

Importantly, Mosser emphasizes that a listener must perceive the covering

artist’s expressive intent to assign a cover to one of his five categories. With a nod to the

intentional fallacy (Wimsatt and Beardsley 1946), he concedes the conceptual difficulty

of identifying a palimpsest performer’s expressive goal. But he ultimately backgrounds

these difficulties in the name of pragmatism, prioritizing artistic intent—and thus the

degree and particular flavor of creative agency this intent expresses—as the conceptual

crux of a cover performance. This emphasis on artistic intent has also been echoed by

both Gracyk (2012–13) and Miller (2010), who similarly cite both the difficulty and

necessity of perceiving a cover’s expressive objective to “correctly” interpret the

performance—to distinguish, for example, a straight-faced parody from an earnest

homage, and so on.

Evan Ware’s (2015) dissertation takes a different approach, casting aside the

implicit continuum of Mosser’s approach in favor of an explicit continuum after tersely

noting that the former “conflates the extent of change (i.e., ‘major interpretation’) with

the quality of change (i.e., ‘parodic cover’) and thus … lacks internal consistency and

explicative power” (5–6). Although Mosser’s foregrounding of perceived artistic intent is

47

critical, Ware’s critique is valid: while Mosser’s minor and major reinterpretations differ

based solely on the degree of musical change between original and cover, the distinction

between either of these and a parody cover rests instead on expressive aims—a parody

remains a parody, whether achieved by minor or major musical changes.

As a solution to this conflation, Ware’s continuum characterizes a cover as a

simple balance between musical preservation and transformation—processes he calls

isomorphism and metamorphism. Acknowledging that a cover can neither totally transform

nor preserve a given original, he charts this balance on an asymptotic curve; different

approaches to covers are distinguished by where their particular balance falls on the

asymptotic continuum. An important feature of Ware’s conception that distinguishes

him from previous scholarship is that he treats both transformation and preservation as

potentially explicit, interpretive decisions on the part of the covering artist. That is, the

features of an original song that a cover preserves can be as expressively important as

those it alters—both can be sites for a listener’s perception of the covering artist’s

creative agency. This viewpoint is notably different from the implicit stance of many 20

analytical studies of covers, which tacitly assume that some number of features must

remain unaltered for a song to remain the song. To buttress this viewpoint, Ware draws

on the work of cultural theorist Michel de Certeau (1984), characterizing an original’s

features as strategies and the cover’s creative changes to these features as tactics. 21

This analytical posture makes explicit an implicit feature of Mosser’s continuum—although his minor 20

reinterpretation features minimal musical changes, Mosser suggests that it reads to the listener not as a slavish adherence to an original, but as a reverent preservation of it.

To further schematize the relationships between listeners, originals, and covers, Ware formulates a trope of 21

the semiotic tripartition developed by Jean-Jacques Nattiez and Jean Molino, which structures his dissertation’s unfolding investigations of the song family surrounding Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.”

48

Both Ware’s and Mosser’s approaches to classifying popular music covers rest on

the assumed presence of an autographic, thick original recording that acts as a singular

foil for the listener. This basic assumption—that the cover landscape is hierarchical—has

undergirded much of popular music recreation since the dawn of the rock era. The

existence of an authoritative original record is also convenient for the cover analyst,

providing a vivid intertextual foil against which large- and small-scale transformations

and preservations can be measured.

To be sure, however, some tracks in the MRPM canon have been covered with

sufficient frequency and variety as to challenge this exacting intertextuality. In such

cases, to put it simply, records become songs, and covers more readily become versions. An

ever-expanding performance network, mediated by some combination of historical

distance and increasingly permeable genre boundaries, invariably loosens the

autographic bond between song and original artist. This loosening also results in a

gradual compression of the original’s ontological thickness, producing a thinner

abstraction that results from the aggregate of the song’s performances but is not as

directly traceable to any single one. In his study of the relationship between performance

history and work ontology, José Bowen (1993) poetically captures the contingency of this

thinning process: “Each performance is also a version of the tune which presumably

includes all of the notes considered essential by that performer, plus any number of

additional notes. Tradition, like a lead sheet, has the effect of establishing essential

characteristics, but every performance is an opportunity to reinterpret tradition’s version

of what is essential” (167).

While this process of abstraction and mediation does not foreclose outright on

stereophonic listening, it does render intertextual hearing inherently more diffuse. The

49

thinner one perceives a source song to be, the blurrier the distinction between

preservation and transformation in any given palimpsest—and the more contingent a

listener’s perception of the interplay between creative agency and source influence. For

example, Butler’s (2003) and Malawey’s (2018) examinations of authenticity and

authorship would be be impossible without Bono’s vocal delivery or Redding’s specific

riffs. Absent the fixed melodic utterances that are features of thick, autographic source

recordings, what counts as a melodic variation?

This issue of emergent allography and ontological thinness is not unique to

popular music versions, of course, whether from the pre- or post-rock eras; it is also

central to the notion of a standard in the jazz tradition. In both cases, a source song’s

thinness not only facilitates a significant expression of agency by the artist performing a

palimpsest; it indeed requires this agency in order to transform the inherent

indeterminacy of the source into a thick musical utterance. In a key difference from most

popular music, in jazz this thin source material serves as fodder for both creative

arrangements (determined in advance) and a significant amount of real-time

improvisation. But like much of the scholarship on popular music discussed above,

many scholarly examinations of intertextual relationships between jazz musicians and

their source songs place significant rhetorical and analytical emphasis not on how the

songs influence the musicians’ performances, but on the reverse—on how the musicians,

acting as both arrangers and improvisers, profoundly reshape their source materials,

complicating, enriching, or even transcending them.

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2.1.3. Intertextuality in Jazz Palimpsests

Most of the GAS tunes that form the core of jazz’s standard repertoire date from

the so-called Golden Age of American popular song—roughly the 1920s through the

1950s. As described in Chapter 1, during the first four decades of the twentieth century,

America’s popular music and emergent jazz scenes were somewhat coextensive; and Tin

Pan Alley songs, written for the theater and popular consumption, comprised important

repertoire for both. Many tunes that ultimately became part of the GAS served as

fixtures in the dance band books of the swing era of the 1930s and early ‘40s, for

example, and subsequently as fodder for crooners in the 1940s and early ‘50s. Owing to

their wide and varied adaptations, performances and recordings of these songs during

this period generally functioned as Covach’s versions: they were flexible vehicles for

individual expression, rather than serving as—or being heard against—thick,

autographic musical source materials.

The ongoing thinning of these songs into standards continued in subsequent

decades: even as the post-war era saw increasingly dominant, youth-oriented strands of

the popular music scene embrace rhythm and blues, rock’n’roll, and their descendants,

GAS songs remained cherished warhorses for older segments of the listening public. 22

While these songs also remained an important part of the jazz repertoire, for jazz

musicians they became sites not just of musical, but of more extensively improvisational,

creativity. GAS chord progressions served as frameworks for bebop contrafacts of the

late 1940s and early ‘50s, for example, and the songs remained sites for increasingly far-

Keightley (2001) examines how age-based fragmentation of the popular music market during the 1940s 22

and ‘50s played a key role in establishing the concept of a standard as a cherished, timeless musical artifact, emblematic of refined and established taste—notions that functioned in contradistinction to the transitory proclivities of youth-oriented market segments.

51

reaching improvisational explorations in the hard bop and postbop practices of the late

‘50s and early ‘60s, especially in groups helmed by trumpeter Miles Davis and

saxophonist John Coltrane. And as described in Chapter 1, knowledge of these GAS 23

songs remains an important signifier of jazz authenticity, as many jazz musicians today

continue to perform, record, and teach this repertoire.

Owing to jazz’s improvisational orientation toward the GAS, most intertextually-

oriented jazz studies approach these songs as thin source materials, grappling both with

the ontology of this thinness and how it variously aids, guides, and constrains

improvisation. The most influential conception of this relationship is Jeff Pressing’s

(1984, 1987, 1998) notion of a referent: “a set of cognitive, perceptual, or emotional

structures (constraints) that guide and aid in the production of musical materials” (1998,

52). The melody, form, and chord changes of a GAS standard are a classic example of a

referent. This song form represents key features of the song in a way that shapes and

coordinates, but does not mandate, improvised performance. But while a lead sheet 24

enshrines this representation of a GAS referent, as discussed above this lead sheet is

widely understood not as the song itself, but merely as a reasonable simulacrum—a

convenient, but not singularly authoritative, representation of a tune whose constituent

elements are inherently more diffuse and flexible than can be easily captured on paper. 25

The reliance on GAS progressions as the basis for contrafacts persisted beyond the bebop era—Chick 23

Corea’s 1968 tune “Now He Beats the Drum, Now He Stops,” for example, is a contract of Berlin’s “How Deep is the Ocean” (1932). For analyses of the increasingly experimental live performances of GAS tunes by Miles Davis’s second quintet, see especially Michaelsen (2019), Walser (1993), and Waters (2011).

Notably, Pressing’s conception of a referent is deliberately broad, extending beyond song forms—and 24

indeed, beyond music altogether—to encompass virtually any structure that can be understood to guide and shape improvised performance. This perspective is particularly evident in his earliest work on improvisation (1984).

Jazz musicians often nod to this thinness by referring to a GAS song as a tune—a shibboleth in jazz circles 25

that refers to the thin melody, form, and chord changes of the original song’s sectional refrain. For more discussion of how form and hypermeter serve as improvisational referents in standard performance, see Chapter 3.

52

Studies that directly address this elusive ontological thinness of GAS tunes often

retrace familiar characterizations of popular music versions, emphasizing that a

standard’s thinness and allography are emergent, rather than inherent, properties. A

standard is typically understood as a multiply-determined “bricolage” (Stover 2016a)—

as a network of texts, including the originally published sheet music and subsequent

lead sheet representations, as well as recordings in popular music, theatrical, movie

soundtrack, and jazz contexts. While none of these texts is singularly authoritative, all

are potentially referential. And the relative authority of any one text is inescapably

dependent on the particular network one brings to bear on the acts of performing,

listening, and analysis.

Echoing the contingency of poststructuralist intertextuality, some scholars rely on

theories of literary criticism and philosophical ontology to characterize these networks.

Smither (2020a), for example, which theorizes the ontology of standard tunes in jazz,

borrows from French literary theory to describe the written and performed nodes in a

standard’s network as avant-texts, or drafts of an ever-unfinished work. Kane (2018)

propounds a similar perspective, arguing that the identity of a standard is both fluid and

communally mediated. A standard, Kane posits, is not defined by a fixed set of “work-

determinative features” that are necessarily present in every performance—a perspective

he refers to as a “realist framework.” (Choose any such work-determinative feature, he 26

suggests, and it will inevitably be missing from a performance that someone

This framework is outlined in earlier work by Born (2005) and Bowen (1993), which Kane both builds on 26

and subtly counters.

53

understands as a rendition of that standard. ) Instead, a given performance qualifies as 27

a rendition of a standard simply if the performer suggests that it does, and if a relevant

listening community decides that it does. The specific features of that performance then

become part of the tune’s ever-expanding ontological network. In this way—and

recalling the Bowen (1993) quotation above—the identity of a tune changes over time; a

particular introduction or reharmonization might become an unmarked (rather than

marked) feature of a performance, for example. And ontological thinness and allography

are not inherent properties, but instead emerge via continual processes of reproduction

and mediation.

Despite its conceptual appeal, this multiplicity of a GAS referent is thorny in

analytical practice. In order to analyze an improviser’s interaction with a referent—to

determine which musical behaviors correspond with, or cut against, its particular

features—the analyst must specify what exactly the referent is, and importantly, what it

is not. To confront this issue, most jazz scholars with primarily analytic (rather than

ontological) aims make a common-sense pragmatic claim: even if individual work-

determinative features don’t properly exist, a representative set of the most recurrent

features can still function as a reasonably authoritative referent. With regard to a

standard’s chord progression, for example—a chief concern of music-theoretic structural

analysis of jazz for the last five decades—most scholars engage in mild ontological hand-

wringing before specifying the particular harmonies or chord-scale relationships under

analytical consideration. For example, Martin (1996, 5–6) refers to the “ideal changes” of

Contrafacts epitomize this ontological quandary. Tirro (2013) refers to jazz’s persistent dependence on 27

contrafacts as jazz’s “silent theme tradition,” highlighting the curious ontological question Kane raises—in what senses is a performance of Charlie Parker’s “Ornithology” (1946) (for example) also a performance of Hamilton and Lewis’s “How High the Moon” (1940)?

54

a standard tune—derived from lead sheets, transcriptions, and occasionally, published

scores—while Smither (2020b) undertakes comparative analysis of multiple solos over a

tune to identify an improviser’s “posited referent.” While these constructs are still 28

understood as contingent within the limits of jazz performance practice, they provide a

practical reference for broad-strokes analysis of preservation and transformation.

However, even the Goldilocks thinness of a posited referent—thick enough to

meaningfully guide improvisational utterances, thin enough not to determine them

outright—does not stipulate the precise flow of creative influence between the referent

and the musicians(s) improvising over it. Note that Pressing’s characterization of the 29

referent’s function, quoted above, is notably contingent on agential language—the

referent both “constrains” and “aids” improvisation. Pressing’s research project (1984)

that ultimately furnished the notion of the referent sought to model how musicians deal

with the formidable cognitive challenges of improvisation. Approached from this angle,

the referent aids the improviser in the demanding process of real-time musical creation

by offering a set of constraints that productively limit otherwise unfettered—and thus

cognitively overwhelming—creative activity.

But the referent-musician relationship may assume other agential flavors too. A

referent may serve as a musical environment that suggests or affords particular musical

actions. Reciprocally, this environment may offer the improviser structures to be

reconfigured, sublimated, or even transcended. These notions are in some sense all

different facets of the same complex creative act: creativity is catalyzed by constraints,

This notion also informs other music-theoretic analyses of improvisation over GAS tunes and contrafacts, 28

including recent transformational studies of jazz harmony by McClimon (2017) and Smither (2019b). The notion of a “Goldilocks principle” I invoke here comes from Osborn (2016), who characterizes 29

Radiohead’s music as striking an ideal balance between convention and surprise.

55

and an improvisation, like a popular music cover, owes something to both the

musician’s creative volition and the environment in which this volition is enacted. But 30

a shift of balance between these agential poles—between referent as constraint, referent

as guide, and referent as foil—can drastically change the focus of both an analysis and

the listening experience it seeks to engender.

As an example of the referent-as-foil perspective, consider the ethnographic jazz

scholarship from the mid-1990s, which frequently frames agential interactions between

jazz musicians and their source songs in political, sociocultural, or racial terms. Seminal

writing by Walser (1993), Berliner (1994), Lewis (1996), and Monson (1996), for example,

is underpinned by Gates’s (1988) literary concept of signifying, which he defines as

“repetition with a signal difference” (xxiv). In a jazz context, improvisation regularly 31

manifests such transformed repetition—a fundamentally Afrological activity that

involves reimagining or troping the product of a culturally dominant group in order to

claim space for the expression of marginalized identity. The scholarly embrace of this

dimension of jazz performance evidenced a new-musicological turn in jazz studies and

offered a counterbalance to the prevailing structuralism of jazz analysis of preceding

decades, in which (often white) scholars brought analytical perspectives developed for

European art music to bear on jazz performance, downplaying or ignoring the (often

Hasegawa (2020) provides a broader rumination on the interdependence of creativity and constraint, 30

similarly arguing that the latter typically foments the former. He enumerates various categories of compositional constraints, with a focus on compositional techniques used by twentieth-century composers.

Gates and other authors sometimes stylize signifying as “signifyin’” or “signifyin(g).” I avoid such 31

stylizations here.

56

black) performers, their perspectives, and the role of their identities and lived

experiences in shaping the sounding musical fabric. 32

Monson’s (1996) ethnographic examination of interaction in jazz provides a

classic example of this approach. Her broad conception of interaction encompasses both

interactions between musicians—which she likens to dialogue—and between musicians

and their source materials. She approaches the latter type of interaction under the

umbrella of intermusicality, her specifically musical formulation of intertextuality. The 33

primary analysis she uses to illustrate the concept is an examination of John Coltrane’s

1960 recording of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “My Favorite Things,” from the 1959

stage musical The Sound of Music. Taking Julie Andrews’s performance from the 1965

movie musical as a well-known referential intertext (and a pragmatic solution to the

problem of ontological thinness raised above), the central conceit of Monson’s analysis is

to demonstrate how Coltrane’s quartet signifies on the original show tune, sublimating

the relatively banal musical theater source material through the particular harmonic,

melodic, rhythmic, and formal transformations his quartet uses in both their

arrangement and their solo and group improvisations.

Drawing on work by adaptation theorist Linda Hutcheon ([1985] 1991), Monson

acknowledges that the degree to which a listener perceives this sublimation is contingent

on their willingness to engage in “intertextual bouncing” between Coltrane’s

performance and its source material, as embodied by Andrews’s thick musical utterance.

At its most acute, such structuralist analysis often emphasizes values of unity and coherence, and is 32

sometimes Schenkerian in nature. See Schenker-inspired work by Strunk (1979) and Larson (e.g., 1998, 2005, 2009), for example, as well as classic motivic analyses by Hodeir (1954) and Schuller (1958). Givan (2011a, 2011b) provides trenchant commentary on these methodological approaches.

Monson’s notion of intermusicality fits roughly under the banner of Lacasse’s hyperphonography—a 33

transformation of one specific musical text by another—with the caveat that Monson’s conception of a musical text applies not just to recordings, but more broadly to any form of sounding or notated music.

57

Such bouncing parallels Weinstein’s (2010) description of stereophony, which is

“constituted by the play of differences between the original and the cover” (246). But

where Weinstein adopts a comparably relativist aesthetic stance, emphasizing that

stereophonic cover listening is “indifferent to any other aesthetic valuations about the

quality, evocative powers, meaningfulness, or any other criterion of aesthetic criticism,”

the thrust of Monson’s analysis is to demonstrate how the Coltrane quartet’s musical

transformations ultimately transcend their source material—and how a specifically

intermusical hearing of Coltrane’s recording underscores both the aesthetic and

sociopolitical dimensions of these transformations. 34

Questions of jazz musicians’ agency take on similarly prominent but less

monolithic roles in more recent studies that embrace the concept of ecological affordance.

As outlined by James Gibson (1966), ecological psychology posits that animals perceive

their environments according to their affordances —the kinds of actions the environment

suggests or allows. Although Gibson initially located these affordances in the invariant

properties of an environment, he later developed a more dialectical perspective (1979),

suggesting that affordances dwell neither in the animal nor in the environment alone,

but are somehow mutually constituted by each. A conventional wooden chair affords

sitting to an average adult human, for example, but it does not afford the same behavior

to, say, an adult elephant. Moreover, sitting is not the only action afforded by a chair; an

enterprising human might stand on, spin, throw, or even burn the chair. 35

One cannot help but recall Mehldau’s claim above: “You have to do something more with the tune if you 34

want to transcend just doing a ‘cover’” (Yung 2004). Subsequent scholars in ecological psychology, including Chemero (2003) and Heft (2001), have further 35

developed this dynamic conception of affordance. Hannaford (2019) provides an insightful overview of these developments.

58

Scholars in various academic musical subdisciplines have recently adopted this

framework to conceptualize how affordances shape both listeners’ and performers’

interactions with various musical environments. Paralleling this broad trend, a 36

relatively young cohort of jazz and improvisation scholars have leveraged the notion of

musical affordance to reframe jazz musicians’ interactions with their musical source

materials. From a music-cognitive perspective, for example, Andrew Goldman (2016)

has persuasively argued that improvisation is not simply the generation of novel

musical utterances, but instead functions as a particular “way of knowing” and

interacting with musical materials driven by how one might use them. He has supported

this perspective with experimental work (Goldman, Jackson, and Sajda 2018)

demonstrating that improvisational experience predicts that musicians will categorize

musical stimuli according to their functional similarities. 37

Stefan Love has suggested that the perception of affordances plays a central role

in both jazz’s listening aesthetic (2016) and the process of learning to improvise (2017).

Informed jazz listeners, Love (2016) argues, hear improvised solos as “virtuous acts”

For example, Clarke (2005) proposes an ecological approach to musical listening and the construction of 36

musical meaning, Lawrence (2018) develops an affordance-based framework for the perception of timbre, and Osborn (2016) invokes affordances in his analyses of Radiohead. One strain of scholarship on affordances that I largely ignore in the ensuing discussion is recent critical work on distributed creativity in music performance, as exemplified by several entries in the five-volume series Studies in Musical Performance as Creative Practice from Oxford University Press (e.g., Cook 2018; Clarke and Doffman 2017; Rink, Gaunt, and Williamon 2017). While some of the studies in these volumes address popular music and jazz, the overarching thrust of the work is often primarily concerned with highlighting that creativity is distributed across various entities in musical performance; it is often notably less concerned with precisely how this creativity is distributed. In the context of the model I develop below, I take the former notion as given, focusing instead on the latter: how, precisely, creativity is distributed in MJSP between performers, source materials, and listeners.

Although he doesn’t cite it, Goldman’s music-cognitive perspective on improvisation clearly resonates 37

with Cox’s (2011, 2016) mimetic hypothesis, suggesting that improvisational fluency in a given style involves an intimate, functional understanding of “what it’s like to do” or “be” a range of idiomatic musical behaviors. From this perspective, improvisation is thus not a requirement for the production of perpetual, unforeseen novelty, but rather a flexible performative mindset that identifies and leverages affordances in existing musical material.

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undertaken in the musical context furnished by an underlying referent and informed

both by the soloist’s other work and jazz’s stylistic conventions. Building on this idea,

Love (2017) demonstrates how mistakes made by student improvisers often arise from

their misapprehensions of the stylistically appropriate behaviors afforded by particular

chord progressions. Marc Hannaford (2019) has also outlined a broader affordance-

based analytical framework in which particular musical structures can be understood to

afford improvised responses that can variously align with and diverge from attributes of

these structures. While the framework is primarily intended to model interactions

between free improvisers, it readily applies to other forms of improvisational exchange

too, including interactions between improvisers and source materials.

Despite the broad similarity of these scholars’ engagement with affordances, they

arrive at pointedly different perspectives about the precise ontology of an affordance,

and about the agential implications that result. Owing to its cognitive and experimental

orientation, Goldman’s work is concerned with well-defined functions for musical

objects. His work is thus agentially circumscribed—the notion that an improviser might

use a musical object in a way not suggested by the object itself falls outside the scope of

his methodology. Love (2017) address such misuses head-on: from his perspective,

straight-ahead jazz chord progressions afford relatively constrained sets of pitches with

which to improvise, and improvisational actions that transgress their boundaries are

identifiable as “mistakes.” While this approach certainly does not rob improvisers of 38

their agency, it also imputes a nontrivial degree of influence to a harmonic referent,

Love’s identification of improvisational mistakes relies heavily on chord-scale theory, which draws on 38

Russell (1959) and has since become a staple of American jazz pedagogy (Stover 2014–15; Wilf 2014). If a student improviser incorrectly apprehends a local vi7 chord as the ii7 of a ii–V–I, for example, they are liable to play a major sixth over the chord’s root, clashing with the diatonic collection that furnishes the vi–ii–V–I, which is the most conventional underlying chord scale.

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which can be heard to dictate some dimensions of improvisational action by rendering

some behaviors inappropriate. A referent, from both Goldman’s and Love’s perspectives,

affords freedom within very real constraints: there are some musical behaviors that one

simply cannot—or perhaps should not—do.

Hannaford (2019) contests the stricture of this view. Noting that Gibson’s work is

equivocal about the agential balance between actor and environment, he draws on a

range of recent scholarship about affordances to stake out a flexible position that

nuances the agential indeterminacy of Pressing’s referent. In the face of an improviser’s

unbridled freedom, the musical environment of a referent suggests—but does not

mandate—musical actions. Instead, these environments possess both music-structural

and intertextual properties that can be understood to afford responses that are either

“congruous” or “incongruous” according to various analytical parameters.

This contrast between Love’s and Hannaford’s conceptions of musical affordance

stems primarily from their differing repertoires. Love examines student improvisations

in traditional tonal jazz, in which the most common improvisatory affordances of a

chord progression are well documented in any standard jazz textbook. By contrast,

Hannaford primarily applies his framework to more freely improvised and experimental

musics, which present musical environments whose affordances are often much more

varied. Thus Hannaford might interpret one of Love’s “mistakes” as a harmonically

incongruous response to an affordance—the chord progression itself affords the

musician the opportunity to play “wrong” notes over it.

Hannaford’s approach to affordance implies perhaps the most flexible possible

view of performative agency in a jazz palimpsest performance. At its root, the detection

of an affordance in a source song—whether from the GAS or MRPM—is tantamount to

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the simple analytical assertion of an intertextual relationship: a hearing of a musical

structure from a source song in relation to its preservation or transformation in the

palimpsest performance, as filtered through the creativity of the performing musician.

The notion that a musical structure could afford both congruous and incongruous

responses allows a listener to interpret musical behaviors that transform or override this

structure as creative decisions on par with behaviors that preserve or enhance it. This

notion recalls Ware’s contention that both altered and unaltered elements in a musical

cover can be understood as expressive choices. And this valorization of a recreative

musician’s agency also recalls and expands upon the ethos of Monson’s Coltrane

analysis, honoring the influence of source materials while locating the ultimate choice to

preserve these influences in the hands of the jazz musician.

Ultimately, though, the flexibility inherent in both Ware’s continuum and

Hannaford’s framework also underscores that the ultimate perception of agential

circulation rests with the listener. To return to the heuristic question that framed this

chapter, are the significant resonances between Mehldau’s “Exit Music” performance

and the Radiohead track an abdication of recreative responsibility or a deliberate

expressive choice? Certainly Mehldau’s rhetoric suggests the latter. But how a listener

answers this question—recalling Mosser, how they perceive Mehldau’s expressive intent

—is, I would argue, contingent on the assumptions about ontology, authenticity, and

authorship that they bring to bear. Because jazz’s modern standard practice does not fit

neatly in either the jazz standard or popular music cover traditions, these assumptions

cannot be totally circumscribed by the logic of either. Instead, any model that seeks to

plot the balance between preservation and transformation in MJSP must leave room for

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both—for hearings that valorize the jazz musician’s agency, and for those that highlight

the persistent, even pervasive influence of a source song. I sketch this model in Part 2.

Part 2. An Intertextual Model for Modern Jazz’s Standard Practice

2.2.1. Goals and Function of the Model

In Part 2 of this chapter, I sketch a model for the intertextuality of MJSP. The

model draws on the themes introduced above: the influence of thick, autographic

recordings over a stereophonic listening process; the primacy of an artist’s recreative

agency in jazz palimpsest performances; the contrasts in ontological assumptions that

distinguish palimpsest practices in popular music and jazz; the central role of expressive

intent in each; and the related idea that both musical preservations and transformations

can function as sites for the perception of this expressive intent. Weaving together these

themes, the model plots how three dimensions of the relational listening process of MJSP

can influence and mutually reconfigure one another, shaping how listeners attribute

agency to jazz musicians and their source materials in acoustic palimpsest performances.

These three dimensions are:

1) The perceived ontological primacy of a musical domain of a source song, or of a

specific feature within that domain

2) The degree to which the particular domain or feature is preserved or transformed by

the jazz palimpsest

3) The expressive intent being enacted by the jazz musician’s preservation or

transformation of that feature or domain

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Each of these dimensions involves both conscious choices and subconscious

assumptions by the listener; the goal of model is to capture how choices or assumptions

in each dimension can shape the others. But I stress that these choices and assumptions

rest with the listener. Recalling the broad ethos I described in Chapter 1, the model is

neither prescriptive nor descriptive—it seeks neither to describe how one should hear

MJSP, nor how one necessarily does hear it. Instead, it strives to capture the

interrelatedness of ontology, agency, and expressive intent in the listening process, and

to suggest that the aggregate of these interdependencies constructs the rich

intertextuality of MJSP. In the same way that a theme in a jazz palimpsest performance

shapes, but does not determine, subsequent improvisations over that theme, the model

provides a flexible contextual backdrop against which the targeted case studies of

specific musical domains and jazz musicians then unfold in the next three chapters.

I begin by examining the relationship between ontology and the degree of

musical change in a palimpsest, arguing that the interaction of these two dimensions

shapes how a listener attributes agency to jazz musicians and source materials. Recalling

Mosser’s (2008) foregrounding of expressive intent, I next posit three broad expressive

goals that a listener might hear being enacted by a jazz performance of MRPM. I then

suggest how each expressive goal can be loosely associated with a particular pattern of

agential attribution, and how each shapes the other—just as patterns of agential

attribution suggest particular expressive goals, the perception of a specific goal

incentivizes particular patterns of agential attribution.

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2.2.2. Ontological Primacy, Magnitude of Change, and Agential Attribution

Any palimpsest requires both musicians and listeners to make a range of

decisions—consciously or otherwise—about the ontological importance of various

features of a source song. Which features of the song are essential—the unique, marked

features that make the song, the song? Which features are mutable—either defaults of a

particular genre that will necessarily be altered by dint of a translation to another genre,

style, or performing configuration; or byproducts of performance that will invariably be

altered in a subsequent rendering? And critically, which features dwell between these

poles—important features that nonetheless present significant opportunities for the

expression of creative agency, whether through composed transformations or (especially

in the case of jazz palimpsests) improvisational explorations? In the aggregate, these

decisions sort the features of a source song into a rough hierarchy organized according

to what one might call the features’ ontological primacy. In the case of a thick MRPM

recording, this sorting of features by their ontological primacy amounts to a subjective,

real-time thinning of a thick work, a process roughly tantamount to the creation of

successively less detailed lead sheets: which features make the cut at each stage?

The existence of this process, and the fact that no two musicians or listeners sort

in exactly the same way, are well-known and intuitive ideas. Smither (2020a), for

example, characterizes this process for jazz performers as one of de-entextualization—a

method of loosening compositional texts to transform them into what he elsewhere

terms “flexible conceptual maps” (Smither 2019a) for improvisation. Multiple scholars

have suggested that listeners automatically assemble ontologically-oriented networks of

features when we listen MRPM tracks too: Bruno (2013), for example, sensibly suggests

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that a thick MRPM recording concurrently instances both thick and thin texts; and

Lacasse (2018, 11–12) similarly posits that listeners can choose to focus simultaneously

on these different ontological levels of a recording, distinguishing essential features of

the underlying work from less essential features that are either byproducts of a

particular performance or commonplaces of a genre or style context. And Bowen (1993),

as noted above, identifies the aggregate result of iterated sorting processes as the

primary source of mediation and ontological thinning of musical works writ large.

In most kinds of palimpsest performance, these judgements made by performers

and listeners readily apply ontological sorting to entire musical domains—broad, generic

categories like form, harmony, melody, rhythm and groove, texture, and so on. Some of

these domains are doubtless more important than others in any musical work: the

domains of harmony and melody of a GAS standard are likely more ontologically

primary than its particular meter, for example. While ontological judgements are also 39

readily applied to features within these domains, the thinness of a GAS standard notably

limits the specificity with which such judgements can be applied. The first two measures

of a “Rhythm Changes” tune serve, at root, to prolong tonic—but how would one rank

the ontological primary of the many available tonic prolongations? 40

The thickness of an MRPM recording presents a notable contrast with the GAS in

this regard by enabling the ontological sorting of much more specific musical features.

The attributes about which listeners and performers render ontological judgments can

take on a much wider range of analytical or listening scale, ranging from general

In other words, a change of meter less drastically undercuts the identity of a tune than does the omission 39

of its melody or a drastic alteration of its harmony. Both Michaelsen (2016) and Terefenko (2018a) provide helpful charts surveying some of the many options, 40

some of which initiate prolongational processes that stretch beyond these first two measures.

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descriptors like “12/8 shuffle feel” to exceedingly specific features like “the groove’s

displacement dissonance in m. 4 of every simple verse module.” In a MRPM recording,

for example, the first two bars of a form do not simply prolong tonic; they prolong tonic

with a specific progression. While some GAS standards are associated with a particular

key, a change of key is not usually a particularly strong demonstration of artistic agency

in a palimpsest performance. Not so for a MRPM track, whose specific key is fixed,

rendering a palimpsest’s preservation or change of that key potentially more marked. 41

While the melodic domain is typically a uncontroversially primary aspect of a song,

specific features of that melody—a particular vocal ornamentation or rhythmic gesture,

for example—can be cherished as ontologically primary when etched in recorded form.

Similar arguments can be made about specific elements of form, groove, or (hyper)meter

—while the thinness and allography of a GAS song can render the specific features in

these domains variable or diffuse, the comparable thickness and autography of an

MRPM track allows them to (potentially) take on increased ontological authority.

One of the most compelling features of creative palimpsest performances is that

both performers’ and listeners’ specific judgements about ontological primacy typically

map neither onto each other, nor onto associated degrees of preservation or

transformation. Jazz musicians subject both ontologically expendable and essential

features alike to both significant transformations and fastidious preservations in MJSP—

For example, compare two recent MJSP renderings of the Beatles’ “And I Love Her” (1964). The original 41

4/4 track begins in E major and modulates up by half step. Fred Hersch’s (2004) quintet rendering translates the song to a prevailing waltz feel in Db major, significantly abstracting the tune from its original recorded form. By comparison, the preservation of the original keys, modulatory scheme, and meter in Brad Mehldau’s (2016) trio version are all notably marked, suggesting the original recording’s pervasive influence over Mehldau’s performance. A well-known experimental study by Schellenberg and Trehub (2003) reinforces this key-markedness, finding that listeners—even those without absolute pitch—perform much better than chance at identifying the original pitch levels (i.e., keys) of musical recordings.

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and each of these four combinations amounts to a distinct expressive act. How a listener

perceives the agency expressed by these acts is dependent on their own ontological

assumptions—assumptions that are, in turn, shaped by both genre experience and

personal preference. Exceeding fondness for a particular MRPM recording, for example,

might cause a listener to attribute ontological primacy to more of its specific elements,

facilitating a thicker conception of the underlying song and motivating the listener to

hear even slight expressive deviations as agentially meaningful. Conversely, an

experienced jazz listener or performer, well-versed in the standard palimpsest tradition,

might treat far fewer elements of a MRPM recording as primary, more readily reducing a

thick recording to an exceedingly thin text that serves as an improvisational referent.

Such a propensity for ontological reduction might assume agency on the part of the jazz

musician. But it also might downplay meaningful resonances between the jazz

palimpsest and seemingly inessential features of the source song—resonances that, to a

listener steeped in the stereophonic cover tradition, might evince the source song’s

potent influence over the palimpsest performance.

These contingencies suggest that how a listener perceives the interplay in a

palimpsest performance between a jazz musician’s creative agency and a MRPM source

song’s influence is initially shaped by the interaction of two factors: decisions about the

ontological primacy of broad musical domains and specific features of a source song,

and the degree of preservation or transformation the listener perceives in each in the

palimpsest performance. Example 2.2 diagrams these interwoven contingencies. Taking

as an initial assumption that the relational listening posture inherent to MJSP asks

listeners to hear both broad domains and specific features of a palimpsest performance

in relation to corresponding elements of the source recording, the example presents a

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Cartesian plane in which each of these relationships—regardless of how broad or

specific—can be represented as a point, labeled with (x,y) coordinates. 42

For a given point, the y-coordinate reflects a listener’s judgement of the

ontological primacy of the original element in the MRPM source recording; the origin

(y=0) represents ontological negligibility, while the hypothetical upper bound represents

total ontological necessity. The x-coordinate measures the degree of transformation to

which the jazz palimpsest subjects this original element; the origin (x=0) represents

complete preservation of that element, while the hypothetical upper bound suggests

The basic Cartesian layout of Example 2.2 parallels Ware’s (2015) cover song continuum model, although 42

it does not borrow his asymptotic curve.

Example 2.2. Ontological primacy, magnitude of change, and agential attribution in jazz palimpsest

performance.

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maximum possible transformation. For a particular palimpsest, the broad domain of 43

“groove” might be a point, as might be an exceedingly specific feature like “the

descending bass line in m. 5 of the prechorus.” Roughly echoing the network

representation of a standard described above, the sum total of these elements represents

a listener’s relational hearing of a palimpsest as a constellation of points on the plane.

The blue dotted line stretching from NW to SE subdivides this square plane into

two triangular halves, labeled “source song influence” and “jazz musician agency.” The

portion of the plane in which a given feature of a palimpsest performance falls suggests

its potential for agential attribution to the jazz musician or their source material, and the

potential strength of that attribution. For example, a significant transformation (a large x

value) of an essential element of a source song (a large y value) falls in the NE quadrant

of the plane. Such transformations—the omission of a melody, for example, or a total

reharmonization—number among the strongest compositional expressions of recreative

agency by a jazz artist. Conversely, faithful preservation (a small x value) of an

inessential element of a source song (a small y value) falls in the SW quadrant of the

plane. Such preservations—mimicking a particular vocal ornamentation or

accompaniment pattern, or preserving a modulatory key scheme—clearly evoke the

The assumption that any feature of a jazz performance can be reasonably understood in terms of some 43

element of the source recording is reflected by the two-dimensional geometry of the Cartesian plane. Features that violate this assumption are not readily captured by the example and require additional caveats. A feature of the source song judged to be completely absent from the jazz performance falls at the rightmost end of the x-axis—deletion, in other words, represents liminal transformation. The opposite situation—in which a feature of the palimpsest cannot be reasonably understood in relation to any feature of the source—is not readily accounted for in the model’s geometry. Such wholesale additions to the musical fabric evoke unambiguous attributions of agency to the jazz musician.

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influence of the source song. Why else—a listener might ask—would the palimpsest

preserve such relatively inessential elements of the original? 44

Features that fall along the NW-SE dotted axis evoke more neutral or flexible

agential attributions, with a tilt toward either agential pole more decisively shaped by

fine-grained decisions about ontological primacy or degree of musical change. But this

flexibility inheres for different reasons in the two remaining quadrants of the plane.

Features in the NW quadrant represent preservations of essential elements of a source

song. Because the preservation of some constellation of integral elements is crucial to

maintaining the song’s recognizable identity, such patterns of preservation are not

particularly agentially notable. (Most palimpsests preserve the original song’s melody,

for example.) Conversely, features in the SE quadrant represent significant

transformations of inessential elements of a source song. These transformations are

typically understood as byproducts of either genre transplantation—the replacement of

a rock groove with a swing feel, for example—or as arising from the vicissitudes of live

(improvised) performance. Both cases read as similarly agentially unremarkable; they

occur in palimpsest performance out of necessity, not as a result of deliberate creative

action or pronounced source song influence.

If each feature of a palimpsest performance manifests as one point in Example

2.2, the aggregate of these points rarely clusters in a single constrained quadrant of the

plane. While a handful of domains may feature notable transformations, these are

As a concrete example of this process, I find myself rendering these judgements when trying to determine 44

the repeating form that a jazz performance is using for solos. Imagine that a jazz palimpsest repeats a 16-measure verse module from an original MRPM song, and that this verse is comprised of eight repetitions of the same two-bar chord loop. If the total number of chord loops occupied by the solo is not divisible by eight, I assume the arrangement has extracted the two-bar loop into a shorter vamp, forsaking the hypermetric balance of the verse. If the total number is divisible by eight, I assume the soloist is treating the entire verse module as a solo section, even though vamp-based thinking may well underlie this approach too. I discuss formal repetition schemes in palimpsest performances at length in Chapter 3.

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usually counterbalanced by fidelity in other domains. The resulting balance between

recreative agency and source material influence is, of course, the creative crux of any

palimpsest performance—the model’s utility is that it captures this conceptual balance in

visual-spatial form. But as I argued in the discussion of Pressing’s referent above, even

subtle shifts in this broad balance can imbue a jazz palimpsest with distinctly different

agential flavors. Is a referent a useful guide that shapes performance, for example, or a

constraint to be transcended? These flavors relate to the third piece of the intertextual

model: the expressive intent that animates the palimpsest in the first place. In the next

section, I suggest three broad kinds of expressive intent that might be heard to animate

MJSP, and I illustrate how particular distributions of points in Example 2.2 might map

onto each.

2.2.3. Three Expressive Intents in MJSP

Why do jazz musicians play MRPM? The aesthetic suspicion with which MRPM

has been consistently viewed in many jazz quarters would seem to suggest one of two

facile answers to this question. From this wary perspective, faithful MRPM

performances reek of purely commercial aims; the only aesthetically respectable reason

for a jazz musician to perform such banal source material is to elevate it via extensive

transformation, thus demonstrating virtuosic creative agency.

Solis (2010), who is perhaps the only scholar to address this issue relatively

directly, takes a tempered version of this view, yoking jazz musicians’ palimpsest

motivations to the distinction between standard and cover practices, the magnitude of

the musical transformations involved in each, and the ontological attitudes these

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transformations suggest on the part of the performers. Jazz performances that subject 45

MRPM to minimal change, he argues, are operating within a “logic of covers” traceable

to rock aesthetics; an analogous “logic of standards” (if you will) remains reliant on

more extensive transformations that clear space for recognizable kinds of jazz

improvisation. As an illustrative example, Solis draws a distinction between Miles

Davis’s (1985) cloying rendition of Cyndi Lauper’s (1983) “Time After Time,” and Herbie

Hancock’s (1996) postbop dissection of Don Henley’s (1990) “New York Minute.” The

two performances, Solis writes, are “sufficiently different to think that Miles Davis was

thinking for the moment like a rock musician, covering a song he liked, and Hancock

was thinking at the moment like a jazz musician, working with a song structure he liked

and found useful” (304).

Solis seems to suggest that Hancock’s improvisationally oriented transformations

evince an understanding of his source material as thin and allographic, while the lack of

such transformations in Davis’s performance suggests the trumpeter’s (unfortunate)

reverence for the original as thick and autographic. This distinction helpfully

foregrounds expressive intent as a critical domain of palimpsest performance. But

recalling Ware’s (2015) critique of Mosser (2008), it risks conflating the extent and quality

of musical changes wrought by a jazz palimpsest. And notably, it cuts the listener’s own

ontological assumptions completely out of the picture.

Recall Mehldau’s “Exit Music” arrangement—another performance that subjects

an original track to minor changes. A Radiohead fan steeped in Solis’s logic of covers

will likely hear the many ways in which Radiohead’s record—a thick, autographic

While Rusch’s (2013) analysis of Mehldau’s performance of “Paranoid Android” (Mehldau [1999] 2000; 45

Radiohead 1997c) examines how each recording configures the other, she leaves largely unaddressed the question of why Mehldau chose to perform “Paranoid Android” in the first place.

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intertext—shapes Mehldau’s performance. But despite these parallels, an experienced

jazz listener, well-versed in the logic of standards, will likely still hear Mehldau, like

Hancock, extracting a thinner, allographic tune from the thick Radiohead record. In 46

Mehldau’s case, the thinning is relatively minor, allowing primarily subtle

improvisational impulses to bloom while preserving a perhaps surprising number of

elements that might be considered incidental to the original recording. But the

preponderance of these elements need not read as slavish, unoriginal, or otherwise

pejorative; indeed, Mehldau’s own rhetoric forcefully rejects such characterizations.

Instead, might Mehldau’s performance—like both Hancock’s and Davis’s, each in their

own way—instead be heard to actively assert a kind of ecumenical postmodern

compatibility between an ever-evolving jazz tradition and MRPM? 47

Taking this flexibility as a starting point—and recalling Mosser’s (2008)

foregrounding of expressive intent in cover performance—I suggest that listeners might

hear a modern jazz palimpsest of an MRPM song as arising from some combination of

three broad expressive goals: sublimation, veneration, and integration. I stress that these 48

motivations, like Mosser’s cover song types, are imputed to the jazz artist by the listener;

although a particular aesthetic angle may be avowed by a musician, no such avowal is

strictly necessary. These impulses are not mutually exclusive; one might readily hear all

According to the online publication JazzTimes, Mehldau’s 1998 recording of “Exit Music” “caught the 46

attention of many jazz musicians” (Hendrickson 2004) and played a large role in introducing Radiohead’s music to the larger jazz community, where it now enjoys a prominent place in the MRPM catalog favored by many MJSP musicians.

As noted in Chapter 1, just as Mehldau’s 1998 album is titled Songs, the 1996 Hancock record containing 47

“New York Minute” is pointedly titled New Standards. Note that a purely economic goal is not part of this list. I would argue that none of the musicians I consider 48

in this dissertation choose an MRPM song for a palimpsest by thinking: “I’m going to sell out by making this record.” But a desire for commercial success is, of course, both compatible and likely coextensive with each of these expressive goals; I imagine that most jazz musicians intend their MRPM recordings to be both aesthetically compelling and commercially viable.

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three in play, in various combinations, across various domains of a palimpsest

performances. Each motivation can encompass both faithful and transformative

performances, although they may each be loosely associated with degrees of musical

change, as I suggest below. And crucially, the impulses encompass not just

compositional and improvisational acts, but the very act of repertoire selection itself;

especially considering the skepticism with which MRPM is still viewed in many jazz

quarters, even the choice to perform an MRPM song—apart from what a musician does

with that song—is a marked, agential act.

First, a jazz performance of MRPM may be heard as an act of sublimation. This is

the motivation that is most readily ascribed to jazz performances of MRPM songs—and,

I would add, of many GAS songs too; recall Monson’s (1996) Coltrane analysis, or Love’s

(2016) description of jazz solos as “virtuous acts.” Performances catalyzed by

sublimation seek to make simple source material more complex or interesting, thereby

highlighting the jazz musicians’ creativity. This notion of sublimation undergirds the

common characterization of improvised jazz performance as being akin to a theme and

variations—the simpler the theme, the more impressive the variations. (From the

perspective of neoclassical jazz aesthetics, most MRPM is not just simple, but banal;

ergo, quality variations are doubly impressive!) Sublimation may involve parody, irony,

or critique, although it need not include any of these elements—Coltrane’s “My Favorite

Things” performance, for example, complicates and transcends its original without

implying any of these subversive postures. But performances that seek to sublimate

typically subject their source materials to extensive improvisation, significant

compositional changes, or both; absent these elements, it is difficult to perceive

sublimation as a lone animating force.

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While a discernible drive for sublimation courses through MJSP, the prevalence

of performances that, like Mehldau’s “Exit Music,” simply don’t change very much also

suggests two other plausible expressive motivations. Paralleling Mosser’s concept of a 49

minor interpretation, a jazz performance of MRPM may be heard as an act of veneration.

Jazz musicians, like all musicians, play songs they like—songs they think are good,

songs from their youth, or songs that afford interesting environments in which to

improvise. As with sublimation, the degree of musical transformation in a veneration

may vary, producing performances that reverently recreate or fundamentally reconfigure

a source song. But it should be no surprise that this motivation is especially common

among younger generations of jazz musicians, who grew up alongside the burgeoning

MRPM canon, and who have publicly and self-consciously allowed their diverse musical

affinities to shape both their repertoire choices and their overall approach to music-

making.

Finally, a jazz performance of MRPM may be heard as an act of integration. This

motivation asserts, either tacitly or explicitly, a stylistic affinity between jazz and a given

MRPM genre. While less drastic transformations more readily evoke integration as an

expressive aim, select extensive changes do not foreclose on it. The inflection of modern

jazz’s harmonic and rhythmic language with elements from R&B and neo-soul, for

example, suggests both the genres’ shared sources and their ongoing compatibility. And

it is an integrative impulse that views modern jazz as an evolving art form marked by

admirably flexible omnivorism. Modern jazz, this perspective suggests, is a musical

I highlight examples of such relatively faithful performances by Mehldau, Iyer, and The Bad Plus in the 49

case studies of Chapters 3–5.

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practice whose aesthetic purview is so broad that it can productively digest virtually any

musical material, to compelling artistic ends. 50

A listeners’s perception of how a jazz palimpsest balances these three expressive

impulses provides a broad interpretive lens through which to approach the

performance. This lens colors the performance’s preservations and transformations with

particular agential flavors. But this process works reciprocally too; recalling Solis’s

discussion of Davis and Hancock, a performance’s balance of preservation and

transformation can shape the broader aesthetic impulse a listener perceives. To model

this reciprocity, Example 2.3 plots these three expressive intents onto portions of the

Cartesian plane from Example 2.2. The position of each intent on the plane represents a

dialogic relationship with the other elements of the intertextual listening process. If a

jazz palimpsest performance exists as a constellation of points on the plane, the rough

alignment of these points with a particular shape can prompt a listener to hear the

performance enacting the associated expressive intent. Conversely, a listener’s

propensity to detect a particular intent can shape how they orient particular features of

the palimpsest on the plane, influencing decisions about ontological primacy, degree of

musical change, and/or agential attribution. 51

This reciprocity is easiest to see and conceptualize with regard to the two

expressive orientations that function as rough duals of one another: veneration and

sublimation. If a palimpsest preserves a broad ontological range of source song

This perspective echos the view among jazz musicians in the latter half of the twentieth century, described 50

by both Monson (2007) and Schenker (2015), that jazz as an art form is animated by a kind of universalist aesthetic freedom and functions as a vehicle for incorporation of other ideas and influences—see footnote 6 in Chapter 1.

