Today’s Morton compositions are up, starting off with “Pep”, one of my personal favorites. It’s a killer three strain tune with the typical Morton form but with an interesting twist, some bizarre parallel harmony in the first strain that Morton probably would have described as a “modern” sound, which is the term musicians in the 1920s used to refer to more extended chords (with extra or altered notes beyond the 7th scale degree) such as the ones he uses here. The second strain by contrast is really mellow and rhythmically broken up, and then of course comes the typically Mortonian third strain with a very exciting chord progression which builds with each repetition. The other “modern” Morton tune, “Freakish” will be in a few months, stay tuned:
For contrast, the second tune today, “New Orleans Bump”, like “Fickle Fay Creep” from a few weeks ago, is one of his tunes with NO chord progression at all for a large portion of it, instead it has an extended one chord vamp. This one has a heavy minor key feel and vamp featuring a flutter-tongue clarinet solo faithfully reproduced by David. Originally a larger band, I was happy to discover that this one actually works great in a duo setting too:
Andrew Oliver 