In this way, a jazz palimpsest performance can reconfigure a listener’s hearing of an original song, 51

reflecting the dialogical intertextual influence suggested by both Klein (2005) and Rusch (2013).

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elements, limiting its musical changes to relatively inessential domains and features, this

performance will likely read as an act of veneration—a decision by the jazz musician to

allow the source song to shape the palimpsest in ways both large and small. By contrast,

a palimpsest that transforms a similarly broad ontological range of features, preserving

only a handful that are integral to the song’s identity, suggests an act of musical

sublimation: a desire to express virtuosic agency by elevating simple or banal source

material. Each of these processes also works in reverse. If a listener tends to hear MJSP

palimpsests as acts of sublimation akin to GAS standard performances or Mosser’s major

reinterpretations, parodies, or send-up covers, they will likely tend to focus on the jazz

musician’s agency, prioritizing the ways in which the palimpsest reshapes its source

Example 2.3. Ontological primacy, magnitude of change, agential attribution, and expressive intent in MJSP.

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song while comparatively downplaying that song’s influence. Listeners who more

readily hear veneration, by contrast—performances more akin to Mosser’s minor

reinterpretations—will more readily detect this source song influence, tending to view

any musical transformations as genre necessities or performative variances rather than

as marked expressive actions.

The geometric balance of the third expressive intent—integration—parallels its

conceptual thrust. An act of integration in MJSP asserts a symbiosis between the jazz

tradition and MRPM—between the jazz musician’s creative agency and the particulars

of the source material. Each shapes the resulting palimpsest in roughly equal measure,

with musical change and ontological necessity assuming inverse proportion across

features and domains. Because this third impulse so heavily overlaps the other two, it

only requires subtle shifts in the geometric position of a few domains or features to tip

the balance into either of the other two impulses. But it is because of this finely-tuned

balance that the thickness of MRPM source recordings becomes such a key component of

the relational listening process that defines MJSP. The vividness of a fixed source

recording as an intertextual foil affords listeners a dense and richly detailed weave of

musical features about which to make decisions about ontological primacy, degree of

musical change, agential attribution, and expressive intent. Ultimately, it is the aggregate

of these decisions that constructs the complex, stereophonic, agentially animated

intertextuality of MJSP.

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2.2.4. Conclusion: A Return to “Exit Music”

To conclude, it is worth returning to the question that framed this chapter: is

Mehldau’s palimpsest of “Exit Music” a standard or a cover performance? The answer to

this oversimple question, of course, dwells somewhere between these two heuristic

poles, with its specific position contingent on the aggregate of interrelated listener

decisions and assumptions I have explored in this chapter. The strong resonances

between Mehldau’s performance and a host of musical features from Radiohead’s

original track—including its melodic and harmonic details, as well as its form and end-

weighted rhetorical trajectory—would seem to prioritize the track’s influence in an

intertextual hearing, suggesting an act of veneration emblematic of some cross-genre

covers. But both Mehldau’s specific exaltation of his trio’s creative contributions, and the

primacy of transformative agency in jazz scholarship, discourse, and performance writ

large, shift this balance toward integration. Such a shift would hear Mehldau's

performance as an expressive act that treats detailed fealty to the source recording not as

a limiting stricture, but as an enabling condition for creative expression and

improvisational interplay.

While Mehldau’s performance serves as a useful introduction to the broad

themes I have discussed in this chapter, the agential interplay between jazz musicians

and their MRPM source materials is often much more dynamic and complicated in

MJSP. In the next three chapters, I examine this interplay in more detail by approaching

it through the lens of particular domains of musical transformation, and in the context of

the palimpsest output of three prolific MJSP artists. Each of these case studies is

grounded in the same two fundamental assumptions: that MRPM tracks often

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foreground new and different domains for musical preservation and transformation

than do GAS tunes; and that the autography and thickness of an MRPM source

recording allows for more fine-grained evaluations of this balance of constancy and

change, and of the ontological and agential implications that result. Throughout these

studies, I will occasionally suggest ways in which these balances might map onto

Example 2.3, positing acts of veneration, sublimation, or integration. Each case study

provides other entry points into this model as well, suggesting ontological judgements

about musical domains, degrees of musical transformation, and so on. But the model—

like a theme in a jazz performance—is ultimately not a fixed schema but a dynamic

system. Just as the flexible theme in a jazz performance both shapes and is shaped by the

subsequent variations, the goal of these case studies is to expand and amplify the themes

I have outlined in this chapter, ultimately illuminating the deeper interpretive and

intertextual issues that connect these targeted investigations of MJSP.

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—Chapter 3—

Formal Repetition and Improvisation in

Palimpsests by the Brad Mehldau Trio

3.0.1. Introduction: Formal Repetition in Popular Music and Jazz

This chapter addresses a set of subtle questions. How do jazz musicians use

formal repetition to create solo sections in their arrangements of modern recorded

popular music (MRPM)? What gets repeated, enlarged, added to, or omitted from a

source song to produce these solo sections? How do formal and harmonic features of an

original song—as well as changes to these elements—entwine with these repetition

schemes? And how do these various designs mirror, cut across, or otherwise alter the

formal processes of a source song, configuring the rhetorical shape of both the

improvisational environment(s) and the jazz performance as a whole?

Formal repetition at multiple, often nesting scales is ubiquitous throughout

MRPM. Numerous scholars have examined the prevalence and implications of musical

repetition in general terms (e.g., Duker 2008; Margulis 2013; Middleton 1983), as well as

its manifestations in specific genres, including riff-based (e.g., Monson 1999) and dance-

oriented (e.g., Butler 2006; Garcia 2005) musics. The centrality of repetition in pop and

rock music is implicit in the labels theorists use for common forms. Consider Covach’s

(2005) AABA, simple verse, and verse-chorus forms, for example, or Temperley’s (2011,

2018) related classification of a “verse-chorus unit” (VCU)—each of these labels denotes

the module(s) whose repetition constitutes the substance of a larger formal layout. 1

Temperley’s VCU may or may not include a prechorus.1

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Smaller-scale repetition often constitutes the internal fabric of individual formal

modules too. Nobile (2015), for example, notes the increasing prominence in pop and

rock since the 1970s of chord loops and shuttles—short harmonic patterns that repeat

across single modules and even entire songs, often serving both to reinforce regular

hypermeter and generically prolong tonic harmony. Other scholars identify similar 2

phenomena in the broader domain of popular music groove. Hughes (2013), for

example, discusses autotelic grooves that are comprised of repeating, circular segments;

such grooves are self-propelled and form-generating, with each segment “designed to

lead the listener to expect its beginning to follow its ending” (15). And short, repeating

patterns are especially common in recent pop songs whose production makes heavy use

of digital audio workstations (DAWs), which facilitate easy copy-paste of chunks of

musical material. 3

Many theories of form in MRPM also characterize formal modules on the basis of

their rhetorical prominence or anticipatory function. Covach (2005) uses teleological

language to distinguish the primacy of the verse in AABA and verse-chorus forms, for

example (referring here to A sections in AABA forms as “verses”). In AABA forms, “the

focus of the music is in the verse sections; the bridge exists simply to offer contrast,

making the verse seem fresh on its reappearance,” while in verse-chorus forms, “the

verse serves primarily to prepare the return of the chorus” (71). Summach (2011)

Owing to the contrast between the circularity of these loops and the goal-directedness of functional 2

tonality, Nobile notes that such loops “are more metrical [i.e., formal] than tonal in their structure: a four-chord loop acts similarly to a four-beat measure or hypermeasure in that both move away from and back to their initiating points; they are not progressions from point A to point B, but instead from point A back to point A” (194). For discussions of, classifications of, and testaments to the wide variety of common chord loops and shuttles in MRPM, see especially Doll (2017), Duinker (2019), Malawey (2010), Moore (1992), and Tagg (2014). See Peres (2016) for an overview of DAWs and their role in popular music production—particularly post-3

millennial Top-40 pop songs characterized by increasing influences from electronic dance music (EDM).

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similarly associates the prechorus with a transitional, momentum-building function,

which amplifies the anticipatory drive that commonly blooms at the end of a verse: “a

prechorus transforms the verse-chorus song from a two-section form into a three-section

form that is more strongly teleological” (3). And Temperley’s use of the term VCU

underscores the notional indivisibility of a goal-directed verse-(prechorus)-chorus loop,

with the first two modules building toward the rhetorical climax of the third. These 4

targeted descriptions reflect a broader consensus: formal modules in MRPM are

intimately bound up with notions of rhetorical prominence and drive, even if the

specific musical elements that produce such rhetorical shapes vary across both genres

and history. 5

While specific scholarship on formal repetition and rhetorical shape in jazz

palimpsest performance is comparatively scant, the primary functions of such repetition

are consistent: to establish a referential musical environment for improvisation, and to

create additional formal space for this improvisation to take place. The singular 6

rhetorical primacy of such extensive improvised passages distinguishes jazz’s

palimpsest practices in general from many other forms of musical recreation, and

This understanding of a VCU as a next-order formal unit is implicit in other theories of popular music 4

form as well. Covach’s (2005) compound AABA form, for example, often features a VCU for some or all of its constituent A sections. For example, de Clercq (2017) examines how 1980s pop and rocks songs can mix and match these elements 5

to produce instances of formal ambiguity. And Peres (2016) argues that formal modules in recent Top-40 pop songs are not primarily marked by harmonic, rhythmic, or formal features, but instead by timbral and textural manipulations facilitated by the DAWs mentioned above. I return to Peres’s model in Chapter 5. Most discussions of “formal” manipulation in jazz performance treat “form” as synonymous with “chord 6

progression,” and thus are examinations of how jazz performances manipulate the harmonies of their source materials, not their formal modules (e.g., Berliner 1994). An exception is Waters (2011), which explicitly examines formal innovations in both the compositions and improvisational techniques of Miles Davis’s second quintet; the latter techniques often involve solos that obscure the top of a repeating solo form by concluding in the middle of that form, rather than at the end.

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modern jazz’s standard practice (MJSP) in particular from most covering practices in

MRPM, in which improvisation does not typically enjoy a privileged role.

But while decades’ worth of jazz performances of Great American Songbook

(GAS) standards have coalesced around a basic formal template, the variety of MRPM

affords more formal options and suggests a potentially wider range of rhetorical

contours for a jazz palimpsest performance. These options stem in part from the

increased prominence of forms with notionally independent modules (e.g., verse-

chorus), as well as idiosyncratic formal designs marked by strong rhetorical through-

lines (e.g., through-composed or terminally climactic forms). But they trace to other 7

musical domains too, perhaps the most notable of which is harmony. Whether a chord

progression in a module is harmonically open or closed, goal-directed or circular, for

example, impacts the module’s dependence on adjacent formal sections, its potential for

wholesale repetition, or whether a subsection of its progression can be easily looped as a

vamp. Such alterations, in turn, can meaningfully alter the rhetorical shape of a formal 8

module, or its relationship with subsequent sections.

I begin in Part 1 by reviewing the basic approach to formal repetition used in

many jazz performances of GAS standards: the head-solos-head approach (HSH). I

connect jazz’s structural and rhetorical reliance on this approach to the notional

indivisibility of the sectional refrain of most GAS tunes, and I highlight four aspects of

this approach that can be problematized by the formal and harmonic diversity of

As defined by Osborn (2013), terminally climactic forms, “which appear frequently in rock songs after 7

1990, are characterized by their balance between the expected memorable highpoint (the chorus) and the thematically independent terminal climax, the song’s actual high point, which appears only once at the end of the song” (23). For examples of taxonomies that distinguish different tonal systems in rock music, see the citation 8

networks around both Everett (2004) and the corpus-study work of de Clercq and Temperley (e.g., 2011).

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MRPM. Using these concerns as a launching point, I outline a more detailed three-part

taxonomy of formal repetition schemes in jazz palimpsest performances, which is

motivated by this formal and harmonic heterogeneity. To emblematize this variety, I

conclude Part 1 with two analytical vignettes that examine how repetition schemes

interact with transformations of directed tonal motions to alter the rhetorical trajectories

of original songs. In Part 2, I build on these themes by examining four trio arrangements

by the pianist Brad Mehldau, which couple progressively more involved harmonic and

thematic transformations with increasingly expansive formal designs. By exploring how

these designs both disrupt and enhance repetition patterns and other signal features of

their MRPM source materials, I demonstrate how these performances significantly

enlarge the formal shape of their original songs, yielding distinct anticipatory processes

and rhetorical contours.

Part 1. Formal Repetition Schemes in Jazz Palimpsests

3.1.1. The Head-Solos-Head Approach and the Great American Songbook

In any jazz palimpsest performance, improvisation that occurs within a formal

module is typically coordinated by one or more structures that unfold in time and in

tandem, such as a rigid (hyper)meter and set of chord changes. While these structures

serve as a referent for the improviser, they also preserve the module’s identity for a

listener. (A listener can identify a verse module if a soloist outlines its chord changes, 9

for example, even if the verse melody is absent.) And such structures are typically

As discussed in Chapter 2, the concept of an improvisational referent comes from the work of Jeff Pressing 9

(e.g., 1998), who defines it as “a set of cognitive, perceptual, or emotional structures (constraints) that guide and aid in the production of musical materials” (58).

86

repeated an unfixed number of times, the total number being determined by the soloist.

To be sure, source songs almost always involve formal repetition themselves (as

discussed above), and jazz palimpsest performances can certainly include considerable

improvisation without increasing the quantity or formal location(s) of such loops. But 10

most jazz performances do deploy additional formal repetitions to provide more

extensive improvisational space, and these repetition schemes may or may not align

with patterns in the source material. This need for repetition is thus a basic consideration

when a jazz musician arranges a source song: what portion(s) of this song should be

looped? And just as importantly, which portion(s) should not be looped? 11

The best-known formal repetition scheme in jazz palimpsest performance is the

so-called head-solos-head approach (HSH). Although this approach is readily applied to

many MRPM tracks, its origins dwell in its widespread application to GAS standards,

contrafacts based on their chord progressions, and other original jazz compositions,

beginning in the early decades of the twentieth century. As originally conceived, a GAS

song usually featured two primary modules: an introductory sectional verse and a

Vijay Iyer’s take on the hip-hop anthem “Galang” (Iyer 2009b; M.I.A. 2005) and The Bad Plus’s 10

arrangement of “Velouria” (TBP 2004b; Pixies 1990), the second of which is analyzed in Chapter 5, provide notable examples—both palimpsests fastidiously mirror their source songs in both location and quantity of modular repetitions.

In a palimpsest performance, improvisation may (of course) also take place outside of modular repetition. 11

This kind of improvisation is particularly common at the beginnings and ends of performances. A trio rendering of a GAS standard, for example, may begin with an extended solo introduction that casts aside the metric and/or harmonic strictures of the form to more freely develop the tune’s thematic materials. Similarly, a soloist may improvise a free cadenza over a final dominant chord, or occasionally after the final cadence of an out-head. These passages of improvisation may be appended to virtually any formal design, and they are common enough that they can be cued spontaneously in jazz performance without compositional preplanning. Studies by Hoppe (2017) and Terefenko (2004, 2010), which respectively examine improvised introductions by the guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel and the pianist Keith Jarrett, testify to the fact that these introductions function not simply as trivial addenda, but as significant sites of improvisational creativity in and of themselves. But from a formal perspective, these improvisations require no repetition per se. A free solo introduction might be understood as occurring “before the beginning,” for example, or as tantamount to a 0-module in Sonata Theory (Hepokoski and Darcy 2006).

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sectional refrain. The sectional verse often functions as a quasi-recitative, with a patter-12

like melody accompanied by lyrics that set a scene or pose a problem. The sectional

refrain, by contrast, contains the (likely more memorable) melody and chord progression

that jazz musicians often refer to as the tune. An HSH jazz performance of a GAS 13

standard usually begins and ends with melodic statements of this tune, or the head and

the out-head, omitting the sectional verse altogether. Between these bookending 14

thematic statements, the tune’s form and chord changes are looped to provide a referent

for one or more improvised solos; each repetition of this form is typically called a chorus.

Crucially, the improvisations that transpire over this looping form are usually

understood as the rhetorical crux of the palimpsest performance; the primary role of the

initial head statement is simply to orient the listener to the musical context in which the

subsequent improvisation takes place. 15

Example 3.1 schematizes two common variants of this HSH approach to a GAS

sectional refrain cast in ABAC form, using a concise visual format that highlights both

the juxtaposition of head and solo sections, and the repetitions of source material that

produce these sections. The charts should be read left-to-right, then top-to-bottom. The

These modules are also sometimes called verses and choruses. I borrow the terms sectional verse and sectional 12

refrain from Covach (2005) to avoid initial confusion with the modules of verse-chorus forms, with AABA forms in which the A sections are sometimes called “verses,” and with improvisational repetitions of a sectional refrain that are often called “choruses” by jazz musicians. While I use chorus below to describe modular repetitions for solos, I make clear in my prose the distinction between such repetitions and the chorus module of a verse-chorus form.

Recalling Chapter 2, the term tune is often used in opposition to song, as a nod to the emergent ontological 13

thinness of a GAS standard that has resulted from decades of varied performances. This consistent omission of this sectional verse in many palimpsest performances (in both jazz and other 14

genres) contributes to its relative obscurity for many listeners. Recalling Bowen (1993), one might say that musical tradition has decided that sectional verses, on the whole, are not essential features of GAS songs.

Several of the interviewees in Berliner’s (1994) classic ethnographic jazz study note that jazz musicians 15

begin performances with a statement of the melodic theme primarily for the listener’s benefit—to explicitly outline the musical context in which the subsequent improvisations unfold. Taking a philosophical tack, Love (2016) describes improvised solos as “virtuous acts” that unfold against the context established by an underlying song form and constitute the aesthetic focus of a jazz performance.

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ABAC form stretches across the top two rows, shaded in gray. Passes through this

uninterrupted sectional refrain in a palimpsest performance for head statements (blue)

and improvised solos (red) are shown in subsequent rows, shaded in white; repetitions

of a given formal span are indicated with an “x” in parentheses (e.g., “Solo (x)”), along

with a number if the quantity of repetitions is salient (e.g., “Head (2x)”), with the

boundaries of repetition indicated by vertical cell boundaries that are tantamount to

repeat signs. The left table depicts a complete out-head, while the right table represents a

truncated out-head (AC), which is particularly common in ballad performance, in which

the slow tempo often renders two complete head statements somewhat onerous. This

truncated out-head may return halfway through a solo chorus, preserving the larger

sectional refrain form; or it may return after a complete ABAC solo chorus, eliminating

the initial AB and thus mildly disrupting the form—hence the enclosure of “Solo cont.”

in parentheses. 16

One advantage of the consistency and ubiquity of the HSH approach—on

recordings, in live concert performances, at jam sessions, and in institutionalized jazz

education—is that it provides a secure referential framework for both improvisers and

The layout and function of these form charts—including the way they seek to visually highlight repetition16

—bears a notable resemblance to the visual design and purpose of paradigmatic analyses by Ruwet (1987) and others. This resemblance becomes clearer in subsequent examples.

Sectional Refrain

A1 B A2 C

Head (2x)

Solo (x)

Head

Sectional Refrain

A1 B A2 C

Head (2x)

Solo (x)

(Solo cont.) Head

Example 3.1. Two basic HSH approaches to a GAS standard.

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listeners, especially in the domain of hypermeter. The majority of GAS sectional 17

refrains are cast in 32-bar AABA or ABAC form, and they imply regular duple

hypermetric groupings from the measure level through the 16-bar hypermeasure. 18

Because this nested hypermetric regularity is typically understood as inviolable and

remains sacrosanct throughout an HSH performance, repetition schemes that alter this

regularity are almost certainly determined compositionally, in advance. The lone 19

exceptions to this rule, which are common enough to be either specified in advance or

pursued spontaneously in performance, typically involve the out-head; they include the

truncation of this final theme, mentioned above, as well as targeted vamps to clear space

for one last round of solo or collective improvisation. 20

However, both the formal consistency of the GAS and the ubiquity of the HSH

scheme can obscure components of the approach that are problematized in some way by

Love (2013) provides a vivid account of this hypermetric security: “Consider a hypothetical drum solo 17

during a realization of a thirty-two-measure scheme. After a ninety-six measure (three-chorus) solo, in which the drummer indulges in wild syncopations and cross-rhythms, the remainder of the ensemble, tacet for the duration of the solo, will enter in perfect unison on the downbeat of the ninety-seventh measure. If a member of the ensemble should enter a beat or measure early or late, a savvy listener recognizes this as a mistake” (50).

Citing this regularity, Waters (1996) has argued that each repetition of a standard 32-bar form is 18

tantamount to a four-beat hypermeasure: ((88)(88)). For GAS standards in common duple meter (which is to say, the majority of standards), this duple regularity also extends beneath the measure level to (sub)tactus groupings, producing what Cohn (1992) calls “pure duple” meter. I explore this phenomenon in more depth in Chapter 4. Some GAS forms extend the final A subsection to 12 measures (Kern and Hammerstein’s “All the Things You Are” (1939) is a well-known example), producing a 36-bar form that mildly disrupts this otherwise rigid pure duple hierarchy. This concluding hypermetric expansion often extends a final turnaround progression, somewhat reducing the likelihood of a looped cadential tag.

Such alterations might include repetitions of a passage of alternate length, such as an interlude or vamp, 19

as well as compositional transformations such as a change of meter in a given subsection. Two kinds of vamps in an out-head are particularly common. First, the chain of strong descending fifth or 20

(in the case of tritone substitution) half-step motion that leads to the final cadence is often extended and repeated, producing some variant of a [iii–vi–ii–V] vamp—often called a tag—over which additional improvisation can occur, building momentum toward the eventual tonic arrival. Second, this final tonic can also be vamped, sometimes extensively. Both forms of repetition disrupt the hypermetric regularity of the repeating sectional refrain, although it could also be argued that a vamped final tonic, which typically arrives on the hypermetrically weak downbeat of m. 31, resets the hypermeter in a strong concluding gesture. For discussions of the hypermetric placement of final tonic chords in GAS standards, see Salley and Shanahan (2016); in popular music, see Biamonte and Klorman (2019).

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the formal and harmonic variety of MRPM. I wish to emphasize four of these

components, which are interrelated. First, in a basic HSH performance, the head and

primary solo sections are typically coextensive—neither contains significant formal

material included in, or excluded from, the other. It is for this reason that HSH 21

performances of GAS standards are often described as examples of a theme and

variations: the initial head is the theme, and the subsequent solos are variations that are

intended to be heard in the context of that theme, to a greater or lesser degree. 22

Second, because the same sectional refrain is repeated in its entirety for both

head and solos, individual subsections of this source material—the A, B, or C

subsections of AABA or ABAC forms—do not generally function as standalone modules

that are amenable to what I’ll call sub-repetition. Although this notional formal

indivisibility can be traced to myriad factors—performance practice being chief among

them—functional harmonic teleology plays a notable role. While the subsections of GAS

tunes feature a wide variety of internal harmonic motions, many of which briefly

tonicize other key areas, the subsections themselves are usually delineated by

predictable half or authentic cadences that confirm a single global key. Directed tonal 23

motion thus furnishes a musical teleology that stretches both within and across these

This assertion brackets off relatively incidental passages like introductions and codas.21

Numerous scholars have developed taxonomies for distinguishing the degree to which improvisation 22

engages with a tune’s melody, as opposed to just its harmonies. Melodically informed improvisation is typically labeled as paraphrase or thematic improvisation: see, for example, Hodeir (1956), Schuller (1958), Owens (1974), Kernfeld (1995), Martin (1996), and Givan (2003), the last of which summarizes and synthesizes the work of the preceding five. Givan’s distinction between paraphrase and thematic improvisation turns on whether or not the pitches of the original head remain proximate to their original formal locations. Martin (2011) brings a Schenkerian perspective to bear on this issue, arguing that improvisational engagement with only a tune’s harmony constitutes middleground interaction, while melodic variation constitutes foreground interaction.

Terefenko’s (2018a) phase models classify progressions in these subsections according to two basic factors: 23

whether they begin on- or off-tonic, and the series of one or more diatonic or chromatic harmonies they tonicize en route to a concluding cadence.

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subsections, forging them into larger units. Numerous scholars, including Forte (1995),

Gilbert (1995), Larson (e.g., 2009), Martin (e.g., 1996), and Strunk (e.g., 1979), have

underscored this teleology by analyzing GAS standards through the harmonic-

contrapuntal lens of Schenkerian theory. Many ABAC forms, for example, readily 24

allow the reading of interrupted voice-leading designs, highlighting their function as

notionally formal wholes that, at most accommodate repetition of their latter half. 25

Third, the colloquial use of a term like HSH often refers both to a performance’s

juxtaposition of head and solo sections, and to the formal transformations of the original

material that give rise to these rhetorically contrasting sections (e.g., an HSH

performance uses the head material for solos). These two elements of a jazz palimpsest

are distinct, and each presents its own points of analytical interest. Performances that

repeat an entire sectional refrain for both head and solo statements can easily reorder

these statements. Some GAS performances begin with solos rather than heads, for

example. This order reverses the normative theme-and-variations rhetoric: rather than

elaborately varying the musical environment first established by a theme, initial solos

gradually construct this environment, mapping the harmonic and hypermetric space

that is eventually (and sometimes climactically) populated by the recognizable melody. 26

Conversely, a palimpsest performance may easily bookend a solo section with thematic

The extent to which Schenker’s set of three basic Ursatzen should be expanded to accommodate some of 24

the stylistic commonplaces of GAS and tonal jazz repertoire has been a topic of spirited debate. The nub of this debate often concerns the balance between faithfulness to the musical surface and the invocation of implied tones. Authors who prize fealty to the original melody (e.g., Forte 1995; Gilbert 1995; Martin 1996) are generally comfortable invoking additional background paradigms, while others (e.g., Heyer 2012; Larson 1999; McFarland 2012) argue that preserving the explanatory parsimony of Schenker’s limited set of Ursatzen is worth the price of a few implied tones in key moments.

E.g., ABAC becomes ABAC | AC in a ballad performance, as in the right half of Example 3.1.25

It is also worth distinguishing between an out-head that constitutes the first thematic appearance in a 26

performance, and one that pairs with an opening head statement. While the rhetorical function of the former is fairly clear—the anticipated arrival of a theme hinted at by preceding solos—the function of the latter is less so: is it a climactic recapitulation, or simply a convenient bookend?

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statements to produce a “head-solos-head” ordering while using different formal spans

from the original song for the head and solo sections. This approach, which embeds the

solo section in a larger formal design, is especially common in palimpsest performances

of multi-modular MRPM repertoire, as I discuss below.

Fourth, the primary harmonic and rhetorical teleology of a GAS sectional refrain

both stretches across, and is delimited by, the relatively long span of this looping formal

unit. On one hand, this refrain furnishes an improviser with a lengthy, goal-directed

harmonic progression that can give significant shape to each chorus of a solo. On the

other hand, this progression, despite its length, is ultimately circumscribed by the refrain

itself—its generalized harmonic process simply repeats, undifferentiated, with each

cycle of the refrain. The refrain itself does not imbed in some larger formal or rhetorical

process that stretches beyond its boundaries; there is no formal goal that lies beyond the

refrain, to be achieved via formal repetition. It thus falls to a skilled improviser to

motivate repetitions of this refrain by crafting longer teleological arcs that extend across

multiple solo choruses. Such arcs can result specifically from the strategic forestalling of

melodic resolution until the end of a solo; more often, they also stem from fluctuations in

register, dynamic level, or rhythmic density. But it is these dynamic shapes, not features

of the original material itself per se, that constitute the most expansive rhetorical contour

of the jazz performance.

I highlight these four elements of the HSH approach to the GAS because each is

problematized in some way by the formal and harmonic variety of MRPM—by the

subtle differences in the kinds of formal repetition this music can suggest, by the varying

rhetorical shapes these repetitions provide improvisers, and by the performance-

spanning rhetorical contours that can result. I sketch these issues in the next section.

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3.1.2. The Head-Solos-Head Approach and Modern Recorded Popular Music

The basic HSH approach—in which the same formal span is repeated for both

head and solo statements—can be readily applied to many common formal designs in

MRPM. While this canon comprises a wider variety of forms than the GAS, as noted

above many of these designs also comprise repetitions of a single large formal span.

Many early Beatles songs, for example, feature repeating AABA sectional refrains and

tonally-directed chord progressions that illustrate clear hereditary links with the GAS

tradition. More broadly, the essential content of most simple verse, simple verse-27

chorus, and vamp-based forms is contained in a single span that affords easy repetition

as an undivided whole. Some contrasting verse-chorus forms—in which the verse and

chorus modules are notionally more independent—also incentivize repetition of an

entire VCU when the unit is marked by a strong through-line. In such cases, an 28

indivisible VCU functions analogously to a sectional refrain or simple verse module—as

a relatively expansive but unitary form for both head and solos.

Despite this broad applicability of the HSH paradigm, many multi-modular

MRPM forms afford multiple plausible repetition schemes, especially when a song’s

essential content is spread across multiple, notionally self-contained modules. This 29

formal flexibility, while subtle, suggests that multi-modular MRPM forms, unlike GAS

Covach (2006) argues that the Beatles’ move away from GAS-style AABA forms toward verse-chorus and 27

through-composed designs was emblematic of their broader artistic evolution. For a Schenkerian perspective on form and voice-leading in early Beatles songs that illuminates their connections with GAS repertoire, see Nobile (2011).

A modulating verse or anticipatory prechorus would sound odd if repeated independently, for example.28

The concept of ontological thinness discussed in Chapter 2 provides a helpful heuristic for what qualifies 29

as essential content: which features of the song would be maintained in even its thinnest representation? Could an arrangement of a verse-chorus MRPM song ditch the verse—recalling the sectional verse in a GAS tune—and still qualify as a rendition of the song?

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standards, lack a single default transformation into a standard improvisational format. 30

As an illustration, Example 3.2 schematizes three plausible repetition schemes for a

contrasting verse-chorus form. The two leftmost options mirror the HSH GAS

treatments above. An arrangement might use an undivided VCU for both head and

solos; and a final solo might conclude in a verse—rather than a chorus—module,

mirroring a truncated out-head in an ABAC or AABA form. But after treating the VCU

as the initial head, the band might also conceivably loop only the verse module for solos,

leaving a final chorus to serve as a rhetorically climactic out-head. This potential for sub-

repetition is especially pronounced if the verse repeats in the original song (producing a

verse-verse-chorus pattern that often begins verse-chorus forms), uses a non-functional

or autotelic chord shuttle or loop, is harmonically closed, or otherwise concludes with a

progression that allows easy, hypermetrically balanced repetition.

This third, rightmost repetition scheme is only moderately different from the

other two. But it has little concrete precedent in jazz performances of GAS tunes; it

would be tantamount to the unusual sub-repetition of the initial AB of an ABAC form,

To illustrate this point, consider a thought experiment. If I called a simple verse MRPM song at a jam 30

session, the band would likely launch into an HSH approach with little or no need for discussion. But if I called a contrasting verse-chorus song, the band would likely need to confer about which portions of the song would function as the head and solo sections, and the two sections might not be coextensive.

Contrasting VCU

Verse Chorus

Head

Solo (x)

Head

Contrasting VCU

Verse Chorus

Head

Solo (x)

Solo cont. Head (2x)

Contrasting VCU

Verse Chorus

Head

Solo (x) Head (2x)

Example 3.2. Three possible repetition schemes for a contrasting verse-chorus form.

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for example. And it departs in several interrelated ways from the basic HSH approach

described above. While the performance still bookends solos with head statements,

producing a “head-solos-head” arrangement, the head and solo sections are no longer

coextensive. Instead, improvisation occurs over only a subset of the musical

environment established by the head. This strategy, in turn, complicates issues of

rhetorical priority: the notion that a solo is a jazz performance’s expressive crux cuts

across the typical teleology of a verse-chorus design, in which the verse usually drives

toward the rhetorically primary chorus. A VCU looped in its entirety furnishes the

improviser with this verse-chorus drive with every repetition, conceptually paralleling

the repeating tonal teleology of a GAS sectional refrain. But the sub-repetition of the

verse alone situates the chorus’s formal-rhetorical goal outside of the solo referent itself,

presenting the improviser with a fresh telos to pursue across multiple solo choruses.

These expressive teleologies become even more vivid in forms with stronger rhetorical

through lines—recall, for example, Brad Meuldau’s solo over the looped C section of the

ABACA form in his performance of “Exit Music (For a Film)” (1998a; Radiohead 1997a),

discussed in Chapter 2.

The repetition options presented by multi-modular MRPM forms, and their

associated rhetorical considerations, get short shrift in extant scholarly examinations of

MJSP. In her study of another of Mehldau’s Radiohead performances, for example—the

pianist’s solo rendering of “Paranoid Android” (Mehldau [1999] 2000; Radiohead 1997c)

—Rusch (2013) describes jazz musicians’ approach to MRPM through the lens of a basic

HSH strategy. Her description echoes the common theme-and-variations logic and

emphasizes the rhetorical primacy of the solo section:

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Analogous to a ‘head’ in jazz practice, the initial presentation [of a MRPM song]

introduces the melody, musical form, and harmonic progressions or ‘changes’

that serve as the basis for the improvised solo section. During the solo section,

jazz musicians may embellish the pop song’s pitch and rhythmic content,

compose their own melodic material over the harmonic progressions, or modify

the progressions through a number of chord substitutions. Following an

improvised solo section is a recapitulation of the entire pop song or a portion

thereof that rounds off the performance. In a jazz adaptation of a popular music

song, then, the improvisatory section—wedged between two more or less

complete statements of the pop song—forms the crux of the jazz performance: it

affords musicians an opportunity to create something new out of an existing

musical work (Rusch 2013, 1.2).

Rusch’s citation of the HSH approach is particularly curious in this case, because

“Paranoid Android” (Radiohead 1997c) features one of the idiosyncratic through-

composed forms for which Radiohead is well-known. And Mehldau’s performance

([1999] 2000), as a whole, adopts a more complicated design than is implied by a

standard HSH paradigm. As Rusch details in her analysis, Radiohead’s original is cast in

a large-scale, through-composed ABC form, in which each formal unit is self-

contained. The A module features two repetitions of a conventional VCU, while the 31

contrasting B and C modules each comprise sub-repetitions of shorter, unrelated

harmonic progressions; this B-module progression returns as a brief coda. Example 3.3

Rusch references (but does not provide a citation for) a television interview with Radiohead’s bassist Colin 31

Greenwood to confirm that these three formal units originated as individual compositions.

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details Mehldau’s approach to this form, as described by Rusch. While Mehldau

faithfully renders the A module as a head, he does not use this section for improvisation

at all. Instead, he loops the progressions of the B and C modules individually, beginning

each with a head statement before playing multiple choruses of improvisation. After

finishing the C-section solo with a return to the module’s melodic material, he concludes

his performance, like Radiohead, with a B-based coda.

While Mehldau’s performance deploys the most obvious repetition scheme

suggested by the Radiohead original, it is worth lingering on the fact that this scheme is

dependent on the original’s idiosyncratic modular design and harmonic language.

Mehldau’s approach preserves Radiohead’s overall formal shape while clearing

significant space for improvisation. To be sure, this approach juxtaposes head and solo

statements, and both solos transpire in environments initially established by a head. But

the larger formal shape of the performance is hardly captured by a blunt, overbroad

characterization like HSH. And it differs significantly enough from the pianist’s more

Start Time

AB C

Verse Chorus

0:00 Intro

1:18 Head (2x) Head (2x)

2:42 Solo (4x) Head (2x)

5:17 Solo (7x)

8:16 Head

8:44 Coda

Example 3.3. Formal repetition in “Paranoid Android” (Mehldau [1999] 2000; Radiohead 1997c), modeled on Rusch (2013).

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conventional approach to many GAS standards to reasonably prompt more specific

terms for formal repetition and transformation. I propose these terms in the next section.

3.1.3. Three Formal Repetition Schemes in Jazz Palimpsests

In jazz palimpsest performances of both GAS and MRPM repertoire, I

distinguish between three basic repetition schemes that create solo sections by repeating

some (potentially transformed) portion of the source song: the unified loop, the modular

loop, and the vamp. Each term refers to a relationship between a solo section in a jazz

performance and the source content from which this section’s repeated material derives

—and the formal and rhetorical affordances these relationships present to improvisers.

Because the three schemes are often differentiated by the scale of repetition, they

are best understood as fuzzy categories that admit some overlap—the same repetition

can sometimes be understood as two different kinds of loop, for example, depending on

the formal scale from which it is viewed. Different schemes can be applied one after the

other, or at multiple levels of formal scale at once—a unified loop can include a vamp,

for instance. The terms themselves make no specific claims about the order of head and

solo statements that result from a particular scheme; in all three cases, a head statement

may precede or follow a solo section, or both. I also emphasize that the terms only apply

to solo sections that can be understood to derive in some way from an original song,

even if this original material is significantly transformed; the terms do not apply to solo

sections that constitute wholesale compositional additions in an arrangement.

Obviously, whether some solo sections constitute transformations of existing material or

altogether new creations can be a point of analytical and intertextual interest.

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In its paradigmatic form, a unified loop mirrors the basic HSH strategy: it repeats a

single, contiguous formal span from an original song as the lone, primary material for

both head and solo sections, which are coextensive. Source songs whose primary content

dwells within a single indivisible module—including most GAS standards and simple

verse forms—are usually subjected to this approach, as are verse-chorus forms whose

modules form tightly-knit VCUs. In all cases, the basic conceit is that a single, self-32

contained unit can be repeated any number of times, and head and solo sections can be

juxtaposed in any number of ways. This means that solos by multiple band members

often transpire over the same unified loop, one after the other. But for a performance

that relies primarily on this scheme, it also means that repetition of this singular span

constitutes the primary formal substance of the performance; it thus falls to soloists to

craft larger rhetorical shapes.

A modular loop, by contrast, embeds sub-repetitions of one or more complete

modules within a larger formal design that features rhetorically prominent head or solo

material stated in the palimpsest but not included in the modular loop itself. While this

definition is inherently more flexible than a unified loop, the linchpin that unites

modular loops is that the sub-repeating unit is self-contained in a local sense only—

crucially, it also embeds in a more expansive, sounding formal process that governs its

juxtaposition with other head and solo sections. This larger formal dependency often

suggests that, unlike unified loops, a given modular loop typically features only a single

improvisation, whether by an individual band member or a collective.

Simple verse forms that feature rhetorically incidental bridges also admit a basic unified loop—if the 32

bridge is stated at all, it usually occurs in the initial head and is never stated again.

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Modular loops are common in jazz performances that faithfully mirror the global

form of their multi-modular source material. Forms animated by large-scale impulses or

featuring idiosyncratic designs, including terminally-climactic and through-composed

forms, are good candidates for this approach; a modular loop strategy simultaneously

clears space for improvisation while allowing one or more repeated solo modules to

preserve their position in a larger formal order. A similar phenomenon can also result 33

from the application of a modular loop to a verse-chorus form—such applications often

place a significant solo section after two iterations of a VCU, looping a single verse or

contrasting bridge module that eventually gives way to a final chorus out-head. This

approach produces a kind of compound AABA design, in which A and B are head and

solo statements, respectively. The design mirrors the rhetorical shape of MRPM songs

that follow a second VCU with a contrasting bridge or instrumental interlude—both

approaches follow two VCUs with some type of contrast that heightens the ultimate

return of chorus material. 34

If a modular loop repeats a subset of a source song’s form, a vamp loops yet a

smaller subset of that form. While the term vamp has assumed various, overlapping

meanings in music-theoretic scholarship, for my purposes a vamp is a repeating

harmonic, rhythmic, melodic and/or bass-line pattern, usually between two and four

measures in length, which serves an initiating, transitional, or concluding function in a

Mehldau uses a modular loop in his performance of “Exit Music” (Mehldau 1998a; Radiohead 1997a); 33

recall the discussion from Chapter 2 about how the energy accrued by his solo parallels the end-weighted rhetorical trajectory of Radiohead’s original.

Subsequent chapters contain several examples of this design: Vijay Iyer’s performances of “The Star of a 34

Story” (Iyer 2012c; Heatwave 1977) and “Human Nature” (Iyer 2012b; Michael Jackson 1982), both of which are discussed in Chapter 4, feature protracted improvisational deconstructions after two VCUs. The Bad Plus’s arrangement of “Time After Time” (TBP 2016e; Lauper 1983), which is analyzed at length in Chapter 5, loops a similarly located but transformed verse module for an extensive piano solo by Ethan Iverson.

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jazz palimpsest performance. It serves one of these functions either by repeating a short

module with an identical function from the original (e.g., an introduction, interlude, or

coda); or by looping an opening or closing subset of an adjacent, more primary module

(e.g., a portion of a sectional refrain, verse, or chorus) to create such a shorter passage.

In both MRPM and MJSP, concluding vamps in particular can become quite long,

ending a performance or recording with one final, extensive round of improvisation. 35

Liminal passages that straddle interior formal boundaries in MRPM are also sometimes

characterized as Janus modules in an attempt to capture their dual function: they seem to

simultaneously conclude one module and introduce the next. (This is especially true 36

when the progression of the Janus module overlaps with adjacent module(s), as is the

case when, for example, the opening progression of a verse module also comprises an

introduction/interlude.) This two-faced character is further enhanced in jazz

performances that vamp these transitional passages—extensive repetition can loosen

any hypermetric balance that might encourage latent association of the passage with one

neighboring module or the other. This loosening lends internal vamps an air of formal

circularity that echoes similar features in postbop composition—it can be difficult to

assert where one module ends and the next begins. 37

Vamps frequently appear in tandem with either a unified or modular loop: the

latter constitutes a performance’s primary solo section, while the former creates one or

more secondary improvisational spaces. As noted above, for example, a vamp in a GAS

In both cases, concluding vamps often feature drums solos—think, for example, of Steve Gadd’s extensive 35

drum solo over a concluding vamp in Steely Dan’s “Aja” (1977). The term Janus module comes from Summach (2012, 54). As de Clercq (2017, 2.5) notes, there is no 36

terminological consensus for such interlude passages—other authors refer to them as links (e.g., Endrinal 2008, 68–69; Stephenson 2002, 134).

For discussion of circular elements of postbop compositions that obscure the top of a repeating form, see 37

especially Waters (2019) and Waters, Martin, Larson, and Strunk (2016).

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performance frequently extends the concluding tag and/or the last tonic chord in the

out-head, allowing for a final, potentially extensive round of soloing. The autotelic chord

loops and shuttles of much recent MRPM also afford extraction into vamps more readily

than do the goal-directed progressions of many GAS songs. For this reason, the

distinction between a modular loop and a vamp can sometimes be fuzzy in songs in

which an entire repeated module is based on a single, shorter chord loop (e.g., four

repetitions of a two-bar shuttle constitute an eight-bar verse). But the liminal formal

function of a vamp often serves to distinguish it from the formal primacy of a modular

loop. To illustrate this dependency on an adjacent module, form diagrams below use a

dotted line to separate a repeating vamp from the adjacent primary module from which

its harmonic, melodic, and/or rhythmic content can be understood to derive.

The three repetition schemes introduced in this section allow for a more robust

characterization of Mehldau’s approach to “Paranoid Android.” Viewed as standalone

songs, the independent B and C sections of Radiohead’s original are repeated as unified

loops, with each adopting the basic HSH approach Rusch identifies (albeit with only a

“head-solos” order in the former case). But the pianist’s global approach applies a

modular loop scheme to Radiohead’s original, simultaneously preserving the rotational

independence of each module and the overall formal shape of the original. This

approach is, of course, clearly motivated by the episodic nature of Radiohead’s through-

composed form. But in light of the heterogeneity of MRPM, it is worth foregrounding

this dependency between repetition schemes and the source material features that afford

them.

This dependency is even more notable when a jazz arrangement alters key

harmonic features of a source song, either by imposing, or to facilitate, a particular

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repetition scheme. In the final two sections of Part 1, I briefly examine two such trio

arrangements by the pianists Aaron Goldberg and Robert Glasper. My three broad goals

in these analyses are to demonstrate each of the repetition schemes outlined above, to

emblematize (in miniature) the formal variety inherent in MJSP, and to introduce a key

theme that weaves throughout my analyses in Part 2: the relationship between repetition

schemes and directed patterns of tonal motion in a source song, and how

transformations in one domain can reconfigure the other.

3.1.4. A Unified Loop with Vamps:

“Isn’t She Lovely” (Goldberg 2010b; Wonder 1976)

As is the case with many jazz performances of GAS tunes, arrangements of

MRPM songs often use a unified loop as the primary solo space, while augmenting this

loop with a secondary vamp. This vamp provides a useful contrast by furnishing a

distinctly different solo environment—the lengthy harmonic contours of the unified loop

often contrast sharply with the rapid-fire repetition of the vamp, allowing different

kinds of improvisational ideas and interactions to take shape. But while a vamp can

assume extensive proportions—particularly if it occurs as a coda—the improvisation

that occurs over the vamp rarely rivals the unified loop in rhetorical primacy. The

unified loop is the principal site of musical creativity; the vamp simply provides space

for shorter spurts of improvisational commentary, interaction, and the like.

Following this basic mold, pianist Aaron Goldberg’s (2010b) trio arrangement of

Stevie Wonder’s classic song “Isn’t She Lovely” (1976) deploys both a unified loop and a

vamp to create two different solo environments. But unlike the vamp coda that

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frequently accompanies unified loop performances, Goldberg begins, ends, and

punctuates his arrangement with the same vamp. This approach, which sees a two-

chord shuttle consume almost half of the trio’s nearly six-minute performance, elevates

the vamps as important improvisational spaces in their own right and highlights their

role as the creative core of the arrangement. It underscores their inherent formal

liminality, as the same repeating musical material functions at once as introduction,

transition, and coda. And it momentarily stalls the directed pattern of descending-fifth

root motion that propels each phrase in Wonder’s repeating form.

Example 3.4 summarizes the simple verse form of “Isn’t She Lovely,” which

features a 16-measure srdc sentential structure (Everett 1999) delineated by goal-directed

Example 3.4. Sentential structure and descending-fifth root motion in the simple verse of “Isn’t She Lovely” (Wonder 1976).

Start Time Vamp (2) Simple verse

(srdc: 4+4+4+4)

0:00 Piano solo (x) Head

1:35 Piano solo (x) Head

2:35 Piano solo (4x)

4:20 Group improv. (x)

Example 3.5. Formal repetition in “Isn’t She Lovely” (Goldberg 2010b; Wonder 1976).

105

tonal motions, a swing-shuffle feel that straddles the line between 4/4 and 12/8, and a

memorable concluding pentatonic hook (mm. 15–16). Wonder’s original recording

simply repeats this verse, alternating between melodic statements and harmonica solos.

As shown in Example 3.5, Goldberg’s arrangement—which transposes Wonder’s

original down by half step to Eb major—mirrors this basic approach, subjecting the verse

to a unified loop after two initial head statements for a four-chorus piano solo.

But Goldberg also precedes both initial head statements by looping the verse’s

initial two chords (Cm7 – F9) to create a recurring vamp, shown in Example 3.6. (This

vamp is labeled in green in the top row of Example 3.5 to indicate that it functions as a

notable compositional transformation of Wonder’s original; the vamp’s derivation from

the first two chords of the ensuing simple verse is indicated by the dotted boundary

between them.) In Wonder’s original, these harmonies initiate a larger chain of

functional descending-fifth root motion whose drive toward tonic helps to define the

sentential form. This goal-directed process of descending-fifth root motion is so common

in GAS, tonal jazz, and related repertoires that Martin (1988) characterizes it as the

“syntactic background” of jazz harmony writ large. But Goldberg’s vamp temporarily 38

Winkler (1978) also examines prevalence of goal-directed chains of descending-fifth root motion in 38

popular music, providing a conceptual antecedent to Martin’s oft-cited work.

Example 3.6. Dorian shuttle and pentatonic ostinati in recurring vamp of “Isn’t She Lovely” (Goldberg 2010b; Wonder 1976).

106

stalls this syntactic process, reconfiguring these initial two chords into a circumscribed

Dorian shuttle (Cm: i–IV) that grounds significant passages of piano improvisation. By 39

withholding the Eb-major tonic denouement, this approach coils tension in the first two

solo vamps, creating a notable harmonic release when the shuttle finally yields in the

head. And it reverses the normative rhetoric of a head-solos ordering, with Goldberg’s 40

solo over the shuttles building expectation for—rather than elaborating on—statements

of Wonder’s melody.

This recurring vamp also establishes Goldberg’s other principal compositional

transformation of Wonder’s original: an Afro-Cuban groove, whose hemiolic conflict

amplifies similar undertones latent in Wonder’s loping shuffle feel. The opening vamp

initially establishes this conflict with competing bass and melodic ostinati (shown in

Example 3.6)—both derived from the pentatonic hook that concludes Wonder’s form—

that imply 12/8 and 4/4, respectively. While the melodic pattern ultimately gives way to

solos from Goldberg in the first two vamps, the bass line feel continues through the

vamp into the initial sr of each subsequent head statement, highlighting the formal

liminality of the vamp. This flexibility is further emphasized by the return of the vamp

and the bass ostinato for a crackling, improvisatory coda. Here, while Goldberg and his

bandmates exchange ideas that slip fluidly between quadruple and triple tactus

subdivisions, they gradually temper their dynamic and articulatory intensity. The

resulting dissipation of musical energy reverses the anticipatory function of the earlier

Spicer (2017) surveys the prominence of Dorian shuttles in a host of 1970s popular songs and genres. For a 39

broader overview of chord shuttles, see Tagg (2014, Chapter 12). While the harmonic release arrives in mm. 3–4 of each head statement, a textural release often occurs two 40

bars earlier, as the trio relaxes its frenzied Afro-Cuban groove from the preceding vamp with the onset of the head [e.g., 1:08–1:09].

107

vamps, concluding the performance where it began—with harmonic-syntactical and

groove-oriented transformations of Wonder’s original.

3.1.5. A Modular Loop in the GAS:

“Stella by Starlight” (Glasper 2015b; Young 1944)

A more expansive view of the GAS that stretches beyond the Golden Age would

certainly include Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely.” Like many GAS tunes, the well-known

song boasts an extensive lineage of reproduction and recreation, suggesting its function

as a latter-day standard. From a certain perspective, this broad lineage further 41

incentivizes a jazz musician like Goldberg to take a distinctive approach to his

arrangement of the tune; the more crowded the palimpsest landscape, the more marked

the creative action an artist must take to stake their position in that terrain.

This same phenomenon surely motivates Robert Glasper’s unusual (2015b) trio

arrangement of Victor Young’s (1944) ballad “Stella by Starlight”—a tune that enjoys a

particularly cherished place in the GAS and the standard jazz repertoire. The song’s

sectional refrain displays an ABCA’ form, which is a less common layout than the more

typical AABA and ABAC designs of many GAS standards. But most jazz performances

still treat the form as indivisible, subjecting it to unified loops in basic HSH fashion. 42

Likely because of this overriding uniformity, Glasper’s trio arrangement deploys a

At last check, the website secondhandsongs.com, which catalogs cover recordings, listed over 150 entries 41

for “Isn’t She Lovely.” For analyses of various well-known jazz performances of “Stella”—the quantity of which alone testifies to 42

the song’s prominence—see especially Volume 9 of the Annual Review of Jazz Studies (1997–98), a double-issue which is devoted entirely to analyses of jazz performances of the tune; the volume contains seven articles, along with a response from Allen Forte.

108

markedly different tactic: he drastically reharmonizes the C and A’ sections, and uses

this reharmonization to circumscribe the C section into a modular loop. 43

Example 3.7 summarizes Glasper’s formal approach. His performance begins

with fantasia-like solo piano introduction that delivers the entire sectional refrain at

breakneck speed. Although this rendering introduces the C-section reharmonization,

Glasper plows through it without repetition, concluding with an unaltered final A’. But

he quickly returns to this C-section reharmonization, settling with bass and drums into a

relaxed modular loop that facilitates an extended piano solo. The performance then

concludes with an additional reharmonization of the concluding A’ head, the latter half

of which Glasper loops into a vamp that ultimately fades out. 44

Glasper’s distinctive reharmonization is the linchpin of his unique formal

approach to this GAS tune. Example 3.8 details this reharmonization, notated on the

bottom stave and labeled with chord symbols, and compares it with the idealized chord

changes of “Stella” typically used by jazz musicians, notated above the top stave with

Glasper’s rendition of “Stella” appears on his album Covered (2015a), which is comprised entirely of 43

palimpsests. The formal and harmonic idiosyncrasy of his approach to this GAS tune is further highlighted by its sharp contrast with the other arrangements on the record, all of which subject MRPM songs to predictable modular or unified loops with virtually no harmonic transformations at all.

Following the convention of Example 3.5, the C, A’, and concluding vamp sections are labeled in green in 44

Example 3.7 because they feature notable compositional transformations of the original song—in this case, Glasper’s reharmonizations.

Start Time

Sectional RefrainVamp (2)

A (4) B (4) C (4) A’ (4)

0:00 Head (intro)

0:29 Head (3x)

1:01 Solo (16x) Head Coda (x, fade)

Example 3.7. Formal repetition in “Stella by Starlight” (Glasper 2015b; Young 1944).

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chord symbols only. The score metrically compresses the cut-time notation often used 45

for “Stella,” rendering standard eight-measure sections in four measures for ease of

reading; measure numbers and subsection lengths in Example 3.7 refer to this

compressed notation. The score also features Roman numeral annotations that suggest 46

postbop-style harmonic functions; I discuss these annotations below.

In the typical jazz progression of “Stella,” the last quarter of the B section (not

shown) initiates a chain of descending-fifth root motion in Bb major, beginning on #ivø7:

Eø7–A7–Aø7–D7. This traversal of Martin’s syntactic background, which begins further

from tonic than the similar process in Wonder’s tune above, stretches into and across the

Terefenko (2010, 84) provides a helpful comparison of these jazz changes with Young’s original harmonies, 45

as composed for the 1944 Paramount film The Uninvited. This notation also captures what I hear as the “idealized measures” (de Clercq 2016) of Glasper’s 46

rendering, as discussed in Chapter 1.

Example 3.8. Reharmonizations of the C and A’ subsections in “Stella by Starlight” (Glasper 2015b; Young 1944).

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C section, with its approach to the tonic BbM9 chord enlivened by a backdoor dominant

bVII chord that substitutes for a more normative V in m. 3. While this C-section 47

progression certainly does not prohibit a modular loop, its continuation of the syntactic

root motion process begun in the previous module underscores the formal indivisibility

so often imputed to GAS forms. This chain of idiomatic descending-fifth motion toward

tonic is then recapitulated by the A’ section, which, starting at the same #ivø7 remove,

sequences three minor ii–V progressions that ultimately reaffirm tonic in the same metric

position.

While Glasper’s reharmonization of the C and A’ sections takes this descending-

fifth pattern as its broad theme, it enlivens the basic descending-fifth prototype with two

features that attenuate the pattern’s functional drive, both of which are familiar from

postbop jazz compositions of the 1960s and their stylistic descendants: tritone

substitutions and changes of functional chord quality. Each of these features removes

key pitches that animate prototypical ii–V–I progressions and other syntactic falling-fifth

root motions: tritone substitutions replace descending-fifth bass lines with descending

half steps, while quality changes alter one or more of the interlocking chordal thirds and

sevenths that traditionally create guide-tone lines. Waters (2016, 2019) and other 48

scholars of postbop harmony use an apostrophe to indicate tritone substitutions of

conventional harmonic functions shown by Roman numeral labels, also noting

A common dominant substitute in tonal jazz, a backdoor dominant is a bVII dominant seventh chord, often 47

preceded by iv, that typically resolves to a major tonic. (Tadd Dameron’s “Lady Bird” (1939) contains a prototypical example.) Both McClimon (2016, 71–73) and Terefenko (2018b, 48) treat the chord as a minor-third substitute for V, but they attribute its substitutional power primarily to convention rather than to patterns of upper-voice resolution.

Both McClimon (2017) and Smither (2019) have recently developed transformational analytical systems for 48

tonal jazz harmony that are premised, in part or in whole, on the syntactic importance of these guide tones.

111

additional quality changes: a tritone-substitute dominant chord that displays major-

seventh quality is indicated with the symbol V’M7, for example. These notational 49

conventions appear below the score in Example 3.8 to indicate moments of attenuated

local tonal function in Glasper’s progression.

While the presence of one or both of these postbop-style features can

significantly weaken the tonal drive of an otherwise functional progression, they

certainly do not eliminate that drive outright. But Glasper’s reharmonizations of the C

and A’ sections do not simply enervate key tendency tones—they also completely

unmoor the original tune from any Bb major tonic telos. As shown in Example 3.8, the C-

section progression momentarily coheres around local tonicizations of GbM9 and Dm11

on the downbeats of mm. 2 and 4. These tonicizations suggest another postbop

compositional feature: an incipient M3rd (ic4) cycle of root motion that would be

completed by the missing-in-action BbM9 tonic. But this tonic does not appear, and 50

these momentary tonicizations quickly slip away into a broader current of perpetual,

somewhat listless harmonic motion. This lack of strong harmonic teleology allows the C

section both to easily repeat for solos as a self-contained unit, and to eventually give way

to the subsequent A’ section.

Like its conceptual descending-fifth antecedent, Glasper’s progression also

eventually stretches across a formal divide. After he concludes his solo, his

reharmonization’s perpetual chromatic descent continues into A’ for a concluding head

For a concise overview of Waters (2019), see Baker (2020). For more on the suppression of tonal function in 49

postbop progressions, see Strunk (2016). In a jazz context, such M3rd cycles of root motion inevitably evoke John Coltrane’s landmark tune “Giant 50

Steps,” recorded in 1959—Waters (2010, 2019) examines the looming shadow that the tune’s progression casts over the postbop era of jazz composition, citing cyclic root motions (which he calls “axis progressions”) as a defining style feature of the music.

112

statement. But the pattern’s seepage into this transformed final section undercuts any

tonic teleology here too. Having ultimately descended a full octave (Ab2–Ab1), the 51

chromatic bass line gives way to a sudden descending-fifth motion, tonicizing a quality-

altered tritone substitute of a predominant Bb: vi chord (represented as VI’M7) on the

downbeat of m. 3 of A’. The subsequent global dominant brings the elusive BbM9 tonic

into view at last—and brings Glasper’s harmonization into momentary alignment with

Young’s original.

But this expected tonic is instead undercut by bII. The subsequent metamorphosis

of this chord into iv/vi moves toward a tonicization of the predominant VI’M7 again,

facilitating the concluding two-bar vamp. While a vamped turnaround is a common

closing gesture in GAS tunes, the notable absence of tonic in Glasper’s reharmonization

locks the vamp—like the C section before it—in an endless cycle of repetition, the only

escape from which is a final fade-out. What began as a frantic fantasia thus concludes in

a sepia-toned remove, almost as if Glasper and the listener alike can’t quite reach the

original “Stella”—and are perfectly satisfied with that.

While Goldberg’s and Glasper’s arrangements constitute notable departures

from the formal treatment typically accorded to their respective source songs, the

creativity with which they approach these songs is broadly emblematic of the

transformational inventiveness of MJSP writ large. Each pianist preserves key harmonic

While Glasper’s A’ progression passes over a BbM7(#11) in the second half of m. 1, this chord’s weak metric 51

position undercuts any tonic valence it might have assumed. Notably, if the passing Cm9 that serves as a harmonic segue at the end of the C section were repositioned on the subsequent downbeat, continuing the established harmonic rhythm, the BbM7(#11) chord in the A’ section would be pushed forward to the subsequent downbeat, attracting a stronger tonic valence and finally completing the M3rd cycle begun in the preceding C section. For discussion of the typical metric patterning of ii–V–I progressions in jazz repertoire, see Salley and Shanahan (2016).

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features of their source song while reconfiguring them—subtly in Goldberg’s case,

drastically in Glasper’s—to create unique solo spaces that constitute the creative core of

each arrangement. This balance between preservation and transformation is, of course,

the crux of both MJSP and jazz palimpsest performance in general. In Part 2 of this

chapter, I examine more extensively how this balance manifests in the formal and

harmonic domains of trio arrangements by one of the most prolific pianists in MJSP:

Brad Mehldau.

Part 2. Repetition Schemes and Harmonic Transformations in

Four Mehldau Trio Arrangements

3.2.1. Mehldau’s Palimpsest Approach

As discussed in Chapters 1 and 2, jazz pianist Brad Mehldau was among the first

in a younger cohort of jazz musicians to advocate (both implicitly and explicitly) in the

mid-1990s for an expanded jazz palimpsest canon, and to convincingly demonstrate the

expressive potential of MRPM repertoire. Since that time, Mehldau’s extensive series of

both trio and solo piano records has displayed a particular affinity for rock bands and

singer-songwriters, mixing GAS tunes with both well-known and relatively obscure cuts

by artists like the Beatles, Radiohead, Nick Drake, Paul Simon, Sufjan Stevens, Oasis,

and Alice in Chains. Combined with the pianist’s considerable prowess as a soloist and

the fluid interactivity of his working trios, the mélange of repertoire on these records

makes a strong case that these MRPM tracks can function as compelling vehicles for jazz

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performance, presenting fresh material for both improvisational exploration and

compositional transformation. 52

More than most of his jazz peers, Mehldau’s palimpsest arrangements

consistently showcase his earnest respect for—and detailed study of—his source

materials. His arrangements of MRPM songs in particular often preserve both large-

scale features and intricate formal and harmonic details of the original recordings,

retaining one-off tags, unusual metric implications, specific keys and modulations, and

other particulars that, to many arrangers, would likely dwell fairly low in the hierarchy

of ontological primacy. But this penchant for integrative fidelity—the implicit stance that

unvarnished MRPM materials alone provide compelling fodder for jazz performance—

is counterbalanced by the pianist’s professed interest in what he calls “epic” formal

arrangements that precipitously expand both the scope and character of a source song,

subjecting both head statements and solo environments to extensive metric, harmonic,

and/or melodic transformations. In an online essay accompanying his 2005 trio album 53

Day is Done, Mehldau describes how these transformations treat these core features of

the original material almost like a Grundgestalt, using them as germinal ideas whose

subsequent metamorphoses, no matter how drastic, remain connected to their source:

The way Coltrane’s band blows up those songs into something great and

dangerous, on this huge scale, that’s a real guiding light for me in terms of what

I’m trying to achieve in a band performance. The original tune is referred to, but

Mehldau’s working trio has consistently included bassist Larry Grenadier. Drummer Jorge Rossy was 52

featured on Mehldau’s trio albums prior to 2005; beginning with Day is Done (Mehldau 2005a), Jeff Ballard took over the drum chair.

Coltrane’s elaborate performance of “My Favorite Things” (1960; Rodgers and Hammerstein 1959), whose 53

analysis by Monson (1996) is discussed in Chapter 2, is a classic precedent for Mehldau’s epic approach.

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it’s raised up and becomes transfigured, giving the listener a transcendent

experience (Mehldau 2005).

In Part 2 of this chapter, I examine how this balance between reference and

transfiguration manifests formally, harmonically, and rhetorically in four of Mehldau’s

trio arrangements of MRPM. While the harmonic language of the source songs I

consider progresses from mildly idiosyncratic to tonally commonplace, Mehldau’s

arrangements take the reverse path, moving from simple applications of unified and

modular loops and vamps, to expansive epic arrangements that combine one or more

repetition schemes with harmonic and thematic transformations, yielding multiple solo

sections and ambitious rhetorical shapes.

My broad aim in each analysis is to address how Mehldau’s arrangements

expand and reconfigure the scope of their source songs. My initial focus is on each 54

arrangement’s use of formal repetition at both modular and sub-modular levels, how

these repetitions juxtapose head and solo statements, and how both relate to the formal

and rhetorical shape of the source song. But as was the case with Goldberg and Glasper

above, these formal and rhetorical concerns invariably intersect with harmonic

considerations, particularly when Mehldau’s arrangements feature reharmonizations. By

examining how these formal, rhetorical, and harmonic elements intertwine, my analyses

seek to explicate the mechanics of the pianist’s compositional transformations, to

highlight the underlying fidelity they so often evince, and to propose some large-scale

rhetorical and anticipatory processes they enact.

This aim broadly parallels Covach’s (2018b) goal in his examination of psychedelic-symphonic covers in 54

progressive rock: how does a palimpsest take a simple source song and make it longer and more complex?

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3.2.2. Unified Loops and Verse-Chorus Forms:

“Knives Out” (Mehldau 2005d; Radiohead 2001)

Mehldau’s (2005d) trio arrangement of Radiohead’s “Knives Out” (2001) displays

the most extensive source song fidelity of any arrangement I consider in this chapter.

The arrangement exemplifies a typical application of a unified loop to a contrasting

verse-chorus form, enlivened with an extensive vamp coda. Because the unified loop by

definition does not embed in a larger formal design, the concluding vamp provides a

useful formal endpoint for the trio’s rendering, allowing the performance to conclude

with an extensive deconstruction of the Radiohead track’s most marked harmonic

feature. But while both the unified loop and vamp schemes are clearly incentivized by

features of this track, Mehldau’s arrangement also comments on the harmonic

peculiarity of this source song in an exceedingly subtle way.

“Knives Out” (Radiohead 2001) employs a standard contrasting verse-chorus

form. Example 3.9 highlights the two most striking features of the song’s VCU: the

irregular hypermeter in both the verse and chorus modules, and the unexpected Em6

chord that concludes each module. (This hypermetric irregularity is highlighted by the

metric scale of the transcription, which alternates between 2/4 and 4/4 measures. ) 55

Both features enervate any inter-modular momentum that might propel the verse into

the chorus, or vice versa. The metric imbalance of each module renders the arrival of the

next phrase unpredictable—reckoned in quarter notes, the verse displays a ((46)(48))

grouping that repeats with every appearance, while the chorus adopts a ((66)(448))

Radiohead’s tempo is on the border with regard to idealized measure lengths (de Clercq 2016)—it is also 55

amenable to a transcription that doubles the rhythmic values and meters the song entirely in 4/4.

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grouping. The Em6 also interrupts distinct sequential patterns of root motion in both 56

modules. The chord’s arrival in m. 5 of the verse replaces an expected EbM7 that would

complete a sequential repetition of mm. 1–3; a similar Gm–Em6 motion in mm. 5–7 of the

chorus interrupts the pattern of tonicized descending-fifth motion (Am–Dm–Gm)

established by the preceding measures. 57

The conclusion of both the verse and chorus with identical Em6 harmonic

ruptures affords modular repetition and linkage in seemingly equal measure,

underscoring the modules’ independence. This flexibility is inherent in Radiohead’s 58

original, which repeats the verse module every time it appears. Example 3.10 shows how

Mehldau’s trio precisely mirrors the Radiohead material by preserving the VCU with its

repeated verse, yielding a unified loop approach. After drums and bass make an

introductory pass through the verse module, paralleling the original, the performance

unfolds like an HSH approach to a GAS standard, with the out-head appearing in

For more extensive discussion of this hierarchical grouping notation, see Chapter 4.56

Osborn’s (2016, 158–59) analysis of harmony and voice-leading in “Knives Out” underscores the 57

expectation of a bass Eb at the end of the verse by positing a module-spanning C–Eb voice-exchange between the bass line and the melody and harmonic inner voices—an exchange that is, of course, undercut by the arrival of Em6 (which Osborn labels C#ø6/5), which bumps Eb to E and C to C#.

The harmonic ambivalence of Radiohead’s Em6 echoes the aimlessness of Glasper’s “Stella” 58

reharmonization, which is integral to his repetition scheme.

Example 3.9. Harmonic and metric idiosyncrasies in the VCU of “Knives Out” (Radiohead 2001).

118

truncated form after Mehldau’s extensive piano solo concludes by spilling into the verse

module. Mehldau’s improvisatory indulgence in cross-rhythms and harmonic

superimpositions aside, the trio’s arrangement effects virtually no composed melodic or

harmonic alterations to the original material. But this overarching fidelity highlights one

subtle but consistent change that Mehldau does make: his replacement of Radiohead’s

dour Gm/Bb in m. 5 of the chorus with a brighter Eb/Bb triad (e.g., [1:14–1:16]).

This seemingly trivial third-substitution takes on heightened significance at the

end of the trio’s performance. In a seeming nod to the markedness of the recurring Em6,

the trio concludes its out-head by settling into an extensive vamp on this final chord.

Over the course of nearly three minutes, Mehldau and his bandmates improvisationally

probe and obscure this striking harmony, ultimately twisting it beyond recognition

before arriving at a final Eb triad—the same harmony foreshadowed in the chorus

substitution. After the gnarled harmonic deconstruction of the vamp, the arrival of this

crystalline final triad [8:13] is roughly as unexpected as the Em6 in the song proper.

Recalling the E-minor chord’s initial substitution for an expected EbM7 in Radiohead’s

verse module, though, a fanciful listener might imagine Mehldau’s concluding gesture

Start Time Verse ((46)(48)) (2x) Chorus ((66)(448)) Vamp (Em6)

0:00 Intro

0:33 Head (2x)

2:17 Piano solo (4x)

5:41 Piano solo cont. Head Group improv. (x)

Example 3.10. Formal repetition in “Knives Out” (Mehldau 2005d; Radiohead 2001).

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to quietly but decisively reverse this substitution, swapping out the dazzling Dorian-

inflected interloper for an ultimate restoration of its more muted counterpart.

3.2.3. Modular Loops and Verse-Chorus Forms:

“Wonderwall” (Mehldau 2008; Oasis 1995)

In contrast to the harmonic and metric idiosyncrasy of “Knives Out,” Oasis’s

indie rock hit “Wonderwall” (1995) presents a textbook mid-‘90s contrasting verse-

chorus design, complete with an anticipatory prechorus. Mehldau’s (2008) trio

arrangement subjects this song to a conventional modular loop treatment, highlighting

the subtle contrast between unified and modular loop approaches to verse-chorus forms.

But while Mehldau’s formal approach here is fairly standard, it interacts with two more

notable transformations—one harmonic, one groove-based—that enliven the

arrangement. The relative peculiarity of the latter recalls the spirit of Glasper’s approach

to “Stella,” in that the pervasiveness of “Wonderwall” in the alt-rock and popular music

cover canons seems directly proportional to the virtuosic oddity of the trio’s approach. 59

The original VCU of “Wonderwall” (Oasis 1995) features verse, prechorus, and

chorus modules marked by a relatively static melody that largely outlines an F#-minor

tonic triad, accompanied by repeating two-bar diatonic chord loops that color the minor

tonic with hints of the relative A major. Oasis’s original track comprises just two loops of

this VCU; both loops repeat the verse, while the second loop climactically restates the

chorus. The brief fermata on the final chord of the first chorus [1:48–1:50] underscores

the strong through-line that unites the VCU’s constituent modules—after the chorus

Returning to the website secondhandsongs.com as a rough measure of cover prominence, the site catalogs 59

over 100 recorded covers of “Wonderwall.”

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culminates the energy accrued by the preceding modules, the caesura allows this

momentum to dissipate before the process repeats. The repetitive root motions in each

module can also be heard to facilitate this rhetorical drive. The steady, even resigned

falling fourths of the verse’s primary two-bar chord loop (F#m–A–Esus–Bsus) contrast

sharply with the anticipatory ascending stepwise motion that begins the prechorus

(D–E–F#m). Following a brief tonicization of the relative A major, the prechorus’s arrival

on an unresolved Bsus subsequently ushers in the chorus’s climactic oscillation by thirds

(D–F#m–A–F#m).

Despite the distinct characters of these root motions, however, the repetitious

diatonicism of Oasis’s melody and accompanying chord loops can be understood, at

root, simply to prolong the tonic F# minor. In his discussion of popular music animated 60

by such autotelic chord loops, Nobile (2015) argues that overriding tonal function is

often carried by the melody; despite their harmonic particularity, accompanying chord

loops typically function as basic tonic-prolongational patterns that can be swapped out

without meaningfully altering the tonal thrust of the melody they accompany. This 61

view underscores the relative harmonic stasis of “Wonderwall.” The melody primarily

outlines an F#-minor triad in all three modules. And this melody is largely accompanied

by pervasive repetition of two-bar chord loops, which primarily serve to reinforce and

regularly subdivide this overriding diatonic equilibrium. From this perspective—and at

This clear tonic prolongation contrasts with “Knives Out,” in which a single, uncontroversial tonic would 60

certainly be a challenge to identify. Nobile (2015, 196–97) makes this argument by comparing chord loops used by various remixes of Carly 61

Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe” (2012), which he suggests do not significantly alter the tonal thrust of Jepsen’s chorus.

121

some risk of oversimplification—the harmonic gist of “Wonderwall” is the pervasive

expression of tonic, consistently subdivided into two-measure chunks.

The nub of Mehldau’s (2008) trio arrangement, which downshifts Oasis’s original

into E minor, dwells in two complications of this regularly subdivided tonic stasis.

Example 3.11 summarizes the trio’s modular loop approach. Paralleling Oasis’s original

track, the trio makes two passes through the entire VCU. The first pass functions as an

initial head; in the second pass, a looped verse module furnishes space for a lengthy

piano solo that ultimately leads to a climactic out-head comprising the prechorus and a

repeated chorus. Like Goldberg’s arrangement above, these two VCUs are each

preceded by a vamp, which is both derived from the verse module and continues into

the module itself; this vamp then returns as a brief coda.

This recurring vamp introduces the first of the trio’s two compositional changes:

a foundational bass ostinato, shown in the topmost portion of Example 3.12 and played

by bassist Larry Grenadier. As shown in the example, the vamp has clear origins in the

verse melody—the vamp’s rhythmic profile echoes the verse’s syncopations, and it

serves a similarly tonic-prolongational function, structurally emphasizing the pitches of

an E-minor tonic triad. Unlike the eight-beat regularity of the verse melody’s two-bar

chunks, however, Grenadier’s ostinato only lasts 6.75 beats (or 27 sixteenth notes). The

Start Time Bass vamp Verse (8) (2x) Prechorus (8) Chorus (8)

0:00 Intro Head

1:52 Interlude Piano solo (x) Head Head (2x)

7:55 Coda

Example 3.11. Formal repetition in “Wonderwall” (Mehldau 2008; Oasis 1995).

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ostinato thus quickly begins to chafe against the 4/4 meter subsequently established in

the verse module by drummer Jeff Ballard’s laidback rock beat and Mehldau’s right-

hand melody. Throughout the duration of the ostinato—which persists through the

initial verse module and into the prechorus, finally yielding in m. 6 of the latter— the

4/4 meter continually recasts the metric implications of the ostinato’s syncopated

contours, as the pattern perpetually realigns with the referential metric framework

outlined by the melody and drums. But this cycling realignment also loosens the 62

pervasive two-bar hypermetric groupings of the original verse module, relegating the

delineation of these groupings solely to Mehldau’s punchy melodic statements.

The salience of these two-bar divisions is further attenuated by Mehldau’s

second significant compositional change: a reharmonization of the verse progression,

shown on the bottom stave of Example 3.12. Despite its shifting metric implications,

Measured in sixteenth notes, the lengths of the ostinato (27) and two bars of 4/4 meter (32) are coprime. 62

This means that the ostinato, left to run forever, will eventually cycle through all 32 possible metric positions in a two-bar span of 4/4, returning to its initial position only after 27 repetitions of this span—which is to say that no two proximate repetitions of the eight-measure verse module feature identical alignments with this ostinato. Mehldau discusses this bass ostinato in an essay titled “Rock Hemiolas” (2012), but he demurs on the topic of metric realignment in the trio’s arrangement: “Did we all meet up eventually in the right place? I’m not even sure anymore!”

Example 3.12. Connections between verse melody, vamp bass ostinato, and verse reharmonization in “Wonderwall” (Mehldau 2008; Oasis 1995).

123

Grenadier’s bass ostinato establishes a sonic low-end that, like Oasis’s original melody,

continually grounds the trio in a static E minor. (If one weren’t listening for it, one might

not even notice the grouping conflict, instead simply detecting a low hum of syncopated

E minor pentatonicism.) Above this vamp in the verse modules, Mehldau’s left hand

steadily unfolds a progression propelled (like Glasper’s reharmonization of “Stella”) by

a descending chromatic line. Snaking down from B3 down to G2 over the course of eight

measures, the line composes out the initial bounding major third (5–3) of the verse

melody and produces a baritone line in the trio texture, one which colors the harmony

but dwells above the tonally static bass ostinato.

While this descending line serves the same tonic-prolongational function as the

melody and chord loops in Oasis’s original by tracing the pitches of a (modally

inflected ) E-minor triad, Mehldau’s harmonization of the line eschews Oasis’s 63

diatonicism in favor of a cascading palate of linearly derived chromatic colors. And 64

notably, the reharmonization plows over the two-measure divisions implied by the

original chord loops, instead stretching its linear process across the entire eight-bar verse

module. Combined with the lack of fixed metric implication in Grenadier’s bass line,

this flexible linear approach enlivens the tonic-prolongational orientation of Oasis’s

original verse while obscuring its sub-repetition scheme.

Like some common-practice harmonizations of a lament bass, I suggest that many of Mehldau’s 63

harmonies here are animated by descending linear chromaticism rather than harmonic function. But the baritone line’s arrival on key tonic-triad pitches (G#3 and B2) afford opportunities to color the E-minor progression with shades of tonic-major; and the progression’s conclusion on a G13 chord also affords tonicization (V/VI) of the C-major harmony that eventually begins the ensuing prechorus.

While the transcription in Example 3.12 displays representative voicings that recur throughout Mehldau’s 64

repetition of this eight-bar pattern, the pianist varies these voicings, especially in his solo. I have omitted chord symbols for these voicings because they do not reliably govern the behavior of Mehldau’s right-hand lines, suggesting that these left-hand voicings reflect a contrapuntal, prolongational conception of flexible E-minor space, rather than fixed vertical harmonies. For a discussion of linear approaches to reharmonization in jazz, see Terefenko (2018a).

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When the reharmonized verse module and accompanying bass ostinato return

for Mehldau’s solo, they also help to amplify the verse’s role in the larger sweep of the

VCU. Untethered from the abbreviated diatonic loops of the original, the metric 65

breadth and harmonic flexibility of Mehldau’s descending baritone line afford him

ample freedom for increasingly far-reaching harmonic superimpositions and long-

breathed melodic ideas that are animated by growing rhythmic freneticism. This gradual

accrual of sonic energy over the modular loop ultimately merges seamlessly into the

anticipatory thrust of the prechorus [6:37–6:48], which continues the steady buildup to

repetitions of the climactic final chorus. In this way, the arrangement’s loosening of the

verse affords a deeper resonance between Mehldau’s solo and the rhetorical sweep of

the original VCU. Echoing the pianist’s modular loop approach to “Exit Music” from

Chapter 2, Mehldau’s musical transformation simultaneously reconfigures his source

material and yields a deeper, improvisationally driven synergy with it.

3.2.4. Modular Loops and Anticipatory Processes:

“50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” (Mehldau 2005c; Simon 1975a)

Mehldau’s (2005c) arrangement of Paul Simon’s (1975a) “50 Ways to Leave Your

Lover”—another contrasting verse-chorus form—bears several notable similarities to

“Wonderwall.” It loops individual modules to create solo sections, it begins and ends

with a solo bass line, and this bass line introduces a verse reharmonization that subtly

alters the sub-repetition scheme of Simon’s original progression. Unlike “Wonderwall,”

however, these elements embed in a more ambitious formal approach that expands a

Grenadier eventually abandons this rigid ostinato in this modular loop, in favor of a more flexible bass 65

line that allows improvisational interactions with Mehldau and Ballard.

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single verse-chorus pairing into an expressive arc that animates the entire arrangement,

while simultaneously enacting multi-leveled anticipatory processes in the repetitions of

both the verse and chorus modules.

The verse-chorus design of the original “50 Ways” (Simon 1975a) modulates from

an E-minor verse to a blues-tinged chorus in the relative G major. This modulatory

scheme enhances the anticipatory drive of a typical verse-chorus pairing and helps yield

what Doll (2011) terms a “breakout chorus.” This modulatory VCU cycles twice in 66

Simon’s original, punctuated by solo statements of the verse’s drum groove that serve as

introduction, link, and coda. Example 3.13 summarizes Mehldau’s (2005c) approach to 67

this verse-chorus form. Recalling “Paranoid Android,” this approach blurs the boundary

between unified and modular loops. On the broadest scale, the arrangement preserves

the modulatory verse-chorus pairing, enlarging a single VCU to constitute the primary

Doll (2011) highlights the minor-to-relative-major modulation as a signal feature of a breakout chorus, in 66

addition to “increase[s] in intensity with regard to loudness, rhythmic and textural activity, timbral noise, [and] lyrical content”—all of which are evident in Simon’s (1975a) recording.

Kaminsky’s (1992) imaginative analysis of the album that contains “50 Ways”—Still Crazy After All These 67

Years (Simon 1975)—embeds the song’s lyrics and modulatory scheme in a larger tonal and narrative process that he argues is akin to those found in Romantic-era song cycles.

Start Time

Verse (each key: 8+10) Chorus (4+4) (x)

Em F#m G#m G

0:00 Bass intro

0:33 Bass solo (2x) Piano solo

2:43 Piano solo cont.

4:19 Head Piano solo (15x)

7:48 Head

8:02 Bass coda

Example 3.13. Formal repetition in “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” (Mehldau 2005c; Simon 1975a).

126

substance of the performance and subjecting both of its constituent parts to modular

loops. But each of these repetitions also functions as a unified loop in that it features

both solo and head statements in coextensive environments. This approach allows the

arrangement to enact two nested anticipatory processes. The single verse-chorus pairing

furnishes the large-scale rhetorical thread of the performance—the extensive repetitions

of the minor verse ultimately give way to the culminating major chorus. Within each

module, Mehldau’s reversal of the normative theme-and-variations ordering also

produces an end-weighted trajectory: the melody of each module only arrives after

extensive periods of improvisation, serving as a climactic telos rather than a thematic

grounding.

This anticipatory trajectory is further heightened in Mehldau’s verse modules by

harmonic transformations that build expectation for tonic returns at two different formal

scales, creating momentum both within and across verse loops. Example 3.14

summarizes Simon’s verse progression and compares it with Mehldau’s bass line and

reharmonization, highlighting the spans between repetitions of stable tonic chords in

each. The first six measures of Simon’s verse progression (shown with chord symbols

above the staves) articulate two-measure groupings with varied half-cadential

progressions; mm. 1–2 and 5–6, for example, feature a standard lament bass progression

that (N.B.) moves in parallel with Simon’s melody (not shown). This pace of tonic

arrivals accelerates in mm. 7–8, as a plagal-cadential i–iv–i tag preserves the two-bar

hypermeter while placing tonics on subsequent downbeats. The second half of the verse,

which otherwise duplicates the first, repeats this final cadential tag in mm. 17–18,

further heightening the sense of tonic compression that subsequently gives way to the

chorus modulation (not shown).

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Mehldau’s arrangement translates the 4/4 rock groove of Simon’s original into a

7/4 swing feel. In lieu of a drum intro—and recalling “Wonderwall”—this jaunty 68

metric asymmetry is established by an introductory bass line from Grenadier, which also

introduces a subtle reharmonization of the verse progression that persists throughout

the subsequent bass and piano solos over the looped verse.The first half of Mehldau’s

reharmonization retains Simon’s original two-measure groupings, preserving the lament

bass while substituting a more conventional minor ii–V progression in mm. 3–4 and

varying the plagal-cadential tag with any number of tag and turnaround patterns in

mm. 7–8. In the second half of the verse, however, the progression eschews this two-bar

regularity in favor of longer-breathed progressions that stretch first across four, then five

measures between stable tonic appearances. Recalling the parallel between Simon’s

Mehldau is well known for his translations of both GAS and MRPM repertoire into quintuple and 68

septuple grooves. In “50 Ways,” the trio’s 7/4 groove preserves an audible vestige of the original quadruple tactus from Simon’s track: measured in eighth-notes, Mehldau’s groove presents a ((44)(33)) grouping structure, yielding what Murphy (2016) calls a Platonic-iambic pulse stream. I examine this and other properties of such metric grouping structures, and how they often preserve quadruple tactus streams in asymmetric grooves, in Chapter 4.

Example 3.14. Forestalled tonic returns in verse reharmonization of “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” (Mehldau 2005c; Simon 1975a).

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melody and his original two-bar lament bass, Mehldau’s longer descending bass line in

mm. 9–12 parallels the melody’s plunge from subtonic to supertonic across these four

measures. And in mm. 13–18, a daisy-chained series of applied predominant-tonic

motions thwarts tonic resolution until the final bar of the verse module. This gradual 69

expansion of the space between tonic arrivals reverses the tonic compression of Simon’s

original—by forestalling tonic resolutions across successively longer spans, Mehldau’s

prolongational patterns afford space for increasingly lengthy, propulsive improvised

phrases to take shape.

Mehldau’s arrangement also enacts a similar tonic withholding strategy at an

inter-modular level by subjecting the verse itself to a T2 modulatory scheme—rather

than withholding the tonic harmony, as his reharmonization does, this scheme withholds

the tonic key. As shown in green in the top row of Example 3.13, after Grenadier’s

improvised solo over the E-minor progression, Mehldau’s subsequent five-chorus solo

transposes this looped verse through nearly two complete rotations of a three-key cycle

(Em–F#m–G#m) whose ascent from the tonic E minor counterbalances the ballast of the

lament bass. This approach both allows the accrued momentum at the end of each verse

to slingshot into a modulation—if not yet the climactic shift to the relative major of the

eventual chorus—while creating shifts in harmonic color that vary an otherwise static E-

minor landscape. But it also builds anticipation for the return of the tonic key, as the

other two keys in the cycle feel audibly removed from the anchoring tonic.

Although Mehldau’s progression alights on Em/B on the downbeat of m. 16, I contend that this unstable 69

tonic acts as a thwarted dominant-function cadential 6/4 (or perhaps as a substitute for Bm7), which participates with the ensuing E7 in a local ~ii–V progression that tonicizes iv.

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By marking the second return of this tonic key with the arrangement’s first (and

only) statement of the verse melody, Mehldau provides a fitting rhetorical climax to the

embedded anticipatory processes that propel the first half of his arrangement. Example

3.15 graphically summarizes these processes and how they fold into the arrangement as

a whole. The subtle reharmonization of Simon’s verse progression stretches arrivals of

tonic harmony across successively longer spans, animating the solos within each verse

module. The T2 transposition scheme creates a similar effect with the tonic key on a

larger scale, moving successively farther away from tonic so as to render its return more

momentous. The withholding of the verse melody until this second tonic return further

enhances this recapitulatory effect by reversing the theme-and-variations ordering: by

mapping the harmonic landscape of the song without stating the theme outright,

Grenadier’s and Mehldau’s solos heighten the expectation for the eventual arrival of

Simon’s melody. And ultimately, these inter- and intra-verse trajectories are subsumed

by the broader impulse of the verse-chorus sweep, yielding a rich and multi-leveled

teleology that significantly enriches the modulatory through-line of Simon’s verse-

chorus original.

Example 3.15. Nested anticipatory processes in “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” (Mehldau 2005c; Simon 1975a).

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3.2.5. A Divergent Unified Loop: “Day is Done” (Mehldau 2005b; Drake 1969)

The final vignette in this chapter examines Mehldau’s (2005b) expansive trio

arrangement of Nick Drake’s (1969) ballad “Day is Done.” While the titanic proportion

of “50 Ways” leveraged the teleological potential of tonic and thematic arrival at

multiple formal scales, Mehldau takes the opposite rhetorical approach with this epic

arrangement, gradually transforming a recurring unified loop. Beginning with an

unadulterated head statement, his arrangement expands Drake’s lament bass into a

large-scale key framework, within which the pianist and his bandmates subject the

simple original tune to increasingly dramatic deconstructions for both head and solo

statements that also preserve and comment on specific features of the original recording.

The result is a strikingly divergent rhetorical trajectory that concludes far from where it

began, while—recalling Mehldau’s description above—retaining salient links with the

original song.

Drake’s (1969) recording is profound in lyrical scope but humble in musical

proportion, with lyrics that meditate on finality, disappointment, and missed

opportunity, housed within a simple verse form. Shown in Example 3.16, this simple

verse couples another lament bass harmonization in D minor with an ascending melody

that remains almost exclusively within the bounds of a minor pentachord. Drake’s

arrangement pairs repetitions of this simple verse to form parallel periods, ending

alternating repetitions with half and elided authentic cadences that produce verse forms

of slightly different lengths. This varied cadential patterning is most notable in Drake’s

first four verse statements, which group the simple verses into a larger block of four that

displays an ((89)(87)) pattern (measured in bars of 4/4). After an eight-bar instrumental

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interlude that closes with audible confusion among the band members about which

cadential ending to use [1:28–1:33], the recording concludes with a final (898) grouping

that ends with a PAC, producing a large-scale ABA arrangement comprised entirely of

simple verse repetitions.

Example 3.17 details the form of Mehldau’s (2005b) trio performance, which like

so many of the pianist’s arrangements reveals his careful study of the original track. The

example numbers portions of the form for ease of reference. Mehldau's arrangement

adopts Drake’s ((87)(89)) patterning for the initial bass head (1), before using the (89)

parallel period for several successive loops (2–4). But the trio concludes each period with

a syncopated eight-measure vamp on a Lydian-inflected tonic major chord, producing a

Picardy-third effect that brightens the otherwise glum harmonic proceedings. Unlike the

similarly placed vamp in Goldberg’s arrangement above, which assumes various

lengths, Mehldau’s vamp becomes a recurring part of his initial unified loop (shown in

Example 3.16. Varied cadential patterns in simple verse of “Day is Done” (Drake 1969).

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Example 3.18) and thus adopts a fixed eight-bar length. Despite this consistency, the 70

recurring vamp displays a distinct Janus function, serving simultaneously to close off

one verse and begin the next. The vamp’s static harmonic plateau contrasts with the

directed motion of the verse, allowing it to serve as a pressure release for the energy

accrued by a preceding head or solo statement. But its anticipatory syncopations, with

consistent chord articulations on beats 2.5 and 4.5, also forestall any stagnation,

propelling the arrangement forward.

This fixed length is why Example 3.17 omits a dotted boundary between the vamp and preceding simple 70

verse in most head and solo statements. The only departure from the vamp’s fixed 8-bar length occurs at the end of the reharmonized ~C-major head statement (5, beginning at [6:35]), when the vamp’s length is doubled to 16 measures.

Start Time

Key Cntr. # Simple Verse (8 + 9) Vamp (8) Notes

0:00

D

Intro (D(#4)) introduces anticipatory syncopation

0:17 1 Bass head (2x: 8+9+8|8+7+8) lengths mirror Drake recording; lament bass absent

1:53 2 Bass solo

2:43 C# 3 Piano head largely root-position chords in lieu of lament bass

3:53C 4

Piano solo (3x)

6:00 Piano solo cont. vamp omitted; end of simple verse segues to head reharm.

6:35 ~C 5 Piano head (8+4+16) verse melody staggers w/ 6m. reharm., extends into doubled vamp

7:30 B6 Drum solo (8+8) (3x) verse head motive transposed

sequentially; 4/4 meter disruptedBb

8:55 A Coda (AM7(#11)) intro returns as coda

Example 3.17. Formal repetition in “Day is Done” (Mehldau 2005b; Drake 1969).

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It is notable that Mehldau’s arrangement assigns the first head statement to

Grenadier’s bass—this means that the sounding lament bass, so pervasive in Drake’s

original recording, is absent from the trio texture. Instead, Mehldau converts this lament

bass into a large-scale motive that structures the key succession of the trio’s entire

performance, as shown in Example 3.17. After the initial bass head and solo statements

in the tonic D minor (1–2), the arrangement begins its descent: the ensuing piano head

(3) establishes C# minor, while Mehldau’s subsequent piano solo sinks into C minor (4).

During these passages, the trio’s harmonic alterations of Drake’s original are relatively

negligible, comprising functional third-substitutions (shown in Example 3.18) and

abandonments of the lament bass in favor of largely root-position chords.

The end of Mehldau’s frenzied C-minor solo, however, skips the concluding

vamp, instead segueing directly into a transformed head statement (5). This head

inaugurates a concluding two-stage process of harmonic and thematic transformation of

the unified loop that significantly abstracts from both Drake’s original and the trio’s

earlier unified loop, while simultaneously making subtle reference to both. Example 3.19

displays the first stage of this process (5), which preserves the melodic and harmonic

Example 3.18. Initial unified loop (2–4; in D) in “Day is Done” (Mehldau 2005b; Drake 1969).

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repetitions from earlier unified loops but decouples them from one another. Mehldau’s

melodic head statement preserves Drake’s parallel period, beginning with an eight-bar

antecedent. Against this melody, however, he unfolds a dissonant reharmonization that

retains vestiges of its lament bass origins but is shortened to a six-measure cycle. The

length of this repeating cycle recalls the span of the simple verse that remains constant

across Drake’s various 2-, 3-, and 1-bar cadential patterns (see the top stave of Example

3.16), alternation between which briefly spawned the confused misalignment in the

original recording ([1:28–1:33], discussed above). In a similar spirit, Mehldau’s harmonic

abridgment causes the eight-bar melodic antecedent to stretch into the second repetition

of the six-bar progression. And it forces the melodic consequent to dissolve, unresolved

and misaligned, into Mehldau’s improvised fills over the loop’s recurring vamp—a

sophisticated reference to a seemingly ontologically expendable misalignment in Drake’s

recording.

Example 3.19. Melody-harmony decoupling in unified loop 5 of “Day is Done” (Mehldau 2005b; Drake 1969).

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The unique doubled length of this vamp (here a C: I–bVI shuttle) both allows

extra formal space to dissipate the accumulated tension of the preceding melodic-

harmonic decoupling, and reestablishes the vamp’s anticipatory syncopations on beats

2.5 and 4.5. The second stage of the arrangement’s transformational process, shown in

Example 3.20, capitalizes on this syncopation to produce a metrically flexible space for a

drum solo by Ballard. After the C-centricity of loop 5, the subsequent unified loop (6)

sinks further to B minor and transfigures the head motive of Drake’s melody into a

repeating figure. As Grenadier restores the sounding lament bass—only hinted at in the

previous transformation of the unified loop (5)—Mehldau crimps the top pitch of the

melody’s initial ascending minor pentachord, compressing its span to a tritone. He then

subjects this figure to an ascending T7 cycle, yielding a precipitous melody-bass wedge,

tinged with octatonicism, that yawns open over four bars, recalling the vamp rhythm

with its anticipatory syncopation on beat 4.5 of every measure.

Example 3.20. Thematic transformation and metric flexibility in unified loop 6 of “Day is Done” (Mehldau 2005b; Drake 1969).

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Just as the melodic consequent trailed off, unresolved, in the preceding unified

loop, here the wedge subsequently melts into a repeating two-bar chordal pattern that

finally capitalizes on the propulsive syncopation of the earlier measures. While two

repetitions of this pattern restore a balanced eight-measure length to the looping simple

verse, the seven-beat length of the pattern itself allows Ballard to flexibly imply either a

4/4–3/4 alternation in the final four bars—thus preserving the articulations on beat 4.5

as syncopated anacruses—or a steady stream of four 7/8 measures, thus treating these

articulations as downbeats, fundamentally altering their metric valence. The whole

process then repeats down a half step in Bb minor, continuing the composing out of

Drake’s lament bass while preserving the antecedent-consequent pairing.

By closing on a vamp of an AM7(#11) chord, Mehldau provides a fitting conclusion

to the rhetorical trajectory of this epic arrangement. The vamp’s Lydian tinge recalls the

arrangement’s introduction, bookending the performance where it began; and its

grounding in A major concludes the large-scale key-area descent that structures the

performance as a whole. But this concluding key center is also far removed from the

initial D-minor tonic grounding—a foundation that, once left behind, never returns. In

stark contrast to “50 Ways,” which leveraged the expectation of tonic return at multiple

scales, here Mehldau uses the initial D-minor bass descent as a scheme for tonic

departure, structuring a divergent trajectory that subjects the original song to significant

transformations, sublimating its humble musical contents into a capacious formal and

rhetorical shape that echos the weighty themes of Drake’s lyrics. But the arrangement’s

grounding in a consistent unified loop also highlights the harmonic, melodic, and formal

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dimensions of these transformations that remain connected—however tenuously—to the

thick details of the original recording.

3.2.6. Conclusion: Solo Spaces and Rhetorical Affordances

In some sense, the process of creating compelling improvisational spaces in a jazz

palimpsest is formally unremarkable. While MRPM source songs present increased

formal variety, they—like their GAS forbears—feature repetition at various levels of

formal scale; and any number of these repetitions present ready-made opportunities for

solo sections. It is not particularly challenging to find portions of multi-modular spans

or tonally directed progressions that can be easily circumscribed into modular loops or

autotelic vamps. And reharmonization has been been a linchpin of jazz performance for

over a century; harmonic alterations of a repeating solo section, whether composed or

improvised, are virtually inevitable in any palimpsest performance.

As I hope to have shown in this chapter, however, repetition schemes in

palimpsest performances do not simply create spaces for soloists to improvise. They also

create dynamic rhetorical affordances for players and listeners alike. The harmonic and

formal teleologies of repetition schemes certainly do not determine what a soloist plays

over them—such repetitions, like any elements of an improvisational referent, can both

shape and be transcended by an improvisation. But the ways in which these contours

interact with other musical procedures are often more complex than a simple

valorization of improvisational agency might suggest.

Both GAS and MRPM source songs are shaped by their own set of formal and

rhetorical processes. It falls to jazz musicians, acting as both arrangers and improvisers,

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to destabilize, augment, or transfigure these processes—to reshape the sweep of a verse-

chorus progression, loosen rigid patterns of hypermetric sub-repetition, enhance the

anticipatory propulsion of tonic returns and modulatory schemes, or manipulate

harmonic-melodic alignments to gradually unsettle a repeating form. But it falls to the

listener to intertwine these transformational procedures with relevant features of the

original material—to surmise how each reconfigures the other, and to decide whether

and how they hear this dialectic shaping the palimpsest performance as a whole. For an

improviser, such formal and rhetorical features are no less important a part of the

improvisational environment than the harmony and melody of an original song. So too

should they be for an intertextually oriented listener.

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—Chapter 4—

Carefully Calibrated Complexity:

Metric Transformations in Palimpsests by Vijay Iyer

4.0.1. Introduction: Rhythm and Meter in Jazz and Popular Music Scholarship

Asymmetric and mixed meters have long played a significant role in jazz. In light

of the harmonic experimentation of 1960s postbop, which upended the monotonal

frameworks and functional progressions of most earlier jazz tunes, it seems inevitable

for a similar evolution to have also manifested in jazz’s metric domain, stretching

beyond conventional duple and triple grooves to embrace a greater degree of metric

complexity. But the roots of this complexity can also be traced to increasing confluences 1

between jazz and other musical traditions. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, for example,

composers of so-called Third Stream music sought to effect a synthesis between jazz and

art music, drawing inspiration from composers like Stravinsky and Bartók as they

enlivened their ensemble compositions with mixed and asymmetric meters. While the 2

prominence of Third Stream per se quickly waned, metric asymmetry and irregularity

have remained prominent features in jazz-related corners of the musical avant-garde,

and composers like Bartók remain avowed sources of inspiration for many influential

jazz musicians, including the pianists Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock. Cross-3

Waters (2019) provides an insightful examination of the harmonic evolutions of postbop. Although he also 1

gives cursory treatment to hypermetric grouping structures at the phrase and section levels, his analyses do not address rhythmic groupings at the measure level or below, nor do they deal with groove. For commentary on the stylistic lineage, aesthetic aims, and critical reception of Third Stream composers 2

like Gunther Schuller and John Lewis, see Joyner (2000). As a representative example of mixed meter in avant-garde jazz, see Henry Threadgill’s “Little Pocket-3

Sized Demons” (1993).

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pollinations with rock, hip-hop, and world musics have also provided fertile ground for

metric experimentation. Jazz-rock fusion of the 1960s and ‘70s from groups like the

Mahavishnu Orchestra, for example, was often marked by asymmetric, irregular

grooves. In the 1980s, metric virtuosity became closely associated with the members of 4

saxophonist Steve Coleman’s M-Base collective, including bassist Dave Holland, who

has enthusiastically embraced influences from Indian classical music. And in the late 5

1980s and early ‘90s, musicians from New York City’s so-called “downtown” scene

became increasingly enamored with the mixed meters of Balkan music.

As is the case with their broader stylistic expansion, jazz musicians’ explorations

of metric asymmetry have elicited criticism. Asymmetric meters often destabilize the

steady tactus pulse that undergirds a conventional swing feel; because swing has long

been considered one of jazz’s essential stylistic features, its deregulation courts

controversy. For example, Joyner (2000) notes that skeptics accused the Dave Brubeck

Quartet of robbing jazz of its very essence by deploying asymmetric meters in their

compositions in the 1950s and 1960s. Schenker (2015) describes similarly pitched

criticisms of trumpeter Dave Douglas’s embrace of asymmetric Balkan meters in the

early ‘90s, particularly by neoconservative critic Stanley Crouch ([2003] 2006), who

couched his critique in racial terms. While these kinds of critiques doubtless remain 6

See Selinsky (2012) for analyses of several of these grooves. For broader overviews of stylistic crossover 4

between jazz, rock, and other genres in the 1970s, see Covach (1999), Nicholson (2002), and Shoemaker (2018). One of Holland’s latest records, Good Hope (Holland, Hussain, and Potter 2019), epitomizes his continued 5

embrace of Indian classical music: the record features Holland’s Crosscurrents trio, which includes saxophonist Chris Potter and Indian percussionist Zakir Hussain. See Selinsky (2019) for an exploration of the complex grooves of IndoJazz, which emerged as a hybrid of jazz and Indian classical music during the 1970s. Schenker (2015) also contextualizes jazz musicians’ interest in Balkan rhythms during this period against 6

broader discourses about expressive freedom in jazz, both tracing these discourses back to the Third Stream movement and juxtaposing them with Cold War-era political realities.

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persuasive for some listeners, the prevalence of metric asymmetry in some quarters of

the jazz landscape has nevertheless continued to blossom in recent decades, becoming a

relatively commonplace feature in the compositional output of many musicians. And

while a standard swing feel still unfolds in duple meter, I suspect many listeners today

would agree that skilled modern jazz musicians have no trouble swinging—or at least

grooving—in 5, 7, 11, or 13.

In addition to its increasing role in original jazz compositions, since the 1990s the

use of asymmetric meters has become a common technique for reinvigorating classic

jazz standards. Rusch (2013) notes that the pianist Brad Mehldau first garnered attention

mid-decade in part for “revamping jazz standards in unconventional time signatures”

(1.4), recasting Great American Songbook (GAS) tunes in jaunty quintuple or septuple

swing grooves. As was also the case with his embrace of modern recorded popular

music (MRPM) in an acoustic piano trio context, Mehldau’s approach soon found many

other jazz musicians following in its wake. More than two decades after the pianist’s 7

first Art of the Trio album featured a 5/4 rendering of Rodgers and Hart’s “I Didn’t Know

What Time It Was” (Mehldau 1997), comfort with playing standards in asymmetric

meters is now a requirement for any aspiring jazz musician’s toolkit. Just as navigating

the ic4 sequence of major keys in John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” is a classic litmus test for

an improviser’s melodic and harmonic fluency, facility with metric asymmetry has

become a marker of improvisational proficiency. And a clever re-metering of a

preexisting song, whether drawn from MRPM or the GAS, remains a common avenue of

I do not mean to suggest that Mehldau’s recordings alone popularized the trend of performing both GAS 7

and MRPM in asymmetric meters, but simply that his output had a significant influence on many of his peers, who began deploying asymmetric meters in similar contexts. See, for example, saxophonist Joshua Redman’s quintuple recasting of “Eleanor Rigby” (Redman 1998a; Beatles 1966), or pianist Jacky Terrasson’s (2002b) album Smile, which contains both quintuple and septuple renderings of GAS standards.

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agential expression in modern jazz’s standard practice (MJSP), functioning similarly to

an extensive reharmonization or otherwise innovative arrangement.

Mirroring a larger bias in music-theoretic scholarship, rhythm and meter in jazz

performance have received less dedicated attention than harmony and voice-leading. Of

the studies dedicated explicitly to the topic, many examine rhythmic phenomena in

improvised solos; research focused primarily on jazz before 1960 (so-called “straight-

ahead” jazz) includes taxonomies and methodologies for analyzing phrase rhythm (Love

2012a, 2012b), displacement dissonances (Larson 2006; Love 2013; Waters 1996),

variations in expressive timing (Benadon 2009a, 2009b), and the energetics of swing

rhythms (Butterfield 2011). Additional work by Folio (1995) and Benadon (2019) has also

addressed rhythmic practices in more recent jazz and improvised music, while Salley

and Shanahan (2016) examine phrase rhythm in standard jazz tunes themselves. But

metric asymmetry is not a significant focus in any of this work. Instead, analytical

treatments of such asymmetry have typically focused on compositions in genres that are,

at best, jazz-adjacent, including post-millennial rock (Hanenberg 2018, 2020; Osborn

2010, 2014, 2016), earlier progressive rock (Covach 1997; McCandless 2013; Pieslak 2007;

Tan 2019), jazz hybrid genres of the 1970s (Selinsky 2012, 2019), and Afrodiasporic

popular musics more generally (Guerra 2019).

This lack of focus on metric asymmetry in jazz’s standard practice is perhaps

inevitable. To put it plainly, the pervasive (hyper)metric regularity of most jazz

standards—and especially of GAS tunes—is usually not very interesting. As observed by

numerous commentators, most GAS standards are cast in what Cohn (1992) calls “pure

duple” meter, exhibiting nested, isochronous duple regularity that stretches from

subtactus and tactus groupings through measure, hypermeasure, and phrase-level

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groupings of the metric hierarchy. This consistency is either a detriment or a boon, 8

depending on one’s perspective. Adorno’s ([1937] 2002) famous critique of jazz

lampoons its metric uniformity: in spite of jazz’s pervasive syncopations, the “eight-beat

measure, and even the four-beat half-measure, are maintained, their authority

unchallenged,” which leads to a “simultaneity of excess and rigidity” (471). Strunk

(1979) takes precisely the opposite view, arguing that this metric regularity helpfully

foregrounds the rhythmic complexity that is a central aesthetic feature of improvised

jazz: “The utter simplicity and rigidity of these rhythmic structures highlights the

complexity and subtlety of the jazz rhythmic nuances and syncopations which

proliferate against the basic duple pulse” (6). 9

Although the size and heterogeneity of the MRPM canon naturally admits more

variety throughout the metric hierarchy, duple grouping below the section level is

generally a first-level default in much rock, pop, and folk music as well (Biamonte 2014;

Stephenson 2002). Many verse and chorus modules comprise 4- or 8-measure phrases,

for example, which readily admit successive duple divisions. As such, both Adorno’s

and Strunk’s viewpoints would seem to apply cleanly to jazz performances of MRPM

too—that is, the metric regularity of these source songs is either stultifying, or it usefully

foregrounds complex rhythmic play.

However, MJSP’s embrace of both asymmetric meter and MRPM prompts a

reappraisal of these perspectives on two important fronts. First, while jazz arrangements

of GAS and MRPM songs in asymmetric meters typically preserve the original song’s

A 32-measure AABA or ABAC form in 4/4 provides an excellent example; as noted in Chapter 3, Waters 8

(1996) has argued that each repetition of a standard 32-bar form is tantamount to a four-beat hypermeasure: ((88)(88)). Salley and Shanahan (2016) cite these opposing perspectives to introduce their phrase rhythm corpus 9

study.

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hypermetric groupings, the introduction of asymmetry below the measure level

unsettles the metric uniformity that Adorno disparages and Strunk valorizes. Rather

than serving as a rigid frame that highlights irregular rhythms, an asymmetric meter is

itself irregular and malleable, allowing a variety of non-isochronous (NI) grouping

patterns. The mutability of these patterns can underscore the contingency of metric

consonance and dissonance, and indeed of the distinction between rhythm and meter

writ large—whether a particular NI grouping pattern is heard as a referential metric

gestalt in and of itself, or simply as a groove-based rhythmic pattern that unfolds against

another NI metric frame, is, I suggest, often as much an issue of listener choice as it is of

cognitive necessity.

Second—and making the issue more complicated—rhythmic grouping structures

in many kinds of MRPM are more complex, irregular, and ontologically primary than

those in the GAS, especially below the tactus level. And many of these rhythms, despite

being NI, also evince metric characteristics like (quasi-)cyclicity and repetition. Biamonte

(2014, 2018), Butler (2001, 2006), Cohn (2016), London (2012), Moore (2012), Murphy

(2016), Osborn (2014), Toussaint (2013), Traut (2005), and Temperley (1999, 2018) are

among the many authors who have examined the pervasive role of syncopated or

irregular subtactus groupings in various corners of MRPM. Such grouping structures

figure prominently in melodies, harmonic rhythms, and various other layers of an

accompaniment texture. These rhythms often repeat more consistently and pervasively

in MRPM than they do in GAS tunes, producing the rhythmic counterpoint that defines

a groove. And while many GAS standards are not definitively associated with a

particular tempo or rhythmic feel, let alone a particular groove, the specific groove of an

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MRPM track is often one of its most ontologically primary features, with its interlocking

layers preserved in thick, recorded specificity.

When the complex rhythms of MRPM unspool against the rigidity of a duple

metric framework, the distinction between rhythm and meter usually remains clear, no

matter how potent a rhythm’s metric potential. This fact has been noted by many

scholars. Temperley’s (1999) perceptual model of syncopation, for example, is premised

on the notion that the pervasive syncopations of MRPM usually reinforce a deeper

metric hierarchy rather than disrupt it. But the quasi-metric properties of some

prominent grouping structures in MRPM have also motivated other scholars (e.g., Butler

2001, Osborn 2014) to locate them in a liminal space between rhythmic and metric

phenomena. As Cohn (2016) puts it, for example, patterns in the tresillo family “have the

potential to blossom into meters if developed in certain ways” (0.3). The irregular

groupings and inherent instability of an asymmetric meter can provide a fertile context

for such blossoming. That is, when both a foundational meter and a rhythm that

proliferates within it feature sounding pulse streams that are NI, nearly cyclic, and

highly repetitive, which is the rhythmic figure, and which is the metric ground?

In this chapter, I explore a broad interpretive question: what does it mean to hear

rhythm, meter, and groove intertextually in MJSP? My multi-part answer to this query,

which is both technical and kinesthetic, focuses on a particular but pervasive kind of

metric transformation in MJSP: palimpsest performances whose asymmetric grooves can

be heard to preserve a meaningful semblance of the duple metric hierarchy from the

original GAS or MRPM song. I examine how this hierarchy can manifest in an 10

Considered in terms of Gotham’s (2015) exhaustive taxonomy for metric relationships, the transformations 10

I examine here preserve beat cardinality—that is, they relate 4/4 to asymmetric meters in which single measures feature four tactus pulses.

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asymmetric groove as a series of nested, likely NI 2-, 4-, and even 8-cycles. I explore how

other rhythms of a source song can be transformed by this new meter, potentially

competing with these NI pulse streams for metric valence. And I suggest that the dense

interweaving of these malleable pulse streams can be the primary animating force in a

jazz palimpsest performance, presenting listeners with a rich array of options for both

bodily engagement and metric entrainment. Mirroring the ethos of the rest of the

dissertation, my approach to these issues is more creative and interpretive than it is

prescriptive. That is, I intend neither to outline how one does hear nor mandate how one

must hear, but rather to foreground the rich array of listening choices afforded by an

intertextual hearing of these palimpsest performances. 11

This chapter’s multifaceted argument unfolds in three large parts. I begin in Part

1 by suggesting that both a metric framework and the various rhythmic patterns that

proliferate against it can be productively understood as grouping structures. This single

approach to rhythm and meter—often two notionally distinct phenomena—enables the

investigation of properties shared by both. I explore and organize a set of properties 12

that allow a grouping structure to accrue potential metric status in the absence of

isochrony. A survey and summary of recent work on this issue, while necessarily

While my approach to these issues is indeed technical, I hope to avoid simply subjecting “black rhythms” 11

to “white logic,” in Perchard’s (2015) memorable formulation. Although I focus on technical metric properties, I also seek to connect these properties to larger issues of both bodily experience and contingent intertextual relationship—to the ways in which MJSP palimpsests both preserve and transform original MRPM meters and grooves, offering listeners compelling choices for both metric entrainment and bodily engagement. I return to these choices in the conclusion.

The exact relationship between rhythm and meter is contentious in the music-theoretic literature. 12

Biamonte (2014, n6) tightly summarizes the contrasting viewpoints. Cognitive theorists (e.g., London 2012) typically treat “rhythm and meter as separate, although interrelated, domains.” Other scholars further entangle the two phenomena: Cohn (2001), Guerra (2019), and Krebs (1999), for example, “include different durational levels under the rubric of meter,” while Hasty (1997) argues that “meter is a form of rhythm.”

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technical, establishes a conceptual foundation that I draw on in subsequent sections to

attribute potential metric status to grouping structures in asymmetric grooves.

In section 4.1.2, I leverage one of these properties to suggest that many

asymmetric jazz transformations of GAS and MRPM songs preserve significant vestiges

of the original duple metric framework; in many quintuple and septuple grooves, for

example, single measures are amenable to being counted in 4, by grouping the simple

subdivisions of 5 or 7 into nested, NI 2- and 4-cycles. My perspective on this issue

departs from the prevailing conception of septuple meter in particular, which is

generally understood to exhibit triple (223) rather than quadruple ((44)(33)) grouping.

But I suggest that the residual duple valence of the original material is often sufficiently

strong in the asymmetric groove to motivate a hearing of nested 2- and 4-cycles not as

rhythms or elements of a groove, but as foundational elements of the meter itself.

In Parts 2 and 3 of the chapter, which form its analytical core, I expand on this

basic idea with a detailed study of metric transformations of MRPM by the pianist Vijay

Iyer. Creative approaches to rhythm and meter often form the crux of Iyer’s

arrangements of MRPM; while his grooves almost all preserve a song’s original

quadruple tactus, they do so in ways that are unique within the broader world of MJSP.

To illustrate this idea in microcosm, Part 2 examines three of Iyer’s arrangements, each

of which sees the pianist project what I call a prime cycle across a different metric span of

an original MJSP song: whole measures, half-measures, and quarter-measures. In

addition to investigating the metric status of the original duple hierarchy in each groove,

each analytical vignette also introduces a distinct analytical or conceptual idea: Section

4.2.1 explores how original rhythmic grouping structures, translated into an asymmetric

groove, can momentarily commandeer the malleable meter; Section 4.2.2 introduces a

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concept of second-order maximal evenness between hierarchical grouping structures;

and Section 4.2.3 sees virtuosic subdivisions shape surface rhythms and permeate

multiple levels of metric hierarchy across a palimpsest performance.

In Part 3, I marshal all three of these ideas to explore Iyer’s most innovative and

systematic method of metric transformation, which couples the properties of the (332)

tresillo rhythm with the numeric Fibonacci series to develop a set of recursive grouping

principles. These principles enable complex and distinctive transformations into two

unusual asymmetric meters, and the densely knit pulse streams of the resulting grooves

function as the expressive heart of Iyer’s Fibonacci-based performances.

Part 1. Asymmetric Metric Transformations

4.1.1. Grouping Structures and Metric Valence

A grouping structure is an equivalence class that represents a hierarchical

inclusion relation between two or more pulse cycles, which may manifest in a listener’s

ear via any number of phenomena on the musical surface. Importantly, these cycles 13

may be isochronous or non-isochronous (NI); as a result, grouping structures may

represent metric hierarchies, or they may represent rhythmic patterns as groupings of

pulses from a particular level of a metric hierarchy. In both cases, relationships between 14

hierarchical cycles can be represented by an ordered string of positive integers, without

This understanding of grouping structure parallels Cohn’s (2019) definition of meter as “an inclusion 13

relation between two or more pulses,” although Cohn’s definition requires that these series of pulses be “categorically isochronous.”

Grouping structures and their constituent cycles may also be treated as successions of durations, in which 14

each duration stretches from one (duration-less) pulse in a cycle to the next; the two notions are conceptually equivalent for my purposes.

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commas, along with some number of sets of nested parentheses, where each set defines

an additional layer of pulse hierarchy. For example, the grouping structure (332) 15

captures a conventional tresillo rhythm: it implies a fastest 8-cycle (3+3+2=8) whose

pulses are grouped into a slower NI 3-cycle (the cardinality of (332) is 3).

Following convention, I call the fastest cycle in any grouping structure the n-

cycle, and subsequently slower cycles k-cycles. The addition of parentheses around the

(332) tresillo suggests that the structure’s slowest trivial unit cycle is also conceptually

important—e.g., it repeats within a measure of putative 4/4, perhaps taking on status as

a timeline. The n- and repeating unit-cycles of a given grouping structure are notionally 16

isochronous unless explicitly noted otherwise, while all cycles between these bounds

may be either isochronous or NI. For example, the grouping structure ((33)(33)(22))

captures the relationship between the repeating double tresillo and its simple (332)

cousin by outlining four pulse cycles: a fastest 16-cycle and slowest unit cycle, within

whose bounds the pulses of a NI 6-cycle are grouped into a slower NI 3-cycle (664).

A grouping structure may represent pulse cycles at any level(s) of a metric

hierarchy—one or more of its constituent cycles simply needs to be linked to a

perceptually referential metric phenomenon, such as a measure or a tactus pulse. The 17

The hierarchical relationships of metric grouping structures have been captured in a multitude of ways, 15

including layered dots (Lerdahl and Jackendoff 1983), ski hills (Cohn 2001), and tree diagrams (Gotham 2015). My conception of grouped pulse cycles borrows flexibly from Krebs (1999), who conceives of both (consonant) meters and metric dissonance as grouping structures with a minimum of three hierarchical layers of pulses.

A timeline is an ostinato that functions as a referential metric framework. See Toussaint (2013) for an in-16

depth investigation of the tresillo’s prominence as a timeline in many of the world’s musics. See Stover (2009) for a phenomenological investigation of the metric-referential status of common NI rhythmic patterns in Afrodiasporic musics, including the tresillo, clave, and bell patterns; on the last of these patterns and its isography with the major scale, see also Rahn (1996) and Temperley (2000).

For example, the grouping ((22)(22)) represents a measure of pure duple meter (e.g., 4/4) when the unit 17

cycle is a measure; if the n-cycle is a measure, the grouping represents a standard 8-bar hypermeasure (e.g., a section of a standard 32-bar AABA song form).

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locus of metric interest in most asymmetric jazz transformations dwells within single

measures; as such, the unit-cycle of the grouping structures I consider here is frequently

a measure, the n-cycle is a subtactus division, and a k-cycle is a candidate for a tactus

pulse. Because the music I examine lacks authoritative written scores for both the

original recording and the jazz version, my notion of a measure follows de Clercq’s

(2016) concept of an “idealized measure.” While I follow this convention elsewhere in

the dissertation too, it is especially important in this chapter, and I discuss this approach

in more detail in the next section.

Grouping structures that present a tactus k-cycle may be usefully understood as

members of two successively larger equivalence classes. These equivalence classes are

important because some metric properties apply to all members of a given class, rather

than applying only to individual grouping structures within that class. A rotation class,

enclosed in square brackets without commas, includes all unique rotations of a given

grouping structure; the rotation class [233] includes the (332) tresillo, as well as its

distinct (323) and (233) rotations. A distribution class, enclosed in curly brackets with

commas, is a yet larger equivalence class, encompassing all rotation classes that use a

particular collection of elements. For example, the distribution class {2,2,3,3,3,3}

represents all possible ways to subdivide a fastest 16-cycle into an ordered grouping

containing two 2s and four 3s. Within this hierarchy of equivalence classes—distribution

classes, rotation classes, and individual grouping structures—any adjacent pairs of

nested classes can be coextensive, as they are in the case of all symmetrical meters, in

which all k-cycles are isochronous. The grouping structure (222), for example, which

might represent a measure of 3/4, is the sole member of rotation class [222] and

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distribution class {2,2,2}. But in most cases, at least one pair of adjacent equivalent

classes is not coextensive, particularly when a k-cycle is NI. 18

Represented as grouping structures, most conventional meters in pre-20th-

century Western art music feature nesting, isochronous k-cycles at the measure level and

below. These streams of isochronous pulses are fundamental features of well-formed

meter in most metric theories that are keyed to this musical canon (e.g., Cohn 2001;

Lerdahl and Jackendoff 1983; Mirka 2009). Indeed, these features are bedrock defaults

for metric perception in general—grouping structures that exhibit these features are

overwhelmingly likely to be perceived as metric by virtually all Western listeners.

However, in a considerable portion of the world’s music, including much African

and Afrodiasporic music, repeating NI k-cycles can also function as tactus pulse streams.

Critically, this means that such NI cycles function not as rhythmic patterns against an

isochonrous background, but rather as referential metric grounds themselves, against

which other rhythmic figures may be reckoned. In recent years, numerous scholars have

proposed properties that allow these NI cycles to accrue such metric function in the

absence of isochrony. Perhaps most obviously, in order for a NI k-cycle to function as a

potential tactus and accrue metric valence, it must repeat a sufficient number of times to

become referential. Beyond this fundamental requirement, additional properties apply

variously at the distribution class, rotation class, and individual grouping structure

levels; any property that applies to a given equivalence class also applies to all its

constituent members.

The use of different bracket types to specify ordered, non-ordered, and rotational phenomena is 18

inconsistent across music-theoretic scholarship. My use of bracket notations in this paragraph borrows from both Guerra (2019) and Osborn (2014).

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Example 4.1 outlines these metric properties and the largest equivalence class to

which each applies. At the distribution class level, metric valence is constrained by the

duration of each pulse in a k-cycle. As London (2012) has influentially demonstrated, the

interonset intervals (IOIs) between pulses in a potential tactus k-cycle usually dwell

within a metric envelope stretching from roughly 250 milliseconds (ms) to 2 seconds, with

a 650ms IOI producing maximum pulse salience. This means, for example, that in order

for the NI 4-cycle embedded in a repeating (2223) grouping to accrue metric valence, the

durations of both the 2- and 3-groupings should ideally fall within this metric

envelope. Most scholars who study NI meter (e.g., Guerra 2019; London 2012; Murphy 19

2016; Osborn 2014; Toussaint 2013) also agree that, given an n-cycle, the minimum group

size for a tactus k-cycle is two n-pulses, and that the vast majority of metric grouping

structures that manifest across the world’s musics are comprised entirely of 2s and 3s.

Guerra’s (2019) minimal meter constraint between two pulse streams explicitly imposes

(2223) is a prominent, quasi-metric grouping structure in the famous “Blue Rondo à la Turk” (1959) by the 19

Dave Brubeck Quartet, whose IOIs—not incidentally—fall within this metric envelope.

Equivalence Class Scope Potential Metric Properties

distribution class more general isochronous (I), Euclidean (E), duration/size constraints

rotation class maximally even (MaxE), minimally even (MinE)

grouping structure more specific Platonic (P), trochaic (T)

Example 4.1. Potential metric properties of grouping structure equivalence classes.

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this limit on grouping structures at all levels of a deep metric hierarchy. But with 20

specific regard to tactus k-cycles, London (2012) argues that sufficiently fast subtactus n-

cycles may also cohere into larger groups of 4, 5, or even 6 pulses, as long as these larger

groupings resist subdivision into constituent 2s or 3s. Because the relevant n-cycles in

jazz performance are often sufficiently fast and the k-cycles are often resistant to such

subdivision, I adopt London’s more liberal limits on minimum (2) and maximum (6)

group size, while acknowledging that groups larger than 3 are the exception, not the

norm.

One additional metric property pertains to the distribution class level: the

Euclidean property (E). As applied to music most influentially by Osborn (2014), a

Euclidian distribution E(k,n) distributes n pulses into k unordered groups as evenly as

possible. For example, {2,3,3} is the unique Euclidian distribution class given by E(3,8);

{1,3,4} also distributes 8 pulses into 3 groups, but the distribution is not as even as

possible and thus is not Euclidian. All isochronous k-cycles, and all k-cycles comprised of

only 2- and 3-groupings, are necessarily members of a Euclidean distribution class.

However, this generalization does not hold for k-cycle groupings of sizes larger than 3;

because I allow these groupings in certain circumstances, it is important to specify that

This limitation likely stems from the origins of Guerra’s project as an NI generalization of Cohn’s (2001) 20

ski hills, which plot hemiolas as 2-against-3 conflicts at one or more levels of metric hierarchy. Rather than insisting on particular properties that define a specific k-cycle as metric, Guerra specifies that any two pulse cycles can form a minimal meter if the integer cardinality of the k-cycle is greater than one-third, and less than one-half, the cardinality of the faster n-cycle; and if the relationship between the cycles can be represented with a grouping structure comprised only of 2s and 3s. This grouping structure need not display any other properties, and any given k-cycle need not be isochronous. A well-formed meter is a nesting series of these grouping structures, in which each pair of hierarchically adjacent cycles forms a minimal meter. Such deep meters stretch from the “span pulse”—the slowest subcycle with cardinality 1 that spans the largest relevant metric unit (usually a (hyper)measure)—to the “unit pulse,” the fastest, notionally isochronous cycle that forms a metric common denominator for all slower subcycles. (N.B., Guerra’s use of the term “unit pulse” is the inverse of my own use of the term unit cycle in this chapter.) Guerra’s subsequent development of a hemiolic metric space, again after Cohn (2001), provides a metric for measuring distances between such deep meters. But these meters usually feature a fastest unit pulse whose cardinality is not a multiple of a prime span; thus they differ somewhat from the meters I consider below.

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all potentially metric k-cycles must be members of a Euclidean distribution class.

Euclidean distribution classes also, by default, produce k-cycle groupings whose sizes

are consecutive integers (e.g., 3s and 4s, not 3s and 5s). Together with the limits on group

size, this phenomenon ensures that k-cycle pulses of different lengths present enough

temporal contrast to be distinct, yet do not risk sounding like groupings or subdivisions

of one another (as would be the case with 2s and 4s, for example). 21

My bedrock assumption is that all potentially metric k-cycles satisfy these

constraints on duration and grouping size, and are members of a Euclidean distribution

class. These constraints function as necessary but not sufficient conditions for metric

valence. In addition to these basic limitations, metric k-cycles must exhibit one of two

sets of properties. The first property, maximal evenness (MaxE), is related to, but distinct

from, the Euclidean property. This property is most influentially expressed in London’s

(2012) approach to NI meters, which borrows from scale theory to suggest that, to be

perceived as a tactus, a repeating k-cycle must be MaxE with respect to a relevant, faster

n-cycle. A (332) tresillo, for example, is MaxE because it distributes a 3-cycle as evenly as

possible across an 8-cycle, while the non-MaxE grouping structure (242) does not. Such

maximal evenness allows the listener to deploy their cyclic attentional energy as

periodically as possible, facilitating efficient entrainment—a key element of meter

perception, especially as it relates to bodily engagement with a groove. 22

Although this reasoning on the virtues of small consecutive integers comes from London (2012), he does 21

not explicitly link it to the Euclidean property. London allows that a grouping structure comprised of three successive integers (e.g., 3s, 4s, and 5s) is potentially viable with a sufficiently fast n-cycle. But he gives no examples, perhaps because considerations of maximal evenness become considerably more complicated with three group sizes.

Note that the MaxE property is preserved via repetition—that is, a grouping structure that can be 22

decomposed into identical MaxE components is also, by necessity, MaxE. This is (obviously) not true for the corresponding MinE property, discussed below.

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While every MaxE rotation class is Euclidian, the reverse is not true for k-cycles

featuring 4 or more pulses—for example, {2,2,3,3} is a Euclidian distribution class, but

the grouping structure (3322) is not MaxE. Instead, (3322) displays a second set of metric

properties, explored by Murphy (2016): it is Platonic and trochaic. These properties,

which apply primarily at the grouping structure level (i.e., they depend on order and

rotation), represent maximizations of a perceptual desideratum that is distinct from

evenness. A grouping structure is Platonic if it contains only two group sizes, and if each

forms an uninterrupted string. Platonic groupings are furthermore trochaic if the size of

the first string (the run), measured in n-pulses, is larger than than the length of the

second string (the comma); if the reverse is true, the structure is iambic. Murphy

hypothesizes that grouping structures are inherently more prominent in popular music

and multimedia when they are both Platonic and trochaic.

Murphy’s analysis of these properties is grounded in attentional efficiency, albeit

of a different kind than London’s. Platonic groupings—and particularly Platonic-

trochaic groupings—exhibit the most perceptually efficient manifestations of two closely

related properties that apply at the rotation class level: minimal evenness (MinE) and near

realization (NR). A MinE grouping structure is NR because it asks listeners to revise their

projective expectations for pattern continuation the minimum possible number of times.

Within a repeating grouping structure, such “gear shifts” occur at transitions between

groups of different sizes. Although Murphy avoids systematic definition of the MinE

and NR properties, for my purposes they may be understood as equivalent

characteristics that can be exhibited by a Euclidian rotation class featuring only two

group sizes. Any repeating member of Euclidian rotation class [2233333], for example, is

MinE—when considered as a repeating structure, it shifts between 2- and 3-groupings

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the minimum possible number of two times. Within this rotation class, the Platonic-

trochaic double tresillo (333322) exhibits the highest degree of attentional efficiency by

manifesting its two violations of durational projection in the most expected locations—

the point at which it repeats, and the second half of the structure. 23

Murphy’s treatment of grouping structures that possess these properties allows

for them to manifest as either rhythmic or metric phenomena. But his invocation of 24

attentional efficiency in his exploration of these grouping structures resonates broadly

with the perceptual underpinning of London’s MaxE property. As such, I suggest that

the MinE property may allow a Euclidean rotation class to accrue some modicum of

metric status; this status may be further strengthened in particular grouping structures

via their manifestation of Platonic and trochaic properties. 25

Having surveyed and organized some properties that allow a k-cycle accrue

metric status, in the next section I briefly turn to the first subcomponent of my primary

focus: how do asymmetric re-meterings of duple GAS and MRPM songs preserve

elements of the original meter? In other words, in a jazz palimpsest performance, can

you—and should you—count a measure of 5 or 7, in 4? In most cases, I argue that the

answer is yes: asymmetric grooves can typically be heard to project a NI 4-cycle that

displays one or more of the recognizable properties outlined in this section, presenting a

tangible pulse stream around which to orient one’s hearing.

Murphy cites cognitive work by Huron and Ommen (2006) to substantiate these expectations. 23

Murphy (2016) refers to grouping structures as “successions of durations.” He writes: “I use the 24

expression ‘succession of durations’ to leave its series of quantities open to an interpretation either as a layer in a meter or as a rhythm” (1.4).

If a Platonic grouping structure is not trochaic, then by default it is iambic; I thus do not treat iambic as a 25

unique metric property.

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4.1.2. Prime Cycles and Duple Projections in Asymmetric Grooves

As I described above, MJSP overwhelmingly favors music in duple meter.

Because both these source songs and their jazz transformations lack authoritative

written scores, any metric comparison between the two requires a fixed, perceptually

viable point of reference. Here as elsewhere, I borrow this reference point from de

Clercq’s (2016) concept of an “idealized measure.” In a duple GAS or MRPM source

song, out of all potential, metrically isomorphic measure lengths, an idealized measure

is the one whose duration is closest to two seconds, and which contains four tactus pulses. I 26

demarcate such idealized measures in a GAS or MRPM source song, and I preserve these

measures in my approach to the corresponding jazz palimpsest performance, according

to its placement of the original’s harmonic and melodic features. While the most

conventional notation of an idealized measure is, of course, a bar of 4/4, other notated

forms are possible—in some notated lead sheets for GAS standards, for example, two

notated measures of cut-time may also correspond to a single idealized measure,

depending on performance tempo. And as will become clear in Part 2, adequate metric 27

notation of these idealized measures in jazz transformations can produce complex

results.

Idealized quadruple measures in an MRPM or GAS source song do not exist

completely a priori for a listener, even if the listener expects them. Rather, these measures

de Clercq (2016) notes repeatedly these tactus pulses are not keyed to a drum pattern, which “can be seen 26

to exist above or below the primary beat level” (0). This relationship between drum pattern and tactus pulse is encoded in common descriptors of such drum patterns: e.g., a “double-time” or “half-time” feel.

A similar phenomenon often occurs in brisk-tempo art music written in 2/4 or 6/8; as de Clercq (2016) 27

notes, the concept of an idealized measure has precedents in Caplin (1998).

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are initially established primarily by sounding elements on the musical surface. While 28

a nontrivial re-metering of a source song (e.g., from 4/4 to 5/4 or 7/8) shifts the metric

locations of these musical elements, I suggest that the elements are not completely

subsumed by the palimpsest’s new meter. Instead (and critically), an intertextual hearing

allows the elements to retain some semblance of their original, duple-derived metric

coordinates. A melodic arrival or chord change that originally occurred on beat 4 might

retain an association with “beat 4,” for example, even if “beat 4” is no longer a clear-cut

concept in the new asymmetric meter.

Example 4.2 illustrates this simple phenomenon with brief excerpts of GAS tunes

realized in quintuple and septuple meters, drawn from recordings by saxophonist Tim

Warfield (2013) and pianist Robert Glasper (2007a). In both “I Remember You” and

“Beatrice,” a (hypothetical) mid-tempo rendering of the original 4/4 melody closely

Once established, the meter will likely continue to iterate on its own in the listener’s mind, even in the face 28

of potentially significant rhythmic opposition. See Imbrie (1973) for discussion of the classic distinction between conservative and radical listeners; the former seek to maintain an established counting pattern as long as possible, even in the face of this rhythmic opposition, while the latter prefer to more quickly adjust to a new counting pattern. See London (2006) for a list of songs that seem to deliberately undermine the initial establishment of a meter by beginning with what he calls a “metric fake-out.”

Example 4.2. Quadruple counting patterns in “I Remember You” (Warfield 2013; Schertzinger and Mercer 1941)

and “Beatrice” (Glasper 2007a; Rivers 1964).

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aligns with a quarter-note tactus pulse and is amenable to being counted: 1–2–3–4. These

original pulse associations remain clearly salient when the jazz musicians realize these

melodies in new asymmetric meters, despite the non-isochrony of the associated

counting patterns.

Bearing these associations in mind, I conceive of many re-meterings of quadruple

GAS or MRPM songs as transformations of the original’s duple metric hierarchy, rather

than as entirely fresh metric constructs. Such transformations can take many forms, of 29

course. A re-metering might extinguish virtually all traces of an original duple meter,

shift the tactus function to another level of the metric hierarchy, imply different measure

boundaries, or some combination thereof. But I contend that the most common kind of 30

metric transformation in modern jazz performance preserves the original song’s

quadruple tactus within single idealized measures, while destabilizing that tactus by

injecting an odd-cardinality subtactus pulse cycle across some portion of that measure. I

call this injected cycle the prime cycle: the slowest repeating pulse cycle whose cardinality

is either a prime integer greater than 3 (p), or a small integer multiple of such a prime

(x*p) that does not group into a yet slower, isochronous k-cycle. Five and seven are by 31

far the most common prime cycle cardinalities in MJSP. While a prime cycle almost

As noted above, this transformation typically does not meaningfully alter groupings at and above the 29

measure level—a measure remains a measure, a phrase remains a phrase, and so on. For an Iyer palimpsest that does alter these measure groupings, see his quintuple transformation of “Somewhere” (Iyer 2009e; Bernstein and Sondheim 1957).

For an example of a metric transformation that preserves measure divisions but virtually extinguishes an 30

original song’s quadruple meter within those measures, consider the pianist Jacky Terrasson’s septuple transformation of Bud Powell’s “Parisian Thoroughfare” (Terrasson 2002a; Powell 1951). The A sections [e.g., 0:00–0:20] group the simple subdivisions of a measure-spanning 7-cycle into a Platonic-trochaic (33332) 5-cycle that, at best, syncopates against a half-measure division.

For example, if the cardinality of a prime cycle is a non-prime number like 21 = 7*3, the prime 21-cycle 31

must not afford consistent subdivisions as (777) or (3333333); in the latter case, a 7-cycle is the prime cycle, and (3333333) is a compound subdivision of that prime cycle. This consideration will become relevant in my consideration of Iyer’s Fibonacci transformations in Part 3.

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always spans an entire measure, it may also span a half- or quarter-measure, as I explore

below; in such cases, the prime cycle itself repeats to fill an entire measure.

A prime cycle acts as a kind of refractory lens for a source song’s original meter,

preserving, eliminating, or destabilizing its original nesting duple-derived pulse cycles.

For example, a prime cycle that stretches across an entire measure is usually subdivided,

producing faster cycles that supplant the original meter’s subdivisions. But these

subdivisions are frequently amenable to a grouping that produces a four-fold k-cycle.

While this 4-cycle typically becomes NI in the asymmetric meter, it also adopts some of

the metric characteristics described above, allowing it to retain some of its original tactus

valence. In addition to being implied by (transformed) melodic and harmonic events

from the original song, this 4-cycle is frequently reinforced by elements of the

asymmetric groove. As such, I contend that this duple-derived 4-cycle, along with its

implied nested 2-cycle, can often be heard not simply as a repeating rhythm, but as a

projection of the original tactus itself into the asymmetric meter.

In general, the ability of any n-cycle to generate a particular metric k-cycle is

contingent on the values of n and k. All potentially metric k-cycles are contained within

the Euclidian distribution class E(k,n), but n must be more than double k to avoid

singleton groupings. As a result, in the case of prime 5- and 7-cycles—by far the most 32

common in jazz’s standard practice—metric 4-cycles typically group simple subdivisions

of these prime cycles, because 4 is less than half of both 10 (5*2) and 14 (7*2). Example

4.3 details all possible 4-cycles that can result from groupings of these simple

subdivisions; these groupings comprise the Euclidean distribution classes E(4,10) and

Osborn (2014) also cites this prohibition of singleton groupings (n ≥ 2k) as a threshold for metric 32

perception of Euclidean rhythms.

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E(4,14). The table also details the metric properties of each grouping and notes whether

the second pulse of each grouping’s nested 2-cycle aligns with the prime cycle itself

(“Yes”) or syncopates against it (“No”).

It is important to emphasize that each of these grouping structures is, by

mathematical necessity, either MaxE or MinE. As Murphy (2016) notes, this necessity

“takes some of the (metaphorical) wind out of these two features’ superlative sails”

(1.10). Correspondingly, some of these grouping structures are more common than

others. Giving credence to Murphy’s argument, the most common quintuple and

septuple jazz transformations of duple meters involve Platonic-trochaic 4-cycles. These

groupings, which are shaded in Example 4.3, are detailed in staff notation in Example

Prime Cycle

Grouping Equiv. Classes Does 2-cycle align with

prime cycle?

Metric Properties

Distrib. Class

RotationClass

Grouping Structure MaxE MinE Plat. Troc.

5, simple subdiv.

E(4,10):{2,2,3,3}

[2233]

((22)(33)) Yes X X

((23)(32)) No X

((33)(22)) Yes X X X

((32)(23))

No

X

[2323]((23)(23)) X

((32)(32)) X

7, simple subdiv.

E(4,14):{3,3,4,4}

[3344]

((33)(44)) Yes X X

((34)(43)) No X

((44)(33)) Yes X X X

((43)(34))

No

X

[3434]((34)(34)) X

((43)(43)) X

Example 4.3. Members and metric properties of Euclidean distribution classes E(4,10) and E(4,14).

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4.4. An idealized measure of duple meter appears on the left; its quintuple and septuple

transformations appear on the right, facilitated by measure-spanning prime 5- and 7-

cycles that are enclosed in gray boxes. In both asymmetric meters, a simple subdivision

of the prime cycle is grouped to produce an NI 4-cycle. The unique Platonic-trochaic

properties of these 4-cycles suggest why they remain reasonable emissaries for the tactus

of the original 4/4 meter—and why, I contend, listeners and players alike might be

motivated to feel a measure of 5 or 7, in 4. Moreover, the relationship between cycles and

the original 4/4 hierarchy spotlights the reciprocal kinesthetic sensations that frequently

Example 4.4. Platonic-trochaic 4-cycle projections in quintuple and septuple meters.

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accompany these asymmetric transformations: grooves in 5 seem to elongate the original

beats 1 and 2, while grooves in 7 compress beats 3 and 4.

However, my assertion that these 4-cycles assume tactus status chafes slightly

against conventional conceptions of quintuple and septuple meters. These conceptions

either treat the prime cycle itself as the tactus, or more commonly as a subtactus layer

amenable only to groupings in 2s and 3s; this approach produces tactus k-cycles in the

[23] and [223] rotation classes, suggesting hearings of measures of 5 and 7, in 2 and 3.

For a septuple meter in particular, the potential for both 3-cycle (223) and 4-cycle

((44)(33)) tactus streams offers the listener two subtly contrasting avenues for potential

metric entrainment. A listener who resolutely allows only the conventional 2- and 3-

groupings of the prime cycle itself will likely hear a septuple groove in 3. But a listener

who attunes to the residual metric implications of original duple material will likely

attune to the nested 2- and 4-cycles it implies, even if the latter cycle syncopates against

the prime cycle itself, producing a grouping dissonance. I stress that these two 33

hearings, though quite similar, are metrically incompatible. The final tactus pulse of a

hearing in 3 serves as a metrically weak—if temporally elongated—anacrusis to the

following downbeat. But a hearing in 4 treats this same pulse as a half-measure division,

and thus as a point of relatively strong metric emphasis. (Put differently, no competent

musician would count a measure of four as “1+2+3+&+,” nor would they count a

measure of three by labeling the second half of the third pulse as “beat 4”: “1+2+34”.)

Because virtuosity and innovation are watchwords in modern jazz performance,

Platonic-trochaic 4-cycles, while a first-level default, are far from the only ways that

Nested 2- and 4-cycles indeed imply two potential grouping dissonances with respect to the prime cycle 33

subdivision: the ((44)(33)) 4-cycle conflicts with both the (2222222) prime cycle itself, and with its conventionally implied (446) grouping.

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remnants of duple hierarchy can persist as NI pulse cycles in jazz musicians’

transformations of both GAS and MRPM tunes. In Part 2, I demonstrate this variety in

microcosm by examining metric transformations in three palimpsest performances by

Vijay Iyer, a pianist whose music often foregrounds metric complexity as a primary

aesthetic feature.

In addition to eschewing Platonic-trochaic 4-cycles in favor of less-common

grouping structures from Example 4.3, Iyer’s metric transformations occasionally project

a prime cycle across a half or quarter of an idealized measure from a source song. The

iteration of the prime cycle across the entire measure yields an isochronous, measure-

spanning 2- or 4- cycle. Groupings of each individual prime cycle or its subdivisions can

also produce 2- or 4-cycles; when iterated, these cycles become measure-spanning 4- or

8-cycles, and so on. The result of this procedure is a robust, largely isochronous duple

framework, within which a seed of subtactus asymmetry still lingers. To be sure, such

meters may not be rightly understood as asymmetric at all. But in Iyer’s case, I suggest

that largely duple grooves that consistently (and virtuosically) imply fine-grained

asymmetric subdivisions share a conceptual kinship with grooves in which asymmetry

dwells at or just below the tactus level. In each ease, a duple metric framework from an

MRPM source song is both audibly preserved and creatively destabilized—the

difference is simply one of metric scale rather than conceptual approach.

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Part 2. Three Metric Transformations by Vijay Iyer

4.2.1. Meter and Embodiment in Iyer’s Music and Scholarship

The complex and imaginative metric transformations of pianist, composer, and

scholar Vijay Iyer capture the variety of modern jazz in microcosm. The range of his

metric imagination is rather unique in the modern jazz world, in that he projects prime

cycles not only at the idealized measure level, but at the half- and even quarter-measure

levels as well. Yet a feature that unites all of Iyer’s metric transformations is their clear

and persistent preservation of some element of an original duple metric hierarchy.

Indeed, Iyer’s palimpsest arrangements often strongly thematize the metric

complication of nested 2-, 4-, and even 8-cycles, while simultaneously embracing the

metric potential of other grouping structures from his source materials, to produce

complex rhythmic counterpoint that offers numerous avenues for bodily engagement

and metric entrainment.

The prominent role of rhythm and meter in Iyer’s output aligns with a dominant

theme of his music-theoretic scholarship (1998, 2002, 2004), which addresses how the

body is implicated in the production and perception of musical grooves, particularly in

Afrodiasporic music. Both his work as a solo pianist, and his output with his longtime 34

working trio of drummer Marcus Gilmore and bassist Stefan Crump, couple this concern

for embodied musical experience with an explicit desire to situate his music-making on a

continuum with an expansive musical past. The small number of palimpsest

performances in Iyer’s oeuvre is counterbalanced by the tremendous genre breadth they

Iyer (2002) is cited especially frequently in music cognition circles. 34

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encompass. This ecumenical approach to musical lineage manifests in isolated MRPM

arrangements on his solo piano albums Reimagining (Iyer 2005b) and Solo (Iyer 2010b);

and it vividly shapes his trio albums Historicity (Iyer 2009c) and Accelerando (Iyer 2012a),

both of which supplement original compositions with a broad range of songs—both

well-known and obscure—drawn from the pop, jazz, hip-hop, orchestral, and Broadway

canons. Iyer succinctly expresses this dual focus on embodied experience and stylistic

omnivorism in the liner notes to Accelerando. Noting that the album’s music belongs in

“the lineage of American creative music based on dance rhythms,” he writes: “Music is

action: the sound of bodies in motion. When we hear a rhythm, we imagine the act that

gave rise to it … Music and dance are linked in this way: bodies listening to bodies”

(Iyer 2012). This music is clearly designed to make you move.

A few of Iyer’s palimpsest arrangements treat his varying source materials to

virtually no transformations at all. For example, in his trio recordings of hip-hop anthem

“Galang” (Iyer 2009b; M.I.A. 2005) and Duke Ellington’s “The Village of the Virgins”

(Iyer 2012d; Ellington 1988)—the latter taken from Ellington’s little-known 1970 ballet

The River—Iyer simply transplants the original work into a piano trio context with few

alterations, and with relatively little soloing. Recalling Chapter 2, I would suggest that

the primary expressive thrust of such performances is integration: an assertion of

stylistic lineage and genre synergy, in keeping with the pianist’s polyglot aesthetic.

But Iyer’s oeuvre also features multiple arrangements of MRPM that subject their

source materials to imaginative metric transformations. Reflecting the primacy of

rhythm and groove in much of this material, the virtuosity of these performances dwells

not in the harmonic or melodic domains, but in manipulations of the original song’s

metric hierarchy and rhythmic grouping patterns. These manipulations, which are

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frequently more extensive or unusual than those employed by Iyer’s jazz musician

peers, produce grooves marked by a carefully calibrated complexity, both preserving

and complicating the metric link between Iyer’s palimpsest and the original song.

In the next three sections, I analyze the metric transformations Iyer deploys in

three palimpsest arrangements of duple MRPM songs. These analyses are organized

according to prime-cycle span—whole-measure, half-measure, and quarter-measure. In

keeping with the discussion in Part 1, my initial concern in each analysis is how Iyer’s

groove preserves and reshapes layers of the original duple hierarchy. But by drawing on

the perceptually-driven properties outlined in the previous section, I also intend to

foreground how these transformed structures can present potential, sometimes fleeting

opportunities for bodily engagement and metric entrainment. This concern resonates

with Iyer’s interest in musical embodiment. In the absence of significant harmonic or

melodic transformations, it is the interwoven, percussive rhythmic and metric cycles of

Iyer’s arrangements that structure new kinds of musical spaces for improvisation and

ensemble interaction, that slowly wind their way into willing listeners’ ears and bodies,

and that form the aesthetic crux of his performances.

4.2.2. Prime Cycle at the Measure: “Big Brother” (Iyer 2009a; Wonder 1972)

Iyer’s (2009a) trio arrangement of Stevie Wonder’s (1972) protest anthem “Big

Brother” is perhaps the pianist’s most conventional metric transformation. The

arrangement stretches a prime 7-cycle across single idealized measures, grouping the

cycle’s simple subdivisions to project an NI 4-cycle. But this 4-cycle eschews the

normative Platonic-trochaic grouping ((44)(33)) discussed above in favor of the more

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unusual Platonic-iambic ((33)(44)) arrangement, providing a fitting introduction to Iyer’s

penchant for metric novelty.

Example 4.5 displays the repeating simple verse form of Wonder’s (1972)

recording. This form derives from the standard 12-bar aa’b blues; Wonder repeats the

initial aa’ pairing of a blues form and doubles the length of b from 4 to 8 measures,

Example 4.5. Simple verse form and grouping dissonances in “Big Brother” (Wonder 1972).

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producing a 24-measure aa’aa’b layout. This form is cast in duple meter at the section 35

level and below; the b and paired aa’ phrases each form 8-bar hypermeasures, which

admit successive duple subdivisions stretching down to the sixteenth-note tactus

subdivision. The security of this duple framework remains unchallenged by momentary

For ease of reference, measure numbers in this section of the text refer to the written score, independent of 35

repeats. The fact that this form both begins and ends with four measures of tonic lends it a circular quality, such that m. 13 (rather than m. 1) occasionally sounds like the beginning of a new rotation. Iyer magnifies this impression when he begins improvising in m. 13, following a statement of the melody. On circularity in jazz song forms, see the roundtable by Waters, Martin, Larson, and Strunk (2016), and Chapter 3.

Example 4.6. Simple verse form and rhythmic/metric grouping structures in “Big Brother” (Iyer 2009a; Wonder 1972).

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rhythmic displacement dissonances in both a (mm. 3–4) and b (mm. 11–12), which are

articulated by all layers of the texture.

Like Wonder, Iyer (2009a) treats the 24-measure form of “Big Brother” as a

unified loop, preserving its hypermetric regularity and producing a head-solos-head

performance similar in shape to a typical GAS standard. Example 4.6 transcribes Iyer’s

septuple metric transformation, including his first statement of Wonder’s melody [0:41–

1:28]. In the original 4/4 track, Wonder’s melodic phrases begin either on the downbeat

or beat 2.5 (mm. 1, 3, 9); to shoehorn the latter phrases into 7/8, Iyer consistently omits

an eighth rest from the first half of each measure. This strategy preserves the original’s

half-measure divisions while compressing the first half of each bar, producing an NI (34)

2-cycle. Together with Gilmore’s drums and Crump’s bass, Iyer’s furious left hand

pattern further subjects each of these halves to an isochronous subdivision, consistently

projecting the original quadruple tactus as a ((33)(44)) grouping structure.

Although this grouping’s Platonic and iambic properties allow it to accrue a

modicum of metric valence, the structure reverses a more normative ((44)(33)) Platonic-

trochaic rotation. By placing a conventionally anacrustic (33) grouping in the first half 36

of each measure, this reversal further unsettles the already malleable asymmetric meter,

producing a metrically challenging listening experience. Such challenges are a consistent

aesthetic lodestar for Iyer, and his jaunty, metrically underdetermined introduction

amplifies this challenge, creating a metric fake-out that, if anything, seems to imply a

((44)(33)) grouping [0:00–0:33] before settling into the ((33)(44)) rotation [0:34ff]. 37

Adding broad support for both Murphy’s (2016) and my claim that a Platonic-trochaic grouping is 36

normative in many 7/8 grooves, Hanenberg’s (2018, 143–47) corpus study of drum patterns in post-millennial rock notes that 7/8 grooves are much more likely to be heard to compress or omit beats in the second half of a measure than in the first.

On metric fake-outs, see Biamonte (2014) and London (2006).37

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An intertextual germ of Iyer’s metric grouping structure can also be heard in the

rhythmic pattern of Wonder’s repeating two-measure clavinet pattern in the A(‘) sections.

Example 4.7 compares Iyer’s metric grouping with Wonder’s pattern; a composite of

Wonder’s interweaving clavinet lines appears on the top staff, along with the bass line.

The first measure of Wonder’s pattern consistently articulates half-measure divisions

with (332) tresillos. While the beginning of m. 2 forecasts an exact pattern repetition, the

syncopated final member of the initial tresillo instead bleeds across the half-measure

divide, giving way to one of several concluding grouping structures that Wonder varies

as the groove repeats (as indicated by the parentheses).

Unlike this clavinet pattern—which dwells beneath the tactus level in Wonder’s

recording and generates groove without challenging the meter—I am suggesting that

Iyer’s Platonic-iambic grouping is the quadruple tactus in the context of 7/8. But this

tactus also preserves a semblance of its syncopated intertextual origin by establishing a

similarly syncopated—if hypothetical—relationship with the nested 2-cycle of a more

Example 4.7. Derivation of Iyer’s metric grouping structure from Wonder’s clavinet pattern in “Big Brother” (Iyer 2009a; Wonder 1972).

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conventional Platonic-trochaic pattern, as Iyer’s third tactus pulse ((33)(44)) anticipates

and then spans the half-measure divide of this standard grouping ((44)(33)). As a result,

the half-measure divide of Iyer’s own groove seems to have it both ways, displaying

both metric and rhythmic valences: it acts as a referential metric pulse while also

sounding perpetually syncopated against a more conventional septuple grouping. This

multivalence contributes to the restless instability of Iyer’s groove, rendering his tactus

pulse stream at once a compelling and challenging thread for metric entrainment.

In addition to complicating the original tactus, Iyer’s re-metering also alters the

two significant displacement dissonances from Wonder’s original, leveraging the

inherent mutability of his septuple groove to project momentary metric consonances. In

mm. 3–4 of Wonder’s original (see Example 4.5), a string of eighth-note displacement

dissonances requires a single concluding 3-grouping to achieve downbeat realignment

in m. 5. Iyer’s transformation into 7/8 eliminates the need for this final 3-grouping,

producing a purely isochronous 2222 grouping that momentarily suspends the

underlying groove and provides a momentary respite from its relentless asymmetry. 38

Iyer takes a somewhat different approach to mm. 11–12. In Wonder’s original,

these measures feature another extended displacement dissonance that stretches across

the bar line, ultimately yielding to a 5-grouping whose internal subdivision ((32) vs. (23))

is left indeterminate when the groove momentarily drops out. These anticipatory

syncopations enliven a stepwise composing out of the governing Gb9 harmony via

parallel tenths between bass and melody. Temperley’s (1999) perceptual approach to

Aside from the syncopated onset that begins this grouping, I do not hear a direct relationship between this 38

grouping and any underlying metric pattern; the former temporarily suspends any sense of the latter. This may be because the 7/8 metric grouping structure is relatively malleable already, and thus easily abandoned by the listener. I am not aware of any scholarship that explicitly addresses the issue of grouping and displacement dissonances in asymmetric meters.

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syncopation suggests that a listener might hear these anticipatory syncopations as

surface-level displacements of a deeper, non-syncopated structure in which each parallel

tenth occurs on a tactus pulse. Following this approach, the deep structure of these

parallel tenths can be heard to articulate tertian chord tones of Gb9 on strong beats 1 and

3 of mm. 11–12; note especially the bass’s arrival on the Db tonic pitch on the deep-

structure downbeat of m. 12, which serves as a metric-temporal anchor.

If Iyer had preserved the original eighth-note grouping structure in 7/8, this bass

Db would have retained its downbeat association, arriving squarely on the actual first

beat of m. 12. (Indeed, the bass line’s grouping structure in Iyer’s m. 9 foreshadows

precisely this preservation.) Instead, beginning with the second constituent grouping in

m. 11, Iyer foreshortens each of Wonder’s original groupings by one sixteenth note,

unleashing a torrent of metric momentum that further hastens the arrival of this bass Db.

As was the case on a more limited scale in mm. 3–4, the momentary isochrony of this

rhythmic grouping achieves a powerful—if transitory—metric valence. Love (2013)

examines a phenomenon in standard duple swing in which an improvised solo can

simultaneously enact a grouping dissonance with an underlying 4/4 meter while

displaying an isochronous regularity of its own that projects a momentary metric

consonance. In Iyer’s rendering, a similar effect is much more pronounced in mm. 11–12,

as an isochronous grouping dissonance unfolds against a non-isochronous underlying

meter. However, the decoupling of the bass Db’s original downbeat association from its

new metric position in 7/8 also produces significant metric disorientation, which is

compounded by the protracted stop-time at the end of m. 12. This disorientation even

seems to affect Iyer himself; at two points in his solo (e.g., [2:49–2:53]), he tightly

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articulates the grouping in mm. 11–12, only to seemingly lose track of the impending m.

13 downbeat in the subsequent stop time.

The discombobulation wrought by this extended cadential hemiola illustrates

how rhythmic grouping structures can assume temporary but potent metric status in an

asymmetric meter—especially a meter whose relatively uncommon Platonic-iambic

grouping structure renders it exceedingly malleable. I return to this theme at more

length in Part 3. In the next analytical vignette, I examine Iyer’s use of another

uncommon metric grouping structure, this time in quintuple meter. Unlike “Big

Brother,” however, the associated prime 5-cycle spans only half of an idealized measure,

allowing the resulting grouping to iterate twice within a single measure and project a

more robust transformation of an original duple framework.

4.2.3. Prime Cycle at the Half-Measure: “Imagine” (Iyer 2005a; Lennon 1971)

In contrast to the relative obscurity of “Big Brother,” John Lennon’s classic (1971)

anthem “Imagine,” which he co-wrote with Yoko Ono, is one of the most covered songs

in the MRPM canon. Owing perhaps to the song’s message of unity and optimism, 39

most artists who cover “Imagine” subject it to minimal transformation, perhaps seeking

to express their affinity with its universalist themes. This lineage of faithful reproduction

—and the song’s resulting cultural pervasiveness—have turned “Imagine” into a

modern standard, albeit one with a greater degree of ontological thickness than a typical

GAS song. But Iyer’s (2005) solo piano arrangement turns this lineage on its head. In the

absence of prominent grouping or displacement dissonances in Lennon’s original, the

As of this writing, the website secondhandsongs.com had cataloged over 420 cover recordings of 39

“Imagine.”

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locus of rhythmic interest in Iyer’s arrangement is a complex ostinato accompaniment

pattern that repeats twice in each idealized measure and complicates the original’s

metric hierarchy. This ostinato also realizes a somber reharmonization of the original

melody—a rarity among Iyer’s palimpsest performances, which usually preserve the

original’s harmonic materials. Taken together, these alterations suggest a decidedly

pessimistic take on Lennon and Ono’s original message of transcendence. 40

Example 4.8 provides comparative form charts for Lennon’s (1971) and Iyer’s

(2005a) recordings. After a short introduction that loops the verse chord progression,

Lennon’s original makes three passes through a verse-prechorus-chorus rotation, with

For examinations of other examples of jazz palimpsests in which a source song’s cultural pervasiveness 40

prompts a radical or unusual transformation in jazz performance, see especially the discussions of “Stella by Starlight” (Glasper 2015b; Young 1944) and “Wonderwall” (Mehldau 2008; Oasis 1995) in Chapter 3, and the extended analysis of “Time After Time” (TBP 2016e; Lauper 1983) in Chapter 5.

Lennon (1971) Iyer (2005a)

Start Time Module Start Time Module

0:00 Intro 0:00 Vamp 1

0:14 Verse 1

0:39 Prechorus 1

0:52 Verse 2 0:22 Verse 1

1:18 Prechorus 2 0:54 Prechorus 1

1:30 Chorus 2 1:10 Chorus 1

1:26 Vamp 2

1:56 Verse 3 1:35 Verse 2

2:21 Prechorus 3 2:07 Prechorus 2

2:34 Chorus 3 2:23 Chorus 2 (3x)

3:29 Vamp 3

Example 4.8. Comparative form charts for “Imagine” (Iyer 2005a; Lennon 1971).

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the chorus omitted in the first rotation. Iyer’s arrangement eliminates this first

incomplete rotation and precedes both remaining rotations with a transformation of the

introduction, which functions as a brief linking vamp. His chorus module includes only

the first and last phrases of Lennon’s four-phrase original, omitting the internal phrases

while preserving a four-bar hypermeasure. And he repeats the final chorus section three

times, moving through successively higher registers and softer dynamic levels before

fading out over a final statement of the vamp.

Considered in 4/4, Lennon’s original displays pure duple grouping regularity

from the sixteenth note through the four-bar hypermeasure levels. As is the case in all

other examples in this chapter, Iyer’s rendering of Lennon’s melody suggests a scale for

metric correspondence between the two recordings. Based on this correspondence, Iyer

assembles a complex ostinato that occurs twice in each idealized measure, preserving

the isochronous duple regularity of Lennon’s original at the half-measure level and

above while complicating its faster, duple-derived 4- and 8-cycles. This ostinato 41

persists throughout Iyer’s arrangement, slackening only with his final repeated chorus

statements. Example 4.9 transcribes this ostinato groove from the first measure of Iyer’s

verse modules, and it outlines the stages in which Iyer assembles the ostinato’s layers.

This gradual assembly helps clarify for the listener the cyclic correspondences between

layers of the ostinato and the duple metric hierarchy of Lennon’s original track.

As shown in Example 4.9, Iyer spans a prime 5-cycle across each half of an

idealized measure with pulsing, long-short trochaic dyads in his right hand. Beneath

each prime cycle, the pianist’s left hand traces slower, nesting, NI 2- and 4-cycles. These

Given Iyer’s tempo, a listener might also reasonably equate each ostinato repetition with an entire 41

idealized measure (rather than a half-measure) in Iyer’s recording. If you (the reader) prefer this hearing, simply divide all the cycle lengths in this analysis by two.

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metric cycles repeat along with the prime cycle in each idealized measure, producing

measure-spanning, NI 4- and 8-cycles. The oscillating left-hand octaves that trace these

cycles gesturally mimic Lennon’s rocking chords, suggesting the cycles’ clear

correspondence with the nesting quarter- and eighth-note pulse streams of Lennon’s

original 4/4 meter. But Iyer’s NI transformation of these 4- and 8-cycles produces

shifting alignments with both pulses of his right-hand trochaic dyad pairs, complicating

this metric valence.

Because of its bearing on the metric properties of the 4- and 8-cycles, the precise

nature of the prime cycle subdivision traced by Iyer’s right-hand trochaic dyads

warrants some comment. One might reasonably hear the trochaic rhythm of these dyads

as swung sixteenth notes, and thus as a fundamentally duple division of the prime cycle

that yields a measure-spanning NI 20-cycle. Alternatively, one might assert that the

rigidity of this trochaic pattern implies an underlying compound division of the prime

cycle, producing a faster, isochronous 30-cycle. There is evidence for the latter hearing:

Iyer realizes the compound subdivision in both the prechorus and chorus modules by

Example 4.9. Stages of ostinato assembly in “Imagine” (Iyer 2005a; Lennon 1971).

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uniting the pitches of the melody and accompanying dyads into biting, downward

three-note arpeggios.

However, it is important to note that the 4- and 8-cycles of Iyer’s rocking left

hand align entirely with his right hand’s trochaic pulses—in other words, if each trochee

is considered a miniature 3-beat structure, the 4- and 8-cycles always fall on beats 1 and

3, never on beat 2. These trochees thus act as a kind of MaxE metric filter for a

compound subdivision of the prime cycle. Example 4.10 details the metric implications

of these respective subdivision conceptions. If reckoned against the compound 30-cycle,

Iyer’s 4- and 8- cycles produce measure-spanning ((87)(87)) and (((35)(34))((35)(34)))

groupings. The former is MaxE and nearly isochronous; although the latter is nearly

MaxE, it ultimately displays none of the properties conventionally associated with

metric cycles. This is not a meaningful problem if the 8-cycle is heard simply as an

irregular tactus subdivision, rather than as a viable tactus itself. But if both the 4- and 8-

cycles are reckoned against the NI 20-cycle, their metric status comes into clearer focus.

The 4- and 8-cycles yield ((55)(55)) and (((23)(23))((23)(23))) groupings that are

Example 4.10. First- and second-order maximal evenness in the metric hierarchy of “Imagine” (Iyer 2005a; Lennon 1971).

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isochronous and MaxE, respectively; and the latter exhibits a clearer hierarchic

regularity familiar from standard isochronous meters, replacing alternating (35) and (34)

groupings with a single repeating (23) structure.

While this fine-grained technical reading may strike some as splitting hairs, I

suggest that it relies on an important notion of second-order maximal evenness, as shown

by the annotations on the left side of Example 4.10: Iyer’s 8-cycle is MaxE with respect to

a referential NI 20-cycle, which in turn is a MaxE grouping of the faster 30-cycle.

Outlined in a seminal scale theory publication by Clough and Douthett (1991), second-

order maximal evenness is most commonly discussed in the pitch domain, perhaps most

famously in the case of the (nearly even) major triad, which exhibits second-order

maximal evenness with the chromatic aggregate via the diatonic scale. In both the pitch 42

and rhythmic/metric domains, second-order maximal evenness allows an intervening

structure to serve as a filter that productively quantizes a more populous musical layer. 43

Although this concept is rarely applied to rhythmic or metric contexts, I suggest

the phenomenon is often implicit in discussions and notations of swung tactus

subdivisions—because the ratio between long and short durations in a swung dyad can

vary considerably, even at a steady tempo, most notation quantizes them as two equal

durations. I also suspect that many jazz listeners adopt this kind of quantization 44

subconsciously; even if an eighth-note n-cycle is subjected to an exaggerated shuffle-

swing that implies an underlying compound subdivision of the quarter-note tactus, a

In other words, the major triad is MaxE with respect to the diatonic scale, which in turn is MaxE with 42

respect to the chromatic aggregate. For an intuitive graphic representation of second-order maximal evenness, see Plotkin’s (2019) work on 43

filtered point-symmetry. While Plotkin does not explicitly apply his technical apparatus in rhythmic or metric contexts, one could easily do so.

Butterfield (2011) calls this ratio the Beat-Upbeat Ratio (BUR) and explores its expressive and energetic 44

implications in swing improvisations.

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listener will likely still perceive the first two durations of a (332) tresillo as identical,

even though, strictly speaking, the shuffle swing transforms the pattern into a (543)

rhythm.

Although treating the 20-cycle as a swung duple division clarifies the metric

valence of the ostinato’s 4- and 8-cycles, the unfolding of these NI cycles creates a

perpetual grouping dissonance against the prime cycle itself, endowing the ostinato

with an ominous instability. This portentous atmosphere is amplified by Iyer’s

significant harmonic transformation of Lennon’s original; Example 4.11 presents this

harmonic transformation in durationally simplified form, reflecting the underlying

duple framework that I argue is projected by Iyer’s asymmetric ostinato.

Example 4.11. Durationally simplified reharmonization in “Imagine” (Iyer 2005a; Lennon 1971).

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Iyer’s introductory vamp transplants the iconic I–IV shuttle of Lennon’s piano

introduction from C major into D minor, alternating between F3–A3 and G3–Bb3 dyads

atop a D pedal. For the rest of the arrangement, a similarly static D-minor environment

supplants the original’s chord progression and cloaks the aphoristic outlines of Lennon’s

melody, transposed to an F-major collection. A vaguely hopeful implication of V7/F in 45

the prechorus gives way to a resumption of the D pedal in the chorus, where the melody,

which remains at least legible in the first two modules, dissolves into such a nebulous

form that it becomes almost unrecognizable, blurring the quiet triumphalism of

Lennon’s original chorus. 46

The return of the D pedal also triggers a descending stream of inner-voice major

thirds that stretches across most of the chorus module, dissolving only in its final

measure. The pessimistic affect of this descending chromaticism contrasts sharply with

the ascending chromaticism traced by inner voices of the 𝄆 IV–V–I–III# 𝄇 progression of

Lennon’s original chorus. In the course of their descent, Iyer’s thirds imply several 47

recognizable tertian harmonies—the G6/4 in the second half of the penultimate measure

rings with particularly crystalline clarity, undergirding a hopeful melodic G4. But instead

of climbing nobly to A4 to mirror the optimistic final cadence of Lennon’s original, this

emergent strand of Lennon’s melody sinks, resigned, back to F4, while the pedal tone

momentarily sheds it ballast and rises to an equivocal Eb, choking off any hope of

This reharmonization strategy first manifests with the short chromatic line that concludes each second 45

measure of Lennon’s introduction—instead of striving upward from right-hand dyads (C: 6–#6–7), Iyer’s version gurgles up pessimistically from beneath them (d: 1–#1–2).

This melodic blurring is no doubt amplified by Iyer’s omission of the middle eight measures from 46

Lennon’s chorus. A comparison of Iyer’s (2005a) studio recording with several YouTube videos of live performances also suggests that he often varies the inner voices in the prechorus module, without meaningfully altering the section’s broader harmonic implication.

Among the most prominent of these inner voices in Lennon’s original is 𝄆 6–7–5–#5 𝄇.47

182

resolution. Paired with the persistent destabilization of the original song’s duple metric 48

hierarchy, the larger valence of Iyer’s arrangement is unmistakable. Lennon’s imagined

halcyon future is slipping away.

In the third and final analytical vignette in Part 2, I examine Iyer’s metric

transformation of another source song from the 1970s. This trio arrangement extends the

prime cycle approach from “Imagine” to a yet deeper level of the metric hierarchy by

injecting a prime 7-cycle within the span of single tactus pulses. But while it lurks deep

beneath the metric surface, this asymmetric subdivision ultimately shapes the trajectory

of the trio’s performance in a surprisingly far-reaching way.

4.2.4. Prime Cycle at the Quarter-Measure:

“The Star of a Story” (Iyer 2012c; Heatwave 1978)

Iyer’s (2012c) trio arrangement of “The Star of a Story,” originally recorded by

the disco-funk outfit Heatwave (1978), uses a rapid-fire prime 7-cycle to subdivide single

tactus pulses. This asymmetric subdivision constitutes Iyer’s only significant

transformation of the original track’s duple metric hierarchy, as shown in Example 4.12.

Iyer’s asymmetric transformation is unique in his output insofar as it preserves the

isochrony of the original track’s quadruple tactus. And while this septuple subdivision

subtly but precisely shapes many of the rhythms in the trio’s texture, Iyer’s playing also

reflects eighth- and sixteenth-note subdivisions of the quarter-note tactus that occur

independently from this septuple subdivision. But as the trio’s performance unfolds and

The chorus module’s rising bass line creates a transformed echo of the rising inner-voice line from m. 2 of 48

the reduction. Note that the bass’s arrival on F implies not a sought-after F-major sonority, but a first inversion of the inescapable D-minor tonic that quickly reasserts itself with crushing root-position force when the opening vamp returns.

183

7-cycles project across successively larger spans, it becomes clear that this initial septuple

subdivision is hardly trivial; it is, in fact, an animating force for the whole arrangement.

Example 4.13 details the dense rhythmic counterpoint of the opening vamp from

Heatwave’s (1978) original track, which also underpins the verse modules of the song’s

verse-chorus form. The drums articulate a quarter-note tactus with a fairly standard

half-time feel, with snare drum hits on beat 3 of each measure. Against this metric

ground, the Fender Rhodes traces a rotated (223333) double tresillo in straight sixteenth

notes that subdivide the quadruple tactus in 4. Other elements of the groove unfold

MaxE tresillos at two different levels of the metric hierarchy: the bass outlines the (332)

grouping in the first half of each measure, while accents in the drums’ hi-hat pattern

stretch the same grouping over entire measures. This longer tresillo is also partially

reinforced by the grouping pattern in the rhythm guitar (not shown).

Iyer’s transformation of this initial groove, shown in Example 4.14, preserves the

original’s quadruple meter, while its septuple tactus subdivision subtly but virtuosically

distorts the MaxE groupings in the bass and drums. His arrangement adopt a slightly

Example 4.12. Duple metric hierarchy and septuple prime cycle in “The Star of a Story” (Iyer 2012c; Heatwave 1978).

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faster tempo (quarter note = 100 b.p.m.); the drums preserve the original quarter-note

tactus while doubling the original half-time feel with standard snare hits on beats 2 and

4; and Iyer swings the Rhodes’s 16th-note pattern, relaxing the original’s rigid quadruple

tactus subdivision. But Gilmore’s hi-hat pattern complicates this subdivision by 49

Although precise notation of this swing isn’t feasible, it implies something close to a sextuple tactus 49

subdivision. But unlike the septuple subdivisions implied by the bass and drums, Iyer’s implied subdivision doesn’t manifest notably elsewhere in the texture, or in the arrangement writ large. For this reason, I do not consider the swing subdivision at length here, unlike in the previous discussion of “Imagine.”

Example 4.13. Grouping structures in opening vamp of “The Star of a Story” (Heatwave 1978).

Example 4.14. Transformed grouping structures in opening vamp of “The Star of a Story” (Iyer 2012c; Heatwave 1978).

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implying rapid-fire septuple subdivisions of each tactus pulse, across which he stretches

MaxE (322) grouping structures on beats 1 and 3, eschewing the drums’ measure-long

tresillos of the original track. Crump’s bass synchronizes tightly with this subdivision,

reinforcing the drums’ (322) grouping in the first beat of m. 2 and transforming the

original’s half-measure tresillo into a MaxE (545) 3-cycle in the first half of m. 1.

Although these grouping structures subtly chafe against Iyer’s swung pattern,

giving the overall texture a restless frisson, this tension dwells largely beneath the tactus

level and does not meaningfully disrupt it. When realized at performance speed, the

septuple subdivisions are almost imperceptible, and the MaxE 3-cycles in the bass and

drums are virtually indistinguishable from eighth- and quarter-note triplets. But even if

the septuple subdivision is not readily apparent to the listener, the trio’s tight

coordination suggests that this subdivision is clearly operative in the musicians’ brains

and bodies.

As is his custom with verse-chorus songs, Iyer’s arrangement largely preserves

the shape of Heatwave’s original form, while significantly lengthening the verse-based

vamp following the second chorus to clear space for improvisatory rhythmic play. Here 50

this interplay manifests as a two-minute deconstruction of the original vamp groove, in

which Iyer thematizes the septuple tactus subdivision by projecting isochronous,

rhythmic 7-cycles across both four-beat measures and four-bar hypermeasures. As

detailed in Example 4.15, the trio’s deconstruction unfolds in three stages, spurred by

changes in Iyer’s right-hand pitch patterns. As Crump’s bass drops out and Gilmore

In Chapter 3, I characterize this formal approach to creating improvisational space as a modular loop—a 50

common formal approach in jazz palimpsests of verse-chorus songs that preserve the original’s large-scale form. Iyer’s trio arrangement of “Human Nature” (Iyer 2012b; Jackson 1982) uses a virtually identical formal strategy: an extended vamp after the second chorus features a Fibonacci metric transformation that catalyzes an extended group improvisation.

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maintains a quarter-note tactus with a drastically simplified drum pattern, Iyer realizes a

four-pitch pattern in quarter-note seven-tuplets (Stage 1), projecting a rhythmic 7-cycle

across each measure. While this cycle aligns rhythmically with the underlying 4/4 meter

on each downbeat, its 4-pitch pattern repeats seven times before its first pitch (F#4)

achieves downbeat realignment, projecting an additional 7-cycle across a four-bar

hypermeasure. After the bass reenters and, together with the drums, gradually begins 51

to morph back into a variant of the original groove, Iyer synthesizes this four-against-

seven relationship, articulating a new four-pitch pattern in both swung sixteenth notes

(Stage 2) and sixteenth-note seven-tuplets (Stage 3). These repeating pitch patterns

project measure-long 4- and 7-cycles, and the latter finally realizes on the musical surface

a full 28-fold subdivision of each measure—latent in the trio’s initial groove—before

giving way to repeated climactic statements of the titular phrase of the chorus.

Heatwave’s repeating 2-bar vamp is the only formal module in the original track that is consistently 51

amenable to 4-bar hypermetric groupings. Considered in 4/4, each original verse module has 6 (4+2) measures, while the chorus modules contain 8.5 (4+3+1.5) measures. The final 1.5-measure grouping in the chorus features the song’s title in the lyrics and functions as a cadential hemiola (Biamonte 2014). Iyer’s trio performance maintains these hypermetric groupings in each module.

Start Time Stage # of 4-bar

patterns

2:11 1 6

3:07 2 2

3:26 3 2

3:44 to chorus tags >>

Example 4.15. 4- and 7-cycle projections in the vamp/breakdown following the second chorus in “The Star of a Story” (Iyer 2012c; Heatwave 1978).

187

Iyer’s large-scale septuple projections amplify the asymmetric tactus subdivision

of his initial groove, spotlighting its structural importance in his arrangement. This

procedure is analogous to a pitch motivic parallelism; just as such a parallelism

replicates a motive at multiple levels of voice-leading structure, Iyer projects a non-

trivial 7-cycle across three adjacent levels of quadruple metric hierarchy. The added

wrinkle here is that the resulting 4-against-7 juxtaposition manifests both within Iyer’s

arrangement (at the measure and hypermeasure levels), and between the arrangement

and its source (at the tactus level). Heard from this perspective, the defining element of 52

the source-palimpsest relationship in fact animates the palimpsest itself, spotlighting the

systematic creative agency that Iyer asserts in metrically transforming Heatwave’s

original.

The three analyses in Part 2 have highlighted how Iyer imaginatively reshapes

one of the most common metric transformational techniques in jazz’s standard practice

—the use of prime 5- and 7-cycles—by both projecting these cycles across various metric

spans and subjecting their subdivisions to less common groupings. Each vignette has

also briefly explored a distinct analytical or conceptual idea. In “Big Brother,” rhythmic

grouping structures take on momentary metric valence in an asymmetric meter. The

analysis of “Imagine” introduces a notion of second-order maximal evenness. And in

“The Star of a Story,” fine-grained grouping structures both subtly reshape surface

rhythms and ultimately permeate multiple levels of metric hierarchy. In Part 3, I draw

together these ideas to explore Iyer’s most distinctive and systematic method of metric

transformation.

Recall that Iyer’s sixteenth-note swing loosens the ubiquitous quadruple tactus subdivision of Heatwave’s 52

original track.

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Part 3. A Special Case: Iyer’s Fibonacci Transformations

4.3.1. Fibonacci Grouping Structures

Iyer’s most innovative procedure for metric transformations relies on the

Fibonacci series. Although these transformations produce the asymmetric meters 13/8

and 21/16 by projecting prime 13- and 21-cycles at the measure level, the

transformations are catalyzed by properties shared by a set of rhythmic grouping

structures that I call Fibonacci groupings. Iyer’s recorded output features three 53

arrangements that deploy Fibonacci transformations: his trio rendition of Ronnie

Foster’s “Mystic Brew” (Iyer 2009d; Foster 1972), and both his solo piano (2010a) and

trio (2012b) arrangements of Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature” (1982). These two

original MRPM tracks, the first of which I examine in detail below, share a common

feature that enables Iyer’s Fibonacci transformation: considered in 4/4, the harmonic

rhythm of each track forms a syncopated (35) eighth-note grouping in nearly every

measure, which the groove further subdivides into a (3(32)) tresillo—a grouping

structure that is MaxE with respect to the underlying eighth-note pulse. While these

groupings are ubiquitous in Afrodiasporic popular music, their constituent durations (2,

3, 5) are also adjacent terms in the Fibonacci series. This infinite numeric series is

represented in Example 4.16; take note of the subscript x on the bottom row of the table,

which is relevant to the formalism I develop below. 54

While 21 is a product of prime numbers (7*3) rather than a prime itself, Iyer’s projection of this 21-cycle 53

across entire measures of 21/16 is not readily conducive to metric groupings of 3 or 7; hence the cycle adheres to the definition of prime cycle outlined in Section 4.1.2. However, Iyer does project a rhythmic isochronous 7-cycle in his performance of “Mystic Brew” to facilitate a metric modulation—see Example 4.23 and the discussion in Section 4.3.3.

Terms in the series are conventionally represented with a subscript n; I use variables x, y, and z to avoid 54

confusion with my use of the variable n in the context of an n-cycle.

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The Fibonacci series manifests throughout the natural world, and it exhibits

several elegant properties, two of which underlie Iyer’s Fibonacci transformations. First,

as the series stretches on infinitely, proportions formed by adjacent terms asymptotically

approach the so-called Golden Ratio. Second, each term in the series is the sum of the

previous two; this means that any term in the series may be successively decomposed

into pairwise sums of earlier terms. In an article for The Guardian, Iyer (2009b) 55

expresses his interest in using the first of these properties as a basis for metric

transformation. From his perspective, adjacent proportions in the series share an

intuitive relationship: when realized in musical time, they feel almost the same. Thus the

(3(32)) tresillo in 4/4 meter, which is ubiquitous in both the original “Mystic Brew” and

“Human Nature” tracks, affords a Fibonacci transformation into a (5(53)) or (8(85))

grouping, which exist in measures of 13/8 and 21/16, respectively. The underlying logic

of the Fibonacci series ensures that these transformations defamiliarize the original

tresillo while retaining an audible, kinesthetic connection with it.

Iyer’s detection of this transformational affordance in a standard tresillo serves

as the foundation for a larger recursive grouping structure that governs the rhythmic

and metric language in his Fibonacci-based arrangements. To my knowledge, Iyer has

not publicly outlined this grouping structure outside of the brief and informal summary

in Iyer (2009b). As such, I leverage the series’s second, pairwise sums property to

For example, 8 = 5+3 = (3+2)+3 = ((2+1)+2)+(2+1) = 1*8.55

Fx = 0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 …

x = 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 …

Example 4.16. The Fibonacci series.

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develop some brief formalism that models the pianist’s approach to Fibonacci

transformation.

For any terms in the Fibonacci series Fx and Fy where 2 ≤ x ≤ y, the notation

Fib(Fx,Fy) represents a specific, ordered Fibonacci grouping of Fy pulses into Fx groups,

which produces a Fibonacci cycle of cardinality Fx. Fib(F2,Fy) produces the trivial grouping

(Fy) and a corresponding trivial 1-cycle, while Fib(F3,Fy) yields the non-trivial iambic

grouping ((Fy–2)(Fy–1)) and a Fibonacci 2-cycle. All subsequent increases in the subscript x

(up to y) further subdivide the largest present Fz into the trochaic grouping ((Fz–1)(Fz–2));

this subdivision continues until each group is a singleton, producing a trivial Fibonacci

Fy-cycle. 56

The recursive Fibonacci groupings produced by this process are represented

visually by the template in Example 4.17. Fibonacci groupings appear as horizontal

rows, read left to right, with their durations reckoned in numbers of unit pulses. Owing

to the pairwise sums property, the duration in any given box is the sum of the durations

In cases where Fy > 8, this cycle is frequently a measure-spanning prime cycle.56

Fibonacci Grouping Grouping Structure

Fib(1,Fy) Fy

Fib(2,Fy)Fy–2

Fy–1

Fib(3,Fy) Fy–2Fy–3

Fib(5,Fy) Fy–3Fy–4

Fy–3Fy–4

Fib(8,Fy) Fy–4 Fy–5 Fy–4 Fy–5 Fy–4 Fy–5

… …

Fib(Fy,Fy) Fy unit pulses

Example 4.17. Template for recursive Fibonacci grouping structures.

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in the two boxes directly below it. Considered in terms of the discussion from Section

4.1.1, a grouping structure and associated cycle that can be represented by a row in this

template might be said to exhibit the Fibonacci property. This property applies at the level

of individual grouping structures; it does not apply to larger equivalence classes. 57

Fibonacci groupings manifest most readily in meters containing a fast n-cycle of

cardinality Fy: 4/4 (Fy=8), 13/8 (Fy=13), or 21/16 (Fy=21). Example 4.18 outlines

Fibonacci groupings in these meters in numeric notation, while Example 4.19 details the

groupings in musical notation. Given a particular Fibonacci grouping Fib(Fx,Fy), the 58

structure can be further grouped or subdivided into another Fibonacci grouping in the

same meter by decreasing or increasing the subscript x, and it can be transformed into a

corresponding structure in another meter by changing the value of the subscript y. In a

standard measure of 4/4 (Fy=8), for example, the initial grouping Fib(2,8) produces a

syncopated (35) pattern, while Fib(3,8) subdivides this grouping into a standard (3(32))

tresillo. Corresponding Fibonacci groupings in measures of 13/18 (Fib(3,13)) and 21/16

(Fib(3,21)) then produce Iyer’s defamiliarized tresillos, while additional Fibonacci

groupings in these three meters function as iterative subdivisions of this tresillo.

Both Example 4.18 and Example 4.19 also relate these Fibonacci rhythmic

groupings to an NI quadruple tactus in 13/8 and 21/16. In each meter, this tactus groups

an underlying prime cycle into a MaxE, NI 4-cycle in which the third pulse is slightly

longer than the other three, producing ((33)(43)) and ((55)(65)) grouping structures,

While a Fibonacci transformational logic could be developed for any distribution or rotation class that 57

features group sizes derived from the Fibonacci series, the pursuit of that development here would obscure the association between Iyer’s specific Fibonacci groupings and the ordered (3(32)) tresillo, which functions as the transformation’s germinal element in Iyer’s music.

Example 4.19 also outlines an isochronous 7-cycle in 21/16, marked with *; I return to this non-Fibonacci 58

cycle below.

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Example 4.19. Recursive Fibonacci grouping structures in musical notation.

Fx of Fib(Fx,Fy)

4/4 (Fy=8) 13/8 (Fy=13) 21/16 (Fy=21)

Grouping Structures Grouping Structures Grouping Structures

23

55

88

13

3 32

53

85

5 21

21

32

32

53

53

8 1 1 1 1 1 1 21

21

21

32

32

32

13 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 21

21

21

21

21

21 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

MaxE(4,Fy) 2 2 2 2 3 3 4 3 5 5 6 5

Example 4.18. Recursive Fibonacci grouping structures in numeric notation.

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respectively. Iyer consistently projects this 4-cycle tactus in the asymmetric grooves of

his Fibonacci-based arrangements. The presence of this 4-cycle, along with its implied

nested 2-cycle, helpfully preserves two of the tresillo’s defining metric features when its

Fibonacci equivalents are realized in 13/8 or 21/16, maintaining the rhythm’s

anticipatory syncopation before beat 3 and its subsequent realignment with beat 4. But

as I suggest in the next section, the defamiliarized tresillo itself can also present a

compelling avenue for metric entrainment in these distinctive asymmetric grooves.

4.3.2. Properties of Fibonacci Groupings

Fibonacci groupings govern the rhythmic and metric language in Iyer’s Fibonacci

arrangements to a remarkably systematic degree. Owing to the recursive structure of

these groupings, many passages in these arrangements instantiate multiple, nested

Fibonacci groupings simultaneously. Fibonacci transformations into asymmetric meters

apply cleanly and consistently to Fibonacci groupings in an original track (e.g., a (35)

harmonic rhythm in 4/4 becomes (58) in 13/8). However, there is not a similarly strict

one-to-one mapping between an original song’s non-Fibonacci rhythms and Iyer’s

resulting Fibonacci transformations. The absence of this systematic mapping is simply a

pragmatic necessity—Fibonacci groupings are but a small subset of all possible rhythmic

groupings. Despite this fact, Iyer occasionally finds ways to retain subtle features of

original grouping structures when he translates them into Fibonacci form.

Example 4.20 details rhythmic grouping structures from the introduction and

chorus modules of Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature” (1982), and it compares these

groupings with their Fibonacci renderings in 13/8 in Iyer’s trio arrangement (2012b).

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The introduction of Jackson’s track, shown in the top row, pairs a syncopated Fibonacci

bass line (35) with a melodic riff that traces a non-Fibonacci, MinE rotated double tresillo

(233332). The titular phrase of the chorus, shown in the bottom row, also uses two non-

Fibonacci rhythms: the melody creates a displacement dissonance at the sixteenth-note

level (1222223), cutting across a bass line that descends in isochronous quarter notes.

While these three non-Fibonacci rhythms are quite different, they all map onto the same

Fib(5,13) grouping in Iyer’s arrangement, as shown on the right half of Example 4.20.

However, note that Iyer’s rendering of Jackson’s introduction riff uses

precipitous registral shifts to additionally imply a nesting Fib(8,13) grouping, which

subdivides each 3-grouping of Fib(5,13) into (21). Using this subdivision as a referential

standard, Iyer’s subsequent rendering of the chorus’s title statement subtly captures the

spirit of the Jackson’s original displacement dissonance by reversing the order of these

normative Fibonacci subdivisions: (21) becomes (12), as indicated with dotted boxes.

Example 4.20. Fibonacci transformations of largely non-Fibonacci rhythms in “Human Nature (Trio Extension)” (Iyer 2012b; Jackson 1982).

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Jackson’s displacement dissonance shifts a normatively isochronous stream of eighth

notes forward in time (leftward on the score) by one sixteenth note; in a similar fashion,

Iyer’s reversed subdivision rotates the normative Fib(8,13) structure leftward by one

grouping position, transforming (21221221) into (12212212).

Just as Iyer can be heard to reference the character of this non-Fibonacci grouping

dissonance across a meter change, Fibonacci groupings themselves display notable

properties that are both preserved and reshaped when the structures are transplanted

across meters. All non-trivial Fibonacci cycles are NI with respect to a fastest unit pulse,

for example, and the “tresillo” Fib(3,Fy) remains Platonic-trochaic for all values of y. A

more pervasive and interesting property, though, is maximal evenness. As suggested by

the annotations on the left side of Example 4.19, virtually every Fibonacci grouping

structure in 4/4, 13/8, and 21/16 displays either first- or second-order maximal

evenness. I suggest that this property allows Fibonacci cycles whose average IOIs fall

near the 650ms target for maximum pulse salience, to compete with the NI 4-cycle for

primary metric status in both 13/8 and 21/16.

For any Fy cycle (isochronous or otherwise), only the non-trivial Fibonacci cycles

Fib(Fy–1,Fy) and Fib(Fy–2,Fy) are MaxE with respect to the Fy-cycle; for all 1 < Fx < Fy–2,

Fib(Fx,Fy) is not MaxE with respect to this Fy-cycle. This means, for example, that while 59

a (3(32)) tresillo is MaxE in a measure of 4/4, its (5(53)) and (8(85)) counterparts in 13/8

and 21/16 technically abandon this first-order maximal evenness with respect to their

prime cycles. However, this property also implies that Fib(Fy–1,Fy) and Fib(Fy–2,Fy) may

act as MaxE rhythmic filters on the underlying prime cycle, allowing the slower

Fib(1,Fy) and Fib(Fy,Fy) are, of course, trivially MaxE.59

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Fib(Fy–3,Fy) and Fib(Fy–4,Fy) cycles to exhibit second-order maximal evenness via these

faster cycles. This phenomenon is notable because Iyer’s realizations of 13/8 and 21/16

feature tempi whose prime-cycle pulse falls beneath the 250ms floor for readily

perceptible pulse individuation. While these subdivisions, like the septuple prime 60

cycle in “The Star of a Story,” remain subtly but specifically operative for the performers

in Iyer’s arrangements, the subdivisions may not be salient for listeners, particularly in

21/16. As a result, I suggest that many listeners likely have a subconscious tendency to

assemble the pulses of these subdivisions into larger groups.

The recursive organization of Fibonacci groupings provides an intriguing venue

for such subconscious pulse assembly. The NI Fib(5,13) and Fib(8,21) cycles, for example,

are both MaxE with respect to their underlying prime cycle; the durations of their short

and long pulses both fall above the 250ms threshold; and Iyer’s trio regularly implies

them in their respective meters, even when other cycles are more prominent. As a result,

in a similar fashion to the trochaic dyads in “Imagine,” these MaxE cycles can serve as

referential cycles against which the (5(53)) and (8(85)) cycles may in turn be heard as

MaxE. In this sense, Fibonacci transformations of a standard tresillo can be heard to

preserve maximal evenness, albeit of a second order.

The concrete result that emerges from Iyer’s coupling of Fibonacci groupings

with particular tempi is that, in both 13/8 and 21/16, Fibonacci 3- and 5-cycles produce

NI pulse streams whose IOIs all fall in the optimum range for beat perception (c. 650ms),

and which exhibit a meaningful degree of first- or second-order maximal evenness.

In “Mystic Brew” (Iyer 2009d; Foster 1972), the eighth-note pulse in 13/8 has an average approximate IOI 60

of 230ms, while the IOI of the sixteenth-note pulse in 21/16 is 140ms. The trio arrangement of “Human Nature” (Iyer 2012b; Jackson 1982) is slightly faster—corresponding IOIs in 13/8 and 21/16 are 210ms and 130ms, respectively.

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Realized as they are in these unusual asymmetric meters, these ubiquitous cycles can

thus present a quasi-metric valence in Iyer’s arrangements—they provide meaningful

avenues for bodily engagement and even potential entrainment, generating palpable

groove against the underlying quadruple tactus. 61

As was the case with the momentarily isochronous grouping structures in “Big

Brother,” I emphasize this property not to suggest that all listeners will hear these cycles

as metric, but to creatively suggest why they may hear them as such. In the end, Iyer’s

Fibonacci grooves are distinctive and engaging precisely because they offer multiple

rhythmic and metric threads with which to engage at any given moment. And in the

absence of extensive improvisation or transformations in the domains of melody,

harmony, or form, it is the kaleidoscopic shifts between these pulse streams that form the

creative crux of Iyer’s arrangements. In the penultimate section of Part 3, I explore these

shifts in Iyer’s trio arrangement of “Mystic Brew (Trixation Version)” (2009; Foster 1972).

4.3.3. A Fibonacci Metric Circuit:

“Mystic Brew (Trixation Version)” (Iyer 2009d; Foster 1972)

The recorded genealogy of the song “Mystic Brew” captures in microcosm Iyer’s

desire to align his music-making with an expansive stylistic lineage that extends beyond

the boundaries of a classic acoustic jazz palimpsest canon. “Mystic Brew” was originally

composed and recorded by the jazz-funk organist Ronnie Foster on his album Two-

Headed Freap (Foster 1972). Over a repeating three-bar vamp in a modally-mixed F major,

Foster plays a blues-tinged head and extensive solo that constitute the bulk of the head-

Witek’s (2017) notion of embodied participation in groove as a bodily “filling in the gaps” left open by 61

syncopation, provides a thoughtful perspective on this assertion.

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solos-head track. Although Foster’s melody proved forgettable, his vamp earned some

staying power when it was sampled, down a whole step, by the hip-hop group A Tribe

Called Quest for their well-known track “Electric Relaxation” from Midnight Marauders

(1993). This track, in turn, has inspired numerous other samplings of this vamp. Iyer’s 62

trio rendition of “Mystic Brew” participates in this lineage, taking the lowered version of

the vamp as its starting point. Although his trio’s performance features some solo and

collective improvisation over this vamp, the centerpiece of the performance is a set of

rigorous Fibonacci transformations that complicate the vamp’s original rhythmic

grouping structure, ultimately presenting a dense, rhythmically contrapuntal texture

that affords rich bodily engagement.

Example 4.21 displays the foundational 3-bar vamp of “Mystic Brew” as Iyer

renders it, along with its constituent Fibonacci grouping structures. Against a clear 4/4

metric grid laid out by a backbeat pattern in the drums, the syncopated harmonic

rhythm in each bar traces Fib(2,8). Together with this backbeat, the bass pickup on beat

four of each measure further subdivides this grouping into Fib(3,8), implying a standard

Examples of this iterative sampling include J. Cole’s “Forbidden Fruit” (ft. Kendrick Lamar) (2013) and 62

Madlib’s “Mystic Bounce” (2003).

Example 4.21. Initial 4/4 vamp in “Mystic Brew (Trixation Version)” (Iyer 2009d; Foster 1972).

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tresillo in each measure. These nested structures are the catalyst for Iyer’s subsequent

asymmetric transformation. But absent a memorable melody or the variety of a verse-

chorus form—available to Iyer in his (2010a) and (2012b) recordings of “Human Nature”

—the metric transformations themselves take center stage.

Example 4.22. Form chart for “Mystic Brew (Trixation Version)” (Iyer 2009d; Foster 1972).

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A form chart for Iyer’s (2009d) recording appears in Example 4.22. In this

performance, Iyer’s trio makes two passes through what I call a Fibonacci metric circuit

that shifts broadly from 4/4 to 13/8 to 21/16, before returning to 4/4. Example 4.23

further details this circuit, with dotted arrows indicating the direction of motion through

the circuit’s various stages. Within both the 13/8 and 21/16 portions of the circuit, Iyer’s

playing implies two distinct stages, each of which is marked by one or more clearly-

Example 4.23. Metric circuit with characteristic pitch patterns and metric modulations in “Mystic Brew (Trixation Version)” (Iyer 2009d; Foster 1972).

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defined grouping structures. Each of these structures is associated with a relatively

consistent pitch pattern, although Iyer modestly varies these patterns throughout the

performance. The increasing density of the grouping structures in each stage of the

circuit helps to accrue musical momentum, which steadily builds throughout each

circuit, cresting in both circuits at the transition from 21/16 back to 4/4. The Fibonacci

grouping structures in each section of the circuit also facilitate the trio’s metric

modulations between the arrangement’s three meters, producing some of the most

expressively heightened moments in the trio’s performance. These modulations are

indicated next to the relevant dotted arrows on the left side of Example 4.23.

After a relatively extended loop of the initial 4/4 vamp, Iyer manages the

transition to 13/8 via a [quarter note = three eighth notes] equivalence. This equivalence

motivates an initial hearing of 13/8 as a variant of 12/8 in which the third beat is slightly

stretched, preserving the four-fold tactus from the initial 4/4 meter. A brief exploration

of the defamiliarized tresillo with serpentine right-hand lines quickly gives way to a

consistent Fib(5,13) cycle; the subsequent shortening by one sixteenth note of each of this

cycle’s constituent groupings, in turn, facilitates the shift to 21/16. The accumulating

musical energy finally reaches it apex in this third meter, when Iyer momentarily

abandons Fibonacci groupings to hammer an isochronous 7-cycle atop the 21-fold prime

cycle, recalling his similarly climactic subdivision in “The Star of a Story” (see Example

4.15). He then slightly blurs the edges of this 7-cycle to produce an isochronous 8-cycle,

which facilitates a metric modulation back to 4/4 and a subsequent ebbing of dynamic

and textural intensity.

At the conclusion of the first circuit, Iyer begins this culminating 8-cycle while

the bass and drums remain in 21/16. Just as an early melodic arrival on tonic at an

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authentic cadence amplifies the musical tension before a subsequent discharge, the trio’s

momentary metric decoupling at a climactic moment imbues their return to 4/4 with

added weight, setting their collective metric explorations into vivid relief. Yet even in

these asymmetric meters, Iyer and his bandmates manage to preserve the character of

the original quadruple tactus and tresillo that define the original vamp. The shifting but

persistent tension between these two fundamental structures animates the performance,

as the trio transports their groove-defining juxtaposition into increasingly abstract

metric environments, while simultaneously—and systematically—manifesting a host of

undeniably groovy grouping structures along the way. Owing to the elegantly organized

Fibonacci-based logic that undergirds these transformations, one might even boldly

understand these additional structures to have been latent in Foster’s initial vamp all

along.

4.3.4. Conclusion: Improvising Players, Improvising Listeners

In Iyer’s trio arrangement of “Mystic Brew,” a constantly shifting array of nesting

and cross-cutting pulse streams constitutes the lifeblood of the performance. I emphasize

this point to highlight one feature that, while often the aesthetic centerpiece of a jazz

performance, is decidedly not the focus here: one or more improvised solos. With the

exception of “Big Brother,” which assumes a standard head-solos-head format, this

generalization also applies to the other Iyer performances analyzed in this chapter—

conventional improvisation, in which a single player takes a clear melodic solo, plays

little or no role in these musical proceedings. While Iyer’s transformations of his source

materials are improvisatory in the loose sense that they subject the original songs to

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significant and imaginative variations, it is Iyer’s imagination as an innovative composer

and arranger—rather than as a real-time improviser—that seems to take center stage in

these performances.

To be sure, metric transformations in MJSP are often oriented around

conventional solos. As I suggested at the outset, just as improvising jazz musicians 63

must navigate complex harmonic spaces, asymmetric meters can provide novel temporal

spaces in which to improvise, affording both challenges and opportunities to players

and listeners alike. In his magisterial study of the relationship between composition and

improvisation, Larson (2005) uses this spatial metaphor to describe the pianist Bill

Evans’s improvisational navigation through the metric space afforded by the Thelonious

Monk tune “‘Round Midnight”:

To make such a journey through the “metric space” of [“‘Round Midnight”] with

such confidence and elegance, Evans must have known that metric space

intimately, must have internalized its possible basic rhythmic paths securely, and

must have developed many ways of traveling those paths flexibly and fluently

(Larson 2005, 257–58).

If this metaphor poetically captures the considerable skill needed to navigate a

conventional pure duple metric space, it is all the more relevant to an asymmetric meter,

whose irregularities produce a considerably more varied metric topography. Cutting a

clear and appealing pathway across this terrain requires substantial facility on the part

Such is the case with most asymmetric meters in Brad Mehldau’s output—for example, recall his epic 7/4 63

arrangement of “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” (Mehldau 2005c; Simon 1975a), analyzed in Chapter 3.

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of the improviser. From this perspective, I also suggest that Iyer’s complex metric

transformations retain a germ of improvisational spontaneity. Just as a chord

progression in a GAS referent presents an array of melodic pathways to an improviser,

the interwoven pulse cycles of Iyer’s complex grooves function as a metric-temporal

referent that presents multiple pathways across their asymmetric spaces. The real-time

navigation of these pathways by Iyer and the members of his trio, and the complex

temporal relationships that can result from these traversals, yield the dynamic verve and

spontaneity that are hallmarks of improvised jazz.

In the case of Iyer’s music especially, this improvisatory agency extends to the

listener too. If the complex grouping structures of Iyer’s grooves present multiple viable

temporal pathways, the performers are not the only musical participants deciding how

to navigate them; the listener must chart a course too. This metric cartography is hardly

trivial. It involves weighing competing pulse streams, juxtaposing original song against

palimpsest transformation and rhythm against meter, and choosing the temporal threads

to which to commit one’s ear, one’s brain, and one’s body. By investigating the metric

valence of grouping structures and tracing the retention of duple frameworks in

asymmetric grooves, I have examined in technical detail how this process might unfold

when listening both to Iyer’s music, and to MJSP’s metric transformations more

generally. But I hope that these relatively targeted investigations also suggest a larger

point: that the rhythmic and metric domains of jazz’s standard practice are replete with

complex and richly intertextual musical experiences for players and listeners alike.

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—Chapter 5—

Isn’t It Ironic?: Arranging and Improvisational Techniques

in Palimpsests by The Bad Plus

5.0.1. Introduction: A Reputation for Irony

Over the course of a career that spans two decades, the postmodern piano trio

The Bad Plus (TBP) has positioned itself on the vanguard of modern jazz’s standard

practice (MJSP) by applying a signature blend of pith and virtuosity to performances of

dozens of popular songs. In its original form (2000–17), which featured pianist Ethan 1

Iverson, bassist Reid Anderson, and drummer Dave King, TBP garnered early acclaim

for marrying roguish improvisatory sensibilities with an unflinching embrace of hard-

rock grooves and head-banging rhythmic aggression in palimpsest arrangements of

songs like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (TBP 2001b, 2003b; Nirvana 1991), “Heart of Glass”

(TBP 2003a; Blondie 1978), and “Iron Man” (TBP 2004a; Black Sabbath 1970). The trio’s 2

extensive discography features far more original compositions than covers; pianist Orrin

Evans replaced Iverson in 2018, and as of this writing the newly configured trio has only

released recordings of original material. Despite this emphasis, the original TBP’s

omnivorous engagement with modern recorded popular music (MRPM) has remained

one of the group’s calling cards—among modern jazz musicians, the total number of

I use both the noun “trio” and the acronym “TBP” flexibly as both a singular and plural nouns, to make 1

prose flow as naturally as possible. This practice parallels conventions in writing about the band more generally; in the quote from composer Darcy James Argue (2006) on the next page, for example, Argue continually shifts between singular and plural treatments. In the dissertation’s bibliography and discography, entries for The Bad Plus are alphabetized under “B”.2

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MRPM songs in the trio’s recorded output is second only to Brad Mehldau’s oeuvre, and

it features a broader range of genres and recreative approaches. 3

TBP’s palimpsests have received little scholarly attention. As is the case with

many other modern jazz musicians, the majority of the critical writing about the trio’s

music exists as reviews of records and performances, think pieces, and blog posts, some

of which are written by the musicians themselves. In contrast to other jazz musicians

who engage with MRPM, however, TBP’s approach to this music has often been viewed

as parodic or ironic by both critics and fans alike. In a 2006 review of one of the trio’s

double-bill performances alongside Jason Moran’s Bandwagon at New York City’s Blue

Note Jazz Club, composer Darcy James Argue pokes fun at this clichéd contrast, noting

that while TBP is not the only modern jazz piano trio pushing the boundaries of the jazz

canon, it seems to be the only ensemble that gets consistently ribbed for doing so:

One of the trios on this double-bill [TBP] has a reputation for being irony-steeped

hipsters who play irreverent pop covers, and who like nothing better than to

thumb their noses at the jazz tradition. The other trio [Moran’s band], while

decidedly forward-looking, has earned the respect of even the most

curmudgeonly Lincoln Center traditionalists by dint of their scholarly

seriousness and deep respect for jazz history. So … any guesses which band

ended their set last night with a cover of Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock” …?

(Argue 2006).

In addition to palimpsests of MRPM, TBP’s discography includes an album-length take on Stravinsky’s The 3

Rite of Spring (TBP 2014).

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In an extensive 2007 post on Iverson’s well-known music blog Do the Math, TBP

collectively penned an essay that argues vociferously against an ironic interpretation of

their palimpsests. The trio advocates for the inherent quality of the MRPM they play,

emphasizes the sincerity of their approach to it, and links their approach with the

broader jazz tradition of playing popular music:

With the rare exception, TBP doesn’t choose to improvise on music written from

1920 to 1965. Instead, we find it really interesting to search for ways to make

rock, pop, and electronica songs vehicles for contemporary improvisation. One

reason that this material is not “standard” is that … there simply isn’t a common

language for it … We love all the original versions of the music we cover, and

would rather listen to good rock than much of Broadway, Hollywood, and Tin

Pan Alley. It’s also what we grew up with, and what still surrounds us every day.

We believe that artists should utilize their life experience, not turn their back on it

… Irony—and its allies: surrealism, sardonicism, and dementia—do occasionally

play roles in our music, just as it does [sic] in the work of many artists we admire

… But just like with those artists, irony is just a small part of the story in The Bad

Plus. Here’s our real story: We love songs. We believe in the power of song. We

write songs as well as we can. There is not anything in TBP’s repertory that is not

based on melody, originals included. Thinking that we are not serious about the

melodies we play is incorrect (TBP 2007).

The stylistic ecumenism that TBP professes in this post echoes the general

aesthetic sensibilities of modern jazz’s standard practice. If jazz has always been

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enlivened by engagement with popular music—so the thinking goes—the creative

challenge for MJSP is not to shoehorn MRPM songs into a recognizable jazz mold with a

complex reharmonization, standard swing feel, or head-solos-head form. Instead, the

challenge is to develop a new jazz language for playing this material—to

wholeheartedly embrace these modern musical materials, leveraging their grooves,

harmonies, and (as the post emphasizes) melodies to enable new kinds of compositional

and improvisational creativity. As is clear from the output of other musicians in MJSP,

TBP is hardly alone in this approach to MRPM. But their arrangements and

improvisatory approaches sometimes seem to revel more deliberately in their putative

disconnection from mainstream jazz practice.

This disconnect, in the broadest and most basic sense, is likely why TBP’s

performances of MRPM seem ironic to some listeners—because they seem to occupy an

odd liminal space between musical practices. The trio’s wholesale importations of 4

unalloyed grooves, minimally transformed melodies, and relatively simple harmonies

from pop and rock tracks surely seem to some listeners to be out of place in a jazz piano

trio context. Conversely, one can readily imagine fans of the band’s source materials

taking considerable umbrage at their redeployment as vehicles for, say, free

improvisation reminiscent of 1960s avant-garde jazz.

This sense of stylistic incongruity is amplified by the trio’s dual penchants for

rhetorical grandeur and textural pandemonium, which often coexist within single

New York Times music critic Giovanni Russonello succinctly captures this sense of liminality in a recent 4

description of the band’s origins: “[In TBP’s early days], the music was jolting and idiosyncratic and kind of maddening, in that it didn’t directly resemble any particular influence. Where was this coming from? It didn’t sound like the new-thing jazz of the 1960s, or glam rock, or a film soundtrack, or 19th-century Impressionism, though that was all source material. This became especially striking on its covers of pop and rock tunes … the band didn’t use jazz rhythms or cocktail harmonies, but it didn’t just scale down the original songs either” (Russonello 2018).

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arrangements. To understate the issue, TBP’s music relies heavily on contrast. Iverson’s

triumphant block-chord renderings of simple melodies are unapologetically rhapsodic.

But he also regularly pushes the piano to timbral extremes, favoring gestural shape over

pitch specificity as he percussively probes the instrument’s registral limits or generates

sonic momentum with sweeping chromatic lines. Similarly, King’s drumming can break

away instantly from a deep-pocketed groove to an improvisation that loosens or even

abandons the underlying meter. The respective bombast and disarray of these

approaches, as well as the trio’s fleet-footed transitions between them, could easily be

interpreted as exaggerated or parodic—rather than earnest—creative responses to

MRPM source materials. In other words, if a palimpsest performance is a three-way

dialogue between listeners, jazz musicians, and their source materials, TBP’s deadpan

contributions often imply a wink and a nod.

The notion that musical incongruity corresponds broadly with humor has been

explored by several scholars in the music-theoretic literature. Covach (1995), for

example, draws on Schopenhauer’s and Kant’s “incongruity theory” to examine how the

musical performances in the 1983 film This is Spinal Tap deploy both blatant and subtle

stylistic mismatches to elicit laughter. Using a somewhat similar approach, Bourne 5

(2016) explores how musical incongruities can specifically manifest a sense of irony.

Building on earlier work by Hatten (1994) and London (1996), she invokes an analogy

between conversation and musical performance to argue that “musical

inappropriateness” reads specifically as irony to listeners when several conditions are

met. In addition to violating a listener’s expectation, an ironic musical phenomenon

This work is in the same vein as Covach (1990), which examines the relationship between incongruity and 5

satire in the music of The Rutles.

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must blatantly flout one or more of four maxims developed by H.P. Grice (1975) to

model the conventions that implicitly govern contributions to “cooperative” verbal

conversation. These four Gricean maxims—Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Manner—are

summarized in Example 5.1, which draws both from Bourne’s Example 1 and her

surrounding prose.

Bourne treats various musical incongruities as potential analogs for violations of

these verbal maxims. A composer might flout the maxim of Quantity, for example, by

“repeating the same musical segment or technique beyond the norm,” or by “expanding

or extending a musical phrase beyond appropriate limits” (3.3.5). A musical incongruity

like a surprising or structurally unprepared modulation may transgress the maxim of

Relation, while the Quality maxim is violated if one hears the incongruity as an

utterance the composer knows to be unconventional or “wrong.” The maxim of Manner

Gricean maxim (Grice 1975)

Summary of original definition

Generalized examples of musical violations (Bourne 2016)

QuantityContributions should be neither under- nor over-

informative

“Repeating the same musical segment or technique beyond the norm” (3.3.5)

QualityContributions should avoid

known falsehoods or assertions that lack evidence

Musical utterances that read as deliberately unconventional or “wrong”

Relation Contributions should be relevant

Musical incongruities; surprising or unusual musical shifts (e.g., an unprepared modulation)

MannerContributions should be well

organized and avoid obscurity and ambiguity

Chaotic, dense, or seemingly disorganized textures; apparently deliberate abandonment of

organizing formal principles

Example 5.1. The four Gricean maxims (Grice 1975) and generalized musical phenomena that violate them (Bourne 2016).

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can be similarly disregarded by chaotic, dense, or otherwise irregular musical textures,

or by a seemingly deliberate abandonment of organizing formal principles.

Bourne examines musical violations of these maxims in order to pinpoint sources

of perceived irony in Beethoven string quartets, drawing on theories of dialogic form

(Hepokoski and Darcy 2006), formal function (Caplin 1998), and galant schemata

(Gjerdingen 2007) to identify historically appropriate listener expectations that seem to

be purposefully undercut by Beethoven’s compositional actions. But the Gricean maxims

readily analogize to any musical contexts in which listener expectations and creative

agents can be defined with reasonable clarity. Jazz palimpsest performances are one such

context. As I argued in Chapter 2, listeners to MJSP freely hear jazz musicians’

compositional and improvisational behaviors as marked expressions of agency; and

listeners’ expectations can be reasonably reckoned against the thick specificity of the

recorded source material, as well as the broader generic and stylistic expectations that

attend both the source material and the jazz piano trio format. Bourne’s work thus

provides a basic critical frame for investigating the ironic potential of TBP’s

compositional and improvisational strategies.

In this chapter, I suggest that the two dimensions of TBP’s palimpsest approach

described by the quotes above—their reputation for irony, and their avowedly earnest

desire to use MRPM songs as vehicles for new kinds of improvisation—are

interdependent. That is, while specific aspects of TBP’s approach to arranging and

improvising over MRPM songs regularly court ironic interpretation, they also interact to

create both compelling transformational processes and dynamic improvisational spaces.

To make this argument, I posit three TBP arranging techniques that violate combinations

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of the Gricean maxims. These techniques—side-slipping, (over)extension, and parameter

shift, are summarized in Example 5.2.

In Part 1 of this chapter, I explore the first two of these techniques, using

analytical vignettes to propose ways of hearing side-slips and (over)extensions

manifesting in TBP arrangements in both blatant and subtle ways. In Part 2, I broaden

my focus to examine entire performances, concentrating on the trio’s often exaggerated

musical rhetoric and their fleet-footed shifts between performative approaches. Both

these approaches themselves, and the vertiginous shifts between them, often run afoul

TBP arranging technique Definition

Gricean maxims violated

Violation detail

Side-slipping

A half-step displacement of pitch material from a source

song (e.g., a motive, melody, chord, or

chord root)

Relation

Displacement creates indirect dissonance with source song, and potentially direct dissonance with

sounding musical environment

Quality

Displacement reads as a deliberately incorrect musical utterance—the

material is a half step “off,” and TBP knows it

(Over)extension

Extension of a cyclic subset of a

conventional pitch or rhythmic structure from a source song,

beyond the structure’s normative boundary

Relation

Overextension recontextualizes a subset’s relationship with the original structure and the surrounding musical

environment

Quantity

Actualization of cyclic potential iterates a pattern beyond its normative

boundary, repeating the cyclic idea “beyond the norm”

Parameter shift

A (sometimes drastic) change in the

coordinating musical parameters used for improvisation; often

occurs at formal boundaries

RelationDrastic shifts in performative

approach amplify discontinuities between adjacent formal modules

Manner

Limited coordinating parameters can yield seemingly disorganized textures; omission of key source song features

can read as “wrong”

Example 5.2. Three TBP arranging techniques and the Gricean maxims they violate.

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of multiple Gricean maxims. But while I acknowledge the latent potential for irony in

these TBP hallmarks, I also argue that the trio’s various performative approaches can be

understood as parameter shifts—decisions by the trio members to yoke their individual

and collective utterances to contrasting, and often deliberately limited, sets of

coordinating musical parameters. Shifts in these coordinating parameters between

musicians and across formal modules amount to changes in the way the trio treats a

MRPM source song as a referent—Pressing’s (1998) famous term for the set of structures

that “guide and aid in the production of [improvised] musical materials” (52). From this

perspective, precipitous shifts in ensemble coordination and sonic energy are not merely

droll exaggerations. They can also be heard to open creative spaces for solo and

ensemble improvisations that range from small fills to extended solos, and to construct

arrangement-spanning developmental processes that can both amplify and reconfigure

the formal rhetoric of an MRPM source song.

Part 1. Side-Slipping and (Over)extension

5.1.1. Ironic Arranging Techniques

TBP’s stylistic tendencies can be readily heard to flout various combinations of

the Gricean maxims. For some listeners, the chaotic texture of a free improvisation might

run afoul of the maxim of Manner; anchoring that improvisation to a breezy new-wave

melody might transgress the maxim of Relation; and the exaggerated bombast of a

typical TBP climax might violate the Quantity maxim. Indeed, in spite of the trio’s

insistence to the contrary, TBP’s typical approach to MRPM could easily be understood

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as a violation of the Quality maxim, as if the trio were saying: “We know, we know(!),

playing this music, in this way, is wrong.”

TBP’s arrangements also contribute to such sweeping evaluations by

transforming their source materials with two interrelated techniques that flout the

Gricean maxims in more targeted ways. These techniques—side-slipping and

(over)extension—are primarily compositional rather than improvisational. That is, they

address ways in which TBP alters their source materials in their relatively fixed

arrangements, rather than in the trio’s improvisations within these arrangements. In

their most blatant forms, both techniques can be easily understood to flout the maxim of

Relation; side-slipping additionally disregards Quality, while (over)extension disregards

Quantity. But these techniques can also insinuate themselves deeply into the structure of

TBP’s arrangements, producing subtler effects in which a sense of irony is not

necessarily primary.

In the following two sections, I define these techniques and explore their various

manifestations and interrelations with analytical vignettes. My analytical approach here,

as elsewhere, is more technical and interpretive than it is explanatory. In other words,

my primary goal is not to explain why particular musical phenomena are necessarily

ironic, but rather to creatively probe the links between basic transformational techniques

that could be heard as ironic, and both small- and large-scale aspects of musical structure.

In this sense, my analyses align more closely with Temperley’s (2001) notion of

prescriptive, rather than descriptive, music theory—they seek not to pinpoint how one

hears, but instead to suggest how one might hear, TBP’s music. This approach thus

echoes a broad aesthetic tenet of both TBP’s approach and MJSP writ large, offering what

I hope are creative ways to hear and relate to these jazz palimpsest performances.

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5.1.2. Side-Slipping

As conventionally understood by jazz musicians, side-slipping is a technique in

which an improviser shifts normatively consonant or diatonic material up or down by

half step, creating momentary dissonance with some underlying pitch material. A

common strategy for playing “outside” a given set of chord changes, the concept is

commonplace in jazz performance circles and appears in numerous jazz pedagogical

texts, as well as in several music-analytic studies of improvised solos. Side-slips can be 6

applied to solo melodic lines, surface reharmonizations of structural harmonic

progressions, or both, and they may or may not juxtapose a transformed figure with its

diatonic equivalent. But in all cases, the sense that side-slipped material is a half step 7

away from where it should be—or where an informed listener might expect it to be—

generates musical tension.

In addition to featuring regularly in Iverson’s improvisations, side-slips appear

in many of TBP’s arrangements of MRPM. That is, composed (or at least preplanned)

elements of their performances often read as being a half step off. These half-step

displacements manifest in a variety of forms, and at various levels of structure. As an

introductory example, consider the paired side-slips that frame the trio’s arrangement of

The glossary of Liebman (1991, 217) attributes the origin of the term “side-slip” to Coker (1997, 50), who 6

situates the phenomenon primarily in modal contexts: “Modal tunes afford the opportunity to play in contrast to the given chord/scale, deliberately working phrases into the solo which are deliberately out-of-key, for purposes of creating dissonant tension in places. This is called side-slipping, so named because the player will usually play a side-slip with the same phrase that occurs just before and/or after the side-slip, but the side-slip phrase will be juxtaposed against the key, usually a half-step higher or lower than the right place, creating an effect reminiscent of a turntable or tape machine that is not running at a consistent speed.” Among pedagogical texts, Baker (1990, 117–18) and Terefenko (2018a, 315) also mention the phenomenon in passing; the latter calls it “sidestepping.” Scholarly analyses of solos that invoke side-slipping include Cook (2012), McClimon (2016), and Morgan (2000). A common example of a harmonic side-slip that juxtaposes diatonic and transformed versions of a 7

progression is an elaboration of a standard ii–V–I, in which a diatonic ii–V is rhythmically compressed and preceded by a side-slipped version a half step higher: |Dm7|G7|CM7| becomes |Ebm7 Ab7|Dm7 G7|CM7|.

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“Smells Like Teen Spirit” (TBP 2003b; Nirvana 1991), shown in Example 5.3. Atop the

looping F-minor 1–4–3–6 bass line in the song’s introduction, Iverson hammers out the

original’s iconic perfect-fourth motive, first as C4–F4, then down a half step as B3–E4.

While this opening gesture goes structurally unremarked upon for the bulk of the trio’s

arrangement, it returns in magnified form when the band suddenly downshifts the final

tonic harmony, concluding the arrangement on an unexpected E-minor chord. 8

Both of these side-slips employ a generic statement-repetition model, which

juxtaposes normative and transposed versions of the same material. But the two side-

slips generate tension in different ways. The opening side-slip produces both direct

tension with the simultaneously sounding F-minor tonality, and indirect tension with

the diatonic form of the motive from Nirvana’s original. By contrast, this sounding

dissonance is absent from the concluding gesture, which produces only indirect tension

by chafing against some combination of the corresponding conclusion of Nirvana’s track

(which ends on F minor), the imposing monotonality of both that track and TBP’s

TBP’s earlier recording of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (TBP 2001b; Nirvana 1991) also includes these 8

bookending side-slips, suggesting they are a consistent feature of the trio’s arrangement.

Example 5.3. Paired side-slips in “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (TBP 2003b; Nirvana 1991)

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arrangement, and the broader generic expectations of an informed listener, for whom the

displaced final tonic is almost certainly a surprise. This basic distinction between direct

and indirect tension recalls Krebs’s (1999) contrast between direct and indirect grouping

dissonances in the metric domain. But because the opening side-slip generates both 9

direct and indirect tension, the distinction between the two forms here is generally

hierarchical rather than mutually exclusive. While indirect tension, by definition, is

devoid of direct dissonance, direct tension usually also involves some element of

indirect tension. 10

Expanding on the bookending technique in “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” the

endings of some TBP arrangements bypass a conventional tonic altogether, replacing it

with a side-slipped version that usually connects cleverly with other features of the

arrangement or the source song itself. The final module of “Velouria” (TBP 2004b; Pixies

1990) appears on the topmost stave of Example 5.4. This module winds to a close by

repeating material from the lone prechorus of the Pixies’ original, which undergirds a

Gb-major pentatonic melody with a prolonged Cb -major subdominant harmony. TBP

concludes this module with a 6–7–1–2 rising melodic line—this time loosely derived

from the last measure of the Pixies’ chorus, shown on the lower stave—that strongly

signals a plagal resolution. But this resolution is undercut by the appearance of a side-

slipped tonic F-major (VII) chord, shown in a dotted box.

For Krebs, direct metric dissonances occur between conflicting grouping structures that sound 9

simultaneously, while indirect dissonances occur when these conflicting structures sound successively (e.g., in different formal sections), rather than simultaneously.

This is true even in side-slips which rely almost exclusively on direct dissonance. In the introductory 10

vamp of “Games Without Frontiers” (TBP 2016b; Peter Gabriel 1980), for example, Iverson subjects the track’s titular triadic motive to a synchronous side-slip by realizing it in parallel minor ninths [0:00–0:16]. This jarring direct dissonance, reminiscent of the playing of pianist Thelonious Monk, can also be heard to yield indirect tension with the original’s motive by critically defamiliarizing it. For a thoughtful examination of Monk’s dissonance usage, see Feurzeig (2011).

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This unexpected harmony bookends the Pixies’ chorus. As shown on the lower

stave in Example 5.4, the chorus’s oscillating I and IV harmonies in Gb major are

consistently approached from a half step below with embellishing harmonies

(F–Gb; Bb–Cb). In its original role as a transition to the chorus, the extended subdominant

of the Pixies’ prechorus module thus leads directly to the chorus’s initial embellishing F-

major harmony. The chorus’s final F-major chord and rising melodic line also tonicize

the opening Bb-minor harmony of the ensuing verse. In TBP’s arrangement, whether one

takes their cue from this final rising line or the prechorus material that precedes it, the

sensation is the same: by concluding on a side-slipped tonic, TBP stops just short of an

expected resolution.

TBP’s arrangement of Barry Manilow’s “Mandy” (TBP 2016d; Manilow 1974)

uses a related approach. Like Manilow’s track, the trio’s ballad arrangement is largely in

Bb major, with a concluding pump-up modulation by whole step. But while Iverson’s

piano introduction mimics Manilow’s almost exactly, he renders this introduction in Cb

major [0:00–0:22]—a half step higher than Manilow’s track—before downshifting to Bb

Example 5.4. Origins of concluding harmonic side-slip in “Velouria” (TBP 2004b; Pixies 1990).

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major for the first verse [0:22–0:25]. This opening side-slip is mirrored in the coda, where

the final dominant in C major is followed by an abrupt Db-major chord [5:50–6:00]. To be

sure, a concluding deceptive resolution to bII is far more common in jazz performance

than the oddball final VII chord of “Velouria.” Juxtaposed with the Cb-major

introduction, however, the side-slipped tonic ending of “Mandy” frames Manilow’s

original key scheme (Bb–C) with a second, side-slipped pair of whole-step-related keys

(Cb–Db), setting Manilow’s original key scheme at a kind of liminal harmonic remove.

In contrast to the purely indirect tension of these opening and closing gestures,

many of the trio’s side-slips produce subtle blends of direct and indirect tension.

Example 5.5 details the trio’s transformation of the postchorus bass line of “Knowing

Me, Knowing You” (TBP 2001a; ABBA 1976). TBP infuses the original’s rising line with

additional chromaticism by shortening each pitch in mm. 2–4 by one beat, clearing

metric space for the addition of an implied V6/5/V in the second half of m. 3. This 11

rising line gathers steam across the notated repeat, displacing the original’s downbeat

In this and all subsequent examples, measure numbers refer to the notated example.11

Example 5.5. Side-slipped bass root in the postchorus of “Knowing Me, Knowing You” (TBP 2001a; ABBA 1976).

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tonic arrival to beat 3 of m. 1 with an implied mode-mixture Aeolian cadence. But 12

while Iverson’s right hand completes the cadence by arriving on an open-fifth tonic

voicing, the bass line stops short on 7, side-slipping the tonic root. This foreshortening

simultaneously undercuts the powerful expectation generated by the rising bass line (cf.

the rising melodic line in “Velouria”), robs the postchorus of a root-position tonic anchor,

and produces a piquant minor-ninth dissonance with Iverson’s right-hand voicing.

The side-slipped root of the tonic harmony in Example 5.5 essentially produces a

third-inversion major-seventh chord, albeit without the chordal third in this case.

Remaining in the world of late-1970s European pop, the second half of the chorus

module in TBP’s “How Deep Is Your Love” (TBP and Lewis 2009b; Bee Gees 1977) pairs

extensive use of these inverted sonorities with another rising bass line. This track 13

comes from TBP’s 2009 record For All I Care, the lone album in the trio’s catalog that

features a singer, Minnesota-based rock vocalist Wendy Lewis. Example 5.6 details TBP’s

reharmonization of the Bee Gees’ original chords using a two-stage substitution

process. The first stage (labeled “intermediate”) uses common tritone-swap and 14

relative-major harmonic substitution techniques to uniformly replace the harmonies in

mm. 1, 3, and 5 with major-seventh chords. TBP’s actual progression (also realized in 15

pitches on the lower staff) then systematically subjects these major-seventh chords to

As conventionally understood, an Aeolian cadence involves the harmonic motion bVI–bVII–[i or I]. For 12

further discussion, see Biamonte (2010, 101–5) and Everett (2008, 154–58). In TBP’s arrangement, Iverson adheres to the Bee Gees’ harmonies in the first four measures of each 13

chorus module, as Anderson tenderly bows the melody [e.g., 1:11–1:27]. This two-stage substitution analysis owes a conceptual debt to Waters (2019), who makes extensive use of 14

multi-stage substitutions to uncover suppressed harmonic function or melodic-harmonic parallels in postbop harmonic progressions.

For the definitive survey of harmonic substitution techniques in tonal jazz, including relative and tritone 15

substitutions, see Strunk (1979). The change in seventh-chord quality that accompanies the tritone substitution here (dominant-seventh to major-seventh) is more emblematic of a postbop approach, which commonly enervates harmonic function by removing one of the shared tendency tones that traditionally animate this substitution. For more discussion of this phenomenon, see Waters (2016, 2019) and Chapter 3.

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inversion, yielding apparent triads with side-slipped roots. This side-slip effect is

intensified by the pairing of the first two chords with their root-position counterparts in

mm. 2 and 4, producing a pair of voice-exchanges that sound as though the ascending

bass line is sluggishly lagging behind the harmonic changes. But the progression’s final

harmony subtly reverses the magnetism of this process. Rather than moving up by half

step to produce a root-position chord in m. 6, the side-slipped bass A# in m. 5 ties across

the bar line, instead pulling the upper voices down by half step to conclude the

progression with a root-position A#-major triad. This final chord functions as a slide

transformation of the original’s cadential iv chord, reimagining the Bee Gees’

conventional ii7–iv harmonization of an underlying 6–b6 melodic motion. 16

Turning to melodic side-slips, “Don’t Dream It’s Over” (TBP 2016a; Crowded

House 1986) employs a disguised statement-repetition technique in which a side-slipped

melodic figure both precedes its normative form and receives its own harmonization.

The trio’s arrangement begins with a brief but unusual passage, shown in Example 5.7,

Strunk (1979) lumps such conventional harmonizations ([ii7 or IVM7]–[iiø7 or iv7]) of this melodic pattern 16

into the category of “subdominant modal intensification.”

Example 5.6. Harmonic origins of side-slipped bass roots in the chorus of “How Deep Is Your Love” (TBP and Lewis 2009b; Bee Gees 1977).

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whose initial whole tone-inflected chords imply a harmonic universe far removed from

the ensuing Eb-major verse. Although the passage soon wends its way to a cadence on

the G-major triad that figures prominently in these verse modules, variations of the

same material intrude throughout the arrangement as harmonic and formal non-

sequiturs, interrupting otherwise faithful renderings of the original’s harmony and

melody. 17

The primary rhetorical function of these interpolations is simply to amplify the

harmonic markedness of the verse’s G-major chord, which is perhaps the track’s most

unusual feature. But TBP’s initial juxtaposition of this passage with the verse melody 18

also suggests the passage’s potential origin as a reharmonized melodic side-slip. As 19

illustrated in Example 5.7, the top line of Iverson’s initial voicings (which he subtly

varies in subsequent statements) traces a half-step transposition of the verse melody’s

This introductory passage consistently precedes the trio’s arrival on the G-major chord that concludes 17

every four-bar phrase in the verse modules [e.g., 0:45–1:00], while its B–E–G structural bass motion reharmonizes the coda, undercutting the original’s Eb-major rotated doo-wop progression with an unnerving tonicization of EmM7 [e.g., 4:12–4:23]. A related interpolation of a single B-minor chord also occurs in the first chorus [2:04–2:10].

Compare the similarly marked, unresolved V/vi in Franz Schubert’s Moment musical in Ab major, Op. 94, 18

No. 6—a harmony whose unresolved leading tone, in Cone’s (1982) famous accounting, gradually insinuates itself into the structure of the piece as a whole.

Recall that “Mandy” (2016; Manilow 1974) also begins with an introduction that is a half step too high, 19

only to downshift into the “correct” key at the onset of the first verse module.

Example 5.7. Melodic side-slip origin of recurring harmonic interpolation in “Don’t Dream It’s Over” (TBP 2016a; Crowded House 1986).

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initial ascending contour. (Iverson alludes to this relationship by using the same register

and similar voicings for the first chord of both the introduction and initial verse.) This

melodic side-slip receives its own harmonization, and it never generates direct

dissonance against the Eb-major tonality of the verses. But this harmonic support quickly

takes on a life of its own, disconnecting from its melodic origins and becoming a

primary source of indirect tension throughout the trio’s arrangement.

TBP’s “Comfortably Numb” (TBP and Lewis 2009a; Pink Floyd 1979), which

again features Wendy Lewis, provides another example of a diatonic melody side-

slipping into the chromatic cracks. As shown in Example 5.8, Lewis eschews Roger

Waters’s original Sprechstimme melodic delivery, instead beginning the first verse by

tracing stark parallel fifths (B–F# to A–E) with Anderson’s descending B-Aeolian bass

line. Example 5.9 transcribes Iverson’s playing in the subsequent Verse 2 module that

functions as a brief instrumental interlude. Here Iverson quietly maintains these parallel

fifths in his left hand while seeming to reference Waters’s pitch-indeterminacy by

subjecting the melody to grating half-step displacements downward, then upward.

Example 5.8. Melody-bass counterpoint in Verse 1 of “Comfortably Numb” (TBP and Lewis 2009a; Pink Floyd 1979).

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While these side-slipped melodic lines form quiet direct dissonances with the bass line

and Iverson’s left-hand voicings, they also foment considerable indirect tension against a

prototypically diatonic version of the song’s melody, epitomized earlier in the

performance by Lewis’s stark delivery. 20

Filtered through the lens of Bourne’s (2016) model of musical irony, the side-slips

explored above can be readily heard to flout the Gricean maxims of Relation and

Quality. The term “side-slip” itself suggests a relational incongruity, in much the same

way a “deceptive” cadence does. Both direct and indirect tensions derive their potency 21

from this incongruity, whether through sounding dissonances or departures from

established expectations. And more often than not, these half-step displacements read as

musical utterances that are intentionally “incorrect,” thus violating the Quality maxim.

The trio knows these side-slips are “wrong”—that’s the point.

This pitch-determinate version of the melody often appears in published sheet music for “Comfortably 20

Numb,” including in several books of piano-vocal arrangements of tracks from The Wall (1979). Bourne (2016, 3.3.1) cites London’s (1996, 59) connection between a deceptive cadence and the maxim of 21

Relation.

Example 5.9. Iverson’s melodic side-slips in Verse 2 (Interlude) of “Comfortably Numb” (TBP and Lewis 2009a; Pink Floyd 1979).

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5.1.3. (Over)extension

In the piano interlude of TBP’s “Comfortably Numb,” the tension of Iverson’s

side-slipped melody also stems from its transgression of the B-Aeolian collection that

furnishes the verse’s melody, harmony, and bass line. Rather than remaining within that

collection, Iverson extrapolates a latent whole-tone quality from the first three pitches of

the descending bass line (B–A–G) by completing a WT1 collection with his meandering

melody, which begins by outlining an F–D#–C# descent. Example 5.10 graphically

summarizes this approach. The pianist’s commitment to melodic side-slipping remains

evident as the melody progresses—his final melodic cadence (m. 15 of Example 5.9)

avoids the C# from the WT1 collection in favor of C-natural, which produces another

characteristic minor-ninth dissonance with the bass. But his scalar recontextualization of

the descending bass line also points to a second general strategy that TPB uses in several

of their palimpsest arrangements. I call this strategy overextension.

Example 5.10. Iverson’s melodic side-slip as whole-tone overextension in Verse 2 (Interlude) of “Comfortably

Numb” (TBP and Lewis 2009a; Pink Floyd 1979).

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The heading of this section encloses the first portion of this term in parentheses:

(over)extension. These parentheses indicate two related techniques that can be applied

separately or successively. An extension iterates an existing musical pattern beyond a

boundary established by the source material, without meaningfully transforming the

logic of the underlying structure from which the pattern derives. In a C-major context,

for example, an original diatonic melody C–D–E might be extended to C–D–E–F–G. By

contrast, an overextension detects latent cyclic potential in some portion of the structure

itself, and actualizes this potential by extending the cyclic subset beyond the original

structure’s normative boundaries. In the earlier C-major context, the original diatonic 22

melody might be overextended to C–D–E–F#–G#.

Both techniques can apply across pitch and rhythmic domains, and their notions

of subset and musical structure are deliberately flexible, encompassing music-theoretic

notions like scales, key areas, or rhythmic grouping structures. In each of these cases, the

notion of musical affordance (discussed in Chapter 2) provides a useful perspective. In

an overextension, a creative musician detects a new or expanded use for an existing

musical structure or some subset thereof. This new use defamiliarizes the function of the

structure in its original context, flouting the maxim of Relation. And in both extensions

and overextensions, a pattern’s iteration beyond its original context is a textbook

While the overextension is necessarily cyclic, the original structure whose subset is overextended is 22

usually not cyclic; and if the original structure is cyclic (or could be construed as such), it must not deploy the same cyclic patterning as the overextension. A diatonic collection, for example, can be produced cyclically via an ic5 cycle or an alternating ic3/ic4 cycle. But neither of these cycles directly links the pitches of the collection’s whole-tone subsets in a contiguous ic2 cycle.

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violation of the Quantity maxim—recall that Bourne (2016) notes that such violations

often “[repeat] the same musical segment or technique beyond the norm” (3.3.5). 23

TBP’s arrangements often extend otherwise limited patterns of key succession

from their source materials. Consider the coda of “Mandy” (TBP 2016d; Manilow 1974).

As described in the previous section, Manilow’s original features a pump-up

modulation by whole-step from Bb major to C major for the final chorus [2:35–2:48], and

the subsequent coda triumphantly repeats a four-measure doo-wop progression before

fading out [3:00-3:33]. Prior to its side-slipped Db-major ending, TBP’s corresponding

coda extends this modulatory scheme, compressing the original progression to three

measures and sequencing it through a complete whole-tone cycle of major keys

(C–D–E–F#–Ab–Bb–C) using the pivot-chord scheme outlined in Example 5.11. This

modulatory cycle is accompanied by marked fluctuations in tempo, volume, and density

of rhythmic attacks, which build with each subsequent transposition, finally ebbing

upon the return to C major.

In an extension, the “norm” is established primarily by the source material; in an overextension, this norm 23

is established by both the source material and the governing logic of the original structure (e.g., a diatonic collection).

Example 5.11. Extended modulatory scheme in the coda of “Mandy” (TBP 2016d; Manilow 1974).

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While TBP’s pairing of key-area extension with exaggerated sonic rhetoric in

“Mandy” reads as a wry commentary on the potential excess of pump-up modulations,

similar pairings produce subtler parodic effects in other arrangements. The trio’s

arrangement of Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line” (TBP 2016c; Cash 1957) applies

hyperbolic tempo variations to an asymmetric transformation of Cash’s original groove

that introduces a slight metric hitch on beat two. This whimsical metric approach

accompanies a capricious extension of Cash’s original transposition scheme. While

Cash’s verses famously move through a symmetrical series of ic5-related major keys

(F–Bb–Eb–Bb–F), TBP’s verses extend this transposition cycle to Ab major while

preserving the original song’s key-area symmetry by returning to F major in a brief coda

(F–Bb–Eb–Ab–Eb–Bb–F). 24

In the pitch domain, Iverson’s initial melodic statement from “Everybody Wants

to Rule the World” (TBP 2007; Tears For Fears 1985), shown in Example 5.12, subjects the

original melody to successive diatonic extension and whole-tone overextension.

Summach (2011) characterizes the larger form of this material as a 16-measure sentential

strophe with an srdc structure (Everett 1999). In the original track (shown transposed on

the top stave of Example 5.12), the repeating melodic motive of sr continually feints

toward a melodic descent over a tonic pedal. But it ultimately holds steady across both

sr and the quickened harmonic rhythm of d, only making a pentatonic descent to tonic at

Cash recorded “I Walk the Line” five times throughout his career: these recordings appear on the albums 24

Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar! (1957), I Walk the Line (1964), At San Quentin (1969), the soundtrack for the movie I Walk the Line (1970), and Classic Cash: Hall of Fame Series (1988). Cash’s symmetrical key scheme beginning in F major appears on all of these recordings except the 1970 soundtrack.

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the authentic cadence in c (not shown). By contrast, TBP’s (transposed ) rendering of 25 26

the sr melody immediately seizes on this feint toward descent, shifting the motive down

by whole step with each repetition. Rigid adherence to this transposition scheme

eventually forces the motive beyond the confines of the tonic Ab-major collection at the

end of sr when the melody sinks to Cb4, coloring the tonic pedal with a striking AbmM7

harmony. Iverson’s tossed-off concluding A3 confirms the whole-tone overextension 27

strategy.

After two statements of this sentential strophe, TBP’s arrangement moves into an 8-measure bridge 25

module [2:13–2:37] whose melody is reminiscent of a standard tune, and whose harmonic progression (G7(#11b9)–Cm6–FmM7–Bb13) transits around the circle of fifths in a style reminiscent of the bridge of a so-called “rhythm changes” tune. This material is seemingly newly composed—in an informal poll of some jazz colleagues, none recognized the tune. To my ear, this progression’s strong tonicization of an unrealized Eb-major tonic cleverly references the (approximate) tonic of the original Tears For Fears track. Additionally, I suggest that this bridge serves to cleverly (and retrospectively) highlight the structural similarities between the 16-measure strophes of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” and the 8-measure A sections of many rhythm changes tunes. The melodies of these tunes are often sentential, and their structural harmonies adhere to the same hypermetric pacing as the Tears For Fears track: 8 (4) measures of tonic prolongation followed by 6 (3) measures of directed motion toward a cadence, with resolution to tonic on the downbeat of the 15th (8th) measure.

The key of the original Tears For Fears (1985) track is in the cracks between D major and Eb major. While 26

TBP’s arrangement is squarely in Ab major, their performance begins with a tongue-in-cheek reference to this thick feature of the original recording, as Anderson seems to tune his bass to the opening Ab tonic pedal with an upward glissando.

As a compensatory gesture, the bass line in c subsequently undercuts the strophe’s concluding authentic 27

cadence with a small octatonic overextension, continuing the ascending whole-step/half-step pattern of 2–3–4–5 to arrive deceptively on b6, which supports a harmony of indeterminate quality [1:02–1:12].

Example 5.12. Melodic (over)extension in “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” (TBP 2007; Tears for Fears 1985).

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As a final and more thorough analysis, consider TBP’s arrangement of Cyndi

Lauper’s pop hit “Time After Time” (TBP 2016e; Lauper 1983). This analysis explores the

arrangement-spanning impact of (over)extensions in both pitch and rhythmic/metric

domains; it also serves as a fitting transition to the discussion of other entire TBP

arrangements in Part 2. 28

The lyrics of Lauper’s (1983) track depict a song persona who reassures a lover of

her presence, despite their physical and temporal distance. These lyrics make numerous

references to the double entendre of the song’s title—the lovers seem to repeatedly fall

out of sync with one another, only to realign again and again. This image of shifting

temporal alignment, although present only intertextually in TBP’s instrumental

arrangement, clearly and specifically animates the trio’s rendering. The arrangement’s

central conceit is a rhythmic overextension, which creates a perpetual metric conflict

with the underlying duple meter. This overextension gradually infiltrates successively

higher (i.e., slower) levels of the hypermetric hierarchy, ultimately combining with a

process of pitch (over)extension to produce the bass line that facilitates the

arrangement’s primary solo section in Interlude 2. 29

Example 5.13 is a detailed form chart that compares Lauper’s track and TBP’s

arrangement. The chart also highlights references to temporality and asynchrony in

Lauper’s lyrics, and it details the rhythmic patterns used in each module by what I call

the three streams of TBP’s arrangement: the melody and bass lines, both of which are

Miles Davis’s (1985) notoriously faithful recording of “Time After Time,” discussed in Chapter 2 (with 28

reference to Solis 2010), surely looms large in any jazz listener’s hearing of TBP’s comparatively extensive deconstruction.

Because Interlude 2 functions as a transformation of Lauper’s verse module, this solo section constitutes 29

what I call a modular loop in Chapter 3—repetition of a module that also embeds within a larger formal design.

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occasionally harmonized with an additional contrapuntal line; and King’s drum part,

which consistently maintains a half-time backbeat feel with snare hits on beat 3 of every

cut-time measure. As the chart makes clear, TBP’s arrangement preserves Lauper’s 30

form, with the exception of its first interlude, which is not present in Lauper’s track. This

and a second interlude function as solo sections for Iverson’s right hand, indicated by

shaded gray boxes in the Melody column. While the arrangement also largely preserves

Lauper’s melody and basic harmonies, it exaggerates the contrasts between formal

These three streams do not correspond precisely with the three trio members—Iverson often splits the 30

melody and bass line streams between his right and left hands. This notion of a musical “stream” in jazz performance comes from work by Michaelsen (2013, 2019), who traces the concept to Bregman’s (1990) auditory scene analysis.

FORM

REFERENCES TO TEMPORALALITY AND ASYNCHRONY IN LAUPER’S LYRICS

TBP RHYTHMIC/METRIC PATTERNS

ModuleLauper

Start Time

TBP Start Time

Melody Bass Line Drums

Verse 1 0:15 0:00 … I hear the clock tick … 3-cyclehalf-time (nesting 2-cycles,

up to measure

level)

Prechorus 1 0:30 0:28 … warm nights almost left behind … time after … original 5-cycle

Verse 2 0:42 0:44 … I’m walking too far ahead … 3-cycle

Prechorus 2 0:57 1:43 … “Go slow”; I fall behind … the second hand unwinds … original 5-cycle

Chorus 1 1:08 1:23 … time after time …9/8

original 3-cycle half-time

Interlude 1 [TBP only] 1:54 N/A free 3-cycle

half-timeVerse 3 1:52 2:13 3-cycle

Prechorus 3 2:07 2:38 … the drum beats out of time … original 5-cycle

Chorus 2 2:18 2:51 … time after time …9/8

original 3-cycle half-time

Interlude 2 2:32 3:23 N/A free 3-cyclehalf-time

Prechorus 4 2:49 5:19 [prechorus 2] original 5-cycle

Chorus 3 2:59 5:32 … time after time …9/8

original 3-cycle half-time

Example 5.13. Comparative form chart, lyric themes, and TBP rhythmic/metric patterns in “Time After Time” (TBP 2016e; Lauper 1983).

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modules with shifting juxtapositions of quasi-metric pulse cycles that continually set

time against time.

Measured in eighth notes, the melody and harmony of Lauper’s verse modules

outline a syncopated (3(23)) rhythm in nearly every cut-time measure. The verse

modules of TBP’s arrangement (transcribed in Example 5.14) liberate the generative

impulse of the truncated 3-cycle in this rotated tresillo rhythm, overextending it to

establish two competing pulse streams. Against King’s half-time feel in the drums,

Iverson unfolds the pitch content of Lauper’s melody in a rigid rhythmic 3-cycle. This

melody synchronizes with a tirelessly repeating six-note bass ostinato, played by both

Anderson and Iverson’s left hand. The pitch content of this bass ostinato cleverly

reimagines the original’s tonic pedal by inverting an initial gestural shape from the

melody. Just as the melody’s opening gambit follows an ascending C4–E4 skip with

descending gap-fill back to C4, the bass ostinato prolongs C major with an initial

Example 5.14. Competing pulse streams in verse modules of “Time After Time” (TBP 2016e; Lauper 1983).

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descending leap from C to E, followed by ascending gap-fill whose return to C initiates

another repetition of the pattern.

The slower 3-cycle pulse projected by these paired melody and bass lines chafes

against the duple groupings of King’s drums, aligning with his downbeats only once

every three measures (marked with * in Example 5.14 and subsequent examples). This

fact forces the melody to pause after its first complete statement in order to regain its

initial downbeat alignment with the bass. And even when the melody achieves this

realignment, its melodic repetition pairs with different pitches of the bass ostinato. This

pairing produces different harmonies between the melody’s initial pair of identical

phrases, especially when Iverson adds a contrapuntal inner voice to the texture in the

second verse module (shown in this and subsequent examples with smaller noteheads).

Just like the characters in Lauper’s lyrics, the streams of TBP’s trio texture are temporally

and harmonically out of sync from the very start.

Similar kinds of lyric parallels shape the prechorus and chorus modules. 31

Example 5.15 displays TBP’s transformation of Lauper’s prechorus, in which her lyrics

most explicitly address the issue of temporal asynchrony (see the lyric excerpts in

Example 5.13). In TBP’s arrangement, a new three-note bass ostinato more directly

parrots Lauper’s two-bar chord loop (C: IV V | iii IV). But the ostinato’s adoption of a

slower rhythmic 5-cycle forces it to fall behind the melody, which abandons its previous

cyclic rigidity and cleaves to Lauper’s original. The bass ostinato’s only downbeat 32

onsets occur in the first and last measures of Example 5.15; these bass patterns combine

I emphasize that these parallels are general only; the song persona and her lover are not each consistently 31

represented by the same streams in the musical texture. The bass-melody rhythmic disjunction here produces an effect similar to the bass line’s harmonic lag in 32

the chorus of “How Deep is Your Love” (Example 5.6).

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with the melody’s (35) rhythms to bookend the module with the ubiquitous (323)

grouping structures from Lauper’s verses, amplifying the sense that melody and bass

are continually shifting in and out of alignment.

Example 5.16 displays the trio’s off-kilter chorus modules. Just as Lauper’s song

persona rejoins her lover in the first half of each line of chorus lyrics, TBP’s

corresponding 9/8 bars mark the only periods of sustained metric alignment for the

arrangement’s three streams, which are otherwise in some form of rhythmic/metric

competition. But this competition returns as the lyrics’ title phrase arrives in the

following measures: King regains his half-time feel and Iverson returns to Lauper’s

melody, while the bass line reinstates its original 3-cycle. 33

The notion that the ubiquitous rhythmic 3-cycle in TBP’s arrangement can be

understood as an overextension of the 3-groupings in a (rotated) tresillo resonates with

Cohn’s (2016) Platonic model of 2- and 3-generated rhythms, which he argues embody

As suggested by the annotation in Example 5.16, Iverson’s left-hand harmonization of Anderson’s triadic 33

bass line is also notable in the chorus modules. While Iverson harmonizes the bass line with diatonic thirds in the first two phrases, in the third phrase he substitutes a harmonization in pure major thirds, producing an uncanny polychordal alchemy in mm. 6–8. This localized substitution of uniform major thirds for variable diatonic thirds foreshadows the M3rd cyclic transposition scheme of Interlude 2, discussed below. The arrangement’s off-tonic ending on an A-major VI chord also hearkens back to this brief flash of secondary-mixture A major.

Example 5.15. Melody-bass (re)alignment in prechorus modules of “Time After Time” (TBP 2016e; Lauper 1983).

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centripetal and centrifugal energetic tendencies, respectively. In TBP’s case, the

centrifugal force of this 3-cycle gradually infiltrates the arrangement’s hypermetric

hierarchy. Cohn’s model focuses on a class of rhythmic patterns that includes single,

double, quadruple, and higher-order tresillos. Such patterns begin with a (potentially

lengthy) 3-cycle, but they conclude with a durational “comma” (a multiple of a 2- or 4-

grouping) to achieve realignment with an underlying pure duple metric hierarchy,

producing rhythms that last 2n beats (4, 8, 16, 32, etc.), where each beat lasts 2 cyclic

units. To acknowledge this ultimate realignment with a prevailing duple hierarchy, 34

A comma is, of course, commonly understood as a pitch phenomenon, rather than a durational one. 34

Cohn’s invocation of the term in the latter context invokes broader notions of pitch-time isomorphism (especially those examined in Pressing 1983) that serve as the foundation for his Platonic model.

Example 5.16. Alignment and stratification in chorus modules of “Time After Time” (TBP 2016e; Lauper 1983).

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Cohn situates these patterns between extended syncopations and full-blown polymeters.

While primarily rhythmic, the patterns possess “properties, such as cyclicity and quasi-

isochrony, that are shared by meter. The patterns thus have the potential to blossom into

meters if developed in certain ways, although in the repertories [Cohn studies] those

potentials are rarely fulfilled” (0.3).

Circumscribed by single measures of cut-time, the ubiquitous (3(23)) rotated

tresillos in Lauper’s original track certainly never blossom into the quasi-metric patterns

Cohn describes. And the pure duple regularity of Lauper’s 8-measure verse and chorus

modules extends into three layers of the hypermetric hierarchy, with bars of cut-time

grouped into conventional ((22)(22)) structures in each module by phrase repetitions and

patterns of harmonic and melodic rhythm. But while King’s half-time feel maintains a 35

foundational duple meter at the measure level and below, the overextended 3-cycle of

TBP’s verse modules never gives way to Cohn’s durational comma. Instead, the cycle’s

rhythmic obstinance irons out some of the tidy repeating patterns that establish the

lowest level of duple hypermeter in Lauper’s track. In the absence of these patterns, the

3-cycle’s downbeat alignments group the twelve cut-time measures of TBP’s verse

modules into a single layer of triple hypermeter (see the * markings in Example 5.14);

phrase repetition then preserves duple groupings at two successively higher hierarchical

levels, producing a ((33)(33)) measure grouping in each verse module.

But the influence of triple hypermeter seeps into these higher levels in the two

subsequent Interlude modules that feature piano solos by Iverson. The bass streams in

these modules derive from the verse’s bass ostinato, preserving its unyielding rhythmic

Lauper’s 7- and 6-measure prechorus modules display mild hypermetric irregularities, featuring ((22)(21)) 35

(Prechorus 1) and ((22)(2)) (Prechoruses 2–4) groupings. These foreshortenings, which are preserved in TBP’s arrangement, propel the music into the subsequent verse and chorus modules.

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3-cycle while transforming its pitch content. As shown on the lower staff of Example

5.17, the bass line in Interlude 1 subjects the ostinato’s original ascents to diatonic

extension, following descending-sixth leaps with rising lines that plow past their gap-fill

targets, climbing first by an octave, then by a major tenth. Iverson’s improvised scalar

lines (shown on the upper staff) mirror these extensions, racing upward first by octaves,

then by a major ninth and tenth. But the rhythmic fluidity of his lines—a marked

contrast from his metronomic regularity in the bulk of the arrangement—carries few

(hyper)metric implications. This rhythmic fluidity allows the unyielding bass line to

install triple groupings in a second layer of the hypermetric hierarchy, as its downbeat

alignments (again shown with *) group the interlude’s nine measures into two successive

layers of triple hypermeter: (333). Interlude 2 then sequences the bass line of Interlude 1

Example 5.17. Diatonic extension and triple hypermeter in Interlude 1 of “Time After Time” (TBP 2016e; Lauper 1983).

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through a descending M3rd cycle of major keys (C–Ab–E) to yield a 27-measure pattern,

which unfolds two times beneath Iverson’s solo. This cyclic transposition scheme

projects triple groupings at three hypermetric levels with each repetition:

((333)(333)(333)).

Example 5.18 summarizes this gradual encroachment of triple hypermeter across

TBP’s verse and interlude modules. Although nested duple groupings are metrically

ubiquitous in Western popular and art musics, nested triple groupings like those of

Interlude 2 are comparatively unusual—as Gotham (2015) notes in his exhaustive study

of meters and metric relationships, “[i]t is rare for a passage to sustain even three levels

of [metric] ’threeness’” (2.7, n17). As such, I suggest that this gradual expansion of 36

triple hypermeter can be heard to magnify the impact of TBP’s initial rhythmic

overextension, gradually projecting 3-cycles across loftier levels of the hypermetric

Gotham notes that Western music—and Western music notation—both exhibit a binary default at most 36

levels of metric grouping. Even meters that involve triple groupings usually feature them only at one (e.g., 3/4, 6/8), or at most two (e.g., 9/8), levels of metric grouping.

Module:Lauper TBP

Verses Verses Interlude 1 Interlude 2

# cut-time measures: 8 12 9 27

Grouping structure: ((22)(22)) ((33)(33)) (333) ((333)(333)(333))

Hypermetric groupings (bottom =

fastest level)

duple duple — triple

duple duple triple triple

duple triple triple triple

Example 5.18. Encroachment of triple hypermeter in “Time After Time” (TBP 2016e; Lauper 1983).

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hierarchy. From this perspective, Interlude 2 functions as a telos for an incremental 37

process of rhythmic and metric (over)extension, begun in the arrangement’s first bar.

While an exacting isomorphism between rhythmic 3-generation and the three-

fold octave division of Interlude 2 is tempting but unsustainable, there is nonetheless an

alluring connection between teleological processes of pitch and rhythmic

(over)extension in TBPs arrangement. Example 5.19 diagrams the pitch process, as a

complement to Example 5.18. As described above, the pitch content of the bass ostinato

in TBP’s verse modules can be heard to germinate from a gestural inversion of a motivic

cell in Lauper’s original verse melody. Subjected to the same kind of descending whole-

tone overextension as the melody in “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” the cell’s

filled-in major third tumbles downward through a M3rd cycle of keys. When each stage

This process is conceptually similar to the projection of gradually more expansive 7-cycles in Iyer’s “The 37

Star of a Story” (Iyer 2012c; Heatwave 1977), analyzed in Chapter 4.

Example 5.19. Motivic processes of pitch (over)extension in “Time After Time” (TBP 2016e; Lauper 1983).

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of this (hypothetically) overextended melodic structure is subjected to gestural inversion

and subsequent diatonic extension, the result is the climactic bass line of Interlude 2. The

cyclic design of this overextended pitch pattern qua transposition cycle finally

destabilizes the song’s prevailing C-major diatonicism. It also yields the arrangement’s 38

highest degree of triple metric saturation, juxtaposing the centripetal grounding of

King’s duple meter with a centrifugal rhythmic 3-cycle that ultimately infiltrates three

layers of hypermeter—or, if you like, pitting time against time. 39

Even an exceedingly earnest listener must concede that irony is a driving force in

this sardonically sophisticated arrangement. This particular TBP performance, more

than most, seems to construct a listener who is in on the joke. The trio appears to sneer at

the banality of their source material, adding layers of self-conscious complexity inspired

by deliberate misinterpretations of Lauper’s title and lyrics in order to produce a kind of

musical pun. This knowingly “wrong” reading of Lauper’s material runs afoul of the

Quality maxim, while the specific rhythmic/metric overextension that animates the

reading violates the Relation and Quantity maxims. The conceit, of course, doesn’t

achieve its full effect unless the listener knows Lauper’s title and lyrics. While such

In addition to alleviating the potential monotony of C major, this cycle of M3rd-related keys clearly evokes 38

postbop compositional practices, recalling the famous harmonic structure of John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps.” Waters (2019) labels such sequential melodic and/or harmonic motions by a consistent interval as “axis progressions.” He treats such axis progressions as a common feature of postbop compositions, which 1960s jazz composers used both to undercut and substitute for the globally monotonal designs common to earlier jazz tunes. For more on Coltrane’s influence on postbop composition, see Waters (2010). For an analogous view of the role of cyclic key schemes in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Western art music as sources of both stability and disruption, consider Perle’s (1990) famous notion of “windows of order.”

Iverson’s solo in this section echoes the moment’s dual climax. His initial serpentine improvised line 39

amplifies the arrival of the slowest triple hypermeter, strenuously avoiding both harmonic and rhythmic alignment with either the 3-cycle C-major bass line or the half-time drums until the downbeat of the Ab-major transposition [3:42]. As his improvisation gathers steam, he subsequently marshals conventionally climactic chorus rhetoric by repeating the song’s E–D–E title phrase every three measures and over all three key areas, audibly emphasizing the overextended origins of the interlude’s cyclic transposition scheme by harmonizing the melody with major thirds (C–Bb–C).

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intertextual rewards for suitably informed listeners are common in the jazz tradition—

where improvisers regularly reference well-known melodies or licks from famous solos

—here the postmodern reference simply happens to be to the title and lyrics of a

hackneyed ‘80s pop hit. But a careful hearing of this germinal ironic transformation also

illuminates a process of extensive harmonic and rhythmic transformation that both

propels the arrangement and ultimately yields a flexible and dynamic solo environment

for Iverson. Even if irony is the impetus of TBP’s approach, it is hardly the whole story. I

expand on this theme in Part 2.

Part 2. Parameter Shifts: Referent Types,

Coordination, and Developmental Processes

5.2.1. Introduction: Parameter Shifts

In TBP’s arrangement of “Time After Time,” expansions in triple hypermetric

grouping combine with pitch (over)extensions to create a developmental process that

drives toward Interlude 2. This arrangement-spanning process is admittedly subtle—

recalling the analytic posture I outlined at the beginning of Part 1, the teleology is not

something a listener necessarily hears, but rather something they might hear. But the trio’s

obvious changes in pulse stream juxtaposition at formal boundaries are hard to ignore.

These kinds of abrupt sonic shifts occur in many of TBP’s arrangements of MRPM: the

trio regularly uses tightly coordinated fluctuations in parameters like tempo, volume,

and rhythmic density to manipulate the flow of sonic and rhetorical energy within and

between formal modules, often in exaggerated ways. Both these sudden shifts between

performative approaches, and the exaggerated character of the approaches themselves,

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often run roughshod over multiple Gricean maxims. The sonic chaos of a free jazz take

on an MRPM melody might transgress the Manner maxim; an abrupt gearshift into a

tight disco groove disregards Relation; and the incongruity of these two approaches

casts doubt on the sincerity of one or both, potentially violating Quality.

I freely acknowledge the potential for irony implicit in these techniques, which

are common across TBP’s arrangements of MRPM. But recalling the trio’s impassioned

stance against a purely ironic interpretation of their music, I suggest that we might also

hear TBP’s trademark rhetorical pivots not simply as laconic contrasts, but as arising in

part from what I call parameter shifts: deliberate, often drastic changes in the pitch and

time structures that trio members use to coordinate their individual and collective

improvised utterances. Such shifts allow the trio to facilitate contrasting kinds of

individual and group improvisation across MRPM performances, to reconfigure the

formal rhetoric of their source songs, and to craft long-range developmental processes.

In Part 2 of this chapter, I propose an analytical framework for tracking these

parameter shifts in the trio’s performances—the kinds of improvisations the shifts

suggest or allow, which range from small fills to extensive solos; and the small- and

large-scale processes that result. I suggest that these changing sites of improvisational

creativity reflect shifts in how TBP treats a source song as a coordinating musical

referent. I explore how these changes can both exaggerate and override the inter- and

intra-modular formal rhetoric of an MRPM source song. And in a manner reminiscent of

the earlier analysis of “Time After Time,” I use four analytical vignettes to highlight how

parameter shifts give rise to various kinds of arrangement-spanning developmental

processes that invite more than a simple ironic hearing of TBP’s music.

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5.2.2. Formal Rhetoric and Sonic Energy in TBP Arrangements

TBP’s performances often display notable fealty to their MRPM source materials

—especially in the melodic domain —and they usually preserve an original song’s 40

juxtaposition of formal modules. But the trio often takes a starkly sectional approach to

these modules, drastically changing their musical tack at formal boundaries. In “Time

After Time,” these changes occur as shifts in pulse stream juxtaposition. But in many

other cases, the shifts are much more dramatic, as the trio’s exaggerated musical rhetoric

either amplifies or countermands existing inter-modular contrasts and trajectories.

Formal boundaries act as goals toward which the trio’s collective energy drives and from

which it departs, or as inflection points at which the band turns on a dime, pivoting (for

example) from frenetic free improvisation to taut groove. Musical processes undertaken

in a given module sometimes lead directly into the next. But they may also careen into a

crash or sputter to a halt at the close of one module, only for the trio to begin anew with

a fresh approach in the ensuing section.

As discussed in Chapter 3, many theories of form in MRPM characterize formal

modules on the basis of such rhetorical prominence or goal-directed function, while

acknowledging that such anticipatory impulses can be produced by a variety of features,

including “changes in groove, lyric phrasing, and the length of formal units, as well as

dynamic level, register, instrumentation, timbre, harmonic progression, and harmonic

rhythm” (Summach 2011, 3). In a recent study of 21st-century Top-40 pop songs shaped

by cross-pollinations with electronic dance music (EDM), Peres (2016) highlights how

formal modules in this music are often marked not by harmonic, rhythmic, or formal

Recall the trio’s 2007 blog post (above), which valorizes the role of melody in their arrangements.40

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features alone, but instead by broader fluctuations in what he calls sonic energy—a

generalized term that refers to the “total intensity of the sonic activity” (42) in a module.

Changes in this energy result from an aggregate of musical elements, with structural

features combining with shifts in rhythmic intensity and pitch register, as well as timbral

and textural manipulations facilitated by digital audio workstations (DAWs). To capture

these rhetorical contours, Peres develops three sonic functions—setup, buildup, and peak

—which map neatly onto the three stages of a full-fledged VCU: verse-prechorus-

chorus. Prechorus buildups, for example, are often marked by filter sweeps, ascending

pitch bends, and expansions of the timbral envelope, which work in concert with other

elements to accrue sonic energy, cuing a listener to anticipate the chorus’s subsequent

rhetorical peak. 41

TBP has not recorded any arrangements of the post-millennial pop Peres

analyzes, and the trio’s performances are not meaningfully mediated by the DAWs that

constitute a primary focus of his study. But the band’s inter- and intra-modular

rhetorical contrasts are often driven by similar fluctuations in sonic energy, broadly

construed—shifts not just in harmonic and melodic elements, but also in groove,

volume, or rhythmic activity, as well as textural density and timbral saturation. Some of

these energetic profiles are evidently composed, or at least preplanned. TBP’s climaxes

are famously bombastic, for example, unfolding triumphal melodic statements atop

hard-hitting grooves that are often enlivened with snappy fills or busy accompaniment

patterns. The trio just as readily relaxes—it is not uncommon for Anderson to take over

More recent work (e.g., Adams 2019; Barna 2020; Osborn 2019) has built on Peres’s sonic functions to 41

examine mismatches between sonic and rhetorical characteristics in top-40 songs characterized by more extensive influence of EDM. For a graphic approach to conceptualizing lyric and sonic/rhetorical trajectory in popular songs, see Webb (1998).

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the melody on bass in a given module, and King’s drumming delivers a caress as often

as it packs a wallop.

But like most jazz piano trios, TBP also takes a relentlessly improvisatory

approach to performance, which enlivens the musical fabric with nearly constant

interactions between the players and allows any of them to exert audible influence over

the collective musical trajectory. Iverson’s improvisational approach to fomenting

collective musical momentum, for example, often echoes the basic hallmarks of Peres’s

buildup function: the pianist’s sweeping chromatic lines often mimic ascending pitch

bends, and his thunderous expansions into the extremes of the piano’s register function

similarly to filter sweeps by expanding the ambitus of the trio’s timbral palate. In such 42

cases, it is the broad fluctuation in sonic energy that results from Iverson’s gestures—

rather than the specific pitch or rhythmic content of his lines—that constitutes the

primary substance of his improvisation, and thus the prevailing rhetorical shape of the

formal module in which that improvisation occurs.

This kind of improvisational sonic dynamism is frequently fueled by a type of

ensemble coordination in which TBP seems to orient its playing around a conspicuously

limited set of coordinating pitch and/or metric parameters. Within a formal unit, the trio

may decouple a melody from a consistent harmonic progression, for example, or

abandon a clear sense of both shared tempo and meter, instead yoking its motion

through the module solely to rubato chord changes without a clear coordinating tactus

pulse. This approach generally allows the trio members more improvisational latitude

Iverson’s melodic solo over the repeating F-minor bass line in “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (TBP 2003b; 42

Nirvana 1991) exemplifies these hallmarks. The pianist’s solo ultimately harnesses its accruing rhythmic energy into an ascending line that dissolves into furious chromatic filigree in the piano’s extreme upper register [2:50–3:10]. Beneath this textural accompaniment, the pianist’s left hand begins to hammer out the prechorus melody [3:10–3:20], which also subsequently dissolves into ascending quartal figures [3:20–3:28].

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by deemphasizing specific coordinating parameters that may have otherwise guided

their individual and collective utterances. And changes in this improvisatory latitude 43

can both spur, and be spurred by, associated fluctuations in sonic energy, producing a

wide variety of rhetorical contours that unfold both within single modules and across

longer formal spans.

While rubato motion through a chord progression or a “time without changes”

approach to a solo section are hardly novel phenomena in and of themselves in jazz

performance, both the frequency of these approaches and the regular shifts between

them in TBP’s music reflect an important contrast with the way small acoustic jazz

ensembles often treat standard source materials. I explore this contrast in the next

section by probing the connection between an improvisational referent and the notion of

musical coordination. This connection then undergirds the primary analytical model of

Part 2, which I use to track the presence (or lack thereof) of coordinating musical

parameters across both song forms and trio members in four TBP palimpsest

performances.

This notion of improvisational coordination contrasts with Covach’s (2018) treatment of textural 43

coordination in (composed) rock music, which is primarily concerned with the relationships between pitch materials in the melody and accompaniment layers of a musical texture. Covach differentiates temporal points of textural coordination from the stratified spans between them, relying on notions of chord membership to determine whether a pair of layers are coordinated or stratified in a given moment. The concept of coordination I describe here functions at a greater level of remove; it concerns not the coordination between streams of the trio texture itself, but rather the larger implied relationship between these layers and the trio’s source material. If Iverson and Anderson regularly avoid implying shared or consistent harmonies in a given formal module, for example, their harmonic stratification suggests that harmony is not a coordinating parameter in their approach. A similar principle applies to metric coordination. The rock textures that Covach analyzes often feature grooves, or are at least governed by meter; even in textures where layers imply different meters, these meters reconcile to a shared fast common pulse. (For example, the 12/8 and 4/2 time signatures in Yes’s “Close to the Edge” (1972) (Covach 2018, Example 2, p. 57) reconcile to a shared eighth-note pulse.) His model thus assumes some degree of coordination with a shared pulse stream. By contrast, as I discuss in the next section, it is the patent absence of this coordinating pulse stream that often drives TBP’s approach.

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5.2.3. Referents and Improvisational Coordination

Improvised jazz performance often makes use of what Pressing (1984, 1987, 1998)

famously calls a referent—a structure that guides improvisation and furnishes points of

collective coordination for one or more performers. The repeating sectional refrain of a

GAS standard is a classic example; in a jazz ensemble context, the standard’s regular

(hyper)meter, steady tempo, and metrically regular chord changes usually function

together as a shared referential structure. (The melody may also assume a referential

role, although it often takes a back seat to harmony and meter in many solos.) While the

regularity of this harmonic-metric structure does not determine the content of musicians’

improvisations, it meaningfully coordinates this content, establishing a generalized

framework within which improvisations can unfold. The repeating form and quarter-

note pulse of a GAS standard is usually sacrosanct, for example, while its chord

progression provides a more flexible set of harmonic schemata that inform the pitch

content of players’ improvised utterances. 44

In addition to audibly shaping and coordinating an unfolding improvisation, the

regularity of a referent also provides a secure anchor for departures from that referent—for

complications like reharmonizations, metric superimpositions, and other flights of

improvisational fancy. As discussed in Chapter 2, the precise nature of the relationship

between an improvisation and the underlying referent in these moments can be

agentially and intertextually slippery for a listener. Does a reharmonization discard the

original harmonies, or simply transform them? More broadly, at what point does

dissimilarity transform from a type of relation to the total lack of any relation at all?

For examinations of how a GAS song’s chord progression functions as a set of flexible harmonic schemata, 44

see especially Berliner (1994), Smither (2019a, 2020a), and Terefenko (2004, 2009). For discussions of the hypermetric inviolability of most GAS sectional refrains, see Love (2013), Waters (1996), and Chapter 3.

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This distinction rests on the criteria a listener uses to assess musical relatedness.

In the world of jazz studies, these criteria have been highlighted in recent

reexaminations of interaction in jazz performance, which argue that improvised

ensemble performance is frequently, even inherently interactive, but that such

interactions take various forms and occur between various entities. Michaelsen (2019) 45

and Hannaford (2019), for example, each develop a flexible analytical framework that

can be leveraged to examine both interactions between improvisers, and between

improvisers and referents. Drawing on Hasty’s (1997) notion of projection as an expected

continuation of a musical behavior, Michaelsen argues broadly that interactions “are

moments during which one player intervenes in the course of another, thereby altering

the other’s [projected] path” (11), and that these interventions may cause either path to

converge toward, or divert away from, the other. Hannaford’s affordance-based

analytical framework goes further by foregrounding the parameters used to assess

relatedness in the first place, arguing that any musical phenomenon can afford any action

in response, but that this response may be considered congruous or incongruous in

various musical domains. 46

The scholarly reexamination of interaction between improvisers was spurred in large part by Givan (2016), 45

who described the previously prevailing interactional vogue this way: “In the wake of [Berliner 1994] and [Monson 1996], the notion that ‘good jazz improvisational is sociable and interactive just like a conversation’ (Monson 1996, 84) has become near-conventional wisdom in the field of jazz studies” (1). Givan pushes back against this notion, arguing both that interaction is not a prerequisite for improvisational quality, and that not all interactions take conversational forms (e.g., call-and-response motivic exchanges). In addition to such readily identifiable motivic interactions, he outlines two additional types: microinteractions, which are small participatory discrepancies that occur both in jazz and other types of performance; and macrointeractions, which spur changes in players’ level of sonic energy.

Consider, for example, a diatonic chord voicing from a pianist, followed by a seemingly unrelated, 46

dissonant melodic side-slip from a horn player. Borrowing Hannaford’s perspective, such an exchange could be understood as an interaction that is incongruous in the harmonic domain: the diatonic voicing affords a harmonically incongruous melodic response.

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These frameworks each provide a way to grapple with improvisatory departures

from a given referent: Michaelsen treats them as divergent interactions, while

Hannaford’s model might suggest that such incongruous responses are afforded by the

referent itself—in other words, the referent provides a structure to be diverged from. Both

authors freely acknowledge that such analytical treatments are, strictly speaking,

“improvisational fictions” (Steinbeck 2013) that premise a listening strategy on

assumptions about improvisers’ approach (conscious or otherwise) to their source

materials. While elements of the referent many not be sounding in moments of musical 47

departure, the models allow the referent to remain conceptually present—at least to

some degree—for both players and informed listeners. From this perspective, it is the

indirect tension between the referent and these departures that makes the departures so

expressively compelling, and their eventual realignment with the referent so satisfying.

To be sure, TBP can often be heard to treat a MRPM source song in precisely this

way—as a structure against which the trio momentarily chafes, only to realign with it.

But such momentary friction with a nevertheless robust referent contrasts with formal

modules in which the trio strips away select standard regularities of an MRPM referent

altogether, pinning their collective coordination to a more limited set of musical

parameters while deliberately eschewing clear and consistent organization in other

domains. To my ear, such situations do not represent temporary tensions with a referent,

but a piecemeal dismantling of it. To hear this way is, again, an interpretive choice. And

Building on the ethnographic model of Steinbeck’s (2008) analyses of improvised performances by the Art 47

Ensemble of Chicago, Hannaford’s scholarship (e.g., 2017, 2019) seeks to mitigate this issue by grounding his analyses of improvised performances in interviews with performers when possible, as well as in his own experience as an expert improvising pianist. Both Hannaford and Steinbeck also cite influential work by Guck (e.g., 1994, 2006) to underline the inescapably interpretive and personal quality of their analyses. (The title of Steinbeck (2013)—“Improvisational Fictions”—references Guck (1994)—“Analytical Fictions.”)

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this choice is both critical and relatively arbitrary. On one hand, the decision can shape

one’s experience of irony in TBP’s palimpsests: whether one treats the absence of a

song’s original harmony as an incongruous response to a still-present coordinating

progression, or as an abandonment of that harmony, has important implications for

whether and how one hears TBP transgressing the maxims of Manner, Relation, and

Quality. On the other hand, the ultimate stakes of this decision have more to do with

intertextual meaning than they do with actual musical content. Whether the absence of an

original song’s chord progression in a given formal module is heard as a transformation

or a renunciation, the basic fact remains: the trio is not orienting its playing around those

original harmonies.

Faced with this interpretive choice, I suggest that moving beyond the musical

surface to posit source structures that do and do not coordinate that surface, is a

worthwhile conceptual leap to make. Importantly, it asks the analyst to listen like an

improviser—to hear past the musical surface to a process that might have produced it.

While necessarily speculative, this process also allows for a more vivid

conceptualization of the angular shifts in source-palimpsest relationship that shape a

TBP performance. In particular, the process highlights how changes in the trio’s

approach to their source materials delineate formal boundaries, interact with shifts in

sonic energy to craft distinct rhetorical shapes, and clear spaces for different kinds of

individual and interactive improvisational impulses to bloom.

In the next section, I lay a basic foundation for this analytical process by

outlining four generic coordination parameters whose presence (or lack thereof) in an

operating referent produces one of eight potential referent types that occur in TBP

performances. In the ensuing sections, I then gradually build an analytical framework

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for exploring how shifts between sets of coordinating parameters shape the

improvisational spaces and rhetorical trajectories of four complete TBP performances.

5.2.4. Coordinating Parameters and Referent Types

Example 5.20 details four separable but interrelated musical parameters that

usually serve as sites for improvisatory coordination in a standard GAS referent: steady

tempo (T), beat (B), harmony (H), and melody (M). The presence of a coordinating 48

parameter in a given referent is marked by an “X” in its column; partial or inconsistent

presence of the parameter is indicated by enclosing the X in parentheses. All parameters

present in a given referent both coordinate the trio’s playing and coordinate with each

other—if both harmony and melody are present, for example, they unfold in tandem. 49

Above the parameter columns, three Instrument Functions rows indicate the parameters

that each member of a jazz piano trio can audibly express. For a parameter to be

understood as present in a given referent type, at least one trio member must be audibly

expressing it or orienting their playing around it. (If a referent is never referred to, what

good is it?) Coordination and audible expression are thus linked but distinct; while a

harmonic progression might coordinate the whole trio’s motion through a module,

King’s drums cannot, strictly speaking, sound this harmony. In addition to the full

coordination of a robust referent (an X in all four parameter columns), the table outlines

seven additional combinations of these parameters that serve as less robust referent

These parameters may mirror those of the original source material, or they may reflect composed or 48

arranged changes to it. In the case of a consistently reharmonized melody or metric transformation, for example, these transformations become part of the referent, and (in turn) either do or do not coordinate players’ improvisations.

I do not mean that melody and harmony are coordinated (rather than divorced) in the sense outlined by 49

Temperley (2007), but simply that given melodic phrases retain their association with corresponding harmonies and vice versa.

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types, each of which TBP occasionally deploys as a recognizable coordination strategy. 50

These referents are loosely organized according to degree of coordinating power, with

the most coordinated types near the top.

The table’s four coordinating parameters separate into meter and pitch

categories, and the relationships within and between these categories warrant some

comment. First, the conception of “beat” here is limited to the presence of clear tactus

pulses, reliably grouped into idealized measures with consistent pulse cardinalities

These coordinating parameters admit other potential groupings not shown here—Example 5.20 50

emphasizes what I hear as the most prominent combinations across TBP’s output.

INSTRUMENT FUNCTIONS:

Piano

REFERENT TYPE:Bass

Drums

COORDINATINGPARAMETER:

Meter Pitch

Tempo (T)

Beat (B)

Harm. (H)

Mel. (M) # Description

COORDINATION:

X X X X 1 Full coordination

X X X (X) 2 Standard solo

X X X 3 Melodic coordination

X X X 4 Tight rubato

X X 5 Loose rubato

X 6 Rubato solo

X 7 Melodic pacing

8 Free or motivic

Example 5.20. Generic coordinating parameters and referent types.

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shared between trio members. While a beat may exist without regular tempo, for my 51

purposes the reverse is not possible. This decoupling of tempo and beat is a bit

unconventional, because the temporal regularity of nested pulse streams is traditionally

what makes meter, metric. But TBP’s flexible approach to ensemble coordination

frequently implies a consistent tactus that is shorn of tempo regularity.

In the pitch domain, harmony and melody are notionally independent but

frequently linked; that is, particular melodic phrases are associated with certain

harmonies. Both harmony and melody often carry metric implications—harmonies may

change every two measures, for example, or a melody may arrive on a particular pitch

on a downbeat. For the sake of conceptual simplicity, I consider any coordination that is

keyed primarily to these implications above the tactus level, but not also to the tactus

itself, to be an instance of harmonic or melodic—rather than strictly metric—

coordination.

Keeping in mind the caveat that a coordinating parameter merely guides

improvisation without determining it outright, I suggest that, in general, the number of

coordinating parameters in a referent type is inversely proportional to the

improvisational freedom it affords. A fully coordinated referent (1; numerals refer to

numbered referent types in Example 5.20) primarily affords small fills, melodic

paraphrases, and creative accompaniment patterns, while a standard solo section (2)

allows more melodic freedom via its deemphasis of the melody. Melodic coordination

As in prior chapters, my notion of an idealized measure draws on de Clercq (2016). The shared pulse 51

cardinality constraint requires the musicians expressing the beat parameter to imply a consistent number of pulses both within and between measures. If, across several measures, Iverson consistently implies four pulses per measure and Anderson implies five, the beat parameter is absent; if the two musicians both imply four pulses in one measure but five in the next, the beat parameter is again absent.

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(3) yields similar freedom in the harmonic and contrapuntal domains by orienting

improvisational utterances around a melody shorn of its associated chord changes.

Tight and loose approaches to rubato are distinguished by their maintenance (4)

or abandonment (5) of an orienting shared tactus pulse. Notably, the relaxation of this 52

pulse parameter relieves King’s drumming of a timekeeping function, allowing him

additional creative latitude. It also enables pitched instruments to render out-of-time

elaborations on a given harmony or melodic phrase before alighting on the next. A

rubato solo referent (6) either removes or originally lacks a coordinating melody.

Occasionally, the simple unfolding of a melody (7) serves as the only referential structure

in an otherwise chaotic or uncoordinated texture. In such cases, the melody’s sole

coordinating function is to track the unfolding of the module and cue its conclusion;

whatever tactus pulses or harmonies it fleetingly implies seem to have little bearing on

the other trio members’ playing. Lastly, sometimes TBP abandons all diachronic

coordinating structures, engaging in what sounds like pure free jazz (8). While trio

members often render snippets of groove or recognizable harmonic or melodic material

in such contexts, these fragments generally lack coordinating function, serving only as

motivic references.

In TBP’s performances, changes in referent type alone can yield contrasts

between formal modules, and they can generate subtle energetic impulses toward and

away from passages of more robust referent coordination. But as noted above, referent

types carry few fixed rhetorical obligations by themselves—the absence of strong metric

The notion that loose rubato (5) and rubato solo (6) referent types abandon the tactus pulse altogether 52

expands on the conventional use of the term rubato, which typically describes temporal flexibility at the tactus level in one or more streams of musical texture (Hudson 2001). In some sense, loose rubato simply shunts this tactus flexibility to a higher level of the (hyper)metric hierarchy, which in this model usually corresponds with harmonic and/or melodic phenomena.

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coordination, for example, can just as easily accompany elegiac, halting, or thunderous

playing by the trio. As a result, referent types often interact dynamically with

fluctuations in sonic energy to craft rhetorical contours than are often more dramatic or

extreme than those found in either the trio’s MRPM source materials or a conventional

head-solos-head approach to a standard tune.

In the remaining sections of Part 2, I use four brief analyses to gradually

introduce a framework for examining these varying interactions between referent type

and sonic energy. This framework, which takes the basic shape of an enhanced form

chart, is intended as a companion to careful listening—it provides an approach for

conceptualizing how TBP’s engagement with their source materials can be heard to

change between (and occasionally within) formal modules, and how these changes

interact with sonic energy to yield rhetorical trajectories and developmental processes

that span both single modules and entire performances. Because my analytical approach

seeks to penetrate past musical sound to the processes that produce it, I emphasize again

that the approach is inherently interpretive. Especially in the absence of authoritative

scores for both the MRPM source songs and the TBP arrangements, it is critical that you

(the reader) listen to the relevant tracks and evaluate my assessments of present and

absent coordinating parameters, as well as the individual trio members’ engagement—

or lack thereof—with these parameters. Even if you disagree with some of my

assessments, my hope is that the framework still provides a coherent and compelling

way to listen, and to conceptualize how parameter shifts can contribute to short- and

long-range developmental processes in improvisationally driven performance.

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5.2.5. Teleology Via Referent Type Alone:

“Don’t Dream It’s Over” (TBP 2016a; Crowded House 1986)

In some TBP arrangements, subtle parameter shifts produce end-weighted

dramatic trajectories without significant fluctuations in sonic energy, by moving from

less coordinated to more fully coordinated referent types. Example 5.21 introduces a

visual representation of this connection between form, referent type, and teleology in the

trio’s ballad arrangement of “Don’t Dream It’s Over” (TBP 2016a; Crowded House 1986).

Drawing on the elements of Example 5.20, the table expands the basic format used in the

form chart from Example 5.13, albeit with lyrics omitted, and with band members rather

than musical streams represented in the columns on the right.

The Coordinating Parameters columns indicate the parameters that can be heard

to coordinate the entire trio’s playing in a given formal module, while the Instrument

Functions columns detail the parameters of each referent expressed by each member’s

playing. (Recall that each element must be evident in at least one member’s playing to

be understood as present in the performance overall. ) In both sets of columns, 53

parentheses indicate that a parameter’s coordinating power is inconsistent in a module,

coming in and out of focus. As in Example 5.13, individual shaded cells in the

“Instrument Functions” columns mark solo sections in which a player is a primary

In other words, a Coordinating Parameter column cannot contain an X unless the corresponding character 53

(T, B, H, or M) appears in at least one Instrument Functions column. The reverse is not true, however. The appearance of a character in an Instrument Function column does not necessarily imply an X in the corresponding Coordinating Parameter column; a single trio member’s playing might express coordination with a parameter, without that parameter coordinating the trio’s playing as a whole.

257

soloist. In all other instances, it is assumed that each player is constantly improvising in

some way, whether to a greater or lesser degree. 54

TBP’s overall dynamic level and rhythmic intensity remain at a consistently low

ebb throughout “Don’t Dream It’s Over,” especially in comparison to the vertiginous

shifts the band often employs. In lieu of these shifts, the trio gradually sheds metric (and

eventually melodic) coordination en route to a quietly culminating realignment in

Chorus 2. The arrangement begins with a fairly typical ballad orientation, with piano

and bass maintaining a 4/4 meter with a malleable tempo. The coordinating presence 55

of the flexible quadruple tactus recedes in Chorus 1, as Iverson’s melody and Anderson’s

I emphasize again that a particular player’s improvisational freedom is linked the referent but (of course) 54

not mandated by it. While freedom from a referent parameter grants an improviser paramount flexibility in that domain, expression of that parameter still affords some degree of freedom. Even when Iverson is playing the melody, for example, he is still making improvisational choices about phrasing, timing, voicing, melodic interpolation, accompaniment pattern, and more. Similar assertions can be made about King’s drum patterns or Anderson’s bass lines.

As described in footnote 17 above, this arrangement features harmonic and melodic interpolations, 55

derived from an initial melodic side-slip. Just as a composed reharmonization can serve as a referent (see footnote 48), I consider these harmonic interpolations part of the trio’s arrangement, and thus as part of its harmonic referent.

FORM COORDINATING PARAMETERS INSTRUMENT FUNCTIONS

Start Time Module T B H M Piano Bass Drums

0:00 Intro X X XB H M B H

[brush colors]0:29 Verse 1 X X X

1:35 Chorus 1 (X) X X (B) H M(B) H

0:29 Verse 2 (X) X (B) H

3:37 Chorus 2 X X X XT B H M T B H T B

4:14 Coda X X X X

Example 5.21. Parameter shifts in “Don’t Dream It’s Over” (TBP 2016a; Crowded House 1986).

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accompanying bass line each become increasingly metrically amorphous, drifting

between loose 4/4 time and passages in which both musicians imply freer strings of

tactus-like pulses whose measure cardinalities neither align nor equal four. The metric

flexibility of this chorus spills over into Verse 2, which features a supple chordal piano

solo by Iverson that floats freely across each chord change.

Throughout these initial four modules, King avoids any semblance of groove,

instead commenting on the delicate piano-bass interplay with gentle brush figures on

the snare and cymbals. This omission of the drums’ timekeeping function highlights the

absence of robust metric coordination in these modules. With the arrival of Chorus 2,

however, King enters with a soft half-time groove, finally unifying the trio in a relaxed

chorus statement that initiates the arrangement’s first and only passage of full

coordination. Because virtually no evident improvisation occurs in this module, it also

marks the trio’s most unvarnished statement of the original material.

TBP’s gradual move away from, and subsequent return to, full referent

coordination produces the primary rhetorical through-line of their performance. The

through-line stretches the conventional energetic trajectory of a verse-chorus pairing

across the entire arrangement, subsuming the first chorus module in a larger process

that drives toward the second and final chorus. This process evokes broad parallels with

Temperley’s (2007) notion of a “loose verse, tight chorus” paradigm, albeit with

coordination of a different kind. Instead of a shift to coordination between a melody and

underlying harmonies, the quiet climax of the final chorus is marked by the trio’s

ultimate embrace of the original chorus as a robust coordinating force.

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5.2.6. Referent Types, Sonic Energy, and Transition Effects:

“Heart of Glass” (TBP 2003a; Blondie 1978)

While TBP’s “Heart of Glass” (TBP 2003a; Blondie 1978) also withholds the most

coordinated rendition of original material until the end of the arrangement, the trio takes

a much more angular path to arrive at this goal. Blondie’s (1978) original track alternates

between verse and bridge modules. In a conventional sense, the verses [e.g., 0:16–0:33]

are rhetorically primary, featuring a faster harmonic rhythm and lyric statements of the

song’s title, while the contrasting bridges [e.g., 0:58–1:15] set up the return of the verse.

However, the song’s most memorable feature occurs in its eight-measure instrumental

bridge [1:59–2:14], which shortens its second, fourth, and sixth 4/4 measures by one

beat, producing bars of 3/4 that introduce a catchy hiccup into the song’s otherwise

consistent disco groove. 56

This passage serves as the long-range intertextual goal of TBP’s (2003a)

arrangement, occurring in the trio’s fully-coordinated final Bridge 3 module. Several

processes heighten the ultimate arrival of this robust coordination; Example 5.22 details

these processes. The trio exaggerates the contrast inherent in the first two verse-bridge

pairs by shifting between metric coordination and freedom; and they precede the

climactic Bridge 3 with a sharply dissimilar Verse 3 module in which a turbulent free

improvisation by the whole trio abandons both metric and pitch coordination. These

changes in referent type are coupled with exaggerated fluctuations in sonic energy and

are facilitated by pronounced transition effects that further accentuate formal

As an informal and amusing testament to this memorability, this eight-measure passage alone earns 56

“Heart of Glass” a spot on numerous online lists of popular songs in irregular meters. The website stereogum.com, for example, ranks the song at #2 on its 2019 list of “17 Essential Songs in 7/4” (Weingarten 2019), while the songwriting site popgrammar.com includes it on its list of songs that feature “Irregular Meters and Phrases” (Wilmoth n.d.).

260

boundaries. And in a remarkably subtle maneuver, Anderson’s bass line withholds

strong tactus-level metric implications throughout almost the entire arrangement, only

locking into a groove with King’s drums in the climactic final module. This withholding

is evident in the Bass column of Example 5.22, which only features “T” and “B”

expressions—soundings of a steady tactus pulse—in the final module.

To highlight the pronounced rhetorical features of TBP’s performance, Example

5.22 uses two new Rhetoric columns. The first column indicates the trio’s level of sonic

energy in a given formal module, measured on a low-medium-high scale. The second 57

column indicates the technique that the trio uses at the end of a given module to

facilitate the transition to the next module, which often features a contrasting referent

type. While some of these transitions are fairly self-explanatory (e.g., fermata indicates

that a module comes to a halt on a final chord before the music moves on), lock-in and

collapse require further explanation.

In subsequent analyses, this column also indicates dynamic increases or decreases in sonic energy within a 57

given formal span.

FORM RHETORIC COORDINATING PARAMETERS INSTRUMENT FUNCTIONS

Start Time Module Sonic

Energy Trans. T B H M Piano Bass Drums

0:00 Verse 1 high collapse X X X X T B H M H T B

0:53 Bridge 1 low lock-in X X H M (H)

1:17 Verse 2 high collapse X X X X T B H H T B

1:43 Bridge 2 medium fermata X X H M (H)

2:06 (Verse 3) high collapse (H M)

3:18 Bridge 3 medium fermata X X X X T B H M T B H T B

Example 5.22. Parameter shifts and rhetorical features in “Heart of Glass” (TBP 2003a; Blondie 1978).

261

A lock-in transition facilitates motion from a metrically uncoordinated module to

a metrically coordinated one. In the last few measures of the uncoordinated first module,

the trio members’ formerly independent trajectories converge on a shared beat and

tempo—usually accompanied by coordinated harmony and melody—driving the music

forward into the subsequent module with a concomitant burst of sonic energy. The

collapse transition is more flexible and may facilitate motion between any referent types.

This transition is initiated variously by the gradual weakening or precipitous

disappearance of pitch and/or metric coordination; audible deconstructions of pitch-

motivic material from the original song, often through fragmentation or cyclic

transposition; and/or by expansions into registral or timbral extremes. In each of these

cases, the effect sounds like the disintegration of a coherent musical fabric. But the

specific rhetorical character of the collapse is more heavily dependent on an

accompanying increase or decrease in sonic energy; trio members’ improvisational

utterances either hasten into a crash, or sputter to a halt, before a subsequent module

begins.

In Verses 1 and 2 of TBP’s arrangement, King supports Iverson’s piano melody

with a high-energy double-time swing feel, and Iverson accompanies his melody with

wandering chromatic lines in his left hand. Example 5.23 transcribes a portion of the

improvisatory bass line that Anderson plays beneath this coordinated swing feel.

Although Anderson realizes Blondie’s original’s harmonies, he forgoes a walking eighth-

note line or other groove-based pattern that would lock in with the tactus of King’s

double-time feel, instead floating above it with rhythmically broader figures that, at best,

imply half-measure divisions.

262

In both initial verse modules, Iverson follows a faithful statement of the melody

with a swift motivic disassembly, catalyzing an abrupt collapse by the whole trio [0:44–

0:52; 1:32–1:42]. The precipitous disintegration of the energetic swing feel gives way to

the temporal freedom of the intervening Bridge 1 and 2 modules, which couple an

abandonment of metric coordination with contrasts in sonic energy. In Bridge 1, King

and Anderson repeatedly stutter beneath Iverson’s melodic phrases, hinting at prismatic

fragments of groove and harmony that don’t take root until a lock-in transition in the

final two bars [1:12–1:16] ushers in Verse 2. The trio takes a similar approach in Bridge 2:

King’s cymbals outline a fluctuating pulse stream that accelerates and decelerates

against Iverson’s melody, before the trio converges contentedly on a brief final tonic

harmony [2:01–2:05].

The trio’s subsequent frenetic free improvisation in Verse 3 eschews all

coordinating parameters. When Iverson eventually outlines portions of the verse melody

and harmony in this module [2:46–3:05], these figures serve no clear coordinating

purpose. Instead, Example 5.24 diagrams how Iverson cyclically overextends the verse’s

initial I–VI (E–C# ) chord progression, pairing increasingly fragmentary melodic

statements with an ascending m3rd transposition scheme. The arrival of this cyclic

scheme back on the tonic E major instigates the arrangement’s third and final collapse.

Iverson’s melodic motives melt into chromatic lines that quickly race out to the piano’s

Example 5.23. Rhythmic freedom in Anderson’s bass line in Verse 1 of “Heart of Glass” (TBP 2003a; Blondie 1978).

263

registral extremes, accompanied by a jaunty hi-hat pattern from King, while Anderson’s

bass joins Iverson’s left hand in dissolving into a low rumble. But the chaos of this

collapse ultimately gives birth to its dual: the arrangement’s final, and only metrically

coordinated, Bridge module. Atop his left-hand rumble, Iverson quietly begins to play

the bridge’s famous 4/4 + 3/4 melody. He is quickly joined by King and Anderson,

producing the fully-coordinated texture shown in Example 5.25. The trio’s unabashed

disco feel marks the first time in the entire arrangement that Anderson adopts a strongly

metric bass line, capping the trio’s vertiginous progression toward the climactic

coordination of this concluding module.

Example 5.24. Iverson’s overextension and fragmentation of melody and harmony in Verse 3 of “Heart of Glass” (TBP 2003a; Blondie 1978).

Example 5.25. Full coordination in Bridge 3 of “Heart of Glass” (TBP 2003a; Blondie 1978).

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5.2.7. Terminally Climactic Trajectories:

“Karma Police” (TBP 2006; Radiohead 1997b)

A large-scale process like the one that propels TBP’s arrangement of “Heart of

Glass” is absent from Blondie’s original track, which fades out over a final verse section.

But such long-range trajectories mark other MRPM tracks the band plays, and the trio

often uses both parameter shifts and fluctuations in sonic energy to intensify these end-

weighted designs. TBP's arrangement of “Karma Police” (TBP 2006; Radiohead 1997b)

amplifies the original’s terminally climactic trajectory with an extended buildup section

that both abandons metric coordination and gradually accrues sonic energy, culminating

in an impactful metric realignment at the terminal climax. Just as this final section in 58

Radiohead’s (1997b) original track concludes by blurring into a sweep of descending

distortion [3:45–4:23], TBP’s (2006) cacophonous climax also eventually pulls apart,

abandoning its original metric parameters and momentarily coalescing around a frenetic

new tempo and double-time feel before accelerating into a calamitous collapse.

Example 5.26 details this process in the trio’s arrangement, using two new

notational conventions. First, the addition of formal subsections (srdc structures and

loops of the terminal climax’s four-measure pattern) highlights referent shifts within

single formal modules rather than between them. Second, to indicate the momentary

emergence in the terminal climax of new coordinating parameters that depart from the

module’s previously established patterns, the chart uses contrasting red characters in the

Coordinating Parameters and Instrument Functions columns. In this case, the new

TBP’s recording of this track does not appear on one of their own albums, but on the 2006 Radiohead 58

tribute album Exit Music: Songs With Radio Heads that also features covers by artists from a host of other genres.

265

tempo and double-time feel are represented by red Xs in the T and B columns, with

corresponding red Ts and Bs in the Piano and Bass columns.

Osborn (2016) notes that Radiohead’s original track reverses the normative

textural rhetoric of a verse-chorus pairing in order to prepare the way for the eventual

terminal climax: in comparison to the verse, the chorus is unusually “quiet and subdued,

reducing the full rock texture of the verse to nothing but voice with spare piano and

guitar accompaniment” (24). TBP’s arrangement mirrors this textural juxtaposition.

While a bumbling swing feel undergirds Iverson’s verse melodies, the feel relaxes in the

FORM RHETORIC COORDINATING PARAMETERS INSTRUMENT FUNCTIONS

Start Time Module Subsec. Sonic

Energy Trans. T B H M Piano Bass Drums

0:00Verse 1a

srd

low

rit.

X X X X T B H M T B H T B

0:28 c (X) X (B) H H

0:39Verse 1b

srd

rit.

X X X X T B H M T B H T B

1:04 c (X) X (B) H H

1:14Chorus

1

srd

rit.

X X X X T B H T B M T B

1:40 c X H H

1:50Verse 2

srdmedium

rit.

(X) X X X (T) B H M (T) B H (T) B

2:16 c X H H

2:24Chorus

2

srd low

lock-in

X X X X T B H T B M T B

2:49 c low > high X H H

4:59

Terminal Climax

lp. 1–6

highcollapse?

X X X X T B H M T B H T B

6:23 lp. 7 X X (X) (X) T B (H M) T B (H) T B

6:38 lp. 8 no! X X X X T B H M T B H T B

6:53 (lp. 9) collapse (M)

Example 5.26. Parameter shifts and rhetorical features in “Karma Police” (TBP 2006; Radiohead 1997b).

266

chorus as Anderson’s bass takes over the melody, accompanied by delicate chords in the

piano’s upper register. 59

But the trio inverts Radiohead’s rhetorical approach to the transitions between

these modules. As shown in Example 5.27, both the verse and chorus modules of

Radiohead’s original employ a variant of srdc sentential form (Everett 1999) in which the

melody concludes at the end of d. In the relaxed choruses of Radiohead’s original track, 60

the groove and fuller texture return in the final c to compensate for the missing melody,

propelling the music toward the upcoming module. By contrast, TBP’s arrangement

consistently loosens its tempo in the final c of its verse and chorus modules. In Verses 1a

This feature is reflected by the chart in Example 5.26: Iverson’s piano column contains “M” in the verse 59

modules, but this “M” transfers to Anderson’s bass column in the chorus modules. Osborn (2016, 151–52) reads the verse modules of “Karma Police” (Radiohead 1997b) in A minor, pinning 60

his analysis to a structural 3–2–1 melodic descent in that key. I am more inclined to treat the verse modules in E minor. This hearing treats the chorus’s modulation to G major as a conventional move from minor to the relative major, as opposed to a comparatively unusual modulation down by whole step. It also illuminates the broad functional parallelisms between the progressions in the two modules. The off-tonic openings of both modules, for example, move from a subdominant, through a dominant (substitute) weakened by inversion, to the local tonic. The modules also conclude almost identically.

Example 5.27. Sentential form in the verse and chorus modules of “Karma Police” (Radiohead 1997b).

267

and 1b, this loosening amounts to a ritardando in which Iverson’s brief melodic fills

retain some semblance of a quadruple tactus whose interonset intervals (IOIs) are

momentarily stretched. But this orienting tactus slackens in Chorus 1 and Verse 2, as the

trio begins to coordinate its motion through c by cueing the arrival of each harmony

with freer melodic figures that do not strongly imply a consistent or shared beat.

This abandonment of metric coordination reaches its apex in the c that concludes

Chorus 2, which constitutes the trio’s most pronounced passage of improvisation. Here

the band loops the two-bar chord progression of c and undertakes a collective

improvisation, spearheaded by Iverson and coordinated solely by out-of-time changes in

harmony, that builds inexorably from quiet hesitancy to raucous tumult over the course

of roughly two minutes [2:49–4:58]. The protracted buildup culminates with the band

locking back into the original 4/4 groove on the last pass through the two-measure

chord progression of c [4:52–4:58], propelling the music into the subsequent terminal

climax. This dramatic expansion of the final c subsection heightens the impact of the

climax’s arrival in multiple ways: the trio’s increasingly frenzied interactions create a

surge in sonic energy, and their temporary abandonment of coordinating meter and

tempo highlights the reemergence of both parameters in the climactic final module.

While TBP often concludes such climaxes with dramatic collapses, thereby

undercutting their triumphalism, the effect is especially powerful here. After six fully

coordinated loops of the terminal climax’s four-measure progression, in the seventh loop

the band members begin to harmonically and metrically pull apart from the Radiohead

referent. Cracks first appear in the musical surface as Iverson begins to distort the

melody, first by altering the qualities of its accompanying chords [6:26–6:30], then by

subjecting it to motivic disassembly [6:30–6:37]. Although this distortion spurs brief

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metric and textural chaos, King momentarily averts an impending collapse with a

dramatically accelerating rock beat whose tempo levels off into a double-time feel

[6:33–6:37]. The rest of the trio quickly aligns with this new point of coordination,

represented by the red characters in Example 5.26—Iverson and Anderson generate fast-

moving accompaniment lines, the former of which forms a three-against-two

relationship with King’s drums, and Iverson marks the climax’s eighth loop by

hammering out one last unvarnished melodic statement atop this frenetic new texture.

But these newfound energetic heights are short lived. On the downbeat of the

final (incomplete) loop, the frantic double-time groove crashes to a halt as the melody

and accompaniment layers audibly fall apart, quickly abandoning any semblance of

recognizable organization. While Radiohead’s terminal climax ultimately evanesces into

white noise, TBP’s burst of collective sonic energy from a temporarily averted collapse

ultimately yields a yet more ruinous disintegration, as the arrangement ends with the

original material audibly fractured into pieces.

5.2.8. A Concluding Synthesis: “Velouria” (TBP 2004b; Pixies 1990)

To bookend this chapter, I return to TBP’s high-octane arrangement of “Velouria”

(TBP 2004b; Pixies 1990). Potential sources of the arrangement’s concluding F-major

side-slip were discussed briefly in conjunction with Example 5.4; Example 5.28 details

the trio’s full performance, which synthesizes features and processes examined in the

three preceding analyses. TBP’s arrangement couples a slow initial progression toward

metric coordination with a gradual increase in sonic energy, followed by subsequent

shifts in and out of tempo coordination. A frenzied penultimate chorus module careens

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toward collapse, only to be rescued by the emergence of another corybantic rock groove

from King. And Anderson’s bass playing again assumes a pivotal role in the

arrangement’s long-range trajectory, ultimately mediating between Iverson’s pitch

content and King’s groove in the climactic Chorus 3b.

The Pixies’ verse modules, shown in Example 5.29, feature a gentle friction

between two hypermetric groupings. While the melody outlines a prevailing

((22)(22)(2)) measure grouping, the harmony cycles twice through a five-measure

progression, producing a subtler (55) structure. The lack of alignment between these

groupings produces different harmonizations of the verse’s initial pair of four-bar

FORM RHETORIC COORDINATING PARAMETERS INSTRUMENT FUNCTIONS

Start Time Module Sonic

Energy Trans. T B H M Piano Bass Drums

0:00 Intro (verse)low

straight in X H

[tacet] T B0:28 Verse 1 straight in X X H M

1:39 Prechorus 1low > high

straight in X X XB H M

2:05 Chorus 1 lock-in X X X

2:27 Verse 2

high

straight in X X X (H) T B H T B

3:08 Chorus 2 lock-in X X X B H M H (B)

3:29 Verse 3 straight in X X X H T B H T B

4:10 Chorus 3a collapse? X X X B H M (H) (B)

4:37 Chorus 3b no! X X X X H M T B H T B

4:55 Prechorus 2 med. > low fermata X X X X T B H M H T B

Example 5.28. Parameter shifts and rhetorical features in in “Velouria” (TBP 2004b; Pixies 1990).

270

melodic phrases, before the module concludes with a IV–I plagal tag. This germinal 61

grouping friction plays out more abstractly as a large-scale stratification between King

and Iverson in the first four modules of TBP’s arrangement. The trio’s performance

begins with a quiet, circular groove in triple meter by King (shown in Example 5.30), the

two primary streams of which encode their own grouping dissonance. While this 62

groove continues unabated through the first four modules, gradually becoming louder,

it reveals itself as a metric red herring when Iverson first enters with an introductory

pass through the verse chord progression [0:09] that avoids any trace of metric

alignment with the drums.

Iverson’s initial verse chord progression also avoids strong metric implications of

its own. While he voice-leads the progression above a repeating pedal tone Bb3, the

tone’s gentle pulsing avoids a consistent tempo, and the harmonies occupy varying

numbers of pulses, forestalling the arrival of a governing meter. The pianist’s

progression through the subsequent Verse 1, Prechorus 1, and Chorus 1 modules

eventually coheres around a clear quadruple tactus while retaining tempo flexibility. But

This lack of alignment suggests a potential hearing of mm. 1–4 in Bb minor as a perhaps more conventional 61

i–VI–IV–bII progression whose first four chords harmonize an inner-voice 5–#5–6–b6 line. This sensation is intensified by the F-major chord that precedes each verse, which tonicizes the initial Bb-minor harmony. For discussion of another melodic-harmonic misalignment—this time imposed by a jazz arrangement—see the analysis of Mehldau’s “Day is Done” (Mehldau 2005a; Drake 1969) in Chapter 3.

If one treats the 3- and 4-groupings in both streams as composite 7-groupings (as is suggested more clearly 62

by the upper stream, in which an onslaught of continuous sixteenth notes cascades across the notated repeat), the two streams instead form a displacement dissonance, with the (57) grouping of the lower stream offset forward by one sixteenth note in the upper stream.

Example 5.29. Grouping conflict in the verse modules of “Velouria” (Pixies 1990).

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Iverson’s playing remains resolutely stratified from King’s groove, which continually

unfolds as if at a distance from the song’s primary material. Indeed, the only feature that

coordinates King and Iverson in these first four modules is the gradual accumulation of

sonic energy. As Iverson’s mid-register playing gives way to rhapsodic left-hand

arpeggios (Prechorus 1) and a trademark block-chord melody in the piano’s upper

register (Chorus 1), King’s pattern incorporates more cymbal colors, mirroring Iverson’s

timbral expansion. This unrelenting sonic buildup culminates in a lock-in transition that

propels the music forward into Verse 2. The jarring metric coordination of this sudden

rock groove is intensified by Anderson, who—after remaining conspicuously tacet for

the first two-and-a-half minutes of the performance—finally enters with a groove-

oriented bass line.

As the successive verse-chorus alternations maintain an aggressive level of sonic

energy, the trio heightens the contrast between these modules with accompanying

omissions of melodic and tempo coordination, respectively, recalling their approach to

“Heart of Glass.” The verse modules omit the melody to serve as solo sections for

Iverson, while Anderson and King hold down the driving rock groove. The roles are 63

flipped in the intervening choruses: Iverson’s rhapsodic rubato melody tracks the trio’s

In Verse 2, Iverson’s solo begins largely outside the module’s standard changes but eventually aligns with 63

them—hence the (H) label in his piano column for this module.

Example 5.30. King’s initial drum groove in “Velouria” (TBP 2004b; Pixies 1990).

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progress through the module, allowing Anderson and King to exercise considerable

rhythmic (and in Anderson’s case, harmonic) freedom in their own improvisations.

These improvisations produce a kind of metric boomerang effect in Chorus 2—after a

coordinated start to the module, the bass and drums begin to strain against Iverson’s

rubato phrasing, only for the pianist to pull his bandmates back into metric alignment

for a lock-in transition to Verse 3.

This straining becomes even more pronounced in Chorus 3a, threatening a

characteristic collapse. Rather than snapping back into the original groove, however, this

module concludes with Iverson and King each bursting forth from the growing textural

chaos with renewed clarity, propelling the music forward into an additional chorus

repetition (Chorus 3b) with a block-chord melody and abruptly faster rock groove,

respectively. In a virtuosic call-back to the first portion of the arrangement, these two

statements are again metrically stratified—unlike the terminal climax of “Karma Police,”

Iverson’s percussive chorus melody aligns neither with the nested pulses of King’s

groove nor with a consistently grouped tactus of its own.

Although Anderson remained tacet during the arrangement’s earlier period of

bass-piano stratification, here he plays a decisive mediating role, as diagrammed in

Example 5.31. Anderson’s pulsing bass line locks in rhythmically with the eighth-note

regularity of King’s rock pattern. But the pitch content of his bass line syncs loosely with

Iverson’s melody; because this melody lacks strong metric consistency of its own,

Anderson simply changes bass pitches when Iverson’s irregular playing arrives at chord

changes. Example 5.28 indicates this virtuosic dual coordination. Iverson’s playing is

coordinated solely by the original’s harmony and melody, while King’s playing is

oriented around a freshly faster tempo and meter (indicated with red T and B). And

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Anderson climactically bridges the gap between the two, unfolding Iverson’s chord

changes in King’s groove. This ultimate reconciliation between stratified streams

catapults the music toward the resounding downbeat of the final Prechorus 2 module,

which inverts the module’s anticipatory function by allowing the trio’s sonic and

improvisatory energy to gradually dissipate, drawing the performance to a quiet, side-

slipped close.

5.2.9. Conclusion: Isn’t It Ironic?

TBP’s breakneck rendering of “Velouria” is a fitting place to conclude an

examination of irony and improvisation in the trio’s approach to palimpsest

performance. The band’s arrangement, like so many of their MRPM renderings, is shot

through with features that invite ironic hearings by flouting several of the Gricean

maxims. Iverson’s rhapsodic melodies and burgeoning buildups of sonic energy verge

on parodic, undercutting both the Quality and Quantity maxims. The shifts in and out of

tempo coordination between modules, and the consistent metric stratifications within

these modules, violate Relation, as simultaneous and successive elements of the trio’s

Example 5.31. Anderson mediates Iverson’s and King’s metric stratification in Chorus 3b of “Velouria” (TBP 2004b; Pixies 1990).

274

performance alike seem to deliberately embrace discontinuity. And the turbulent

textures that result from this lack of coordination challenge Manner by gleefully

injecting disorganization—seemingly for its own sake—into the musical proceedings.

But as was the case with “Time After Time”—indeed, in one TBP performance

after the next—these recurring arranging and improvisational practices consistently add

up to something more than mere irony. Yes, the fixity of thick MRPM source songs is a

foil that casts the band’s quirky side-slips, knowing overextensions, and calculated

improvisational chaos into especially vivid intertextual relief. But these techniques,

deployed alone and in combination, in both conspicuous and sophisticated ways, also

spotlight how the band resourcefully resists scaling their source materials into stale

arrangements or conventional head-solos-head layouts.

As I hope to have shown, TBP’s palimpsest transformations consistently yield

compelling developmental processes—whether by side-slipping chord roots in a Bee

Gees reharmonization, overextending a rhythmic grouping into multiple levels of

hypermeter, see-sawing between partial parameter coordination and total freedom en

route to a coordinated disco climax, or affecting a virtuosic rapprochement between

stratified textural streams. By pointedly deemphasizing select coordinating parameters,

the band maintains fidelity to recognizable elements of their source songs while

producing dynamic and contrasting environments for improvisation, both within and

across their performances. And the band is able to do all of these things even when—or

perhaps, especially when—their transformations are catalyzed by ironic subversion. One

would be hard-pressed to find a more offbeat but candid argument for an ongoing

synergy between MRPM and modern jazz.

275

—Coda—

In the introduction to his famous examination of harmonic substitution

principles in bebop, jazz theorist Steven Strunk notes that his study is enabled by the fact

that bebop—despite its ongoing prominence and pervasive influence—is in essence a

closed practice: “Interested musicians have now gained sufficient perspective on that

important style of jazz performance originally called bebop … that general assessments of

some aspects of its style are now possible (Strunk 1979, 4, emphasis mine).

Modern jazz’s standard practice (MJSP) is decidedly open by comparison. The

practice is ongoing: as I write this, all the artists examined in this dissertation continue to

write, perform, and record both jazz palimpsests and original compositions. The practice

is also capacious: if anything unifies jazz musicians’ approach to the canon of modern

recorded popular music (MRPM), it is a proudly polyglot posture that embraces stylistic

heterogeneity as a signal virtue. While certain quadrants of this canon have the glimmer

of a new (if patchwork) standard repertoire for jazz musicians—Radiohead, the Beatles,

Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon—this piecemeal canon remains ripe for

ongoing expansion, as acts of veneration, sublimation, and integration alike continually

cross-connect strands of the vast musical landscape. And it remains to be seen what will

become of this recently revitalized practice of playing MRPM within the recognizable

confines of an acoustic jazz palimpsest tradition—whether it will expand, atrophy, or

simply maintain its own humble but sturdy place in evolving musical culture.

In this dissertation, I have suggested that both the ontological primacy of various

musical domains in MRPM, and the specific features of these domains, afford particular

compositional approaches, improvisational behaviors, and intertextual listening

276

practices; and that all three of these both align with, and differ meaningfully from, the

palimpsest practices of jazz’s past and the covering practices of popular music’s present.

The formal and harmonic variety of MRPM affords a broad array of potential formal

juxtapositions and rhetorical contours in jazz performance. The primacy of groove and

the pervasiveness of duple meter in MRPM suggest prominent and creative roles for

these domains in asymmetric metric transformations and embodied intertextual

hearings. While the seeming incongruity of a postmodern approach to arranging and

improvising over MRPM can readily yield a sense of irony, the transformations that

yield this valence can also forge creative solo spaces and dynamic developmental

processes. The fixity of MRPM source recordings allows a stereophonically-oriented

listener to hear, in exceptionally vivid intertextual detail, how the animating balance

between a jazz musician’s agency and a source song’s influence plays out in each of

these dimensions of jazz palimpsest performance. And how a listener hears this balance

is, I have suggested, inextricable from issues of ontological primacy and expressive

intent, distributed within and across these domains and many others.

Owing to both the genre liminality of MJSP and the pervasiveness of musical

recreation, I hope that some of the broad questions and specific approaches I’ve framed

in this dissertation might serve as productive launching points for investigations of

other repertoires and methodological issues. The notion of improvisational agency—

how it relates to musical referents, how it is understood and enacted by musicians, and

how it is perceived by listeners—is a complex and nuanced topic that extends beyond

jazz to virtually any music animated by improvisation. Questions of formal repetition

and rhetoric in improvised music also remain notably under-theorized—in particular,

the types of rhetorical relationships that exist between improvised and composed

277

passages, the affordances these relationships offer to soloists, and the kinds of formal

functions displayed by various juxtapositions of these passages. I also hope that the

broad notion of a referent type might productively complicate how we conceptualize

what it means to improvise over a musical framework, how we analyze such

improvisations, and how both these frameworks and the improvisations they facilitate

can be understood to interact with other parameters to shape musical form and process.

On a separate front, while there exist incredibly robust disciplinary frameworks

for describing properties of, and relationships between, groupings of pitches, the

corresponding apparatus for groupings of pulses is surprisingly scant. Considering the

ontological primacy of rhythmic and metric phenomena in so much of the world’s

music, the ongoing development of this apparatus is surely imperative. I hope to have

made useful contributions to this development with my work in Chapter 4. I also intend

my examination of asymmetric meter and grouping structures to have framed broader

questions about what it might mean to hear rhythm and meter intertextually, and about

the contingency of metric and rhythmic phenomena in asymmetric meters—in

particular, the issue of defining grouping and displacement dissonances in these meters.

When considered together, I also hope that the breadth of my claims and the

content of my analyses suggest a larger argument about both MJSP and creative

palimpsest practices in general: that, just as MJSP approaches well-worn music with a

spirit of improvisational recreativity, so too does the practice itself benefit from similarly

inventive analytic and methodological responses. This emphasis on novelty and

experimentation is a defining feature of the contemporary jazz aesthetic writ large, as

former New York Times jazz critic Nate Chinen (2018) recounts in his book surveying

the modern jazz scene:

278

Jazz has always been a frontier of inquiry, with experimentation in multiple

registers. That’s as true now as it has ever been … Instead of stark binaries and

opposing alignments, we face a blur of contingent alignments. Instead of a push

for definition and one prevailing style, we have boundless permutations without

fixed parameters. That multiplicity lies precisely at the heart of the new aesthetic

—and is the engine of its greatest promise (Chinen 2018, xi, emphasis mine).

To be sure, the multiplicity Chinen references poses a fundamental challenge to

sweeping analytic or conceptual generalizations about MJSP as a whole, because the

ongoing practice seems to resist them by design. While I have offered some provisional

generalizations in my three case studies, a broader theme of these studies is that the

multiformity of MJSP is, in some sense, the point—the practice itself is characterized less

by consistency than by contingency. This fluidity renders analysis of individual

performances unique and exciting. And it prompts analysts to use this music, not just as

a whetstone for existing methodologies and tools, but as a catalyst to develop new ones

—to use modern jazz performances themselves as fodder for analytical acts of

veneration, sublimation, or integration. Such an approach, I would suggest, is a wholly

fitting response to a musical practice predicated on perpetual reinvention. In my own

approach to this music, I hope to have demonstrated that there is often more to a

modern jazz palimpsest than initially meets the ear—to have suggested that modern

jazz’s standard practice is more than the sum of its parts; and, in the aggregate, to have

furnished a rich and nuanced perspective on how this long-established jazz practice can

be heard to manifest, in all its multiplicity, in the modern musical landscape.

279

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—Discography—

ABBA. 1976. “Knowing Me, Knowing You.” Arrival, track A5. Polar POLLS 272, vinyl LP.

The Bad Plus. 2001a. “Knowing Me, Knowing You.” Original song recorded by ABBA (1976). The Bad Plus [Motel], track 1. Reid Anderson, double bass; Ethan Iverson, piano; Dave King, drums. Fresh Sound New Talent FSNT 107, compact disc.

———. 2001b. “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” The Bad Plus [Motel], track 5. Reid Anderson, double bass; Ethan Iverson, piano; Dave King, drums. Fresh Sound New Talent FSNT 107, compact disc.

———. 2003a. “Heart of Glass.” Original song recorded by Blondie (1978). These Are the Vistas, track 9. Reid Anderson, double bass; Ethan Iverson, piano; Dave King, drums. Columbia 510666 2, compact disc.

———. 2003b. “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” These Are the Vistas, track 3. Reid Anderson, double bass; Ethan Iverson, piano; Dave King, drums. Columbia 510666 2, compact disc.

———. 2004a. “Iron Man.” Original song recorded by Black Sabbath (1970). Give, track 11. Reid Anderson, double bass; Ethan Iverson, piano; Dave King, drums. Columbia CK 90771, compact disc.

———. 2004b. “Velouria.” Original song recorded by Pixies (1990). Give, track 6. Reid Anderson, double bass; Ethan Iverson, piano; Dave King, drums. Columbia CK 90771, compact disc.

———. 2005. Blunt Object: Live in Tokyo. Sony BMG Music Entertainment CL 92876, compact disc.

———. 2006. “Karma Police.” Original song recorded by Radiohead (1997b). On Exit Music—Songs With Radio Heads, track 10. Reid Anderson, double bass; Ethan Iverson, piano; Dave King, drums. Rapster Records RR0047CD, compact disc.

———. 2007. “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” Original song recorded by Tears for Fears (1985). Prog, track 1. Reid Anderson, double bass; Ethan Iverson, piano; Dave King, drums. Heads Up International HUCD 3125, compact disc.

———. 2014. The Rite of Spring. Original music composed by Igor Stravinsky (1913). Sony Masterworks 88843 02405 2, compact disc.

———. 2016a. “Don’t Dream It’s Over.” Original song recorded by Crowded House (1986). It’s Hard, track 7. Reid Anderson, double bass; Ethan Iverson, piano; Dave King, drums. Okeh 88985 33714 2, compact disc.

303

———. 2016b. “Games Without Frontiers.” Original song recorded by Peter Gabriel (1980). It’s Hard, track 2. Reid Anderson, double bass; Ethan Iverson, piano; Dave King, drums. Okeh 88985 33714 2, compact disc.

———. 2016c. “I Walk the Line.” Original song recorded by Johnny Cash (1957). It’s Hard, track 4. Reid Anderson, double bass; Ethan Iverson, piano; Dave King, drums. Okeh 88985 33714 2, compact disc.

———. 2016d. “Mandy.” Original song recorded by Barry Manilow (1974). It’s Hard, track 9. Reid Anderson, double bass; Ethan Iverson, piano; Dave King, drums. Okeh 88985 33714 2, compact disc.

———. 2016e. “Time After Time.” Original song recorded by Cyndi Lauper (1983). It’s Hard, track 3. Reid Anderson, double bass; Ethan Iverson, piano; Dave King, drums. Okeh 88985 33714 2, compact disc.

The Bad Plus, joined by Wendy Lewis. 2009a. “Comfortably Numb.” Original song recorded by Pink Floyd (1979). For All I Care, track 2. Reid Anderson, double bass; Ethan Iverson, piano; Dave King, drums; Wendy Lewis, vocals. Heads Up International HUCD 3148, compact disc.

———. 2009b. “How Deep Is Your Love.” Original song recorded by the Bee Gees (1977). For All I Care, track 7. Reid Anderson, double bass; Ethan Iverson, piano; Dave King, drums; Wendy Lewis, vocals. Heads Up International HUCD 3148, compact disc.

The Beatles. 1964. “And I Love Her.” A Hard Day’s Night, track A1. Parlophone PMC 1230, vinyl LP.

———. 1966. “Eleanor Rigby.” Revolver, track A2. Parlophone PMC 7009, vinyl LP.

———. 1968. The Beatles (White Album). Apple Records PMC 7067/8, vinyl LP.

The Bee Gees. 1977. “How Deep Is Your Love.” Single. RSO 2090 259, vinyl 7”.

Black Sabbath. 1970. “Iron Man.” Paranoid, track A4. Vertigo 6360 011, vinyl LP.

Blondie. 1978. “Heart of Glass.” Parallel Lines, track B4. Chrysalis CHR 1192, vinyl LP.

Brubeck, Dave (quartet). 1959. “Blue Rondo à la Turk.” Time Out, track A1. Dave Brubeck, piano; Paul Desmond, alto saxophone; Joe Morello, drums; Eugene Wright, double bass. Columbia CL 1397, vinyl LP.

Cash, Johnny. 1957. “I Walk the Line.” Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar!, track B3. Sun LP-1220, vinyl LP.

Count Basie and His Orchestra. 1966. Basie’s Beatle Bag. Verve V-8659, vinyl LP.

304

———. 1970. Basie on the Beatles. Happy Tiger Records HT-1007, vinyl LP.

Crowded House. 1986. “Don’t Dream It’s Over.” Crowded House, track A3. Capitol ST-12485, vinyl LP.

Drake, Nick. 1969. “Day is Done.” Five Leaves Left, track A4. Island Records ILPS 9105, vinyl LP.

Ellington, Duke. 1988. “The Village of the Virgins.” The Suites: New York 1968 & 1970, track 2j. Saja Records 91045-2, compact disc.

Foster, Ronnie. 1972. “Mystic Brew.” Two-Headed Freap, track B3. Blue Note Records BST-84382, vinyl LP.

Gabriel, Peter. 1980. “Games Without Frontiers.” Peter Gabriel, track B1. Charisma CDS 4019, vinyl LP.

Glasper, Robert. 2007a. “Beatrice.” Original song composed by Sam Rivers (1964). In My Element, track 6. Vicente Archer, double bass; Damion Reid, drums; Robert Glasper, piano. Blue Note Records 0946 3 78111 2 2, compact disc.

———, arr. 2007b. “Maiden Voyage / Everything in Its Right Place.” Original songs by Herbie Hancock (1965) and Radiohead (2000). In My Element, track 7. Vicente Archer, double bass; Damion Reid, drums; Robert Glasper, piano. Blue Note Records 0946 3 78111 2 2, compact disc.

———. 2015a. Covered. Blue Note Records B002285602, compact disc.

———. 2015b. “Stella by Starlight.” Original song composed by Victor Young (1944). Covered, track 9. Vicente Archer, double bass; Robert Glasper, piano; Damion Reid, drums. Blue Note Records B002285602, compact disc.

Goldberg, Aaron. 2010a. Home. Sunnyside SSC 1232, compact disc.

———. 2010b. “Isn’t She Lovely.” Original song recorded by Stevie Wonder (1976). Home, track 7. Aaron Goldberg, piano; Eric Harland, drums; Reuben Rogers, bass. Sunnyside SSC 1232, compact disc.

Hancock, Herbie. 1965. “Maiden Voyage.” Maiden Voyage, track 1. Ron Carter, double bass; George Coleman, tenor saxophone; Herbie Hancock, piano; Freddie Hubbard, trumpet; Tony Williams, drums. Blue Note Records BLP 4195, vinyl LP.

———. 1996. The New Standard. Verve 314 529 584-2, compact disc.

Hawkins, Coleman. [1939] 1986. “Body and Soul.” Original song composed by Johnny Green and Edward Heyman (1930). Body and Soul, track A4. Bluebird 5658-1-RB, vinyl LP.

305

Heatwave. 1978. “The Star of a Story.” Central Heating, track B3. Epic JE 35260, vinyl LP.

Hersch, Fred (trio + 2). 2004. “And I Love Her.” Original song recorded by the Beatles (1964). Fred Hersch Trio +2, track 2. Ralph Alessi, trumpet; Drew Gress, double bass; Fred Hersch, piano; Tony Malaby, tenor saxophone; Nasheet Waits, drums. Palmetto Records PM 2099, compact disc.

Holland, Dave, Zakir Hussain, and Chris Potter. 2019. Good Hope. Edition Records EDN1136, compact disc.

Iyer, Vijay (solo). 2005a. “Imagine.” Original song recorded by John Lennon (1971). Reimagining, track 10. Vijay Iyer, piano. Savoy Jazz 17475, compact disc.

——— (solo). 2005b. Reimaginging. Savoy Jazz 17475, compact disc.

——— (trio). 2009a. “Big Brother.” Original song recorded by Stevie Wonder (1972). Historicity, track 6. Stefan Crump, double bass; Marcus Gilmore, drums; Vijay Iyer, piano. ACT 9489-2, compact disc.

——— (trio). 2009b. “Galang (Trio Riot Version).” Original song recorded by M.I.A. (2005). Historicity, track 3. Stefan Crump, double bass; Marcus Gilmore, drums; Vijay Iyer, piano. ACT 9489-2, compact disc.

——— (trio). 2009c. Historicity. ACT 9489-2, compact disc.

——— (trio). 2009d. “Mystic Brew (Trixation Version).” Original song recorded by Ronnie Foster (1972) and sampled by A Tribe Called Quest (1993). Historicity, track 8. Stefan Crump, double bass; Marcus Gilmore, drums; Vijay Iyer, piano. ACT 9489-2, compact disc.

——— (trio). 2009e. “Somewhere.” Original song composed by Leonard Bernstein and Steven Sondheim (1957). Historicity, track 2. Stefan Crump, double bass; Marcus Gilmore, drums; Vijay Iyer, piano. ACT 9489-2, compact disc. ——— (solo). 2010a. “Human Nature.” Original song recorded by Michael Jackson (1982). Solo, track 1. Vijay Iyer, piano. ACT 9497-2, compact disc. ——— (solo). 2010b. Solo. ACT 9497-2, compact disc.

——— (trio). 2012a. Accelerando. ACT 9524-2, compact disc.

——— (trio). 2012b. “Human Nature (Trio Extension).” Original song recorded by Michael Jackson (1982). Accelerando, track 4. Stefan Crump, double bass; Marcus Gilmore, drums; Vijay Iyer, piano. ACT 9489-2, compact disc.

306

——— (trio). 2012c. “The Star of a Story.” Original song recorded by Heatwave (1978). Accelerando, track 3. Stefan Crump, double bass; Marcus Gilmore, drums; Vijay Iyer, piano. ACT 9489-2, compact disc.

——— (trio). 2012d. “The Village of the Virgins.” Original music composed (1970) and recorded (1988) by Duke Ellington. Accelerando, track 12. Stefan Crump, double bass; Marcus Gilmore, drums; Vijay Iyer, piano. ACT 9489-2, compact disc.

Jackson, Michael. 1982. “Human Nature.” Thriller, track B3. Epic QE 38112, vinyl LP.

J. Cole (ft. Kendrick Lamar). 2013. “Forbidden Fruit.” Samples “Electric Relaxation” by A Tribe Called Quest (1993). Born Sinner, track 11. Columbia 88883 73027 2, compact disc.

Lauper, Cyndi. 1983. “Time After Time.” She’s So Unusual, track A4. Portrait FR 38930, vinyl LP.

Lennon, John. 1971. “Imagine.” Imagine, track A1. Apple Records PAS 10004, vinyl LP.

Lewis, Ramsey. 1968. Mother Nature’s Son. Cadet LPS-821, vinyl LP.

Madlib. 2003. “Mystic Bounce.” Samples “Electric Relaxation” by A Tribe Called Quest (1993). Shades of Blue, track A4. Blue Note Records 7423 5 36447 1 0, vinyl LP.

Manilow, Barry. 1974. “Mandy.” Barry Manilow II, track A3. Bell BELL 1314, vinyl LP.

Mehldau, Brad (trio). 1997. “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was.” Original song composed by Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers (1939). The Art of the Trio, Vol. 1, track 2. Larry Grenadier, double bass; Brad Mehldau, piano; Jorge Rossy, drums. Warner Bros. Records 946260-2, compact disc.

——— (trio). 1998a. “Exit Music (For a Film).” Original song recorded by Radiohead (1997a). Songs: The Art of the Trio, Vol. 3, track 4. Larry Grenadier, double bass; Brad Mehldau, piano; Jorge Rossy, drums. Warner Bros. Records 9 47051-2, compact disc.

——— (trio). 1998b. Songs: The Art of the Trio, Vol. 3. Warner Bros. Records 9 47051-2, compact disc.

——— (trio). 1999. “Exit Music (For a Film).” Original song recorded by Radiohead (1997a). The Art of the Trio, Vol. 4: Back at the Vanguard, track 7. Larry Grenadier, double bass; Brad Mehldau, piano; Jorge Rossy, drums. Warner Bros. Records 9362-47463-2.

——— (solo). [1999] 2000. “Paranoid Android.” Original song recorded by Radiohead (1997c). Deregulating Jazz, track 2. Brad Mehldau, piano. Warner Bros. Records PRO0-CD-4527, compact disc.

307

——— (trio). 2004a. “Everything In Its Right Place.” Original song recorded by Radiohead (2000). Anything Goes, track 8. Larry Grenadier, double bass; Brad Mehldau, piano; Jorge Rossy, drums. Nonesuch 48608-2.

——— (solo). 2004b. “Paranoid Android.” Original song recorded by Radiohead (1997c). Live in Tokyo, track 6. Brad Mehldau, piano. Nonesuch 7559-79853-2.

——— (trio). 2005a. Day Is Done. Nonesuch 79910-2, compact disc.

——— (trio). 2005b. “Day is Done.” Original song recorded by Nick Drake (1969). Day is Done, track 4. Jeff Ballard, drums; Larry Grenadier, double bass; Brad Mehldau, piano. Nonesuch 79910-2, compact disc.

——— (trio). 2005c. “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.” Original song recorded by Paul Simon (1975a). Day is Done, track 9. Jeff Ballard, drums; Larry Grenadier, double bass; Brad Mehldau, piano. Nonesuch 79910-2, compact disc.

——— (trio). 2005d. “Knives Out.” Original song recorded by Radiohead (2001). Day is Done, track 1. Jeff Ballard, drums; Larry Grenadier, double bass; Brad Mehldau, piano. Nonesuch 79910-2, compact disc.

——— (trio). 2008. “Wonderwall.” Original song recorded by Oasis (1995). Brad Mehldau Trio Live, track 1.2. Jeff Ballard, drums; Larry Grenadier, double bass; Brad Mehldau, piano. Nonesuch 7559-79956-5, compact disc.

——— (solo). 2015a. “Jigsaw Falling Into Place.” Original song recorded by Radiohead (2008). 10 Years Solo Live, track 1.3. Brad Mehldau, piano. Nonesuch 7559-79507-5, compact disc box set.

——— (solo). 2015b. “Knives Out.” Original song recorded by Radiohead (2001). 10 Years Solo Live, track 3.11. Brad Mehldau, piano. Nonesuch 7559-79507-5, compact disc box set.

——— (trio). 2016. “And I Love Her.” Original song recorded by the Beatles (1964). Ballads and Blues, track 6. Jeff Ballard, drums; Larry Grenadier, double bass; Brad Mehldau, piano. Nonesuch 7559-79465-0, compact disc.

——— (solo). 2018. After Bach. Nonesuch 56982, compact disc.

M.I.A. 2005. “Galang.” Arular, track 13.1. Interscope Records B0004844-02, compact disc.

Moran, Jason. 2002a. “Auf einer Burg.” Music originally composed by Robert Schumann. Modernistic, track 10. Jason Moran, piano. Blue Note Records 7243 5 39838 2 6, compact disc.

———. 2002b. Modernistic. Blue Note Records. 7243 5 39838 2 6, compact disc.

308

Nirvana. 1991. “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Nevermind, track 1. DCG 424 425-1, compact disc.

Oasis. 1995. “Wonderwall.” (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, track 3. Epic EK67351, compact disc.

Pink Floyd. 1979. “Comfortably Numb.” The Wall, track C6. Columbia PC2 36183, vinyl LP.

Pixies. 1990. “Velouria.” Bossanova, track 3. Elektra 9 60963-2, compact disc.

Radiohead. 1997a. “Exit Music (For a Film).” OK Computer, track 4. Capitol Records CDP 7243 8 55229 2 5, compact disc.

———. 1997b. “Karma Police.” OK Computer, track 6. Capitol Records CDP 7243 8 55229 2 5, compact disc.

———. 1997c. “Paranoid Android.” OK Computer, track 2. Capitol Records CDP 7243 8 55229 2 5, compact disc.

———. 2000. “Everything in Its Right Place.” Kid A, track 1. Capitol Records CDP 7243 5 27753 2 3, compact disc.

———. 2001. “Knives Out.” Amnesiac, track 6. Capitol Records CDP 7243 5 32764 2 3, compact disc.

———. 2008. “Jigsaw Falling Into Place.” In Rainbows, track 9. TBD Records TBD0001, compact disc.

Redman, Joshua. 1998a. “Eleanor Rigby.” Original song recorded by the Beatles (1966). Timeless Tales (For Changing Times), track 15. Brian Blade, drums; Larry Grenadier, double bass; Brad Mehldau, piano; Joshua Redman, tenor saxophone.

———. 1998b. Timeless Tales (For Changing Times). Warner Bros. Records 9 47052-2, compact disc.

Simon, Paul. 1975a. “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.” Still Crazy After All These Years, track A4. Columbia PC 33540, vinyl LP.

———. 1975b. Still Crazy After All These Years. Columbia PC 33540, vinyl LP.

Steely Dan. 1977. “Aja.” Aja, track A2. ABC Records AA 1006, vinyl LP.

Tears For Fears. 1985. “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” Songs from the Big Chair, track 3. Mercury 824 300-2, compact disc.

309

Terrasson, Jacky. 2002a. “Parisian Thoroughfare.” Original song composed and recorded by Bud Powell (1951). Smile, track 1. Eric Harland, drums; Sean Smith, double bass; Jacky Terrasson, piano. Blue Note 7243 5 40668 2 5, compact disc.

———. 2002b. Smile. Blue Note 7243 5 40668 2 5, compact disc.

Threadgill, Henry. 1993. “Little Pocket Size Demons.” Too Much Sugar for a Dime, track 1. Axiom 314-514 258-2, compact disc.

A Tribe Called Quest. 1993. “Electric Relaxation.” Samples original song recorded by Ronnie Foster (1972). Midnight Marauders, track 8. Jive 01241-41490-2, compact disc.

Warfield, Tim. 2013. “I Remember You.” Original song composed by Johnny Mercer and Victor Schertzinger (1941). Eye of the Beholder, track 4. Cyrus Chestnut, piano; Nicholas Payton, trumpet; Clarence Penn, drums; Tim Warfield, tenor saxophone; Rodney Whitaker, double bass. Criss Cross Jazz CRISS1355CD, compact disc.

Wonder, Stevie. 1972. “Big Brother.” Talking Book, track B2. Tamla T319L, vinyl LP.

———. 1976. “Isn’t She Lovely.” Songs in the Key of Life, track C1. Tamla T13-340C2, vinyl LP.